Note 234 — Chapter XXXVIII

I cannot, however, agree with Professor Haskins (p. 10), that “From certain phrases in the preface” (of Hugh’s translation of the Liber Aristotilis de 255 indorum voluminibus) “it would seem that, while Hugo has been for some time a devotee of Arabian science, he has only recently (nunc) and comparatively late in the day (serus ac indignus minister) entered the bishop’s service.” It seems to me that the last phrase should read servus ac indignus minister, for Hugh had already translated at least one other work for the bishop before this one on the 255 books of the Indians, and in the present preface he alludes to many previous discussions between them and to the bishop’s continually exhorting him to publish, so that one would infer that they had been associated for some time past. Since writing this I have learned both from Mr. H. H. E. Craster of the Bodleian and from Professor Haskins himself that the reading in the MS (Digby 159, fol. 1v) is “seruus” or servus, as I have it in the rough notes I took on the treatise in August, 1919.