The text of Aldhelm's Enigma no. c in Oxford, Bodleian Library, Rawlinson C. 697 and Exeter Riddle 40

1985 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 61-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine O'Brien O'Keeffe

Exeter Riddle 40 presents two related problems as a translation of one of Aldhelm's Enigmata (no. c: ‘Creatura’): its dislocation, in an otherwise accurate translation, of six lines from their position in the Latin text; and its connection with the so-called ‘Lorica’ of Leiden, Bibliotheek der Rijksuniversiteit, Voss. lat. Q. 106, the only other surviving Old English translation of an Aldhelmian enigma. In his edition of the Exeter Riddles, Tupper addressed these problems by postulating that both Old English riddles were the work of one translator and that Exeter Riddle 40 was revised from an earlier version of Aldhelm's enigma now lost to us. Although Tupper's view has been widely accepted, it presents a number of difficulties. It is the purpose of the present article to suggest an alternate interpretation of the evidence: that Exeter Riddle 40 – a much later poem than the ‘Leiden Riddle’, a Northumbrian poem perhaps of the eighth century – was translated from a ninth-century continental manuscript with tenth-century English corrections: Oxford, Bodleian Library, Rawlinson C. 697.

1992 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
pp. 115-159 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Gameson

Oxford, Bodleian Library, Tanner 10 is the oldest extant copy of the Old English translation of Bede, Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum. The volume dates from the early tenth century. This in itself adds significantly to its interest, for manuscripts produced in England during the sixty or so years from s. ix2–x1 are scarce. It is ornamented with a remarkable set of decorated initials which are of considerable importance for understanding the characteristics and development of manuscript art during this period, and this is our primary concern here. The text of Tanner 10 was edited at the end of the last century, its codicology and palaeography have recently been reviewed, and a complete facsimile edition is currently being prepared: an examination of its extensive decoration is long overdue. To put this art-work in its context, before turning to the manuscript itself, it will be helpful first to review briefly the main classes of decorated initials which appear in late Anglo-Saxon books as a whole, and then to examine the early history of the particular type that was used in the Tanner Bede.


2019 ◽  
Vol 137 (4) ◽  
pp. 561-611
Author(s):  
Hans Sauer

Abstract A special kind of a short text that is embedded in a larger text is the prayer near the beginning of St Augustine’s Soliloquia, which serves as a kind of introduction to the ensuing dialogue. The relatively independent nature of this prayer was recognized early on, and in addition to its transmission in the manuscripts of the Soliloquia it has also been transmitted as an independent prayer. Something similar happened to the Old English translation. There is a full translation of the entire text, traditionally ascribed to King Alfred (and his learned helpers), but preserved only in a much later manuscript (London, British Library, Cotton Vitellius A.xv); however, a shortened version of the prayer was included in a collection of brief penitential texts in an earlier manuscript (London, British Library, Cotton Tiberius A.iii). In the present article I look at the structure of the Latin prayer and at its Old English translation, especially the relation of the two manuscript versions and their value for textual criticism and the reconstruction of the original version, their relation to the Latin source, and the rhetoric of the Latin prayer and its Old English translation, including a brief discussion of the binomials used. The Appendix provides a synoptic version of the Latin text and the two manuscript versions of the Old English translation, highlighting their rhetorical structure, something that to my knowledge has never been done for the Old English translation.


Traditio ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 72 ◽  
pp. 61-108 ◽  
Author(s):  
CHARLES D. WRIGHT ◽  
STEPHEN PELLE

The Alphabet of Words (AW), a Latin alphabet text with an interlinear Old English gloss, occurs among the additions made to the Durham Collectar (D) by the priest Aldred in the tenth century. Previously thought to be extant only in D, and possibly by Aldred himself, AW also survives (without the OE gloss) in a Kassel manuscript (K) from the second half of the eighth century, as well as in a defective twelfth-century copy in Karlsruhe (Kr). Most of AW is also incorporated in a Latin treatise on the alphabet (“Audiuimus multos”: AM) compiled probably in the ninth century. AW belongs to the genre of “parenetic alphabet,” widely attested in Greek but also sporadically in Latin, including in a ninth-century Paris manuscript (P: BNF, lat. 2796) that shares lemmata and glosses with AW for the letters X, Y, and Z. We provide the first critical edition and translation of AW from D, K, and Kr, with variants from AM and P, together with a discussion of AW’s genre and relation to other alphabetical texts as well as a full commentary on the biblical, apocryphal, and patristic lore transmitted by AW’s lemmata and glosses on each letter.


1986 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 197-204
Author(s):  
Brigitte Langefeld

Gregory's Dialogues are a hitherto unnoticed source of the final chapter of the enlarged version of the Rule of Chrodegang of Metz. The chapter in question, no. 84 or 86 depending on the recension of the Latin text, is preserved in the following manuscripts (the letters in brackets are the sigla used for these manuscripts throughout this article):Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, lat. 1535 (P), 113V–149V. Second quarter of the ninth century, possibly written at Fécamp. Latin text only, 86 chapters.


2000 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
pp. 85-121 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mechthild Gretsch

Oxford, Bodleian Library, Junius 27 (S.C. 5139), the Junius Psalter, was written, Latin text and Old English gloss, probably at Winchester and presumably during the reign of King Edward the Elder. Junius 27 is one of the twenty-nine complete or almost complete psalters written or owned in Anglo-Saxon England which have survived. (In addition to these twenty-nine complete psalters, eight minor fragments of further psalters are still extant.) This substantial number of surviving manuscripts and fragments is explained by the paramount importance of the psalms in the liturgy of the Christian church, both in mass and especially in Office. Junius 27 is also one of the ten psalters from Anglo-Saxon England bearing an interlinear Old English gloss to the entire psalter. (In addition there are two psalters with a substantial amount of glossing in Old English, though not full interlinear versions.) Since our concern in the first part of this article will be with the nature of the Old English glossing in the Junius Psalter, and its relationship to other glossed psalters, it is appropriate at the outset to provide a list of the psalters in question. At the beginning of each of the following items I give the siglum and the name by which the individual psalters are traditionally referred to by psalter scholars. An asterisk indicates that the Latin text is a Psalterium Romanum (the version in almost universal use in England before the Benedictine reform); unmarked manuscripts contain the Psalterium Gallicanum. For full descriptions of the manuscripts, see N. R. Ker, Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon.


2014 ◽  
Vol 93 (2) ◽  
pp. 195-216
Author(s):  
Fiona Edmonds

There has long been uncertainty about the relationship between the polities known as Strathclyde and Cumbria. Did medieval writers apply these terms to the same kingdom, or were Strathclyde and Cumbria separate entities? This debate has significant implications for our understanding of the politics of northern Britain during the period from the late ninth century to the twelfth. In this article I analyse the terminology in Latin, Old English, Old Norse, Welsh and Irish texts. I argue that Strathclyde developed into Cumbria: the expansion of the kingdom of Strathclyde beyond the limits of the Clyde valley necessitated the use of a new name. This process occurred during the early tenth century and created a Cumbrian kingdom that stretched from the Clyde to the south of the Solway Firth. The kingdom met its demise in the mid-eleventh century and Cumbrian terminology was subsequently appropriated for smaller ecclesiastical and administrative units. Yet these later usages should not be confused with the tenth-century kingdom, which encompassed a large area that straddled the modern Anglo-Scottish border.


2000 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
pp. 279-296 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kees Dekker

In September 1890, Hendrik Logeman, professor of English and Germanic philology at the University of Ghent in Belgium, had the audacity to accuse no less a scholar than Henry Sweet of misleading his readers. Logeman based his accusation on an unfortunate remark Sweet had made in his edition of the Old English translation of Pope Gregory'sPastoral Care. For this scholarly edition, Sweet had wished to include the text of London, British Library, Cotton Tiberius B. xi. However, having barely survived the Ashburnham House blaze of 1731, this manuscript had been almost entirely consumed by fire at a bookbinder's in 1865. As a replacement, Sweet had used Oxford, Bodleian Library, Junius 53, a transcript made by the seventeenth-century philologist Francis Junius (1591–1677) when the Cotton manuscript was still unscathed. Sweet praised Junius and emphasized the accuracy of the transcript by stating that Junius only ‘swerved from the path of literal accuracy in a few unimportant particulars’. Hendrik Logeman had collated the Old English glosses to the Benedictine Rule from Cotton Tiberius A. iii with a Junius transcript, Junius 52, for his 1888 edition, but he found, instead, that Junius failed to distinguish between 〈ð〉 and 〈þ〉 that he corrected his text without giving the reading of the manuscript, and that he added, omitted or transposed entire words.


1995 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 95-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucia Kornexl

When writing about the tenth-century ecclesiastical reform in England thirteen years ago, Eric John rightly pointed out that ‘the tenth and early eleventh centuries are the least studied and most taken for granted periods of both English and Continental history’. But today, this contention is no longer true: investigation into different aspects of the monastic revival has resulted in a considerable number of special publications. In particular, the millennial celebrations marking the deaths of the leading reformers, Æthelwold (d. 984), Dunstan (d. 988) and Oswald (d. 992), have been accompanied by a reassessment of their activities and achievements, the fruits of which are assembled in three collections of essays by experts in a variety of fields. The renewed interest in the reform era has naturally drawn scholarly attention to the primary sources which provide first-hand information about the thought, aims and strategies of the reformers. Among such documents, the Regularis Concordia (henceforth RC) plays a major part as an object of historical and liturgical research; besides, it has turned out in recent years that the Latin text and especially the Old English interlinear gloss of the consuetudinary also offer important material for the philologist and the historical linguist.


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