The Yale fragments of the West Saxon gospels

1988 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
pp. 67-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roy Michael Liuzza
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
English Translation ◽  
Biblical Text ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Yale University ◽  
The West ◽  
First Time

The manuscripts which contain the Old English translation of the gospels have been little studied since Skeat's compendious editions of the last century, yet the interest and importance of these codices, no less than that of the texts they preserve, should not be underestimated. The vernacular translation of a biblical text stands as a monument to the confidence and competence of Anglo-Saxon monastic culture; the evidence of the surviving manuscripts can offer insights into the development and dissemination of this text. The following study examines two fragments from an otherwise lost manuscript of the West Saxon gospels, which are preserved as an endleaf and parchment reinforcements in the binding of a fourteenth-century Latin psalter now in the Beinecke Library at Yale University, Beinecke 578. I shall first discuss the psalter and its accompanying texts in the attempt to localize the manuscript and its binding. I shall then turn to the West Saxon gospel fragments; after presenting a description and, for the first time, a complete transcription, I shall attempt to locate this text in the context of other Anglo-Saxon gospel manuscripts.

Rectifying a Chronicle of Contradictions: The Political Context of Abraham Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

2017 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-107
Author(s):  
Patrick V. Day
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Old English ◽  
English Civil War ◽  
The Political ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
The West ◽  
Advisory Body ◽  
Historical Importance ◽  
Divine Kingship

Abraham Wheelock’s first edition of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle appeared at the height of the First English Civil War in 1643, and it is often treated by modern critics as an appendix to the Old English Historia Ecclesiastica to which it is attached. This paper argues that the Chronicle participated in a larger royalist campaign to establish the West Saxons as the institutional forbears of the first two Stuart kings. The West Saxon genealogies authorize a seventeenth-century conception of patriarchal, divine kingship when they trace Alfred to the biblical Adam. Alternatively, the medieval Chronicle presents the advisory body of the Anglo-Saxons, the witan, as a potentially restrictive force upon the monarchy—an image incompatible with a royalist agenda. Wheelock mediates the contradictory presence of the powerful witan by diminishing its historical importance through excision, substitution, and inconsistent translation so that the Chronicle may more easily conform to early modern perceptions of absolutist kingship.

Celtic influence on Old English: phonological and phonetic evidence

2009 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 193-211 ◽  
Author(s):  
PETER SCHRIJVER
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Language Shift ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
The West ◽  
Old Irish ◽  
Sound System ◽  
West Germanic ◽  
Plausible Model ◽  
Phonological System ◽  
The Way

It has generally been assumed that Celtic linguistic influence on Old English is limited to a few marginal loanwords. If a language shift had taken place from Celtic to Old English, however, one would expect to find traces of that in Old English phonology and (morpho)syntax. In this article I argue that (1) the way in which the West Germanic sound system was reshaped in Old English strongly suggests the operation of a hitherto unrecognized substratum; (2) that phonetic substratum is strongly reminiscent of Irish rather than British Celtic; (3) the Old Irish phonetic−phonological system provides a more plausible model for reconstructing the phonetics of pre-Roman Celtic in Britain than the British Celtic system. The conclusion is that there is phonetic continuity between pre-Roman British Celtic and Old English, which suggests the presence of a pre-Anglo-Saxon population shifting to Old English.

scholarly journals The Mind in the Old English Prose Psalms

2019 ◽  
Vol 70 (296) ◽  
pp. 597-617
Author(s):  
Amy Faulkner
Keyword(s):  
Pastoral Care ◽  
Old English ◽  
English Translation ◽  
The Other ◽  
English Text ◽  
The West ◽  
Alfred The Great ◽  
English Translations ◽  
Consolation Of Philosophy ◽  
The Mind

Abstract The Prose Psalms, an Old English translation of the first 50 psalms into prose, have often been overshadowed by the other translations attributed to Alfred the Great: the Old English Pastoral Care, with its famous preface, and the intellectually daring Old English translations of Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy and Augustine’s Soliloquies. However, this article proposes that, regardless of who wrote them, the Prose Psalms should be read alongside the Old English Consolation and the Soliloquies: like the two more well-studied translations, the Prose Psalms are concerned with the mind and its search for true understanding. This psychological interest is indicated by the prevalence of the word mod (‘mind’) in the Old English text, which far exceeds references to the faculty of the intellect in the Romanum source. Through comparison with the Consolation and the Soliloquies, this article demonstrates that all three texts participate in a shared tradition of psychological imagery. The three translations may well, therefore, be the result of a single scholarly environment, perhaps enduring for several decades, in which multiple scholars read the same Latin, patristic writings on psychology, discussed these ideas among themselves, and thereby developed the vernacular discourse observable in these three translations. Whether this environment was identical with the scholarly circle which Alfred gathered at the West Saxon court remains a matter for debate.

scholarly journals The Homiliary of Angers in tenth-century England

2010 ◽  
Vol 39 ◽  
pp. 163-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
Winfried Rudolf
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
British Library ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
First Time ◽  
Made In

AbstractLatin manuscripts used for preaching the Anglo-Saxon laity in the tenth century survive in relatively rare numbers. This paper contributes a new text to the known preaching resources from that century in identifying the Homiliary of Angers as the text preserved on the flyleaves of London, British Library, MS Sloane 280. While these fragments, made in Kent and edited here for the first time, cast new light on the importance of this plain and unadorned Latin collection for the composition of Old English temporale homilies before Ælfric, they also represent the oldest surviving manuscript evidence of the text.

The decoration of the Tanner Bede

1992 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
pp. 115-159 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Gameson
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
English Translation ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Early History ◽  
Considerable Importance ◽  
Primary Concern ◽  
Bodleian Library ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Facsimile Edition ◽  
History Of

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.

scholarly journals King Edgar's charter for Pershore (AD 972)

2008 ◽  
Vol 37 ◽  
pp. 31-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter A. Stokes
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Past Century ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
Single Sheet ◽  
First Time ◽  
Important Evidence

AbstractS 786 is one of the so-called Orthodoxorum charters, a group of documents which provide important evidence about the Anglo-Saxon chancery, the development of charters in the tenth century, and the history of Pershore Abbey and the tenth-century Benedictine reforms. The document has therefore received a great deal of attention over the past century or so, but this attention has been focussed on the surviving tenth-century single sheet, and so a second, significantly different version of the text has lain unnoticed. This second version is preserved in a copy made by John Joscelyn, Latin Secretary to Archbishop Matthew Parker. Among the material uniquely preserved in this copy are Old English charter bounds for Wyegate (GL), Cumbtune (Compton, GL?) and part of the bounds probably for Lydney (GL), as well as a reference to a grant by Bishop Werferth of Worcester. In this article both versions of the document are discussed and are published together for the first time, and a translation of the single sheet is provided. The history of the two versions is discussed in some detail, and the text of a twelfth-century letter which refers to the charter is also edited and translated.

The earliest modern Anglo-Saxon grammar: Sir Henry Spelman, Abraham Wheelock and William Retchford

2016 ◽  
Vol 45 ◽  
pp. 379-417 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter J. Lucas
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Direct Contact ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
English History ◽  
Parts Of Speech ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
English Grammar ◽  
Early English ◽  
First Time

AbstractThe first scholars interested in Anglo-Saxon had to learn it by direct contact with original sources. Work on a dictionary preceded that on a grammar, notably through the efforts of John Joscelyn, Archbishop Parker's Latin Secretary. Like Parker, Sir Henry Spelman (1563/4–1641) found that many of his sources for early English history were in Anglo-Saxon. Consequently he encouraged the study of Old English by establishing a Lectureship in Anglo-Saxon at Cambridge University and worked closely with its first (and only) holder, Abraham Wheelock. Together with Wheelock's pupil, William Retchford, and possibly drawing on some earlier work by Joscelyn (since lost), these scholars attempted to formulate the rudiments of Anglo-Saxon grammar. This pioneering work, basically a parts-of-speech grammar, survives in three versions, two of them incomplete. In this article I discuss the contents and methodology used and present for the first time an edited text of the first modern Old English grammar. It was a remarkable achievement.

The Taunton Fragment: a new text from Anglo-Saxon England

2004 ◽  
Vol 33 ◽  
pp. 145-193 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mechthild Gretsch
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Somerset County ◽  
English Prose ◽  
Linguistic Evidence ◽  
English Translations ◽  
First Time

The Taunton Fragment (now Taunton, Somerset, Somerset County Record Office, DD/SAS C/1193/77) consists of four leaves containing portions of brief expositions or homilies on the pericopes for four successive Sundays after Pentecost. In the Fragment, brief passages in Latin regularly alternate with the Old English translations of these passages. The manuscript to which the four leaves once belonged was written probably at some point around or after the middle of the eleventh century in an unknown (presumably minor) centre in Anglo-Saxon England. Until recently, the existence of the Taunton leaves had escaped the notice of Anglo-Saxonists; the texts which they contain are printed here for the first time. It will be obvious that eight pages, half of which are in Old English prose, add in no negligible way to the corpus of Old English. Through analysis of the texts in the second part of this article, I hope to show that their contribution to our knowledge of various kinds of literary activity in Anglo-Saxon England is significant indeed, and that the linguistic evidence they present has no parallel elsewhere in the corpus of Old English.

scholarly journals Hybrid forms: translating Boethius in Anglo-Saxon England

2016 ◽  
Vol 45 ◽  
pp. 213-238 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erica Weaver
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
English Translation ◽  
Literary Culture ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Opus Geminatum ◽  
Dual Translation ◽  
Hybrid Forms

AbstractCritics have long wondered about the setting and intent of the Old English translation of Boethius's De consolatione philosophiae, first into prose and then into prosimetrum. This article situates the dual translation within the broader context of ninth- and tenth-century literary culture, challenging the received view of the two versions as separate projects and arguing instead that the Old English Boethius was conceived and received as a vernacular opus geminatum, or ‘twinned work’. While the opus geminatum and the prosimetrum are generally thought to maintain distinct generic identities, this case study allows for a more capacious understanding of both modes, which I demonstrate were inescapably linked in Anglo-Saxon circles – and which were shaped by a broader aesthetic of prose-verse mixture.

From the Other Shore: Russian Comment on Diaghilev's Ballets Russes

2009 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stanley J. Rabinowitz
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
English Translation ◽  
The Other ◽  
World War ◽  
The West ◽  
Ballets Russes ◽  
Critical Responses ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Right ◽  
First Time

Among the many and varied critical responses to Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, two Russian voices have not been heard in the West – Akim Volynskii's (on the right) and Anatolii Lunacharskii's (on the left). The former, Petersburg-based ballet critic from 1911 to 1925, followed the Russian Seasons with anxious dismay as so many stars of the Mariinskii Theatre departed for Paris; the latter, Soviet Russia's Commissar for Enlightenment between 1917 and 1929, witnessed Diaghilev's enterprise first-hand – both before World War I and after – and wrote about it with a mixture of admiration and class-conscious disapproval. These critics’ observations are offered in English translation for the first time.

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