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Medieval manuscripts
中世纪的手稿
Patricians of parchment羊皮书中的贵族
Why manuscripts matter为何手稿如此重要
Sep 17th 2016 | From the print edition
2016年9月17日 | 摘自印刷版
Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts. By Christopher de Hamel. Allen Lane; 632 pages; ￡30.与卓越手稿相遇。作者：克里斯多夫 哈梅尔。艾伦莱恩：632页：30欧元
ON MAY 4th 1945, when Allied troops entered Adolf Hitler’s mountain retreat in the Bavarian Alps, they discovered devastation—and some very valuable art. Later, American troops would display a selection under an improvised sign reading: “The Hermann Goering Art Collection: Through Courtesy of the 101st Airborne Division”. Among the Rembrandts and Renoirs, few paid much attention to two small, dull, squarish objects. A French officer trod on one, thinking it was a brick; another was scooped up by an army doctor.1945年5月4号，进入阿道夫希特勒山的盟军部队从巴戈利亚阿尔卑斯山撤退途中，发现了一些艺术品。虽然大部分被毁掉了，但还是有一些非常珍贵的保留了下来。后来，美国军队在一个临时指示牌上看到：“美军101空降师赠与我们赫尔曼·戈林的艺术收藏品”。美军本来应该可以找到这个选集的。但是因为这里面有伦勃朗和雷诺瓦的艺术品，所以很少有人关注到这两个又小又平淡无奇的方形物体。一个法国官员踩到了一个，还以为它只是一块砖;而另一个则被一个军队医生挖了出来。
Devastation：大面积破坏Improvised：临时的Brick：砖头scooped up：挖出
That initial diagnosis proved incorrect, though. It was not a brick, but a medieval manuscript (the word means “written by hand”.) The second was one of the Navarreost famous manuscripts ever made: a prayer book for a medieval queen that had fetcheda record-breaking price at Sotheby’s in London in 1919. This was the “Book of Hours” made for a French queen, Jeanne de . In “Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts” Christopher de Hamel, fellow and librarian of the Parker Library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, reminds readers why this was such a thrilling discovery. 那个法国人起初的判断后来证明是错误的。那不是一块砖头，而是一本中世纪的手稿(即“手写的”)。第二本书是有史以来最著名的手稿之一：一本中世纪王后的祈祷书，1919年在伦敦的苏富比以史上最高价卖了出去。这是法国珍妮纳瓦拉王后的祈祷书。在“与卓越手稿相遇”一书中，剑桥大学基督圣体学院帕克图书馆会员兼管理员，克里斯多夫 哈梅尔提醒读者去思考为什么这是一个令人激动的发现。
Courtesy：恩惠Initial：最初的Fetched：卖得a record-breaking price：一个破纪录的价格Remarkable：显著的Thrilling：令人兴奋的
Mr de Hamel is an unashamed manuscript groupie. The 12 works he writes about are, he explains, superstars of vellum. Like many celebrities, some are tastelessly glitzy, gleaming with gold and studded with jewels. All are closely guarded, spending their days in climate-controlled confinement and travelling in bomb-proof cases. “It is easier,” says Mr de Hamel, “to meet the pope or the president of the United States than it is to touch the ‘Très Riches Heures’ of the Duc de Berry.”哈梅尔是一个当之无愧的手稿迷。他解释道，他写的这12本书就是关于牛皮纸手稿中的超级巨星。和许多名人一样，其中有些毫无品味地用闪闪的黄金和珠宝来装扮，看起来很耀眼。这些手稿平时都放在有温度调节的柜子里，出门的时候都用防弹箱子装着，安保工作做得很好。哈梅尔说“摸到《贝瑞公爵的富裕时间》的难度，远高于去拜访罗马教皇或者美国总统。”。
Unashamed：当之无愧的Tastelessly：无味地Glitzy：炫目的，耀眼的
When one New York bookseller was asked to explain in a few sentences who buys such objects, he replied, “I can tell in two words: the rich.” These books, patricians of parchment, have circulated in European society at the very highest level for centuries. Queens inheritthem. Saints travel with them. Popes, even now, bow down before them. Jeanne de Navarre’s “Hours”, before Goering got it, was made for the 14th-century French queen and later owned by Baron Edmond de Rothschild.当一个纽约的书商被问到用几句简单的话来说说谁会买这些东西时。他回应道：“我的答案就两个字——‘富人’。”这些书是羊皮书中的贵族，它们在欧洲社会最高层阶级中流传了数个世纪。王后继承了它们，圣人外出都要带着它们，哪怕是现在，罗马教皇还要在它们面前跪拜。在戈林之前，珍妮纳瓦拉的《Hours》这本书是属于14世纪法国王后的，后来归属于爱德蒙罗斯柴尔德男爵。
Inherit：继承
To touch a manuscript is to touch another world. And what an otherworldly world this is. Half of the works here were written between the sixth and 11th centuries, when Vikings ruled the waves and men had names like Ecgfrith and Ceolfrith. A little of this mystery still clings to their pages: when Mr de Hamel takes the Gospels of St Augustine (pictured) to a service in Canterbury Cathedral he notices that its leaves are so light they flutter and hum in time to a hymn, “as if the sixth-century manuscript…had come to life”.摸着手稿就像是在触摸另一个世界。一个多么超凡脱俗的世界啊。一半的手稿作品都写于6世纪到11世纪。那时候维京海盗统治着海上，人们的名字多是埃格弗里思和赛欧尔弗里思之类的。他们的记载有点神秘：哈梅尔带着圣高古斯丁福音书(如图)去坎特伯雷大教堂做礼拜,唱赞歌时他发现树叶轻轻舞动，发出沙沙的响声，好像是在低声应和着赞歌。他感觉“像是6世纪的手稿复活了一样。”
Manuscripts are words written down, but they impart far more than sentences. Precise moments in time can be found, like pressed flowers, preserved in their pages. In one ninth-century manuscript a picture of the planets in orbit has been drawn with such precision that astronomers say this configuration happens only once in 17 trillion years. They have dated the manuscript to March 18th 816.手稿是写下来的文字，但它们的意义远远超过句子本身。手稿像是夹在书中的干花，我们可以发现找出它的确切时间。有个9世纪手稿精确地画出了行星轨道图，天文学家说这样的轨道位置只在17万亿年前出现过一次。他们由此确定手稿写于公元816年3月18日。
These books may no longer be owned by monarchs, but modern libraries can be as well-defended as medieval kings. Mr de Hamel’s interviews are the closest most readers will come to meeting these books themselves. Like all good interviewers, he leaves the reader with the sense of what it was like to meet each star—their aura, their attire and their size (frequently, as is so often the case with celebrities, smaller than expected). Erudite and enthusiastic, Mr de Hamel is not so star-struck that he cannot be critical: a famous illustration in the “Book of Kells” is “dreadfully ugly”; a naked Adam and Eve look “knobbly-kneed” and “brightly pink like newly arrived English holidaymakers on Spanish beaches”.(读者试译)尽管这些书可能已经不再属于统治阶级了，但是现代图书馆的安保工作也可以和中世纪的国王相媲美。哈梅尔的访谈是最能近距离接触到这些手稿的机会，所以许多读者都会赶来。像所有的好的采访者一样，他会给读者营造出一种像见明星的氛围——他们的气味，衣着和身段(都常常和明星们一样，只是排场要小)。(读者试译)He concludes with a call to arms: manuscripts are a neglected corner of academia and he wants more people to study them. Mr de Hamel has catalogued more medieval manuscripts than anyone in history; everyone, not only academics, should listen to what he has to say. These books are object lessons in impermanence. Only one, the “Hours” of Jeanne de Navarre, remains in the country where it was made. The rest have been dispersed.最后他提出了一个有战斗意义的号召：手稿是学术界被忽略的一角，他希望有更多人来研究它们。哈梅尔编写的中古世纪手稿数量史上最多;不只是学者，每个人都应该听听他所说的话。这些书给我们一个教训，那就是现实无常。现在除了珍妮纳瓦拉的《Hours》仍然留存与它诞生的国家。其余的都分散到世界各地了。
In much the same way that oceanographers study the paths of plastic ducks to understand currents, or economists study shipping routes to observe the world economy, one could follow these manuscripts to understand a millennium of European history. Churches are overthrown. Empires fade. Thousand-year Reichs crumble after just a few years. As powers move, so too do manuscripts. Intended to be monuments to their owners’ everlasting potency they serve mainly as their tombstones. A medieval lesson for us all.海洋学家通过研究塑料鸭轨道来了解电流，经济学家通过研究航线来观察世界经济，同理人们可以通过这些手稿来研究千年欧洲史。教皇被赶下权力巅峰，帝国败落。几年后，千年罗马帝国也瓦解了。随着政权的变动，手稿也辗转流离。沦为曾经所有者的墓碑，用来纪念他们曾经的权势。让我们吸取中世纪的教训吧。