Vie de saint Martin de Wauchier de Denain – Edition by Ariane Pinche
Edition by: Ariane Pinche
Developed by: Elisa Nury
The Manuscript
This edition propose an alignment of the medieval French, its translation and its Latin source. The medieval French is a translation of the manuscript 412 of the BnF, the translation is my own and the Latin Text comes from Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum digitized by the Open Greek and Latin project (http://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.47197) that you can read on the Nemo Latin repository from Perseids’ interface (http://cts.perseids.org/read/latinLit/stoa0270/stoa002/opp-lat2/pr.1-pr.6). The medieval text is the beginning of the saint Martin Life, translation from the Vita Sancti Martini of Sulpicius Severus written in the fourth century, from the early thirteen century and written by Wauchier de Denain, well known to be one of the continuator of the Quest of the holy Graal of Chretien de Troyes. This Life is the most important Life of an hagiographic work called the ‘li seint Confessor’ written by Wauchier the Denain for Philippe de Namur.
The Edition
The aim for me in this project was to find a way to show the translation align with the original text to provide the reader an easy access to the text. I also decided to add the Sulpicius Severus Vita Sancti Martini in Latin. So the interface gives to the reader the translation of the Medieval Text to help the understanding and an access to the Latin source that enable the comparison between the Life in medieval French and the Life in Latin to see similarities and differences. This comparison can be really interesting not only for a general reader but also for research work, because, even if most of the time Wauchier de Denain is really close to his Latin source, sometimes he adds some ideas and also moralizing verses addressed to the Philippe’s court and some other times when the Latin Life is about religious problematics like the Arianism, he just sums it up. To help the reading, some indices have been enlightened like the character’s names or the city’s and country’s names. If there is a note in the text, it can be read in a pop up. You can also reach a reproduction of the folio the text is part of by clicking on the page break signs. The example provided here is just a small abstract of the saint Martin Life and of the possibilities that digital tools can offer us, but this kind of interface – made only in a few days by developers – can really help to make a commentary on the medieval work or about the reception of the Latin Life. I’m also thinking about some improvement for the continuation of my PhD thesis, I can structure my notes system with the note about the meaning of the text linked to the translation and the critical apparatus directly linked on the medieval text. For the commentary of the text, I can also imagine a way to enlighten the Latin text passages that have been summarized and in the medieval work passages that have been added.