1,720,975 research outputs found
The Ten Commandments in Old Frisian: Their Form and Content
No full textThis study discusses the relationship amongst the five surviving versions of the Ten Commandments in Old Frisian, which are collectively preserved in eight manuscripts and in one incunable. These versions do not follow the Vulgate text verbatim, but rather include interferences from other texts. As the author intends to show, the compiler of the version of the Ten Commandments in the First Rüstring Manuscript aimed to produce a comprehensive list of precepts by including the Great Commandment, and had a source close to Honorius’s De decem plagis Aegypti spiritualiter at their disposal. The text in Haet is Riocht? may have influenced the vernacular rendition of the Mosaic Law preserved in Codex Aysma. Lastly, the versions preserved in the First and Second Hunsingo Manuscripts and one of the two versions attested by Codex Unia seem to be independent translations of a single Latin text, which survives in Unia
A Study of the Alfredian Verse Prefaces and Epilogues
No full textThis study takes into account the verse prefaces and epilogues associated with the translations of the Alfredian age, approaching them from a metrical standpoint. As I hope to demonstrate, both the Metrical Preface and the Metrical Epilogue to Alfred’s translation of Gregory’s Pastoral Care fit the style of classical Old English poetry. Their author – be it Alfred or one of the scholars that convened at his court – was well-acquainted with the rules governing the traditional alliterative verse. The same applies to the brief Metrical Preface to the Old English Boethius. On the other hand, the Metrical Preface to Wærferth’s translation of Gregory’s Dialogues displays features (such as lack of enjambement and anaphora) that are typical of late Old English poetry. These and other features suggest that this preface might be a late forgery, which was possibly inspired by similar Alfredian examples. This interpretation would fit with the date of the only manuscript where Wærferth’s translation of Gregory’s Dialogues is accompanied by a preface (the eleventh century). The Metrical Epilogue to the translation of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, which is also preserved in a single, eleventh-century copy, is characterised by the presence of similar features. According to this understanding, the Alfredian prologues and epilogues can be read as examples of the development of Old English poetry from early to late versification
A Re-assessment of Poema Morale and its influence on Penitence for a Wasted Life
No full textThe aim of this study is to re-assess the possible influence of Poema Morale on the slightly later lyric Penitence for Wasted Life. The intention is to consider both the content and metre of the two works. Previous scholarship has noted that Penitence for Wasted Life is thematically close to the early Middle English poem; as I shall show, this debt extends to metre as well. A wise old man’s reflection on the transience of worldly things, Poema Morale displays a fondness for proverbial sayings and vivid descriptions of heaven and hell – all elements that must surely have appealed to the Early Middle English readership. This appeal is attested to not only by the nine manuscripts in which the poem is preserved, but also by several textual borrowings from Poema Morale in a number of thirteenth-century lyrics, which were noted by previous scholarship. In this study, I shall suggest that, amongst these lyrics, Penitence for Wasted Life seems inspired by a specific section of Poema Morale, and that several previously unnoticed metrical correspondences between the two works actually indicate that the author of Penitence for Wasted Life possessed a first-hand knowledge of the twelfth-century poem
The Glossary in London, British Library, Harley 107, fol. 72v
No full textThis study provides a new edition of, and commentary to, the Latin-Old English glossary preserved in London, British Library, MS Harley 107. This glossary, which is comprised of three introductory entries, a chapter on bird names, and a chapter on fish names, belongs to a group of Latin-Old English glossaries organized by subject, rather than alphabetically (class glossaries). According to scholarship, the chapter-format of Old English class glossaries echoes the form of the Greek-Latin textbooks known as Hermeneumata Pseudodositheana. In this study, I shall first assess the question of the tradition of the Hermeneumata in England; an overview of the sources behind the compilation of the glossary in MS Harley 107 will then be given; these introductory sections will be followed by the edition of the glossary and notes on each entry. These notes will provide parallels with possible sources and cognate glossaries. In particular, I shall focus on the parallels between the glossary in MS Harley 107, the Épinal-Erfurt Glossary and the Corpus Glossary
The Verse Forms of the Old English “Metrical” Charms
No full textThis essay takes into account the metre of the so-called metrical charms, arguing that these charms are characterised by a number of prosodic elements such as free alliterative verses, recurring repetition and some occasional rhyme. These features mark a difference between the “metrical” charms and standard Old English verse. On the other hand, this prosodic mixture anticipates that which is to be found in post-Conquest early Middle English poetry, where alliterative verse, rhythmical prose and rhyme are employed. The prosody of early Middle English poetry was described as “rhythmical alliteration” by Norman F. Blake in 1969. In my view, the “metrical” charms might therefore be re-labelled as rhythmical charms. Interestingly, Middle English verse charms, for their part, will generally adopt the rhyming couplet as their verse for
The Old Frisian Five Keys to Wisdom and its Background
No full textThe literary motif of the ‘Keys of Wisdom’ developed in the Early Middle Ages around the enumeration of precepts for ‘unlocking’ true knowledge. This motif is found in many medieval didactic and grammatical works, both in prose and poetry. It also forms the basis of an Old Frisian text, known as Five Keys of Wisdom. The Old Frisian text mentions the definition of the five ‘Keys of Wisdom’ in Latin, each followed by a comment in the vernacular, with an exposition befitting the legal context of the manuscripts in which it occurs. In this study, I argue that the Latin elements of this text descend from a list of five ‘Keys of Wisdom’ that was widely attested to in the Middle Ages
The Glossaries in Bodley 730
No full textOverview of the four glossaries preserved in the thirteenth-century manuscript Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley 73
Un testimone inedito dei Graeca collecta ex Hieronymo nel MS Bruxelles, KBR, MS 1828-30
No full textBrussels, Bibliothèque Royale, MS 1828-30 is a composite manuscript whose second part was compiled in England in the early eleventh century. This part features a rich repository of glossaries and lexicographic material. At fols 49r-50r the manuscript includes a glossary hitherto unedited. In fact, this glossary is comprised of glossae collectae from Jerome’s Epistles and represents a witness of the collection of interpretation of Greek words known as Graeca collecta ex Hieronymo. The present study offers an edition of the text found in Brussels, BR, MS 1828-30, discussing its place in the tradition of the Graeca collecta ex Hieronym
: Edition and Commentary
No full textThis study offers the first full edition of a late thirteenth-century herbal glossary preserved in Worcester, Cathedral Library, F 157, as well as a preliminary commentary of textual problems and analogues. This glossary (henceforth: Worcester Herbal Glossary) originally included around 130 Latin plant names with English equivalents; a few entries are lost today because of a lacuna in the manuscript. So far, only a partial – and at times inaccurate – edition of the glossary appeared in Floyer and Hamilton (1906: 184–185). Since then, this lexicographic collection of plant names has been almost wholly ignored by scholars. Remarkably, the Worcester Herbal Glossary seems to originate from a substantial batch of entries from the chapter on the names of herbs in Ælfric’s Glossary. This batch was expanded by means of other material which must have circulated in the Early Middle English period. This additional material parallels entries found in other botanical glossaries of the period – such as that preserved in London, British Library, Harley 978 – and, above all, finds striking analogues in the Middle English recension of the Salernitan medico-botanical glossary known as Alphita (Mowat 1887)
A List of Family Relation Names from Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 265, P. 112
No full textThis study discusses a Latin-Old English list of family names, its relatioship with bilingual glossaries, and with Isidore's Etymologiae
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