Publishing a translation of Jordanus Rufus's veterinary treatise

The main focus of my research, since the start of my Master’s degree, in 2017, and throughout my PhD, has been the medieval knight and author Jordanus Rufus (c. 1200-c. 1256). He wrote a veterinary treatise, De medicina equorum (On the medicine of horses) which was translated in multiple European languages throughout the medieval period. An incredibly useful compilation of the known manuscripts has been published by Antonio Montinaro and can be found here. 

During my PhD, I focussed on the manuscripts containing the medieval French translation of the text, to study how it had evolved from the 13th to the 16th centuries, whether translators had adapted it, and whether there were clues indicating the text may have been put into practice. Thank to Antonio Montinaro’s list of manuscripts, I came across one which, unlike the other French translations, had somehow not been studied: apart from Montinaro’s work, it did not seem to be referred to anywhere else. I contacted the Vatican library where it was kept, to see if it would be possible to access it (that was happening during the Covid pandemic). They digitised it and put it online, where it is now freely available. 

I had, at the time, started to study all the other accessible manuscripts. I vaguely wondered if that Vatican one would offer anything new. I did not expect it to but it was exciting to start reading it. And as I did, I realised something: of all the French translations, this was the “best.” It was close to what we can assume the original, Latin text was, or at least made complete sense on its own. It was complete (save for a couple of missing pages). It was erudite, with few mistakes. The person who translated it clearly knew about horses. It was a historian’s dream source. 

This means that the decision to transcribe, edit, and translate it, to make it available to the wider public was straightforward. The process itself was not. The transcription was easy. Then, I initially decided to translate it to modern French. I switched to English because, at the time, there were no English translations of the De medicina equorum available (there is one now, based on a different source from the one I used). 

I originally wanted to self-publish, then decided to go with an academic publisher. After a while, various circumstances meant that I decided to go with self-publishing after all, two years after I had actually finished the book (though to be fair, I did make some changes to it within those years). It has lingered for too long on my computer hard disk: out it will come, and be made available (and affordable, unlike academic books!) to whoever might be interested in it.

The fact that this book, fortunately or unfortunately, made it partway through the academic publishing process, means that several people have seen and commented on the draft. This has been a source of frustration – I have almost never had a nice experience of peer-reviews, maybe because I am oversensitive to personal comments that question my academic skills and rigour – but it has also been very useful, from catching typos to making me reflect on and reconsider decisions I had made during the translation. 

I am currently still working on various edits, while aiming to stick to my scheduled publication date. It is both daunting and liberating to be completely in charge of the publication. The layout is a bit of a headache, as I want to present both the transcription and the translation. There will be illustrations, just because I like illustrating. Overall, I am hoping it will prove to be a good introduction to the work of Jordanus Rufus, a taster for people who might then decide to explore more scholarly volumes.