De philosophia mundi, Expositio Hugonis de Evangeliis

William of Conches was a philosopher, teacher (tutor to Henry II of England), and member of the Cathedral School of Chartres, one of the leading educational institutions in eleventh- and twelfth-century Europe. In this four-book summa of philosophical knowledge, he moves down through the celestial spheres, from God and Creation to astronomy, geography, meteorology, and finally human medicine. The Kislak Center’s copy includes sixteen diagrams, including the sketchy drawings of eclipses on these pages, while much of the section on human procreation has been cancelled by a later reader (fols. 15v-16r). This codex concludes with an otherwise unknown text on the Gospels attributed to the Saxon theologian Hugh of Saint-Victor, which may be the fourth volume of his Liber sermonum.