Le repas de Jean Baptiste au désert : sauterelles, crevettes ou écrevisses ? Un petit texte exégétique inédit du Xe siècle

Copied on the last folio, remained blank, of a manuscript probably originated in Fleury, an exegetical note, to be dated to the end of the tenth century, questions the true nature of locustae that Mark’s Gospel wrote they constituted the meal of John the Baptist in the desert. Refuting the idea that it could be locusts, the author implements a very critical exegesis and uses a great biblical culture and encyclopedic knowledge about the taxonomy of insects and crustaceans, and concludes that the locustae in question were to be shrimp or crayfish. The interest of this text lies mainly in the fact that, to make clear what it is, the author glosses the word “locusta” with vernacular words in use in Germany and northern Italy, and that he also convenes in support of his thesis an unknown non-Vulgate version of the passage from Leviticus concerning dietary restrictions.