• Western Francia
• Déols

Bourges

• Library inventory

Inventory of the library of the abbey of Saint-Sauveur and Saint-Gildas at Déols (near Châteauroux), divided in two sections, entitled respectively Breuis de diuinis libris Sancti Saluatoris atque Sancti Gildasii and Breuis de libris Sancti Gildasii de arte (recto only).

• Probably not written in Brittany
• Contains evidence concerning Breton manuscripts

The commune of Déols, near Châteauroux, is the place where an abbey was founded, c. AD 920, by the Breton monks from Saint-Gildas of Rhuys (near Vannes) and Locminé (roughly 30 kilometres to the north of Vannes), who may have been fleeing the Viking raids that laid waste to Brittany at the beginning of the tenth century. The single folio in question here, which was retrieved from the binding of a sixteenth-century medical manuscript, contains a fascinating inventory of books belonging to the abbey of Saint-Sauveur and Saint-Gildas at Déols (for a detailed analysis of this fragment, cf. Valéry 2005). Since this document dates in all likelihood from the tenth century, it is probable that some or even most of the books listed in the inventory had been brought from Rhuys and Locminé by the monks who fled to Déols ('sans doute peu après 917', according to Deuffic 2008: 99). The most recent author named on the list is Remigius of Auxerre, who died in AD 908 (§112, Glose Marciani magistri Remigii, i.e. Remigius's commentary to Martianus Capella), and it is tempting to agree with Valéry (2005: 42) when he states that, with this inventory, 'on est en présence des fonds des abbayes de Rhuys et de Locminé à une date proche de la fuite des moines devant les Normands'; there is therefore no doubt that this document is an exceptional witness to the intellectual life of eastern Brittany towards the beginning of the tenth century.

The inventory is divided into two sections, which may have been copied by the same hand at different times and from two distinct older inventories. Significantly, the former section—by far the longest—is a list of diuini libri, i.e. books for religious instruction, while the latter contains books de arte, i.e. useful for the teaching of the liberal arts. Some titles clearly harken back to the Breton origins of the community newly established at Déols: we find here a rather mysterious textum sancti Gildasii (possibly a Gospel-book traditionally associated with Saint Gildas? Or a hagiographical text? Cf. Valéry 2005: 56–61, 75), as well as duos antiphonarios bretonicos et unum nouum (§§46, 97-99 in Kohler's and Valéry's editions). But one is also struck by the presence of several works with insular connections: some Gesta Anglorum (§22; probably a copy of Bede's Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, or, less likely, Nennius's Historia Brittonum), a Vita sancti Cugberti (§51; probably Bede's Life of Saint Cuthbert), and even a Vita sancti Patricii (§58). In this context, we should also mention the occurrence of two commentaries on the Book of Job (Expositionem de Iob, at §15 and §54): while one of the two is probably a copy of Gregory the Great's Moralia in Iob, the other might conceivably be the large commentary by Philippus Presbyter—a work which circulated widely in Ireland and Britain, but less so on the continent. We also find, as one expects, numerous biblical manuscripts as well as several works of biblical exegesis, canon law etc., but also Isidore (§19 Isidorum magnum, perhaps a complete copy of the Etymologiae), Julian of Toledo's Prognosticon (§30, Libro de futuro seculo), glossaries and works on grammar, dialectic and rhetoric (§§8-9, 64, 83, 103, 104, 106, 107, 108, 109), and even Classical texts (§10, Gesta Iulii Caesaris; §66, Librum Terrenti comici; §68 Librum Tullii Cesaris [sic, for Ciceronis] de oratore; §79, Librum in Bucolico; §111, Annei Luciani i). The disciplines of the quadrivium and natural philosophy are also well represented: we find no less than four computi (§1-4, iiii computos), a circulum zodiacum (§67), works on measures and weights (§§59, 72), Eriugena's Periphyseon (§102, Perifision duos), Boethius's De arithmetica (§105), as well as works on music and collections of liturgical chants (§§42, 73, 87-88, 101, 113). Finally, it is worth mentioning the intriguing entries Librum de penis infernorum atque gaudium iustorum (§31) and Librum sancti Michahelis (§48): the works behind these two titles remain unidentified.

Deuffic 2008: 99, 105, 112, 117, 119, 132 (n. 245); Gottlieb 1890: 144 (§398); Guillotel 1982: 287–8; Guillotel 1985: 24–5; ILLB V214; Kohler 1886; Shimahara 2020: 145; Valéry 2005 (containing a facsimile of the inventory).