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Hisperic Latin: ‘Luxuriant Culture-Fungus of Decay’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 July 2016

Michael Herren
Michael Herren*
Affiliation:
York University, Toronto
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Extract

The pejorative phrase of the title, penned by Eóin MacNeill in his article ‘Beginnings of Latin Culture in Ireland’ has clung tenaciously to the study of Hisperic texts. Indeed, it was repeated some twenty-odd years later by Bieler in his ‘Hibernian Latin’. However, the belief that Hisperica Famina and the texts related to them — the Lorica of Laidcenn, the Rubisca (possibly by Máeldub of Malmesbury), the St. Omer Hymn, some of the writings of Aldhelm, and a few other works — are the products of a literary decadence rests squarely on the assumption that they spring from southwestern Britain, especially Wales, around the middle of the sixth century; to cite MacNeill:

The destruction of the cities of Britain and the exposure of the eastern and southern regions of the island to Germanic raiders must have caused a kind of congestion of such academic worthies in the western parts where Irish aggression had ceased and where the Britons, under new tyranni, had learned to defend themselves or, like Coroticus, had become aggressors. Gildas looks back to a lengthy period of security and degeneracy under these conditions. There, and not in Ireland of that time, we may recognise the fitting environment of the decadent Latin culture exemplified in the Hisperica Famina.

Type
Miscellany
Information
Traditio , Volume 30 , 1974 , pp. 411 - 419
Copyright
Copyright © Fordham University Press 

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References

1 MacNeill, Eóin, ‘Beginning of Latin Culture in Ireland,’ Studies 20 (1931).Google Scholar

2 Bieler, Ludwig, ‘Hibernian Latin,’ Ibid. 43 (1954).Google Scholar

3 MacNeill, , ‘Beginnings,’ 458.Google Scholar

4 Grosjean, Paul, ‘Confusa Caligo,’ Celtica 3 (1956) 81–83.Google Scholar

5 Macalister, R. A. S., The Secret Languages of Ireland (Cambridge 1937) 80–81.Google Scholar

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9 This thesis has since been revised and expanded into a new edition of the Hisperica Famina, the first volume of which will appear shortly in the Texts and Studies series of the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto.Google Scholar

10 See my article, ‘The Authorship, Date of Composition, and Provenance of the So-Called Lorica Gildae,’ Eriu 24 (1973) 35–51.Google Scholar

11 Kenney, J. F., Sources for the Early History of Ireland (New York 1927) 1.257.Google Scholar

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15 Ibid.Google Scholar

16 My text and translation.Google Scholar

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20 Ibid. 18–19.Google Scholar