Medieval manuscript compiling various histories of the Iberian kingdoms
Códice de Roda, fol. 1r.
The Códice de RodaorCódice de Meyá (Roda or Meyá codex) is a medieval manuscript that represents a unique primary source for details of the 9th- and early 10th-century Kingdom of Navarre and neighbouring principalities. It is currently held in MadridasRoyal Academy of History MS 78.[1]
The codex is thought to date from the late 10th century, although there are additions from the 11th century, and it was compiled in Navarre, perhaps at Nájera, written in a Visigothicminuscule in several different hands with cursive marginal notes. It is 205 mm × 285 mm (8.1 in × 11.2 in), and contains 232 folios.[1] The manuscript appears to have been housed at Nájera in the 12th century, and later in the archives of the cathedral at Roda de Isábena at the end of the 17th century. In the next century, it was acquired by the prior of Santa María de Meyá, passing into private hands, after which only copies and derivative manuscripts were available to the scholarly community until the rediscovery of the original manuscript in 1928.[2]
Despite this diversity of material, the manuscript is perhaps best known for its genealogies of the dynasties ruling on both sides of the Pyrenees.[2][5] The genealogies in the Roda Codex have played a critical role in interpreting the scant surviving historical record of the dynasties covered. The family accounts span as many as five generations, ending in the first half of the 10th century. These include the Íñiguez and Jiménez rulers of Pamplona, the counties of Aragon, Sobrarbe, Ribagorza, Pallars, Toulouse and the duchy of Gascony. It has recently been suggested that these genealogies, reminiscent of the work of Ibn Hazm, were prepared in an Iberian Muslim context in the Ebro valley and passed to Navarre at the time the codex was compiled.[2][5]
fol. 195r–v: De fabrica mundi, a Pseudo-Isidorean poem[7]
fols 195v–196r: Isidore's De laude Spaniae, a poem in praise of Spain[12]
fol. 196r–v: a series of texts drawn from the Chronica Albeldense under the rubrics Exquisitio Spaniaee, De septem miracula and De proprietatibus gentium[12]
fol. 196v: De LXXII generationes linguarum plus a short statement that begins Item de uitulorum carnibus[12]
fols 197r–198r: drawings of Babylon, Nineveh and Toledo[12] with the short text Historia de Octaviano et Septemsidero[13]
fol. 198r: De laude Hispaniae, a poem in praise of Spain[7][12]
fols 198v–207r: Genealogia Christi, with the text De orbe terre and a T and O map inserted at fols 200v–201r[12]
Helena de Carlos Villamarín, "El Códice de Roda (Madrid, BRAH 78) como compilación de voluntad historiografica", Edad Media. Rev. Hist., 12:119–142 (2011).
Rodrigo Furtado,『Emulating Neighbours in Medieval Iberia around 1000: A Codex from La Rioja (Madrid, RAH, cód. 78),』in Kim Bergqvist, Kurt Villads Jensen and Anthony John Lappin, eds., Conflict and Collaboration in Medieval Iberia (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2020). pp. 43–72.
Zacarías García Villada,『El códice de Roda recuperado,』Revista de Filología Española 15:113–130 (1928).
Juan Gil Fernández,『Textos olvidados del Códice de Roda,』Habis 2:165–178 (1971).
Elisa Ruiz García, Catálogo de la sección de códices de la Real Academia de la Historia (Madrid, 1997).
Matthias M. Tischler, "Spaces of ‘Convivencia’ and Spaces of Polemics Transcultural Historiography and Religious Identity in the Intellectual Landscape of the Iberian Peninsula, Ninth to Tenth Centuries", in Walter Pohl and Daniel Mahoney, eds., Historiography and Identity IV: Writing History Across Medieval Eurasia (Brepols, 2021), pp. 275–305.
