Francesc Eiximenis. An Anthology (review)

The book that I hold in my hands is one of several volumes of a new collection that will indubitably bring neglected Catalan medieval texts into mainstream studies and facilitate their inclusion in the teaching curriculum of English-speaking countries. This initiative, brought forward through the collaboration between Barcino and Tamesis, is to be welcomed and applauded. This particular book is an anthology of texts composed by the prolific Franciscan writer Francesc Eiximenis. The texts included in this volume were selected and edited by Xavier Renedo and David Guixeras and translated into English by Robert Hughes.

Francesc Eiximenis, born in Girona around 1330, was a remarkable and influential figure of his time. He entered the Franciscan order as a very young man and after learning the trivium and quadrivium, he went on to pursue university studies in various European learning centers: Oxford, Paris, Rome, Cologne, and Toulouse of Languedoc. He was ordained in Barcelona in 1352 and started to teach at Franciscan centers in Barcelona and Vic.

In 1382 he moved to the city of Valencia, where he resided until his death. There, in 1384 he composed the Terç del Crestià, which deals with the capital sins, and in 1385 the Dotzè del Crestià, devoted to rules of government and the res publica (the latter was a version of the Regiment de la cosa pública, the very successful treatise Eiximenis had compiled for the councilors of the city of Valencia). While living in Valencia Eiximenis wrote, among other works, the Llibre dels àngels in 1392 and Lo libre de les dones in 1396 (although this date is still debated). These works, together with the Vita Christi, were extremely successful and circulated among a much wider audience than Eiximenis' earlier encyclopedic works. The reception of these works evidences that a shift or a widening of the public had taken place during the Franciscan's lifetime. Thus, Eiximenis accomplished with these texts one of his main objectives as a preacher: to make Christian doctrine and morality available to the widest possible lay public.

The aim of the present English translation of Eiximenis's works is imbued with an analogous ideal: to disseminate the Franciscan's texts to a wider audience. The passages anthologized come from the following books: Dotzè del Crestià (Twelfth Book of the Christian Encyclopedia), Llibre dels àngels (Book of Angels), Llibre de les dones (Book of Women), Primer del Crestià (First Book of the Christian Encyclopedia), Regiment de la cosa pública (Rule of the Commonwealth), Segon del Crestià (Second Book of the Christian Encyclopedia), Scala Dei (Ladder of God), Terç del Crestià (Third Book of the Christian Encyclopedia) and Vita Christi (Life of Jesus Christ).

The rendering of the texts to English is quite masterfully accomplished by the translator, the well-known art critic and author of the book Barcelona. This is no small feat, considering the complexity of Eiximenis's linguistic register in medieval Catalan. The Franciscan author embarks upon discussions of eminent patristic concepts intermingled with proverbs and popular turns of phrase that reveal his close familiarity with the society surrounding him and his clever use of preaching strategies. Hughes, however, manages to find an equilibrium between the severe moral pronouncements and the witty and humorous colloquial expressions.

What the translation cannot entirely avoid is the loss of a medieval cadence to the text. Although the English rendition conveys a rather archaic diction, it does not completely evoke fourteenth-century discourse. Hughes's version is, nevertheless, an excellent translation that respects the nuances of the Catalan language and creatively attempts to elude the challenges of translating particularly funny and culturally coded passages.

The anthology is organized in four parts devoted to the treatment of four different, although intertwined, thematic threads frequently echoed in Eiximenis's works; the four chapters are entitled "From Paradise to the City", "Education in the Home", "Education and Society" and "Education at School". Each of the four parts, in turn, is further divided in...