Historia generacionis Christi: A Versification of Peter of Poitiersʼs Compendium historiae de genealogia Christi from late medieval Central Europe (inc. Celici influencia)
Abstrakt
This study presents an editio princeps of a completely neglected Latin verse genealogy of Christ surviving in a single manuscript (today Prague Castle Archives, Library of the Metropolitan Chapter of St. Vitus, N LIII) written probably around 1437 either in Erfurt, its surroundings, or in Bohemia.
The poem devotes one strophe to each character in Christʼs genealogy, providing further information either on the character in question or on his times. It takes as its model the very popular Compendium historiae de genealogia Christi written by Peter of Poitiers ca. 1166-1168.
Like the Compendium, the poem was meant to help the reader's memory by a visual scheme of circles for each character: they are referred to in the text but missing in the manuscript exemplar. Also, just as the Compendium, the text includes also characters that do not belong, strictly speaking, to the genealogy of Christ but rather to biblical history.
The present case study serves as a reminder that there are still many unedited medieval texts in manuscripts waiting to be studied, especially texts on medieval commonplace topics, such as the genealogy of Christ.