4P Li gç(' TRANSACTIONS

VOL. 47, PT, 5, 19571 INTRODUCTION 799
[Wherefore it behooves us to live with righteous
thoughts towards all the gods and mankind generally
and individually and especially towards our own wives
and children and parents.]" The French reads: "Pour
lesquelles choses it est bien convenable que Ic homme et
sa femme considerent en proprc et en commun, justement
et a toils, tant as diex comme as hommes et appartient
que le homme, tant comme it a vie considere
t pense moult de soy avoir justement a sa femme et a
ses filz et lilies et a ses parens." Once again Oresme
has straddled both versions, integrating a and b into a
,ingle sentence and omitting only the words that are
identical in each. Strangely enough, the resultant
amalgamation is neither jumble nor confusion; the essential
meaning is maintained and even reinforced by
this marriage of the two versions together.
From these representative samples we may conclude
that Oresme was a conscientious translator, seeking
earnestly to arrive at the correct French equivalent of
iis Latin texts, of which he possessed a representative
.election. To the modern scholar, the results of his
1.1hors appear too often faulty and ineffectual. His
weaknesses are sufficiently obvious; his lack of Greek
and his consequent dependence upon Latin translations
that were frequently barbarous in syntax and always
dull in style; his ignorance of history and geography
and his theological frame of reference constantly thrust
forward. These constitute his principal weaknesses
and they are all common to the scholarship of his time.
Superficially, his methods of procedure parallel those
still in use today and his limitations are due to the inadequacy
of his working tools—the inaccuracies of his
reference sources, the fallacious scholarship of long
centuries before him and the natural bias of the professional
theologian toward textual interpretation as a religious
enterprise. Oresme's French commentaries or
glosses were not leveled, like those of the Latin cornnientators,
at the scholarly world of the universities;
they were intended rather for the intelligent lay reader
whose Latin was unequal to the difficulties of the original
and whose interest was principally practical and
utilitarian. The chief interest of his commentaries to-
(lay is their revelation of the manner in which ancient
concepts were interpreted for the feudal society of the
fourteenth century by a distinguished contemporary
mind. To the modern reader, Oresme's observations
seem far too often pedantic. inadequate, repetitious. or
superfluous; not infrequently they confuse rather than
elucidate the meaning of the original. Yet, if we consider
the state of scholarship in the fourteenth century
and especially the limited learning possessed even by
the very elite lay public whom Oresme addressed, we
shall probably conclude that he performed his task with
exceptional skill, discerning keenly the kind and quantity
of interpretative help required by his contemporaries.
If the intrusion of textual criticism strikes a
jarring note and seems gratuitous in these works
destined for popular consumption, it serves to demonstrate
the translator's competence and guarantees authenticity.
3. FORTUNES OF LE LIVRE DE YCONOMIQUE
Nicole Oresme was a notable precursor of the movement
to disseminate learning through the medium of
the vernacular languages. His translations from the
Aristotelian corpus enriched the culture of his contemporaries
and enjoyed wide circulation thereafter for
nearly two centuries. They were not replaced until
the sixteenth century, when French scholars were at
length equipped to cope with the Greek originals. Exception
must be made for the Yconomique of which a
version plagiarized from Oresme was composed about
1415 by Laurent de Premierfait for his patron Jean,
due de Berry, a younger brother of Charles V. This
version requires special mention here only because it
has been sometimes confused with Oresme's Yconolnique,
of which it is, in fact, a rambling and diffuse
reinanic;ncnt, bearing the same title. The most striking
instance of such confusion is certainly the attribution
to Oresme of the Livre de Yconomique in the
sumptuously executed manuscript, Rouen, Bibl. Municipale
927, if. 427-441. This mistaken attribution began,
indeed, with the execution of the manuscript for
the éclicvins of the city of Rouen in 1452-1454, when
Premierfait's version was substituted for Oresme's in
this volume designed especially to honor the latter's
memory for his long services as dean of Rouen Cathedral
(1364-77). The volume contains, in the finest
craftsmanship of the time, the Ethfques (if. 1-185) and
the Politiques (if. 186-426) of Oresme; but the text
of the Yconoinique is actually Premierfait's version,
although this is nowhere indicated. In view of the intention
of the échevins to honor Oresrne's memory, it
can hardly be supposed that this was a conscious substitution.
Stranger yet is the fact that this error passed
unnoticed by the bibliographers until very recently .37
For five hundred years the beautifully illumined Oresme
memorial volume at Rouen was mistakenly reported to
the learned world to contain the Ethiques, Poli/iques,
and Yconomique of the famous dean of that city's
cathedral church.
A new French translation of the Economics from
the Latin version of Books I and III, made for Cosimno
de' Medici by Leonardo Bruni Aretino about 1425, was
published in Paris by Wechel in 1532. This thin
volume of fourteen leaves in gothic type, without gloss
or commentary, was the work of a German student in
Paris, one Sibert Louvenborch, who dedicated his ex-
7 The story of this discovery is told by A. D. Menut, The
French version of Aristotle's Economics in Rouen, Bibl. Muiiicipale,
Ms. 927, Romance Philology 4 55-2, 1950. See fig. 1.
""Les Econo,niques de Aristote tran.slatees nouuelleincnt du
la/in en francoys, par Sibert Louucnboreh, Licencié es loix,
demourant en la noble yule dc Coulongne, Paris, Chr. Wechel,
1532.