gems, early lapidaries, early gemology, early mineralogy

Lapidaries are treatises dealing with the physical and alleged therapeutic properties of stones, gems, and minerals, and frequently ascribing allegorical meanings to them. This literary genre was both widespread and very popular during the period of classical antiquity and throughout the entire Middle Ages up to the Renaissance. This article pertains to an interesting Latin lapidary of the Christian genre, circulating in late Anglo-Saxon England. The work, entitled in the manuscripts De lapidibus (henceforth DL) and opening with the words “Iaspis uirides super quem fuerit,” is attested in eight manuscripts (so far discovered) and has been neither studied nor published up to the present day. This study provides both a critical edition and an English translation of DL. Furthermore, the lapidary will be examined in connection with the manuscript tradition in which it is to be found and dealing with its possible sources and analogues, while taking into account the cultural environment in which it was composed. The aim of the present study is to discover whether or not this lapidary was reputed to be a scientific tool, to be employed for didactic purposes in the monastery schools of the Anglo-Saxon period.