Editorsâ Note
Schmittâs edition of Anselmâs Opera Omnia (AOO) is the text that we use to reference citations from Anselmâs works, giving volume, page and line numbers. The text of Anselmâs non-epistolary writings, which comprises the first two volumes of AOO and part of the third, is rightly based on the edition contained in Oxford Ms Bodley 271, written at Christ Church, Canterbury, around or just after the time of Anselmâs death in 1109.1 In this manuscript, as in all the extant manuscripts bar two (Douai, Bibliothèque municipale, Ms 354, and Rouen, Bibliothèque municipale, Ms 539 [A. 366]), the author of the Pro Insipiente (PI) remains anonymous. Schmitt, whilst retaining the anonymous title, choses to follow the Maurist Dom Gerberonâs 1675 edition of Anselmâs writings in referring to Gaunilonis Pro Insipiente in the title at the top of pages AOO, I:127 & 129. This identification of the author of PI with a certain Gaunilo of Marmoutier (who in turn is to be identified with Guanilon [sic] of Marmoutier, comte de Montigni2) was not established by rigorous philological and codicological analysis, but by repetition of the Maurist account, and remains open to dispute.3 Nevertheless, the modern convention is to refer to the author as Gaunilo [sic], so the editors have chosen to retain this name as a placeholder for that of the author, except with reference to the title given to PI itself.
Ian Logan, âMs. Bodley 271: Establishing the Anselmian Canon?â, The Saint Anselm Journal, 2.1 (Fall 2004), pp. 67â80.
See Edmond Martène, Mémoires De La Société Archéologique De Touraine, Tomes XXIVâXXV, Histoire De Lâabbaye De Marmoutier, Tomes IâII, Casimir Chevalier, ed. (Tours: Guilland-Verger/Georget-Joubert, 1874â1875), Tome 1, pp. 363â365. Although written in the first decade of the eighteenth century, this work was not published until the 1870s.
On the weakness of the case for Gaunilo, see Konrad Goehl and Johannes Mayer, âDeus in cogitatione existens: Der Appendix zum âProslogionâ des Anselm von Canterburyâoder: Kann Gaunilos Nicht-Sein gedacht werden?â in Konrad Goehl and Johannes Gottfried Mayer, eds., Editionen und Studien zur lateinischen und deutschen Fachprosa des Mittelalters: Festgabe für Gundolf Keil (Würzburg: Verlag Königshausen und Neumann, 2000), pp. 339â354. Note also the argument that Ralph of Battle was the author of PI, in Bernd Goebel and Christian Tapp, âDer kosmologische Gottesbeweis des Ralph von Battle. Rekonstruktion, Kritik und Einordnungâ, Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, 104 (2022), pp. 509â538, esp. pp. 531â536.