Some Latin Sources of the Nonnes Preest on Dreams
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NEARLY half the Nonnes Preestes Tale is devoted to the dream of Chauntecleer and his discussion of it with Pertelote. Their debate on divination through dreams provides a major conflict and a major theme of the poem as Pertelote contends that "Nothyng, God woot, but vanitee in sweven is" (2922)' while Chauntecleer brings forth authorities and anecdotes to prove that "dremes been to drede" (3063) and concludes by saying, "I shal han of this avisioun / Adversitee" (3152-53). Theories of dreams to which a fourteenth-century reader might turn are found in such works as Commentarii n Somnium Scipionis by Macrobius, Policraticus by John of Salisbury, De somno et vigilia by Albertus Magnus, Speculum naturale by Vincent of Beauvais, and De proprietatibus rerum by Bartolomeus Anglicus;2 but the treatise which, in the Nonnes Preestes Tale, Chaucer follows closely in theory after theory, detail after detail, and illustration after illustration, is Robert Holcot's commentary on the Book of Wisdom, Super Sapientiam Salomonis. In her book On the Sources of the Nonne Prestes Tale Kate Oelzner Petersen indicated this influence by presenting in parallel columns some of the corresponding passages,3 but the relationship deserves closer and fuller study because Holcot provided Chaucer with the basic materials for the farmyard debate on dreams, and Chaucer's selection, adaptation, and transformation of Holcot's materials can be better understood with a knowledge of their context in the Wisdom commentary and with a view of what Holcot accomplished in the lectures that Chaucer knew and used. Holcot, a Dominican friar, studied at Oxford for about eight years; finally during his regency in 1333-34 he gave a lecture course on the Twelve Prophets. He may also have had a two-year regency at Cambridge in 133436, when he lectured on the apocryphal Book of Wisdom in a commentary divided into 212 lectiones. J. C. Wey writes, "As the author of a long and stimulating commentary on the Book of Wisdom Holcot became famous over
[1] V. Hamm. Chaucer: "Heigh Ymaginacioun." , 1954 .