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Oxford Studies in Medieval Philosophy
Volume 10
 ADVISORY BOARD
Peter Adamson, Ludwig-Maximilians University, Munich
Deborah Black, University of Toronto
Peter King, University of Toronto
Henrik Lagerlund, Stockholm University
John Marenbon, Trinity College, Cambridge
Calvin Normore, UCLA
Dominik Perler, Humboldt University, Berlin
Eleonore Stump, St. Louis University
Editorial Assistant
Dawn Jacob, University of Colorado
 Oxford Studies in
Medieval Philosophy
Volume 10
Edited by
ROBERT PASNAU
 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP,
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 Contents

Articles
“Lewd, Feeble, and Frail”: Humility Formulae, Medieval
Women, and Authority 1
Christina Van Dyke
Al-Fārābī’s Commentary on the Eighth Book of Aristotle’s
Topics in Todros

Todrosi’s

Philosophical Anthology
(Introduction, Edition of the Text, and Annotated
Translation) 24
Daniel Davies and Alexander Lamprakis
Aquinas, Analogy and the Trinity 89
Reginald Mary Chua
Super-Causes, Super-Grounds, and the Flow of Powers:
Three Medieval Views on Natural Kinds and
Kind-Specific Powers 118
Can Laurens Löwe
Three Medieval Aristotelians on Numerical Identity
and Time 153
John Morrison
Multiple Generality in Scholastic Logic 195
Boaz Faraday Schuman

Critical Notices
A Review of David Piché, Épistémologie et psychologie de la
foi dans la pensée scolastique (1250–1350) 263
Nicolas Faucher
vi 

A Dance with the Rebel Angels: Tobias Hoffmann’s View

on the Free Will Debate 288
Sonja Schierbaum

Briefly Noted 307

Griffel—Polloni—Ogden—Suárez

Notes for Contributors 311

Index of Names 313
 “Lewd, Feeble, and Frail”
Humility Formulae, Medieval
Women, and Authority
Christina Van Dyke

The humility topos—in its most basic form, a rhetorical strategy used to
position a speaker and their project respectfully in relation to their
audience—appears in a wide variety of philosophical literature.
Socrates, for instance, begins the Apology by claiming that he needs to
defend himself in his usual “rough” manner because he is ignorant of the
polished rhetoric of the law court, while the dedicatory letter of
Descartes’s Meditations contrasts the Sorbonne’s position (“no institu-
tion carries more weight than yours in matters of faith; while as regards
human philosophy, you are thought of as second to none”) with
Descartes’s own: “when I remember not only that I am a human being,
but above all that I am an ignorant one, I cannot claim that [this work] is
free of mistakes” (CSM II:5). The use of humility topoi is particularly
common in contemplative philosophy, with its emphasis on self-
examination and moral and spiritual development. As Julian of
Norwich writes in her Revelations: “God forbid that you should say or
take it so that I am a teacher, for I don’t mean that nor have I never
meant that; for I am a woman, lewd [uneducated], feeble, and frail.”¹ Yet
while philosophers typically read Socrates’s claim as ironic and
Descartes’s as disingenuous flattery, even scholars of medieval

¹ Short Text, section 6, my rendering into modern English from the text in The Writings of
Julian of Norwich: A Vision Showed to a Devout Woman and A Revelation of Love, ed. N. Watson
and J. Jenkins (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006), 75.

Christina Van Dyke, “Lewd, Feeble, and Frail”: Humility Formulae, Medieval Women, and Authority In: Oxford Studies
in Medieval Philosophy Volume 10. Edited by: Robert Pasnau, Oxford University Press. © Christina Van Dyke 2022.
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192871244.003.0001
2   

philosophy tend to accept claims like Julian’s—that is, claims by

medieval women—at face value. When Hildegard of Bingen writes in
her Scivias, for instance, that she is “timid in speaking, and simple in
expounding, and untaught in writing,” we take this as a sad testament to
medieval women’s relative lack of education and scholarly acumen. We
ignore (or are ignorant of ) the fact that the “timid in speaking” Hildegard
conducted no fewer than four major preaching tours throughout
Germany, that the woman who claims to be “simple in expounding”
wrote an extensive discussion on the prologue to the book of John (in the
Liber Divinorum Operum), and that the “untaught in writing” Hildegard
composed three major works in philosophical theology and two medical
textbooks, in addition to her numerous choral works (many of which are
still performed today).²
The primary goal of this paper is very simple. It is to provide “one
weird trick” for reading medieval Christian women’s use of humility
topoi, so that contemporary scholars of medieval philosophy can appre-
ciate how these women use them not to express lack of education, self-
loathing, and/or internalized misogyny but rather to establish themselves
as authorities within existing discourses. In so doing, I hope to remove
one of the main obstacles that continues to block the integration of
women’s works into discussions of medieval philosophy: the impression
that these self-professed “unlettered” women lacked intellectual sophis-
tication and did not consciously engage the philosophical and theological
debates of their day.
To that end, the rest of this paper proceeds as follows. First, I explain
how humility topoi generally function in the Middle Ages, showing that
their use was ubiquitous in contemplative literature by both male and

² Hildegard’s downplaying of her education has other functions as well. In “Hildegard and
Her Hagiographers: The Remaking of Female Sainthood” (in Gendered Voices: Medieval Saints
and Their Interpreters, ed. C. Mooney (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999)),
Barbara Newman suggests that another reason Hildegard does this is “in order to authenticate
her prophetic call.” Newman immediately goes on, however, to observe: “[Yet] a recently
discovered vita of her teacher Jutta of Sponheim (d. 1136), commissioned by Hildegard and
possibly written by Volmar [the monk who was meant to write Hildegard’s own vita until she
outlived him], describes the aristocratic recluse as literate, intelligent, and a skillful teacher; it
characterizes her repeatedly as a magistra, her nuns as discipulae, and their monastery as a
schola” (197, fn. 18). In other words, Hildegard did, in fact, receive a formal education on the
model of the schola.
  ,  ,   3

female authors, and that such statements often include (1) an explanation
of the text’s larger purpose and (2) a defense of the author’s claim to
write it. Second, I address the centrality of humility as a virtue in the
Latin Christian contemplative tradition, for in order to understand how
humility formulae would have been read in this period, we need to
appreciate how humility is held up as not just an ideal but the moral
ideal for layfolk as well as members of religious orders. Finally, I address
medieval women’s particular use of humility topoi in light of this broader
context, which allows us to see how women writers in this period often
use these formulae to “front” objections to their right to write on these
subjects, and then to explicitly address those objections in the voice of
the only universally recognized medieval authority: God.

1. Medieval Humility Topoi as Rhetorical Trope

“Can anything be reclaimed from the self-denigrating rhetoric of medi-

eval women in the Christian tradition?” asks Michelle Voss Roberts.³
Although she goes on to answer in a qualified affirmative, Voss Roberts is
hardly alone in characterizing the medieval use of self-descriptors like
“ignorant” and “filthy puddle” as a particularly feminine problem;⁴ she
goes on to state that, “Due to the frequency of such statements in
medieval European women’s writing, scholars have bestowed upon
them the status of a trope, the humility topos.”⁵ Yet the use of the
humility topos is hardly unique to medieval women—it appears
throughout contemplative and devotional literature in the medieval
Latin Christian tradition, crossing geographic regions, religious orders,
and gender. When Clare of Assisi calls herself a “useless and unworthy
servant” in a letter to Agnes of Prague, for instance, she is directly

³ “Retrieving Humility: Rhetoric, Authority, and Divinization in Mechthild of Magdeburg,”

Feminist Theology 18 (2009), 50–73, at 50.
⁴ See also Grace Jantzen, Power, Gender, and Christian Mysticism (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1995); Sarah Coakley, Powers and Submissions: Spirituality, Philosophy, and
Gender (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002); and Logan Dale Greene, The Discourse of Hysteria: The Topoi
of Humility, Physicality, and Authority in Women’s Rhetoric (New York: Edwin Mellen Press,
2009).
⁵ “Retrieving Humility,” 51.
4   

quoting the founder of her order, Francis of Assisi, who refers to

himself as “a useless man and unworthy creature” in a letter written to
his entire order.⁶
There are at least three reasons why humility formulae become
especially common in the Rome-based Christian tradition. First, once
pride is labeled the “deadliest” of the “deadly sins” identified by Gregory
the Great in the sixth century (and popularly portrayed as the root of the
other vices in morality plays, literature, and art), pride’s converse, humil-
ity, is in turn upheld as not just a but rather the moral ideal from which
spiritual progress begins and in which it culminates, and represented as
the mother or root of the virtues.⁷ Second, because medieval contempla-
tive literature has as its primary goal moral and spiritual development in
the form of increased devotion and closeness to God, the authors of such
literature remain formally conscious of their status as creatures in rela-
tion to Creator regardless of whether they are addressing God (as in
Anselm’s Proslogion and Catherine of Siena’s Dialogue) or fellow crea-
tures (as in Marguerite d’Oingt’s Mirror and the anonymous Cloud of
Unknowing).⁸ Finally, language describing human beings as servants of
God permeates Scripture and forms one of the central models for relating
to God in the Middle Ages; David’s and Paul’s confessions of weakness
and humble servanthood in the Psalms and epistles are often cited in
medieval texts alongside Mary’s description of herself as the handmaid of
God in the Magnificat as examples of this model.⁹
Medieval humility formulae typically include professions of unworthi-
ness, low value relative to others as well as God, and an inability to
express properly what should be said due to lack of knowledge and/or
education. They also often contain pleas for illumination and/or note

⁶ Complete Works, tr. R. J. Armstrong and I. Brady (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1986), 195
(Clare) and 60 (Francis). It is worth noting that the editors of this volume miss this, attributing
Clare’s phrasing here to Mary’s Magnificat rather than seeing that reference as mediated
through Francis.
⁷ Catherine of Siena uses the metaphor of a tree to explain the importance and effects of
humility and the deadly effects of pride and sin in her Dialogue. See, e.g., chapter 10, pp. 32–33.
⁸ As Julius Schwietering writes, “the humility formula is a gesture toward God even when it is
the audience that is addressed,” in “The Origins of the Medieval Humility Formula,” PMLA 69
(1954), 1279–91, at 1283.
⁹ See, for example, Bernard of Clairvaux’s Sermon 30 in Sermones in Cantica Canticorum, in
Patrologiae Cursus Completus, vol. 183, ed. J. P. Migne (Turnhout: Brepols, 1969).
  ,  ,   5

that anything of value in the following work should be attributed entirely

to God’s grace. Although expressions of humility on the part of the
author can appear anywhere in contemplative literature, humility topoi
themselves typically appear toward the very beginning (or, in the case of
letters, sometimes the very end) of the work, and they serve the import-
ant function of setting out the text’s motivation and larger purpose, as
well as providing a justification for why the project is being tackled by
this particular author.
To see how this trope works, I want now to present how it appears in
texts composed by figures for whom lack of earthly authority was not an
issue: Anselm and Bonaventure. Anselm, for instance, writes the follow-
ing toward the opening of his On the Procession of the Holy Spirit,
composed while he was serving as archbishop of Canterbury (that is,
the head of the Roman Catholic Church in England):

There are, to be sure, many who could accomplish this better than
I can; but many people have laid this burden upon me, and because of
what I owe to the love of truth, and for the sake of their charity and
devout will, I dare not refuse their request. I therefore call upon the
Holy Spirit himself to be gracious in directing me to this end. And so,
having this hope, on account of the lowliness of my knowledge I leave
higher things to those who know more than I do, and I shall attempt
what they are asking me to do: employing the faith of the Greeks, and
the things they unwaveringly believe and profess, to prove by utterly
solid arguments what they do not believe [viz. that the Holy Spirit
proceeds from the Son as well as from the Father].¹⁰

Here we find all the hallmarks of the medieval humility topos: confession
of unworthiness, lack of relative value in comparison to others who could
undertake the task, disavowal of knowledge, and an appeal to God for
grace and illumination. We also find the reason Anselm is writing the
treatise and a description of the project Anselm is undertaking—namely,
to present a rational argument that employs points of doctrine to which

¹⁰ All Anselm quotations are from The Complete Treatises, translated by Thomas Williams
(Indianapolis: Hackett, 2022).
6   

the Greek Christians are committed to prove that they are wrong about
the nature of the Trinity.
In part because they hit all the marks that characterize humility
formulae, we don’t read these words as Anselm’s expressing actual self-
doubt or genuine lack of knowledge. Rather, we take it as his paying his
dues to the conventions of the genre (and doing so with enough flair to
make one doubt his sincerity—it’s a bit rich, after all, to claim not to have
knowledge of “higher things” right before tackling the mystery of the
relation between the persons of the Trinity). He makes the same moves
in the first chapter of On the Incarnation of the Word (where he calls
himself “a trivial and inconsiderable fellow”), in his commendation of
Cur Deus Homo to Pope Urban II (in which he writes “Although I am a
man of very little knowledge, these considerations give me such great
strength that I will endeavor to raise myself up just a little . . . so far as
heavenly grace sees fit to grant it to me”), and in the preface of the
Monologion (which he describes himself as unwilling to write “because of
the difficulty of the task and the weakness of my own talent”). That
Anselm does not mean such statements to be taken literally is further
supported by his behavior: when sending the Monologion to Lanfranc,
for instance, Anselm writes that if Lanfranc does not approve of it, “then
let the copy that I am sending to you not be returned to me or to the
aforementioned brother; rather, let it be banished by one of the elements:
buried, sunk, burned up, or scattered.” Lanfranc does not approve of the
work, but Anselm publishes it anyway.
Bonaventure, who presided over the Franciscan order as Minister
General for almost two decades, uses similar formulae in his contempla-
tive (as opposed to scholastic) works as well.¹¹ Take, for example, the
beginning of his vita of Francis of Assisi, in which Bonaventure writes:

¹¹ Humility formulae are not commonly found in the scholastic genre of disputed questions,
most likely because disputed questions developed from a teaching context, in which different
groups of students were assigned to present arguments either “for” or “against” a particular
proposition in a question, which the master in charge of the class then “settled.” In this setting,
the purpose of the discourse is clear, and what is most relevant is the master’s authority (and the
authorities on which the master draws—Augustine, Avicenna, etc.), as opposed to his humility.
That this, rather than any underlying difference in attitude towards humility, is what influences
the use of humility formulae is clear from a look at scholastic figures who also wrote contem-
plative works, such as Bonaventure and Meister Eckhart.
  ,  ,   7

I feel that I am unworthy and unequal to the task of writing the life of a
man so venerable and worthy of imitation. I would never have
attempted it if the fervent desire of the friars had not aroused me, the
unanimous urging of the General Chapter had not induced me, and the
devotion which I am obliged to have toward our holy father had not
compelled me. For when I was a boy, as I still vividly recall, I was
snatched from the jaws of death by his invocation and his merits. So if
I remained silent and did not sing his praises, I fear that I would rightly
be accused of the crime of ingratitude. I recognize that God saved my
life through him, and I realize that I have experienced his power in
my very person. This, then, is my principal reason for undertaking
this task, that I may gather together the accounts of his virtue, his
actions, and his words—like so many fragments, partly forgotten
and partly scattered—although I cannot accomplish this fully, so that
they may not be lost when those who lived with this servant of
God die.¹²

Here again we see all the hallmarks of the humility topos, including the
reason why Bonaventure in particular is writing this text and the purpose
for his undertaking this task (namely, so that Francis’s virtue, actions,
and words can continue to inspire future generations). Like Anselm,
Bonaventure is firmly established at the top of his institutional hierarchy;
his protestations of ignorance or lack of worth cannot be taken, then, as
due to internalized norms of subordination—other than the prevailing
norm of subordination to God, which everyone in the Latin Christian
tradition acknowledged. (Even the most worldly of popes in this period
refer to themselves as the “humble servants” of God in letters and other
documents.)
The final example of the general use of humility formulae I want to
consider comes from the Meditations on the Life of Christ, a late
thirteenth-century set of spiritual exercises that became one of the

¹² Translation by Ewert Cousins, 182–83. Bonaventure also goes on to say in this same
passage that “I decided that I should avoid a cultivated literary style, since the reader’s devotion
profits more from simple rather than ornate expression.”
8   

most widely read pieces of literature in the later Middle Ages, particularly
among women. In its prologue, the anonymous author states:

I did wish you would receive this introduction from someone more
experienced and learned, because I am quite inadequate for such
things. Nevertheless, judging that it would be better to say something
suitable rather than remain silent entirely, I shall put my inexperience
to the test and speak on familiar terms with you, in a rough and
unrefined manner of speaking: on the one hand so that you are able
to understand better what is said, and on the other, that you can strive
thereby to refresh not your ear but your mind. . . . I hope also that my
lack of expertise might supply something to your lack of erudition; but
in this endeavor I am even more hopeful that, provided you wish to
exert yourself by assiduous meditation, you will have as virtual teacher
the same Lord Jesus of whom we speak.¹³

Here we see another classic use of the humility topos in a widely

circulated and read text. This statement appears immediately following
an explanation of how the meditations recommended in this work will
prepare their practitioner for contemplation of God in its highest form; it
includes the standard disavowals of worth, knowledge, and literary
expertise, and an appeal to illumination from God.
This appeal, moreover, invokes the popular Augustinian trope of God
as the only true teacher—a move that levels the intellectual playing field
as well as acknowledges God as the ultimate source of truth. Insofar as
God alone is responsible for granting human beings understanding and
wisdom, the Franciscan nun to whom the Meditations was written is in
as good a position for receiving illumination as cardinals and university
masters. In fact, the importance of humility as a virtue in the later Middle
Ages entails that God is seen as perhaps more likely to illuminate the
“least of these.” To further illuminate the use of humility formulae in this
period, then, I turn now to a discussion of humility as moral ideal,
modeled by Christ himself.

¹³ Meditations on the Life of Christ, tr. F. X. Taney, Anne Miller, and C. Mary Stallings-Taney
(Asheville, NC: Pegasus Press, 2000), 3–4.
  ,  ,   9

2. Humility as Contemplative Virtue

As mentioned in section 1, after Gregory the Great’s delineation of

the “deadly sins” in the sixth century, the virtue of humility gains
special emphasis in monastic communities as the converse of pride.
After the Gregorian reforms of the eleventh century and the rise of the
university system in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, growing frus-
tration with both rigid ecclesiastical hierarchies and intellectual elitism
contributes to a widespread cultural emphasis on the importance of
humility. In the mendicant orders and in the lay devotional movements
that spread like wildfire in the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries, humility
is upheld as a virtue central not just to moral and religious life, but to
intellectual life as well: true wisdom is a gift from God, and contempla-
tion of the divine is inherently humbling. Furthermore, the prime exem-
plar of humility throughout the Middle Ages was taken to be Christ
himself. Although the Second Person of the Trinity, Christ “emptied
himself and took on the form of a servant” via the Incarnation, present-
ing a model of humility with universal applicability—if God can be
humble, then everyone should be humble: pope or peasant, bishop or
beguine. This conception of humility as moral ideal forms the back-
ground against which medieval expressions of unworthiness and ignor-
ance were uttered and interpreted. Such pronouncements represent
comparative rather than absolute assessments of worth, where the ultim-
ate object of any comparison is always God. Because fallen human nature
tends toward pride and an inflated sense of self-worth, the function of
this comparison is to remind both author and reader that any human
accomplishment pales to insignificance next to God’s infinite actuality.
The poem with which Marguerite of Porete opens her Mirror of Simple
Souls neatly captures how humility was portrayed as an ideal—and a
caution against pride—in the early fourteenth century. Introducing her
treatise to its readers, she writes:

Humility, who is keeper of the treasury of Knowledge

And the mother of the other Virtues
Must overtake you.
[...]
10   

Theologians and other clerks,

You will not have the intellect for it,
No matter how brilliant your abilities,
If you do not proceed humbly.
(79)

Here Marguerite draws on humility’s status as both the source of the

other virtues and a precondition for wisdom. The explicit mention of the
need for humility in theologians and clerks (who represented the pinna-
cle of the hierarchy of intelligentsia, and who would burn Marguerite at
the stake as a heretic in 1310) underscores the idea that intellectual pride
is an obstacle to illumination.
I have written in more detail elsewhere about the vital role humility
plays in the medieval Christian contemplative tradition;¹⁴ for the pur-
poses of this paper, what proves most important is its status as a moral,
epistemic, and spiritual ideal, and Christ’s modeling of that ideal.
A central theme of the medieval meditation genre, for instance, is that
the Incarnation has created an unbreakable link between humanity and
divinity.¹⁵ As the English hermit Richard Rolle writes in one of his widely
read fourteenth-century meditations on the life of Christ:

Lord who came down from heaven to earth for love of the human race,
from so high to so low, from such dominion to such low poverty, from
such high splendor to such low misery, from such high magnificence to
such low sorrow, from such a pleasurable life to such a painful death,
now, Lord for all that love which you revealed to mankind in your
incarnation and in your passion, I implore you for mercy and help.¹⁶

¹⁴ See, for instance, “ ‘Many Know Much, but Do Not Know Themselves’: Self-Knowledge,
Humility, and Perfection in the Medieval Affective Contemplative Tradition,” in G. Klima and
A. Hall (eds.), Consciousness and Self-Knowledge in Medieval Philosophy (Newcastle upon Tyne:
Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2018), 89–106.
¹⁵ For more on the medieval meditative tradition, and particularly its relation to the activity
of contemplation, see Michelle Karnes, Imagination, Meditation, and Cognition in the Middle
Ages (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011), and my “From Meditation to
Contemplation: Broadening the Borders of Philosophy in the 13th–15th Centuries,” in
A. Griffioen and M. Backmann (eds.), Pluralizing Philosophy’s Past: New Reflections in the
History of Philosophy (London: Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming).
¹⁶ The English Writings, ed. and tr. R. Allen (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1988), 107.
  ,  ,   11

One reason Christ’s example of humility proves so informative for our

purposes is that it represents a perfect model of humility: humility in its
purest form, devoid of pretense or sin. Paradoxically—but crucially—
Christ’s model teaches that humility is intrinsically linked with dignity
and sublimity. Indeed, a common Scriptural trope throughout both the
Old and New Testament is the high being brought low and the low being
raised up; the Passion and Resurrection present the ultimate example
both of how the high should humble themselves and also of how the
humble will be lifted high. Any number of medieval authors highlight
Christ’s example as both an imitable model of humility and an assurance
that such humility will result in a closer union with God. When medi-
tating on Christ’s presence in the Eucharist, for instance, Francis of Assisi
writes:

O sublime humility!
O humble sublimity!
...
Look, brothers, at the humility of God
And pour out your hearts before him!
Humble yourselves, as well,
That you may be exalted by Him.¹⁷

The medieval call to humility is always balanced with this assurance

(sometimes implicit; often explicit) that God will exalt those who answer
this call.
Finally, professions of insignificance and lowliness in this period must
also be read in light of the fact that according to this tradition, union with
God is understood to be the final end of human nature—that is, human
beings are meant to aim all their actions ultimately at becoming one with
the perfect source of all goodness.¹⁸ Obviously, the contrast between that
perfect source and fallen human nature is extreme. Regardless, human

¹⁷ “A Letter to the Entire Order,” in The Complete Works, 55.

¹⁸ For more on differing conceptions of what, exactly, that final end might look like, see my
“The Phenomenology of Immortality (1200–1400),” in M. Cameron (ed.), The History of the
Philosophy of Mind, vol. 2: Philosophy of Mind in the Early and High Middle Ages (London:
Routledge, 2019), 219–39.
12   

beings were understood to be created in God’s image by their possession

of intellect and will, and were encouraged to develop those capacities in
order to grow closer to God. Medieval acknowledgements of the extent to
which human beings fall short of this goal don’t indicate a static sense of
worthlessness; rather, they acknowledge the importance of humility as a
dynamic component of moral and spiritual growth—the ground in
which other virtues root themselves and begin to bear fruit.

3. Re-reading Medieval Women’s

Use of Humility Formulae

It is against this background that we need to read medieval women’s use

of humility formulae: first, the careful use of humility formulae through-
out this period as a way of introducing the text’s content and explaining/
defending the claim of this particular author to write it; second, the
centrality of humility as moral, intellectual, and spiritual ideal, taken to
apply equally to all, and intrinsically linked with dignity and divinity.
Understanding this broader context allows us to appreciate how many
medieval women use these formulae not only to situate themselves as
authorities but also to explicitly respond to the objection that women
have no business speaking on theological and philosophical topics.
We find an early use of this trope in Hrotsvit of Gandersheim’s letter
to the patrons of her dramas. As she writes in verse:

I do not deny that by the gift of the Creator’s grace I am able to

grasp certain concepts the arts concerning
because I am a creature capable of learning,
but I also know that through my own powers, I know nothing.
[...]
Therefore, in order to prevent God’s gift in me from dying by
my neglect, I have tried whenever I could probe,
to rip small patches from Philosophy’s robe
and weave them into this little work of mine,
so that the worthlessness of my own ignorance may be ennobled
by their interweaving of this nobler material’s shine,
  ,  ,   13

and that, thus, the Giver of my talent all the more justly be
praised through me,
the more limited the female intellect is believed to be.¹⁹

Here, the late tenth-century Benedictine nun includes all the classic
features of the medieval humility formula, including a nod toward the
overtly Boethian content of her dramas (particularly the Sapientia); the
reference to ripping pieces from Philosophy’s robe is a direct reference to
the opening book of Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy, and it implies
that Hrotsvit sees herself as a philosopher.²⁰ We also see here the main
modification to the general humility topos that characterizes its use by
female authors—namely, (1) explicit mention of the sex of the writer, (2)
reference to common beliefs about female weakness (in intellectual,
physical, moral, and spiritual form), and (3) an assurance that these
perceived limitations pose no barrier to the text’s ability to convey divine
Truth (and may, in fact, enhance its ability to do so).²¹
I have already referenced Hildegard of Bingen’s twelfth-century use of
the humility formula in the introduction; with the virtual explosion of
contemplative literature in the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries, there are
any number of later examples to choose from. To highlight the breadth
of this trope, then, let us consider its use by Mechthild of Magdeburg (a
German beguine who writes in Middle Low German), Marguerite
d’Oingt (a French Carthusian nun who writes in both Latin and
Franco-Provençal), Mechthild of Hackeborn (a nun at Helfta whose
book is composed in Latin), and Julian of Norwich (an English anchorite
who writes in Middle English). As we will see, despite differences in style
and emphasis, the general form and function of their humility topoi
remain remarkably similar.

¹⁹ Florilegium of Her Works, ed. and tr. K. Wilson (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1998), 44.
²⁰ This is further supported by Hrotsvit’s subsequent claim that “I do not boast to possess
knowledge nor do I pretend not to be ignorant; but, as far as I am concerned, the only thing
I know is that I know naught” (44)—a direct echo of Socrates’s contention in the Apology that
the only thing he knows is that he knows nothing, and this alone is the respect in which he
should be considered wisest.
²¹ Hrotsvit regularly mentions her sex and its perceived limitations in her author’s prologues
or dedicatory letters, often in a manner obviously meant to be ironic, as when she uses complex
meter to express the difficulty of writing in verse for “the fragile female sex” (19).
14   

Little is known of Mechthild of Magdeburg’s early life or education;

what we do know is that she was a beguine—that is, a laywoman who
dedicated herself to a life of religious devotion and service without
entering a convent—and that she composes the majority of her book,
The Flowing Light of the Godhead, before taking refuge at the nunnery at
Helfta (famous for its intellectual community) later in life. Much has
been made in recent discussions about how Mechthild’s expressions of
humility and anxiety concerning how her book will be read and received
should be understood;²² Michelle Voss Roberts, for instance, claims that
Mechthild’s worries play an “authorizing function” by dint of providing
“constant iterations of lowliness that subtly persuaded her male sup-
porters” that she poses no threat to established authority.²³ In light of the
evidence I have presented in the previous two sections of this paper,
however, I believe that these expressions are actually meant to establish
the authority of their texts in a much more straightforward way—
namely, to explicitly address the question of their status as women
writing about theological and philosophical matters and to establish
their right to speak authoritatively about God and God’s will for their
fellow human beings.
Take for instance, this memorable passage at the outset of Book II, in
which Mechthild refers to herself as “filthy ooze” in sharing with God the
worry that her book will not be read or properly appreciated:

Ah, Lord, if I were a learned religious man,

And if you had performed this unique great miracle using him,
You would receive everlasting honor for it.
But how is one supposed to believe
That you have built a golden house on filthy ooze
And really live in it with your mother, with all creatures, and
with your heavenly court?
Lord, earthly wisdom will not be able to find you there.

²² See, e.g., Sara Poor, Mechthild of Magdeburg and Her Book: Gender and the Making of
Textual Authority (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004) and Voss Roberts,
“Retrieving Humility.”
²³ “Retrieving Humility,” 68.
  ,  ,   15

Here Mechthild purposefully contrasts her status and knowledge as a

laywoman with that of a university-educated man. At the same time, she
refers to her book as not just a “unique great miracle” but also a “golden
house” inhabited not just by Christ but also by Mary and the heavenly
hosts. Now look at the response she receives from no lesser an authority
than God:

Daughter, many a wise man, because of negligence

On a big highway, has lost his precious gold
With which he was hoping to go to a famous school.
Someone is going to find it.
By nature I have acted accordingly many a day.
Whenever I bestowed special favors,
I always sought out the lowest, most insignificant, and most
unknown place for them.
The highest mountains on earth cannot receive the revelations
of my favors
Because the course of the Holy Spirit flows by nature downhill.
One finds many a professor learned in scripture who is
actually a fool in my eyes.
And I’ll tell you something else:
It is a great honor for me with regard to them, and it very
much strengthens Holy Christianity
That the unlearned mouth, aided by my Holy Spirit, teaches
the learned tongue.²⁴

This assurance that Mechthild’s text is inspired by the Holy Spirit, that
earthly wisdom is often foolishness, and that what she has to say will
actually benefit those learned men is further supported by her appeal to
the medieval ideal of humility discussed in section 2. It is the “least of
these” who are most open to God’s teaching, and whose work “strength-
ens Holy Christianity.”
We find another example of this sort of use of the humility topos in the
work of Marguerite d’Oingt, a Carthusian nun whose works (although

²⁴ The Flowing Light of the Godhead, tr. F. Tobin (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1980), 97.
16   

little known today) were widely read and well respected in both her own
time and in following centuries. Toward the outset of her Page of
Meditations, a late thirteenth-century set of meditations on the life of
Christ, Marguerite offers what at first looks like a flurry of justifications
and self-effacing anxiety:

I began to think about and to contemplate the sweetness and goodness

which is in Him, and the great good He had done me and all of
humanity [via his Incarnation]. I was so full of these thoughts that
I lost my appetite and my sleep. [ . . . ] I thought that the hearts of men
and women are so flighty that they can hardly ever remain in one place,
and because of that I fixed in writing the thoughts that God had
ordered into my heart so that I would not lose them when I removed
them from my heart, and so that I could think over them little by little
whenever God would give me His grace. And for that reason I ask all
those who read this text not to think badly [of me] because I had the
presumption to write this, since you must believe that I have no sense
or learning with which I would know how to take these things from my
heart, nor could I write this down without any other model than the
grace of God which is working within me.²⁵

If we look at this passage again, however, in light of the general use of

humility formulae (notice, for instance, how Marguerite immediately
makes it clear that the content of the work will be thoughts on the life
of Christ), and humility as moral ideal, we can read it more as it would
have originally been meant and understood. First Marguerite, who is
proficient in several languages, obviously does not lack either “sense or
learning”; in fact, she writes these words in Latin—the language of
scholarship and the Church. Second, the Carthusian order, which took
strict vows of silence and solitude, used the act of writing and transcrib-
ing as a spiritual discipline and had as one of their central spiritual
metaphors the image of God inscribing words directly into their

²⁵ The Writings of Margaret of Oingt, Medieval Prioress and Mystic (d. 1310), tr.
R. Blumenfeld-Kosinski (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1990), 26.
  ,  ,   17

hearts.²⁶ Thus, Marguerite’s claim that God ordered these thoughts “into
her heart” and that she is in turn transcribing those thoughts directly
from her heart is extremely significant. Third, Marguerite attributes her
ability to compose this text to nothing less than the model of God’s own
grace moving within her, giving both the origin and the means of her
writing a divine source. Finally, note that although she initially frames
the composition of this text in terms of an aid to her own future
meditation, she assumes a wider readership in asking for kindness
from “all those who read this text.” Taken as a whole, this statement
actually positions what Marguerite is about to say as an important
contribution to the teachings of her religious order.
Another medieval contemplative who was influential in her own time
but remains little known today is Mechthild of Hackeborn, described by
Rosalynn Voaden as “one of the best known and most widely read
visionaries in late medieval and early modern Europe.”²⁷ The compos-
ition of Mechthild’s Book of Special Grace was a collective effort;
although Mechthild apparently regularly shared her visions and revela-
tions with her fellow nuns at Helfta, she is described as initially unaware
and then horrified to discover that these experiences were being written
down and collected by some of her sisters (including Gertrude the
Great—an equally notable contemplative and author). When she goes
to God with her worries, however, God explains to her that “Truth itself ”
is speaking through her:

I am in the hearts of those who desire to listen to you, stirring up that

desire in them. I am the understanding in the ears of those who hear
you; it is through me that they understand what they hear. I am also in
the mouths of those who speak of these things. And I am in the
hands of the writers as their helper and collaborator in every way.

²⁶ As Bennett Gilbert writes, “Transcription, filling the monk’s mind with truthful words,
was the first step in a [Carthusian’s] spiritual reflection,” in “Early Carthusian Script and
Silence,” Cistercian Studies Quarterly 49 (2014), 367–97, at 372.
²⁷ As Voaden goes on to write: “Hundreds of copies of [Mechthild’s] book of revelations, the
Liber specialis gratiae, were in circulation in both complete and excerpted forms, in Latin, and
translations into at least five different vernaculars” (“Mechthild of Hackeborn,” in A. Minnis
and R. Voaden (eds.), Medieval Holy Women in the Christian Tradition c. 1100–c. 1500
(Turnhout: Brepols, 2010), 431–51, at 431).
18   

Thus, all that they compose and write in and through me is true, for
I am Truth itself.²⁸

After being assured that God was in favor of the book’s composition,
Mechthild is reported as participating enthusiastically in its production.
Again, we see here how a profession of humility (in the form of
Mechthild’s stated alarm at learning her visions are being preserved for
dissemination) is met by God’s explicit endorsement of the text’s project.
As with the prologue to the Meditations on the Life of Christ, the appeal
to the Augustinian trope of God as the only true teacher gives what
follows the stamp not just of divine approval but also of divine
authority.²⁹
Let me close this section with a passage from the Short Text of Julian
of Norwich’s Revelations (written toward the end of the fourteenth
century). Julian begins with a classic use of the humility formula, going
on to address objections to a woman’s writing on theological matters:

God forbid that you should say or take it so that I am a teacher, for
I don’t mean that nor have I never meant that. For I am a woman, lewd
[uneducated], feeble, and frail. But I know well that what I say I have
received from the showing of him who is sovereign teacher. Indeed,
charity stirs me to tell you it. For I wish that God were known and my
fellow Christians helped, as I wish to be myself, to the greater hatred of
sin and loving of God. But because I am a woman, should I therefore
believe that I should not tell you the goodness of God, since I saw in
that same time [that is, during her visions] that it is his will that it be
known? And that you shall well see in what follows, if it be well and
truly understood. Then shall you soon forget me who is a wretch, and

²⁸ The Book of Special Grace, tr. B. Newman (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2017), 242–3.
²⁹ This is a recurring theme. See, for instance, 5.31 where God assures Mechthild: “Just as
truly as you received it from my Spirit, so truly my Spirit compelled them to write it down and
elaborate it” (245). We find a similar emphasis on humility’s connection with God’s grace in
Mechthild’s scribe and sister nun, Gertrude the Great: “Now Gertrude was led by her very
humility to consider herself so unworthy of God’s gifts that she could not be induced to believe
that they were given her for her own advantage. She saw herself as a channel through which, by
some mysterious disposition of God, his grace flowed to his elect, since she herself was so
unworthy and received all God’s gifts, small or great (so she thought), in the most inadequate
and unfruitful fashion, save only that she took the trouble to distribute them to others in speech
or writing” (The Herald of Divine Love, ed. and tr. M. Winkworth (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press,
1993)).
  ,  ,   19

do so that I not interfere with your learning, and behold Jesus who is
the teacher of all.³⁰

Here Julian combines the common tropes of humility formulae

(disavowal of knowledge and worth) with the tropes more specific to
women (frailty and weakness) into one pithy sentence. She appeals to
divine love and God’s will (also the main subject matter of her Showings)
to explain why she writes, and also to explicitly address her status as a
woman. Her comment about being a wretch functions in this context
primarily to draw attention to how all are wretches in comparison to
God. Finally, the Augustinian anchorite reminds her readers that the
only real teacher is God, from whom all authority comes.

4. Conclusion

Although even the most brilliant women in this period faced significant
obstacles to being heard—particularly insofar as they were barred from
holding prominent positions in ecclesiastical and university hierarchies—
this does not mean that their self-descriptions as uneducated and ignorant
should be taken at face value. As we saw in section 2, anyone in this period
who claimed authority on their own merit would be dismissed out of hand;
in this context, women’s stressing their greater claim to humility via their
“naturally” subordinated position functioned simultaneously to emphasize
their claim to a closer connection to the divine.
Furthermore, the women who wrote the passages discussed in section 3
were familiar not only with the general form and function of medieval
humility formulae but also with many of the actual texts in which they
were found. Rather than being forbidden, the activities of reading and
writing were widely portrayed as signs of holiness and religious devotion
for women in the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries.³¹ In addition to the

³⁰ Short Text, section 6, my rendering into modern English from the text in The Writings of
Julian of Norwich, ed. Watson and Jenkins, 75.
³¹ As Richard Kieckhefer notes, “We know that certain women saints were enthusiastic
readers, and we know that devotional reading figured prominently in the urban religious
culture of the era. . . . This is not to suggest that pious women read more than men did, or that
the content of the books was less important for men than for women. Rather, it may be that
the activity of reading was in closer accord with the central themes of women’s piety than
20   

“sister-books” and convent chronicles generated by and shared between

communities of religious women (e.g., nuns, beguines, and tertiaries), the
high demand for pocket Bibles, Books of Hours, and meditative literature
for personal devotional use speaks to the assumption that the wealthy
laywomen who commissioned these works both could and would read
them; in stained glass windows, sculptures, altarpieces, and paintings
from this period throughout Europe, women are frequently depicted
holding and reading books.³² The influence of contemplative works
written by women throughout this period on ecclesiastical as well as
lay communities demonstrates that women were seen as potentially
valuable sources of insights into divine wisdom (that is, the only “true”
source of knowledge and truth) throughout this period.
Indeed, the simple fact that so many of these women’s texts survive today
means that they were, in fact, taken seriously as authoritative sources on
moral and theological matters. Viewing medieval women’s use of humility
formulae through the lens laid out in this paper allows us to appreciate the
skill with which those women “flip” their inferior social status to position
their works as important contributions to existing debates, and to appreciate
that many medieval women were, in fact, both more aware of and engaged
in the theological and philosophical debates of their day than contemporary
scholars of medieval philosophy tend to realize. Women’s contributions to
these debates were not ignored in their own time; it would be a shame if
scholars of medieval philosophy continued to ignore them now.³³

Barnard College

with those of men’s” (“Holiness and the Culture of Devotion,” in R. Blumenfeld-Kosinski and
T. Szell (eds.), Images of Sainthood in Medieval Europe (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,
1991), 302).
³² For more on this topic, see Gertrud Jaron Lewis, By Women, for Women, about Women:
The Sister-Books of Fourteenth-Century Germany (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval
Studies, 1996), as well as any and all of volumes three through five of Bernard McGinn’s
compendious The Presence of God: A History of Western Christian Mysticism (New York:
Crossroad Publishing, 1991–2016).
³³ Thanks to Andrew Arlig and Christia Mercer for their valuable feedback on earlier
versions of this paper, as well as to the audiences of the Arché Feminist Philosophy and
Social Theory Seminar at the University of St. Andrews, a workshop for the New Narratives
in Philosophy Center at Columbia University called Seeking Authority: Women, Genre, and
Philosophical Reflection in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, the Goliardic Society at Western
Michigan University, and feedback from Juliana Oaxley on a much shorter and more informal
version of this project, which was published as an APA blog post at https://blog.apaonline.org/
2021/05/19/lewd-feeble-and-frail-subverting-sexist-tropes-to-gain-authority.
  ,  ,   21

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Books of Fourteenth-Century Germany (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of
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McGinn, Bernard. Varieties of Vernacular Mysticism: 1350–1550, vol. 5 of
The Presence of God: A History of Western Christian Mysticism (New
York: Crossroad, 2016).
Newman, Barbara. “Hildegard and Her Hagiographers: The Remaking of
Female Sainthood,” in C. Mooney (ed.), Gendered Voices: Medieval Saints
and Their Interpreters (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press,
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Poor, Sara. Mechthild of Magdeburg and Her Book: Gender and the Making
of Textual Authority (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press,
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Schwietering, Julius. “The Origins of the Medieval Humility Formula,”
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Van Dyke, Christina. “ ‘Many Know Much, but Do Not Know Themselves’:
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Van Dyke, Christina. “From Meditation to Contemplation: Broadening the
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 Al-Fārābī’s Commentary on the Eighth
Book of Aristotle’s Topics in Todros


Todrosi’s

Philosophical Anthology
(Introduction, Edition of the Text, and
Annotated Translation)
Daniel Davies and Alexander Lamprakis

1. Introduction to the Text

a. Introduction

This article presents the editio princeps and first complete annotated
English translation of the extant fragments from al-Fārābī’s otherwise
lost commentary on the eighth book of Aristotle’s Topics. These frag-
ments only survive in the Hebrew translation of Todros

Todrosi

(born
1313 ) from Trinquetaille in Arles, a center of Jewish learning in
fourteenth-century Provence.¹ They are part of an anthology of philo-
sophical texts, which Todrosi

composed around the year 1333 , extant

¹ Only little is known of Todrosi’s

life. His full name is Todros

ben Meshullam ben David
Todrosi.

While his exact life span is not known, his working period can be given as 1330–1340
from some of the extant mentioned dates. For a summary of his translations and possible contacts
with other intellectuals of his time, see Gabriella Elgrably-Berzin, Avicenna in Medieval Hebrew
Translation: Todros

Todrosi’s

Translation of Kitāb al-Najāt, on Psychology and Metaphysics
(Leiden: Brill, 2015), 1–6 and Francesca Gorgoni, La traduction hébraïque du Commentaire
Moyen d’Averroès à la Poétique d’Aristote: étude, édition du texte hébreu et traduction française
avec glossaire hébreu-arabe-français (Ph.D. dissertation, Paris, 2017), 33–41.

Daniel Davies and Alexander Lamprakis, Al-Farabı ’s Commentary on the Eighth Book of Aristotle’s Topics in
Todros

Todrosi’s

Philosophical Anthology (Introduction, Edition of the Text, and Annotated Translation) In:
Oxford Studies in Medieval Philosophy Volume 10. Edited by: Robert Pasnau, Oxford University Press.
© Daniel Davies and Alexander Lamprakis 2022. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192871244.003.0002
 -’      25

in the single MS British Library Add. 27559.² The translations amount to

33 fragments of varying length, in which al-Fārābī discusses a number of
topics connected to the study of dialectic and its relation to the neigh-
boring syllogistic arts.
Todrosi’s

methodology in this work (henceforth called Philosophical
Anthology) has been profoundly analyzed in a recent article by Steven
Harvey and Oded Horezky.³ Nevertheless, his special method of pre-
senting his translations from al-Fārābī’s commentary calls for some
preliminary remarks here as well, in order to enable the reader to
understand the form in which the fragments are presented and to assess
them critically. We therefore begin with a brief recapitulation of the
method Todrosi

employs in his Philosophical Anthology and the ramifi-
cations of this methodology for the evaluation and presentation of what
is found in the section dedicated to dialectic. Following this, we will

² The manuscript is described in George Margoliouth, Catalogue of the Hebrew and

Samaritan Manuscripts in the British Museum, 3 vols. (London: Gilbert and Rivington,
1899–1915), vol. 3, 186–90. For an updated account of the manuscript and its dating to roughly
a century after Todrosi

wrote his anthology, see Steven Harvey and Oded Horezky, “Averroes ex
Averroe: Uncovering Todros

Todrosi’s

Method of Commenting on the Commentator,” Aleph
21 (2021), 12–13 and esp. Appendix III. We are grateful to the authors for generously making
their research available to us before publication. To the best of our knowledge, Todrosi’s


translations of this work were first mentioned by Shalom Rosenberg in his unpublished
dissertation Logic and Ontology in Jewish Philosophy in the 14th Century (Heb.) (Hebrew
University of Jerusalem, 1973), 5. Subsequently, Mauro Zonta (1968–2017) began to study
them in depth, but his untimely passing prevented him from continuing this work. Studies of
these fragments appeared in the following of his works: La filosofia antica nel medioevo ebraico
(Brescia: Paideia 1996), 162; 253; “Fonti antiche e medievali della logica ebraica nella Provenza
del trecento,” Medioevo 23 (1997), 557–62; “Al-Fārābī’s Commentaries on Aristotelian Logic:
New Discoveries,” in: U. Vermeulen & D. De Smet (eds.), Philosophy and Arts in the Islamic
World: Proceedings of the Eighteenth Congress of the Union Européenne des Arabisants et des
Islamisants (Leuven: Peters, 1998), 228–30; and in his “About Todros Todrosi’s Medieval
Hebrew Translation of al-Fārābī’s Lost Long Commentary/Gloss-Commentary On Aristotle’s
Topics, Book VIII,” History and Philosophy of Logic 32 (2011), 37–45. Without Zonta’s pion-
eering work, the current edition and translation would not have been undertaken.
³ Harvey and Horezky, “Averroes ex Averroe,” 13–24. As for the section on logic, more
specifically, see Steven Harvey and Oded Horezky, “From Translator to Commentator: Todros

Todrosi’s

Presentation of Aristotle’s Organon,” Studia Graeco-Arabica 11 (2021), 141–56. For
an account of Todrosi’s

place in the Arabic-into-Hebrew translation movement, see also Steven
Harvey, “Arabic into Hebrew: The Hebrew Translation Movement and the Influence of Ibn
Rushd upon Medieval Jewish Thought,” in D. H. Frank and O. Leaman (eds.), The Cambridge
Companion to Medieval Jewish Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 260
and 272. For the topic of medieval Jewish logic more generally, see Charles H. Manekin, “Logic,
Jewish,” in H. Lagerlund (ed.), Encyclopedia of Medieval Philosophy: Philosophy between 500 and
1500 (Dordrecht: Springer, 2011), 697–702, and the same author’s The Logic of Gersonides:
A Translation of Sefer ha-Heqqesh ha-Yashar: (The Book of the Correct Syllogism) of Rabbi Levi
ben Gershom (Dordrecht: Springer, 1992), 1–9.
26     

present what can be ascertained of al-Fārābī’s commentary on Topics

book VIII and discuss the extent to which it might have been known to
Todrosi.

We hope that these introductory remarks will contribute to a
better understanding of both al-Fārābī’s thought on dialectic and its
fourteenth-century Hebrew reception.

b. The Section on Dialectic in Todrosi’s

Philosophical Anthology

Todrosi’s

Philosophical Anthology comprises two books, one dedicated to
the study of logic and one to the study of natural philosophy. The part of
the anthology that deals with the study of logic spans folios 1r–93v and,
following Todrosi’s

programmatic introduction to the logic (1r–1v),
includes sections dedicated to commenting on material related to
Porphyry’s Isagoge (2v–9r), Aristotle’s Prior Analytics (9r–22r),
Posterior Analytics (22v–67r) and, finally, the Topics (67r–93v).⁴
In his general introduction to the first book, Todrosi

explains that the
purpose of his work is to provide material from the philosophical
tradition that facilitates the understanding of Ibn Rushd’s paraphrastic
explanations of Aristotle’s treatises, his so-called middle commentaries.⁵
This is a reflection of the fact that, as Steven Harvey states, the “medieval
Jewish thinkers considered Aristotle the most important philosopher, but
their knowledge of his teachings came mostly from the commentaries.”⁶
By Todrosi’s

time, three of Aristotle’s own works had been put into

⁴ Harvey and Horezky, “Averroes ex Averroe,” 76–77 (Appendix III), who also mention the
authors referred to by Todrosi

in these sections. Harvey and Horezky present and examine this
preface together with Todrosi’s

introduction to the section on natural science, which immedi-
ately follows the logic. On Todrosi’s

reasons to exclude the Categories and On Interpretation see
the analysis in Harvey and Horezky, “From Translator to Commentator,” 146–7. As for whether
Todrosi

also wrote a section on the Rhetoric and the Poetics, see Harvey and Horezky, “From
Translator to Commentator,” 145–6.
⁵ This introduction has been translated in Harvey and Horezky, “Averroes ex Averroe,”
14–17.
⁶ Steven Harvey, “Did Maimonides’ Letter to Samuel Ibn Tibbon Determine Which
Philosophers Would Be Studied by Later Jewish Thinkers?” The Jewish Quarterly Review
83 (1992), 53.
 -’      27

Hebrew.⁷ Aside from these texts, lemmata from Ibn Rushd’s so-called
“long commentaries” (i.e., commentaries that explain Aristotle’s text ad
litteram) were also translated together with the commentaries themselves.⁸
Usually, however, Ibn Rushd’s so-called “middle commentaries” took the
place of Aristotle’s texts and were considered faithful representations of
his thought.⁹ In attaching material gathered from the philosophical trad-
ition to Ibn Rushd’s middle commentaries, Todrosi’s

work can therefore
be seen as part of an intellectual environment that studied Aristotelian
philosophy through already existing Hebrew translations of the commen-
tary tradition, most notably Ibn Rushd’s aforementioned paraphrasing
explanations.¹⁰
Todrosi’s

Philosophical Anthology is unusual in that he divides each
section for which there exists a literal commentary into two parts. In his
overall introduction to the logical section of his work, Todrosi

explains
that, in the first part, he aims at listing passages that are insightful in
themselves rather than only in relation to certain passages from
Aristotle’s treatises or Ibn Rushd’s explanations of them. The second
part, in contrast, contains passages that clarify the intention of Aristotle’s
texts and can be hence used for elucidating Ibn Rushd’s explanations of
them. The translations that are included in the second part are usually
attached to a short quotation taken from the Hebrew translations of Ibn
Rushd’s middle commentaries.

⁷ Samuel Ibn Tibbon (d. 1232) produced the Meteorology. For an edition of this work see
Resianne Fontaine, Otot ha-Shamayim: Samuel Ibn Tibbon’s Hebrew version of Aristotle’s
Meteorology (Leiden: Brill, 1995). Zerahya : ben Isaac (d. after 1291) translated the De generatione
et corruptione and the De anima. For the edition of the former, see Andrea Tessier, La traduzione
arabo-ebraica del De generatione et corruptione di Aristotele (Rome: Accademia nazionale dei
Lincei, 1984); for the latter, see Gerrit Bos (ed.). Aristotle’s De Anima Translated into Hebrew by
:
Zerahyah ben Isaac ben Shealtiel Hen

(Leiden: Brill, 1994).
⁸ These included the Posterior Analytics, the Physics, the Metaphysics, as well as the de anima,
which was translated from Latin.
⁹ On this, see also Steven Harvey, “On the Nature and Extent of Jewish Averroism: Renan’s
Averroès et l’averroïsme Revisited,” Jewish Studies Quarterly 7 (2000), 114.
¹⁰ The Hebrew translations of Ibn Rushd’s middle commentaries on the extended Organon
were carried out in three phases: The commentaries on Porphyry’s Isagoge, Categories, De
Interpretatione, and Prior and Posterior Analytics were carried out by Jacob Anatoli between
1230 and 1250; the commentaries on Topics and Sophistical Refutations by Qalonymos ben
Qalonymos by 1313; and Todrosi
himself completed this series by translating Ibn Rushd’s
commentaries on the Rhetoric and the Poetics by 1337. See the list and analysis in Gorgoni, La
traduction hébraïque du Commentaire Moyen, 60.
28     

This overall methodology is mentioned again both in the beginning

and at the end of the first part of the section on dialectic. Todrosi


introduces it as follows:

Our intention in this treatise, i.e., the Book of Dialectic (sefer ha-nis: s:uah),
:
is to collect the individual comments [lit: particulars of the intentions]
on the matters that we promised to collect in each of the treatises on
logic as a whole. We achieve our intention in this treatise in two parts,
according to the intention that we promised, God willing. Amen and
amen.¹¹

At the end of this first part, Todrosi

also mentions the treatises from
which he translates passages into Hebrew in order to include them in his
anthology. He concludes:

The translation is hereby completed of the individual comments [lit. of

the particulars of the intentions of the matters] from the books of the
commentator Abū Nas: r [al-Fārābī that are] in his explanation of the
Topics (beʾuro le-sefer ha-nis: s: uah)
: and his commentary on its eighth
book (perishato le-maʾamar ha-shemini mimeno), that we saw fit to
collect. The second part follows it, according to the intention that we
promised, God willing. Amen.¹²

Hence, in accord with the methodology outlined in his overall introduc-

tion, in the first part of the section dedicated to dialectic, Todrosi


translates passages from al-Fārābī’s Kitāb al-Jadal (here called beʾur
sefer ha-nis: s: uah)
: and his commentary on Topics book VIII (here called
perisha le-maʾamar ha-shemini).¹³ In the second part, Todrosi

explicitly

¹¹ MS British Library Add. 27559, 67r4–8.

¹² MS British Library Add. 27559, 75r15–20 (and 75v1–5, where it is repeated).
¹³ Al-Fārābī’s Kitāb al-Jadal has been edited most recently by Dominique Mallet in La
Dialectique Dans La Philosophie d’Abū Nas:r al-Fārābī, Ph.D. dissertation, vol. 2 (Université
Michel-de-Montaigne (Bordeaux 3), 1992), 19–198. Mauro Zonta, “Three New Fragments
of a Paraphrase of Aristotle’s Topics Ascribed to Themistius in Medieval Hebrew
Translation,” in J. Brumberg-Chaumont (ed.), Ad notitiam ignoti: L’Organon dans la
translatio studiorum à l’époque d’Albert le Grand (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013), 217–23, argues
that the section dealing with the Topics also includes three references to Themistius.
 -’      29

mentions only al-Fārābī’s second treatise, his commentary on Topics

book VIII. In accordance with his overall methodology, his translations
are, with a couple of exceptions, attached to short quotations from Ibn
Rushd’s Middle Commentary on the Topics, quoted in the Arabic-into-
Hebrew translation of Qalonymos ben Qalonymos of Arles (d. after
1328), which he composed in 1313, the year that Todrosi

was born.¹⁴
Adding up both parts of the section dedicated to dialectic (see Fig. 3.1),
the translations from al-Fārābī’s commentary on the eighth book of the
Topics amount to around 75 percent of the entire section on dialectic.
These translations are almost equally distributed over the two parts into
which Todrosi

divides the section.¹⁵ His Hebrew translations from al-
Fārābī’s Kitāb al-Jadal, which amount to only around 5 percent of the
section on dialectic, are all included in the section’s first part and mostly
comprise definitions and distinctions of technical terms.¹⁶ Finally, the
remaining roughly 20 percent can be considered lemmata taken from Ibn

Contrary to Zonta’s analysis, we understand the words he reads as a corruption of

Themistius’s name to be variations of the Aramaic expression de-saleq min, which can be
used in Talmudic literature and commentaries to refer to what has been concluded.
Moreover, on other occasions, Todrosi

renders Themistius’s name recognizably. For
Todrosi’s

use of Themistius in general, see Shalom Rosenberg and Charles H. Manekin,
“Themistius on Modal Logic: Excerpts from a Commentary on the Prior Analytics
Attributed to Themistius,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 11 (1988), 83–103, and
by the same authors “Japheth in the Tents of Shem: Themistius’ Commentary on the
Analytica Prioria” (Heb.), Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought 9 (1990), 267–74.
¹⁴ Moritz Steinschneider, Die Hebräischen Übersetzungen des Mittelalters und die Juden
als Dolmetscher (Berlin: Kommissionsverlag des Bibliographischen Bureaus, 1893), 62. For
the sake of context, all the lemmata from Ibn Rushd’s middle commentary are identified,
edited, and translated. On one occasion, in Fragments XXVII [31₂], the translation is
lacking an introductory lemma from Ibn Rushd’s middle commentary and picks up a
theme from the previous comment. All the translations that are found in Todrosi’s

second
part are meant to elucidate sections from the third part of Ibn Rushd’s commentary, which
is introduced by the lemma “The account on part three, according to our arrangement,
containing book eight of Aristotle’s treatise,” MS British Library Add. 27559, 85v11. This
refers to the beginning of the third part of Ibn Rushd’s Middle Commentary on the Topics.
On this, see the discussion in Fragment III [20₂], note 44. As opposed to what is indicated
by Zonta, “Fonti antiche e medievali,” 559, this is not a third part in Todrosi’s

section on
the Topics, but the beginning of the third part of Ibn Rushd’s paraphrase (dealing with
Topics VIII) which still belongs to Todrosi’s

second part.
¹⁵ Fragments [1]–[19] belong to the first part, while Fragments [20]–[33] belong to the
second.
¹⁶ The passages Todrosi

includes from al-Fārābī’s Kitāb al-Jadal are listed in Zonta, “Fonti
antiche e medievali,” 557–8 and edited by Yehuda Halper and Gadi Weber on the website of
Modular Hebrew Digitally Rendered Texts (Mahadurot, found on www.mahadurot.com, con-
sulted in August 2021).
30     

Al-Fārābī’s Commentary on Topics VIII

Al-Fārābī’s Kitāb al-Jadal
Todrosi’s
. comments (incl. lemmata from Ibn Rushd's middle commentary)

Fig. 3.1 The section on Dialectic in Todros

Todrosi’s

Philosophical
Anthology

Rushd’s middle commentary and Todrosi’s

own attempts to explain
them, and are all found in the section’s second part. Todrosi’s

mostly
very short explanations are either commenting on passages from the
second part of Ibn Rushd’s middle commentary (dealing with the mater-
ial of Topics II–VII) or on its third part (dealing with the material of
Topics VIII).¹⁷ Todrosi’s

own scholarly notes identify references to
Aristotle’s texts or discuss problems related to Ibn Rushd’s text and
Qalonymos’ translation of it.¹⁸ On one occasion, Todrosi

also reports a

¹⁷ These mostly short explanations are (i) 87v18–19, (ii) 88r11–90v7, (iii) 91r16–20, and (iv)
91v5–93v15. According to Zonta, “About Todros Todrosi’s Medieval Hebrew Translation,” 43,
“these quotations might have been taken either from the complete, more detailed Long
Commentary on that part of the Topics, or even from the shorter ‘gloss-commentary.’ ” Zonta,
who in the quotation even refers to a broader section, namely 88v1–93v14, bases his claim partly
on the fact that Todrosi

closes the entire section with a reference to al-Fārābī on fol. 93v15–17.
In our view, this is not decisive, because Todrosi

could also refer to the entire section of the
Topics in which he draws on al-Fārābī’s work. Since Todrosi

does not mention al-Fārābī’s name
in his usual manner, we consider these explanatory notes to be Todrosi’s.


¹⁸ For the former, see Fragment XXI [16₁] and for the latter, Fragment XV [28₂]. In this
instance, Todrosi

uses al-Fārābī’s commentary to fill a lacuna in Ibn Rushd’s text. The comment
appears as part of the edition as it is necessary to understand the reference to al-Fārābī’s
commentary. Similarly, in Fragment XVII [29₂], the context in which al-Fārābī’s commentary
appears is a problem in Qalonymos’ translation (possibly based on a problem in the Arabic from
which it is translated).
 -’      31

gloss found in the margins of the manuscript from which he was

translating al-Fārābī’s commentary.¹⁹

c. Al-Fārābī’s Commentary on the Eighth Book

of Aristotle’s Topics

When Todrosi

names the treatise whose fragments are presented in this
article, he uses the expressions “long commentary”²⁰ (ha-perisha ha-
arukka), simply “commentary”²¹ (perisha), or, in one case, “the eighth
book of Abū Nasr’s: commentary on the Topics”²² (ha-maʾamar ha-shemini
le-perishat Abū Nasr: le-sefer ha-nis:sua
: h).
: There does not seem to be good
reason to doubt that all of these expressions refer to a literal commentary,
as Todrosi

uses them to refer to such texts on other occasions.²³
The lists of al-Fārābī’s treatises provided in the bio-bibliographical
literature include two possible candidates for the source text of Todrosi’s


translations: (i) Commentary on the Second and Eighth Book of Aristotle’s
Topics, and (ii) Topics taken from the Eighth Book on Dialectic.²⁴ In a
preliminary study of the material that is presented in this article, Mauro
Zonta argued that Todrosi

may have translated from both of these
treatises by al-Fārābī. In support of this thesis, he intimates that Todrosi


refers to the second treatise listed above, at the end of the second part of
his section on the Topics,²⁵ where Todrosi

writes as follows:

¹⁹ See Fragment XIII [25₂] and the discussion in Alexander Lamprakis and Daniel Davies,
“Delineating Dialectic: The Perfect Philosopher in al-Fārābī’s Commentary on Topics VIII 1,”
Studia Graeco-Arabica 11 (2021), 23.
²⁰ This expression appears in Fragments III [20₂], IX [21₂], XI [23₂], and XXI [16₁].
²¹ This expression appears in Fragments I [1₁], II [2₁], IV [15₁], V [3₁], XIII [25₂], XVII [29₂],
XXVI [30₂], XXVII [31₂], XXIX [17₁], XXXI [33₂], and XXXIII [19₁].
²² This expression appears at the beginning of Fragment V [3₁].
²³ Todrosi

also uses the term ‘commentary’ (perisha) to refer to al-Fārābī’s literal commen-
tary on Aristotle’s De Interpretatione in MS British Library Add. 27559, 1v14 and to Ibn Rushd’s
long commentary on Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics on fol. 23r22.
²⁴ For the latest survey of the bio-bibliographical literature see Mallet, La dialectique dans la
philosophie d’Abū Nas: r al-Fārābī, vol. 1, 30–1. The Arabic of these two titles is (i) Sharh: al-
maqāla al-thāniya wa-l-thāmina min kitāb al-jadal li-Arist:ūt:ālīs and (ii) Kitāb al-mawādiʿ : al-
muntazaʿa mina l-maqāla al-thāmina fī l-jadal.
²⁵ Zonta, “About Todros Todrosi’s Medieval Hebrew Translation,” 37, and 43: “These
quotations [i.e., 29–34, authors] might have been taken either from the complete, more detailed
Long Commentary on that part of the Topics, or even from the shorter ‘gloss-commentary.’ The
latter hypothesis might be suggested by what Todros Todrosi states at the end of these
quotations, where he concludes the third section of his work on the Topics ( . . . ).”
32     

Here, the translation of the grains of the most important sayings

(gargarey roʾsh amir amirot) of the commentator Abū Nas: r from the
eighth book of his commentary on Aristotle’s Topics has been
completed.²⁶

The implication is that “the grains of the most important sayings”

amounts to a treatise that Zonta calls a shorter “gloss-commentary,”
and which corresponds to the above-mentioned second title. It seems
more likely, however, that Todrosi

is using this expression to summarize
his own practice of selecting what he considered to be the most import-
ant passages. This claim is supported by how he describes his enterprise
in the introduction to the logic of his anthology, when he explains that he
aims “to compile and copy what is new and most useful in these lengthy
books.”²⁷ It is also indicated by the fact that Todrosi

uses the same
expression in other places, such as in the section dedicated to
Porphyry’s Isagoge, prior to a translation from Avicenna’s Kitāb al-
Madkhal.²⁸ In light of Todrosi’s

explicit references to a literal commen-
tary and the fact that the fragments gathered in this article display the
characteristics of such a work, all of them can be therefore confidently
identified as stemming from al-Fārābī’s literal commentary on the eighth
book of Aristotle’s Topics.
There are nonetheless two qualifications that have to be made: Firstly,
the bio-bibliographical literature mentions al-Fārābī’s commentary on
the final book of the Topics together with a commentary on its second
book, but none of the fragments in Todrosi’s

Philosophical Anthology
appear to come from a commentary on that book, nor are such frag-
ments yet identified in other treatises. Secondly, all of the fragments
included in the Philosophical Anthology appear to belong either to a
general introduction to the final book of the Topics or to its first four
chapters, that is, to roughly only a third of its entire content (i.e., from

²⁶ MS British Library Add. 27559, 93v15–17, tr. Zonta, in “About Todros Todrosi’s Medieval
Hebrew Translation,” 43, slightly modified.
²⁷ MS British Library Add. 27559, 1r8–9, trans. Harvey and Horezky, “Averroes ex
Averroe,” 14.
²⁸ MS British Library Add. 27559, 2r18, where he uses the expression “the grains of the fruit
of the most important sayings.”
 -’      33

Top. VIII 1, 155b3 to ca. VIII 4, 159a24), while Todrosi’s

section on
dialectic seemingly attempts to cover Ibn Rushd’s middle commentary in
its entirety.²⁹ Therefore, one needs to bear in mind that al-Fārābī’s
commentary may itself have covered only a part of Topics VIII, that it
could have covered more but reached Todrosi
only partially, or that
Todrosi

might have neglected a significant amount of it when consulting
it for his Philosophical Anthology.
The style of Todrosi’s

translation appears to confirm statements of
previous studies that he is generally following the terminology and
methodology of the Ibn Tibbon family, the famous Provençal translators
of Arabic texts, as he himself states in the introduction to his translation
of Ibn Rushd’s Middle Commentary on the Rhetoric.³⁰ Accordingly, his
translations are characterized by a relatively high degree of literalism that
contributes to the impression of what is termed “Arabicized Hebrew,”
which became a part of Hebrew literature in the wake of the Arabic-into-
Hebrew translation movement of the time.³¹ In the absence of the Arabic
source text, further conclusions about the translation style displayed in
these fragments must be tentatively drawn. Nevertheless, observations
made on the basis of Todrosi’s

translations of other works were taken
into account in the English translation. Such observations include evi-
dence that, for example, despite his literal style, Todrosi

also sometimes
uses a single Hebrew word for multiple Arabic terms, as Gabriella
Elgrably-Berzin has shown for his translations from Avicenna’s Kitāb
al-Najāt, or different Hebrew terms for a single Arabic word.³²
Additionally, to the extent possible, Todrosi’s

translations of related

²⁹ The final lemma of the section on dialectic is Ibn Rushd, Middle Commentary on the
Topics, 248.4–5: ( . . . ) min annahu naqīd: fiʿl muʾallif al-qiyās. For the Hebrew, see Par. BnF, héb.
932, 99v18 (which has ha-yoter for soter) and Mün. BSB, Cod. Hebr. 26, 402v2–3. The last
explicit mention of al-Fārābī appears on fol. 91v5 (Fragment XXXI [33₂]), two folios before
Todrosi’s

section on dialectic ends.
³⁰ On his introduction, see Gorgoni, La traduction hébraïque, 68. For the Ibn Tibbon family,
see James T. Robinson, “The Ibn Tibbon Family: A Dynasty of Translators in Medieval
‘Provence,’ ” in J. M. Harris (ed.), Beʾerot Yitzhak: Studies in Memory of Isadore Twersky
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005), 193–224.
³¹ Elgrably-Berzin, Avicenna in Medieval Hebrew Translation, 99 notes Todrosi’s
literalism
in his translations of Avicenna, even characterizing his work as “subservient to the original
Arabic.”
³² Elgraby-Berzin lists a number of such cases in Todrosi’s

translation of Avicenna’s Kitāb al-
Najāt in Avicenna in Medieval Hebrew Translation, 127–30.
34     

texts were also consulted and, together with evidence from al-Fārābī’s
wider corpus, contribute to reconstructing the Arabic terminology found
in the glossary. The accompanying English translation aims primarily at
communicating the content. The structure of the Hebrew and Todrosi’s
style are therefore not preserved in cases in which they would hinder
readability and intelligibility.

d. Presentation and Order of the Fragments

The aim of this article lies in gathering and presenting the extant
fragments of al-Fārābī’s commentary on Topics book VIII. Todrosi’s

translations are therefore enumerated in the order in which they relate
to Aristotle’s text. This order is reconstructed on the basis of textual
references to Aristotle’s Topics or of a correspondence between the
contents of the primary text and al-Fārābī’s commentary. The order in
which they appear in Todrosi’s

section on dialectic is indicated by
bracketed Arabic numerals, the subscript indicating whether they are
found in the section’s first or second part.
The introductory lemmata from Ibn Rushd’s Middle Commentary on
the Topics are identified on the basis of the Arabic edition by Charles
E. Butterworth and Ahmad: ʿAbd al-Majīd Harīdī and two of the extant
manuscripts of Qalonymos ben Qalonymos’ Hebrew translation.³³ In all
cases, the criterion for identifying fragments of al-Fārābī’s commentary
is an explicit mention of his name either at the beginning or end of the
translated passage (or sometimes both) and the consideration that the
passage is not taken from his Kitāb al-Jadal.³⁴ All fragments included in
this article are considered to be authentic, given the stylistic similarity to
other extant commentaries by al-Fārābī, the terminological and doctrinal
harmony with other of his extant treatises, and the typically Farabian

³³ These two manuscripts are Paris, BnF, héb. 932 and München, BSB, Cod. Hebr. 26.
³⁴ Applying this method, we do not consider some of the passages that Zonta, “About Todros
Todrosi’s Medieval Hebrew Translation,” 42–3 previously identified as parts of the commentary
to be derived from al-Fārābī. These are (i) 87v18–19, (ii) 88r11–90v7, (iii) 91r16–20, and
(iv) 91v5–93v15. We assume that they are Todrosi’s

own explanations, but more research is
needed on this question.
 -’      35

themes that are found in most of them. Together with presenting these
fragments, we hope this article will also contribute to the growing
appreciation and increasing understanding of Todros

Todrosi

as a trans-
lator of Arabic philosophy.³⁵

Bar Ilan University

Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München /
Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg

³⁵ For many helpful comments and suggestions, as well as for constant encouragement, we
would like to express our gratitude first and foremost to Steven Harvey. For helpful comments
and suggestions, we would like to thank Peter Adamson, Francesca Gorgoni, Oded Horezky,
Yoav Meyrav, and two anonymous reviewers. We would also like to thank Yehuda Halper and
Charles H. Manekin for inviting us to present a paper related to this research at the IIAS
Research Group Conference Aristotelian Logic in Medieval Jewish Culture, Reception and
Impact, June 2–4, 2019 at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Bar-Ilan University in
Ramat Gan, Tel Aviv. For carefully proofreading the manuscript, we would like to thank
Nicolas Payen and Sarah Virgi.
 ‫‪36     ‬‬

‫‪2. Edition of the Text³⁶‬‬

‫]פתיחה לטוביקה ח[‬

‫קטע א ]‪ [11‬פתיחה לטוביקה ח )‪1(67:1–23‬‬

‫‪5‬‬ ‫]‪67‬ב[ אמר אבונצר‪ :‬הנצוח הוא ההלצה אשר יכוון בה בטול מונח או קיומו או שמירתו‪.‬‬
‫וההלצה אמנם תסודר בשני דברים‪ :‬אחד מהם בענינים אשר יעשו בהלצה והשני באיכות‬
‫העשות אותם הענינים והסדרתם במקומותיהם‪ .‬והענינים אשר ]‪ [5‬יעשו הם דומים לחמרים‬
‫והחלקים‪ ,‬ואיכות העשותם והסדרתם דומה לצורה‪.‬‬
‫והמאמרים השבעה מזה הספר יכללו על שהם הצעות ודומים לחמרים אל ההלצה הנצוחית‪.‬‬
‫וכבר נמנו על שהם מוכנים לכשתהיה בהם ההלצה הנצוחית מבלתי שיודע איך יעשו בהלצה‪10 ,‬‬
‫ואנה יסודר אחד אחד מהם‪ ,‬ועם אי זו הלצה יעשה כל אחד מהם‪.‬‬
‫]‪ [10‬ואשר יעשו בזאת ההלצה הוא ההקש והחפוש והקדמות ההקש והחפוש‪ .‬והם המקומות‬
‫שבהם יהיו ההקדמות‪ ,‬כי המקומות הם אם ההקדמות ואם הגבולים האמצעיים‪ .‬ואלו‪ ,‬ר׳׳ל‬
‫הגבולים האמצעיים וחלקי ההקדמות‪ ,‬לא ימנעו שיהיו אם סוגים או גדרים או סגולות או‬
‫מקרים ומה שירוץ מרוצת כל אחד מהם‪ .‬ואלו לא ימנע כל אחד ]‪ [15‬מהם מאשר יהיו בקצת ‪15‬‬
‫המאמרות העשרה‪ .‬הנה אם כן ההלצה הנצוחית‪ ,‬חמריה וחלקיה‪ ,‬קצת אלו אשר מנינו אותם‪.‬‬
‫ואולם הכלים אשר נזכרו במאמר הראשון‪ ,‬הנה הוא מבואר שאין אחד מהם חלק הלצה ולא‬
‫נעשה בהלצה‪ .‬ואמנם הם כלים יגיעו בהם מוכנים בהלצה הנושאים והחלקים‪ .‬ובכלל‪ ,‬דברים‬
‫אשר הם מוכנים לשיעשו ]‪ [20‬בהלצה הנצוחית דרכם שיקדם המאמר בם‪ .‬עוד אחרי כן יודיע‬
‫איך העשות אותם ואיך הסדרתם עד שתגיע מהם ומאיכות העשותם ההלצה הנצוחית‪ .‬וזה ‪20‬‬
‫בשמיני מזה הספר‪ ,‬ולזה היה אותו המאמר אחרון זה הספר‪ .‬כה אמר אבונצר בפרישתו‪.‬‬
‫קטע ב ]‪ [12‬פתיחה לטוביקה ח )‪(67:23–68.15‬‬
‫הנה אין ראוי ]‪68‬א[ שתהיה ההלצה הנצוחית איך שהזדמנה ובאי זה דבר הזדמן‪ ,‬אבל יצטרך‬
‫האדם שיפנה בה מול הפעלות אשר יכוון בה ההתגברות‪ .‬וזה כמו הנהגת הצבא‪ ,‬כי מנהיג‬

‫‪³⁶ The edition is based on the single MS British Library Add. 27559. Throughout the manuscript,‬‬
‫‪there are marginal notes, and interlinear corrections. These corrections seem to have been made by‬‬
‫‪two different scribes, as one set of notes appears in a darker ink and different hand-writing. The other‬‬
‫‪set are corrections made to his own work by the scribe who copied the manuscript. Given that both‬‬
‫‪the scribe and the second hand may have consulted other manuscripts, their corrections and‬‬
‫‪comments are listed in the edition’s apparatus, although they may not always report variant readings.‬‬
‫‪Some of the deletions are indicated in the manuscript by crossings out and some simply by a line‬‬
‫‪above or below a word. Of the latter kind, it is not always certain that one of them should be deleted.‬‬
‫‪Uncertain readings are indicated by a question mark. The sigla that are used are as follows: T = text of‬‬
‫= ‪the MS BL Add. 27559; corr.¹ = corrections that are likely made by the manuscript’s scribe; corr.²‬‬
‫‪corrections that are likely made by a second hand. A period between the folio and the line number‬‬
‫‪(“.”) indicates the recto side of the folio, and a colon (“:”) its verso side. Triangular brackets (< . . . >) are‬‬
‫‪used for indicating that the text should be amended. The orthography of the Hebrew is reproduced as‬‬
‫‪faithfully as possible and has not been adjusted to standard Hebrew.‬‬
‫‪ 21‬אותו ‪ [ corr.²‬לית ‪T‬‬
 ‫‪-’     ‬‬ ‫‪37‬‬

‫הצבא‪ ,‬כמו שהוא ראוי שידע מי הוא אשר ילחם עמו‪ ,‬ועל אי זה מדינה יכוין התגברותה‪ ,‬ובאי‬
‫זה כלי זין נשק וצבא ]‪ [5‬ילחם‪ ,‬ויצטרך שידע גם כן מהמלך שילחם עמו איך שמירתו ומנהגו‬
‫ויכלת צבאו‪ ,‬החזק הוא הרפה‪ ,‬והמדינה שיכוין לכבשה‪ ,‬הבמחנים אם במבצרים‪ ,‬וידע נשק‬
‫הצבא וכלי זיינם עליהם‪ .‬כן ההלצה הנצוחית ראוי שידע השואל מהמשיב אי זה איש הוא‪ .‬כי מן‬
‫המשיבים מי שהוא בוטח נפשו בעצמו‪ ,‬ומהם מי שהוא מספק בעצמו בכל דבר‪ [10] .‬ומהם מי ‪5‬‬
‫שהוא זך השכל‪ ,‬מהיר ההבנה‪ ,‬ישקיף המתחיב במהירות‪ ,‬ומהם מי שהוא בושש ומתוני‪ .‬ומהם‬
‫בעל התנועה ומהם הבקיא‪ .‬וכמו כן יצטרך לשואל שידע המונח שיכוין בטולו כי מהם קלי‬
‫הבטול ומהם קשי הבטול‪ .‬וכמו כן ראוי שידע באי זה דבר יבטלהו אם בהקש ואם בחפוש‪.‬‬
‫ויצטרך שידע השואל עם זה באי זה דבר ישמור המשיב ]‪ [15‬מונחו ואיך תהיה השמירה‪ .‬כה‬
‫‪10‬‬ ‫אמר אבונצר בפרישתו‪.‬‬
‫קטע ג ]‪ [220‬פתיחה לטוביקה ח )‪(85:10–86.5‬‬
‫]‪” [10‬המאמר בחלק השלישי כפי סדורנו והוא אשר יכללהו המאמר השמיני מספר ארסטו‪“.‬‬
‫אמר טודרוס טודרוסי‪ ,‬אמר אבו נצר בפרישתו הארוכה לזה המאמר‪ :‬זה המאמר מדרגתו‬
‫שיהיה אחר כל מאמרי זה הספר‪ ,‬לפי שכל מה שקדם הוא הצעות ]‪ [15‬ונושאים למה שבזה‬
‫‪15‬‬ ‫המאמר‪ .‬כי מלאכת הנצוח כמו שקדם היא ההלצה אשר יכוין בה בטול מונח או קיומו‪.‬‬
‫וההלצה אמנם תחובר בשני דברים‪ .‬האחד בענינים אשר ישתמשו בם בהלצה‪ ,‬והם דומים‬
‫בחמרים והחלקים‪ .‬והשני איכות העשות אותם הענינים וסדורם במקומותיהם‪ ,‬והם דומים‬
‫בצורה‪ .‬והמאמרים הקודמים הם הצעות‪ [20] ,‬ודומים בחמרים להלצה הנצוחית‪ ,‬וזה המאמר‬
‫דומה לצורה‪.‬‬
‫]‪86‬א[ וזה המאמר יחלק לשני חלקים‪ .‬הראשון יבאר בו איך השאלה‪ ,‬ואיך יעשה השואל כל ‪20‬‬
‫מה שקדם ויסדרהו‪ ,‬עד שתחובר בו הלצת השואל‪ .‬והשני יבאר בו איך התשובה‪ ,‬ואיך יעשה מה‬
‫שקדם ויסדרהו‪ ,‬עד שתחובר בו הלצת המשיב‪ .‬ויחתום זה המאמר בצואה ]‪ [5‬משותפת לשואל‬
‫ולמשיב יחד‪.‬‬
‫קטע ד ]‪ [215‬פתיחה לטוביקה ח )‪(72.2–73.1‬‬
‫‪25‬‬ ‫ת‬ ‫ע‬ ‫י‬‫ד‬ ‫י‬ ‫ה‬‫נ‬ ‫ו‬‫ש‬ ‫א‬‫ר‬ ‫ש‬ ‫ו‬‫ר‬ ‫ד‬ ‫ת‬‫ש‬ ‫‪,‬‬‫ת‬‫י‬ ‫ח‬‫ו‬‫צ‬ ‫נ‬ ‫ה‬ ‫ה‬ ‫צ‬‫ל‬ ‫ה‬ ‫ה‬ ‫ל‬ ‫ע‬ ‫ת‬ ‫ל‬‫יחויב תחלה‪ ,‬כשתהיה מכוין שיהיה לך יכ‬
‫המקומות אשר מהם ילקחו הטענות על מונח מונח והם אשר קדם זכרם‪ .‬ושנית ]‪ [5‬שתדע איך‬
‫יוכנו אותם הדברים והמקומות להליץ בהם‪ ,‬ותדע עם זה אנה יונח כל אחד מהם בהלצה‪.‬‬
‫ושלישית‪ ,‬והוא הנשאר בכאן‪ ,‬שתדע איך תליץ לזולתך‪ ,‬ושהוא ראוי שתליץ לזולתך ]א[ בדברים‬
‫תגלם אליו ]ב[ ובדברים תקשט ותיפה הלצתך בהם ]ג[ ובדברים יעלם בהם למי שתליץ אליו‬
‫מכוונך עד שלא ישמר ויקבל ממך מה שתבקש ]‪ [10‬ממנו‪ .‬ולזה חויב להקדים המקומות ‪30‬‬
‫והדברים הנזכרים עם המקומות‪ .‬עוד אחרי כן‪ ,‬ידבר בסדור וידבר באיך יחויב שתהיה ההלצה‬

‫‪ 4‬השואל ‪ [ corr.¹‬השואל מהמשאיל ‪T‬‬

‫‪ 9‬ואיך תהיה השמירה ‪ [ corr.²‬לית ‪T‬‬
‫‪ 15‬כי ‪ [ corr.²‬לית ‪T‬‬
 ‫‪38     ‬‬

‫בדברים אשר ראוי להם שיסודרו בזה הסדור‪ .‬ויהיה מאמרו זה יכלול בו סדורי הדברים אשר‬
‫קים אותם בספרו זה‪ ,‬ובאר שהמקומות דרכם שיקדם סדורם‪ .‬עוד אחרי כן יודיע הכנתם נכח‬
‫ההלצה והסדרתם ]‪ [15‬ושלישית יודיע איך תליץ לזולתך‪.‬‬
‫וזה כלו דומה למה שעשאו בספר ההלצה‪ ,‬כי הוא שם הסדור וחבור הדברים אשר תהיה בהם‬
‫‪5‬‬ ‫ההלצה ההלציית בראשית ספרו‪ .‬ואיך ראוי שתהיה פתיחת ההלצה‪ ,‬או דבר אחר ממה שדרכו‬
‫שיליץ בו ההלצי‪ ,‬ובאי זה דבר ראוי שיחתום המאמר‪ ,‬ואיך ראוי שתהיה הפתיחה‪ ,‬ואיך הספור‬
‫]‪ [20‬ומה מדרגתו‪ ,‬וכמו אלו הדברים‪ ,‬באחרית ספרו‪.‬‬
‫ואולם הדברים אשר תהיה בהם ההלצה ההלצית בכלל הנה הוא השימם במאמר הראשון‬
‫ובשני‪ .‬וזה שהוא זכר ההמשל ומיניו‪ ,‬והסמן ומיניו‪ ,‬ומיני הדברים אשר תהיה בהם ההלצה‬
‫‪10‬‬ ‫ההלציית‪ ,‬והמקומות אשר ייחדו ]‪72‬ב[ מין מין מהם‪ ,‬והם אשר קראם המינים‪ ,‬והמקומות אשר‬
‫יכללו מיני הדברים אשר בהם תהיה ההלצה‪ ,‬והם אשר ייחד אותם בשם המקומות‪ ,‬ושאר מה‬
‫שדומה לזה‪ ,‬הנה הוא זכרו בשני המאמרים אשר לפני השלישי‪ .‬ואולם איך צד העשות כל אחד‬
‫]‪ [5‬מהם‪ ,‬ואיך ראוי שתהיה המליצה מכל אחד מהם‪ ,‬הנה זכרו בחלק הראשון מן המאמר‬
‫השלישי‪.‬‬
‫‪15‬‬ ‫וארצה באיכות העשותם כמו שאנחנו כאשר רצינו לנצל ליסטיס אחד‪ ,‬נחפוץ להושיעו‪ ,‬נמיר‬
‫מקום אמרנו ליסטיס שהוא מתחבל להקנות‪ ,‬ושבני אדם כבר יתחבלו למחיתם בפנים שונים‬
‫לפעמים יפל מקצתם נזק ]‪ [10‬על זולתם מבני אדם‪ .‬וכפי זה המשל‪ ,‬כשרצינו הפך זה ונחפוץ‬
‫להתרעם ממי שהפליג בשמירת דבר‪ ,‬יכוין אליו שלא נקראהו מפליג אבל נמיר אצל התרעומת‬
‫מקום המפליג המלסטיס או המעול‪.‬‬
‫‪20‬‬ ‫וכמו כן אצל השבח ואצל הגנות‪ ,‬כי כמו אלו הם איכות העשות הענינים‪ ,‬ותנצל מהם או בהם‬
‫או נתרעם מהם או בהם‪ [15] .‬כי הוא במאמר הראשון מההלצה אמנם זכר שתרעומת אמנם‬
‫יהיה מלסטיות ועול‪ ,‬וזכר מיני העול ולא יזכור איך העשות כל אחד מהם אצל התרעומת‪,‬‬
‫ואמנם איך העשות כל מה שקדם בשני המאמרים הראשון והשני‪ .‬וזכר סדור המאמרים‬
‫ההלציים‪ ,‬וסדור המקומות אשר ראוי שיסודר בם כל דבר‪ ,‬ואיך ההלצה ]‪ [20‬בהם‪ ,‬אם אצל‬
‫‪25‬‬ ‫השאלה והתשובה ורמיזת ההכלמה במאמר אצל המחלקת או אצל ) ‪ ( . . .‬אצל מי שיטה אוזן‬
‫לא למחלקת‪ .‬וזה הדרך דרך גם כן בספר הנצוח‪ .‬ואלה הדברים כיון לבארם במאמר אשר‬
‫השימו פתיחת המאמר השמיני מטוביקי‪73] .‬א[ כה אמר אבונצר בפרישתו‪.‬‬
‫קטע ה ]‪ [13‬פתיחה לטוביקה ח )‪(70.3–10‬‬
‫המאמר השמיני מפרישת אבונצר לספר הנצוח‪ [5] :‬מקומות ההגדרה לא אמנם יתכנו לנצוח‬
‫לבד‪ ,‬אבל ובפלוסופיה‪ .‬וככה מקומות החיובים כי הם מקומות מופתיים‪ .‬ואשר ייחס הנצוח הם ‪30‬‬
‫כמו מקומות ה’יותר ראוי‘ וה’יותר ראשון‘ ומקומות ה’הדמות‘ ומקומות ה’חסרון‘ וה’תוספת‘‬
‫וה’שמושים‘ וה’דמיונים‘‪ ,‬כי אלו אי אפשר שיעשו במופתים‪ .‬ויקראו כלם מקומות נצוחיים אחר‬
‫]‪ [10‬שהם כלם מוכנים לצד הנצוח‪ .‬כה אמר אבונצר בפרישתו‪.‬‬

‫‪ 1‬סדורי ‪ [ T‬מדרגות ‪corr.²‬‬

‫‪ 3‬יודיע ‪ [ corr.¹‬תודיע ‪T‬‬
‫‪ 6‬ראוי ‪ [ corr.¹‬ראוי שיאמר ‪T‬‬
‫‪ 6‬שיחתום ‪ [ corr.¹‬שיחתום בו ‪T‬‬
‫‪ 8‬אשר תהיה בהם ההלצה ההלצית ‪ [ corr.²‬אשר בהם ההלצה ההלצית תהיה ‪T‬‬
‫‪ 25‬אצל ‪ . . .‬אצל ‪lac‬‬
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railway grow mile by mile, and their interest in it was almost that of a
proprietor, but this was the first time they had ridden upon it for any
distance.[9] Most of the units halted for a day or two at Kantara, a
station with which they were familiar enough. Here the only subject
for comment seems to have been the remarkable number of gulls
that swarmed overhead at meal times. The mention of these birds
will remind many officers and men that the 42nd Division made very
useful contributions both to the knowledge of the fauna of the Sinai
Peninsula and to the supply of animals to the Cairo Zoo. Many
desert mice and rats, lizards and tortoises reached the Zoo alive,
and one rat was so exalted by the prospect of introduction to Cairo
society that it gave birth to a healthy litter while in the parcel post.
Insects of great interest and rarity, and of peculiarly local distribution,
were sent to the Ministry of Agriculture at Cairo twice a week for six
months; and species entirely new to science were discovered. A
battalion of the Lancashire Fusiliers, from the R.S.M. and the Cook-
Sergeant down to the sanitary men, took to collecting and nature
study with great ardour and much success.
Divisional Headquarters and the Signal From East to
Company arrived at Moascar on February 4. On West
the 6th, 7th, and 8th the various units (less the 2nd
Field Company, R.E., which proceeded direct by rail to Alexandria)
set out from Kantara on the two-days’ march to Moascar along the
new road by the side of the Canal. The change from the soft sand of
the desert to the hard road was a sore trial to the feet, and a big
proportion of the men limped rather than marched into Moascar. All
ranks now knew what most had suspected for some time, that the
Division was bound for France, and there was general enthusiasm.
The prospect of a change from the sand, the glaring sun, the
discomfort of intense heat, the monotony and isolation of the desert,
was hailed with joy by the majority. A number of officers and men
had not been home since September 1914, and knew that there was
little chance of home-leave while the Division remained with the
Egyptian Expeditionary Force. Yet there were some among those
who had been out longest upon whom the spell of the East had
fallen, and who were disappointed that, having accomplished so
much of the preparatory work, they, like Moses, could only see the
Promised Land from afar, and were not allowed to go forward into
Palestine.
While at Moascar the Division was inspected by Lieut.-General Sir
Charles Dobell, commanding the Eastern Force, and it also marched
past General Sir Archibald Murray, Commander-in-Chief of the
Egyptian Expeditionary Force. An event of even greater moment for
men who had been nearly twelve months in the desert was a week’s
visit from Miss Lena Ashwell’s Concert Party. The troops were
grateful and appreciative, and they showed it unmistakably.
FLASHES OF UNITS IN THE 42ND DIVISION.
 In view of the impending change every man now required serge
clothing, winter underclothing and service cap. The field-gun
batteries were established on a six-gun basis, and two artillery
brigades, the 210th and 211th, were formed out of the three existing
brigades of four-gun batteries. The 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Field
Companies, R.E., were re-numbered as the 427th, 428th, and 429th
Field Companies respectively. Many details left behind during the
advance across the desert rejoined the Division, as did also the R.A.
Base at Ballah, and the instructors and staff of the Divisional School
at Suez. This school had done most useful work, a large number of
officers and other ranks having been put through a series of short
courses, and much progress had been made in bombing and in the
use of the Light Trench Mortar, or Stokes Gun.
To the great disappointment of all ranks it was decided that the
A.S.C. should remain in the East, as a new 42nd Divisional Train had
been formed in England to join the Division on its arrival in France.
There was sincere regret on both sides at the severing of
comradeship. The Divisional Train left Kantara early in March to join
the 53rd Division, to which it was attached during the operations
against Gaza. On the formation of the 74th (Yeomanry) Division it
became the 74th Divisional Train, took part in all operations with that
Division in Palestine, went with it to France, and remained with it
until disembodied. The Divisional Squadron, now with the 53rd
Division, was engaged in the first and second battles of Gaza. Later,
it was attached in turn to the 60th and 52nd Divisions in Palestine
and Syria; it took part in the third Battle of Gaza, in numerous
skirmishes, outpost affrays, and pursuits, and shared in the honour
of the great campaign that brought Turkey to her knees.
Before the end of February all preparations had been completed,
and units had entrained for Alexandria. On March 2, 1917, the last
transport left the harbour, and, after two and a half years of service in
the Near East, the 42nd Division was at last on its way to the
Western Front.
 CHAPTER V
FRANCE
(March-August 1917)

The voyage westward across the Mediterranean was made under

conditions widely different from those of the outward journey of
September 1914, when “glory of youth glowed in the soul,” and the
glamour of the East and the call of the unknown had made their
appeal to adventurous spirits. Familiarity with war had destroyed
illusion and had robbed it of most of its romance. The Lancashire
Territorials had a very good idea of what to expect in France or
Flanders, and were prepared to face minor discomforts and worries
with the inevitable grousing which proclaims that all is well, and real
privations, perils, and horrors with steadfastness often masked by
levity. Though the Mediterranean was at that period infested by
enemy submarines, the vigilance of the British and French navies
proved a sure shield. One torpedo only was fired at the troopships,
and this passed between the log-line and the stern of the Megantic.
A call was made at Malta, and on March 1 the first transport
anchored in the magnificent harbour of Marseilles, and D.H.Q. at
once entrained for the North of France.
The railway journey of sixty hours to Pont Remy, near Abbéville,
will not be forgotten. Men who had at much cost become
acclimatized to the intense heat and dryness of the Sinai Desert,
were suddenly plunged into the opposite extreme of an arctic
climate. The winter of 1917 was one of the most prolonged and
severe on record, and throughout the tedious journey in French
troop-trains the men shivered and trembled with the bitter cold. But if
France greeted them freezingly there was no mistaking the warmth
of the welcome of her sons and daughters. Wherever the trains
stopped the inhabitants gathered round to cheer them on their way.
The news of the fall of Bagdad had preceded them, and the French
women and girls, old men and children, knew that these were
victorious British reinforcements from the East, and Bagdad and
Sinai were equally remote.
The troops detrained at Pont Remy in a storm of snow and sleet,
and marched through deep, freezing slush to the villages in which
billets had been prepared. After six months’ experience of open
bivouacs wherever the day’s trek ended, the barn billets were
something of a novelty. Reorganization and re-equipment were, of
course, the most urgent matters to be dealt with, and the refit was
carried out expeditiously. The short Lee-Enfield rifle displaced the
longer rifle with which the Division had been armed; and the issue of
two strange items, the “tin hat” and the box respirator, provoked
some hilarity. Baths, each capable of washing sixty men per hour,
were erected by the R.E., and henceforward the Division left its mark
in the shape of new or remodelled baths in every area in which it
was located. The Divisional Cinematograph and Canteen were also
inaugurated here. The last troops from Egypt, the 5th East
Lancashires and the 9th Manchesters, arrived on March 15. A new
Divisional Train joined from England. This train had already had
considerable experience of France, as it had been formed to join the
Lahore Division in September 1914. Motor ambulances were
supplied to the three Field Ambulances, and a complete train of
motor-lorries was attached to the Division. The 42nd Divisional
Ammunition Column was formed from a nucleus of the former
Brigade Ammunition Columns with the addition of a large draft from
the R.A. Base in France. A Heavy (9·45-inch) Trench Mortar Battery
and three Medium (6-inch) T.M. Batteries were also formed here,
and these became a part of the Divisional Artillery. Three Light T.M.
Batteries were attached to the Infantry Brigades.
On the arrival of the Division in France Major- General
General Sir William Douglas left for England in Douglas’s
order to give evidence before the Royal Farewell
Commission appointed to inquire into the Dardanelles Campaign.
Temporary command of the Division was taken over by Brig.-General
H. C. Frith, C.B. (125th Brigade), until the arrival of Major-General B.
R. Mitford, C.B., D.S.O., who assumed command about the middle
of March. Much regret was felt by officers and men that the general,
who had been responsible for the training and organization of the
Division in time of peace, and under whose leadership during two
and a half years of war it had served with distinction in two
campaigns and had “made good,” should be unable to lead them to
the gaining of fresh laurels on the most important of all fronts. They
had been fortunate in a commander who had ever taken a personal
interest in the welfare of all ranks under his command, and who had
identified himself with the Lancashire men and was jealous of their
good name. That General Douglas regarded his officers and men
with affection is clearly shown in his farewell message—

“In bidding the 42nd Division good-bye I wish to express my

heartfelt thanks to my Staff Officers, Commanders, and
Regimental Officers for their loyal and whole-hearted support
and superb work during the period of my command. My
admiration for the conduct, fighting qualities, grit, and
endurance of all ranks is profound. Never have I met a more
responsive, willing and lovable lot of men than these
Lancashire lads, and, to my last days, I shall remember with
affection and pride the three and three-quarter years that I
have had the honour to command them. I know how well you,
officers and men, will add to the great name you have already
earned for the Division, I wish you the best of good fortune
and a rich reward.”

Towards the end of March the Division moved to an area some ten
miles east of Amiens, D.H.Q. being established at Mericourt. The
42nd was now a veteran Division in war and in travel, but in the
trenches of France it was in the position of a new boy at a strange
school. It had learnt much in the old school, and the experience
would be useful. Each unit had a record and tradition of which it had
good reason to be proud, and the commanders knew that their
officers and men could be relied upon. Endurance and courage had
been severely tested, but the endurance required for slogging
through deep sand under a tropical sun was of a very different
nature from that which would now be demanded, and the intense
heat of the desert was a poor preparation for the bitter winds, the
snow, sleet and freezing mud of the trenches of France. Much had to
be learnt in the new school, and much unlearnt.
In Gallipoli the opposing trenches had often been only a few yards
apart, and rifle-fire had continued all day and increased in violence at
night. In that sector of the Western Front taken over by the Division
the recent withdrawal of the enemy had created a No Man’s Land,
which might be anything from 10 yards to 1000 in width, and
unaimed rifle-fire was uncommon. Here, too, patrolling was a matter
of nightly routine, whereas in Gallipoli more than an occasional patrol
had been impossible. Two of the most novel features were the gas
and the amount of H.E. shelling. It was the Division’s first experience
of gas, and on rare occasions only had it witnessed annihilating
shell-fire. Never before had any of the original members been in
billets, and they found them and their inhabitants a source of interest
and comfort. Some felt hurt that the bits of Arabic picked up in the
East were of no use here, and they resolutely refused to learn any
French. “I’ve learnt Gyppo, and I’m not going to bother with any more
foreign languages.” Imagine their delight when on leave in Amiens
they found that the paper-boys (who had come into contact with the
Australians) knew the meaning of “Imshi!” This word, being the
imperative of the Arabic verb “to walk,” did duty for “’op it!” Possibly
the most striking differences of all were that the Division got
reinforcements after suffering casualties, and was able to get back
into “rest” of a real kind after a trying time in the line.
The strength of the Division on April 1 was 727 officers and 16,689
other ranks.
Advance parties had been sent ahead of the New Experiences
Division, and now other parties of officers, N.C.O.s
and men were attached for short periods to battalions and units of
the 1st Division in the front line trenches that they might see and
understand the conditions of warfare on the Western Front, before
the Division should be called upon to take its place in the line that
stretched from the Belgian coast to Switzerland. The enemy’s
retirement from the Somme and the Ancre to the Hindenburg Line
had upset the plans of the Allies for a spring offensive. The recently-
vacated German trenches were visited, and the scenes of appalling
devastation, the shattered remains of what had once been
flourishing villages and farmsteads, gave the troops their first
impressions of France’s martyrdom, and filled them with indignation
and loathing. They had heard and read of the ruin and desolation in
Belgium and Northern France, but the half had not been told. The
wanton destruction of fruit-trees and the desecration of cemeteries
were acts dictated not by military necessity but by beastliness of
mind.
Throughout this preparatory period the troops were kept busily
employed upon the badly damaged roads, and—as occasional
opportunity offered—in the attempt to make the entente still more
cordiale. Feuillieres, Biaches, Herbecourt, Flaucourt, Dompierre, and
Peronne were visited by various units, and the sappers constructed
bridges to take heavy guns and lorry traffic over the Somme at Brie
and elsewhere. Not only had the enemy blown craters at most of the
cross-roads, but, east of Peronne, he had felled the trees that line
the main French roads, and these had to be removed. This work of
clearing up after the German retreat was of great importance, and
the Division gained an insight into conditions on the Western Front
as the troops approached the line. Where possible the ruins of farms
and houses, swarming with rats, were used as billets, but the road-
makers usually slept in cellars, dugouts, and holes. The wretched
weather continued and there was heavy snow in April. The horses,
so long accustomed to an eastern climate, suffered greatly and
began to deteriorate, some succumbing to pneumonia. The boots
which had been issued just before leaving Egypt were quite unsuited
to a bad winter in Northern France, and they fell to pieces quickly.
Each day a number of men had to remain in billets until new boots
could be obtained from Ordnance Stores. A number of officers and
men, however, refused to be worried by such insignificant details as
boots, for were they not going home for the first time since
September 1914? During the month batches of these veterans
departed for fourteen days amid the rousing cheers of their
comrades.
 At Peronne, where D.H.Q. was opened on April 14, every building
was badly damaged except the Town Hall, which was at once placed
out of bounds because of this immunity, as any place that appeared
to invite occupation was regarded with suspicion, owing to the typical
Boche habit of leaving delayed-action mines and other “booby-
traps.” Peronne Town Hall did not, however, go sky-high, as was
daily expected. In the village of Peiziere some officers of the 126th
Brigade took up their quarters in a house that had been left in good
condition. Fortunately one of them took the precaution to explore and
found a quantity of high explosive hidden under the beams. They
cleared out. Next day a shell dropped on the building and it
vanished. An R.A.M.C. orderly in the vicinity was lifted several feet in
the air by the force of the explosion. “Eh, that wur a near do!” he
said, as he picked himself up carefully and resumed his journey.
The Division now formed part of the 3rd Corps of the Fourth Army.
On the 8th of April the 125th Brigade took over a portion of the line
from the 48th Division at Epéhy, in front of Le Catelet, and a few
days later the 126th Brigade also went into the line, in order that as
many battalions as possible might have a short experience of front-
line conditions before the Division as a whole assumed responsibility
for a sector. The front here had become practically stationary, and as
neither side had a continuous trench system the connecting of posts
proceeded nightly, and patrolling and digging were the chief
diversions. The 7th Lancashire Fusiliers was the first battalion to go
into the line, which they advanced, after a sharp skirmish, to a copse
about half a mile ahead. They were relieved on April 12-13 by the
6th L.F., and during the relief Malassise Farm, in which were a
number of men of both battalions, was heavily shelled. The building
was destroyed, and the fall of the roof buried about fifty of these men
in the cellar. Though the shelling continued with great violence,
admirable courage was shown in extricating the buried men, and for
this the Military Medal was awarded to a private of each battalion.
The Division’s first trench raid on the Western Front was made by
the 4th East Lancashires at Epéhy. On April 28 the 126th Brigade
advanced their line successfully, but the 4th and 5th East
Lancashires suffered rather heavily.
 Throughout April the wintry weather continued, but the unfailing
spirit of the British soldier under depressing conditions is shown in
the following anecdote related by an officer of the 4th East
Lancashires: “The rain was pouring into my dugout, and the water
slowly rising, so to avoid a fit of the blues I went along the line to see
how the men were faring. A sentry was standing in mud half up to his
knees, his hands numbed and wet, and a stream of water ran from
his tin hat. By way of comparing notes I asked this pitiable spectacle
what he really felt like. ‘Like a flower in May, sir,’ was the cheerful
reply, and I was cured of the blues.”
On May 3 the Division took over from the 48th Division a sector in
the neighbourhood of Ronnsoy, south-east of Epéhy. As Brig.-
General Ormsby was engaged in marking out the new front line of
his Brigade near Catelet Copse, the enemy suddenly opened a
bombardment, and he was struck in the head by a piece of shell and
killed. General Ormsby had been in command of the Brigade for
more than twelve months, and during that period he had become
very popular with his men and had gained their respect and
admiration. Lieut.-Colonel H. C. Darlington, 5th Manchesters, once
more assumed temporary command until the arrival of Brig.-General
the Hon. A. M. Henley, who remained in command of the 127th
Brigade until the end of the war.
Two brigades were in the front line and one in reserve, with a
system of four-day reliefs. The long winter was over at last; summer
had arrived without any introduction by spring, and the weather was
now gloriously hot. There was a good deal of local fighting,
especially around Guillemont Farm, an enemy post which more than
one division had found by no means difficult to capture, but
exceedingly difficult to hold. Several night attacks were made by
companies and platoons, in one of which, on the night of May 6-7,
the 9th Manchesters established forward posts in the face of heavy
machine-gun fire, and Private A. Holden was awarded the Bar to the
M.M. for volunteering to bring in the wounded, and afterwards going
out into the open to make sure that none had been missed. He found
a wounded officer and helped to carry him 400 yards on a heavily
shelled road, and went out again to assist another injured man to
safety. He succeeded in this, but was himself wounded. The enemy
artillery was generally active, and on one occasion some men of the
126th Brigade were quite grateful to the German gunners. A heavy
shell, which fell among some ruined cottages, threw up a number of
gold and silver coins, dated a hundred years ago and evidently a
long-buried hoard.
On May 23 D.H.Q. moved to Ytres, about eight Epéhy and Ytres
miles north-west of Epéhy, the Division relieving the
20th Division on a newly-captured sector running from the Canal du
Nord, south-west of Havrincourt, to a point south of Villers Plouich,
through Trescault and Beaucamp; and here the Division remained
until July 8. This was a fairly quiet sector, and during the first few
weeks there was no event of any importance to vary the daily round
of digging, wiring, and strengthening the trench system and the
patrolling of No Man’s Land. Havrincourt Wood in the spring of 1917
remained a very beautiful spot amid the chaos of war. Though the
“hate” of the Boche was less demonstrative than in many sectors his
trench-mortars and machine-guns were generally busy at night, and
considerable annoyance was caused on the right of the line by a
trench-mortar which—so it was conjectured—was brought up every
night on a light railway, and taken back after a few shots had been
fired. At sunrise the clamour of the guns ceased and the birds at
once “took over,” the cuckoo being particularly active. Nightingales
were common here and in the copses in the line, and as they
seemed to regard machine-guns as rival vocalists, they would sing in
competition. The bell-like whistle of the black and yellow golden
oriole was often heard, and in the centre of the wood the war at
times seemed far enough away. The A.S.C. turned their hands to
hay-making, and helped to cut and harvest some acres of excellent
clover, rye, and lucerne. The 3rd Field Ambulance were more envied
by their fellows, as they harvested—for their own consumption—the
crop of a very prolific strawberry bed in the garden of the ruined villa
which they inhabited at Ruyalcourt.
A quartermaster of the 127th Brigade had chosen the ruins of a
farm at a cross-roads near Havrincourt Wood for his dump. He was
warned by the Town Major that this spot had probably been mined by
the enemy, and particularly warned not to make use of the cellar,
which was a likely place for a “booby-trap.” However, nothing
happened, and of course his men not only went into the cellar but
took planks and bricks therefrom to improve their quarters in the
rooms above. One evening the Q.M. returned from the line to find his
staff in a state of nervous collapse. As soon as he had prevailed
upon them to sit up and take a little nourishment they related this
painful story: The former owner, armed with documents and
accompanied by gendarmes and British Military Police, had visited
the old home, descended into the cellar, and dug up jars containing
jewellery, coins, and banknotes, within a few inches of the spot from
which the storemen had taken the planks. The butcher had even
held a candle to assist the search, and his reflections on “what might
have been,” as the jars of buried treasure were brought to light,
completely unnerved him, especially when the owner handed him a
couple of francs with thanks for the trouble he had so kindly taken.
For some time after this these storemen displayed a rabbit-like
tendency to burrow in any old corner, but luck was not with them.
One night when the Brigadier of the 127th Brigade was in the front
line the enemy put down a fierce bombardment of gas shells and
H.E. The night was dark, but calm and clear, and large working
parties were out wiring and digging. These came back “hell for
leather,” and General Henley found his passage through the trench
cut off by the crowds. Colonel Dobbin, deeming the scene unseemly
for a Brigadier, suggested a dash over the top. Unfortunately fresh
wire had just been put down, and, close to the support line where the
long-range shells were dropping, both fell heavily into a double
apron-fence. They extricated themselves painfully, leaving portions
of clothing and some blood on the wire, and eventually arrived,
“improperly dressed,” at Battalion Headquarters, to be met by the
adjutant with the tactless remark: “There has been a bit of a
bombardment, sir, but it doesn’t concern our front.” The Brigadier,
who limped for several days, suggested that his companion should
write a sketch of the episode under the title, “Young officers taking
their pleasures lightly.” Though the Colonel did not take advantage of
the suggestion, another officer did.
 Brig.-General H. C. Frith, C.B., returned to England in June to
assume command of a Home Service Brigade, and Brig.-General H.
Fargus, C.M.G., D.S.O., took command of the 125th Brigade until
the end of the war. General Frith was the last of the General Officers
who had served with the Division from the outbreak of war. For three
years he had commanded the Lancashire Fusilier Brigade, which
had become much attached to him, for he was quick to recognize
and give credit for good work, and he possessed a remarkable
memory for faces, invariably knowing each officer by name after the
first meeting. The 6th Manchesters learnt with regret that their
popular M.O., Captain A. H. Norris, M.C., who was home on leave,
had been retained by the War Office for duty at home. A better-
known and better-liked Medical Officer never served with any
battalion, and the regret was not confined to officers and men of the
battalion, for the sick and wounded of many units were grateful for
the energy, solicitude and complete disregard of self—and of red
tape—which he had displayed in looking after their comfort and
welfare in Egypt, Gallipoli, Sinai, and France.
On the 1st of June the order was received to The Front
advance the divisional front by about 300 yards, Advanced, June
the operation to be completed by 6 a.m. on the 1917
10th. The order indicated that strong opposition might be expected,
and details were left to the Brigadiers. The 126th Brigade on the right
adopted the orthodox method of sapping forward each night, making
a T-head at each sap to connect and form a continuous line later.
The expectations of opposition were realized. Photographs taken by
enemy planes brought heavy trench-mortar and machine-gun fire on
the working-parties, and serious casualties were inflicted. A position
near Femy Wood was occupied at night by the enemy, who were
thence able to harass the working-parties. On the evening of June
3rd Corporal A. Eastwood, 9th Manchesters, took a patrol of three
men to this point and lay down to await events. At 9.30 p.m. a
German patrol emerged from the wood. The corporal ordered his
men to hold their fire until the enemy were within thirty paces, when
they opened fire with good effect, and remained until 2.30 a.m.
covering the work and silencing a machine-gun and snipers. The
hard and rocky nature of the ground in this part of the line was a
further obstacle, but in spite of all difficulties good progress was
made, and the troops were complimented upon their work by the
Chief Engineer of the Corps. On the left, Brig.-General Henley,
profiting by the experience of the 126th Brigade, decided to complete
his part of the operation at one bound. On the night of the 8th-9th he
advanced his line the full distance, and all four battalions of the
127th Brigade began to dig in furiously. The covering party was in
position at 10.30 p.m., and digging began at 11 p.m. under the
supervision of the 427th Field Company, R.E. Before dawn twelve
outposts on a front of 1500 yards were linked up by a continuous
trench, and, leaving a skeleton garrison in the new trench, the
companies returned to their positions practically unharmed. The
finishing touches were added next night, and the new line was
completed by the stated hour. This good work was rewarded by a
Special Order of the Day from the Corps Commander.
The night patrolling in No Man’s Land furnished admirable
opportunities for testing and training officers and men. These patrols
appealed to many adventurous spirits, while others looked forward to
their first experience with natural apprehension. Many patrols were
therefore sent out with the primary object of giving the men
confidence and experience, and this policy was completely
successful. There was also a considerable amount of sniping,
especially in the vicinity of Havrincourt Wood, where German snipers
for a time had the advantage and made the most of their
opportunities. They were, however, beaten at the game by Sergeant
Durrans, 6th L.F., who on June 14 crept 450 yards into the long
grass in No Man’s Land and patiently bided his time. When the
snipers disclosed their positions by firing he gave a fine display of
marksmanship for two and a half hours and picked off half a dozen
of them. He was wounded in the right knee.
On the night of June 12 an officer of the 5th Manchesters, who
were then holding the “Slag Heap,” was detailed to reconnoitre
Wigan Copse, in No Man’s Land, examine the wire—concealed by
the long grass—and find the gaps. He led a party of six men to the
copse, but could find no gaps, the wire being apparently uninjured.
He crawled round it to the back of the copse, and eventually
discovered an opening through which he crept, accompanied by a
corporal, the rest of the party being posted outside. A narrow trench
and some rough shelters were located, but there was no sign of life
until the officer, desiring to take back a souvenir of his visit, disturbed
a pile of stick-bombs. A tarpaulin then moved and a voice challenged
them. The officer fired several shots with his revolver, and yells
indicated that at least one of the Germans had been hit. The fire was
returned, and in a moment the wood seemed alive with the enemy.
As the exit was too close to the German front line for comfort the
patrol crept away and lay in the long grass until the noise died down,
when they withdrew untouched. On the following afternoon the
enemy guns registered on the copse, and in the evening bombarded
the British line and put down a box-barrage, under cover of which a
company of the enemy charged the copse, yelling “Hands up, the
English!” They suffered severely from rifle and Lewis-gun fire.
Information was obtained later from prisoners that the garrison of the
copse had been so scared by the sudden appearance of Englishmen
in the wood that they had bolted, and had reported that the British
were in possession of the post. Hence the elaborate counter-attack
of the empty copse.
In the afternoon of June 22 a particularly daring raid was carried
out by Sergeant J. Sugden (later Lieutenant) of the 10th
Manchesters. Annoyance had been caused by a small trench-mortar,
and as it was suspected that this was fired from a derelict elephant
hut a few hundred yards from our most forward post, Sugden—a
born scout—resolved to make sure. He found that there was a sentry
guarding a dug-out near to the elephant hut, and that the man
seemed inclined to take his duties easily. Returning, he chose two
companions, whom he posted on a flank, while he crawled
unobserved to within a few yards of the dug-out. He then quietly
informed the sentry, in fluent German, that he was covered, and that
he would be shot if he showed the slightest hesitation in obeying
orders. He showed none, so Sugden ordered the other occupants of
the post to come out with their hands up. At first they seemed
inclined to dispute the matter, until told that they were surrounded
and that unless they obeyed promptly they would quickly find
themselves blown into a region even lower than their dugout. The
threat had its effect; they meekly obeyed, and Sugden had the
satisfaction of bringing four very sullen Germans, carrying a trench-
mortar, across No Man’s Land in broad daylight. The Corps
Commander sent a complimentary letter to the Battalion Commander
praising the initiative and the aggressive tactics of his men, and
congratulated Sugden personally, and also gave him special leave
for fourteen days.
At the end of June the 7th Manchesters were Night Patrols and
instructed to supply a party to raid Wigan Copse Raids
and bring back three prisoners. Lieutenant A.
Hodge (later Lieut.-Colonel, commanding 1/8th Manchesters), who
was chosen to carry out the raid, gave his men some realistic
preliminary training. At 11 p.m. on July 3 the guns opened on the
enemy’s lines behind the copse, and Hodge’s platoon, after a crawl
of more than half an hour, rushed the copse. Its occupants tried to
bolt, but the box-barrage hemmed them in and they had to choose
between fighting and surrender. One young German, who had been
lying in the grass on outpost duty, was so scared that in his fright he
rose and attached himself to the Manchesters, until Hodge took him
by the scruff of the neck and flung him to the man behind. But no
one wanted the Boche, so he was flung from one to another until
finally one of the covering party held him captive. After five minutes’
rough-and-tumble, in which none of the 7th was hurt, though a
number of the enemy had been bayonetted, or shot by the officer’s
revolver, Hodge returned with the three prisoners indented for. It had
been a model raid.
On the 8th of July the Division was relieved by the 58th Division,
with the exception of the artillery, which remained in the line with the
58th Division, and later with the 9th Division, at Havrincourt Wood
until the end of August, when they rejoined their own Division in
Belgium. The artillery’s periods of “rest” were infrequent and
uncertain. Whenever the divisional infantry was relieved the guns
would remain in the line for a time, attached to the relieving Division.
From the artillery point of view the work at Havrincourt consisted
mainly of concentrated fire at night on back areas of the enemy line
and in artillery duels. Corporal Charles Gee, “B” Battery, 210th
Brigade, twice won distinction during this period. On July 22, near
Hermies, a hostile shell set a gun-pit on fire, and Gee, with
Bombardier W. Pate, disregarding the explosions, succeeded in
covering the burning material with earth, and so saved a
considerable amount of ammunition. On August 13, during a heavy
bombardment of the battery position, a shell burst in a dugout
occupied by one man, blowing off one of his legs. Accompanied by
Gunner W. Armitstead, Gee went to the injured man’s assistance,
and while they were removing the debris a shell burst near and
knocked both over. They managed to extricate the man, bandage his
wounds, and convey him to safety, being all the time under heavy
fire and suffering from fumes.
The Ytres sector was looked back upon as a “bon” front by
comparison with others with which acquaintance was made later.
Here the Divisional Concert Party, which afterwards achieved fame
under the title of “Th’ Lads,” was first organized. “Th’ Lads” soon
became a feature which the Division could ill have spared, and the
delightful entertainments given under the fine trees of Little Wood
are recalled with genuine pleasure.
From July 9 to August 22 the Divisional Headquarters were in the
Third Army reserve area at Achiet-le-Petit, where the 127th Brigade
was stationed, with the 125th Brigade at Gomiecourt and the 126th
at Courcelles. This area, which was visited by the King on July 12-
13, had been wholly devastated. What had once been a village was
now a heap of broken bricks and rubble; a few stark walls standing
grimly against the skyline and a name painted in bold black lettering
on a white ground informed the passer-by what village had once
stood here. The fields were scarred with trenches and shell holes,
and all the indescribable debris of an abandoned battlefield was
spread around. Most of the troops were under canvas, but as there
were not enough tents for all a number had to live in little “shacks”
made of odd bits of corrugated iron and any other scrap material
available. The fine weather continued and the six weeks in this area
partook of the nature of a holiday, though the days were fully taken
up by intensive training, special attention being paid to training in
attacks upon fortified posts and strong points. Instructional visits
were made to the scarred battlefields of the Somme, Brig.-General
Henley taking a number of his officers to Thiepval and giving his
personal experiences of the fighting there. The various training
stunts—battalion, brigade, and divisional—enabled the troops to gain
a thorough knowledge of the ground in this area, and this familiarity
with the topography stood them in good stead when seven months
later they were called upon to withstand the German onrush on this
very ground. Time was found for divisional and brigade sports, inter-
battalion football and cricket matches, boxing contests in the large
crater at Achiet-le-Petit; and the visits of “Th’ Lads” to the Brigade
Headquarters were keenly appreciated. There had never been such
a time for sports as this, and it was hard to realize that “there was a
war on.” Newly-painted vehicles, perfectly turned-out animals, bands
playing, troops spick-and-span, all combined to lend a gala aspect to
this period.
On August 22 the period of rest came to an end, and the Division
entrained for the most detested of all fronts—Ypres.