Marginal Notes in Latin and Old Occitan in the Bible from the Collection of N.P. Rumyantsev (Russian State Library. F. 256. № 816)

The paper deals with three unknown reader’s marginal notes from the 14th century, recently discovered by E.V Kazbekova in the Latin Bible from the collection of Count N.P. Rumyantsev (Moscow. Russian State Library. F. 256. № 816). Information on the cataloging of the manuscript in the 19th and 20th centuries is provided. The language, content and genre of the marginal notes as well as there connection with the main text are analysed, parallels in the literature monuments of the 12th-13th centuries and in the theologian works of the 16th century are revealed. All three marginal notes are proverbs, and each one refers to a certain verse in the Book of Wisdom of King Solomon. The first one is a close translation of the biblical verse in Old Occitan and represents a rhymed syllabic distich which has lexical, metrical and thematic paralleles in the poems of William IX, Duke of Aquitaine, William of Tudela, Matfre Er-mengaud. Two other marginal notes are popular medieval Latin proverbs illustrating maxims from the Bible book. Similar proverbs in the treatises of Jean Raulin and Juan Viguera are occured as well as in Peter Abelard’s poem «Carmen ad Astralabium». In the second note, one word was replaced by a Vulgar Latin paronym, which was in use in Languedoc and Provence. In the third one, two Latin words were replaced by Old Occitan ones. The interdisciplinary approach complements and clarifies the conclusions of E.V Kazbekova based on paleographic and codicological analyse of the Bible from the N.P. Rumyantsev’s collection and sheds new light on its history and use in the 14th century. During this period, the Rumyantsev Bible existed in the Occitan (Southern France or Northern Italy) and could be used by learned readers to select quotations for their own writings.