Resonet Vox Fidelis: Scribal Colophons and Ecclesiastical Reform in Medieval Iberia

ABSTRACT

A remarkable number of early medieval manuscripts produced in the Iberian Peninsula preserve scribal colophons recounting the circumstances of their production and naming their makers. Because of their highly unusual level of detail, these statements offer invaluable evidence to understand the individuals and communities who produced them, as well as the broader religious and cultural environment in which they originated. Focusing on the corpora of the Beatus manuscripts and Iberian Latin Bibles, this article considers patterns of colophon use amongst Christian monastic communities in the north-central and western regions of Iberia between the tenth and the mid-thirteenth century. This article argues that significant changes to colophon composition and use coincide with, and were related to, wider ecclesiastical reform and political transformations in the Peninsula in the late eleventh century, which promoted the abandonment of native ecclesiastical practices and critical shifts in monastic culture.

KEYWORDS:

• Monasticism
• medieval Iberia
• ecclesiastical reform
• manuscripts
• scribes
• colophons

In 970 CE, a monastic scribe working in the region of León in northern Iberia penned his name, Obeco, on a prefatory page of an illustrated copy of Beatus of Liébana’s Commentary on the Book of Revelation.¹ Here, he informs us that he created the book for Abbot Sempronio, whose name also features in an exuberant prefatory page designed as a word labyrinth within an elaborate geometric frame.² On the two subsequent folios, the self-characterised ‘undeserving’ yet ‘obedient’ Obeco states that he conducted the work between the VI ides of June and the VI ides of September of the said year; for his remarkable efforts, the scribe also beseeched prayers and remembrance from the reader.³ In doing this, Obeco was drawing on a long and widespread, albeit intermittent, tradition according to which scribes would express their humility and piety textually, and would request blessings from both God and the reader as a spiritual reward for their arduous labour. Only on exceptional occasions were details regarding the circumstances of the production of the work supplied.⁴ Scribal inscriptions and colophons stricto sensu were, however, an exceptional occurrence in Western manuscript production from the early and high Middle Ages. Only a very small percentage of the extant material includes them in contrast to the more plentiful cases found in late medieval and, above all, Italian Humanistic works.⁵ The surviving examples are also often brief and formulaic, ranging from a few words to a few lines, with little or no information regarding the agents behind the work. Discreet references to the completion of the task and generic pleas for prayers best describe the nature of the majority of scribal colophons predating 1200.⁶ An example preserved in an eighth-century Gospel Book, probably of Welsh origin, illustrates what is more commonly found in earlier manuscripts: ‘It is finished. Amen. Thanks be to God.’⁷

On occasion, more elaborate inscriptions include lengthier manifestations of piety, cautionary words to the reader on how to handle the volume, and poetic reflections on the strenuousness of the work of the scribe. These are, however, far from personal or original remarks, frequently reflecting scribal topoi observed in a range of written monuments from Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages.⁸ Considering their nature and content, scribal colophons were generally inserted at the end of a work, as concluding remarks for the long and onerous process that the creation of a manuscript book embodied. The scribal colophon at the end of the mid-eighth century Gelasian Sacramentary from Chelles, for example, embodies these characteristics. In addition to declaring the completion of the book and giving thanks to God, the anonymous amanuensis compared the sweetness of the very last line to the scribe to that of the port to the sailor.⁹

Only on very rare occasions did early medieval Latin scribes date and ‘sign’ their work.¹⁰ Obeco’s colophon therefore constitutes an exceptional example. In addition to the customary requests for prayers, he included his name, that of the commissioner of the book, the date of completion, and even the duration of the task at the very beginning of the volume.¹¹ This information is also rendered with flair: his first statement is written on a page seemingly reserved for that purpose, and its text is rendered in various coloured inks, further adorned by a decorated initial. The dating clause is presented at the incipit to Beatus of Liébana’s treatise, crafted as an imposing full-page initial decorated with doves and vegetal motifs, which flanks the text rendered in green, blue, and red Visigothic capitals (Figure 1a and b).¹² Yet, Obeco’s inscriptions are not unique in the context of Iberian monastic book production. His practice was seemingly part of a tradition within which scribal statements dating and localising the work, and identifying the craftsmen responsible for it, were more frequently employed than elsewhere in the contemporary West.

Figure 1. (A and B) Obeco’s colophon and incipit. Beatus of Liébana, Commentarium in Apocalypsin, Biblioteca de la Universidad de Valladolid, MS. 433, ff. 2v, 3v. Image provided by the © Biblioteca de la Universidad de Valladolid.

The penchant of medieval Iberian scribes for writing colophons is well known. Several have been edited, translated, and analysed on account of their highly specific information, while some have been considered in historical and art historical studies as valuable benchmarks to date and place other written, pictorial, and architectural monuments.¹³ Yet the reason for this exceptional phenomenon has received little sustained attention. The discussion that follows considers attitudes to the composition, presentation, and use of colophons in medieval Iberian monastic scriptoria between the early tenth and the mid-thirteenth century. It examines textual trends amongst monastic scribes and fluctuations in practice during this 300-year period, assessing their significance and meaning against the backdrop of scribal and monastic culture of the early and high medieval west.

While general knowledge of the corpus of Iberian manuscripts must inform this discussion, the main case studies will be taken from an important subsection of the material: the copies of Beatus of Liébana’s Commentary on the Book of Revelation (hereafter Beatus) and a selection of pre-1300 Iberian Latin Bibles. The appreciable number of extant copies, and their consistent production throughout the period, makes them ideal sources for this enquiry.

Scribal Statements in Medieval Iberian Manuscripts

Even a cursory glance at modern compilations of medieval colophons, limited as they may be, reveals a wealth of examples drawn from Iberian manuscripts predating 1200 – the period when colophon writing began to gain traction in the West.¹⁴ The frequency and readiness with which early Iberian scribes included them in their works can perhaps be appreciated through modern catalogues that offer details of ‘signed’ and dated manuscripts. For instance, the corpus of Visigothic manuscripts published in 1999 presents 352 manuscript entries, forty-nine of which include references to colophons.¹⁵ This shows that at least 14% of the material preserves some form of colophonic information – a percentage that would surely have been higher had more specimens survived in a complete state. Scribal colophons were often written on the final leaves of a volume, one of the most vulnerable parts of the codex. A copy of Gregory the Great’s Moralia in Job (914) from the monastery of San Pedro de Cardeña (near Burgos, Spain), now held at the John Rylands University Library in Manchester, is a case in point.¹⁶ Its main colophon, now lost, survives only in an early modern transcription as part of a compilation of historical documents undertaken by the then abbot of Cardeña, Francisco de Berganza (d. 1738).¹⁷ The accuracy and reliability of this information is corroborated not only by the palaeographical evidence (deeming the date preserved in the copy of the colophon concordant with the appearance of the script) but also by the fact that the chief scribe, Gomez, signed the volume in question on two other occasions (Figure 2a and b).¹⁸ The mid-eleventh-century Fanlo Beatus constitutes a similar, yet more radical, example. The original specimen survives only as a partial replica undertaken in the seventeenth century, which preserves some text, a few display pages, and a copy of the colophon once penned by its medieval scribe, Sancius.¹⁹

Figure 2. (A and B) ‘Gomiz’ colophons (914 CE). S. Gregorii Moralia in Iob, Manchester, The John Rylands Library, Latin MS 83, ff. 80v, 142r (details). Image provided by The John Rylands Research Institute and Library, The University of Manchester.

While at first glance the proportion of Iberian manuscripts bearing colophons may seem negligible, its real significance becomes apparent when set against similar sets of data from other contemporary milieux. Although quantitative assessments of imperfect material must be regarded with caution, the well-studied cases of early English, Norman, and Flemish manuscripts suggest that only around five to seven percent of the extant material preserves some form of scribal statements – percentages likely enhanced by the more numerous examples deriving from eleventh – and twelfth-century specimens.²⁰ The estimates based on the surviving witnesses thus demonstrate that, relative to other contemporary contexts, the number of early and high medieval Iberian manuscripts bearing scribal colophons is unusually high. The rationale behind the Iberian phenomenon remains, however, hard to pin down. Hypotheses offered to date – such as the influence of Muslim Andalusi artisans who signed their artistic output – are little more than suppositions, and parallels with Byzantine scribal culture and its possible impact on Iberian production are equally difficult to substantiate.²¹ The scarcity of manuscripts predating the eighth century severely hinders our understanding of the development of this practice amongst Iberian monastic scribes, rendering tentative any considerations on its origin and antiquity.

The extant material nevertheless reflects clear trends in the crafting of scribal colophons. For instance, Iberian scribal statements are most common in high-status manuscripts, as one might expect, but – less predictably – are seemingly more common in library books than liturgical ones. An early tenth-century compilation of monastic rules, copied in the Galician monastery of Bobadilla in Galicia, constitutes an important example of a library text with a significant colophon. In addition to the traditional pleas for blessings, one of its scribes included references to the place of production (Bobatelle), the date, and her name, Leodegundia, offering moreover crucial evidence for the labour of female scribes in early Iberian monastic scriptoria.²² Similarly, a contemporary codex preserving a compilation of patristic texts, now held at the Cathedral of La Seu d’ Urgell, supplies an unusual colophon featuring the names of the scribe and the commissioner (Isidorus and abbess Gundise, respectively) and the date of completion for the work: the third hour of the fourth kalends of November 938, complemented by an exceptional regnante clause that invokes Ab al-Rahman III, the first caliph of Córdoba (d. 961) rather than a Christian monarch, thus raising important questions about the origin of the scribe.²³

A variety of approaches to presentation and layout are also noticeable. Several manuscripts show how colophonic information could be presented throughout, offered piecemeal, and sometimes even repetitively. The Rylands Moralia in Job is one such case: as seen, Gomez signed his manuscript on three occasions, in three different parts of the codex, reiterating both his responsibility for the work and his desire for remembrance.²⁴ In the case of deluxe volumes, the names of scribes and patrons sometimes feature in decorated prefatory and closing pages, such as carpet pages and word labyrinths, as medieval equivalents of modern ex libris.²⁵ A prayer book dating to 1055, known on account of its royal associations as the Diurnal of King Fernando I and Queen Sancha, is one example among several that exhibits a prefatory display page embellished with a geometrical composition within which is presented the dedication to the monarchs;²⁶ the Queen’s name is also supplied in the main colophon located at the end of the volume alongside those of the scribe and illuminator, Petrus and Fructuosus, all three written in gold ink against a red and blue background.²⁷

The frequency with which Iberian scribes dated their productions is also remarkable, as even the tersest statements tend to include the date by which the work was concluded.²⁸ Though brief, the colophon in a tenth-century manuscript, containing Ildefonsus of Toledo’s De Virginitate perpetua beatae Mariae together with hagiographical texts, meticulously places the book in its chronological context:

In the name of Jesus Christ, the book is finished by the unworthy notary Iohannes, on the VIII ides of March 992 [8 March 954 CE] when king Ordoño reigned in León and count Fredenando Gundesalviz in Castile. Thanks be to God.²⁹

In addition to the calendar date – almost invariably supplied in the Hispanic Era – Iberian scribes sometimes introduced references to the specific liturgical period, and in some instances even the hour at which the work was completed. Regnante clauses are also commonly found in association with the date. A twelfth-century copy of Hugues de Fouilloy’s De Avibus from the monastery of Lorvão in the region of Coimbra (Portugal) yields a simple example that overtly connects the creation of the book to ‘the time’ of abbot John of Lorvão and of Afonso Henriques, the first king of Portugal (in tempore regis alfonsi. in diebus Johannis abbatis).³⁰

While not unique to Iberian scribal culture, the great length of some colophons found in this context is noteworthy. Florentius, the famous tenth-century scribe from the Castilian monastery of San Pedro of Valeránica, has attracted considerable scholarly attention not only for his calligraphic expertise but also for his fulsome colophons.³¹ His highly detailed inscriptions offer particulars not only about the production of the works but also about himself. In his copy of the Moralia in Job (945), he recorded the place of production (Baleria), the name of the ecclesiastical patron (abbot Silbanus), and the precise time – the liturgical period, month, day, and the hour – in which he set down his quill. He also signed his name on three occasions and, unusually, declared his age at the time of the completion of the task.³² These autobiographical references are complemented by iterations of known scribal formulae requesting prayers, lamenting the physical challenges of scribal labour, and likening the potential damage done by a careless reader to that of a hailstorm.³³ The importance Florentius accorded to his subscriptions is apparent in the special treatment of the pages in which they feature. Some of his extant colophons were penned in alternating red and black ink, adorned with intricate geometric frames, sometimes included in near proximity to (or as part of) display pages.³⁴ While remarkable, this example is not unique in the panorama of early and high medieval Iberian book production, for other manuscripts feature carefully devised colophons in prominent places. Endura, the scribe of a copy of Cassiodorus super Psalmos (954) in the collection of the John Rylands University Library, devoted half a column on the very first page, below a major initial, to his colophon. This personal statement was written in Latin and Greek capitals, using red and black ink (Figure 3).³⁵

Figure 3. Endura’s colophon (954 CE). Cassiodorus super Psalmos, Manchester, The John Rylands Library, Latin MS 89, f. 4r. Image provided by The John Rylands Research Institute and Library, The University of Manchester.

The boldest scribal statements to be found amongst medieval Iberian manuscripts are perhaps those preserved in the tenth-century Codex Vigilanus, a deluxe compendium of canon law and chronicles produced in the Riojan monastery of San Martin of Albelda in 976.³⁶ Echoing evangelist portraits of late antique and early medieval Gospel books, Vigila, the chief scribe, is represented at the very beginning of the codex engaged in the task of writing.³⁷ Above him, his lengthy colophon explicitly alludes to the image below, emphasising the diagrammatic character of the miniature and, importantly, the deliberate act of self-representation.³⁸ At the end of the volume, Vigila features in a second portrait, on this occasion alongside his team of craftsmen (identified as presbyter Sarracinus and his pupil Garsea) as well as the Visigothic kings of the past and the monarchs of Pamplona and Viguera.³⁹ There are other examples of pictorial colophons representing individual scribes. The tenth-century Antiphonal of the Cathedral of León begins with a miniature illustrating the dedication of the book to its ecclesiastical patron, complementing the textual colophon above. The two figures depicted – identified by tituli as Ille and Abba – are presumably the scribe and abbot Ikilani named in the textual colophon above.⁴⁰ A later counterpart to this image is found in the Diurnal of Fernando and Sancha, in which the royal couple is depicted receiving the book from the scribe Petrus.⁴¹ The examples in question are exceptional for their early date. Although idealised representations of this kind were not uncommon in Western book production, the self-referential character of these monastic scribal portraits sets them apart.⁴² Indeed, in his study of medieval scribal portraits, Michael Gullick claimed that the earliest examples were to be found in twelfth-century manuscripts, in apparent ignorance of these much earlier cases from Iberia.⁴³

When these features are considered against the wider panorama of early and high medieval book production, it becomes apparent that Iberian colophons are distinct not only for their frequency but also for the quantity of information they offer. While not unique to the scribal culture of the Peninsula, the custom of dating, localising, and naming the individuals responsible for a production (sometimes even depicting them) is much rarer elsewhere prior to the mid-twelfth century. Nevertheless, fluctuations in these practices can be detected during the three hundred years in question. A closer examination of a cross-section of the material has the potential to shed light on these variations, enabling a better assessment of their significance.

Beatus and Bibles

The corpora of the illustrated Beatus manuscripts and Iberian Latin Bibles provide a coherent sample of manuscripts produced in a monastic context, with an appreciable number of scribal colophons. Collectively, they comprise over forty books created between the late ninth and the early thirteenth century in geographically widespread centres. Their textual status and material qualities are also similar and remained largely unchanged throughout the 300-year period in question. These combined features make them optimal sources through which to analyse approaches to colophon writing amongst monastic scribes.

The most recent census of the illustrated Beatus lists a total of twenty-nine manuscripts dating from the late ninth to the mid thirteenth century, of which seven survive only as fragments.⁴⁴ Of the twenty-two copies in a near complete state, three have been securely identified as originating outside the peninsula.⁴⁵ Of the nineteen relevant cases, ten exhibit scribal colophons – around 53% of the extant Iberian Beatus.⁴⁶ The selected group of Latin Bibles is more modest: of the twelve specimens considered, three survive only as fragments, two lack a number of biblical books, whereas the others are largely complete.⁴⁷ Four Bibles preserve scribal statements, to which can be added the fragment of the Oña Bible whose colophon is transmitted in a later source – approximately 42% of the sample.⁴⁸ The volumes containing the relevant texts are the so-called Cava Bible (late ninth or early tenth century), the tenth-century ‘Visigothic’ Bible of the Cathedral of León, the two Bibles of San Isidoro of León (960 and 1162), while the information contained in the lost colophon of the Oña Bibles is preserved in later compilations.⁴⁹

A closer examination of the sample demonstrates that, in the case of the Beatus, scribal inscriptions are more plentiful among earlier specimens dating from the tenth to the eleventh century, even though it is this subset of the material that has suffered greater loss of pages. It is striking that of the eight tenth-century Beatus, four include at least one colophon, as do all four eleventh-century Iberian copies, thus showing that eight out of twelve pre-1100 Beatus include scribal statements.⁵⁰ By contrast, only two of the nine later copies (twelfth and thirteenth-century specimens) include comparable inscriptions, with the Silos Beatus including several colophons relative to its different stages of production in the late eleventh and early twelfth century.⁵¹ The group of twelve Latin Bibles yields a less clear picture in this respect, but it is noteworthy that of the seven pre-1100 manuscripts in the group, four include colophons, while only one of the five post-1100 Bibles present scribal inscriptions.⁵²

Beatus and Bible colophons reveal similar patterns to those observed more generally in contemporary peninsular book production. The type of information supplied, as well as the length of the inscriptions, varies considerably among specimens; nevertheless there are commonalities. The vast majority inform us about the names of the patrons and of at least one of the craftsmen involved in the creation of the book. All but two copies – the Second Bible of San Isidoro (1162) and the Las Huelgas Beatus (1220) – identify their makers, whose ‘signatures’ feature in various guises and, not infrequently, on multiple occasions. The scribe-artist of the tenth-century Morgan Beatus penned his name three times in the manuscript: at the end of the treatise on Revelation, he wrote a short plea for remembrance (MAIUS memento) while at the end of Jerome’s Commentary on the Book of Daniel copied as a complement to Beatus’s Commentary on Revelation, he wrote a more formal colophon constructed from an acrostic of his own name (written vertically and in red ink), in which he names himself once again.⁵³ Similarly, the scribes of the contemporary ‘Visigothic’ Bible of the Cathedral of León ‘signed’ their names throughout the manuscript: Vimara included his on the prefatory word labyrinth and in the final colophon,⁵⁴ whereas Iohannes ‘signed’ the work no fewer than five times, repeatedly beseeching intercession from the reader.⁵⁵ Instances in which craftsmen declare their ecclesiastical status and the specific role played in the commission are also frequent, a feature that has contributed to the identification of several book makers in medieval Iberia;⁵⁶ the names of the patrons are also commonly supplied alongside those of scribes. For instance, Vimara supplied the name of the commissioner of the Leonese Bible, abbot Maurus, in the opening word labyrinth alongside his own, while the tenth-century Girona Beatus presents the name of abbot Dominicus in the same fashion as those of the scribe and illuminator: all three are written in bold capitals, highlighted in deep blue, surrounding a lavish full-page omega.⁵⁷

Apart from the Cava Bible, all our specimens supply their date of production and sometimes the duration of the task. In this regard too, we observe a variety of approaches, with some scribes indulging in more elaborate, sometimes seemingly playful, ways of localising their work in time. Maius, the creator of the Morgan Beatus, stated the date as a riddle, requiring from both the medieval and modern reader the ability to compute.⁵⁸ The colophons of the Silos Beatus inform us not only about the calendar day, month, year, and even the hour of completion, but also how the manuscript was produced in different stages, during a period of eighteen years, straddling the abbacy of three abbots, who are also named in the colophon.⁵⁹ The customary practice of referencing reigning monarchs, aristocratic families, and ecclesiastical figures in dating clauses is also observed. Information regarding the place of production is, by contrast, comparatively rare within this sample. Only three specimens explicitly state where they were created, namely the Tábara and Silos Beatus and the twelfth-century Second Bible of San Isidoro.⁶⁰ Other scribal inscriptions offer only circumstantial evidence, such as references to patron saints and of local comital families that, on occasion, enable a broad geographic localisation of their production. The colophon of the First Bible of San Isidoro evokes King Ordoño IV (d. ca. 962) as well as Fredenando Gundesalbiz, then count of Castile, important indicators about political affairs concerning the region in which the manuscript originated, namely Castile.⁶¹

A few specimens offer even more comprehensive information concerning their production. The colophon of the tenth-century Tábara Beatus includes a personal homage from its scribe Emeterius to his deceased master, Magius, in which the former informs us that he was called to complete the commission on the passing of the latter; poetically, Emeterius also evokes the imposing tower of the monastery of Tábara as the place where he undertook the work.⁶² An equally unique example is found in the Morgan Beatus, whose final colophon enlightens the reader about the intentions of the scribe-artist Maius when illuminating the book. Here, he declared that he painted the images in question (a cycle of more than 100 scenes of John’s Revelation and Jerome’s Commentary on the Book of Daniel) so that the reader may fear the events of Judgement Day.⁶³ Apart from reporting where, when, and who created it, the multiple colophons of Silos Beatus detail how the manuscript was made in two (possibly even three) stages, and that the copying of the text and the illumination were not concurrent.⁶⁴ Yet a more dramatic account is offered in the colophon of the Second Bible of San Isidoro which reports that, in order to acquire the required materials for its production, one of the brethren from the community of San Isidoro had to face the many perils of a long journey to France, both by land and by sea, to acquire the best quality parchment for the commission.⁶⁵

Visual colophons also feature within our sample. They represent three distinct approaches to the embellishment of textual statements: some are enclosed within elaborate frames, others are part of display pages placed either at the beginning or the end of the volume, while a few are accompanied by full-page miniatures of their makers. The first type is exemplified by the Silos Beatus whose superlative colophons (spread over five sections of the manuscript) are rendered within lavish frames with geometric and vegetal motifs.⁶⁶ The Girona Beatus (975) embodies the second type: the scribal colophon appears on a final omega page where the names of craftsmen and patron – Ende, Emeterius and Dominicus – are written in bold Visigothic capitals in white and gold over a deep blue frame, placed above and below the Greek letter.⁶⁷ The First Bible of San Isidoro (960) and the Tábara (970) and Las Huelgas Beatus (1220) represent the third type. In the first specimen, the textual colophon (which is on the verso) is part of an elaborate opening; on the recto page four human figures – two of which are identified as Sanctius and Florentius, scribe and illuminator – salute each other, holding chalices and commemorating the completion of the work.⁶⁸ This constitutes the earliest self-referential image of craftsmen in our sample (Figure 4). The two Beatus, by contrast, display one of the most famous examples of a pictorial colophon in the corpus of medieval Western manuscripts. The image preserved in the two specimens is nearly identical (the latter being a copy of the former) and is one of the earliest, albeit idealised, representations of a monastic scriptorium.⁶⁹ The full-page miniature depicts a cross-section of the tower of the Tábara monastery, within which three craftsmen engage in the tasks of copying, illuminating, and preparing parchment for writing. The function of this image as a pictorial colophon becomes evident in the Tábara Beatus: the tituli above the two figures at their writing desks identify them as Emeterius and Senior, the scribe and the illuminator who completed the work.⁷⁰ As in the case of Sanctius and Florentius, the self-referential nature of the image in the Tábara Beatus is clear, suggesting a mise en abyme effect in which its two craftsmen are represented in the act of producing the very copy.

Figure 4. Florentius and Sanctius, ‘First Bible of San Isidoro of León’ (960 CE), Codex Biblicus Legionensis ASIL Ms. II, f. 514r. Copyright © Museo San Isidoro de León-Derechos reservados.

Meaning

A large number of Beatus and Latin Bible manuscripts bear scribal colophons relative to norms elsewhere in Western Europe in the same period. Even within the corpus of the Beatus, we see that none of the specimens produced outside the Iberian Peninsula include scribal statements as such; the St Sever Beatus alone, copied in Gascony during the first half of the eleventh century, preserves the name of the scribe yet bears no formal textual statement localising and dating the work. More strikingly, the data strongly suggest that scribal colophons were more common in medieval Iberia prior to the twelfth century, after which there is an apparent reduction in the practice until its resurgence in the late Middle Ages – it is amongst earlier specimens in our sample that we find a greater number, and more elaborate examples, of scribal colophons. As seen, this phenomenon contrasts markedly with the wider panorama of Western early and high medieval book production, where colophons were very much the exception rather than the rule up to the twelfth century, becoming a little more common thereafter.

Special importance also seems to have been accorded by Iberian scribes to the dating and ‘signing’ of their works; not only the frequency but also the way they did so is noteworthy.⁷¹ This information – especially their names – was included in some of the most elaborate pages of manuscripts, receiving similar graphic and visual treatment to that accorded to the names of ecclesiastical and aristocratic dignitaries, and sometimes even royal patrons. Even in the case of lower-grade manuscripts without display pages, the name of scribes often features alongside regnante clauses and/or references to commissioners when supplied. In the light of these examples, we may reasonably presume that the names of these craftsmen (predominantly those of the scribes) were recorded not simply to obtain the much-requested spiritual rewards, but equally to commemorate – overtly and boldly – their achievement, and possibly craftsmanship.⁷²

Besides the apparent enervation in the custom of colophon writing at the turn of the eleventh to the twelfth century, conspicuous transformations are also observed in their content around this time. Although a few later scribes recorded their names in their outputs, their graphic display did not seem to have merited the same care and attention as in the earlier specimens. The short colophon of the late twelfth-century Lorvão Beatus is a case in point: while it includes the name of the scribe, the inscription follows on discreetly discretely from the Commentary text, employing the same graphic style, with only a few lines separating it from the main text. By contrast, the scribes of the twelfth-century Second Bible of San Isidoro and the thirteenth-century Las Huelgas Beatus remain anonymous. Comparisons between mother and daughter copies also yield significant information that fits this pattern. The textual and pictorial colophons of the Tábara (970) and Las Huelgas Beatus (1220), as well as those of the two Bibles of San Isidoro of León (960 and 1162) are especially telling. The Leonese pandects were produced in the Collegiate of San Isidoro two centuries apart, and it is well established that the tenth-century specimen served as the exemplar for the twelfth-century one.⁷³ Due allowance made for changes in style, their text and iconographic programme are identical; yet their colophons are markedly different. The tenth-century exemplar preserves the names and the portraits of the two scribe-artists – Sanctius and Florentius – celebrating the completion of the work, while the identity of the craftsmen responsible for its twelfth-century daughter was not revealed.⁷⁴ The Tábara and Las Huelgas Beatus afford a comparable example. Both manuscripts include colophons and preserve the miniature of the scriptorium of the monastery of Tábara. However, unlike the tenth-century Tábara copy, the thirteenth-century Las Huelgas Beatus does not provide any information regarding the identity of its makers. Crucially, the tituli that identify the scribe and illuminator working within the tower of Tábara in the tenth-century manuscript are altogether absent from the thirteenth-century one.⁷⁵ In a study concerning pictorial representations of scribes and illuminators in medieval Iberian manuscripts, Junko Kume has likewise identified a sharp decline in portraits of craftsmen in favour of representations of patrons towards the end of the eleventh century.⁷⁶ This evidence therefore suggests that these transformations are not strictly associated with matters of pictorial representation but rather reflect broader shifts in attitudes to self-reference and commemoration amongst Iberian monastic craftsmen: self-memorialisation thus seems to have given way to more discreet and impersonal ways of remembering the scribe.

In Iberia as elsewhere, the use of colophons may have been a matter of personal choice or house style, but the extant evidence indicates that Iberian scribes active between the tenth and the mid-eleventh century keenly fostered the practice, forging a tradition shared by numerous manuscript makers.⁷⁷ Its relative popularity (and what sustained it) may perhaps be best understood in the context of monastic networks that may have promoted the exchange of scribes, illuminators, books, artistic repertoires, not to mention ideas and customs. As Rose Walker has demonstrated, monastic networks connected the monasteries and the scriptoria, including institutions where several of the works under discussion were produced.⁷⁸ The exchange of manuscripts containing scribal inscriptions within these networks may have prompted the recipients to follow suit, a model that would simultaneously explain why certain colophonic formulae (both textual and visual) were widely shared by many. Such links may also have imparted a spirit of scribal community, possibly even of a sense of legacy and shared identity.⁷⁹ The late eleventh-century Silos Beatus offers an important example. Despite its later date of production, its script, pictorial style and even its colophons closely resemble works of tenth-century scribes, especially of the Castilian scribe Florentius of Valeránica, whose very words were partly replicated.⁸⁰

Conclusion

If the regular inclusion of colophons suggests that scribal expression and self-commemoration were more readily embraced in early Iberian monasteries than in their counterparts north of the Pyrenees, changes in the practice similarly reflect transformations beyond the sphere of writing culture and manuscript production. They shed light on profound changes in monastic practice, particularly concerning how ecclesiastical craftsmen related to their literary and artistic creations and positioned themselves within the communities and networks that produced and received them. What then prompted such marked shifts and what are their broader historical implications?

It is striking that changes in attitudes to colophon writing coincide with wider political, religious, and cultural transformations in the peninsula at the end of the eleventh century. In particular, the change coincides with a period of widespread ecclesiastical reform that has been regarded as a watershed in Iberian history. The native liturgical rite and monastic practices – both informed by readings and rituals that partly differed from the Roman tradition – came under severe attack by the papacy for their threat to the unity of the Catholic Church. Despite earlier papal admonitions, Gregory VII (d. 1085) was the driving force behind change in the peninsula. In his correspondence with Alfonso VI of Castile (d. 1109) and Sancho IV of Navarre (d. 1076), the uncompromising need for the abandonment of practices and usages of the Old Hispanic rite was prescribed.⁸¹ More generally, this meant the abandonment of native customs that had been rooted in Iberian religious praxis and identity since the eighth century, and a growing orientation of the Iberian Church and polities towards Western models of ecclesiastical and political authority – the former strongly inspired by Cluniac monasticism.⁸² Indeed, papal pressure for religious reform found support in the Burgundian institution, which helped mediate the process in situ.⁸³ While some efforts towards the reform of the Iberian Church were witnessed during the reign of Fernando I of León (d. 1065), Lucy Pick has convincingly demonstrated that it was not until the reign of his son, Alfonso VI, that evidence of direct Cluniac intervention in the northern peninsular kingdoms can be attested.⁸⁴ Amongst the measures supporting the bond between León-Castile and Cluny was the increasing entrusting of monasteries to the latter from the 1070s onwards, which contributed to the reform of several Iberian houses according to Cluniac precepts.⁸⁵ Ultimately, the official relinquishment of Iberian liturgical observances in favour of the Roman rite was mandated at the Council of Burgos, in 1080, overseen by Alfonso VI.⁸⁶

At the level of book production, these measures also led to significant change, such as the introduction of new textual and artistic models, new methods of book production and a reform of script: Caroline minuscule, which had permeated much of the rest of Western Europe, replaced the use of native ‘Visigothic’ forms at the Council of León, in 1090.⁸⁷ We may reasonably assume that the apparent enervation in the use of scribal colophons in Iberia observed at the turn of the eleventh to the twelfth century was bound up with these shifts and, importantly, with a much stronger influence in Iberian scriptoria of personnel and exemplars from different writing cultures wherein colophons were much simpler, frequently anonymous, and doubtless rarer despite their slight increase in popularity during the high Middle Ages.

Other aspects of ecclesiastical reform may, however, provide a better context for the changes under discussion. Kume has argued that the demise of scribal portraits in Iberian monastic manuscripts was caused by the advancement of the Christian territorial expansion (Reconquista) and, correspondingly, the lessening in importance of the monastic houses which, in previous centuries, had helped sustain newly conquered land at the Christian frontier⁸⁸ – the context from which most of the extant examples of scribal portraits derive. Equally, she proposed that the concurrent exposure of the peninsula to the ‘international’ Romanesque style promoted the adoption of new artistic trends by the mid-eleventh century, including patrons’ portraits which replaced those of craftsmen.⁸⁹ Yet, it is apparent that the decreased incidence of scribal portraits was only one facet of more profound changes of attitude towards self-reference and self-memorialisation amongst Iberian scribes and illuminators. Stricter monastic observances that accompanied liturgical reform may, in fact, be at the base of these shifts. Although the Benedictine rule was already known and partly followed in several peninsular monastic houses a century prior to the Council of Coyanza, in 1055, which promoted its adoption, Iberian monasticism was hitherto inspired and regulated by a range of native and international monastic rules.⁹⁰ The heterogeneity of Iberian monastic observances well into the last quarter of the eleventh century is testified not only by the survival of several codices regularum (reflecting the use of a combination of various rules in several Iberian monastic houses) but also in the surviving correspondence between Iberian ecclesiastical and secular powers on the one hand, and Rome and Cluny on the other.⁹¹ Although modesty and piety were core tenets of monasticism across the board, it is significant that none of the Iberian native rules – that for centuries shaped the nature of Iberian monasticism – had specific statements regarding the behaviour of monastic craftsmen. By contrast, the Rule of Benedict of Nursia dedicates a chapter exclusively to the conduct of these craftsmen and artisans (De artificibus monasterii), in which conceitedness arising from artistic creation would be met with heavy spiritual and temporal penalties.⁹² In spite of the scribal topoi of humility preserved in countless Iberian colophons, the commemoration of scribal and artistic work through fulsome colophons often elaborately presented – and even pictorial representations – may have been seen as infringing the ‘new’ Benedictine principles in a time of widespread religious reform, when rigorous observance is most critical. More prescriptive attitudes to the Benedictine strictures regarding monastic labour and craftsmanship may therefore lie behind these transformations.

The study of scribal colophons, and the transformations observed in their use over time, have the potential to shed light on the attitudes of their makers and of the communities from which they derive, as well as on religious and socio-cultural context in which they operated. The analysis of early medieval colophons not only brings characteristics of early Iberian monasticism and scribal culture into sharp focus but also reveals another facet, and the profound ramifications, of the ecclesiastical reform of the late eleventh century. The phenomenon here considered thus mirrors the broader religious and cultural landscape of the peninsula in the period: one of rupture with past traditions and with elements that had characterised Iberian cultural identity for centuries in favour of new ‘European’ models of spiritual practice, political power, and of textual and visual expression.

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank Professor Richard Gameson (Durham University, UK) for his invaluable comments and attentive reading of drafts of this article, as well as the anonymous reviewers and editors of this journal for their helpful feedback which has strengthened this work.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹The following abbreviations are used in this paper: ACBO: Burgo de Osma, Archivo de la Catedral; ACL = León, Archivo Catedralicio; AHNM: Madrid, Archivo Histórico Nacional; ASIL: León, Archivo Capitular de la Real Colegiata de San Isidoro; ANTT: Lisbon, Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo; BL: London, British Library; BNE: Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional de España; BNF: Paris, Bibliothèque national de France; BXUSC: Santiago de Compostela, Biblioteca Xeral Universitaria; CCV: Agustín Millares Carlo and Manuel C. Díaz y Díaz, eds. Corpus de códices Visigóticos, 2 vols. (Las Palmas: Fundación de Enseñanza Superior a Distancia, 1999); Manchester, JRUL: John Rylands University Library; MCG: Girona, Museu de la Catedral; MLM: New York, Morgan Library & Museum; RAH: Madrid, Real Academia de la História; RBME: El Escorial, Real Biblioteca del Monasterio de el Escorial; BUV: Valladolid, Biblioteca de la Universidad. The terms colophon, scribal inscription and subscription will be used interchangeably in this article to characterise scribal statements referring to the production of the work and/or including scribal pleas, regardless of their location within the codex. It should also be noted that the discussion that follows will focus primarily on monastic manuscripts produced in the north-central and western Iberian kingdoms, with important examples from monasteries in the region of La Rioja considered where relevant. Given the marked cultural and political differences of Catalonia in the period, manuscripts produced there will not be considered. All translations and transcriptions are my own unless stated. All dates are given in CE rather than Era Hispanica.

² BUV, MS. 433, f. 2r [hereafter Valladolid Beatus]. For facsimile edition, see Beati Liebanensis, El Beato de la Universidad de Valladolid, ed. José Antonio Fernandez Flórez, 2 vols. (Madrid: Testimonio Compañía Editorial, 2000–2002); see also CCV, I, Cat. no. 342: 202–4.

³ Valladolid Beatus, ff. 2v, 3v. ‘Hhoc [sic] opus ut fieret predictus abba Sempronio. Instantia egit cui ego Obeco Indignus mente obediens deuota dep(i)nxi. Memento rogo’; ‘In n(o)m(i)ne d(omi)ni n(o)s(tr)i Ih(es)u xpi initiatus est liber iste Apocalipsis Iohanni VI idus iunius et finibit exaratus VI idus S(ep)t(e)m(b)r(i)s sub era VIII, D(e)o gra(tia)s Am(en).’

⁴ See Richard Gameson, ‘Signed Manuscripts from Early Romanesque Flanders: Saint-Bertin and Saint-Vaast’, in Pen in Hand: Medieval Scribes, Depictions and Colophons, ed. Michael Gullick (Walkern: The Red Gull Press, 2006), 31–73, 31; Paola Martini, ‘Il Libro e il tempo’, in Scribi e colofoni – le sottoscrizioni di copisti dalle origini all’avento della stampa, eds. Emma Condello and Giuseppe de Gregorio (Spoleto: Centro italiano di Studi sull'alto Medioevo, 1995), 3–33, 3.

⁵ See Colophons de manuscrits occidentaux des origines au XVIe siècle, eds. Bénédictins du Bouveret, 6 vols. (Fribourg: Éditions Universitaires, 1965–1982). A cursory look at modern compilations of scribal colophons reveals a remarkable increase in colophon writing in the late Middle Ages, especially in manuscripts from secular contexts. On the greater prevalence of colophons by secular scribes in later periods, see Melissa Moreton, ‘Pious Voices: Nun-scribes and the Language of Colophons in Late Medieval and Renaissance Italy’, Essays in Medieval Studies 29 (2013): 43–73, 43.

⁶ See Lucien Reynhout, Formules latines de colophons, 2 vols. (Turnhout: Brepols, 2006); Markus Schiegg, ‘Scribes’ Voices: The Relevance and Types of Early Medieval Colophons’, Studia Neophilologica 88 (2016): 129–77. For a concise sample of early medieval colophons preserved in early English manuscripts see, Gameson, The Scribe Speaks? Colophons in Early English Manuscripts. H. M. Chadwick Memorial Lectures (University of Cambridge: Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse & Celtic, 2002).

⁷ Hereford Cathedral Library, P. I. 2, f. 35v, ‘Finit amen deo gratias ago’. The anonymous scribe added only a few words at the end of each of the four Gospels, expressing his thanks for completing the task. Transcribed and edited by Gameson, The Scribe Speaks? 36.

⁸ On colophonic formulae, see Reynhout, Formules latines de colophons; Reynhout, ‘Pour une typologie des colophons de manuscrits occidentaux’, Gazette du livre médiéval 13 (1988): 1–4; see also Gameson, The Scribe Speaks? 8.

⁹ Sacramentarium Gelasianum, Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vaticano Reg. Lat. 316, f. 245r. ‘Explicit Liber Sacramentorum D(e)o Gracias. Sicut navigantib(us) dulcis est portus, sic scriptori novissimus versus’. On this manuscript see Charlotte Denoël, ‘Le Sacramentaire gélasien de Chelles’, Art de l’enluminure 58 (2016): 2–55; see also digital facsimile https://digi.vatlib.it/view/MSS_Reg.lat.316 (accessed 2 April 2024).

¹⁰ For some rare examples see, Albert Derolez, ‘Pourquoi les copistes signaient-ils leurs manuscrits?’, in Scribi e colofoni, 37–56; James J. John, ‘The Named (and Nameable) Scribes in Codices Latini Antiquiores’, in Scribi e colofoni, 107–24; Laura Pani, ‘Lay Scribes before c. 1100 – Books, Texts, Scripts’, in Scribes and the Presentation of Texts (from Antiquity to c. 1550) – Proceedings of the 20th Colloquium of the Comité international de paléographie latine, eds. Barbara Shailor and C. W. Dutschke (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021), 177–98; Gameson, The Scribe Speaks?.

¹¹ See note 3 above.

¹² Valladolid Beatus, f. 3v.

¹³ For studies concerning early and high medieval colophons preserved in Iberian manuscripts see Catherine Brown, ‘Remember the Hand: Bodies and Bookmaking in Early Medieval Spain’, Word & Image 27, no. 3 (2011): 262–78; María Díaz Salvado, ‘Los Colofones en manuscritos latinos medievales de la Península Ibérica: Siglos VII-XII’, in Proceedings for IV Congresso internacional de latim medieval hispânico (Lisbon, 12–15 October 2005), eds. Aires Augusto do Nascimento and Paulo Farmhouse Alberto (Lisbon: Universidade de Lisboa, Centro de Estudos Clássicos, 2006), 361–78; Martini, ‘Il libro e il tempo’; Maurilio Pérez González, ‘Tres colofones de Beatos: su texto, traducción y comentario’, in Seis estudios sobre Beatos medievales, ed. Maurilio Pérez González (León: Universidad de León, Servicio de Publicaciones, 2010), 221–31; Mireille Mentré, ‘L’Enlumineur et son travail selon les manuscrits hispaniques du haut Moyen moyen âge’, in Artistes, artisans et production artistique au moyen âge, ed. Xavier Barral y Altet, vol. 1 (Paris: Picard, 1986), 295–309; Catherine Brown, Remember the Hand: Manuscription in Early Medieval Iberia (New York: Fordham University Press, 2022). Brown’s background as a literary scholar helps interpret Iberian colophons through a different lens, focusing on questions about the embodiment of writing and reading, and the experience of the codex by scribes and readers in this milieu; this work was unavailable at the time of writing this article. For colophons preserved in the copies of Beatus of Liébana’s Commentary on the Book of Revelation see John Williams, The Illustrated Beatus: A Corpus of the Illustrations of the Commentary on the Apocalypse, 5 vols. (London: Harvey Miller, 1994–2003).

¹⁴ See Colophons de Manuscrits Occidentaux.

¹⁵ See CCV. An updated version of the compilation was published online by Ainoa Castro Correa, who has accounted for 359 manuscripts copied in Visigothic script of which forty two include the name of, at least, one scribe in their colophons see http://www.litteravisigothica.com/visigothic-script-topics/codicology (accessed 2 April 2024). See also Barbara Shailor, ‘Corrections and Additions to the Catalogue of Visigothic Manuscripts’, Scriptorium 32, no. 2 (1978): 310–12. Visigothic manuscripts should be understood as works preserved in a codex format, generally dated between the eighth and the twelfth century, written in the native pre-Caroline Iberian script form, known as Visigothic script. For further considerations on percentages of signed manuscripts in medieval Iberia, see Hermenegildo García-Aráez Ferrer, ‘El scriptorium de Tábara en la alta edad media y los códices de Beato de Liébana’, Brigecio: Revista de estudios de Benavente y sus tierras 4–5 (1994): 143–66, 151. García-Aráez states that of 213 Iberian manuscripts produced between the tenth and eleventh centuries, fifty-nine include references to the scribe and/or the illuminator. The discrepancies between these numbers are a symptom of the imperfect nature of these modern compilations; yet, whatever the actual total, it represents a much higher percentage than is the case in other areas of the early medieval West.

¹⁶ JRUL, Latin Ms 83. See description of the manuscript in CCV, I, Cat. no. 219: 147; M. R. James and Frank Taylor, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Latin Manuscripts in the John Rylands University Library (1921, repr. Munich: Kraus Reprints, 1980), 150–3. For the digital facsimile see, https://www.digitalcollections.manchester.ac.uk/view/MS-LATIN-00083/1 (accessed 2 April 2024).

¹⁷ Francisco de Berganza y Arce, Antigüedades de España propugnadas en las noticias de sus reyes, en la Crónica del real monasterio de San Pedro de Cardeña, en historias, cronicones, y otros instrumentos manuscritos que hasta aora no han visto la luz publica, vol. 1 (Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, 1721), 177.

¹⁸ For a discussion of the manuscripts from the scriptorium of San Pedro de Cardeña held in the collection of the John Rylands library see Barbara A. Shailor, ‘The Scriptorium of San Pedro de Cardeña’, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 61 (1978–79): 444–73.

¹⁹ Fanlo Beatus, MLM, S M.1079, ff. 6–12. See Williams, The Illustrated Beatus, 3: 41–43; Williams, Visions of the End in Medieval Spain. Catalogue of Illustrated Beatus Commentaries on the Apocalypse and Study of the Geneva Beatus (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2017), 99–102.

²⁰ See Gameson, The Scribe Speaks?; Gameson, ‘The Colophons of Codex Amiatinus’, in Anglo-Saxon Micro-texts, eds. Ursula Lenker and Lucia Kornexl (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2019), 89–116; Gameson, ‘The Colophon of the Eadwig Gospels’, Anglo-Saxon England 31 (2002): 201–22; Gameson, ‘Les Colophons des Manuscrits du Mont Saint-Michel’, in Images de la foi: la bible et les pères de l’église dans les manuscrits de Clairvaux et du Mont-Saint-Michel, eds. Jean-Luc Leservoisier and Thierry Delcourt (Paris: FFCB, 2002), 165–206; Gameson, ‘“Signed” Manuscripts’.

²¹ For suggestions of possible Islamic influence in the practice of Iberian Latin scribes see Otto Werckmeister, ‘The Art of the Frontier: Mozarabic Monasticism’, in The Art of Medieval Spain 500–1200, ed. John P. O’Neill (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1993), 121–32 (123). On Byzantine influence see the discussion session following Mentré’s paper at the conference ‘Artiste, artisans et production artistique au moyen âge’ held at the University of Rennes II in 1983, ‘L’Enlumineur et son travail’, 305.

²² Madrid, RBME, a. I. 13, f. 186v. Transcription of the original colophon in CCV, I, Cat. no. 42: 46–7. For a description of the manuscript, see Guillermo Antolín, Catálogo de los códices latinos de la real biblioteca del Escorial, 1 (Madrid: Imprenta Helénica, 1910), 21–5. For digital facsimile see https://rbdigital.realbiblioteca.es/s/rbme/item/13326#?c=&m=&s=&cv=&xywh=-1483%2C-130%2C4618%2C2598 (accessed 2 April 2024). Regarding the status and origin of the female scribe Leodegundia see Ana Álvarez García and Maria Azucena Álvarez García, ‘Leodegundia, princesa de Asturias y reina de Navarra: una aproximación biográfica’, in Proceedings of the IV Congreso virtual sobre historia de las mujeres (15 al 31 Octubre 2012), eds. Manuel Cabrera Espinosa and Juan López Cordero (Jaén: Archivo Histórico Diocesano de Jaén, 2012), 1–28.

²³ CCV, I, Cat. no. 73: 65.

²⁴ JRUL, Latin Ms 83, f. 142r. ‘O bone lector lectrixq(ue) Gomiz peccatoris memento’, f. 80v; ‘Quisquis hunc librum ob utilitatem tui legeris ut ex eo edificeris mei Gomesanis peccatoris in tuis orationibus conmendatum habeto’.

²⁵ For some elaborate examples see a tenth-century copy of Moralia in Job, Madrid, BNE, MSS 80, ff. 2v, 3r (CCV, I, Cat. no. 153: 103–4); the tenth-century Antiphonary of León, ACL, Cod. 8., f. 6r (CCV, I, Cat. no. 81: 69–71); and a high-status eleventh-century copy of Isidore of Seville’s Etymologies produced in the Castilian monastery of Santo Domingo de Silos, now BnF, NAL 2169, f. 21v (CCV, I, Cat. no. 261: 167–8). For digital facsimile of BNE, MSS 80 see https://bdh-rd.bne.es/viewer.vm?id=0000206931&page=1 (accessed 2 April 2024).

²⁶Psalterium, Liber canticorum et Ordo nocturnalis, BXUSC, Ms. 609, Reserv. 1, f. 6r. CCV, Cat. no. 287: 176–7. See digital facsimile https://minerva.usc.es/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10347/9014/b17469314.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y (accessed 2 April 2024).

²⁷ BXUSC, Ms. 609, Reserv. 1, f. 208v. ‘Sancia ceu uoluit q(uo)d su(m) regina p(er)egit Era millena nouies dena quoque terna. Petrus erat scriptor Fructuosus deniq(ue) Pictor’.

²⁸ See Díaz Salvado, ‘Los colofones en manuscritos latinos’, who considers dating one of the primary categories of information in medieval Iberian colophons; see also Martini, ‘‘Il Libro e il tempo’ who discusses several medieval Iberian examples.

²⁹ RBME, a. II. 9, f. 132v. ‘In Iesu Christi nomine explicitus est codix iste a notario Iohannes indigno in era DCCCC et nonagesima s(e)c(un)da, VIII id(u)s martius, regnante rex ordonio in legione, comitem uero fredenando gundesalbiz in Castella deo gratias’. For a description of the manuscript see CCV, I, Cat. no. 44: 49; Guillermo Antolín, Cátalogo de los códices latinos, 42–5. See also digital facsimile: https://rbdigital.realbiblioteca.es/s/rbme/item/13328#?c=&m=&s=&cv=4&xywh=-1252%2C0%2C4156%2C2338 (accessed 2 April 2024).

³⁰ ANTT, Ordem de Cister, Mosteiro de Lorvão, códice 5, f. 191r. ‘Sc(ri)ptus e(st) liber iste ad laude(m) et honorem dei omnipotentis (et) s(an)c(t)i mametis laurbanensis monasterij temp(o)r(e) regis alfonsi in diebus joh(a)nnis abbatis. Era Milesima CCXXJ^a’. See digital facsimile at https://digitarq.arquivos.pt/ViewerForm.aspx?id=4381076 (accessed 2 April 2024).

³¹ Brown, ‘Remember the Hand’, 266–74; Díaz y Díaz, Códices visigóticos en la monarquía Leonesa (León: Centro de Estudios e Investigación de San Isidoro, 1983), 514–17; Díaz y Díaz, ‘El escriptorio de Valeránica’, in Codex Biblicus Legionensis: Veinte estudios, ed. César Álvarez Álvarez (León: Real Colegiata de San Isidoro, 1999), 53–72; Williams, ‘A Contribution to the History of the Castilian Monastery of Valeránica and the Scribe Florentius’, Madrider Mitteilungen 11 (1970): 231–48. For the most recent examination of Florentius’s writing practices see Brown, Remember the Hand: Manuscription, 11–32, 64–91.

³² BNE, MSS 80, ff. 499r, 500v. For the complete transcription and translation of Florentius’s lengthy colophon see Brown, ‘Remember the Hand’, 268–72.

³³ BNE, MSS 80, f. 500v. ‘Ideo tu lector lente folias uersa. Longe a litteris digitos tene Quia sicut grando fecunditatem telluris tollit sic Lector inutilis scribturam et librum euertit’.

³⁴ BNE, MSS 80, ff. 500v, 501r. In Florentius’s Moralia, the textual colophon faces a closing full-page illumination that features a large omega, adorned with birds and foliate motifs, standing above two unidentified human figures.

³⁵ JRUL, Latin MS 89, f. 4r. CCV, I, Cat. no. 220: 147–8. For a description of the manuscript see James and Taylor, A Descriptive Catalogue, 161–5. See digital facsimile at https://www.digitalcollections.manchester.ac.uk/view/MS-LATIN-00089/1 (accessed 2 April 2024). For a comparison between the work of Florentius of Valeránica and Endura see Brown, Remember the Hand: Manuscription, 79–85.

³⁶ RBME d. I. 2, f. XXIIv. CCV, I, Cat. no. 49: 51–3; Antolín, Catálogo de los códices latinos de la real biblioteca del Escorial, 4 (Madrid: Imprenta Helénica, 1910), 535–7. For the digital facsimile see https://rbdigital.realbiblioteca.es/s/rbme/item/13434#?c=&m=&s=&cv=28&xywh=-611%2C935%2C3149%2C2407 (accessed 2 April 2024). On Vigila’s writing practice see Brown, Remember the Hand: Manuscription, 185–206.

³⁷ As suggested by Soledad de Silva y Verástegui, ‘El papel de La Rioja en los orígenes hispánicos del retrato del artista’, Segundo coloquio sobre historia de La Rioja, vol. 3 (Logroño: Universidad de La Rioja, Colegio Universitario de la Rioja, 1986), 27–42 (30–2). For other studies on scribal portraits in medieval Iberia see Carlos Cid Priego, ‘Retratos y autorretratos en las miniaturas españolas altomedievales’, Liño 8 (1989): 7–33; Junko Kume, ‘Escribanos e iluminadores en la frontera christiano-hispana entre los siglos X y XI: la costumbre del retrato’, in El Mundo de los conquistadores, ed. Martín Federico Ríos Saloma (Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas – Sílex, 2015), 839–60.

³⁸ RBME d. I. 2, f. XXIIv. For the complete transcription of the colophon see Díaz y Díaz, Libros y librerías en la Rioja altomedieval (Logroño: Diputación Provincial, 1979), 288; see also an interpretation of the colophon in Brown, ‘Remember the Hand’, 263–5.

³⁹ RBME d. I. 2, f. 428r. The Codex Emilienensis (RBME, d. 1. 1), a copy of this manuscript produced in the monastery of San Millan de la Cogolla in 992, reproduces this collective portrait; however, the scribes and artists Vigila, Sarracinus and Garsea were replaced by the ‘new’ craftsmen and the commissioner, identified as Sisebutus (notary), Belasco (scribe) and Sisebutus (bishop), see RBME, d. 1. 1, f. 503r; see also CCV, I, Cat. no. 48: 50–1; Silva y Verástegui, ‘El papel de La Rioja’, 33, 40.

⁴⁰ ACL, Cod. 8, f. 1v. About this representation see Kume, ‘Escribanos e iluminadores’, 847.

⁴¹ BXUSC, Ms. 609, Reserv. 1, f. 6v.

⁴² An early scribal portrait, possibly dating from the mid-tenth century, which includes the name of the craftsmen, has been recently discussed in Laura Pani’s article on the work of secular copyists during the early Middle Ages. The example in question – preserved in Chartres, Bibliothèque Municipale, MS 29 (70), f. 244v – is, however, firmly identified as a portrait of secular craftsmen not a monastic one. See Pani, Lay Scribes.

⁴³ Michael Gullick, ‘Self-Referential Portraits of Artists and Scribes in Romanesque Manuscripts’, in Pen in Hand, 97–114.

⁴⁴ Williams, Visions of the End. Only the illustrated copies were considered in this study. The census also includes the eleventh-century Fanlo Beatus discussed earlier, which survives only as a seventeenth-century ‘facsimile’ of the original copy.

⁴⁵ Non-Iberian Beatus copies: St Sever Beatus, BnF, MS lat. 8878; Geneva Beatus, Genève, Bibliothèque de Genève, Ms. lat. 357; Berlin Beatus, Berlin, Staatsbibliothek Preußischer Kulturbesitz, MS theol. lat. fol. 561. The so-called ‘Fragment of Milan’ (Milan, Archivio di Stato, Rubriche notarili 3823 2 fragments) has also been identified as a product of a southern Italian scriptorium.

⁴⁶ Some Beatus copies lack some of their prefatory and final folia, where potential scribal colophons may have featured. The tenth-century Vitrina 14-1 and the Escorial Beatus are cases in point (BNE, MS Vitrina 14-1 and RBME, &. II. 5, respectively). The fragility of the extremities of the codex (and near loss of colophons) is observable in the eleventh-century Facundus Beatus (BNE, MS Vitrina 14-2) whose original colophon page is severely damage; fortunately, a later reader transcribed its content onto one of its flyleaves. For descriptions of the manuscripts see CCV, I, Cat. no. 147: 100-1; CCV, I, Cat. no. 54: 55; CCV, I, Cat. no. 148:100-1.

⁴⁷ The sample of Iberian Bibles which informed this research: the late ninth- or early tenth-century Cava Bible, Cava de’ Tirreni, Biblioteca statale del Monumento Nazionale Badia di Cava, Ms. memb. I; the tenth-century Oña Bible, Salamanca, Hermandad de Sacerdotes Operarios Diocesanos and Silos, Arch. del Monasterio, fragm. 19 (fragment split between the two institutions); the tenth-century Cardeña Bible, Burgos, Biblioteca de la Facultad de Teología del Norte de España/Archivo de la Catedral de Burgos; the tenth-century ‘Visigothic’ Bible of León, ACL, Ms. 6 (incomplete specimen); the tenth-century Bible from San Isidoro of León [hereafter First Bible of San Isidoro], ASIL, Ms. II.; the tenth-century Bible of Seville, BNE, Vitrina 13-1; the eleventh-century Bible of San Juan de la Peña, BNE, Mss. 2 (incomplete specimen); the twelfth-century Romanesque Bible of Burgos, Burgos, Biblioteca Pública, Ms. 173 and Archivo del Monasterio de Santa María La Real de las Huelgas, Ms. 5 (fragment); the twelfth-century Bible of Calahorra, Calahorra, Archivo de la Catedral, Códice III (fragment); the twelfth-century Bible of San Isidore of León [hereafter Second Bible of San Isidoro], ASIL, Ms. III. 3; the twelfth-century Bible of Lérida, Lleida, Arxiu capitular, LC-0061 (olim Códice I); the thirteenth-century Bible of San Millán de la Cogolla, Madrid, Biblioteca de la Real Academia de la História, Códices 2–3. The twelfth-century Bible of Ávila (BNE, MS Vitrina 15-1) was not considered due to its non-Iberian origin. The choice of biblical specimens was informed by the fact that most of the selected manuscripts can be dated and localised based on internal evidence or on palaeographical and artistic grounds. Except for the Cava and Seville Bibles, and the fragment of Oña, most specimens were studied in Ana Suárez González, ‘Una lectura arqueológica de nuestras biblias medievales (siglos X-XIII in.)’, Memoria ecclesiae 38 (2013): 163–214. For a description of the first two specimens, see CCV, I, Cat. no. 33: 42; CCV, I, Cat. no. 146: 99–100, respectively. On the Oña fragment see Williams, ‘San Salvador de Oña: Biblias y beatos’, Oña. Un milenio. Actas del congreso internacional sobre el monasterio de Oña (1011-2011), ed. Rafael Sánchez Domingo (Oña: Fundación Milenario San Salvador de Oña – Junta de Castilla y León, 2012), 350–61.

⁴⁸ The tenth-century Bible of Seville, the only extant biblical manuscript produced in al-Andalus, preserves a dedication clause on folio 375v, which informs us about its multiple owners until it was presented to the cathedral of Seville in 988. There is, however, no reference to its original context of production and/or direct expressions by its makers. For these reasons, this note should not be interpreted as a scribal colophon. See ‘Biblia Hispalense’, in The Art of Medieval Spain, 162–3.

⁴⁹ The information presented in the colophon of the Oña Bible was preserved by Ambrósio de Morales, the bibliographer of Felipe II of Spain, who during a journey across northern Spain in 1572 examined the manuscript collections of the most important Iberian cathedrals and monasteries; see Ambrosio de Morales, Coronica general de España que continuaba Ambrosio de Morales coronista del rey nuestro señor don Felipe II, Tomo VIII, Libro XVI, Córdoba, 1586 (Madrid: Edición Madrid, 1791), 226–7, and also by Gregorio de Argaiz, the archivist of the monastery of Oña, see Argaiz, La soledad laureada por San Benito y sus hijos de las iglesias de España y teatro monástico de la provincia cartaginense (Madrid: Bernardo de Herbada: a costa de Gabriel de Leon, 1675), 289–90. Concerning this information see, Javier Iglesia Aparicio, ‘ La Biblia de Oña (943) de Florencio de Valeránica’, 31 January 2022, https://www.condadodecastilla.es/cultura-sociedad/la-biblia-de-ona-943-de-florencio-de-valeranica/ (accessed 2 April 2024). The colophonic information regarding dating and origin is corroborated on palaeographical and artistic grounds. See Williams, ‘San Salvador de Oña’; Williams, ‘The Bible in Spain’, in Imaging the Early Medieval Bible, ed. John Williams (Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999), 180–218 (186). Similarly, although the colophon page of the ‘Visigothic’ Bible of León survives, it has been badly damaged by the past use of chemical solutions to increase legibility of the text. The colophon was transcribed in full by Manuel Risco, España Sagrada, 34 (Madrid: En la Oficina de Blas Román, 1784), 165; see also Suárez González, ‘Una lectura Arqueológica’, 167.

⁵⁰ Tenth-century copies: Morgan Beatus, MLM, MS. M. 644 (CCV, I, Cat. no. 230: 150–2); Tábara Beatus, AHNM, Cod. 1097B (CCV, I, Cat. no. 128: 92–4); Valladolid Beatus, BUV, MS 433; Girona Beatus, MCG, Num. Inv. 7, 1 (CCV, I, Cat. no. 69: 61–4). Eleventh-century Iberian copies: Facundus Beatus, Madrid, BNE, MS. Vitrina 14-2; Fanlo Beatus, MLM, MS M. 1079; Osma Beatus, ACBO 1 (CCV, I, Cat. no. 21: 38–9); Silos Beatus, BL, MS add, 11695 (CCV, I, Cat. no. 106: 81–4). The Silos Beatus is an exception within the sample, as the manuscript was begun in 1091, but only illuminated in 1109; it preserves colophons from both stages of its production.

⁵¹ Twelfth-century copies: Silos Beatus, BL, MS add, 11695; Lorvão Beatus, ANTT, Ordem de Cister, Mosteiro de Lorvão, códice 44. Thirteenth-century copy: Las Huelgas Beatus, MLM, MS M. 429. The different stages of production of the Silos Beatus are recorded in its multiple scribal colophons. The first stage is recorded on folios 265v-266r and 277v-278r, which report the copying of the text of the Beatus of Liébana’s Commentary on Revelation and of Jerome’s Commentary on the Book of Daniel was completed on 18 April 1091; the earlier scribes are identified as Dominicus and Munnio. The second stage is considered on folio 275v, which included the illuminations by prior Petrus, concluded on 1 July 1109. For a detailed study of the production of this manuscript and the craftsmen involved see, Ainoa Castro Correa, ‘The Scribes of the Silos Apocalypse (London, British Library, Add. MS 11695) and the Scriptorium of Silos in the Late Eleventh Century’, Speculum 95, no. 2 (2020): 321–70.

⁵² Pre-1100 Bibles with colophons: Cava Bible, Cava de’ Tirreni, Biblioteca statale del Monumento Nazionale Badia di Cava, Ms. memb. I (CCV, I, Cat. no. 33: 42); Oña Bible, Salamanca, Hermandad de Sacerdotes Operarios Diocesanos and Silos, Arch. del Monasterio, fragm. 19; ‘Visigothic’ Bible of León, ACL, Ms. 6 (CCV, I, Cat. no. 80: 68–9); First Bible of San Isidoro of León, ASIL, Ms. II (CCV, I, Cat. no. 96: 77–8). Post-1100 Bibles with colophons: Second Bible of San Isidoro of León, ASIL, Ms. III. 3.

⁵³ MLM, MS M. 644, ff. 233r, 293r. On Maius’s writing practice see also Brown, Remember the Hand: Manuscription, 128–59.

⁵⁴ ACL, Ms. 6, ff. 2v, 233v.

⁵⁵ ACL, Ms. 6, ff. 91v, 101r, 202r, 211r, 216r. On the scribal ‘signatures’ in the Bible of the Cathedral of León see also Suárez González, ‘Una Lectura arqueológica’, 186.

⁵⁶ See Mentré, ‘L’Enlumineur et son travail’.

⁵⁷ ACL, Ms. 6, f. 2v; MCG, Num. Inv. 7 (11), f. 284v.

⁵⁸ MLM, MS M. 644, f. 293r. ‘Ut suppleti uidelicet codix [sic] huius inducta reducta quoq(ue) duo gemina ter terna centiese ter dena bina era’.

⁵⁹ BL, MS add, 11695, ff. 265v-266r and 277v-278r.

⁶⁰ AHNM, Madrid, Cod. 1097B, f. 171r; Silos, BL, MS add, 11695, f. 277v; ASIL, Ms. III. 3, f.1r, respectively.

⁶¹ ASIL, Ms. II, f. 513v. A similar example can be found in the colophon of the tenth-century Girona Beatus which mentions Fredenando Flagíniz, possibly count of Castile, who was reportedly at the Toledan town of Villas fighting the ‘Moors’ in 975: see MCG, Num. Inv. 7 (11), f. 284v.

⁶² AHNM, Madrid, Cod. 1097B, f. 171r. For the complete transcription and translation of the colophon see Williams, The Illustrated Beatus, 2: 43.

⁶³ MLM, MS M. 644, f. 293r. ‘Inter eius decus uerba [[miri]]fica storiarumq(ue) depinxi per seriem ut scientibus terreant Iudicii futuri aduentui’.

⁶⁴ See BL, MS add, 11695, f. 277v

⁶⁵ ASIL, Ms. III. 3, f. 1r. ‘Hui(us) etia(m) p(re)ciosissimi op(er)is pargamena q(u)idam e S(an)c(t)i Ysidori canonicis ex gallicis partibus itineris labore nimio ac maris asperrimo nauigio hanc ad pat(ri)am reportauit’.

⁶⁶ See example in BL, MS add, 11695, ff. 6v, 278r.

⁶⁷ MCG, Num. Inv. 7 (11), f. 284v.

⁶⁸ ASIL, Ms. II, ff. 513v, 514r.

⁶⁹ AHNM, Cod. 1097B, f. 171v and MLM, MS M. 429, ff. 183, 184v, respectively. For the digital images see https://www.treasuresinarchives.com/digital-catalogue-page-1/medieval-miniatures-of-the-manuscript-beatus-of-tabara; https://www.themorgan.org/collection/Las-Huelgas-Apocalypse/49 (accessed 2 April 2024).

⁷⁰ AHNM, Cod. 1097B, f. 171v. Despite some damage to the page, it is possible to read the tituli above the figures: ‘Ubi Emeterius pr(e)sb(ite)r fatigatus sine salus’ and ‘ubi Senior uelat pariter cum’. See transcription of tituli in CCV, I, Cat. no. 128: 92–4.

⁷¹ On the penchant of early and high medieval Iberian scribes for dating their work see, Martini, ‘Il Libro e il tempo’, 5–10 and 13.

⁷² For further reflections on scribal agency in early medieval Iberia, particularly, in relation to the craft of writing see Brown, Remember the Hand: Manuscription.

⁷³ On the two Leonese Bibles see Ana Hernández Ferreirós, ‘Tradición y copia en la ilustración de manuscritos bíblicos en la península ibérica. Las Biblias de San Isidoro de León (1162) y San Millán de la Cogolla ca. 1200’ (PhD diss., Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 2016); Hernández Ferreirós, ‘Copia e interpretación en los repertorios miniados de las biblias románicas hispanas’, in Modelo, copia y evocación en el románico hispano, ed. Pedro Luis Huerta Huerta (Aguilar de Campo: Fundación de Santa María la Real), 111–42.

⁷⁴ As also observed by Kume, ‘Escribanos e Iluminadores’, 858.

⁷⁵ Erik Kwakkel, ‘Where are the scriptoria?’, November 5, 2013, https://medievalfragments.wordpress.com/2013/11/05/where-are-the-scriptoria/ (accessed 2 April 2024), and subsequently Pani, ‘Lay Scribes’, 181, have proposed that the illuminator of the Tábara Beatus, depicted within the scriptorium alongside the monastic scribe Emeterius, was possibly a lay craftsman based on the nature of his garments and appearance. However, a close examination of the miniature shows that there is no significant difference in the garb of the two figures (who are both wearing long tunics over an under-shirt and hats); there is also no marked difference in their overall physical appearance. Although only the titulus above Emeterius (the chief scribe) states his ecclesiastical status (presbyter), there is no robust visual evidence to declare that Senior was not a monastic from Tábara as well.

⁷⁶ Kume, ‘Escribanos e Iluminadores’, 853.

⁷⁷ In medieval Iberia as elsewhere in the West, the use (or otherwise) of colophons may have depended on the culture and norms of individual scriptoria, which might vary from one generation to the next. The scriptoria of the Mont Saint-Michel, Saint-Bertin and Saint-Vaast are important examples, albeit slightly later, of monastic centres from which a significant number of manuscripts bearing colophons survive, see Gameson, ‘Les Colophons des manuscrits du Mont Saint-Michel’; Gameson, ‘“Signed” Manuscripts’.

⁷⁸ See Walker, ‘Artistic Dialogue Between León and Castile in the 10th Century’, Journal of the British Archaeological Association 170, no. 1 (2017): 1–29.

⁷⁹ As discussed in relation to the English context by Gameson, The Scribe Speaks?, 3.

⁸⁰ It has been hypothesised that Florentius may have also produced a copy of Beatus’s Commentary on Revelation, now lost, which may have served as a model for the late eleventh-century Silos Beatus. This theory would explain the visual and textual affinities between the works of Florentius and some manuscripts deriving from the scriptorium of Silos, observable in its late-eleventh century Beatus copy and in an eleventh-century Liber Ordinum, now Silos, Archivo del Monasterio, ms. 3, 177r (CCV, Cat. no. 297, 180). See Ann Boylan, ‘Manuscript Illumination at Santo Domingo de Silos, Xth to XIIth Centuries’ (PhD diss., University of Michigan, 1992), 203–7; Williams, The Illustrated Beatus, 4: 34–5.

⁸¹ See Rose Walker, Views of Transition – Liturgy and Illumination in Medieval Spain (London; British Library, 1998), 24–30.

⁸² For a detailed discussion on the nature of the Old Hispanic rite see Emma Hornby, et al., Understanding the Old Hispanic Office: Texts, Melodies, and Devotion in Early Medieval Iberia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022); Paul Bradshaw, Daily Prayer in the Early Church: A Study of the Origin and Development of the Divine Office (Eugene, OR: Mosaic Press, 1981). On the processes of liturgical reform see Bernard Reilly, Santiago, Saint-Denis, and St. Peter: The Reception of the Roman Liturgy in León-Castille in 1080, ed. Bernard F. Reilly (New York: Fordham University Press, 1985); Lucy Pick, ‘Liturgical Renewal in Two Eleventh-Century Royal Spanish Prayerbooks’, Traditio 66 (2011), 27–66; Walker, Views of Transition.

⁸³ On the political and spiritual reorientation of the Iberian kingdoms at this stage see Carlos Manuel Reglero de la Fuente, Cluny en España: Los prioratos de la provincia y sus redes sociales (1073–ca. 1270), Fuentes y estudios de historia Leonesa 122 (León: Centro de Estudios e Investigación San Isidoro, 2008); Charles Bishko, ‘Fernando I and the Origins of the Leonese-Castilian Alliance with Cluny’, in Studies in Medieval Spanish Frontier History (London: Variorum Reprints, 1980), 1–136; Pick, ‘Rethinking Cluny in Spain’, Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies 5, no. 1 (2013): 1–17; Walker, Views of Transition; Williams, ‘Cluny and Spain’, Gesta 27 (1988): 93–101.

⁸⁴ Pick, ‘Rethinking Cluny’, 5–7.

⁸⁵ Pick, ‘Rethinking Cluny’, 9.

⁸⁶ See Walker, Views, 23–5.

⁸⁷ On this topic see Castro Correa, ‘Leaving the Past Behind, Adapting to the Future: Transitional and Polygraphic Visigothic-Caroline Minuscule Scribes’, ed. Ainoa Castro Correa, special issue, Anuario de Estudios Medievales 50, no. 2 (2020): 631–64.

⁸⁸ Kume, ‘Escribanos e Iluminadores’, 858–59.

⁸⁹ Kume, ‘Escribanos e Iluminadores’, 853–6.

⁹⁰ Evidence testifying to the exclusive observance of the Benedictine Rule in Iberian monastic centres is scant prior to the eleventh century. Amongst the earliest Iberian centres to have adopted it was the monastery of San Cosme and San Damian of Abellar, whose extant documentary evidence declares its observance since 905; yet eclectic practices characterised the wider panorama of Iberian monasticism until the end of the eleventh century. See António Linage Conde, Los Orígenes del Monacato Benedictino en la Península Ibérica, vol. 2 (León: Centro de Estudios e Investigación San Isidoro, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1973), 585–7, 758.

⁹¹ José Mattoso, Religião e Cultura na Idade Média Portuguesa (Lisbon: Imprensa Nacional Casa da Moeda, 1997), 55- (esp 55–6). Heterodox practices of Iberian monastic communities are equally exposed in the epistles exchanged between the Leonese kings and Pope Gregory VII, who vehemently expressed his dislike for peninsular heterodox liturgical practices, see Walker, Views, 25–7.

⁹² Benedictus de Nursia, Regula, 57, 1–3 (CPL 1852); PL, 66, 215. Chapter 57. ‘De Artificibus Monasterii. Artifices si sunt in monasterio cum omni humilitate faciant ipsas artes, si permiserit abbas. Quod si aliquis ex eis extollitur pro scientia artis suae, eo quod uideatur aliquid conferre monasterio, hic talis erigatur ab ipsa arte et denuo per eam non transeat, nisi forte humiliato ei iterum abbas iubeat’. This chapter was misinterpreted in Kume’s ‘Escribanos e iluminadores’, 857, as dedicated to lay artisans working in monasteries rather than monastic craftsmen, and therefore not discussed.