ABSTRACT
This chapter will look at Urbanus magnus from the perspective of the manuscripts. I shall not discuss each individual manuscript, but will examine key manuscripts in detail to explore the adaptations and applications of Urbanus magnus, while also examining broader general relationships which can be made between the manuscripts themselves. The manuscripts chosen range in date from the late twelfth to the fourteenth century, and reflect themes such as satire, education, religious use, and medical knowledge. However, the themes chosen are choices based on the fellow-travellers in the manuscripts; these are not the only possibilities for the uses of Urbanus magnus but they do help to illuminate medieval ideas about the type of thing Urbanus magnus represented. I have chosen manuscripts where the interplay between the text and its fellow-travellers can be best interpreted, while manuscripts which may be genuine miscellanies have been excluded. Therefore, manuscripts with a monastic focus, such as MS D, provide evidence for the religious use of Urbanus magnus in the context of rules for religious life. Manuscripts which contain the same fellow-traveller, such as Innocent III’s De miseria condicionis humane and other contemptus mundi literature expose the interplay between Urbanus magnus and twelfth-century satire. Some of the manuscripts reveal Urbanus magnus functioning within an educational framework, such as MS W, which contains many key educational texts. In addition, MS C
precepts in Urbanus magnus. The choice of manuscripts under consideration reflects and pre-empts the discussion of key themes in Urbanus magnus and reveals the text’s adaptability to different contexts: satire, poetry, education, religious setting, and diet.
