I.5.3
CONCEPT OF AUTHORSHIP & HAITO
To what extent do Bischoff's findings on the paleographical
nature of the explanatory titles of the Plan confirm
or contradict our theory of Haito's authorship?
They make one point quite clear: Haito cannot have been
identical with the scribe who wrote the letter of transmittal
and the majority of the other titles of the Plan. At the time
the Plan was made, Haito was not a young man. He was
already around fifty-eight years of age in 820.[103]
These
findings, however, do not in my opinion disqualify Haito
from the authorship of the Plan. The concept of authorship
in the Middle Ages is complex. Bischoff himself furnishes
us with an excellent case in point. The above-mentioned
Codex Augiensis CXXXVI contains on folio IV an annotation
in which Reginbert of Reichenau refers to himself in
unequivocal terms as the "fabricator" of the book, "Hunc
libellum . . . meo studio confeci." Yet besides this entry on
folio IV, some chapter headings on folios 21r, 24r, and 28r,
and some isolated corrections here and there, no other line
of this work is written in his own hand.[104]
It is not necessary, with this concept of authorship, to
expect that the person who in the transmittal note of the
Plan defines himself as its maker should actually have
traced the Plan or written its explanatory titles. He is the
person who directed that the Plan be made, and who—
once it was made—transmitted it to the person by whom
it had been requested.
Bischoff has established that the explanatory titles of the
Plan were written in the monastery of Reichenau, perhaps
under the supervision of Reginbert, with the assistance of
a scribe who had co-operated with Reginbert in other
literary endeavors. Reginbert is not a likely candidate for
the authorship of the Plan for reasons that I have stated in
the preceding chapter. This leaves, once more, as the only
logical choice, Bishop Haito of Basel who, as the superior
of the two, might very well have availed himself of their
joint support in making the Plan.
As one of the leading bishops and abbots in the empire,
Haito is furthermore a person who can be expected to have
had access to the prototype plan.
