Humberti de Romanis Legendae Sancti Dominici, necnon materia praedicabilis pro Festis Sancti Dominici et testimonia minora de eodem, adiectis miraculis rotomagensibus Sancti Dominici et Gregorii IX bulla canonizationis eiusdem (review)

The English Dominican Simon Tugwell prefaces this work by stating that he did not expect it to become such a dauntingly large book. It has much more to offer than simply Tugwell’s editions of the Legenda prima and Legenda maior of St. Dominic by Humbert of Romans (who served as fifth Master of the Order of Preachers in 1254–63 and died in 1277). Tugwell includes his editions of other related texts: Fons sapientiae, Pope Gregory IX’s bull canonizing St. Dominic; the tabula of the Rouen dossier’s Legenda maior; the miracles attributed to St. Dominic from that same manuscript; and material for preaching on St. Dominic excerpted from Humbert’s De eruditione praedicatorum. Moreover, and not surprising to those familiar with Tugwell’s meticulous care for early Dominican sources, he offers a judicious account of historical and textual matters that leaves the reader with a solid basis for further research. Appendices and indices round out this tome.

The wide-ranging introduction of 422 pages begins with the quest for liturgical uniformity before Humbert’s time as master, such as when he was provincial of the Roman Province (c. 1241–46) and provincial of France (1246–54), and then moves to studies of the legendae. Tugwell shows that we may safely view Humbert as the author, or rather compiler, of the Legenda prima in the 1246 lectionary and the Legenda maior in the 1256 lectionary. The Regensburg sanctoral is the only extant witness to the 1246 lectionary wherein its Legenda is a thorough abridgement of Ferrandus’s legenda. On the other hand, Humbert draws almost entirely from both Ferrandus and Constantine, besides a few details drawn from Jordan’s Libellus, to compose the Legenda maior. Its manuscript tradition is considerably more complex, and Tugwell carefully reviews the evidence, such as from the thirteenthcentury Rouen dossier (Paris BNF lat. 18309 [R]). The longest of the editions with eighty-two pages, the Legenda maior has an apparatus fontium to identify Humbert’s sources, an apparatus devoted to the underlying sources (e.g., biblical allusions), and a critical apparatus to note manuscript variants.

Tugwell’s sure hand even touches on Humbert’s works unrelated to the two legendae. For example, he provides an intriguing proposal concerning Humbert’s Opus tripartitum written in view of Pope Gregory X’s council of 1274 in Lyons to consider the three topics of the Saracen occupation of the Holy Land, the Greek schism, and the reform of morals in the Church. As for its commissioning, Tugwell follows Daniel Antonin Mortier, Karl Michel, and Ludovico Gatto in arguing that Humbert wrote the three-part treatise in response to a specific request that the pope made of Humbert (and not simply in response to the papal letters of Saluator noster on March 31, 1272, or Dudum super generalis on March 11, 1273). More originally, Tugwell finds evidence for how Gregory X used Humbert’s text. Bernard Gui has often been supposed as the compiler of the Extractiones, notes on the Opus tripartitum that offer many striking differences from the original text. Tugwell argues persuasively that the Extractiones should be ascribed to Gregory X himself. Thanks to Tugwell, historians are in a much better position to assess Humbert’s influence on Gregory X and the direction of the pope’s thinking on the eve of the Second Council of Lyons.

With this latest study and edition, Tugwell continues his invaluable service to those who long to understand more of St. Dominic, earliest devotions to him, and his capable successor who did much to strengthen the order in the middle of the thirteenth century...