536 Mr. Soane on the connexion of Pope Gerbert 



during which time he was so engaged with secular affairs, that it 

 was hardly possible for him to have bestowed any attention on the 

 corrupt and almost unintelligible MS. of the Agrimensors*. 



If we cannot connect Gerbert with the Arcerian MS. at Bobbio, 

 there are, it seems, no reasonable grounds for saying that he was more 

 intimately acquainted with the writings of the Agrimensors than 

 any other well-educated man of his time, unless such connection can 

 be inferred from the statement of Goesius, that part of the Expositio 

 Mensurarum, which in the Arcerian bears the name of Balbus, and 

 in the MSS. of the second class that of Frontinus, was in his MS. 

 attributed to Gerbert (Goes, in not. p. 142). Goesius goes on to 

 say, that he has made some corrections and additions with the aid of 

 that MS., and he expresses his surpi-ise that Rigalt had not done the 

 same, as he had the same MS. lent to him by Ilutgersius. Now this 

 MS. lent to Rigalt was undoubtedly nothing more nor less than a 

 transcript of the Arcerian, made by Nansiusj, and consequently 

 Goesius was mistaken so far ; but it would be too rash to say that he 

 is mistaken as to what he found in a MS. which he had before him. 

 His words are, " Hsec in manuscriptis adscribi video partim M. J. 

 Nipso, partim etiam, ut est in manuscripto, Domno Gerberto Papse 

 et Philosopho." He distinguishes between the MS. of Nipsus and 

 that of Gerbert. So far as Nipsus is concerned, the difficulty may 

 be got rid of by supposing that Goesius had one or more MSS. of 

 the third class, in which the preface is ascribed to Nipsus. With 

 respect to Gerbert it is not so easy to give any satisfactory expla- 

 nation. The only way of accounting for it, which occurs to me, is, 

 that as the matter which in the Arcerian is distributed between 

 Epaphroditus, Vitruvius, and Balbus, is in the third-class MSS. given 

 to Nipsus, and as a great part of it is also to be found in Gerbert, 

 all Goesius meant to say was, that such was the case, and not, as 

 his words would lead us to suppose, that any part of Balbus was 

 expressly ascribed to Gerbert ; or perhaps he only meant that there 

 was a substantial resemblance between the account of measures, &c. 

 in Balbus, and in Gerbert J. 



Independently of the presumption against Gerbert's familiarity 



* Gerbert oder Papst Sylvester II. und sein Jahrhundert, von C. F. Hock, pp. 

 64-67 and 195-199. The narrative of Richerius, who was the scholar of Gerbert, 

 and wrote his history at his request, as to the early career of his master, is, I 

 think, quite conclusive against the common opinion as to the time when he be- 

 came connected with Bobbio. — Richer. Hist. lib. iii. c. 43 seq. in Pertz, Monumenta 

 Germanica Historica, t. iii. b. 616. That he had not much leisure for literary pursuits 

 is proved by his own words : — " Cessimus ergo fortunjE, studiaque nostra, tempore 

 intermissa, animoretenta, repetimus" (Ep. 16). "DisparibusinBobienseCsenobium 

 meritis praistant laudati viri . . . Gerbertus potissimum ob jura abbatialia vindicata 

 .... Gerbertus scientias universas attigit : verum vix ad paiicos annos (?) rem Bo- 

 biensem moderatus est, juribus potius, quam studiis revocandis intentus." — Peyron, 

 I. c. p. xi. 



t SeeBlume, /. c. p. 180. 



t Blume thinks that the name of 'Gerbert' was prefixed, perhaps merely to in- 

 dicate the possessor of an ancient MS., and not the author of the compilation, 

 I. c. p. 227. In the Corrigenda, p. 377, he corrects the mistake he had fallen into, 

 that Gerbert's name was written in the Arcerian. 



