Nicolas of Lyra

La bibliographie, ancienne ou récente, sur Nicolas de Lyre laisse apparaître d’importants déséquilibres puisque la majorité des études porte sur deux thèmes, soit la question de ses origines juives et sa connaissance de l’hébreu, soit son travail exégétique. Nicolas de Lyre a mené une carrière ancrée dans l’ordre franciscain. Novice au couvent de Verneuil, il poursuit ensuite sa carrière à Paris où il gravit les échelons, bachelier en 1307 puis maître à partir de 1308 ou 1309. Il remplit ensuite à plusieurs reprises la charge de ministre provincial dans la province de France (en 1319, puis à une date inconnue) et dans la province de Bourgogne (en 1325). Les recherches sur sa participation aux débats sur la pauvreté au début du XIVe siècle ne peuvent malheureusement pas être étoffées. En effet, en relisant les archives, il est évident qu’il n’a pas participé au chapitre de Pérouse de 1322 ; les deux lettres du « manifeste franciscain » sont signées d’un autre Nicolas, alors bachelier. De plus, les deux questions quodlibétiques sur l’ « usage pauvre » qui lui ont été attribuées, restent malheureusement anonymes, à moins que d’autres manuscrits soient un jour découverts. Par ailleurs, les passages sur François d’Assise et l’histoire de l’ordre des frères mineurs sont riches et intéressants. Qu’il s’agisse des positions sur les droits des séculiers ou des remarques sur la pauvreté, la tonalité qui s’impose est celle d’une réflexion hostile au pape, qu’il s’agisse de Boniface VIII ou plus tard de Jean XXII.

Many details of the iconography in the Gradual of King Matthias are still undetermined, due to the work’s exceptionally rich decoration. In most graduals, historiated initials usually only adorned the beginnings of the most important feasts, but in this manuscript, which contains the hymns sung at masses between Holy Saturday and the end of the liturgical year, each mass opens with a large historiated initial. the majority of these, however, had no well-established iconography. Erzsébet Soltész noticed that in some cases, the miniature is a literal representation of the introit or of the text of the psalm from which it is taken. However, this does not explain the choice of theme for many of the initials. In my study, I argue that the person who conceived the iconography of the Gradual of King Matthias based the themes of the miniatures not only on the texts of the introits, but also on a well-known biblical commentary, the Postilla litteralis super totam Bibliam by Nicholas of Lyra.

The ideas for several themes, whose connection with the given mass has hitherto bafed researchers (e.g., Mattathias killing the idolatrous Jew, abraham rescued by the Lord from the fery furnace of the chaldeans), were taken from Lyra’s commentary on the biblical passage (or its closer context) in the introit. Elsewhere, curious details of certain miniatures, which otherwise faithfully follow the introit (e.g., fols. 145v, 188v), are explained by Lyra’s commentary. In some cases, connecting the Postilla text with the illustration requires revising the themes defned by Soltész (e.g., fols. 132r, 141v). Finally, with the help of Lyra’s commentary, we can also attempt to understand how the scenes from the life of king David, which make up more than a quarter of the illustrations, were selected.

Two miniatures suggest that it was not the Flemish miniaturist who conceived the subject of the depictions: comparing the images with Lyra’s commentary, it seems very likely that in these cases the miniaturist misread the instructions written by the inventor of the concept. the other master of the gradual, the Lombard miniaturist, painted only one historiated initial in the codex, but a small detail makes it clear that he was following the same concept as the Flemish master. However, this single miniature is insufcient to determine whether the Lombard miniaturist was the inventor or not. It is worth noting that we know of a Lombard miniaturist in Buda who fits the intellectual profle suggested by the iconography of the manuscript: as a Dominican monk, Giovanni Antonio Cattaneo da Milano would have been a suitable candidate for this task.

Of course, there are limitations to the interpretation drawn from the Postilla; the cycle of images cannot be seen as a visual commentary on the text of the introits. the inventor used Lyra’s work merely as a tool to devise themes for miniatures linked to sundays and weekdays with no conventional form of depiction.

"The letter teaches events, allegory what you should believe,
Morality teaches what you should do, anagogy what mark you should be aim for."

The famous citation of the late mediaeval hermeneut Nicholas of Lyra (1330 A.D.) expresses the popular notion of the mediaeval Christian interpretation: revelation is not only expressed in the words of the Scripture, but also hidden in the Scripture. The famous fourfold meaning and less known Catenae, Gloss and Postils, the mediaeval practices of interpretation; all have compose the life of the mediaeval Church for relatively eight to nine centuries. With the rise of reason after Renaissance and particularly following the Enlightenment, there was a tendency to consider all that of the past as primitive, non-scientific; and thus the Biblical hermeneuts devalued everything that comes from the Middle Ages. The ‘chained’ Latin Bible  in the colossal mediaeval cathedrals evoked a gloomy notion of diminution of the Scripture by the mediaeval Church. However, it is of the essence that the mediaeval hermeneuts to be studied for their own sake and their influence on the successive generations, singularly on the Reformers. Postmodern hermeneutic temperament is inclusive and values all that were neglected by the modern mind. The perspective and the prospect of this paper is the same. Following is the review and revision of the mediaeval methods of hermeneutics. It delves into the influence of the Jewish hermeneutical practices on the mediaeval Christian hermeneuts. It is an attempt to discover the hermeneutical treasure of the mediaeval Church to enrich the current biblical hermeneutics.

Comme toute prophétie, celle-là est rapportée à des époques et des contextes multiples : celle d’Isaïe, celle du Christ, le temps de l’Église, celui de François d’Assise, ou encore celui des exégètes eux-mêmes. L’âme des auditeurs, pour Bruno de Segni surtout, autant que le milieu universitaire dans lequel œuvre Nicolas de Lyre se reflètent dans ces versets. Le sens historique court tout au long de la période et est développé surtout aux XIIIe-XIVe siècles. L’interprétation christologique domine l’exégèse du XIIe siècle même si elle imprègne tous les commentaires. La tropologie et l’allégorie ecclésiologique sont distribuées ça et là. Seule l’anagogie demeure exceptionnelle dans les lectures médiévales d’Isaïe 8, 1-8, qui évoque pourtant le salut, tout autant que la menace de châtiment qui menace. La brève présentation ici donnée gomme les reprises, les persistances interprétatives. Pourtant deux commentateurs, Jérôme et Albert le Grand, marquèrent nettement leur empreinte dans l’exégèse médiévale de cette prophétie. Leurs interprétations furent largement répétées, développées, précisées, jamais ignorées, tout au moins durant le Moyen Âge latin.