A garden of knowledge, the encyclopaedia of Jean Raynaud (15th century)

Jean Raynaud, a French jurist, is the author of the Viridarium, a latin encyclopaedia of the beginning of the 15th century. The text, quite interesting in its nature, is largely unknown to scholars. In this paper emphasis will be put on the construction of the text and the sources used by the author. The structure of his encyclopaedia is based on a work of the 13th century, the textual material chosen from a great variety of sources. Although Raynaud’s main source is an encyclopaedia in the classical sense of the term, the text includes a large number of extracts from other texts, which have to be regarded as border cases of the encyclopaedic genre. It will be examined how the author compilates his sources, which one he privileges.