The Jewel of the Soul (Gemma animae) by Honorius Augustodunensis was very popular in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. At least seventy-two manuscripts of it survive, most of them from the southern regions of the Holy Roman Empire, but also from England, France, and central Italy. And yet, there is still no critical edition of the work, one much owed to Honorius. In light of this lacuna, Zachary Thomas and Gerhard Eger have published a new edition of this treatise from the manuscript Admont, Benediktinerstift, MS 366, which dates from the middle of the twelfth century and is therefore very close to the original writing.
This edition offers a first-rate source for the study of liturgy in the early Middle Ages. This is a very successful edition which, although not critical, allows a much-improved reading of the Jewel of the Soul than the one in the Patrologia Latina. Thomas and Eger have made available to researchers a work that is worthy of the great erudition of Honorius, this enigmatic author with a passion for order, allegory, and history.
José Miguel de Toro
Journal of Medieval Latin
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