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The hermeneutic style in tenth-century Anglo-Latin literature

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Michael Lapidge
Michael Lapidge
Affiliation:
Clare Hall, Cambridge
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Extract

Some twenty years ago the late Professor Alistair Campbell observed that there were two broad stylistic traditions of Anglo-Latinity: the one, which he called the classical, was seen to have its principal proponent in Bede; the other, which he called the hermeneutic, was said to have its principal proponent in Aldhelm. The following discussion is an attempt to clarify Campbell's broad distinction by reference to a variety of tenth-century Anglo-Latin texts which may be described as ‘hermeneutic’. By ‘hermeneutic’ I understand a style whose most striking feature is the ostentatious parade of unusual, often very arcane and apparently learned vocabulary. In Latin literature of the medieval period, this vocabulary is of three general sorts: (1) archaisms, words which were not in use in classical Latin but were exhumed by medieval authors from the grammarians or from Terence and Plautus; (2) neologisms or coinages; and (3) loan-words. In the early medieval period (before, say, 1100) the most common source of loan-words was Greek. This was a result of the universal prestige which Greek enjoyed, particularly after the Carolingian period, when a very few exceptional men seemed to have a fundamental knowledge of the language. But sound knowledge of Greek was always restricted to a privileged minority (principally because of the lack of an adequate and widely circulated introductory primer); for the majority of medieval authors, acquaintance with continuous Greek came only through reciting the Creed, the Lord's Prayer or occasionally the psalter in Greek, and acquaintance with Greek vocabulary came through Greek–Latin glossaries. The most popular of the Greek–Latin glossaries – those based ultimately on the grammar of Dositheus – had originated as bilingual phrase-books in the bilingual world of Late Antiquity. But as first-hand knowledge of Greek disappeared, these glossaries were inevitably carelessly copied, with the result that Greek words derived from glossaries often bear little resemblance to their originals (ιχθυs. becomes iactis in several glossaries, to choose a random example). Accordingly, Greek vocabulary derived from glossaries has a distinctive flavour, either in its bizarre orthography or its unpredictable denotation, and is usually readily identifiable. In the following pages I shall attempt to show how Anglo-Latin authors of the tenth century ornamented their style by the use of archaisms, neologisms and grecisms, derived for the most part from glossaries. One point should be mentioned, however: it is customary among certain scholars of insular Latin to describe a style in which unusual words are found as ‘Hisperic’. But this term is often carelessly employed. It ought to refer strictly to the exceedingly obscure and almost secretive language of the Hisperica Famina themselves, compositions which abound in grecisms and are characterized by a predictable kind of neologism – nouns terminating in -men, -fer, -ger; verbs in -itare or -icare; adjectives in -osus. Unfortunately, however, the term ‘Hisperic’ carries with it some connotation of Ireland. The Hisperica Famina themselves were almost certainly composed in Ireland; but all medieval Latin literature which displays neologisms and grecisms was not. Such literature usually has nothing in common with the Hisperica Famina save that it sends a modern reader to his dictionary. I would therefore urge the use of the more neutral term ‘hermeneutic’ and hope to show that the excessively mannered style of many tenth-century Anglo-Latin compositions has nothing to do with Ireland or the Hisperica Famina, but is in the main an indigenous development.

Type
Research Article
Information
Anglo-Saxon England , Volume 4 , December 1975 , pp. 67 - 111
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1975

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References

page 67 note 1 ‘Some Linguistic Features of Early Anglo-Latin Verse and its Use of Classical Models’, TPS 1955, 11 (ed.) Chronicon Æthelweardi (London, 1962), p. xlv.

page 67 note 2 So Campbell apparently understood the term, though he did not define it. It implies that the vocabulary is drawn principally from the hermeneumata, a name by which certain Greek-Latin glossaries are designated. But the term is not entirely satisfactory (cf. the usual meaning of έρμηνεúω)); after some reflection I have adopted it because its use is sanctioned by earlier students of Anglo-Latinity. Another possible term would be ‘glossematic’.

page 67 note 3 See Goetz, G., ‘überber Dunkel- und Geheimsprachen in späten und mittelalterlichen Latein’, Berichte über die Verhandlungen der königlichen sächsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig 48 (1896), 62–92Google Scholar, and the discussion by Mölk, U., Trobar Clus, Trobar Leu (Munich, 1968), pp. 149–76.Google Scholar

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page 68 note 1 Bischoff, , ‘Das griechische Element’, pp. 39–40Google Scholar (Mittelalterliche Studien II, 259–60).

page 68 note 2 See Corpus Glossariorum Latinorum, ed. Goetz, G. (Leipzig, 1888–1923) 1, 1–34Google Scholar (hereafter CGL). Vol. III of this collection contains a variety of Greek–Latin glossaries.

page 68 note 3 For example, Bolton, W. F. (Anglo-Latin Literature 1 (Princeton, 1967), 139) observes certain ‘Hisperic traits’ in Bede's poetry, notably the use of such compound adjectives as altithronus and flammiuomus; but these – and all such adjectives which Bolton cites – are common in Late Latin.Google Scholar

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page 69 note 5 Ed. Huemer, J., Virgilii Maronis Grammatici Opera (Leipzig, 1886).Google Scholar On Virgilius see Tardi, D., Les Epitomae de Virgile de Toulouse (Paris, 1928)Google Scholarand Baccou, R., Un Grammarien Latin de la Décadence: Virgile de Toulouse (Toulouse, 1939).Google Scholar That Virgilius was an Irishman has recently been argued by Herren, M., ‘Some Conjectures on the Origins and Tradition of the Hisperic Poem Rubisca’, Ériu 25 (1974), 70–87.Google Scholar

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page 70 note 5 Migne, Patrologia Latina 126, col. 448.

page 70 note 6 Particularly the Antapodosis, ed. Becker, J., MGH Script. Rer. Germ. pp. 1–158.Google Scholar Although Liutprand spent some time in Constantinople as a diplomatic emissary, he does not seem to have acquired a thorough knowledge of Greek (see Manitius, M., Geschichte der lateinischen Literatur des Mittelalters (Munich, 1911–1931) 11, 167).Google Scholar Liutprand explains at one point that he uses the grecism cosmus for mundus, ‘quia sonorius est’ (Antap. 11.34). Ed. P. von Winterfeld, MGH Poetae 4, 412–40.

page 71 note 1 Goetz, G., ‘Attonis qui fertur Polipticum quod appellatur Perpendiculum’, Abhandlungen der sächsiscben Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig, philologisch-historische Klasse 37.2 (1922).Google Scholar

page 71 note 2 Ed. Dümmler, E., MGH Poetae 2, 485–506Google Scholar. There is a discussion of the grecisms in this poem by Klebs, E., Die Erzäblung von Apollonius von Tyrus (Berlin, 1899), p. 336, n. 2Google Scholar. Froumund of Tegernsee himself provided glosses to the grecisms in the poem; see Schepss, G., ‘Funde und Studien zu Apollonius Tyrius… und zur lat. Glossographie’, Neues Archiv 9 (1884), 173–94.Google Scholar

page 71 note 3 Ed. Strecker, K., Die Tegernseer Briefsammlung, MGH Epistolae Selectae 1Google Scholar. On literary culture at Tegernsee see Zacher, G., Das Kloster Tegernsee um das Jahr 1000 (Leipzig, 1935)Google Scholar and more recently Eder, C. E., ‘Die Schule des Klosters Tegernsee im frühen Mittelalter im Spiegel der Tegernseer Handschriften’, Studien und Mitteilungen zur Geschichte des Benediktiner-Ordens 83 (1972), 6–155.Google Scholar

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page 71 note 6 Ed. Loewenfeld, S., MGH Script. Rer. Germ., and also Lohier, F. and Laporte, J., Sociétié de l'Histoire de Normandie (Rouen/Paris, 1936)Google Scholar. On grecisms in the work see Tougard, L'Héllénisme, pp. 25–6.

page 71 note 7 Ed. von Winterfeld, P., MGH Poetae 4, 276–95Google Scholar (from Paris, BN lat. 13386, saec. ix, perhaps from Fleury). On the vocabulary of this difficult little poem (which merits closer study), see only Winterfeld's notes, p. 277, and Manitius, , Geschichte 1, 600–1Google Scholar. Grosjean, P. (‘Confusa Caligo: Remarques sur les Hisperica Famina’, Celtica 3 (1956), 35–85)Google Scholar made the interesting suggestion that Lios Monocus, who is also known as the principal scribe of Rome, Vat. reg. lat. 296 (saec. ix, perhaps from Fleury) may have been the scribe of Rome, Vat. reg. lat. 81, the so-called A-text of the Hisperica Famina (pp. 39–40) this manuscript too is probably from Fleury (see below, p. 73, n. 1).

page 71 note 8 Ed. von Winterfeld, P., MGH Poetae 4, 72–121Google Scholar. On Abbo's use of the Scholica Graecarum Glossarum and other glossaries, see Laistner, M. L. W., ‘Abbo of St Germain-des-Prés’, Archivum Latinitatis Medii Aevi 1 (1924), 27–31Google Scholar; on Abbo's own glosses to the poem see Bradley, D. R., ‘The Glosses on Bella Parisiacae Urbis I and II’, Classica et Medievalia 28 (1967), 344–56.Google Scholar

page 71 note 9 Ed. Swoboda, A. (Leipzig, 1900)Google Scholar. To my knowledge, there has not yet been any detailed study of this long and interesting poem On its bizarre vocabulary see only Swoboda's notes, pp. xviii–xix.

page 71 note 10 PL 141, cols. 609–758, and also Lair, J. in Memoires de la Societedes Antiquaires de Normandie 3 (Caen, 1865).Google Scholar

page 72 note 1 3.24–8 (MGH Poetae 4, 117).

page 72 note 2 1.218–22 (ed. Swoboda, , p. 9).Google Scholar

page 73 note 1 Both Odo of Cluny and Lios Monocus were associated with Fleury, and it is probable that the extant copy of the A-text of the Hisperica Famina was written there (Wilmart, A., Analecta Reginensia (Vatican, 1933), p. 31)Google Scholar, possibly by Lios Monocus himself (Grosjean, ‘Confusa Caligo’, pp. 38–9).

page 73 note 2 Oda and Oswald had studied at Fleury, Dunstan at Ghent. Æthelwold too had wished to study at Fleury but had been prevented by royal intervention; however, he sent his disciple Osgar to Fleury to learn monastic discipline and later imported monks from Corbie to Winchester. See Godfrey, J., The Church in Anglo-Saxon England (Cambridge, 1962), pp. 298–306.Google Scholar

page 73 note 3 There is no evidence whatsoever that this impetus was of Irish origin. I am unaware that any of the principal English reformers had any contact with Ireland, nor can I think of any tenth-century Hiberno-Latin author (resident in Ireland) who affected such a style.

page 73 note 4 Ed. Ehwald, R., MGH Auct. Antiq. 15, 519–37Google Scholar; cf. Ehwald's remarks on p. 521.

page 74 note 1 Ed. Colgrave, B., Felix's Life of St Guthlac (Cambridge, 1956)Google Scholar; see Colgtave's discussion of Felix's style, pp. 17–18.

page 74 note 2 Particularly in the preface to his de octo partibus orationum, which is printed and discussed by Lehmann, P., ‘Ein neuentdecktes Werk eines angelsächsischen Grammatikers vorkarolingischer Zeit’, Historische Vierteljahr schrift 26 (1931), 738–56Google Scholar. The great number of reminiscences of Aldhelm in this work led Lehmann to attribute the work to Aldhelm himself, but he later retracted this view and ascribed the work correctly to Boniface: ‘Die Grammatik aus Aldhelms Kreise’, Historische Vierteljahrschrift 27 (1932), 758–71.Google Scholar

page 74 note 3 Ed. Holder-Egger, O., MGH Script. 15.1, 80–117Google Scholar. The name of the authoress was identified from a cryptogram in the work by Bischoff, B., ‘Wer ist die Nonne von Heidenheim?’, Studien und Mitteilungen zur Geschichte des Benediktiner-Ordens 49 (1931), 387–8Google Scholar. The vocabulary (especially the neologisms) of this work is most unusual and deserves closer study.

page 74 note 4 Ed. Raine, J., The Historians of the Church of York, Rolls Series (1879), 1, 418Google Scholar. On Byrhtferth's authorship of this work, see below, p. 91.

page 74 note 5 Ed. Stubbs, W., Memorials of St Dunstan, RS (1874), pp. 387–8.Google Scholar

page 74 note 6 Napier, A. S., Old English Glosses (Oxford, 1900)Google Scholar. See also Meritt, H. D., Old English Glosses (New York, 1945)Google Scholar. There are twenty-two manuscripts of Aldhelm containing English glosses listed by Ker, N. R., Catalogue of Manuscripts containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford, 1957): nos. 8, 12, 16, 54, 61, 120, 143, 149, 184, 238, 252, 253, 254, 255, 259, 263, 267, 300, 314, 320, 349 and 378Google Scholar. There is also the earlier study by Schiebel, K., Die Sprache der altenglischen Glossen Zu Aldhelms Schrift ‘De laude virginitatis’ (Göttingen, 1907).Google Scholar

page 75 note 1 Cf. Ehwald's notes, MGH Auct. Antiq. 15, 215, and the discussion by Robinson, F. C., ‘Syntactical Glosses in Latin Manuscripts of Anglo-Saxon Provenance’, Speculum 48 (1973), 443–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 75 note 2 E.g. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Auct. F. 2. 14 (S.C. 2657), 11r–19v, and Bodley 163 (S.C. 2016), 25 or.

page 75 note 3 There is a manuscript of this work which was unknown to Winterfeld in the National Library of Scotland (Edinburgh), Adv. 18. 6. 12, which is of the eleventh century from Thorney (a Winchester foundation). See Scriptorium 27 (1973), 84–5.

page 75 note 4 See Zupitza, J., ‘Altenglische Glossen zu Abbos Clericorum decus’, ZDA 31 (1887), 1–27.Google Scholar

page 75 note 5 Bishop, T. A. M. (English Caroline Minuscule (Oxford, 1971), p. 31)Google Scholar has noted that the scribe who copies part of another Abingdon manuscript (Lincoln, Cathedral Library, 182) is also found in Harley 3826.

page 76 note 1 See the description of this manuscript by A. G. Rigg and G. R. Wieland, ‘A Canterbury Class-book of the Mid-Eleventh Century’, below, pp. 113–30.

page 76 note 2 Cf. the general treatment of the medieval curriculum by Curtius, E. R., European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, trans. Trask, W. R. (New York, 1953), pp. 48–54Google Scholar, and the more recent discussion by Glauche, G., Schullektüre im Mittelalter, Münchener Beiträge zur Mediävistik und Renaissance-Forschung 5 (Munich, 1970)Google Scholar. On Aldhelm's disappearance from the European curriculum by the tenth century, see James, M. R., Two Ancient English Scholars: St Aldhelm and William of Malmesbury (Glasgow, 1931), p. 11.Google Scholar

page 77 note 1 Ehwald compiled an excellent and exhaustive index verborum to his edition of Aldhelm, MGH Auct. Antiq. 15, 555–738.

page 77 note 2 CGL, VI and VII ate indices to the glossaries printed in II–V.

page 77 note 3 The only detailed study of Oda is that by Robinson, J. A., St Oswald and the Church of Worcester, Brit. Acad. Supplemental Papers 5 (London, 1919), 38–51.Google Scholar

page 77 note 4 Ed. Raine, , Historians of the Church of York 1, 404.Google Scholar

page 77 note 5 PL 133, col. 934. Eadmer's statement is not above suspicion, since there is no evidence that Greek was taught anywhere in England during Alfred's reign or in the very early tenth century when Oda was young, and we have no trace of the ‘disciples of Theodore’ whom Eadmermentions. Eadmer's statement may be nothing more than an impression received from the number of grecisms in Oda's preface to Frithegod's poem; it seems more probable that Oda learned Greek (if at all) at Fleury.

page 78 note 1 PL 133, cols. 945–52.

page 78 note 2 Ed. Campbell, A., Frithegodi Breuiloquium Vitae Wilfredi et Wulfstani Narratio Metrica de S. Swithuno, Thesaurus Mundi 1 (Zurich, 1950), 1–3.Google Scholar

page 78 note 3 Terence, Eun. 411; cf. also Donatus, in Ter. Eun. 303.

page 78 note 4 Frithegod is mentioned among Oda's clergy and monks in a charter relating to Christ Church, Canterbury (Cartularium Saxonicum, Ed. de G. Birch, W. (London, 1885–1893)Google Scholar (hereafter BCS), no. 1010); the evidence of this charter dispels Manitius's erroneous assumption that Frithegod was a monk at Ripon (Geschichte 11, 499).

page 78 note 5 Ed. Campbell, , Frithegodi Breuiloquium, pp. 4–62.Google Scholar

page 79 note 1 See the notes by Manitius (Geschichte n, 499) and the very sparse and cryptic notes by Campbell scattered throughout the apparatus of his edition. There is also an excellent study by Young, D. C. C., ‘Author's Variants and Interpretations in Frithegod’, Archivum Latinitatis Medii Aevi 25 (1955), 71–98Google Scholar. Young occasionally errs, however, in failing to recognize the agency of glossaries in transmitting Greek learning to the Middle Ages: there is no point whatsoever in imputing to Frithegod an Aeolic or Homeric form.

page 80 note 1 In the earliest catalogue from Christ Church, Canterbury (c. 1170), there is an item ‘Donatus grece’ (James, M. R., The Ancient Libraries of Canterbury and Dover (Cambridge, 1905), pp. lxxxv and 7)Google Scholar. This was probably a copy of pseudo-Dositheus, not Dionysius Thrax as James suggests. If this Greek grammar was pre-Conquest, it indicates that Greek may have been studied at Canterbury.

page 81 note 1 Ed. Stubbs, , Memorials of St Dunstan, pp. 3–52Google Scholar, from two manuscripts: BM Cotton Cleopatra B. xiii and Arras, bibl. mimic. 1029.

page 81 note 1 Stubbs argued (Memorials, pp. xii–xviii) that B was a continental Saxon and doubted that the form Saxones would ever be used by an English writer without a qualifying prefix such as Angul-Saxones. But Saxones was a common term for ‘English’: Æthelweard (Chronicon, ed. Campbell, A. (London, 1962), p. 56)Google Scholar describes King Edgar as stemming ‘ex stirpe…Saxonum’ and earlier the English nun Hygeberg had described herself as being ‘indigna Saxonica de gente’ (Vila Willibaldi, MGH Script. 15.1, 86). At a later point in the life, while describing Dunstan's musical training, B writes ‘…cytharam suam quam lingua paterna hearpam voca-mus’. The Old English form of the word is hearpa, as here; the Old Saxon form is harpa. That is to say, B's native language was English.

page 82 note 1 Wulfric's letter to Abbo accompanying the revised version of the Vita S. Dunstani is printed by Stubbs (Memorials, p. 409). The revised version survives in St Gall 337; a collation of it is printed by Stubbs (Memorials, pp. 458–72).

page 82 note 2 BM Cotton Tiberius A. xv, fol. 162; ed. Stubbs, Memorials, pp. 385–8.

page 83 note 1 Cf. the accounts of B's career by Stubbs (Memorials, pp. x–xxvi) and Whitelock, D., English Historical Documents 1 (London, 1955), 826.Google Scholar

page 83 note 2 CCCC 326 (saec. x2), pp. 5–6.

page 83 note 3 Ed. Dobbie, E. V. K., The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records 6 (London and New York, 1942), 97–8.Google Scholar Dobbic's comments on the style of the poem are amusing: he mentions Oda, Frithegod and the author of the Vita S. Dunstani whom he takes to be ‘Byrhtnoth [sic] the author of the Handboc’ (p. xci).

page 84 note 1 ‘Tell me two nouns which provide synonyms for all (the following terms) tell all things about each word, what every syllable signifies’ (below, p. 103). These two lines are derived verbatim from an enigma of Alcuin (MGH Poetae 1, 282). The spirit of this brief poem may be compared to an altercatio magistri et discipuli from tenth-century Winchester (ptd ASE 1 (1972), 85–137) in which the student taunts the master to expound his knowledge of musical theory; the master replies instead with an exposition of computistical theory.

page 84 note 2 CGL. III, 596–607, from Rome, Vat. reg. lat. 1260, 177r–8r, and Berne, Biirgerbibl. 337, 8r–14v. I have been unable to examine these manuscripts, but it would be interesting to see whether on palaeographical grounds either of them might have been written in England.

page 84 note 3 See Probst, O., ‘Glossen aus Cassius Felix’, Pbilobgus 68 (1909), 550–9Google Scholar, and Niedermann, M., ‘Sur les Gloses Médicales du Corpus Glossariorum Latinorum’, Recueil de Travaux…de la Faculté des Lettres 7 (Neuchâtel, 1918), 87–97.Google Scholar

page 85 note 1 It has been suggested by Ogilvy, J. D. A. (‘Paraphrases Attributed to Albinus of Canterbury’, Univ. of Colorado Stud. in Lang. and Lit. 9 (1963), 1–3)Google Scholar that these medical poems are related to the medical treatise found at various places in the manuscript. But this treatise was added in blank pages by a considerably later hand, and in any case the basis of the poems was a glossary, not a medical text.

page 85 note 2 Vita Athelaoldi, c. 12, ed. Winterbottom, M., Three Lives of English Saints (Toronto, 1972), p. 22.Google Scholar

page 85 note 3 See Quirk, R. N., ‘Winchester Cathedral in the Tenth Century’, ArchJ 114 (1957), 28–68.Google Scholar

page 85 note 4 Wulfstan, Narratio de S. Swithuno, praef. 141–70Google Scholar, ed. Campbell, pp. 69–70.

page 85 note 5 See Kendrick, T. D., Late Saxon and Viking Art (London, 1949), pp. 1–38Google Scholar; on Æthelwold's influence see esp. pp. 4–8; also Wormald, F., ‘Decorated Initials in English Manuscripts from A.D. 900–1100’, Archaeologia 91 (1945), 107–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and ‘Late Anglo–Saxon Art: some Questions and Suggestions’, Studies in Western Art I: Acts of the Twentieth International Congress of the History of Art (New York, 1963), 19–26.

page 85 note 6 BM Add. 49598. There is a facsimile edition of this manuscript by Warner, G. F. and Wilson, H. A., The Bemdictional of St Æthelwold, Roxburghe Club (Oxford, 1910)Google Scholar see also the earlier study by Gage, J. ‘A Dissertation on St AEthelwold's Benedictional’ Archaeologia 24 (1832), 1–117Google Scholar, and the brief treatment by Wormald, F., The Benedictional ofSt Etbelwold(London, 1959),pp. 7–15Google Scholar.

page 86 note 1 Warner, and Wilson, , Benedictional, pp. xiii-xiv.Google Scholar However, it has been suggested by Tolhurst, J.B.L. (‘An Examination of two Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts of the Winchester School: the Missal of Robert of Jumieges and the Benedictional of St jEthelwold’, Arcbaeologia 83 (1933),27–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar that the scribe of the book was one Godemann of Ely who had earlier been a monk of the New Minster, not the Godemann who afterwards became abbot of Thorney. The distinction

page 86 note 2 Warner, and Wilson, , Benedictional p.1.Google Scholar

page 86 note 3 I have prepared an edition of this work as part of a forthcoming volume of tenth-century Anglo-Latin saints' lives, which will also include editions of Byrhtferth's Vita S. Oswaldi and Vita S. Ecgii'ini and the anonymous Vita S. Rumwoldi, all mentioned below.

page 87 note 1 Ed.Campbell, Fritbegodi Breuiloquium, pp. 65–177Google Scholar, and also M. Huber, S. Swithunus: Miracula metrica auctore Wulfstano monacho, Beilage zur Jahresbericht des humanistischen Gymnasiums Metten (1905-6), pp. 1-105.(Campbell's edition was not, as he thought, the first.)

page 87 note 2 Winterbottom, , Three Lives, pp. 33–63; cf. also Winterbottom's remarks on Wulfstan's prose style, p. 3.Google Scholar

page 87 note 3 PL 137, cols. 81-105; also Blume, C., ‘Wolstan von Winchester und Vital von Saint-Evroult’ Situngsberichte der koniglichen Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien 146.3 (1903), 1–23Google Scholar cf. discussion by Gneuss, H., Hymnar und Hymnen im engliscben Mittelalter (Tubingen, 1968), pp. 246–248.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 87 note 4 See my edition of these poems: ‘ Three Latin Poems from iEthelwold's School at Winchester’,ASE 1 (1972), 85-137.

page 88 note 1 Because I was unable to explain the form of the word sarranus, I obelized the word in my edition (pp. 130–1). But the word was apparently familiar to students of the hermeneutic style in tenth-century England: it is found in Frithegod 349 (spelled serranus) and in an unprinted series of glossae collectae (from Abingdon, perhaps) in BM Harley 3826 (saec. x), 70v–71r and 150r–67V. Until glossary material of this sort in manuscripts of English origin is printed, the full extent of English hermeneutic style cannot be thoroughly studied.

page 88 note 2 BCS 1128. The donation also included an expositio Hebreorum nominum (probably Jerome's) and a sinonima Isidori – two further source-books of obscure vocabulary.

page 88 note 3 BM Cotton Tiberius A. xv, 155V ptd Stubbs, Memorials, pp. 361–2.

page 89 note 1 BM Cotton Vespasian A. viii (saec. x2), 3V–33V; ptd BCS 1190. See F. Wormald, ‘Late Anglo-Saxon Art’, pp. 19–26, and John, E., Orbis Britanniae (Leicester, 1966), pp. 271–5.Google Scholar

page 89 note 2 Whitelock, D., ‘The Authorship of the Account of King Edgar's Establishment of Monasteries’, in Philological Essays: Studies in Old and Middle English Language and Literature in honour of Herbert Dean Meritt, ed. Rosier, J. L. (The Hague, 1970), pp. 125–36, esp. 131.Google Scholar

page 89 note 3 BCS 1046 (‘Ego Apelwold abbas hoc eulogium manu propria apicibus depinxi’) and 1047 (‘Ego Æpeleold abbas Abbandunensis coenobii hoc sintagma triumphans dictavi’). On these charters see John, E., ‘Some Latin Charters of the Tenth-Century Reformation’, RB 70 (1960), 333–59Google Scholar, and also Chaplais, P., ‘The Anglo-Saxon Chancery: from the Diploma to the Writ’, Jnl of the Soc. of Archivists 3 (1965–1959), 160–76, esp. 163–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 89 note 4 BCS 1138 (‘Ego Athelwold Wintoniensis ecclesiae episcopus hanc cartam dictitans rege suisque precipientibus prescribere jussi’).

page 89 note 5 BCS 1147 and 1149–59 Grecisms in these charters include agiographus [A, G], cleronomia, dyro-cbeus(?), kalo [G] and sintbema [G].

page 90 note 1 In addition to these Latin works, the Regularis Concordia (ed. Symons, T. (London, 1953))Google Scholar is generally agreed to be by Æthelwold. It is written (as one would expect) in a simple unadorned style appropriate for a manual of monastic discipline.

page 90 note 2 Ed. Crawford, S. J., Early Eng. Text Soc. (London, 1929).Google Scholar Crawford's second volume of commentary never appeared; see instead the corrigenda by Henel, H., ‘Notes on Byrhtferth's Manual’, JEGP 41 (1942), 427–43Google Scholar, and the further studies by Henel, , Studien zum altengliscben Computus. Beiträge zur englischen Philologie 26 (Leipzig, 1934)Google Scholar, and Hart, C., ‘Byrhtferth and his Manual’, MJE 41 (1972), 95–109.Google Scholar

page 90 note 3 Oxford, St John's College 17; ed. Forsey, G. F., ‘Byrhtferth's Preface’, Speculum 3 (1928), 505–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar It has been argued that this epilogue was in fact intended by Byrhtferth to be the epilogue of his Manual: Henel, H., ‘Byrhtferth's Preface: the Epilogue of his Manual?’, Speculum 18 (1943), 288–302.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 91 note 1 BM Cotton Nero E. i, Pt 1, 1r–23v; ed. Raine, , Historians of the Church of York 1, 399–475Google Scholar. On the dating see Liebermann, F., ‘Zur Geschichte Byrhtnoths’, ASNSL 101 (1898), 23Google Scholar, and Whitelock, , English Historical Documents 1, 839.Google Scholar

page 91 note 2 Crawford, S. J., ‘Byrhtferth of Ramsey and the Anonymous Life of St Oswald’, Speculum Religionis. Studies presented to C. G. Montefiore (Oxford, 1929), pp. 99–111.Google Scholar

page 91 note 3 Robinson, J. A. (‘Byrhtferth and the Life of Oswald’, JTS 31 (1930), 35–42)Google Scholar pointed to certain differences in the use of the relative pronoun and Fisher, D. J. V. (‘The Antimonastic Reaction in the Reign of Edward the Martyr’, Cambridge Hist. Jnl 10 (1950–1952), 254–70)CrossRefGoogle Scholar has observed certain chronological errors in the Vita S. Oswaldi, such as the placing of the Battle of Maldon before Dunstan's death, which would be improbable in a work produced at Ramsey. D. J. V. Fisher suggests that the work by Byrhtferth was partially rewritten by a later author unfamiliar with the events of Oswald's life at first hand. See further John, E., Orbis Britanniae, pp. 290–1.Google Scholar

page 91 note 4 BM Cotton Nero E. i, Pt 1, 24r–34v; Ed. Giles, J. A., Vita Quorundum Anglo-Saxonum, Publ. of the Caxton Soc. (London, 1854), pp. 349–96Google Scholar. Fisher (‘The Antimonastic Reaction’, p. 259, n. 18) drew attention in a footnote to certain similarities between the Vita S. Oswaldi and the Vita S. Ecgwini, but did not pursue the question.

page 91 note 5 Ed. Giles, , p. 387Google Scholar: ‘nos vero, qui in ultima millenarii sumus parte et ultra progressi’.

page 93 note 1 I have considered Byrhtferth's authorship of the Vita S. Ecgwini in greater detail in a forthcoming article: ‘Byrhtferth and the Vita S. Ecgwini’.

page 93 note 2 These proposed additions to the canon of Byrhtferth's Latin writings should be seen in the context of recent research on the canon of his English writings. It has been suggested, for example, that he compiled a vernacular Hexateuch, using whatever translations by Ælfric were available and himself translating the rest; see Peter, Clemoes, ‘The Composition of the Old English Text’, The Old English Illustrated Hexateucb, Ed. Dodwell, C. R. and Peter, Clemoes, EEMF 18 (Copenhagen, 1974), 42–53Google Scholar. I am extremely grateful to Peter Clemoes for discussing Byrhtferth with me.

page 94 note 1 ULC Gg. 5. 35, 419r–v.

page 94 note 2 Historia Ramesiensis, Ed. Mactay, W. D., RS (1886), p. 21.Google Scholar

page 95 note 1 Ed. Macray, , p. 160Google Scholar: ‘habetur hodieque in archivis nostris liber ejus versificus, multiformis peritiae ipsius et perspicacis ingenii testis’.

page 95 note 2 Commentarii de scriptoribus Britannicis, Ed. Hall, A. (Oxford, 1709) 1, 172.Google Scholar

page 95 note 3 Cf., however, Odo of Cluny, Occupatio 1.206: ‘figitur haec iosum, comit uas tonsio susum’.

page 96 note 1 Oxford, Bodleian Library, Auct. F. 4. 32; see Hunt, R. W., St Dunstan's Classbook from Glaston-bury: Cod. Bibl. Bodl. Auct. F. 4. 32, Umbrae Codicum Occidentalium 4 (1961).Google Scholar

page 96 note 2 Cambridge, Trinity College O. 1. 18, 112v–13r (see James, M. R., The Western Manuscripts in the Library of Trinity College Cambridge (Cambridge, 1900–1902) 111, 19–22Google Scholar. A partial copy of the poem (the first twenty-two lines, without initials) is found also in a manuscript from Christ Church, Canterbury (Cambridge, Trinity College B. 14. 3, 65V (saec. x/xi)); see James, , Western Manuscripts 1, 404–6.Google Scholar

page 96 note 3 The only other surviving Latin work by Dunstan is a rather unexceptional charter (BCS 880) which he claims to have composed: ‘Ego Dunstan indignus abbas rege Eadredo imperante hanc domino meo hereditariam kartulam dictitando composui et propriis digitorum articulis per-scripsi.’ It is perhaps noteworthy that here too he addresses himself as indignus abbas. Other works attributed to Dunstan by Wright, T. (Biograpbia Britannica Literaria (London, 1842), pp. 458–62)Google Scholar are spurious.

page 97 note 1 Ed. Stubbs, W., Memorials, pp. 399–405.Google Scholar

page 97 note 2 Chronicon Æthelweardi, Ed. Campbell, A. (London, 1962)Google Scholar. See also Whitbread, L., ‘Æthelweard and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle’, EHR. 74 (1959), 577–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 97 note 3 See Campbell's discussion of Æthelweard's Latinity, Chronicon, pp. xlv–lx as well as the accurate discussion by Winterbottom, M., ‘The Style of Æthelweard’, MÆ 36 (1967), 109–18.Google Scholar

page 98 note 1 On Bata see the brief discussion by Garmonsway, G. N., Ælfric's Colloquy (London, 1959), pp. 7–8.Google Scholar

page 98 note 2 Cf. White, Caroline L., Ælfric, Yale Stud, in Eng. 2 (New Haven, 1898Google Scholar; repr. Hamden (Connecticut), 1974), p. 122, and Garmonsway, Ælfric's Colloquy, p. 7.

page 98 note 3 Ed. Stevenson, W. H., Early Scholastic Colloquies (Oxford, 1929), pp. 27–74.Google Scholar

page 98 note 4 Ed. Garmonsway, Ælfric's Colloquy. In one manuscript of the work (Oxford, St John's College 154, 2O4r) there is a prefatory remark by Bata: ‘Hanc sententiam Latini sermonis olim Ælfricus Abbas composuit qui meus fuit magister; sed tamen ego Ælfric Bata multas postea huic addidi appendices’ (Stevenson, Early Scholastic Colloquies, p. 75). Unfortunately, there is no way of knowing how much Bata actually added to the work, and therefore no way of knowing which part of it is Ælfric's and which Bata's. I suspect that the exordium (ed. Garmonsway, , pp. 48–9Google Scholar) is not by Ælfric but by Bata: it contains two of the bizarre multi-syllabic adverbs which Bata preferred (disciplinabiliter and morigerate) as well as the grecism mathites [G] and is thus more in the spirit of Bata's style than that of Ælfric's unadorned Latin prose.

page 99 note 1 Ed. Stubbs, , Memorials, p. 373.Google Scholar

page 99 note 2 Ed. Forster, M., Anglia 41 (1917), 154.Google Scholar

page 99 note 3 Ed. Dumville, D. N., ‘“Nennius” and the Histaria Briltonum’, Studia Celtica 10 (1975)Google Scholar, where they are assigned to the mid-eleventh century.

page 99 note 4 Cf. F, F. M., The Latin Charters of the Anglo-Saxon Period (Oxford, 1955), p. 55.Google ScholarSee also the general remarks by Brooks, N., ‘Anglo-Saxon Charters: the Work of the Last Twenty Years’, ASE 3 (1974), 211–31.Google Scholar

page 99 note 5 The principal collections of charters are Kemble, J. M., Codex Diplomaticus Aevi Saxonici, 6 vols. (London, 1839–1848)Google Scholar and BCS.

page 100 note 1 The charters of Athelstan's reign are BCS 641–746, of Eadwig's BCS 917–1009 and 1025–35 and of Edgar's BCS 1036–1319. These numbers are very approximate, and are intended simply to indicate where a stylistic study of charters might begin. See also The Crawford Collection of Early Charters and Documents now in the Bodleian Library, Ed. Napier, S. A. and Stevenson, W. H. (Oxford, 1895), nos. iv–vi.Google Scholar

page 100 note 2 Three words in these charters deserve special comment in so far as they are also found in Hisperic texts. Giboniferus (‘fiery’) occurs also in the Rubisca, and tanaliter (‘in a deadly manner’?) in the hymn ‘Adelphus adelpha’; both these poems are found in the mid-eleventh-century English manuscript from St Augustine's, Canterbury, ULC Gg. 5.35, and are printed by Jenkinson, F. J. H., Hisperica Famina (Cambridge, 1908).Google Scholar The word iduma (‘hand’) is found both in the A-text of the Hisperica Famina and also in the Lorica attributed to Laidcenn which is found in several English manuscripts (see Herren, M., ‘The Authorship, Date of Composition and Provenance of the So-Called Lorica Gildae’, Ériu 24 (1973), 35–51).Google Scholar

page 100 note 3 According to Oda's biographer Eadmer at least, Oda and Athelstan were inseparable friends -even to the extent that Oda accompanied Athelstan during the Battle of Brunanburh (PL 133, col. 936).

page 101 note 1 See the remarks by Bullough, D. A., ‘The Educational Tradition in England from Alfred to Ælfric: Teaching Utriusque Linguae’, Settimane di Studio del Centro Italiano di Studi sull' Alto Medioevo 19 (1972), 466–78Google Scholar, and by Brooks, N., ‘Anglo-Saxon Charters’, ASE 3 (1974), 227.Google Scholar

page 101 note 2 Ed. Thorpe, B., The Homilies of the Anglo-Saxon Church: the First Part containing the Sermones Catholici or Homilies of Ælfric (London, 1844–1846) 1, 1.Google Scholar

page 102 note 1 See inter alia the remarks of Lindsay, W. M. in Stevenson, Early Scholastic Colloquies (pp. vi–viii).Google Scholar

page 102 note 2 Ed. Prinz, O. (Munich, 1967–); only vol. 1 (A–B) and parts of vol. 11 (to cognoscibilis) have so far appeared.Google Scholar

page 102 note 3 Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, Ed. Latham, R. E., fascicule 1: A–B (London, 1975).Google Scholar

page 102 note 4 Ed. Ada Sanctorum, dies tertia Novembris, pp. 682–90.

page 103 note 1 This date would agree with that of the earliest manuscript of the Vita S. Rumwoldi (CCCC 9) which is eleventh-century.

page 103 note 2 I should like to acknowledge the help of David Dumville and Michael Winterbottom, who read the typescript of this article and made many constructive suggestions, and also that of three scholars who helped me with various problems and who are mentioned in notes throughout: Peter Clemoes, Peter Dronke and Michael Herren.