Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T04:28:44.354Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Classical rhetoric in Anglo-Saxon England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Gabriele Knappe
Affiliation:
University of Bamberg

Extract

This passage from The Wanderer demonstrates some of the rhetorical techniques which have been noted in Old English texts. Its most striking features are the rhetorical questions and the figure of anaphora which is produced by the repetition of ‘Hwær’. Another rhetorical element is the use of the theme (topos) of ubi sunt (‘where are…?’) to lament the loss of past joys. In classical antiquity, features such as these, which served to create effective discourse, were the products of ars rhetorica. This art was distinguished from the more basic subject of ars grammatica in that rhetoric, the ‘ars … bene dicendi’ (Quintilian, Institutio oratoria II.xvii.37), aimed at the good production of text (for oral delivery) with the aim of persuading the listeners to take or adopt some form of action or belief, whereas grammar, the ‘recte loquendi scientia’, was responsible for correct speech and also for the interpretation of poetical texts (‘poetarum enarratio’: Quintilian, Institutio oratoria I.iv.2). In terms of classical rhetoric, the above passage from The Wanderer could be analysed according to the three phases of the production of a text (partes artis) which pertain to both written and oral discourse: inventio (finding topics such as the ubi sunt), dispositio (arranging the parts of the text) and elocutio (embellishing the text stylistically, for example with rhetorical questions and other figures and tropes).

How and under what circumstances did the Anglo-Saxons acquire their knowledge of how to compose a text effectively?

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1998

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 ASPR III, 136Google Scholar: ‘Where has gone the steed? Where has gone the man? Where has gone the giver of treasure? Where has gone the place of the banquets? Where are the pleasures of the hall?’ (trans. Bradley, S. A. J., Anglo-Saxon Poetry: an Anthology of Old English Poems in Prose Translation (London and Melbourne, 1982), p. 324).Google Scholar

2 The theme of ubi sunt, usually expressed by ‘where are …?’ questions, has been thoroughly investigated by Cross, J. E., ‘“Ubi Sunt” Passages in Old English - Sources and Relationships’, Vetenskaps-Societeten i Lund Årsbok (1956), pp. 2344Google Scholar, and idem, Latin Themes in Old English Poetry (Bristol, 1962), pp. 25.Google Scholar On further topoi in The Wanderer, see below, pp. 25–6 and nn. 88–9; for anaphora, see below, p. 23, n. 76.

3 The quotations are taken from M. Fabi Quintiliani Institutionis oratoriae libri duodecim, ed. Winterbottom, M., 2 vols. (Oxford, 1970).Google ScholarSee also the concise definition of rhetoric by the late antique encyclopedist Isidore of Seville, Isidori Hispalensis Episcopi Etymologiarum sive Originum libri XX, ed. Lindsay, W. M., 2 vols. (Oxford, 1911), II.i.1.Google Scholar Some rhetorical principles can be transferred to the writing of verse (poetics) without difficulty - the basic parts of both disciplines are identical and rhetoric had always been the one which was elaborated in detail. See Lausberg, H., Handbuch der literarischen Rhetorik: eine Grundlegung der Literaturwissenschaft (Munich, 1960Google Scholar; repr. Stuttgart, 1990 with a preface by A. Arens), § 35. Rhetoric has been used for the analysis of both prose and verse in modern scholarship.

4 Thus, McPherson has suggested that an instance of the ubi sunt theme in The Seafarer 80b–83 (ASPR III, 145Google Scholar), belongs to the third part of a speech (confirmatio) within her theory that this elegy is a speech in reply to a first speech. See McPherson, C. W., ‘The Influence of Latin Rhetoric on Old English Poetry’ (unpubl. PhD dissertation, Washington Univ., 1980), pp. 175–98 and below, pp. 26–7.Google Scholar

5 For the partes artis, see , Lausberg, Handbuch, §§ 2551091.Google Scholar The other two partes pertain to the oral medium only. These are memoria (learning the text by heart) and actio or pronuntiatio (performing the speech). To my knowledge, there is no indication that memoria and actio were of theoretical interest in Anglo-Saxon England. For techniques of memoria in the monastic culture, without a classical rhetorical background, see Riché, P., ‘Le rôle de la mémoire dans l'enseignement médiéval’, Jeux de mémoire: aspects de la mnemotechnie médiévale, ed. Roy, B. and Zumthor, P. (Montréal, 1985), pp. 133–48, esp. 133–41.Google Scholar

6 The exceptional role of Alcuin will be discussed separately below, pp. 12–13. Knowledge of classical rhetoric in Anglo-Saxon England has been investigated above all by Campbell, J. J., ‘Knowledge of Rhetorical Figures in Anglo-Saxon England’, JEGP 66 (1967), 120Google Scholar; idem, ‘Adaptation of Classical Rhetoric in Old English Literature’, Medieval Eloquence: Studies in the Theory and Practice of Medieval Rhetoric, ed. Murphy, J. J. (Berkeley, CA, 1978), pp. 173–97Google Scholar; Reinsma, L. M., ‘Rhetoric in England: the Age of Aelfric, 970–1020’, Communication Monographs 44 (1977), 390403Google Scholar; idem, ‘Ælfric: the Teacher as Rhetorician’ (unpubl. PhD dissertation, Univ. of Michigan, 1978), esp. part IGoogle Scholar; Ray, R., ‘Bede and Cicero’, ASE 16 (1987), 115Google Scholar; Gneuss, H., ‘The Study of Language in Anglo-Saxon England’, Bull. of the John Rylands Univ. Lib. of Manchester 72 (1990), 132, at 2832.Google Scholar See also the annotated bibliography by Reinsma, L. M., ‘Rhetoric, Grammar, and Literature in England and Ireland before the Norman Conquest: a Select Bibliography’, Rhetoric Soc. Quarterly 8.1 (1978), 2948CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and idem, ‘Middle Ages’, Historical Rhetoric: an Annotated Bibliography of Selected Sources in English, ed. Horner, W. B. (Boston, MA, 1980), pp. 45108Google Scholar. The present article presents the essential results of my Traditionen der klassischen Rhetorik im angelsächsischen England, Anglistische Forschungen 236 (Heidelberg, 1996).Google Scholar

7 On the grammatical nature of Anglo-Saxon literary culture, see esp. Gneuss, , ‘The Study of Language’, V. Law, The Insular Latin Grammarians, Stud, in Celtic Hist. 3 (Woodbridge, 1982)Google Scholar and the recent study by Irvine, M., The Making of Textual Culture: ‘Grammatica’ and Literary Theory, 350–1100, Cambridge Stud, in Med. Lit. 19 (Cambridge, 1994), esp. chs. 79.Google Scholar

8 On the later artes, see Murphy, J. J., Rhetoric in the Middle Ages: a History of Rhetorical Theory from Saint Augustine to the Renaissance (Berkeley, CA, and London, 1974), chs. 4–6Google Scholar, and literature cited in Knappe, , Traditionen, pp. 46.Google Scholar

9 On the following, and for details of the works referred to here, see Knappe, , Traditionen, pp. 43109 (part II).Google Scholar Earlier classifications of traditions of classical rhetoric include Reinsma, , ‘Rhetoric in England’, pp. 393403Google Scholar (Augustinian, encyclopedic and grammatical traditions) and Gneuss, , ‘The Study of Language’, pp. 2831Google Scholar (classical and grammatical traditions). The ‘encyclopedic’ and ‘Christian’ traditions are here subsumed within the rhetorical tradition of antiquity, and the full impact of the ‘grammatical’ tradition, which refers solely to the figures and tropes in the grammars in the studies mentioned above, is elaborated in the tradition of rhetoric within grammar.

10 One notable exception is the school of Theodore and Hadrian in Canterbury in the late seventh century. See Lapidge, M., ‘The Study of Greek at the School of Canterbury in the Seventh Century’, The Sacred Nectar of the Greeks: the Study of Creek in the West in the Early Middle Ages, ed. Herren, M. W., King's College London Med. Stud. 2 (London, 1988), 168–94Google Scholar, and idem in Biblical Commentaries from the Canterbury School of Theodore and Hadrian, ed. Bischoff, B. and Lapidge, M., CSASE 10 (Cambridge, 1994), esp. 240–2Google Scholar. See also Bodden, M. C., ‘Evidence for Knowledge of Greek in Anglo-Saxon England’, ASE 17 (1988), 217–46.Google Scholar

11 On classical rhetoric in antiquity and late antiquity, see esp. the chronological survey in Murphy, , Rhetoric in the Middle Ages, chs. 1–2Google Scholar; Kennedy, G. A., The Art of Rhetoric in the Roman World: 300 B.C.–A.D. 300, A Hist. of Rhetoric 2 (Princeton, NJ, 1972)Google Scholar; Conley, T. M., Rhetoric in the European Tradition (Chicago, IL and London, 1994), chs. 1–4Google Scholar; Vickers, B., In Defence of Rhetoric (Oxford, 1988), ch. 1Google Scholar; Clarke, M. L., Rhetoric at Rome: a Historical Survey (London, 1953)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Clark, D. L., Rhetoric in Greco-Roman Education (New York, 1957)Google Scholar; Baldwin, C. S., Medieval Rhetoric and Poetic (to 1400): Interpreted from Representative Works (New York, 1928), chs. 1–5Google Scholar; Ward, J. O., ‘Artificiosa eloquentia in the Middle Ages’, 2 vols, (unpubl. PhD dissertation, Toronto Univ., 1972), esp. I, 37118Google Scholar; idem, Ciceronian Rhetoric in Treatise, Scholion and Commentary, Typologie des sources du moyen âge occidental 58 (Turnhout, 1995), pp. 76104Google Scholar. Rhetoric is also very close to logic and dialectic; see the summary in Knappe, , Traditionen, pp. 7882, and below, p. 13, n. 31.Google Scholar

12 For the genera causarum (genus iudiciale, genus deliberativum and genus demonstrativum), see Lausberg, , Handbuch, §§ 61 and 139254.Google Scholar

13 On the developments in the so-called ‘Second Sophistic’ (c. 50–400) and the set speeches typical of the time, the declamationes, see Murphy, , Rhetoric in the Middle Ages, pp. 3542Google Scholar, Baldwin, , Medieval Rhetoric and Poetic, pp. 850Google Scholar and Kennedy, , The Art of Rhetoric, pp. 301472, esp. 428–61.Google Scholar

14 De doctrina Christiana, ed. Green, W M., Sancti Aureli Augustini opera VI, SEL 80 (Vienna, 1963), pp. 119–20Google Scholar: ‘For those with acute and eager minds more readily learn eloquence by reading and hearing the eloquent than by following the rules of eloquence’ (trans. Robertson, D. W. Jr, Saint Augustine: On Christian Doctrine, Library of Liberal Arts 80 (New York, 1958), 119).Google Scholar For the dilemma of the Church Fathers and the role of St Augustine, see Murphy, J. J., ‘Saint Augustine and the Debate about a Christian Rhetoric’, Quarterly Jnl of Speech 46 (1960), 400–10CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, Rhetoricin the Middle Ages, pp. 4664Google Scholar; Marrou, H.-I., Saint Augustin et la fin de la culture antique, 4th ed. (Paris, 1958)Google Scholar; Fortin, E. L., ‘Augustine and the Problem of Christian Rhetoric’, Augustinian Stud. 5 (1974), 85100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Cf. the discussion in Knappe, , Traditionen, pp. 6372.Google Scholar

15 For surveys of grammar and grammarians in late antiquity, see in particular Kaster, R. A., Guardians of Language: the Grammarian and Society in Late Antiquity, Transformation of the Classical Heritage 11 (Berkeley, CA, 1988)Google Scholar; idem, ‘Islands in the Stream: the Grammarians of Late Antiquity’, The History of Linguistics in the Classical Period, ed. Taylor, D. J., Stud, in the Hist, of the Lang. Sciences, Amsterdam Stud, in the Theory and Hist, of Ling. Science III/46 (Amsterdam, 1987), 149–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Irvine, , The Making of Textual Culture, chs. 16Google Scholar; Marrou, , Augustin, pp. 326 and 422–44.Google Scholar

16 Note also the flourishing of commentaries on Vergil. For the interpretation of prose by grammatical methods, see Quintilian, , Institutio oratoria I.iv.2 and I.iv.4, and the definition of grammar by Cassiodorus (Institutiones II.i.l), quoted below, pp. 10–11. While rhetoric focuses on the production of texts, grammar is based on interpretation. These are the main tasks (officia) of the two arts although there is some overlap. Rhetoric, too, used to be concerned with interpretation (of prose), and the ars recte loquendi has certainly a productive aspect.Google Scholar

17 For the genera dicendi in commentaries on Vergil, see Quadlbauer, F., Die antike Theorie der Genera Dicendi im lateinischen Mittelalter, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, philosophisch historische Klasse, Sitzungsberichte 241.2 (Vienna, 1962), 1015.Google Scholar Cassiodorus's use of rhetorical figures and tropes in his commentary on the psalms and his sources are discussed in Schindel, U., ‘Textkritisches zu lateinischen Figurenlehren (Anecdoton Parisinum, Cassiodor, Quintilian)’, Glotta 52 (1974), 95114Google Scholar; Anonymus Ecksteinii: Scemata dianoeas quae ad rhetores pertinent, ed. Schindel, U., Nachrichten der Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen I, philologisch-historische Klasse, 1987 no. 7 (Göttingen, 1987), introd., esp. pp. 5 and 45Google Scholar; Courtès, J. M., ‘Figures et tropes dans le psautier de Cassiodore’, Revue des études latines 42 (1964), 361–75.Google Scholar See , Knappe, Traditionen, pp. 97100.Google Scholar An index of the figures and tropes in Cassiodorus's Expositio psalmorum is provided ibid. Appendix B. This index is based on the marginal notae to the text reproduced in Magni Aurelii Cassiodori Expositio psalmorum, ed. Adriaen, M., 2 vols., CCSL 97–8 (Turnhout, 1958).Google Scholar

18 Flavii Sosipatri Charisii Artis grammaticae libri V, ed. Barwick, K., repr. with addenda and corrigenda by F. Kühnert (Leipzig, 1964), p. 371, line 29–p. 375, line 9.Google Scholar The figures of sense traditionally belong to rhetorical treatises only; see, for example, the typical statement by , Donatus, Ars maior III.5Google Scholar, ed. Holtz, L., Donat et la tradition de l'enseignement grammatical: étude sur l'Ars Donati et sa diffusion (IVe-IXe siècle) et édition critique (Paris, 1981), pp. 603–74, at 663.Google Scholar Other intrusions of rhetorical lore into the grammars include memoria and chria in Diomedes's Ars grammatica; see Grammatici latini, ed. Keil, H., Hertz, M. [for vols. 2 and 3Google Scholar: Priscian] and Hagen, H. [for vol. 8: Anecdota Helvetica], 8 vols. (Leipzig, 18551880) [=GL], I, 419, lines 22–5 and 310, lines 1–29Google Scholar, and fable (‘de fabula’) and narrative (‘de historia’) in Isidore's Etymologiae I.xl and xli. On these chapters in Isidore, see especially Fontaine, J., Isidore de Seville et la culture classique dans l'Espagne wisigothique, 2nd ed. (Paris, 1983), pp. 179–80Google Scholar, and Irvine, , The Making of Textual Culture, pp. 261 and 234–41.Google Scholar

19 Murphy, J. J., ‘The Rhetorical Lore of the Boceras in Byrhtferth's ManualPhilological Essays: Studies in Old and Middle English Language and Literature in Honor of H. D. Meritt, ed. Rosier, J. L. (The Hague, 1970), pp. 111–24, at 114.Google Scholar

20 The term Barbarismus is henceforth used to refer to the sections in grammars which correspond to Ars maior III. For surveys of figures and tropes in the grammars, see Schindel, U., Die lateinischen Figurenlehren des 5. bis 7. Jahrhunderts und Donats Vergilkommentar (mit zwei Editionen), Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen, philologisch-historische Klasse, 3rd ser. 91 (Göttingen, 1975)Google Scholar; idem, Die Quellen von Bedas Figurenlehre’, Classica et Mediaevalia 29 (1968), 169–86Google Scholar; Holtz, L., ‘Grammairiens et rhéteurs romains en concurrence pour l'enseignement des figures de rhétorique’, Colloque sur la rhétorique: Calliope I, ed. Chevallier, R. (Paris, 1979), pp. 207–20Google Scholar; idem, Donat, pp. 6974 and 136216Google Scholar; , Murphy, Rhetoric in the Middle Ages, p. 32Google Scholar; idem, ‘Rhetorical Lore’, esp. pp. 111–19Google Scholar. On problems concerning the make-up and origin of the Barbarismus, see especially the discussions in Barwick, K., Remmius Palaemon und die römische ars grammatica, Philologus Supplement 15.2 (Leipzig, 1922), 89108Google Scholar; Baratin, M. and Desbordes, F., ‘La “troisième partie” de l‘ars grammatica’, The History of Linguistics in the Classical Period, ed. Taylor, , 4166Google Scholar; Schenkeveld, D. M., ‘Figures and Tropes: a Border-Case between Grammar and Rhetoric’, Rhetorik zwischen den Wissenschaften: Geschichte, System, Praxis als Probleme des ‘Historischen Wörterbuchs der Rhetorik’, ed. Ueding, G., Rhetorik-Forschungen 1 (Tübingen, 1991), 149–57.Google Scholar See also Knappe, , Traditionen, pp. 8697.Google Scholar

21 This development (the close link between interpretation and production, i.e. the rhetorical principles of ars grammatica in late antiquity) has been noted by Irvine, M. J., ‘Grasping the Word: “Ars Grammatica” and Literary Theory from Late Antiquity to the Carolingian Period” (unpubl. PhD dissertation, Harvard Univ., 1982), pp. 192, 309 and 356, n. 5Google Scholar (for Anglo-Saxon England), idem, The Making of Textual Culture, pp. 78, 50–1, 54–5, 197, 206, 304, 319, 326, 426 and 440, and by Rita Copeland in her study of translation practice, ‘As hermeneutics supplanted rhetoric as the master curricular practice, it also assumed the character of rhetoric’Google Scholar: Copeland, R., Rhetoric, Hermeneutics, and Translation in the Middle Ages: Academic Traditions and Vernacular Texts, Cambridge Stud, in Med. Lit. 11 (Cambridge, 1991), 62CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also ibid. p. 55, and Knappe, , Traditionen, pp. 100–7.Google Scholar

22 Cassiodori Senatom Institutiones, ed. Mynors, R. A. B. (Oxford, 1937), p. 94Google Scholar: ‘Grammar is skill in the art of cultivated speech – skill acquired from famous writers of poetry and of prose; its function is the creation of faultless prose and verse; its end is to please through skill in finished speech and blameless writing’ (trans. Jones, L. W., An Introduction to Divine and Human Readings by Cassiodorus Senator (New York, 1946), p. 146).Google Scholar

23 The Hermeneumata Celtis describe some aspects of language teaching practice in late antiquity, and rhetorical exercises are part of the grammarian's teaching; see Dionisotti, A. C., ‘From Ausonius’ Schooldays? A Schoolbook and its Relatives’, Jnl of Roman Stud. 72 (1982), 83125 (with an edition), esp. pp. 100–1Google Scholar, and Schmidt, P. L., ‘“De honestis et nove veterum dictis.” Die Autorität der veteres von Nonius Marcellus bis zu Matheus Vindocinensis’, Klassik im Vergleich: Normativität und Historizität europäischer Klassiken, ed. Voßkamp, W. (Stuttgart, 1993), pp. 366–88, at 368–9.Google Scholar Cf. also Knappe, , Traditionen, pp. 105–6.Google Scholar

24 On basic exercises taught by the grammarian, such as paraphrases and sententiae, see Quintilian, , Institutio oratoria I.ix. 16.Google Scholar

25 See Rhetores latini minores: ex codicibus maximam partem primum adhibitis, ed. Halm, K. (Leipzig, 1863), pp. 551–60, and GL III, 430–40.Google Scholar On the headings in manuscripts which characterize the work as rhetorical but its author (translator) as a grammarian, see Prisciani Caesariensis opuscula, I: De figuris numerorum, De metris Terentii, Praeexercitamina, ed. Passalacqua, M., Sussidi eruditi 40 (Rome, 1987), introd., pp. xxxix and xliv.Google Scholar The manuscripts include this work in grammatical collections (especially from the eighth to the twelfth centuries) and rhetorical ones (especially from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries); see Knappe, , Traditionen, pp. 124–5.Google Scholar A list of the manuscripts is given in Passalacqua's edition, introd., pp. xxix–xxx. See also her study of Priscian manuscripts, Icodici di Prisciano, Sussidi eruditi 29 (Rome, 1978).Google Scholar

26 Almin: The Bishops, Kings, and Saints of York, ed. Godman, P. (Oxford, 1982), p. 112, lines 1432–6:Google Scholar ‘There he watered parched hearts with diverse streams of learning and the varied dew of knowledge: skilfully training some in the arts and rules of grammar and pouring upon others a flood of rhetorical eloquence. Some he polished with the whetstone of true speech ….’

27 It is quite possible that an ideal course of studies is being formulated here; see Alcuin, ed. , Godman, p. 112Google Scholar, note to lines 1432–3. Likewise, the mention that Cicero was available in York (‘rhetor…Tullius ingens’, verse 1550) can be taken as a ‘learned advertisement’, ibid, introd., p. Ixvi; but see also Schmidt, , ‘”De honestis et nove veterum dictis” ‘, p. 376.Google Scholar For Alcuin's booklist, see further Lapidge, M., ‘Surviving Booklists from Anglo-Saxon England’, Learning and Literature in Anglo-Saxon England: Studies presented to Peter Clemoes on the Occasion of his Sixty-Fifth Birthday, ed. Lapidge, M. and Gneuss, H. (Cambridge, 1985), pp. 3389, at 45–9.Google Scholar For Ælberht's journeys to the Continent and their impact on the York library, see Gneuss, H., ‘Anglo-Saxon Libraries from the Conversion to the Benedictine Reform’, Sett Spol 32 (1986), 643–88, at 655.Google Scholar See also the discussion in Knappe, , Traditionen, pp. 166–71.Google Scholar

28 See also Gneuss, , “The Study of Language’, p. 29.Google Scholar Alcuin worked at the court of Charlemagne from 781 or 782 onwards, that is, he spent roughly ten years away from England before he wrote his work on rhetoric (and his poem on York). Notker Labeo's Rhetorica nova, Anselm of Besate's Rhetorimachia and Onulf of Speyer's Colores rhetonci are much later (first half of the eleventh century) and anticipate the development of the later medieval artes. For continental rhetorical studies after Alcuin, see Conley, , Rhetoric in the European Tradition, ch. 4Google Scholar, and literature referred to in Knappe, , Traditionen, pp. 177–84.Google Scholar

29 See The Rhetoric of Akuin and Charlemagne, ed. and trans. Howell, W. S., Princeton Stud, in Eng. 23 (Princeton, NJ, 1941), introd., pp. 2233Google Scholar, and Wallach, L., Alcuin and Charlemagne: Studies in Carolingian History and Literature, Cornell Stud, in Classical Philol. 32 (Ithaca, NY, 1959), 3547.Google Scholar

30 On these three points, see Irvine, , The Making of Textual Culture, pp. 325–7Google Scholar, Mähl, S., Quadriga virtutum: die Kardinaltugenden in der Geistesgeschichte der Karolingenyit, Beihefte zum Archiv für Kulturgeschichte 9 (Vienna, 1969), esp. 124Google Scholar, and Wallach, , Alcuin and Charlemagne, pp. 31–3, 4859, 6072 and 7782Google Scholar, respectively, but also Irvine, , The Making of Textual Culture, p. 325Google Scholar, and Ward, , ‘Artificiosa eloquentia’ I, 125–33.Google Scholar See the discussion in Knappe, , Traditionen, pp. 161–6.Google Scholar

31 For the three distinct periods of Anglo-Saxon learning, see Gneuss, , ‘The Study of Language’, p. 5.Google Scholar Due to the decline of learning in the second period, only the first and the third periods are of importance here, i.e. (late) seventh and eighth, and late ninth (tenth) to the eleventh centuries. For a discussion of the knowledge of manuscripts including dialectical works and the study of this discipline by Aldhelm and in tenth-century Winchester (in the Altercatio magistri et discipuli), see Knappe, , Traditionen, pp. 145–7, 251 and esp. at 185–8.Google Scholar For an edition and discussion of the Altercatio, see Lapidge, M., ‘Three Latin Poems from Æthelwold's School at Winchester’, ASE 1 (1972), 85137, at 105–21 and 95102.Google Scholar

32 See the survey in , Knappe, Traditionen, pp. 111203Google Scholar, which is based on Gneuss, ‘The Study of Language’, idem, A Preliminary List of Manuscripts Written or Owned in England up to 1100’, ASE 9 (1980), 160Google Scholar, Lapidge, , ‘Surviving Booklists’, the relevant sections in Sources of Anglo-Saxon Literary Culture: a Trial Version, ed. Biggs, F. M., Hill, T. D. and Szarmach, P. E., Med. & Renaissance Texts and Stud. 74 (Binghamton, NY, 1990)Google Scholar and Texts and Transmission: a Survey of the Latin Classics, ed. Reynolds, L. D. (Oxford, 1983).Google Scholar

33 On the reception of this work, see the discussion in Knappe, , Traditionen, pp. 171–6.Google Scholar A list of the manuscripts and entries in medieval booklists is provided ibid. Appendix C.

34 See Gneuss, , ‘The Study of Language’, p. 9, n. 23, p. 29 and n. 106 and pp. 1112 and nn. 36–7Google Scholar, and Knappe, , Traditionen. pp. 127–35.Google Scholar

35 See Gneuss, , ‘The Study of Language’, p. 28 and n. 103, p. 29, n. 106Google Scholar, and the evidence mentioned in Knappe, , Traditionen, pp. 126–7 and 181–4.Google Scholar

36 See below, p. 26.

37 For a discussion of Roger Ray's theory (in his ‘Bede and Cicero’ and earlier articles quoted ibid.), that Bede used Cicero's De inventions or Marius Victorinus's commentary on this work for argumentation strategies in his Historia ecclesiastica and his biblical commentaries, see Knappe, , Traditionen, pp. 151–5.Google Scholar For Lupus's letter – as his subsequent letter addressed to Benedict III suggests, Lupus's request either had no success at all or he obtained a defective version - see Knappe, , Traditionen, pp. 116–18Google Scholar, and literature cited there. For a discussion of rhetorical debts in Ælfric, as put forward by Nichols, A. E. (‘Æfric and the Brief StyleJEGP 70 (1971), 112)Google Scholar, see Reinsma, , ‘.Ælfric’, pp. 6170Google Scholar, and Knappe, , Traditionen, pp. 193–6.Google Scholar

38 This opinion is expressed for , Bede and Aldhelm, by Riché, P.;, Education and Culture in the Barbarian West: from the Sixth through the Eighth Century, 3rd ed., trans. Contreni, J. J. (Columbia, SC, 1976), p. 386 and p. 389 with n. 186Google Scholar, and for Ælfric and his time by Reinsma, , ‘Rhetoric in England’, pp. 402–3.Google Scholar See the discussion in Knappe, , Traditionen, pp. 18, 2930, 144–56 and 393.Google Scholar

39 See esp. De virginitate (prosa), ed. Ehwald, R., Aldhelmi opera, MGH Auct. antiq. 15 (Berlin, 1919), 226323, at 263–4Google Scholar, and Knappe, , Traditionen, pp. 144–7.Google Scholar For Bede, , see below, p. 17.Google Scholar

40 Felix's Life of Saint Guthlac, ed. and trans. Colgrave, B. (Cambridge, 1956), pp. 60–2Google Scholar: ‘… dum alii plurimi Anglorum librarii coram ingeniositaris fluenta inter flores rethoricae per virecta litteraturae pure, liquide lucideque rivantur…’ These lines are placed in a commonplace passage on Christian eloquence, discussed in Knappe, , Traditionen, pp. 156–7.Google Scholar

41 See the references above, p. 13, n. 33, and esp. Murphy, , Rhetoric in the Middle Ages, pp. 81–2.Google Scholar

42 The ‘Schemata’ are ptd in PL 101, cols. 945–50, after Forster, Proben (Regensburg, 1777)Google Scholar. For the seven-part division of physica, which is based on Isidore's Differentiae and was part of the Irish educational tradition, see the study by Bischoff, B., ‘Eine verschollene Einteilung der Wissenschaften’, Archives d'histoire doctrinale et littéraire du moyen âge 25 (1958), 520Google Scholar (repr. in his Mittelalterliche Studien, 3 vols. (Stuttgart, 19661981) I, 273–88).Google Scholar

43 The ‘Schemata’ and the ‘Diffinitio philosophiae’ are discussed in Knappe, , Traditionen, pp. 172–6.Google Scholar

44 The poetic texts known to the Anglo-Saxons (see Knappe, , Traditionen, pp. 196201Google Scholar) are: ‘Verses on the Seven Liberal Arts’ in London, British Library, Royal 13. A. XI (s. xi/xii), fol. 149 (unpublished); Bibliotheca magnifica in Cambridge, University Library, Gg. 5. 35 (St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury, s. ximed), 423v–425r (Anecdota Bedae, Lanfranci, et aliorum: Inedited Tracts, Letters, Poems, &c. of Venerable Bede, Lanfranc, Tatwin and Others, ed. Giles, J. A., Publ, of the Caxton Soc. 7 (London, 1851), 50–3Google Scholar); Ad mensam philosophiae in the same manuscript, at 440v (Die Cambridger Lieder, ed. Strecker, K. (Berlin, 1926), p. 91Google Scholar; see also ibid. pp. 113–15).

45 GL VI, 188, lines 1–3 and 6–12.Google Scholar

46 See Knappe, , Traditionen, pp. 201–3.Google Scholar The text is transmitted in a corrupt form; the bottom four or five lines of each page being illegible. For the inclusion of grammar in logica, see D'Alverny, M., ‘La sagesse et ses sept filles: recherches sur les allégories de la philosophie et des arts libéraux du IXe au XIIe siècle’, Mélanges dediés à mémoire de Félix Grat I (Paris, 1946), 245–78, at 249.Google Scholar

47 See Gneuss, , ‘The Study of Language’, p. 23, n. 79Google Scholar, and Knappe, , Traditionen, pp. 217–20Google Scholar. See also ibid. pp. 208–13 and 221–9.

48 The glosses are edited in A Late Eighth-Century Latin-Anglo-Saxon Glossary Preserved in the Library of the Leiden University (MS. Voss. Q. Lat. N°. 69), ed. Hesseis, J. H. (Cambridge, 1906), pp. 23–5 (xxviii.1821, 2488).Google Scholar For the background of the Leiden Glossary, see esp. Lapidge, M., ‘The School of Theodore and Hadrian’, ASE 15 (1986), 4572, at 54–5 and 58.Google Scholar See Knappe, , Traditionen, pp. 220–9Google Scholar, for an analysis of the fifty-eight glosses on the figures and tropes (from a total of sixty-nine) taken from Cassiodorus.

49 See Lapidge, M. in Biblical Commentaries, ed. Bischoff, and Lapidge, , esp. pp. 259–62.Google Scholar The corruption of the extant text makes the identification of sources very difficult. Knappe, , Traditionen, pp. 204–17Google Scholar, discusses thirteen glosses, plus an explanation of accessus ad auctores based on the Prolegomena in Aphtbonii Progymnasmata.

50 There is no thorough investigation of rhetorical glosses in Anglo-Saxon manuscripts. For two glosses of rhetorical figures (hypophora and anthypophora), see Campbell, J. J., ‘Knowledge of Rhetorical Figures’, p. 18Google Scholar, and Knappe, , Traditionen, pp. 248–9.Google Scholar

51 See Knappe, , Traditionen, esp. pp. 230–4Google Scholar, Gneuss, , ‘The Study of Language’, passimGoogle Scholar, Law, V., Insular Latin GrammariansGoogle Scholar and idem, The Study of Latin Grammar in Eighth-Century Southumbria’, ASE 12 (1983), 4371.Google Scholar

52 ‘Quod grammatici Graece schema uocant, nos habitum uel formam uel figuram recte nomina mus …’ De schematibus et tropis, ed. Kendall, C. B., CCSL 123A (Turnhout, 1975), pp. 142–71, at p. 142, lines 67.Google Scholar All subsequent references to this work refer to pages and lines in this edition, hereafter cited as DST.

53 A thorough investigation of Bede's sources (material from Cassiodorus's Expositio psalmorum and the now lost ‘Christian Donatus’ from the late fifth or early sixth century is used to complement Donatus's explanations) is Schindel, ‘Die Quellen von Bedas Figurenlehre’. See the discussion in Knappe, , Traditionen, pp. 234–43, and particularly pp. 238–9Google Scholar for the possible use of a ‘handbook’ for the passages from Cassiodorus. The blending of two definitions, the fact that all terms and definitions taken from the first fifty psalms are also found in the Leiden Glossary and the agreement of only eight of the forty-two examples taken from the psalms with Cassiodorus point to the use of an excerpt where, as in the Leiden Glossary, only few examples from the psalms were included.

54 See Bullough, D. A., ‘The Educational Tradition in England from Alfred to Aelfric: Teaching Utriusque Linguae’, Sett Spol 19 (1972), 453–94, at 484.Google Scholar

55 See Abbon de Fleury: Questions grammaticales, ed. and trans. Guerreau-Jalabert, A. (Paris, 1982), p. 258 (§ 40)Google Scholar, and the discussion in Knappe, , Traditionen, pp. 250–5Google Scholar. Abbo was familiar with at least some basics of the rhetorical tradition of antiquity, but only grammar and dialectical subjects within grammatical considerations are dealt with (§§ 44–7).

56 See the detailed comparison (the Barbarismus is however not discussed) by Bender-Davis, J. M., ‘Aelfric's Techniques of Translation and Adaptation as Seen in the Composition of his Old English “Latin Grammar”’ (unpubl. PhD dissertation, Pennsylvania State Univ., 1985)Google Scholar and Law, V., ‘Anglo-Saxon England: Ælfric's “Excerptiones de arte grammatica anglice” ‘, Histoire Epistemologie langage 9.1 (1987), 4771.CrossRefGoogle ScholarÆlfric's Barbarismus is edited in Aelfrics Grammatik und Glossar: Text und Varianten, ed. Zupitza, J., Sammlung englischer Denkmäler in kritischen Ausgaben l (Berlin, 1880Google Scholar; 2nd printing with a preface by Gneuss, H., Berlin, 1966), 294, line 4–295, line 14.Google Scholar

57 See Knappe, , Traditionen, pp. 256–70Google Scholar, for a comparison of Ælfric's Barbarismus with the ‘Excerptiones de Prisciano’ on the basis of Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, nouv. acq. lat. 586, 127v–131r, and a discussion of Ælfric's aim. On Ælfric's grammatical terminology, see Shook, L. K., ‘Ælfric's Latin Grammar, a Study in Old English Grammatical Terminology” (unpubl. PhD dissertation, Harvard Univ., 1939)Google Scholar, Williams, E. R., ‘Ælfric's Grammatical Terminology’, PMLA 73 (1958), 453–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Law, , ‘Æfric's “Excerptiones”’, pp. 62–3Google Scholar, and particularly Gneuss, , ‘The Study of Language’, pp. 1318.Google Scholar

58 From Ælfric's Old English Preface, ed. Zupitza, , p. 2, lines 16–17Google Scholar; ‘because grammar is the key which unlocks the meaning of books’.

59 Byrhtferth's Enchiridion, ed. Baker, P. S. and Lapidge, M., EETS ss 15 (Oxford, 1995), 8890 (II.i.449–70; Barbarismus) and 162–8 (III.iii.21–119; schemata).Google Scholar

60 On the use of Old English hiw for schema which renders ‘form’, not ‘colour’ (Latin color is used for figures and tropes in the later rhetorical tradition), see , Gneuss, ‘The Study of Language’, p. 17Google Scholar, Knappe, , Traditionen, pp. 272–4Google Scholar, but also Murphy, , ‘Rhetorical Lore’, pp. 122–4.Google Scholar For the use of color for schema, see also Knappe, G., ‘On Rhetoric and Grammar in the Hisperica famina’, Jnl of Med. Latin 4 (1994), 130–62, at 142–3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar On the Barbarismus in the Enchiridion, see Derolez, R., ‘Language Problems in Anglo-Saxon England: barbara loquella and barbarismus’, Words, Texts and Manuscripts: Studies in Anglo-Saxon Culture presented to Helmut Gneuss on the Occasion of his Sixty-Fifth Birthday, ed. Korhammer, M. et al. (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 285–92, at 290–1Google Scholar, and Byrhtferth's Enchiridion, ed. Baker, and Lapidge, , pp. 297–8.Google Scholar

61 See the detailed discussion in Knappe, , Traditionen, pp. 275–90Google Scholar, and also Byrhtferth's Enchiridion, ed. Baker, and Lapidge, , introd., pp. lxxxlxxxiGoogle Scholar with the commentary on pp. 329–31. The text of Remigius's commentary is ed. by King, M. H. in Bede's Liber de schematibus et tropis, ed. Kendall, .Google Scholar

62 ‘God me geunne þæt ic mote his willan gewyrcan and ealra his halgena and mines kynehlafordes and ealra minra broðra.’ Byrhtferth's Enchiridion, ed. Baker, and Lapidge, , p. 168 (III.3.115–16)Google Scholar: ‘God grant me that I may work his will, and that of his saints and of my king and of all my brothers.’ See the discussion in Knappe, , Traditionen, pp. 285–7.Google Scholar

63 See also , Gneuss, ‘The Study of Language’, pp. 1617.Google Scholar On Byrhtferth's adaptation, see Knappe, , Traditionen, pp. 290303Google Scholar. Somewhat problematic is the use of getwynnys for epizeuxis (because it translates geminatio from the definition of epizeuxis) and dyrstignes for praesumptio (which is normally used for the late antique meaning of praesumptio in the sense of audacia, temeritas). For problems with the transmitted form of the text, see Byrhtferth's Enchiridion, ed. Baker, and Lapidge, , introd., pp. cxxivcxxviiiGoogle Scholar, and Lapidge, M., ‘The Edition, Emendation and Reconstruction of Anglo-Saxon Texts’, The Politics of Editing Medieval Texts: Papers Given at the Twenty-Seventh Annual Conference on Editorial Problems, University of Toronto, 1–2 November 1991, ed. Frank, R. (New York, 1993), pp. 131–57, at 144–9.Google Scholar

64 See Berry, R., ‘“Ealle ping [sic] wundorlice gesceapen”: the Structure of the Computas in Byrhtferth's Manual’, Revue de l'université d'Ottawa 52 (1982), 130–41.Google Scholar

65 For the grammatical aspects discussed in Byrhtferth's Enchiridion and its structure, see esp. Knappe, , Traditionen, pp. 303–12 and 474.Google Scholar

66 For figures and tropes in early glossaries and in textual glosses, see Knappe, , Traditionen, pp. 243–9.Google Scholar

67 For a detailed critical evaluation and bibliographical references, see Knappe, , Traditionen, pp. 30–6 and 323467 (pt IV).Google Scholar See also esp. the remarks in Gneuss, , ‘The Study of Language’, pp. 31–2Google Scholar, Reinsma, , ‘Rhetoric, Grammar, and Literature’, pp. 32–8Google Scholar, Campbell, J. J., ‘Adaptation of Classical Rhetoric’Google Scholar and idem, Learned Rhetoric in Old English Poetry’, MP 63 (1966), 189201.Google Scholar The terms for the partes artis are here used to refer to their equivalents in a grammatically based culture which apparently lacked knowledge of the ars bene dicendi.

68 ‘Adaptation of Classical Rhetoric’, p. 190Google Scholar. See also Bonner, J. H., ‘Toward a Unified Critical Approach to Old English Poetic Composition’, MP 73 (1976), 219–28, at 226–7.Google Scholar

69 O'Connor, D. D., ‘Rhetorical Patterns in Old English Poetry’ (unpubl. PhD dissertation, Syracuse Univ., 1972), p. 40.Google ScholarIsocolon is defined in the rhetorical tradition only; it is the parallel arrangement of two or more cola (sentences, clauses or word groups); see, e.g., Quintilian, , Institutio oratorio IX.iii.80.Google Scholar Likewise, O'Connor formulates restrictive rules for the identification of paronomasia (words similar in sound but not in meaning, word-play, which must be found within one line), homoeoptoton and homoeoteleuton (the repetition of the same case endings and the same syllable at the end of words, respectively; they must occur in more than four consecutive half-lines); see ‘Rhetorical Patterns’, pp. 46 and 94–8Google Scholar. Such criteria are, however, marked by a certain degree of arbitrariness. See Knappe, , Traditionen, pp. 330–1Google Scholar, and also ibid. p. 373 and n. 3. On paronomasia, homoeoptoton and homoeoteleuton, see DST 147, 90148,102Google Scholar; 150,129–36; 149,115–28.

70 See Knappe, , Traditionen, pp. 377–9Google Scholar (also on the debate on cursus forms) and literature cited there, particularly Hart, J. M., ‘Rhetoric in the Translation of Bede’, An English Miscellany presented to Dr. Furnivallin Honour of his Seventy-Fifth Birthday (Oxford, 1901), pp. 150–4Google Scholar, and Kuhn, S. M., ‘Synonyms in the Old English Bede’, JEGP 46 (1947), 168–76.Google Scholar

71 This example is considered to be homoeoptoton in O'Connor, , ‘Rhetorical Patterns’, p. 160.Google Scholar See further Campbell, , ‘Learned Rhetoric in Old English Poetry’, p. 197, n. 24.Google Scholar

72 According to Bede, paromoeon is achieved by the repetition of word-initial consonants; see DST 148, 108149, 114.Google Scholar On the characteristics of Old English poetry, including its formulaic character, themes and larger structures, see the summary in , Knappe, Traditionen, pp. 331–9Google Scholar, and also Scragg, D. G., ‘The Nature of Old English Verse’, The Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature, ed. Godden, M. and Lapidge, M. (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 5570.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

73 ASPR VI, 109: ‘Hot grows cold, white becomes dirty, dear turns hateful, light becomes dark. Everything grows old which is not eternal.’

74 For adaptations of Latin sources, see esp. Campbell, , ‘Learned Rhetoric in Old English Poetry’Google Scholar, idem, ‘Adaptation of Classical Rhetoric’ (the quoted example is taken from there, p. 192)Google Scholar and McPherson, , ‘Influence of Latin Rhetoric’, passimGoogle Scholar. See also Knappe, , Traditionen, pp. 339–43Google Scholar. Some adaptations, for example The Phoenix (ASPR III, 94113)Google Scholar, show how freely Latin stylistic devices could be employed.

75 Interesting examples for the grammatical rather than rhetorical basis of stylistic techniques are early ‘glossary Latin’ and the ‘hermeneutic style’ (which was current in tenth-century Anglo-Latin texts). See Knappe, , Traditionen, pp. 193–4Google Scholar, and esp. Lapidge, M., ‘The Hermeneutic Style in Tenth-Century Anglo-Latin Literature’, ASE 4 (1975), 67111Google Scholar. Concerning Old English as a literary language, there are indications in Ælfric's Grammar that some attention was also paid to the structure of the vernacular; see Gneuss, , ‘The Study of Language’, p. 14.Google Scholar

76 See Bartlett, A. C., The Larger Rhetorical Patterns in Anglo-Saxon Poetry (New York, 1935), pp. 30 and 40–3Google Scholar, McPherson, , ‘Influence of Latin Rhetoric’, p. 12Google Scholar, and Knappe, , Traditionen, pp. 334–7Google Scholar (on Bartlett's analysis). For anaphora, the repetition of words or word groups at the beginning of two or more consecutive verses or sense units, see DST 146, 71147, 79.Google Scholar

77 See Krapp, G. P., ‘The Parenthetic Exclamation in Old English Poetry’, Mod. Lang. Notes 20 (1905), 33–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar; on parenthesis, see Lausberg, , Handbuch, § 860Google Scholar, and DST 158, 115–19Google Scholar. Bede defines parenthesis more specifically by stating that the interpolated utterance adds a reason to the statement. Swanton translates the passage from Beowulf thus: ‘The flood welled with blood, with hot gore – the people gazed at it’: Beowulf, ed. and trans. Swanton, M. (Manchester, 1978), p. 103.Google Scholar

78 See, for example, Ælfric's alliterative prose (summary of the discussion and references in Knappe, , Traditionen, pp. 389–91Google Scholar). See also Bately, J., ‘Old English Prose before and during the Reign of Alfred’, ASE 17 (1988), 93138, at 132Google Scholar. For the influence of Germanic stylistic devices such as alliteration, parallelism and variation on Anglo-Latin texts, see, for example, Alcuin, ed. Godman, , introd., pp. ciii–cxGoogle Scholar, esp. at cv, and in particular Olsen, A. H., ‘Old English Poetry and Latin Prose: the Reverse Context’, Classica et Mediaevalia 34 (1983), 273–82.Google Scholar See also Knappe, , Traditionen, pp. 326–9.Google Scholar

79 See Isaacs, N. D., ‘The Convention of Personification in Beowulf, Old English Poetry: Fifteen Essays, ed. Creed, R. P. (Providence, RI, 1967), pp. 215–48Google Scholar – the example is discussed on pp. 243–4. Through synecdoche the whole is designated by a part or vice versa (see DST 156, 85157, 90Google Scholar). See also Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg, ed. Klaeber, F., 3rd ed. with first and second supplement (Boston, 1950), introd., p. lxviiiGoogle Scholar. For a discussion of elocutio in heroic poetry and full bibliographical references, see Knappe, , Traditionen, pp. 348–53Google Scholar. See also the particular case of the Old English elegies discussed in Knappe, , Traditionen, pp. 366–73, and literature referred to there.Google Scholar

80 On Old English figurative diction, see Knappe, , Traditionen, pp. 343–8Google Scholar, and literature cited there, esp. Stanley, E. G., ‘Old English Poetic Diction and the Interpretation of The Wanderer, The Seafarer and The Penitent's Prayer’, Anglia 73 (1955), 413–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The kenning is usually defined as a two-part paraphrase of a concept whose metaphorical basis is specified by the first constituent which is taken from the same sphere of meaning as the referent (e.g. OE ban-bus ‘bone-house, body’). Metaphora is a shortened comparison, transferring one expression into a different sphere. Metonymia is the substitution of a term by a similar one, often by the cause for the effect, the container for the contents or vice versa. Antonomasia is defined as the replacement of a proper name by a description. Catachresis is the inexact use of a noun to describe an object which does not have a designation of its own. Periphrasis is used to embellish a simple word or thought by naming it according to its characteristics. See DST 152, 8153, 33, 155, 5363, 155, 63156, 77, 153, 34154, 48, and 157, 99158, 106.Google Scholar

81 See the discussion in McPherson, , ‘Influence of Latin Rhetoric’, pp. 101–32Google Scholar. Studies of Christian poems are discussed in Knappe, , Traditionen, pp. 354–66.Google Scholar

82 See esp. Bately, , ‘Old English Prose’, pp. 118–38Google Scholar, Sauer, H., ‘König Alfreds Boethius und seine Rhetorik’, Anglistik: Mitteilungen des Verbandes Deutsche Anglisten 7.2 (1996), 5789Google Scholar and literature referred to in Knappe, , Traditionen, pp. 374–86.Google Scholar

83 See Clark, C., ‘The Narrative Mode of The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle before the Conquest’, England before the Conquest: Studies in Primary Sources presented to Dorothy Whitelock, ed. Clemoes, P. and Hughes, K. (Cambridge, 1971), pp. 215–35Google Scholar, and Knappe, , Traditionen, pp. 386–7.Google Scholar

84 The Homilies of Wulfstan, ed. Bethurum, D. (Oxford, 1957), p. 162 (IV.123)Google Scholar: ‘There is howling and groaning and perpetual sorrow.’ This passage is discussed by D. Bethurum, ‘Wulfstan’, in Continuations and Beginnings: Studies in Old English Literature, ed. Stanley, E. G. (London, 1966), pp. 210–46, at 234Google Scholar. On Ælfric, see particularly Reinsma, , ‘Aelfric’, chs. IV and VGoogle Scholar, and the remarks in Clemoes, P., ‘Ælfric’, Continuations and Beginnings, ed. Stanley, , pp. 176209.Google Scholar For a discussion of the stylistic devices used by Ælfric, Wulfstan and the Blickling homilists together with a note on the Vercelli Homilies, see Knappe, , Traditionen, pp. 387–98, 449–59Google Scholar and literature referred to there. See also below, pp. 27–8, n. 97.

85 De Leeuw, , for example, takes knowledge of the Rhetorica ad Herennium for grantedGoogle Scholar; see De Leeuw, W. L. Jr, ‘The Eschatological Homilies of Wulfstan: a Rhetorical Analysis’ (unpubl. PhD dissertation, Auburn Univ., 1972), p. 3.Google Scholar

86 Dispositio, which is concerned with the arrangement of the parts of a text, is closely interconnected with inventio; see Lausberg, , Handbuch, §§ 260452, esp. 444.Google Scholar For the systematic discussion of these two partes artis a separate treatment is chosen here.

87 For the division into a general and a technical sense, see Knappe, , Traditionen, pp. 398–9Google Scholar, based on Curtius, E. R., Europäische Literatur und lateinisches Mittelalter, 2nd ed. (Bern, 1954), pp. 7980.Google Scholar

88 See the discussion in Knappe, , Traditionen, pp. 400–5Google Scholar. For the ubi sunt, see above, p. 5. The sum-series is discussed by Cross, J. E., ‘On The Wanderer Lines 80–84Google Scholar, a Study of a Figure and a Theme’, Vetenskaps-Societeten i Lund Årsbok (1958–9), 75–110; see also his Latin Themes. Both themes are primarily found in Latin homilies. An investigation of descriptions of winter is Martin, B. K., ‘Aspects of Winter in Latin and Old English PoetryJEGP 68 (1969), 375–90.Google Scholar On the Latin and Germanic background of exordial passages, see esp. Bridges, M., ‘Exordial Tradition and Poetic Individuality in Five OE Hagiographical Poems’, ES 60 (1979), 361–79Google Scholar. Themes from Germanic oral poetry are summarized in Jehle, D. M., ‘Latin Rhetoric in the Signed Poems of Cynewulf’ (unpubl. PhD dissertation, Loyola Univ. of Chicago, 1973), pp. 1922.Google Scholar

89 See Cross, J. E., ‘On the Genre of The WandererNeophilologus 45 (1961), 6375CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and the discussion in Knappe, , Traditionen, pp. 406–7.Google Scholar

90 See Wieland, G., ‘Geminas stilus. Studies in Anglo-Latin Hagiography’, Insular Latin Studies: Papers on Latin Texts and Manuscripts of the British Isles: 550–1066, ed. Herren, M. W., Papers in Med. Stud, l (Toronto, 1981), 113–33Google Scholar, Alcuin, ed. Godman, , introd., pp. lxxviii–lxxxviiiGoogle Scholar. See also Knappe, , Traditionen, pp. 408–10, and above, p. 11, n. 24.Google Scholar

91 See Knappe, , Traditionen, pp. 411–20Google Scholar, and in particular the studies by Schlauch, M., ‘The Dream of the Rood as Prosopopoeia’, Essays and Studies in Honor of Carleton Brown (New York, 1940), pp. 2334Google Scholar (repr. Essential Articles for the Study of Old English Poetry, ed. Bessinger, J. and Kahrl, S. (Hamden, CT, 1968), pp. 428–41)Google Scholar and idem, An Old English Encomium UrbisJEGP 40 (1941), 1428Google Scholar. For a case of influence of technical topoi on Beowulf, put forward by Engelhardt, G. I., ‘Beowulf: a Study in Dilatation’, PMLA 70 (1955), 825–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar, see Knappe, , Traditionen, pp. 420–2.Google Scholar

92 Priscian, , Praeexercitamina, ed. Passalacqua, pp. 45–6 (‘De allocutione’) and 42–4 (‘De laude’).Google Scholar

93 See above, p. 11. Likewise, knowledge of this textbook in early medieval Ireland can only be established by way of literary analysis. See Knappe, , ‘On Rhetoric and Grammar’, pp. 145–53.Google Scholar

94 See the short summary in Knappe, , Traditionen, pp. 422–3, and references given there.Google Scholar

95 For The Seafarer, see above, p. 6, n. 4Google Scholar, and , Knappe, Traditionen, pp. 433–5Google Scholar. Twenty-two speeches in Beowulf are analysed according to the ars bene dicendi by Sander, G., ‘Gliederung und Komposition des Beowulf’ (doctoral dissertation, typescript, Mainz, 1955)Google Scholar. The Unferth episode is looked at in Silber, P., ‘Rhetoric as Prowess in the Unferð Episode’, Texas Stud. in Lit. and Lang. 23 (1981), 471–83Google Scholar. But see also Parks, W., Verbal Duelingin Heroic Narrative: the Homeric and Old English Traditions (Princeton, NJ, 1990)Google Scholar. For speeches in the Battle of Maldon, see Anderson, E. R., ‘Flyting in The Battle of Maldon’, NM 71 (1970), 197202Google Scholar. See Knappe, , Traditionen, pp. 424–33Google Scholar. See also ibid. p. 436, on the structure of Alfred's Preface to the Pastoral Care as put forward by Huppé, B. F., ‘Alfred and Aelfric: A Study of Two Prefaces’, The Old English Homily and its Backgrounds, ed. Szarmach, P. E. and Huppé, B. F. (New York, 1978), pp. 119–37, esp. 121–31.Google Scholar

96 Bonner, , ‘Toward a Unified Critical Approach’, p. 224Google Scholar. See also Knappe, , Traditionen, pp. 437–40.Google Scholar For the view of the Church Fathers, see above, p. 8. Moreover, no rhetorical preaching manuals existed in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages.

97 For such a comparison, see Knappe, , Traditionen, pp. 440–59 and 464–6Google Scholar. This discussion is mainly based on the following analyses: Best, L. G., ‘Classical partitiones orationis in the Homilies of Aelfric: an Overview’ (unpubl. PhD dissertation, Univ. of Connecticut, 1977)Google Scholar; Dalbey, M. A., ‘Structure and Style in the Blickling Homilies for the Temporale’ (unpubl. PhD dissertation, Univ. of Illinois, 1968)Google Scholar; Campbell, J. J., ‘Adaptation of Classical Rhetoric’, pp. 178–89, esp. pp. 188–9Google Scholar on Wulfstan's Be christendome; some remarks in Jurovics, R., ‘Sermo Lupi and the Moral Purpose of Rhetoric’, The Old English Homily, ed. Szarmach, and Huppé, , pp. 203–20Google Scholar. On the Vercelli Homilies, see Szarmach, P. E., ‘The Vercelli Homilies: Style and Structure’, The Old English Homily, ed. Szarmach, and Huppé, , pp. 241–67.Google Scholar The structuring of Wulfstan's preaching has not yet received due attention in scholarship. Also, close comparisons with the sources in order to evaluate individual achievements of the Old English preachers have in many cases yet to be carried out.

98 See Reinsma, , ‘Ælfric’.Google Scholar

99 I should like to thank Professor Helmut Gneuss, Professor Michael Lapidge and Dr Inge Milfull for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this article.