Soteriology and Stephen Greenwood

The Role of Salus in the Codex Lucis

By Julia August

Illustration by Jakub Niedziela

Edict of the Eclipse by Jakub Niedziela

translation help (codex lucis)
FROM: Cara Falco <msadventurer@yahoo.com> 21/11/2013 15:03
TO: Stephen Greenwood <s.t.greenwood@chr.ox.ac.uk>

hi

we have a page of the codex lucis & need it translated asap. it’s the missing prophecy so there isn’t anything online. can u help?

thanks
cara

RE: translation help (codex lucis)
FROM: Stephen Greenwood <s.t.greenwood@chr.ox.ac.uk> 21/11/2013 15:37
TO: Cara Falco <msadventurer@yahoo.com>

Dear Cara,

Very many thanks for your email, which I confess I found quite intriguing. May I assume you refer to the so-called “Prophecy of Lucia Lucilla”, one of the most lacunose sections of a sadly damaged text? As you no doubt know, Book 6 of the Codex Lucis (which included the “Prophecy”) is almost entirely missing from our sole extant manuscript, and I am therefore rather interested to learn more about this page you say you need translated. Specifically, I need to know its provenance and recent history, and I need to have full access to the document itself in order to verify its authenticity. I would be very happy to give you what help I can in exchange for this.

Is there any chance you could meet me at the Starbucks Coffee Shop in Cornmarket Street, Oxford, provisionally let’s say Wednesday at 10 a.m.? We won’t meet anyone I know there. If this is not possible, my Skype address is stephentgreenwood — please do get in touch.

All the best,
Stephen
—
Dr. Stephen T. Greenwood MSt DPhil
Associate Professor in Medieval Latin and History, Faculty of History
Fellow and Tutor, Christ’s College
+ 44 01865 394857

Recent Publications
Shedding Light on the Codex Lucis: Despair and Eschatology in Tenth Century Literature (Oxford, 2012)
‘“Fire, Comets and Lewd Clerics”: Illuminating Lucia Lucilla’, MdLQ (September, 2012)
‘A Note on Two Fragments of the Prophecy of Lucia Lucilla’, MdLQ (May, 2011)

RE: translation help (codex lucis)
FROM: Cara Falco <msadventurer@yahoo.com> 21/11/2013 18:11
TO: Stephen Greenwood <s.t.greenwood@chr.ox.ac.uk>

yes we can do that. CU there.

THE TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT
New fragment of the ‘Prophecy’ of Lucia Lucilla
STEPHEN T. GREENWOOD

Preliminary account of a stunning new discovery.

Published: 5 February 2014

PROPHECY has been much in the news of late. The chance conjunction of a new comet with renewed volcanic activity in the Scandinavian region and a temporal coincidence of interesting dates has given rise to much discussion of the type that would, prior to the internet era, have been conducted exclusively in red and green ink. I beg my readers to believe, therefore, that the recent discovery of an extensive fragment of the “Prophecy” from the Codex Lucis, a work that dates to the ninth century C.E. and is generally attributed to the saint and mystic Lucia Lucilla of Nîmes, is no mere freak of the modern apocalyptic fervour. To the contrary, the new fragment represents a scholarly advance of the first order, and I am grateful to the editors of Mediaeval Literature Quarterly, in whose pages the academic version of this article is due to appear, for permission to anticipate my findings there for the benefit of a wider audience here.

I will not bore the erudite readers of the TLS with an exhaustive description of the Codex Lucis. Unusually, we possess an autograph manuscript of the Codex, which, damaged as it is, remains a stunning piece of mediaeval artwork and is said to have been illustrated by Lucia Lucilla herself in one of her prophetic frenzies. Alas, the famous “Prophecy” of Book 6, amply attested by later writers, was lost when the latter part of the manuscript was damaged in a fire. It has long been a popular academic game to speculate on the contents of Lucia Lucilla’s “Prophecy.” We are now in a position to speak with some confidence on the topic.

In the first place, Lucia Lucilla predicted not just an apocalypse, but also, and more strikingly, a female ‘saviour-figure’, nicknamed Salus, who would, she believed, avert (or perhaps at least postpone) the end of the world. Of the new fragment, which comprises fifty lines in total, Lucia Lucilla devotes four lines to a list of the signs of the impending apocalypse, seven lines to an account of the disasters sure to strike the world should Salus fail in her mission, and thirty-nine lines to a highly coloured account of Salus’s prospective adventures. What is most remarkable about this discovery is how it expands our understanding of salus (“health, well-being, salvation”) as a concept in the Codex Lucis. Previously, scholars had taken references in Christine de Pizan and Erasmus to mean that the lost Book 6 treated salus impersonally, as something that would be lost in the fire and chaos of the end of the world; now it is apparent that this is far from the case. Likewise, the detailed instructions the prophetess lays out for Salus provide fascinating new insights into the mediaeval mindset. It is clear that this new fragment will occupy scholars for many years to come.

The authenticity of the fragment is beyond question: all the tests have confirmed the antiquity of its materials, which date to the thirteenth century, and its contents match what we know of the “Prophecy” from other sources. Moreover, the Latin betrays many of Lucia Lucilla’s typical stylistic features. The full text and translation, together with a critical apparatus, will appear in Mediaeval Literature Quarterly. I end therefore with an apt quotation of lines 14–16 of our new “Prophecy”:

volat ferreis Salus alis ad terram igni et quatiens:
in mediis tenebris inveniet in spelunca facem,
senis causa suscipiet ut primus daemoniorum dormiat.

Salus soars on metal wings to a land shaking with fire;
amidst shadows she will find a torch in a cave,
she will take up the old man’s cause
so that the first of the devils can sleep.

relevant to list’s interests: new fragment of Lucia Lucilla
FROM: Annette Lange <al5000@cam.ac.uk> 6/02/2014 10:48
TO: MEDIAEVALISTS@leicester.ac.uk

By Stephen Greenwood — see http://www.the-tls.co.uk/tls/public/article137151.ece. There’s more discussion and speculation about the Latin text at http://codexlucis.wordpress.com/discussing-the-new-lucilla-fragment. Perhaps more reason to question authenticity than Stephen allows.

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RE: relevant to list’s interests: new fragment of Lucia Lucilla
FROM: Karl Bergmann <kbm@univ-paris2.fr> 6/02/2014 13:09
TO: MEDIAEVALISTS@leicester.ac.uk

Very interesting! An important discovery, if genuine. Certainly reads like Lucilla’s barbaric Latin, though it’s a pity Stephen didn’t include the complete text and pictures in the TLS article. Does anyone know when the MdLQ article is coming out?

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RE: relevant to list’s interests: new fragment of Lucia Lucilla
FROM: Annette Lange <al5000@cam.ac.uk> 6/02/2014 15:55
TO: MEDIAEVALISTS@leicester.ac.uk

Either May or June of next year. A draft version is available as a PDF at
http://www.manuscripts.ox.ac.uk/Fragments/Greenwood.LuciaLucilla.draft.pdf

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Palimpsests, Prophecy and Provenance, oh my! Questions about the new fragment of Lucia Lucilla
POSTED BY: Charlotte Lennox

Most of you will already know about the new palimpsest fragment of Lucia Lucilla, discovered, it is claimed, beneath a page of Cicero’s De Gloria. The lady certainly had a lively imagination: from volcanoes to sudden sinkholes to plagues of diseased animals, this uncommonly specific medieval Sibyl has got the Mayan camp followers and other doomsday spotters excited across the internet. Some of them have even gone so far as to attempt to play Salus and carry out Lucia’s instructions for averting the end of the world. (No word yet on whether this has been successful — judging from the various myxomatosised rabbits draped pathetically across my lawn, however, I would say not.) Academics, meanwhile, have been suggesting amendations for the text  (previously available in draft form — but that link appears to be dead), rejoicing or mourning their vindicated or more often ruined speculations concerning the contents of the Prophecy, and challenging the new fragment’s authenticity. With his career-making discovery, in short, Oxford academic Dr. Stephen Greenwood has kicked off a good old-fashioned internet frenzy.

In all this excitement, the one thing that has not received as much attention as it should is the important question of the fragment’s provenance. I am not the only person saying this, by the way — see the links at the bottom of this post — but for some reason the TLS and other mass media outlets have not seen fit to press a point that was glaringly obvious to anyone who saw Dr. Greenwood’s draft paper: who, exactly, is the private collector who owns the fragment? Why was no provenance given? When, at the very least, will we get to see some high resolution pictures of the palimpsest?

This is a serious issue. The black market in antiquities has grown exponentially in recent years; there is no evidence that the fragment was illegally acquired, but no one so far has offered any proof that it was obtained through legal and transparent channels either. It is incumbent on Dr. Greenwood to rectify this situation as soon as possible. Ownership, provenance and object history all need to be clarified, preferably with full documentation on all counts. Then, and only then, will these deeply worrying questions be laid to rest.

The conversation is currently ongoing on Facebook and Twitter. Other blog posts expressing concerns (updated as I find them):

Tom Whitby, More Sound than Light

Paola Dolci, Still in the Dark on Lucia Lucilla

Karl Bergmann

Mary MacDonald

Jean-Marie Tailler 

Konstantinos Kouris, Medievalists unfamiliar with classical sources, news at 11

POSTED ON: 13 May 2014
LAST EDITED ON: 20 June 2014

RE: Errata, Request
FROM: Stephen Greenwood <stephen.greenwood@google.com> 9/08/2014 6:28
TO: Cara Falco <msadventurer@yahoo.com>

PLEASE get in touch ASAP!!!

SG

> RE: Errata, Request
> FROM: Stephen Greenwood <stephen.greenwood@google.com> 1/08/2014 8:51
> TO: Cara Falco <msadventurer@yahoo.com>
>
> Dear Cara,
>
> I am a little concerned by your, aha, “radio silence”. I’d
> really appreciate a response soon, if possible. At least
> let me know if you haven’t got the paperwork and we’ll
> work something out.
>
> I had third thoughts about ‘in the shining stone’ in line 29,
> incidentally. ‘Against the shining stone’ probably works better.
>
> All the best,
> Stephen

>> Errata, Request
>> FROM: Stephen Greenwood <stephen.greenwood@google.com> 25/06/2014 9:22
>> TO: Cara Falco <msadventurer@yahoo.com>
>>
>> Dear Cara,
>>
>> I do hope your travels are going smoothly. I enclose a list of
>> errata that you might find interesting; the mills of academia
>> grind, in fact, quite fast these days, if not always as finely
>> as one might like, and although many of the amendations offered
>> by my generous colleagues are wildly implausible (in my
>> humble opinion), some useful suggestions have been put
>> forwards. Thus:
>>
>>     * line 3, for ‘since’ read ‘when’
>>     * line 8, for ‘nut’ read ‘night’
>>     * line 19, for ‘however’ read ‘here’ (shorthand confusion,
>>     very easy mistake to make)
>>     * line 22, for ‘by a knife for the ice’ read ‘with the knife
>>     from the ice’
>>     * line 23, for ‘delay the beast’ read ‘kill the beast’
>>     * line 29, for ‘towards the shining stone’ read ‘in the shining
>>     stone’
>>     * line 40, for ‘stones from the stars’ read ‘falling from the
>>     stars’ (very clever amendation from Mick Weston there)
>>     * line 50, for ‘crown of glorious gold’ read ‘crown of golden
>>     glory’
>>
>> The other thing I wanted to say is actually quite important and
>> I’d really appreciate your cooperation here. I know we
>> agreed it would be an “ask no questions” situation after the
>> tests confirmed the page was genuine, but in retrospect that was
>> a mistake on my part. I really do need to know how you got hold
>> of it (the real story, please! Your little tale about the old
>> woman of Nîmes is quite amusing, I agree, but unfortunately will
>> not entertain an academic audience) and if you have any
>> paperwork at all (receipts, export licenses, documentation) I
>> need it right away. Do you know when you’ll be back in the
>> country yet? I’d like to see the page again in person, if possible
>> — my scans are good, but not as good as the real thing.
>>
>> On a slightly different note, it has been brought to my attention that
>> Cicero’s De Gloria is also a lost text, so if you have any idea where
>> the rest of that is, I should be very grateful to hear more.
>>
>> All the best,
>> Stephen.

RE: Errata, Request
FROM: Cara Falco <msadventurer@yahoo.com> 15/08/2014 3:56
TO: Stephen Greenwood <stephen.greenwood@google.com>

sorry we were out of email/phone contact. thanks for the corrections. we already worked out the knife and beast thing but good to know we got it right after all.

no paperwork. sorry. make up whatever you want. the old woman took the rest of the book we found in the ruined abbey. she might work at the sorbonne?

RE: Errata, Request
FROM: Stephen Greenwood <stephen.greenwood@google.com> 15/08/2014 6:55
TO: Cara Falco <msadventurer@yahoo.com>

The Sorbonne???!! What’s her name?

I forward, by the way, a selection of the correspondence received lately in connection with your prophecy. It seems to have caught a lot of people’s imaginations. I found the one about the lunar eclipse, the Icelandic volcano and that aqueduct that collapsed near Rome in June especially amusing. It would never have occurred to me to connect anything as random as that.

RE: Errata, Request
FROM: Cara Falco <msadventurer@yahoo.com> 15/08/2014 12:42
TO: Stephen Greenwood <stephen.greenwood@google.com>

she didn’t say. thanks for the other emails, the aqueduct makes a lot of sense, will investigate right away. might be hard to get hold of for a while but please text me if you got anything else wrong.

CFP Publication, Provenance and Due Diligence
FROM: Mary MacDonald <m.macdonald@dur.ac.uk> 20/08/2014 17:26
TO: MEDIAEVALISTS@leicester.ac.uk

Apologies for cross-posting.

PUBLICATION, PROVENANCE AND DUE DILIGENCE
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
CAMBRIDGE 2-3-4-5 JULY 2015
CALL FOR PAPERS

With issues of provenance and publication back in the news, the stage is set for ‘Publication, Provenance and Due Diligence’, an international conference to be held in Cambridge from 2—5 July 2015. Suggested topics for papers include:

* looting and antiquities;
* the ethics of publication in cases of doubtful provenance;
* questions of authenticity and forgery;
* new scientific developments in the dating field;
* historic loot and “private collectors”;
* impact and outreach: how to handle mass media attention gracefully.

The language of the conference is English. Proposals of no more than 500 words should be sent to m.macdonald@dur.ac.uk, al5000@cam.ac.uk or pdolci@uniroma1.it by 20 December 2014. This conference is funded by the Universities of Cambridge, Durham, Sapienza and Konstanz.

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RE: CFP Publication, Provenance and Due Diligence
FROM: Karl Bergmann <kbm@univ-paris2.fr> 21/08/2014 10:04
TO: MEDIAEVALISTS@leicester.ac.uk

Luke,

How do you feel about putting together a panel for this? I have a PhD student who needs to start going to conferences, if you can find someone for the fourth paper. It’s really about the new Lucia Lucilla fragment, of course. There should be some good gossip, no? Jean-Marie swears up and down the thing must be a forgery. Speaking of that, Stephen Greenwood’s been emailing everyone round here trying to find out if anyone’s been to Nîmes lately. Any idea what that’s about?

All best,
Karl

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APOLOGIES
FROM: Karl Bergmann <kbm@univ-paris2.fr> 21/08/2014 10:38
TO: MEDIAEVALISTS@leicester.ac.uk

Dear List Members,

Profuse apologies for my last email, which was not meant to be sent to the list! It was private correspondence to a colleague and I apologise to all those named or alluded to.

Karl

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RE: APOLOGIES
FROM: Paola Dolci <pdolci@uniroma1.it> 21/08/2014 13:16
TO: MEDIAEVALISTS@leicester.ac.uk

It is not correct at all to say that the conference will be “all about” Lucia Lucilla. Questions of provenance and the black market in antiquities go a very long way past the issues raised by that fragment. Within the last two days alone, there has been an incident at a little museum here in Rome in which several items were taken, including a number of newly acquired pieces that had not yet been examined and catalogued (this is not widely known, but it seems clear that the thieves knew what to look for and may have been working to order). If the stolen artefacts vanish now into “private collections”, or are sold on the black market, as seems very sadly likely, what are scholars to do when/if they come across one of them? And what is the difference between this and e.g. handling Nazi loot?

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RE: APOLOGIES
FROM: Tim Harleth <t.harleth@RHUL.AC.UK> 21/08/2014 13:16
TO: MEDIAEVALISTS@leicester.ac.uk

Moderator here. This is an interesting and important discussion that needs to be had, but could it be had offlist, please.

TH

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URGENT
FROM: Stephen Greenwood <stephen.greenwood@google.com> 24/08/2014 5:18
TO: Cara Falco <msadventurer@yahoo.com>

Dear Cara,

I do hope that Roman museum heist the other week wasn’t anything to do with you. Haha, just my little joke! Seriously, on a different topic, we did discuss this before, but you never quite got around to giving me a definite answer. I really do need to see that page again. I would really like to have it on a permanent basis. Would you conceivably consider selling it? All this foreign travel of yours must be quite expensive.

Please get back to me soon!

All the best,
Stephen

RE: URGENT
FROM: Cara Falco <msadventurer@yahoo.com> 26/08/2014 19:02
TO: Stephen Greenwood <stephen.greenwood@google.com>

the stars should be right by the end of the month if we got that right. you can have the page after that. the only thing was we weren’t sure what to do with the things from the museum afterwards. mirko knows someone who wants to buy the spear but the other things probably aren’t worth anything. nikoletta broke the jug by accident but we stuck it back together so it should be ok for the ritual in the colosseum. they’re etruscan. do you want them?

museums have shit security. most of them don’t even have lasers or poison arrow traps. you’d think they’d be more careful.

RE: URGENT
FROM: Stephen Greenwood <stephen.greenwood@google.com>
TO: Cara Falco <msadventurer@yahoo.com> 26/08/2014 19:02

Dear Cara,

Hahaha, very funny! Lasers and poison arrow traps! That really would improve museum security, wouldn’t it! You must have been watching too many blockbuster movies!

Let’s be very clear on this: the ONLY thing I want is that page of the Codex/De Gloria, which you assured me when we met in person, in Oxford, on Wednesday 24 November 2013, was completely legal and fully documented. I’m willing to pay £1700 in cash. Does that sound reasonable?

Yours,
Stephen

RE: URGENT
FROM: Cara Falco <msadventurer@yahoo.com> 2/09/2014 11:23
TO: Stephen Greenwood <stephen.greenwood@google.com>

sure sounds great. we’re flying back on monday so meet in london?

we saved the world btw. if you were interested.

BBC NEWS — Bodleian Library in Oxford acquires mediaeval prophecy

16 October 2014 Last updated at 11:47

A page from a mediaeval manuscript of a tenth century prophetess who foretold the end of the world has been donated to Oxford University’s Bodleian Library by an anonymous private collector.

The recently uncovered page, a “stunning new discovery” by Dr. Stephen Greenwood, will be available for scholars to study from next month. It will be housed in Bodleian Library’s Special Collections.

Mary Anne Wallace, Keeper of Special Collections, said: “We are very grateful to Stephen and the original owner.

“This is a remarkable piece and the Bodleian is delighted to have it.”

The page preserves not only a palimpsest of part of Lucia Lucilla’s Codex Lucis, which attracted attention after Dr. Greenwood wrote an article for the Times Literary Supplement in January, but also two pages of a lost treatise on glory by the Roman politician Marcus Tullius Cicero.

Dr. Greenwood, who was recently awarded a major grant by The Leverhulme Trust to work on a book about the Codex Lucis, said: “I am very glad to have facilitated this donation. I have always held that the overriding concern when it comes to items like this is that they should be accessible for scholarly research, and housing the page in the Bodleian ensures that this will continue to be the case. It belongs in a library.”

Some scholars had questioned the page’s provenance and authenticity. However, Dr. Greenwood added: “I know many people are very eager to see the page and I hope they embrace this opportunity to lay to rest any concerns they may have had. Honestly, I consider this to be a crowning moment of my career.”

old woman
FROM: Cara Falco <msadventurer@yahoo.com> 2/01/2015 14:14
TO: Stephen Greenwood <stephen.greenwood@google.com>

hi stephen

the old woman we met at nimes died. she was a professor at the sorbonne but retired. her name was louisette petit.

she sent me the rest of that book. she says there’s more palimpsest prophecy and this one’s the big one. it’s all in latin.

can u help?

Soteriology and Stephen Greenwood © 2015  Julia August
Edict of the Eclipse © Jakub Niedziela