Abstract:

This article examines the word furibum, a medical hapax legomenon in the Vita Barbatiani (B.H.L. 972). Furibum has been enshrined in several dictionaries of medieval Latin as a sort of « litter » for the sick. This article argues that furibum is a transmission error and not a genuine Latin word. The probably tenth-century Vita Barbatiani was modeled on the Latin Miracles of Cyrus and John (B.H.L. 2080), a translation of Sophronios of Jerusalem’s Greek Miracles of Cyrus and John (B.H.G. 477-479i). Furibum likely arose as a misreading of phorium, the Latin Miracles’ Latinization of Sophronios’ φορεῖον (« litter »). Furibum should be removed from the dictionaries, but the history of this error sheds light on the entanglements of cultural transmission across centuries, languages, and regions.