Bones of contention: the context of Ælfric's homily on St Vincent

1990 ◽  
Vol 19 ◽  
pp. 117-132 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan E. Irvine

The Old English account of the passion of St Vincent of Saragossa survives only in one late manuscript, Cambridge, University Library, Ii. 1. 33, written in the second half of the twelfth century. This manuscript contains a large proportion of saints' lives by Ælfric, belonging mainly to his two series of Catholic Homilies and his later collection known as the Lives of Saints. The passion of St Vincent, from its alliterative style, reveals itself also to be the work of Ælfric. Since it was appended by W.W. Skeat to his edition of the Lives of Saints, it has generally been treated as part of the Lives of Saints collection, although there is no evidence that Ælfric himself ever added it to that set.

PMLA ◽  
1935 ◽  
Vol 50 (4) ◽  
pp. 957-983 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rudolph Willard

There exist in Old English a number of compilations in which an address of the soul to its body is a conspicuous feature. The best known is the poem in the Vercelli and the Exeter Books, in which the soul returns to its body once a week and communes with it, the sinful soul reproaching it vituperatively, the righteous comforting it lovingly and joyously. The fourth Vercelli homily has a remarkable scene, an elaborated account of the judgement of the soul at Doomsday, in which the souls address their bodies as they stand in the presence of the Judge. The Last Judgement is again the scene of an address, and that in one of the homilies presented by Assmann. There is, finally, the Old English vision, printed by Thorpe and Napier, of the bringing forth of the soul, wherein the newly-released soul of a sinner vituperates the body it has just left. To this literature, I wish to add passages from two unpublished Old English homilies, in which the address is made, not at the moment of death, as in Thorpe and Napier, nor at the Last Judgement, as in Vercelli Homily iv and in Assmann, but at some intermediate time, when the soul returns intermittently to its body for that purpose, as in the Old English poem. These two texts are Homilies ii and iv of MS. Junius 85 of the Bodleian Library, and Homily xl of MS. Ii. 1.33 of the Cambridge University Library.


2015 ◽  
Vol 34 ◽  
pp. 207-228 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel K. S. Walden

AbstractThis article discusses a full-page schematic diagram contained in a twelfth-century manuscript of Boethius’ De institutione arithmetica and De institutione musica from Christ Church Cathedral, Canterbury (Cambridge University Library MS Ii.3.12), which has not yet been the subject of any significant musicological study despite its remarkable scope and comprehensiveness. This diagrammatic tree, or arbor, maps the precepts of the first book of De institutione arithmetica into a unified whole, depicting the ways music and arithmetic are interrelated as sub-branches of the quadrivium. I suggest that this schematic diagram served not only as a conceptual and interpretative device for the scribe working through Boethius’ complex theoretical material, but also as a mnemonic guide to assist the medieval pedagogue wishing to instruct students in the mathematics of musica speculativa. The diagram constitutes a fully developed theoretical exercise in its own right, while also demonstrating the roles Boethian philosophy and mathematics played in twelfth-century musical scholarship.


2004 ◽  
Vol 33 ◽  
pp. 77-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas A. Bredehoft

In his discussion of the formal structures characteristic of Ælfric's ‘rhythmical prose’ style, John C. Pope prints the following passage from Ælfric's homily on Cuthbert, calling attention especially to the pointing, given as it appears in Cambridge, University Library, Gg. 3. 28 (?Cerne, s. x/xi):Ac an ðære fugela. eft fleogende com.ymbe ðry dagas. þearle dreorig.fleah to his foton. friðes biddende.þæt he on ðam lande. lybban moste.symle unscæððig. and his gefera samod.


2001 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
pp. 231-245
Author(s):  
Daniel Paul O'Donnell

Until recently, the late Old English poem Durham was known to have been copied in two manuscripts of the twelfth century: Cambridge, University Library, Ff. 1. 27 (C) and London, British Library, Cotton Vitellius D. xx (V). C has been transcribed frequently and serves as the basis for Elliott Van Kirk Dobbie's standard edition of the poem in the Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records. V was almost completely destroyed in the Cottonian fire of 1731. Its version is known to us solely from George Hickes's 1705 edition (H).In a recent article, however, Donald K. Fry announced the discovery of a third medieval text of the poem. Like V, the original manuscript of this ‘third’ version is now lost and can be reconstructed only from an early modern transcription - in this case a copy by Francis Junius no win the Stanford University Library (Stanford University Libraries, Department of Special Collections, Misc. 010 [J1]). Unlike V, however, Junius's copy is our only record of this manuscript's existence. No other transcripts are known from medieval or early modern manuscript catalogues.


2020 ◽  
Vol 138 (2) ◽  
pp. 213-233
Author(s):  
Claudio Cataldi

AbstractThe present study provides a full edition and commentary of the three glossaries in Oxford, Bodleian Library, Barlow 35, fol. 57r–v. These glossaries, which were first partly edited and discussed by Liebermann (1894), are comprised of excerpts from Ælfric’s Grammar and Glossary arranged by subject. The selection of material from the two Ælfrician works witnesses to the interests of the glossator. The first glossary in Barlow 35 collects Latin grammatical terms and verbs followed by their Old English equivalents. The second glossary is drawn from the chapter on plant names of Ælfric’s Glossary, with interpolations from other chapters of the same work. This glossary also features twelfth-century interlinear notations, which seem to have a metatextual function. The third glossary combines excerpts from Ælfric’s Glossary with verbs derived from the Grammar. Liebermann transcribed only part of the glosses and gave a brief commentary on the glossaries as well as parallels with Zupitza’s (1880) edition of Ælfric’s Grammar and Glossary; hence the need for a new edition, which is provided in the present study, along with a comprehensive discussion of the glossaries and a reassessment of the correspondences concerning their Ælfrician sources.


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