The Rare Book Room of the University of Pennsylvania Libraries has recently acquired an early fourteenth-century manuscript (Lat. 95) of a hitherto unknown Apparatus on the Clementines. The author is Stephanus Hugoneti (from southern France, possibly Narbonne), whose work as a canonist has gone unknown, and whose ultimate though brief emergence from historical obscurity as bishop of Bologna has hardly been noticed.

In 1256 Guy de l'Aumône became the first Cistercian master of theology at the University of Paris. Very little is thought to survive of his magisterial activities. Only his Summa … de diversis questionibus theologie has been seen as a series of ordinary disputed questions. This, however, has been enough to lead some historians to attribute certain original views to Guy. Above all, Guy is supposed to have had a distinctive belief in the precepts of the Old and New Testaments as absolute, which resulted in a desire to produce work based purely on Scripture. Unfortunately this interpretation rests on mistaken assumptions about the nature of the Summa, in particular a willingness to accept its structure at face value. In fact this structure was imposed on several distinct blocks of material which reflect different types of magisterial activity. A greater range of Guy's work is thus available to the historian than hitherto imagined. This makes possible a more balanced assessment of what Guy thought and the kind of work he was engaged in. It also reveals more about the milieu in which he worked, especially the use to which the Halesian Summa was put and attitudes towards different kinds of university exercise.

Two ideas, the Divine and the Other-World, seem to have dominated much of the life of the ancient Greeks and Romans and to have claimed their best energies. To a great extent the culture of classical antiquity is the natural expression of these two predominant religious convictions. When Christianity entered the Graeco-Roman world and gathered its adherents from among both the cultured class and the unlettered masses, it made no violent break with ancient culture but preserved whatever was best in it. On the one hand, the Church sought to suppress whatever militated against its own teaching in these matters; on the other, it readily embraced a number of purely folk customs and practices of virtually spontaneous growth and gave them a new orientation in conformity with Christian principles. In a word, some of the pagan usages and rites were purified and, whenever possible, adapted to Christian worship.

This paper presents the results of my research into the scriptural text which St. John Chrysostom used as the basis of his Homilies on Acts. These results give a good indication of the text-type of Acts known to Chrysostom and, as a corollary, provide evidence bearing on the textual tradition of the Homilies themselves.

Like most medieval vernacular narratives, the Lais of Marie de France begin with a prologue designed to explain the proximate causes of the author's undertaking and to set the work within a recognized context of literary tradition. This literary tradition is represented, again quite typically, by appeal to an auctor, here the grammarian Priscian, whom Marie cites as witness to the stylistic habits of ancient writers:

Custume fu as ancïens,
Ceo tes[ti]moine Precïens,
Es livres ke jadis feseient
Assez oscurement diseient
Pur ceus ki a venir esteient
E ki aprendre les deveient,
K'i peüssent gloser la lettre
E de lur sen le surplus mettre.

Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 41 contains the B-text of the Old English Bede, and a sizeable body of marginalia that includes a substantial amount of liturgy. The main text is in a large format but remains incomplete in some of its artwork; it was copied in two parts by two different scribes in the early eleventh century and supplied with various decorated initials, not all of them finished. The book was given by Bishop Leofric to Exeter between 1050 and 1072. It is not immediately apparent whether the liturgical addenda were copied there or done earlier at some other center, but the nature of the marginalia suggests that the additions were made, as was perhaps the book itself, in a provincial scriptorium of no great size. The use of the margins of the text indicates a shortage of available vellum, thus suggesting that the original text of the Old English Bede may have been made for a smaller center with a minimal library, or possibly for an individual.

Crowland Abbey was one of many English monasteries after the Norman Conquest to forge documents that claimed a right to permanent sanctuary rooted in the Anglo-Saxon period. Yet Crowland's claims stand out because while other ecclesiastical chronicles that grounded their sanctuary claims in an earlier tradition did so in order to defend those rights in the twelfth century or later, Crowland never claimed this privilege for anything other than the abbey's Anglo-Saxon past. Indeed, I argue that the three forged “Anglo-Saxon” charters that make this assertion, which all appear in the Pseudo-Ingulf section of the abbey's chronicle, the Historia Croylandensis, do so in order to emphasize a more fundamental claim about the institution's authority — its association with one of the most significant fenland saints, Guthlac. Moreover, I argue that the most likely date when this material was forged is the late twelfth century. In the context of the narrative in which they appear, these charters reveal that later medieval Crowland constructed a narrative that saw permanent sanctuary as an important feature of the abbey's Anglo-Saxon past.

Hadrian I's synodica of 785 (JE 2448), addressed to the Byzantine Emperors Irene and her son Constantine VI, which encouraged the rulers in their planned restoration of image-worship, is one of the most important official Latin documents of the eighth century. In the East it became in 787 the basis of the discussions at the Seventh Ecumenical Council (II Nicaea), which restored the worship of images in Byzantium. In the West, the Franks and Charlemagne based their rejection of image worship and of II Nicaea on certain sections of the synodica which were critically discussed in the Frankish Capitulare adversus synodum of c. 788/9, as well as in Hadrian I's refutation of this lost capitulary, whose text is extensively cited in the chapter headings of the so-called Hadrianum (JE 2483) of c. 791. Greek and Latin testimonia invoked in JE 2448 in favor of image worship are rebuked in Charlemagne's Libri Carolini, the official Frankish protest against II Nicaea. Finally, numerous merous fragments of the synodica's text, especially from its catena of patristic testimonia, were inserted into the Libellus synodalis of the Paris Synod of 825.

A common view of medieval thought focuses on the separation of speculative thought from biblical exegesis which occurs with the rise of the universities. Whereas in the patristic era and the early Middle Ages theology and exegesis formed a unity, the introduction of Aristotle and the techniques of quaestio and disputatio detached theology from the study of scriptural texts. The results were twofold: theology attained a new autonomy and a distinctive form in the summa, and exegesis — free of the demands of theological speculation — could pursue a more literal and historical style of interpretation. Whatever the historical accuracy of this view, it has certainly shaped modern scholarship on medieval thought. Theologians and philosophers have focused on summae and disputed questions to such an extent that the Leonine edition of Thomas Aquinas has yet to publish his major Commentary on the Gospel of John. Since Thomas is considered first of all a theologian, not an exegete, his biblical commentaries have been accorded less interest and attention than his systematic works. In contrast, students of medieval exegesis may so emphasize literal and historical interpretation that they exclude or dismiss commentaries that are speculative or mystical. Beryl Smalley's The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages represents this trend, as it devotes little attention to Bernard of Clairvaux but concentrates on commentators like Guerric of St. Quentin, who gave ‘his attention to the literal sense first and foremost.’

The writings of Augustine pose an interesting problem for the philosopher. Very soon after one begins reading them, there appears the old and apparently non-philosophical admonition: ‘Unless you believe, you will not understand.’ Is the autonomy of philosophy being threatened by this demand? Is reason being told that it must accept certain statements as true on authority other than its own? And if so, why?

The editor of the Translatio Vetus, Joanna Judycka, remarks of the anonymous translator that he knew his métier. Indeed, the translation, apart from some minor omissions, is extremely competent. Some of its various features mentioned by Dr. Judycka are, in fact, common to many medieval translations from the Greek into Latin; for example, the confusion of the present and future, the rendering of ἄν with the optative by utique with the future indicative, and the handling of the all-pervasive articular infinitive (so common and important in scientific prose). Nor are the discrepancies in number and degree characteristic of any one author or school. Only a detailed analysis of the translator's Sprachgebrauch, such as L. Minio-Paluello contemplated before his death, can reveal the identity of the translator.

Though the Green Knight describes his challenge before Arthur's court as ‘a Crystemas gomen’ (283), and though some scholars have responded to this and other references in the poem and treated it as an entertainment or as essentially about games, most modern studies of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight concentrate on the difficult questions of moral behaviour which the poem raises. Though it is certainly full of violent movement and physical action, though it sets forth a world of arresting concrete specificity and colourful variety, the poem's most crucial moment (if it can be said to have one) occurs in the early morning quiet of the hero's bed-chamber when Gawain accepts the green girdle and agrees to ‘lelly layne’ (1863) it from Bertilak. It is a point at which the hero makes a clear moral decision to drop his skilful verbal defence against the Lady's propositions and to allow himself to be acted upon: ‘he Jmlged with hir ‘repe …] ooled hir to speke … he granted … hym gafe with a goud wylle …] oe leude hym acordez’ (1859-63). Most scholars agree with Gawain's own subsequent judgment that his moral behaviour was, to a greater or lesser degree, ‘fawty and falce’ (2382); but how his moral faultiness is to be measured and assessed, and how in conceptual terms it is to be analysed and described, are more difficult questions.

Among the persistent problems of Piers Plowman criticism, that of defining the meaning of the poem's title figure still holds a prominent place. The problem is largely one of finding or forging a unity out of the bewildering multiplicity of Piers's roles in the poem. Skeat, the poem's first modern editor, proposed three discrete meanings for Piers in three parts of the poem: in his first appearance (B 5–7) he is ‘the type of the ideal honest man’; in the second (B 15–18), Christ; in the third (B 19–20), Peter and his worthy successors in the papal office. Later critics, searching for a means of unifying these three, have fallen roughly into three traditions, each with its own approach to the ‘problem of Piers.’

The early thirteenth century saw the rise of a new exegetical technique: divisio textus, or text division. Commentators engaged in subtle structural analyses, parsing texts into increasingly smaller units, and at times represented these structures as complex tree diagrams. For a case study of this technique, this essay presents a previously unnoticed series of such marginal diagrams in MS Assisi, Bib. Com. 51 that depict the structure of the first three chapters of the Book of Job. Following the manner in which the author analyzes the narrative functions of character description, dialogues, and other aspects, the essay reconstructs the narratological principles embedded in these diagrams, and compares them with other divisions of Job by thirteenth century theologians. It sets the diagramming of divisiones textus in its the broader context of medieval horizontal tree diagrams and discusses the peculiar implications of the spatialization of biblical narrative. Appendices include full transcriptions, translations and auxiliary materials for comparison.

It is a commonplace that Aristophanes' heroes stage successful revolts against whatever they perceive prevents them from attaining their goals or from fulfilling their potential. Nothing so restrictive as political obstacles, or bodily restraints, or even divine directives remains immune, so it seems, from a triumphant revolt launched so humorously and so uniquely by such splendid comic creations as Dikaiopolis, Pisthetairos, and Lysistrata, to name three of the most famous Aristophanic heroes. In the process, political and military heroes who revere their presumed control and power are mastered; there fall those natural functions which seem to exercise periodic dominion over varied phases of our lives; and even the Olympian gods are compelled to succumb to the imposing demands of comic vision, fantasy, and ultimate heroic triumph.

En este trabajo nos proponemos revisar uno de los sucesos trascendentales que repercutieron sobre la cultura del Imperio Romano, produciendo modificaciones sustantivas en todos los órdenes de su vida, y de tan pronunciada magnitud, que incluso se consolidó como sustrato medular del imaginario medieval, en general, y de su literatura, en particular. Ese acontecimiento, de dinámica progresión temporal, es la paulatina infiltración del cristianismo, cuya actividad culmina con la conquista del poder político — observando principios que seguirá ejercitando hasta en tiempos de absoluta hegemonía —, y su relación con la cultura oficial.

Cette nouvelle enquête sur I'allégorie de la spoliatio Aegyptiorum pourra paraître de prime abord désuète vu le nombre d'auteurs qui en ont déjà parlé. Nous avions nous-même, il y a plus de cinquante ans, rédigé une brève note intitulée “Les dépouilles des Égyptiens” dans le volume Le magistère chrétien, éd, et trade Gustave Combes et Jacques Farges, Bibliothèque augustinienne, 11 (Paris, 1949), 582–84, à propos d'un passage du De doctrina christiana 2.40.60–61, aù Augustin commente l'épisode biblique relatant la fraude des Israélites à leur départ d'Égypte. Par la suite nous n'avons cessé de nous intèresser à ce thème et d'enrichir notre propre dossier par des enquêtes personnelles tout en prêtant attention aux publications s'y rapportant et dont nous donnons la liste dans une première note qui révèle le succès littèraire et historique de cette allégoric biblique.

Sometime between 1070 and 1077, Anselm, then prior of the monastery of Bec in Normandy, wrote to his friend Maurice, a former Bec monk residing at Christ Church, Canterbury, and asked him to seek out copies of various texts, including Bede's De temporibus and the Regula of St. Dunstan — presumably the Regularis concordia, the platform-document of the English Benedictine reform of the tenth century. Shortly thereafter, Anselm wrote again to Maurice, indicating that another text had been added to his desiderata:

Wie wohl alle grossen Epen der europäischen Antike, so enthält auch die Thebais des Statius eine ausführliche dichterische Darstellung von Wettspielen. Wie wohl alle grösseren Partien der Thebais, so hat auch diese in der Forschung der letzten Generationen Kritik und Tadel gefunden. Man meinte zu sehen, dass hier nicht die Poesie, sondern gelehrte Tradition bestimmend gewesen sei. Man meinte, den Passus als unselbständige Imitation ablehnen, als unoriginale Nachahmung abtun zu können. Natürlich handelt es sich bei der Schilderung der Spiele, die zu Ehren des ersten Toten auf dem Zuge der Sieben gegen Theben, des Opheltes/Archemorus, veranstaltet wurden (Theb. 6.249–946), um eine offenkundige Nachahmung der Darstellung der Leichenspiele, von denen im dreiundzwanzigsten Gesang der Ilias und im fünften Buch der Aeneis berichtet wird. Natürlich genügt dieser Bezug allein aber nicht, um ein Verdammungsurteil zu rechtfertigen. Ist doch gerade Wiederaufnahme und Neugestaltung überlieferter Motive eine tragende Gegebenheit antiken Dichtens. Die Aufgabe, durch Einzelvergleich mit den Vorbildern die wesentlichen Eigenschaften dieser statianischen Dichtung zu bestimmen, kann im Rahmen dieses Aufsatzes nicht in Angriff genommen werden; das genauere Studium einer so umfangreichen Partie mit 700 Versen muss einer Monographie vorbehalten bleiben. Hier können darum nur einige wichtigere Sonderfragen erörtert werden, die jedoch von grundsätzlicher Bedeutung für den Passus selbst wie auch für die dichterische Technik des Statius zu sein scheinen.