gems, early lapidaries, early gemology, early mineralogy, Lapidaire chrétien, Book of Sydrac

My aim in the present study is twofold. First, I intend to present additional information about the little-known lapidary found in the Old French Book of Sydrac dating from the early thirteenth century and unpublished in modern times. Second, it will be shown that this lapidary shares unique features with another work, one of the oldest of the so-called “Christian” lapidaries, the rhymed Lapidaire chrétien (henceforth cited as L.c.). I wish to demonstrate further that many elements in L.c., previously thought unique, are now found to be not uncommon. These elements are shared with Sydrac’s lapidary, and apparently the latter influenced the formation of the L.c. Obscure references in L.c. now become clearer in the light of Sydrac’s text. The Lapidary of Sydrac, though unfamiliar today, was well known in its time and is probably older than the L.c., most likely a source from which the latter drew. The Book of Sydrac cannot be claimed as one of the many lost works of the Middle Ages. This popular vernacular encyclopedia, very much like an almanac, survives in more than seventy manuscripts, but no version of it has been published in modern times, and the work has been largely ignored by scholars. The text referred to in the present study is from the oldest and shortest complete manuscript, dating probably from the second quarter of the thirteenth century, Bibliothèque nationale, Ms. français 1160.