The superior learning of King Aldfrith of Northumbria (685–704) was acknowledged in both Anglo-Saxon and Gaelic contemporary sources by such renowned scholars as Bede of Wearmouth-Jarrow, Aldhelm of Malmesbury, Adomnán of Iona, Stephen of Ripon, and Alcuin of York. Both Aldhelm and Adomnán knew him personally, and texts composed by these two scholars and presented to Aldfrith help delineate the breadth of his educational background. He was educated among the Gaels, and their records described him as sapiens. By examining texts of other seventh-century Gaelic sapientes, and the comments of Aldhelm and Bede about Gaelic intellectual life and educational opportunities, we can expand our purview of the scope of his education. The nature of seventh-century schooling was peripatetic, and Aldfrith's dual heritage requires a broad search for locations. Many scholars accept Iona as the likely source of his learned background, but this essay will argue that, among other likely locations in Britain and Ireland, Bangor in Northern Ireland is best supported by surviving evidence. His benign reign is placed at the end of the first century of the Anglo-Saxon conversion, but his education benefited the kingdom of Northumbria through generations of Gaelic scholarship, as exemplified by peregrini such as Columba and Columbanus, and sapientes like Laidcenn mac Baíth, Cummíne of Clonfert, Ailerán of Clonard, Cenn Fáelad mac Ailello, and Banbán of Kildare. Aldfrith's rule ushered in a period of cultural florescence in Northumbria that saw the first hagiography and earliest illuminated manuscripts produced in Anglo-Saxon England and that culminated in the extensive library authored by Bede (d. 735).

The saying of Terentianus Maurus, habent sua fata libelli, may well be applied to the Latin text here edited. Out of my studies of Berthold of Zwiefalten's Chronicle grew my thesis for the Ph. D. degree of the University of Tübingen, Studien zur Chronik Bertholds von Zwiefalten, published in Studien und Mitteilungen zur Geschichte des Benediktinerordens 51 (1933) 83–101 and 183–195. The subsequent work on the Chronicle and the relevant studies that appeared between 1933 and 1938 are described below in the Introduction. The political developments in Germany prevented me from bringing out the planned edition of the reconstructed Chronicle, and compelled me to be satisfied with the presentation in the Revue Bénédictine 50 (1938) 141–145, of the synopsis of my reconstruction with the first edition of 1852 in the Monumenta Germaniae Historica. In 1946–47 my fortune led me to Cornell University where the work in its present form was written. When preparing in 1953 the MS for the printer, I noticed in Wattenbach-Levison, Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen im Mittelalter I (Weimar 1952) 29 note 106, the edition by Erich König and Karl Otto Müller, Die Zwiefalter Chroniken Ortliebs und Bertholds (Schwäbische Chroniken der Stauferzeit 2; Stuttgart-Berlin 1941). Upon inquiry the W. Kohlhammer Verlag at Stuttgart informed me that their stock of the book had been destroyed during the war. Professor Dr. P. Gehring of the University Library at Tübingen then kindly mailed the surviving library copy of the book to Ithaca, New York, in January 1955. The examination of both Chronicles plainly showed me,

a) that the text of Berthold's Chronicle edited by Erich König is basically the text of my first reconstruction, the MS of which I had turned over to E. König before I left Germany in August 1939, and

b) that the Introduction to Berthold by Karl Otto Müller, also his re-evaluation of Ortlieb, often follow in word and contents my Tübingen Ph. D. Thesis of 1932.

A most pernicious problem contributing to the economic woes of English monasteries in the early-fourteenth century was mismanagement. This condition was usually, if not almost universally, present and derived in part from the fact that the administrators of religious houses, especially the small ones, were not well trained for the complexities of their tasks. The official records of the royal chancery abound with notices that monasteries suffered from this malady, and the entries in these records follow a pattern, repeating time and time again a variety of standard charges. Having perhaps endured internal dissension that had contributed to the economic difficulty, monasteries became impoverished by indiscreet rule, their goods were wasted, and they experienced mismanagement. In addition, the documents assert that these troubled monasteries suffered from indebtedness, that lax discipline prevailed, and that lands of religious corporations were alienated illegally. Finally, the entries maintain that the ill-advised sale of corodies, and the unwarranted grants of pensions contributed to a depressed monastic economy. To illustrate these observations upon defective monastic administration, reference to specific examples is needed.

Although William of Auvergne, bishop of Paris from 1228 to his death in 1249, criticized Avicenna severely, he also adopted many philosophical positions of Avicenna. In a recently published article, I emphasized William's considerable debt to the philosophy of Avicenna, and in a still-to-be-published article I pointed out how William was indebted to Avicenna for his view of what it is to be a human being, and especially for his view of the spirituality of the human soul. For much of his lengthy work, De anima, William follows Avicenna's philosophy as he found it in the great Islamic thinker's Liber de anima, seu sextus de naturalibus; not, of course, without serious criticism on many points. In chapter 5, however, of his De anima, William rather abruptly introduces a historical concept of human nature, which is closer to that of Augustine than of Avicenna or Aristotle, in place of the philosophical concept of human nature, which he derived largely from Avicenna, whom he often confused with the real Aristotle. In introducing such a historical concept of human nature or of the nature of the human soul, William raises several rather intriguing problems, which I want to discuss in this paper. First, he raises a question about how the various historical states of human nature are to be conceived and how they are to be combined with the philosophical concept of nature that he derives from Avicenna. Second, he raises a question about how he can, while claiming to proceed exclusively by means of philosophical proofs, introduce such topics as the original state in which Adam and Eve were created, the original sin by which they fell and which they passed on to the rest of the human race, and Christian baptism by which the harm stemming from their sin can be undone. Finally, William speaks about the soul's state of natural happiness as opposed to the state of glory, and though his treatment of these states is rather brief, it raises a further question about how William envisaged these states and their relationship to each other. Hence, the paper will have three parts: the first on the present and past states of human nature of which William speaks and on their relationship to the philosophical concept of human nature, the second on how William introduces into what he claimed was strictly philosophical such apparently theological topics, and the third on how William understands the relation between the soul's state of natural happiness and the state of glory.

The relatively clear-cut distinction between the subjective and objective meanings of ᾄτη which appears in Aeschylean tragedy tends to disappear in Sophocles' extant work. The use and meaning of ᾄτη in Sophocles, rather, is marked by ambiguity. He shows himself conscious of the differences in meaning which Aeschylus had so sharply emphasized, but in a brilliant extension of his propensity for dramatic irony Sophocles most often employs ᾄτη in contexts where it carries the overtones of both blindness' and ‘ruin.’ This is, of course, quite consonant with so much else in Sophocles' dramatic style and way of thought.

Even though Chaucer the Pilgrim refers to ‘the povre Persoun of a toun’ as a ‘lerned man, a clerk,’ it is still surprising to hear the humble Parson discourse at length on one of the fine points of canon law. And yet, despite his own protestation of ignorance, the Parson devotes sixteen lines (654–79) of his discussion of Wrath to distinguishing between the many species and sub-species of corporeal and spiritual homicide. Upon closer examination of the passage itself, we are more inclined to take the Parson at his word. Where we are promised ‘foure maneres’ of homicide in deed, we get only three, while in place of the anticipated fourth category we find a discussion of the various forms of infanticide, contraception, and abortion. Although Chaucer rightly identifies these as types of homicide, they hardly comprise a major classification to rank alongside the other three ‘maneres.’ Further evidence of confusion in the passage is a textual problem, which involves the number of species of spiritual homicide. The manuscripts read, ‘spiritueel manslaughtre is in vj thynges’ (545) when, in fact, only three are named.

In the early thirteenth century Christian thinkers in the Latin West encountered for the first time the Aristotelian philosophy that was pouring into Europe through translations from Arabic into Latin. William of Auvergne, bishop of Paris from 1228 until his death in 1249, was one of the principal figures in the first reception of the Aristotelian writings in the West. William, in fact, displayed a remarkable openness to Aristotelian thought, embracing much of it as his own, while firmly rejecting other teachings as opposed to the faith. Despite the various ecclesiastical prohibitions against the teaching of Aristotelian philosophy during the first half of the century, William said, “Although in many matters we have to speak against Aristotle, as is truly right and proper — and this holds for all the statements by which he contradicts the truth — he should still be accepted, that is, upheld, in all those statements in which he is found to have held the correct position.”

John Keats was one of the last English poets to lyricize a venerable tradition when, in his “The Eve of Saint Agnes,” the narrator describes

All too slowly, but nevertheless, it is to be hoped, steadily, Byzantine scholars are becoming aware of the special importance of studies dealing with Christian Caucasia — principally Armenia and Georgia — for the studies ex professo their own. That this claim of Caucasiology to a place of special importance in Byzantine studies is no empty boast, an examination of the nature of the Byzantine-Caucasian relations will make amply clear. In the domain of Geistesgeschichte, Caucasia experienced a profound influence of Byzantine civilization. It came, in fact, to form to a very considerable extent a part of that civilization. But, quite unlike Byzantium's younger dependencies, Caucasia's soil had been previously irrigated by waters from other cultural streams, the Iranian, the Syrian, and, together with Byzantium though independently of it, the Hellenistic. The cultures of medieval Armenia and of medieval Georgia were, moreover, rich, vigorous, and original — Armeno-Georgian architecture was, above all the other arts, a thing of originality and beauty; — and what they, in turn, contributed to that of Byzantium is still far from being adequately appraised.

In his chronicle of Bloemhof Abbey (Floridus Hortus) in Wittewierum Magister Emo of Huizinge inserts a treatise on simony in which the following passage is to be found:

Among the entourage of Lady Meed in Passus 2 of Piers Plowman appear two figures whose part in the action at this point is central though brief: Civil and Simony. The pair, who connive at and forward Lady Meed's marriage to Fals, carry all before them until challenged by another figure: Theology. This paper will try to define the precise significance of Civil, consider the background to the odium in which he is held, and discuss Langland's purpose in choosing Theology as Civil's opponent.

Readers of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae will recall the striking passage in 8.7 (Faral 125) in which Aur-elius, after the great victory over Hengist and the Saxons, calls together his leaders to decide what to do about the captive Hengist. Whereupon Eldad, Bishop of Gloucester, addresses Aurelius as follows:

Unlike Samuel, Bishop Eldad does not hew Hengist in pieces before the Lord; instead the Saxon is decapitated by the Bishop's brother, Eldol (who was not a churchman), and in fact is given a decent burial by Aurelius, who was, Geoffrey tells us, a moderate (‘ modestus’) individual. Yet it is almost beyond question that Geoffrey's whole account of the death of Hengist (for which there is no hint in his sources) is modeled on the biblical story of Samuel and Agag.

Turin, Biblioteca Nazionale MS E. v. 9 (749), contains sermons for Lent by Jacobo da Voragine (fols. 1-168v old foliation, 1-167v new foliation), and, at the end of the codex, on fols. 169-75 (168-74, new foliation), a work which is headed 4 Incipit tractatus magistri Petri Abaielardi de sacramento altaris quod sit essentialiter ipsa Veritas carnis Christi et sanguinis et contra.’ The Tractatus, hereafter referred to as S, was identified by the late Nikolaus Haring as being question 117 of Abelard's Sic et Non, but was not known to Blanche Boyer and Richard McKeon when they were working on their definitive edition of the Sic et Non. S belongs to the versio prima of the Sic et Non, the ZTCEB group of manuscripts; within this group, Z is the very earliest surviving version, while TCEB, and with them S, form in effect a separate recension from Z. Before examining S's relation with TCEB it would be best to look at it on its own.

In the Middle English Pearl, the maiden's explanation of heavenly equality through the Parable of the Vineyard (497–588) is followed by a fresh objection of the dreamer:

Medieval canon law recognized detrusion (detrusio in monasterium) as a sentence for women convicted of adultery. Civil law had made adultery a capital crime, so that detrusio was a milder action. This article traces the history of detrusio in canon law, especially in the thirteenth century, and treats further questions that detrusio raised. Detrusio was originally a pastoral provision, meant to provide a woman rejected by her husband for adultery an opportunity to enter religious life. But in the hands of the jurists detrusio became a coercive ecclesiastical penalty for adultery. The practice raised further concerns, for example: how the woman's property was to be treated; whether the woman sentenced to detrusio became a religious; whether a monastery should be a site of confinement for the laity; and, under what conditions a husband could take his adulterous wife back. The case was also raised of a man who accused his wife of adultery so that he could dissolve his marriage and enter a monastery.