Jofroi of Waterford, Le secré de segrectz
Paris, c. 1300

University Library, MS Add. 4089, f. 1r
England, third quarter of the fifteenth century
Vellum, 205 x 147 mm (130-135 x 90 mm), IV + 40 + II ff.

This manuscript is preserved its fifteenth-century binding in white sheepskin over oak boards. It contains only one text, Le secré des segrectz (‘The Secret of Secrets’), a medieval French translation by Jofroi of Waterford (fl. c. 1300) of the pseudo-Aristotelian treatise, the Secretum secretorum. The structure of the title, like that of the Biblical Song of songs, is derived from the Hebrew way of expressing the superlative and literally means ‘the greatest of secrets’. The treatise is presented as a letter written to Alexander the Great by Aristotle during his campaigns in the East, and consists of a textbook on politics, interpreted as a science, grounded on universal knowledge. It is one of the most widely diffused texts of the Middle Ages, of uncertain origin and with a complex multilingual tradition. Versions are extant in Latin, Greek, Arabic, Persian (the latter possibly being the original language of the text), Czech, Russian, Croatian, Dutch, German, Icelandic, English, Catalan, Castilian, Portuguese, French, Italian and Welsh. One witness of the two Latin versions is shown here: University Library, MS Add. 4089. As is usual in the tradition, this manuscript travelled under a number of different names. The binding, for instance, bears the inscription (in a fifteenth or sixteenth-century hand) De regimine principum / Robertus Tyrellys. Robert Tyrell appears at one time to have been the volume’s owner, as evidenced by another inscription on the inside of the last folio. The manuscript probably remained in the possession of the same family, as f. 45v records Thomas Tyrrel posessor huius libri anno 1539. The manuscript was bequeathed to the University Library by Samuel Sandars in 1894.