In Book 19, the themes of work and of travel culminate in images of movement towards God, of judgement, but also of communion, light and harmony. As we have seen, the reader can become an imaginary participant in the lord's feast, drawing on memory to savour the light of candles, the taste of honey, milk, butter, cheese, eggs, amid the clutter and clatter of vessels and the harmonising effect of music. One effect on the reader of Book 19 is of a climax to the diversity of properties and things in creation, a confusing cacophony of artefacts, substances and conflicting sense impressions. Out of this diverse clutter, Bartholomew draws an elegant effect of closure by returning to his original theme of heavenly unity and perfection, in his praise of the divine properties of the numbers one and three and of the circle, as they represent the Trinity and the perfection of God. In the last Book, Bartholomew returns to a paradoxical analogy with which he begins, bringing the work itself full circle. In Book 1 he had described God in philosophical terms as universal and infinite creator: ‘God is the sphere of intellect whose centre is everywhere, and indeed its circumference is nowhere … thus God brings forth his creations and also confines them.’^[125] He repeats this near the end of Book 19: ‘God [says the philosopher Secundus] is the intellectual circle, whose centre is everywhere, and circumference nowhere. From which it is clear that the meaning of that circle glimmers in all creation.’^[126] In his description of the properties of the circle and the number one, Bartholomew also unites the practical with the theological functions of the work and brings together as compatible and complementary his Christian and pagan sources, citing both Aristotle and Hermes Trismegistos in support of Christian teaching. He concludes, through the technicalities of musical harmony, on the note of cosmic unity with which he began: music reconciles the oppositions and calms the strife caused by the six kinds of movement on earth. It comforts rowers, makes all kinds of labour bearable and encourages warriors.^[127] The word remiges, rowers, conveys a sense of physical labour and also recalls the above-mentioned description of the soul which, starting out early in Book 3, is at one with the body as a mariner is at one with his boat. In this focus upon arrival, reconciliation and harmony, Book 19 seems to remind the reader of his or her spiritual goal — what Sylvain Louis refers to as `ce qu’il faut atteindre’.^[128] This effect of wholeness endorses Christel Meier’s conclusion, noted in the previous chapter, that a characteristic of the world-book genre is the demonstration of underlying order and logic beneath the apparent chaos of the world.

To sum up and conclude this chapter: Bartholomew’s image of the world, far from being a static account of the properties of things, is dynamic in that it contains many descriptions of people and things in action and rest, growth and decay, transit and flux. The six kinds of movement afflict the earth and living things, but natura providentially mitigates their effects and balances decay with growth; harm with remedy; discord with harmony, the unstable with the stable. What is more, our senses allow us to enjoy and praise God's creation and thus to begin an ascent towards Him, reminded by the properties of natural things that rest and reward await the penitent. Overall, Bartholomew makes strong contrasting statements about the coldness, instability and trouble of the physical world, set far from the sun, as in the preamble to Book 8; and about the joy and solace to be gained from things put into the world at Creation: light, stars, air, water, land, and the plants and creatures that 'adorn' these elements.

The medieval compilatio implied a long-established pastoral metaphor of gathering, as bees gather honey or gleaners gather corn. Bartholomew builds upon these familiar analogies to engage the reader imaginatively in the idea of earthly labour as preparation for heavenly salvation. Fragments from an implied larger narrative — in particular, those of the worker and the traveller, and of the ranks of the familia at their occupations, indoors and out — invite meditation upon narratives from the Christian Scriptures. Recalling the parable of the workers in the vineyard, the ox and oxherd, the bee, the vine, and the good servant all serve as models for material and spiritual labour, reward, fertility and fruition, and thus their recurring presence in the work can be seen as logical and necessary for its didactic purpose. Although this underlying logic in the work is not immediately apparent to us today, we can work towards it with the help of the glosses, and through an awareness of the parables of salvation available to Bartholomew and a segment of his readers. While the thirteenth-century marginal glosses confirm that busy clerics could find in ‘Properties’ a handy guide to exegesis, the narratives suggest that they could also ruminate upon the fundamental Christian themes of repentance and salvation as they dipped into the work in a spirit of contemplation. Approaching ‘Properties’ as a thematic and multivalent work places Book 19 in a fresh light. In the last Book, Bartholomew focuses the reader’s attention on the significance of our senses and how the myriad distinctions we make in everyday experience can teach us about salvation. He brings home the message of St Paul to the Romans: ‘For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead.’^[129] Earthly products and processes remind us of spiritual ones, and lead us back into the narratives of working, feasting at the Lord’s table, and travelling through life. Numbers, shapes and music remind us of heavenly order and spiritual harmony with God. It may be scarcely possible for a modern reader to elucidate Book 19 as a whole, but it calls for a more satisfactory modern interpretation as a fitting culmination, rather than a tailing-off, of ‘Properties’.

While the trope of the vineyard and the beehive represented an ideal of pastoral labour appropriate for cloistered religious, those who sought to follow the apostolic example of St Francis and St Paul might, as the evidence of the Liber de moralitatibus suggests, identify their role-models as strong-winged cranes with loud voices, and prepare themselves likewise to make long journeys into the unknown. The explicit moralisations of the selected topics in this later adaptation of ‘Properties’ tend to confirm the view that the glosses in ‘Properties’ were made as a scholarly aid or index rather than as a full explanation of the significance of the column text. In the next chapter we will consider ‘Properties’ as a map and guide to survival in the world and to salvation beyond it.