20 MAURICE OF RIEVAULX January Rievaulx. The contents of these lost manuscripts are described as follows in the thirteenth -century catalogue : [Class G.] Sermones Mauricii qui sic incipiunt, Festum super festum, in uno vol. [Class H.] Epistole Mauricii in uno vol. Libri Mauricii scilicet Specula monastice religionis & Apologia eiusdem & itinerarium pacis & Rithmus eiusdem & de translatione corporis S. Cuthberti in 1° uol. 1 The last-named work strengthens the suggestion that the author of these books was Maurice of Rievaulx. Maurice is known to have been from his boyhood an inmate of the abbey of St. Cuth- bert at Durham. It is possible that he remembered the great ceremony of the saint's translation in 1104 ; he must certainly have known persons who had been present. He is a most likely author of any account of the translation. Now an author of a widely-spread and popular description of the ceremony has long been to seek. This tract is usually found as a single chapter in a collection of St. Cuthbert's miracles. 2 Some of the stories were well known in 1104 and were used by Svmeon of Durham in his history of the church of Durham written before 1109. Others are of later date. The description of the translation was written certainly after 1122 and probably after 1136. A reference to Ralph, abbot of Seez, who was present, shows that the record was written after Ralph's death (19 September 1122) : ' venerabilis memorie Radulfus, tunc quidem abbas Sagiensis monasterii sed postea Cantuariorum archiepiscopus.' 3 A reference to William of Corbeil, who died 21 November 1136, suggests that the author wrote after this date also : ' Guillelmus tunc Dunelmensis episcopi clericus sed post saepedictum Radulfum ecclesiae Can- tuariensis archiepiscopus.' 4 In any case there is no chrono- logical difficulty in attributing the work to Maurice, first of Durham, and later of Rievaulx. In view of the fact that the 1 The catalogue of the Rievaulx library is inserted in the first six folios of a twelfth- century manuscript, formerly belonging to the abbey, and now, like the manuscript containing Walter Daniel's life of Ailred, in the possession of Jesus College, Cambridge (MS. Q. B. 17). It was printed by Halliwell-Phillipps in the Reliquiae Antiquae, edited by Thomas Wright and himself, ii. 180-9 (1843); also by Edward Edwards, Memoirs of Libraries,!. 333-41 (1859). The third and best edition of the catalogue is in James, Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in Jesus College, Cambridge, pp. 45 ff. The entries regarding Maurice's books will be found on p. 48. 2 For the text of this collection see Symeonis Dunelmensis Opera (ed. Hodgson Hinde, Surtees Soc, 1868), i. 158 ff. The translation is chap. 18, pp. 188-97. For the manuscripts see Hodgson Hinde's introduction, xxxix-xlv, and Hardy, Descriptive Catalogue, i. 303-5. The work is also printed in Symeon of Durham's Opera Omnia* edited by T. Arnold in the Rolls Series (1882), i. 229 ; ii. 333. Arnold was inclined to attribute it to Symeon. 3 Symeonis Dunelm. Opera (Surtees Soc), i. 194.
- Ibid. p. 195. Cf. Archer, ante, ii. 104.
