Letter of request for the Imago mundi
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A short letter addressed to the author of the Imago mundi, Honorius Augustodunensis, and prefixed to many copies of that work. It is a request for the work to be written, in which the author is asked to impart to him a small flash (scintillula) of knowledge by describing positionem orbis quasi in tabella. Another letter follows in which Honorius agrees to produce such a work and in effect, dedicates it to his addressee. In the manuscripts, the first letter is usually attributed to a certain Christianus, who is commonly identified with the Munsterman of that name who was third abbot of St James of Regensburg in Bavaria. In some early English copies, however, the same letter is attributed to a certain Henricus, whose identity cannot be established with certainty. It has been suggested that these different dedications might reflect different stages in the production of the Imago mundi; that to Henricus belonging to the time when Honorius was writing in England, that to Christianus when he completed the work in Regensburg.
