SOURCE: "St. Birgitta and the Text of the Revelationes. A Survey of Some Influences Traceable to Translators and Editors," in The Editing of Theological and Philosophical Texts from the Middle Ages, edited by Monika Asztalos, Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1984, pp. 75-91.

[In the following essay, Aili studies the changes effected by Latin translators and by Alphonse of Jaén—the chief revisor of Birgitta's work—in the text of the Revelations.]

1. Introduction

In recent scholarship on the Revelations of St. Birgitta of Sweden, the question has been raised, to what extent the surviving Latin version of the Revelations forms an older version of the text, as compared to the Old Swedish text, which has been retained in different versions in several manuscripts.¹ Moreover, in a recent paper, Jan öberg² has raised the issue, whether the Revelations ought to be regarded as an authentic text or as an authorised version of the original text, as it was conceived by its author.

Both issues are vital in the Revelations: for, as is well known from various documents pertaining to Birgitta's canonisation³, not only were the Revelations as we know them translated from Birgitta's original Old Swedish into Latin, but they were also revised by several persons, not wilfully but according to an expressly worded mandate⁴; in Birgitta's usual style, this mandate is couched in a revelation given to her from God. Moreover, the Revelations in their extant Old Swedish form are in many, probably even most instances, translated from the Latin text. As the latter was in all probability regarded as the authoritative version by Birgitta and her circle of friends, the originals were consequently lost or intermingled with those Revelations which were translated backwards, as it were, from Latin into Old Swedish.

In the greater part of the Birgitta corpus we thus face a situation where the original text, as written down by Birgitta herself in Old Swedish or dictated by her in that same language to her father-confessors, has been translated into Latin; this Latin text has later been retranslated into Old Swedish.

In a few isolated instances, however, we still possess the original Revelations text. This is the case in the two fragments belonging to Kungliga Biblioteket in Stockholm, which have been proven by Bertil Högman to be Birgitta's autographs.⁵ Furthermore, there are also a few chapters among the Revelationes extravagantes, in the Prologue to Book I of the Revelations and in the final pages of Book IV⁶, which in their Latin version represent a younger state of the text than does their Old Swedish counterpart. Finally, Sten Eklund has demonstrated in a recent paper that the extant Old Swedish text of the Quatuor oraciones represents an older stage of this text than does the Latin version; consequently, Eklund insists that the conclusion reached by Bergh in his edition of Book V of the Revelationes⁷, where the Latin text appears generally to have the priority, should not be considered a general rule for the entire Birgitta corpus. Each book—or even each chapter—must be considered separately.

This paper will deal with both issues mentioned above, first of all by presenting the text of one Revelation of Book IV, where in my opinion the Old Swedish text of the introductory paragraphs may represent an older stage in the history of the text than does the Latin one; this passage has not been discussed in this context before. Secondly, this paper will deal with one aspect of the issue of authenticity of the Revelations text, by illustrating the work performed by the foremost 14th Century editor and reviser of the Birgitta corpus; this man is the Spaniard, Alphonso Pecha de Vadaterra, formerly Bishop of Jaén, later Birgitta's father-confessor in Rome.

The common denominator of the two parts of this paper is the search for the original version of the Revelations text and the attempt to pinpoint, but certainly not delete⁸, words or phrases which have been added to the text by Birgitta's translators and editors.

The text discussed in the first part of this paper is printed in its two extant versions, in Old Swedish and in Latin. In order to facilitate the investigation, both texts have been translated by myself into English. My translation is not intended or expected to have any literary value, but is only prepared as a service to those readers who do not read Old Swedish—the translation from the Latin is chiefly included in order to illustrate the similarities or dissimilarities of the texts.

2. Latin and Old Swedish

We now proceed to the examination of the text of that Revelation where I suspect the Latin version to represent a younger state of the text than that of the Old Swedish version. This Revelation is the 24th of Book IV, the text of which runs as follows in its Latin and Old Swedish versions.

Verba Virginis ad filiam, qui modus tenendus sit inter seruos Dei contra impacientes et qualiter superbia per dolium designatur. Capitulum XXIIII.

1 Mater loquitur: "Vbi dolium vini incalescit et intumescendo excrescit, ascendunt quedam exalaciones et spume, quandoque maiores quandoque minores, et subito iterum decrescunt. 2 Omnes autem circumstantes dolium considerant tales exalaciones cito detumescere et quod tales eleuaciones proueniunt ex fortitudine vini ad minuendum (K tertia manus: uniendum codd. innuendum ed. princeps) calorem eius. Ideo pacienter spectant finem et vini seu ceruisie perfeccionem. 3 Omnes autem circumstantes dolium, qui nimis applicant nares ad feruorem dolii, contingent eis duo: aut nimia sternutacio vel commocio aut cerebrum grauius pacietur.

4 Sic est eciam et spiritualiter. Nam contingit aliquando, quod quorundam corda intumescunt et ascendunt ex superbia mentis sue et impaciencia; quern ascensum viri virtutum attendentes considerant aut ex instabilitate animi aut motu carnalitatis procedere. 5 Ideo pacienter verba sustinent et attendunt finem scientes, quod post tempestatem fiet tranquillitas, et quia paciencia maior est expugnatore urbium, quia vincit hominem in se ipso quod difficillimum est. 6 Illi vero qui nimis impacientes sunt verbaque reddunt equipollencia non attendentes retribucionem gloriosam paciencie nee quam contemptibilis est fauor mundanus. 7 isti incurrunt infirmitatem mentis suis temptacionibus propter impacienciam, quia nimis appropinquant nares ad commocionem dolii, id est verba, que non sunt nisi aer, nimis apponunt cordi suo.

8 Ideo, quando videritis aliquos esse impacientes, ponite adiutorio Dei custodiam ori vestro, nee dimittatis bona incepta vestra propter verba impaciencie, sed dissimulate, in quantum iustum est, audita tamquam non audita, donec illi qui inuenire volunt occasionem exprimunt verbo quidquid notant corde."

Ed. H. Aili (forthcoming).

In my translation this runs:

1 The Mother speaks: "Whenever a jar of wine grows hot and rises and swells, some vapours and froth rise, sometimes larger sometimes smaller and suddenly decrease again. 2 And all those who stand around the jar consider that such vapours quickly subside and that such swellings are produced by the strength of the wine in order to lessen its heat. Therefore, they patiently await its end and the completion of the wine or ale. 3 But all those who, standing around the jar, put their noses too close to the heat of the jar, to them two things will happen: either a very strong sneeze or agitation or else the brain will suffer greatly.

4 It is also thus in a spiritual sense. For it sometimes happens that some men's hearts swell and rise with the arrogance and temptation of their minds; virtuous men, noticing this swelling, consider that it proceeds either from an instability of the mind or from a carnal impulse. 5 Therefore, they patiently endure words and consider the end, in the knowledge that there will be calm after the storm and that patience is greater than he who conquers cities, for it overcomes man in himself which is a most difficult thing. 6 But those who are too impatient and return words of the same meaning, without considering the glorious repayment of patience nor how contemptible is worldly favour, 7 these meet with feebleness of mind through their temptations, due to their impatience, for they put their noses too close to the agitation of the jar; that is, they take words, which are nothing but air, too much at heart.

8 Therefore, whenever you see somebody being impatient, with God's help put a guard over your mouth and do not desert the good you began for the sake of impatient words, but ignore, so far as is just, what you have heard as if you had not heard it, until those who wish to find an opportunity reveal by words whatever they mark in their hearts."

The Old Swedish text runs:

At hauande tholomodh xxiiij^m.

< 1 > GWZ modhir taladhe Huar ölkar görs ther ophöghir sik hwadhin bradhelica oc nidhirfallir skot, < 2 > Ok the som när standa vitande at tholik oplyptilse vardhir aff olsins makt bidha thy til at ölit är fulkomplica giort oc nidhirlagt < 3 > An thorn som näsana hälla mykyt när til ölkarsins hita händir äntigia at the niusa hardhelica älla at hiärnin röris oc värkir hardhelica.

< 4 > Swa är oc andelica thy at stundom händir at somlica manna hiärta thrutma oc opfar aff sins hugx hogfardh oc otholomodh An dygdha man vitande the höghfärdhinna framga aff hugxins ostadhoghet oc kotsins rorilsom < 5 > vrnbara hardh ordh tholomodhelica akta ändalyktena vitande at lughn skal koma äptir storm Ok at tholomodhsins dygdh är meere oc maktoghare an than som vindir hällande hus thy hon vindir mannin j sik siäluom, hulkit som är vansamlicast. < 6 > An the som äru mykyt otholuge vidh ordh oc atirgiälla jämpn ordh älla värre ey aktande ärofullo tholomodzins Ion, oc ey huru smälikin värlzins thokke är < 7 > the koma j sins hugx ostadhughet oc frestilse oc nalkas ofnär til ölkarsins rorilsa thz är at the sätia ordhin som ey ära vtan som vädhir ofnär sino hiärta,

< 8 > thy nar j seen nakra vara othologha tha satin gomo jdhrom mun mz gudz hiälp oc forlatin ey the godho gerning som j hauin byrghiat for otholamodz ordha skuld Vtan tholin ok vmbarin ordhin som j hordhin äptir thy skälikit är sua som j hafdhin ey hort thorn Thil thäs the som vilia finna tilfalle mot jdhir oppinbara mz ordhom huat the mena j hiärtano.

Ed. G. E. Klemming: Heliga Birgittas Uppenbarelser, Stockholm 1860. (Paragraph numbers within brackets have been added by me.)

The Old Swedish text runs in my translation:

1 The Mother of God spoke: "Wherever a vat of ale is made, there froth rises suddenly and quickly subsides. 2 And those who stand close by and know that a rising of this kind is caused by the strength of the ale, thus wait until the ale is completely made and has settled. 3 But those who put their noses very close to the heat of the vat, to them either happens that they sneeze violently or else that the brain is agitated and aches strongly.

4 It is also thus in a spiritual sense. For it sometimes happens that some men's hearts swell and rise with the arrogance and impatience of their minds; virtuous men, noticing this swelling, consider that is proceeds either instability of the mind and the carnal impulse. 5 suffer hard words patiently and consider the end, knowing that a calm will come after a storm and that the virtue of patience is greater and more powerful than he who conquers strongholds, for it overcomes man in himself which is a most difficult thing. 6 Now those who are very intolerant of words and return equal words or worse, without considering the glorious repayment of patience nor how contemptible is the world's favour, 7 these fall into feebleness and temptation of their minds and approach too close to the motion of the vat of ale; that is, they take words, that are nothing but air, too much at heart.

8 Therefore, whenever you see somebody being impatient, put a guard over your mouth with God's help, and do not desert the good deed that you have begun for the sake of impatient words, but suffer and tolerate the words you heard, so far as is just, as if you had not heard them, until those who wish to find an opportunity against you reveal by words what they plan in their hearts."

We immediately notice that the first three paragraphs of the Old Swedish text gives a much shorter version than does the Latin text; the latter derives its greater length, not from a more ample subject-matter, but from sheer wordiness. The description this text offers of a rather commonplace household process, namely the brewing of ale, is so complicated and abstract that it is difficult at a first glance to decide what exactly it is that Birgitta is describing. In paragraph 1, Vbi dolium vini incalescit et intumescendo excrescit corresponds to the Old Swedish (in my translation) "When a vat of ale is made". In Latin, the process of brewing ale is described by a set of verbs that really indicate circumstances concomitant to the fermentation. Furthermore, "ale" in the Old Swedish corresponds to "wine" in the Latin, a difference which can be attributed to a desire to make the text conform to its future readers' experience.⁹

In paragraph 2, the Latin words tales exalaciones cito detumescere are a mere repetition from paragraph 1, and add no new information.¹⁰ In the same paragraph, Ideo pacienter spectant finem et vini seu ceruisie perfeccionem corresponds to the Old Swedish "thus wait until the ale is completely made and has settled". The vacillation in the Latin text, giving both wine and ale as the subject-matter of the Revelation, is remarkable: in this case, it appears that the Latin translators added the words vini seu on their own accord, forgetting to leave out ceruisie. The Old Swedish text lacks a counterpart to the Latin pacienter; the absence of this word may indicate an error in the history of transmission of the Old Swedish version, as we note that the whole revelation is a treatise on the importance of being patient. Finem appears to correspond to a verbal phrase in the Old Swedish ("is completely made") in the same manner as perfeccionem corresponds to "has settled".

From this comparison of the three first paragraphs we may reasonably conclude that one of the two versions printed represents an editorial revision of the text; in my opinion, the differences between the versions, taken together, lend more support to the theory that the Latin version represents a more advanced stage of revision, and is therefore secondary, from the historical point of view, to the Old Swedish version. Repetition of phrases, circumlocutions instead of straightforward description, abstract nouns used in the place of more concrete verbal phrases all signify an attempt to polish a pithy, but stylistically fairly unsophisticated Old Swedish text into a more elaborate literary artifact.

The contrary hypothesis—the theory that the Old Swedish text has been translated from the Latin version—would presuppose a Swedish translator who permitted himself a great deal of freedom, achieving a translation which is close to being a paraphrase of the exemplar. A certain amount of paraphrasing and purging did occur in the Old Swedish re-translations, as Bergh demonstrates in his edition of Book V¹¹; the general tendency of the Old Swedish re-translations is, however, to adhere as closely as possible to the Latin, giving a text which is, if anything, even more verbose than the Latin.¹² One typical feature of the translations is to construe abstract Latin words with two, nearly synonymous Swedish words. The passages discussed should have offered plenty of opportunity for this activity, but, as we can see, no such double renderings can be observed in the Old Swedish version of the first three paragraphs of this revelation.

Furthermore, if my theory of the priority of the Old Swedish version of these paragraphs over the Latin version can be accepted, it is fairly easy to understand why the Latin text should have been expanded in this fashion. Besides any possible stylistic considerations, the translators must have had in mind to remove the subject-matter from the brewing room of a provincial Swedish noble house, into an international context, readily intelligible to a Roman or French magnate of the Church—hence we notice the vacillation between wine and beer in the Latin. Moreover, the translators, being Swedes, would be much more familiar with the brewing of ale than with the fermentation of grapes, and their translation would suffer in precision accordingly.

"Brevior lectio potior" is a time-honoured dictum of textual criticism, which one might be tempted to introduce into this discussion, where the text considered to have the priority is so much shorter than that which is considered secondary; but this would not be entirely correct. For there are many instances in the Revelations, where it is the longer text which is to be considered to be older. Such is the case in many passages of Birgitta's autographs, discussed by Bertil Högman.¹³ In either case, however, the elder version gives evidence of being thematically and stylistically less polished than the Latin one, irrespective of the relative lengths of the versions.

In the remaining five paragraphs of Rev. IV:24, the situation is rather different from that obtaining in those paragraphs discussed above. Linguistically, the Old Swedish text bears certain evidence of being, in fact, a retranslation from the Latin. This is indicated by such syntactic traits as the usage of the objectum cum infinitivo construction after the verb "vita" ("know") in paragraph 4: "vitande the högfardhinna framga" ("knowing that this arrogance proceeds"). Furthermore, the use of the present participle as participium coniunctum also indicates an influence from a Latin exemplar; such instances are the use of "vitande" in paragraphs 2 (sic!), 4, 5 and of "ey aktande" ("without considering") in paragraph 6.¹⁴ Finally, as Lennart Moberg demonstrates¹⁵, the two Old Swedish conjunctions corresponding to the English "that": "at" and "thet", are used indiscriminately in original Old Swedish texts, whereas "thet" almost never occurs in Old Swedish translations from the Latin. In the Old Swedish version of Rev. IV:24, there are no less than nine instances of "at" and none of "thet". The fact that one instance of "vitande" and four of "at" occur in the first three paragraphs may appear to contradict the theory introduced above, but I consider this evidence of lesser weight than that adduced for my theory, as neither usage appears to pertain exclusively to the translations from the Latin.

Finally, there is no indication, in the two versions of Rev. IV:24, that either text is to be regarded as the direct exemplar of the other; for there are a number of instances in both versions where the text is less complete than in the other version. The Old Swedish text thus lacks counterparts to the Latin words ad minuendum calorem eius¹⁶ and pacienter of paragraph 2 and of propter impacienciam of paragraph 7. The Latin text on the other hand contains no words corresponding to the Old Swedish "hardh" < dura > of paragraph 5, "älla värre" < vel grauiora > of paragraph 6 or "mot jdhir" < contra vos > of paragraph 8.

Furthermore, in paragraph 7 the phrase incurrunt infirtnitatem mentis suis temptacionibus corresponds to an Old Swedish phrase which, in Latin retranslation would run incurrunt infirmitatem mentis sue et temptaciones. More interesting, perhaps, is the reminiscence from the Vulgate, Proverbs 16,32: expugnatore urbium which in the Old Swedish has been rendered "som vindir hällande hus" ("who conquers strongholds"). It is impossible to tell whether the erroneous Swedish word for "stronghold" was introduced in the re-translation from the Latin of this part of the Revelation, or whether it existed already in the original Revelation and was corrected in the Latin version into conformity with the text of the Vulgate.

We may therefore assume that the first part of this Revelation, that is paragraphs 1 to 3, has descended in its two versions from a common exemplar, an Old Swedish text very close to Birgitta's original, whereas the second part, paragraphs 4 to 8, goes back in its Old Swedish version to a Latin exemplar not identical with that Latin text published above. The first part of the Revelation gives, as we have seen, a text which is probably closer, in its Old Swedish version, to the text of Birgitta's original. The second part is, on the other hand, probably a re-translation from a Latin exemplar.

The question then arises, why the Old Swedish editors should have chosen to use different exemplars for these two parts of the revelation. The answer in my opinion is to be found in the fact that the two parts also form the two main thematical units of the revelation, paragraphs 1 to 3 giving its mise en scène, as it were, whereas paragraphs 4 to 8 give the theological and spiritual interpretation of the rather commonplace process introduced.

It would hardly be remarkable, if the Old Swedish editors had found the Old Swedish version of the introduction far more useful as an effective introduction to the situation than the Latin version; on the other hand, the latter version had, as the editors must have known, passed through the hands of a number of learned editors who had been entrusted with the mandate of correcting the text from all errors on dogma. Small wonder, then, if the Old Swedish editors preferred this version in that part of the revelation where theology matters most.

In this connexion we may also ask whether the tendency observable in the three first paragraphs, where the Latin version describes a technical process in an abstract language full of circumlocutions, is an indication of a general policy adopted by the translators of this text, when confronted with a description of this kind. Much more research will be required to answer this question.

The most important conclusion to be drawn from the investigation above is the confirmation it offers of the results reached by Eklund, Öberg and other modern scholars on the Birgittine Revelations; consequently, the argument, that the text belonging to this corpus must be studied closely in order to identify any possible sections where the Old Swedish version represents an older stage of the text than does the Latin version, has gained considerably in force.

The main point in this connexion is the following: the revelation discussed above does not belong to any identifiable greater thematic unit of the Revelations, in a manner comparable to the other instances where the priority of the Old Swedish text has already been accepted. The revelation in this instance is instead embedded, as it were, in the middle of a mass of text where, so far as I have reason to believe, the Latin text has the priority. This means that we cannot assume that the Latin text of Book IV has generally a greater priority that the Old Swedish text, any more than we can assume that the Old Swedish text represents an older stage, generally speaking. We have no alternative but studying the Revelations separately and in detail.

The fact that there is no general rule for the relationship between the Old Swedish and Latin versions of Birgitta's text is best exemplified by Rev. IV:49, the text of which has reached us in no less than three main versions, first of all in Birgitta's own handwriting—this is the so-called A-autograph—secondly in the extant Latin version, which has been considerably revised as compared to the autograph, and thirdly in the Old Swedish re-translation of the Latin text.¹⁷

Why, we may reasonably ask, did not the Old Swedish editors of the 15th Century adopt the text of Birgitta's autograph, which was in all probability kept at their very place of work, the Library of Vadstena Cloister?¹⁸ The explanation might be simple negligence on their part, but this is a rather unlikely explanation when we consider the methods of manuscript classification used at Vadstena Cloister.¹⁹ A better explanation is that they may have decided against using the autograph and favoured instead the more polished Latin text. Due to the controversial nature of this Revelation, which is, in effect, a programme for abolishing a number of abusages within the Church, a rather rough and unfinished text, like that of the autograph, was more likely to give offence than that of the Latin version, which had passed the expertise of the ex-bishop Alphonso. Whatever the explanation, however, the implications remain the same: the Revelations must be studied in detail in their two versions, in order to establish in each individual case which version is closer to the original.

3. Alterations made by Alphonso of Jaén

We now turn to the second topic of this paper: the survey of influences due not to translators, but to one particular editor of the text of the Birgitta corpus, the ex-bishop and hermit Alphonso of Jaen, one of Birgitta's closest friends during her final years in Rome. It was to him the task was given to edit her Revelations, with the purpose of verifying their correctness from the dogmatical point of view, as well as polishing their Latin to the standard expected by the Roman Curia.

Alphonso's contribution to the literary form of the Revelations is most important: briefly, it was probably he who arranged the huge mass of Revelations, as yet only sporadically collected into coherent units, into seven books. He also excluded passages or even entire Revelations that he judged to be unsuitable in view of his expectation that Birgitta's Revelations were to be used as evidence in the process for her canonisation. He was probably also responsible for formulating the rubrics given to the various Revelations; this he did while editing the text of the seven Books of Revelations.²⁰

Besides the seven Book of Revelations, the Sermo angelicus and the Quatuor oraciones, the original Liber celestis revelacionum in Alphonso's redaction also contained a collection of some fifty Revelations, whose contents was of such a nature that they could be regarded as Mirrors of Kings. These form a separate book, entitled Liber celestis Imperatoris ad reges, wholly arranged by Alphonso and provided with a preface written by him, the Epistola Solitarii ad reges. This book was later to be called Book VIII of the Revelations.

In the Epistola, Alphonso defends the notion of the heavenly origins and inspiration of the Revelations, providing definitions for separating such Revelations from visions inspired by the Devil. He also explains how he collected these potential Mirrors of Kings from among the other Revelations, and why. We can thus be sure that the Revelations contained in Book VIII have passed through Alphonso's hands. Since Alphonso had been given a fairly extensive mandate to revise the text of the Revelations…. it would be interesting for us to know to what extent he did use that mandate in this collection of Revelations.

Fortunately, the question can be answered. For within the Liber Imperatoris ad reges, that is Book VIII, no less than 26 Revelations were culled from the books already edited, namely Books II, III, IV, VI and VII. Ten of these Revelations were taken from the most voluminous book, the fourth.

We are thus in a position to study a few examples of the editorial changes which can be attributed to Alphonso. As far as I know, the relationship of those Revelations that occur both in Book VIII and in the earlier books, has as yet only been studied by Salomon Kraft²¹, whose study on the Revelations text, when dealing with the present subject, treats mainly of Alphonso's technique in assembling the text of Rev. VIII:1 by utilising parts of Rev. VII:30, III:26, II:13 and II:7, as well as adding certain phrases of his own making. Kraft notes Alphonso's great liberties in rear-ranging the text to its new purpose. Latterly, the subject has also been discussed from another viewpoint by Jan öberg.²² The reason for this subject having been otherwise left aside is probably to be found in the way these double chapters—by which I mean chapters which belong both to Books II to VII and to Book VIII—have been copied in manuscripts and printed editions.

Even at a relatively early stage in the history of this text, the medieval copyists appear to have realised that the twenty-six Revelations mentioned occur twice in the corpus, and probably saw no reason to write down identical texts, as they most likely considered them, twice over. Therefore, one Revelation in each pair was generally disregarded by the scribes. The technique in this case was to write down the Rubric and Incipit of the Revelation in question; then a reference was given: Require libro ad reges capitulo < tali >. In the manuscripts belonging to the class which contains not only Alphonso's original redaction but also the supplementary material disregarded by him²³, Revelations are scrapped and references given with varying degrees of consistency: the problems connected with this system of referring the reader from one part of the work to another is a subject which I plan to deal with in another paper. It is, however, nearly always the case that the text is retained in Book VIII and left out in the earlier books.

In the Editio princeps, printed by B. Ghotan in Lubeck in 1492, the editors for some reason decided to adopt the opposite policy, printing each double Revelation the first time it occurred, that is in Book II to VII, giving only short references in Book VIII. Nonetheless, the text actually printed in Ghotan's edition is usually that edited by Alphonso for Book VIII: it was thus transported, as it were, from Book VIII into an earlier book.

But there still exists a group of manuscripts which contain only the text according to Alphonso's original redaction and lack all supplementary material. Among the manuscripts belonging to this group may be mentioned Ms. 225 of Balliol College, Oxford, and Ms. 498 of the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York. Their value as witnesses for the tradition of the text of the Revelations has only been established by the modern Birgitta editors, notably Bergh.²⁴ In this group of manuscripts, the double Revelations occur twice each: first in Book II to VII, then again in Book VIII. These manuscripts thus provide all available evidence for answering the question of how Alphonso's revisions of the Revelations of Book VIII affected their text.

The first example to be discussed here is from Rev. IV:48 which corresponds to Rev. VIII:7.

Book IV:

Verba Filii ad sponsam de quodam rege … Capitulum XLVIII.

1 Filius loquitur: "Si iste velit me honorare, minuat primo dedecus meum et augeat honorem meum."

Ed. H. Aili (forthcoming).

Book VIII:

Christus imperator dicit regibus … VII.

< 1 > Filius Dei loquitur ad sponsam de quodam rege Swecie dicens: "Si iste rex velit me honorare, minuat primo dedecus meum et augeat honorem meum."

Text according to Codex Kalmarnensis, at present in Lund University Library.

In this example we note two stages in Alphonso's revision of the text. While editing Book IV he added, as mentioned above, a rubric to the text; in this rubric he states explicitly that the Revelation deals with a king, a fact which is not apparent from the wording of the Revelation proper. The rubric thus gives … de quodam rege; the text only gives iste. In Book VIII there have been further revisions: a rubric has been written, and the text has been amplified by a new piece of information: de quodam rege Swecie and iste rex.

The reason for these modifications appears to be quite obvious: in a Mirror of Kings, the text must be shown to deal with kings, not with ordinary mortals.

I have assumed that it is, in fact, Book VIII which has been altered by Alphonso, not Book IV. It might be argued against this assumption that the text in Book VIII could represent the elder version, and that Alphonso may have expurgated or trivialised this text while editing Book IV. This activity would then have been carried out with the same purpose as when he excluded entire Revelations from the first seven Books. But in this case, why did he retain all these potentially damaging items in Book VIII? If all these pieces of information were dangerous, in the sense that they helped identify the persons involved, they would have been much more risky to include in Book VIII, which is of a rather restricted size; in the enormous bulk of Book IV, these snippets of personal information would be far less noticeable, and proportionally less dangerous.

It appears far simpler to assume that Alphonso, when editing his Mirror of Kings, added such words and phrases as would motivate the inclusion of the Revelations in question in this book. Such information Alphonso could easily find in his own, intimate knowledge of Birgitta's history and relations.

Alphonso's revisions have not been without consequences for modern scholarship; by adding information on his own initiative to the text he has, at least in one instance, given the text a doubtful value as a historical source. This passage is found in the following example.

Book IV:

Verba Dei ad sponsam de duobus spiritibus, scilicet bono et malo; et de mirabili et utili bello in mente cuiusdam domine orto ab inspiracionibus boni spiritus et a temptacionibus maligni spiritus; et quid in istis sit eligendum. Capitulum IIII.

1 Deus loquitur sponse: "A duobus spiritibus suggeruntur et infunduntur cogitaciones et infiisiones in cordibus hominum, a bono spiritu scilicet et a malo. 2 Bonus nempe spiritus suadet homini celestia futura cogitare et temporalia non amare. Spiritus malus suadet diligere que videt, leuigat peccata, allegat infirmitates, proponit exempla infirmorum. 3 Ecce dico tibi exemplum, quomodo uterque spiritus inflammat cor illius domine tibi note."

Ed. H. Aili (forthcoming).

Book VIII:

Christus ostendit sponse cogitaciones suggestionum boni et mali spiritus, que in corde regine supra proximo dicte certabant inter se; et determinat Deus, quid ipsa de illis debeat eligere. XIII.

< 1 > Christus loquitur sponse dicens: "A duobus spiritibus suggeruntur et infunduntur cogitaciones et infusiones in cordibus hominum, a bono spiritu et malo. < 2 > Bonus namque spiritus suadet homini futura celestia cogitare et temporalia non amare. Spiritus vero malus suadet homini diligere ilia presencia que homo videt, leuigat peccata, allegat infirmitates et proponit exempla infirmorum. < 3 > Ecce dico tibi exemplum, quomodo uterque spiritus inflammat suggestionibus cor illius regine, de qua iam alias dixi tibi."

Text according to Codex Kalmarnensis.

In this context, the last few words of paragraph three are interesting. We note that whereas Book IV gives the words cor illius domine tibi note ("the heart of this lady, known to you"), Book VIII gives cor illius regine, de qua iam alias dixi tibi ("the heart of this queen, of whom I have already spoken to you elsewhere"). "Elsewhere", as we find in the rubric to this chapter, means in the preceding chapter (No. 12) of Book VIII. The rubric in Book IV is entirely neutral and does not mention that the lady was a queen, nor is this chapter preceded by another Revelation dealing with the same lady. As a matter of fact, Rev. VIII:12 does not correspond to the text of any other Revelation in the corpus, so far as I can find; it was therefore probably copied by Alphonso from some manuscript fragment now lost.

The two chapters in Book VIII, Nos. 12 and 13, have been taken to refer to Blanche of Namur, Queen of Sweden, the spouse of King Magnus Erikson.²⁵ But, as we have seen, all information leading to this conclusion is given by Alphonso; the older version of the Revelations text offers no such information at all. The historical source value of this Revelation in the version given in Book VIII and disseminated into the early printed editions, is therefore much reduced; for Alphonso is only a secondary source to the identity of the persons mentioned in the Revelations, whatever the scope of his personal knowledge.

Alphonso did not confine himself to adding political information of the kind just mentioned. The following example reveals his ambition to clarify obscure passages.

Book IV:74:

1 Filius Dei loquebatur sponse dicens: "Tu composuisti hodie, quod melius esset preuenire quam preueniri. Sic ego preueni te dulcedine gracie mee, ne Dyabolus dominaretur anime tue."

Ed. H. Aili (forthcoming).

Book VIII:34:

< 1 > Christus loquebatur sponse dicens: "Tu in gramatica composuisti hodie prouerbium, quod melius esset preuenire quam preueniri. Sic ego te dulcedine gracie mee preueni, ne Dyabolus dominaretur anime tue."

Text according to Codex Kalmarnensis.

The text according to Book IV is direct and forceful as an opening to a conversation, but it does leave the ordinary reader wondering what had been going on: "You composed today that it were better to anticipate than to be anticipated." In Book VIII the text is far more explicit: it was in her daily gramatica, that is in her grammar or Latin lesson, Birgitta had composed this proverb, doubtless as an essay in using the Latin active and passive infinitives.

The text may be clearer, but we may well question whether Alphonso, in his eagerness to leave no detail unexplained, has not deprived the conversation of one of its outstanding characteristics: its air of being a private talk between two persons who knew each others' daily activities well enough to dispense with the formality of lengthy introductions.

A final example, taken from the middle of the same Revelation, shows another aspect of Alphonso's work: the elimination of doubtful dogma.

Rev. IV:74:

24 … Omnis quippe qui diligit proximum tenetur primum dolere, quod omnes qui sunt redempti sanguine Ihesu Christi non rependunt Deo dileccionem."

Ed. H. Aili (forthcoming).

Rev. VIII-.34:

< 24 > … Omnis quippe homo qui diligit proximum tenetur primo dolere, quod omnes redempti sunt sanguine Christi, qui tamen omnes non rependunt Deo dileccionem" (non rependunt Deo dileccionem in rasura per K²scriptum est).

Text according to Codex Kalmarnensis (= K).

The text as given in Book IV suggests that not everybody has been redeemed by the blood of Christ: "Of all those who have been redeemed … not every one repays." Alphonso emends this doubtful statement economically, but not entirely effectively:²⁶ "Everybody has been redeemed … but not every one repays."

The full investigation into Alphonso's work as a reviser and emender of St. Birgitta's Revelations must await the publication of the modern editions of her text. In this paper I have only been able to give a few examples from those Revelations which coincide with my own sphere of work, namely Book IV. We may hope that a future examination of this kind will not only provide details on Alphonso's work on Book VIII, but will also yield clues that will help us identify his handwriting, so to speak, even in other Revelations, where no material for comparison is at hand.

To sum up the discussion in this paper, I have tried to demonstrate how the Revelations text has been influenced by revisions from two different directions, from its translators and from its chief reviser, Alphonso. The result of the first part of my investigation is to underline again the necessity of studying the two versions in which the Revelations have been handed down to us, the Old Swedish and the Latin version. The primary aim of such a programme of study is to help produce reliable editions of the two versions; the ultimate aim is to reach beyond these versions and to attempt to reconstruct the lost original version of the Revelations text, when it had been formulated and revised by Birgitta herself and was not yet translated into Latin. Needless to say, the latter aim will never be but partly achieved; I hope, however, that this paper has demonstrated that the work will nonetheless be worth doing.

The second part of my investigation is a step into a land which is still largely unchartered, and deals with the marks left by Alphonso upon the text of Birgitta. In this area, too, we may confidently expect that future investigations will yield rich results.

Notes

¹ Cf. especially B. Högman, Heliga Birgittas originaltexter, Uppsala 1951; J. Liedgren, "Magister Matthias svenska kungörelse om Birgittas Första stora uppenbarelse. Ett förbisett dokument i Riksarkivet," Meddelanden från Svenska Riksarkivet för år 1958, Stockholm 1961, pp. 101-116; S. Eklund, "A Re-assessment of the Old Swedish Bridgettine Text Corpus," Kungl. Humanistiska Vetenskaps-Samfundets i Uppsala Årsbok 1983-84, Uppsala.

² öberg, J.: "Authentischer oder autorisierter Text? Der Weg von Konzept zu moderner Edition an Beispielen von Petrus de Dacia und der Heilligen Birgitta." Published in the present volume, pp. 59-74.

³Acta et processus canonizacionis beate Birgitte, Ed. I. Collijn, Uppsala 1924-1931, pp. 3-11 (= SSFS: Skrifter utgivna av Svenska Fornskriftsällskapet, Ser. 2, Latinska skrifter I).

⁴ St. Birgitta, Reuelaciones extrauagantes, Ch. 49, Ed. L. Hollman, Uppsala 1956 (= SSFS, Ser. 2, Latinska skrifter VI).

⁵ Cf. note 1 above.

⁶ The priority of the Old Swedish version of the Prologue to Rev. Book I was demonstrated by J. Liedgren (Cf. note 1, above); concerning Rev. Book IV, cf. K. B. Westman, Birgitta-studier, Uppsala 1911, p. 54.

⁷ Bergh, B., Ed., St. Birgitta, Reuelaciones Book V, Uppsala 1971, p. 16-33 (= SSFS, ser. 2, latinska skrifter VII:5). Eklund (cf. note 1, above), following L. Moberg ("Heliga Birgittas första uppenbarelse i magister Mathias svenska version", Studier i nordisk fllologi 62, Skrifter utgivna av svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland 490, Helsinki 1980, p. 193-211) maintains that the fact that the Old Swedish text is mainly a translation from the Latin need not imply that the Old Swedish translator used the Latin text as his only exemplar, as we cannot exclude the possibility that this translator also had access to an older, Old Swedish version. While true enough in itself, this argument does not refute Bergh's general conclusion as to the priority of the Latin text over the Old Swedish.

⁸ It must be emphasised that the task of editing the Latin version of the Revelations is to be regarded as an endeavour parallel to that of editing the Old Swedish version; readings from one version may help elucidate problematical readings of the other one, but cannot justify extensive changes. As far as the Latin version of the Revelations is concerned, the original version to be reconstructed must be the so-called original of Alphonso. For the history of Alphonso's original, cf. C.-G. Undhagen, Ed., St. Birgitta, Reuelaciones Book I, Stockholm 1978, p. 14 ff. (= SSFS, ser. 2, Latinska skrifter VII :1).

⁹ A striking instance of this desire is to be found in Rev. III:7, where the Latin word testudo ("tortoise") corresponds to the word "snighil" ("snail") in the Old Swedish version; the obvious reason for this change is the translator's desire to render the text intelligible to the medieval Swedish reader, who was not likely to know of tortoises. Since snails are not unknown in the Mediterranean countries, the revision is in this case not likely to have occurred when the text was first translated into Latin.

¹⁰Eleuacio is used here in a sense ("the rising of flu ids") which I have only been able to find in two instances, in the TLL, both of which are considered to be allegorical expressions: Ambros. lob 4, 5, 19 p. 280, 16 ubi advertit David, quod elevationes fluctuum saecularium super se venirent, and Hier. In Ion. 2, 4 p. 1153D: quaehmus … quomodo omnes elevationes et gurgites et fluctus dei super salvatorem transierint. Cf. Thesaurus linguae Latinae V. 359, 3-6.

¹¹ Bergh (cf. above, note 7) p. 24.

¹² Cf. Wollin, L., Svensk latinöversättning, I. Processen, 1981, II. Förlagan och produkten, 1983, Lund (= SSFS, Hafte 251-252), particularly part II, section 2.2 (summarized in English p. 162).

¹³ Högman (cf. above, note 1) p. 35-37. In many passages, the Latin translation of the text corresponding to the autographs is more concise, rather than the opposite, as Högman notes on p. 51 ff. Quite correctly, he attributes both tendencies to a desire on the part of the Latin translator to achieve a more polished text.

¹⁴ I owe this point to Dr. Lars Wollin of Lund, who has also pointed out to me that the Old Swedish edition by Klemming, being based on only one manuscript (Cod. Holmiensis A 5 a) gives a text that is in many respects inferior to that given by other Old Swedish Birgitta manuscripts, namely Cod. Holmiensis A 5 b, A 110 and Cod. Upsaliensis C 61. The latter manuscripts will therefore be a better basis for future comparisons between the Old Swedish and Latin versions. In the present instance, the difference between the edition of Klemming and the Old Swedish manuscripts named above is not great enough to change my conclusions concerning Rev. IV:24.

¹⁵ Moberg (cf. above, note 7) p. 204 ff.

¹⁶ All manuscripts collated for this edition read uniendum, which I can only construe as "in order to make it hot all through." Here, I have adopted the reading minuendum, which is the emendation suggested by manus tertia of Codex Kalmarnensis, as I consider this reading contextually superior and quite reasonable from the paleographical point of view.

¹⁷ Högman (cf. above, note 1), p. 30 ff.

¹⁸ Högman (cf. above, note 1), p. 18 ff.

¹⁹ Cf. Kulturhistoriskt lexikon för nordisk medeltid, I, Malrnö 1956, col. 523.

²⁰ Undhagen (cf. above, note 8), p. 14 ff. with further references.

²¹ Kraft, S., "Textstudier till Birgittas Revelationer,"Kyrkohistorisk årskrift, 29 (1929), p. 133-137.

²² In his paper entitled "Kring Birgitta" (Kungl. Vitterhets Historie och Antikvitets Akademien, Filologiskt arkiv 13, Stockholm 1969) Öberg discusses a number of Revelations which show evidence of having been intended as letters to various politically important adresses: in some of these texts there exists an older version from which the letter was formulated. This is the case in Rev. III:10, which is an older version of a text that reappears in a shape which bears traces of having been adapted to an epistolary form, in Rev. IV:78.

For the present discussion, the relation between Rev. VII: 18 and VIII:22, correctly established by Öberg, is most interesting, as in this instance it is the version in Book VIII that appears to represent an older stage of the text; VII: 18, on the other hand, is clearly an epistolary redraft of the text, which contains instructions for the young King of Cyprus, Peter II, and his uncle, Jean de Lusignan, Prince of Antioch.

This observation clearly contradicts my own conclusions presented below; the solution to this dilemma probably lies in the fact that VII:18/VIII:22, just like III: 10/IV:78 mentioned above, represent two stages in the drafting of a letter. When editing Book VII, Alphonso would have selected the most polished form of the text, whereas on the other hand a formulated letter would be less suitable for a Mirror of Kings.

²³ Undhagen (cf. above, note 8), p. 4 ff.

²⁴ Bergh, B., Ed. St. Birgitta, Reuelaciones Book VII, Stockholm 1967, p. 94 (= SSFS, ser. 2, Latinska skrifter VII:7) with further references.

²⁵ B. Klockars states this in her excellent treatise, Birgitta och bückerna, Stockholm 1966, p. 49 (= Kungl. Vitterhets Historie och Antikvitets Akademiens handlingar, Historiska serien 11), without, however, citing any external source for her theory.

²⁶ Several colleagues have pointed out that Alphonso's version of the text suffers from an ambiguity; for, whereas his main thought is clear, the words, tenetur primo dolere, quod otnnes redempti sunt, yield the unfortunate impression that the redemption was the cause of the pain. A better expression would have been: tenetur primo dolere, quod, cum otnnes redempti sint … tamen omnes non rependunt.