The Regularis Concordia and its Old English gloss

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.

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.


2018 ◽  
Vol 47 ◽  
pp. 275-305
Author(s):  
Helen Appleton

AbstractThe Anglo-Saxon mappa mundi, sometimes known as the Cotton map or Cottoniana, is found on folio 56v of London, British Library, Cotton Tiberius B. v, which dates from the first half of the eleventh century. This unique survivor from the period presents a detailed image of the inhabited world, centred on the Mediterranean. The map’s distinctive cartography, with its emphasis on islands, seas and urban spaces, reflects an Insular, West Saxon geographic imagination. As Evelyn Edson has observed, the mappa mundi appears to be copy of an earlier, larger map. This article argues that the mappa mundi’s focus on urban space, translatio imperii and Scandinavia is reminiscent of the Old English Orosius, and that it originates from a similar milieu. The mappa mundi’s northern perspective, together with its obvious dependence on and emulation of Carolingian cartography, suggest that its lost exemplar originated in the assertive England of the earlier tenth century.


Oriens ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 49 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 95-130
Author(s):  
Ramon Harvey

Abstract Despite recognition of Abū l-Ḥasan al-Rustughfanī (d. ca. 345/956) as the most important student of Abū Manṣūr al-Māturīdī (d. 333/944), a sustained treatment of his theological views has not hitherto appeared. One of the challenges that has been identified in prior studies is a lack of primary sources. To overcome this obstacle, I analyse manuscripts of “Bāb al-mutafarriqāt min fawāʾid” and “al-Asʾila wa-l-ajwiba,” two texts recording al-Rustughfanī’s theological responsa, locating them within available bibliographic information and discussing the question of literary structure. I then contextualise the material within the polemical milieu of mid-fourth/tenth century Samarqand, arguing that al-Rustughfanī is the earliest figure in the Samarqandī Ḥanafī kalām tradition to self-consciously adopt the full name ahl al-sunna wa-l-jamāʿa to express his theological identity. Finally, I provide an annotated theological overview of the main doctrines found in the texts with a detailed case study on divine speech and the Qurʾān, showing how al-Rustughfanī bridges the gap between al-Māturīdī’s rationalistic kalām and the Ḥanafī traditionalism of al-Ḥakīm al-Samarqandī (d. 342/953).


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.


1998 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
pp. 233-271
Author(s):  
Christopher A. Jones

The great monument of tenth-century Anglo-Saxon monastic liturgy, theRegularis concordia, has been particularly fortunate in its twentieth-century devotees. The most prominent was Dom Thomas Symons, who published numerous learned articles on the text and, in 1953, an edition and translation that are still immensely valuable. More recently, Lucia Kornexl has re-edited theConcordiawith its continuous Old English gloss from London, British Library, Cotton Tiberius A. iii, and provided an exhaustive collation against the second Latin copy in London, British Library, Cotton Faustina B. iii. Building on this detailed editorial work, Kornexl's introductory chapters also suggest new and helpful ways of regarding the transmission of this text and the authority of its two extant manuscripts.


1967 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 336-350 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert H. Gundry

The Epistle of I Peter has occupied a rather large place in recent critical studies of the New Testament. E. G. Selwyn has advanced the view that the epistle draws from four primary sources: a liturgical document, a persecution fragment, a primitive Christian catechism, andverba Christi. E. Lohse prefers to think that the early church had a common stock oforalparaenetic tradition, from which the epistolary writers drew. F. W. Beare has popularized in English the liturgical-homiletical hypothesis widely accepted in Europe, namely, that the major part of I Peter (i. 3–iv. 11) is the transcription of a baptismal liturgy-homily, transformed into an epistle by the addition of i. 1 f. and iv. 12–v. 14. The view has been carefully worked out by F. L. Cross, but has encountered increasing resistance.


2019 ◽  
Vol 72 (2) ◽  
pp. 134-164
Author(s):  
Julia Fernández Cuesta ◽  
Christopher Langmuir

Abstract This article examines the verbal morphology of the Old English interlinear gloss to the Durham Collectar, attributed by almost universal consensus to Aldred of Chester-le-Street, whose earlier gloss to the Lindisfarne Gospels has recently been the object of scholarly attention (Cole 2014; Fernández Cuesta & Pons-Sanz 2016, Gameson et al. 2017). This article analyses -s/-th variation in the present indicative and imperative forms in relation to their syntactic context, in particular subject type and subject-verb adjacency, in order to assess whether the Northern Subject Rule detected by Cole (2014) in Lindisfarne was also operative in Aldred’s later gloss. By means of a quantitative analysis, we find that the first constraint does not significantly affect -s/-ð variation in the gloss and that there is insufficient context for the second. Additionally, it is argued that adjacency is a problematic variable in this text-type. We also demonstrate that there is a higher percentage of second person singular -st and -ð in the Collectar than in Lindisfarne and discuss the possible influence of standard West Saxon on the later gloss.


1973 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 189-207 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. G. Scragg

The Vercelli Book, as is well known, is a codex of the late tenth century containing a selection of religious prose and verse in Old English. Of the manuscript's twenty-nine items (some of which are defective owing to loss of leaves), six are alliterative poems and the rest prose homilies. There seems little doubt that one scribe (henceforth referred to as V) was responsible for writing the whole of the codex, even though the size of the writing changes considerably at various points, particularly towards the end of the volume where the lineation also changes. As the earliest of the four extant poetic codices and the earliest surviving collection of homilies in the vernacular, the book is potentially a most important source of knowledge of tenth-century English; most linguistic studies which range over Old English as a whole have included some reference to it. Yet the language of the manuscript is a relatively neglected subject of study, the place of its composition has not been established and the circumstances of its compilation have not been fully explained. This paper seeks to learn more of the book's origin in two ways: firstly, by examining its make-up in an attempt to determine the number and the nature of the sources that V used, and, secondly, by considering the distribution of distinctive linguistic forms in the manuscript in order to find out more about the nature of V's exemplars and about his background and training as displayed in his attitude to the language of his exemplars.


1986 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 73-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrizia Lendinara
Keyword(s):  

A certain ‘Descidia Parisiace polis’, which can safely be identified with the work of Abbo of Saint-Germain-des-Prés now commonly known as theBella Parisiacae Urbis, is listed among the books given by Æthelwold to the monastery of Peterborough. We shall never know if Æthelwold's gift corresponds to any of the surviving manuscripts of Abbo's poem – though probably it does not – but the inventory gives evidence of the popularity of his work in England. In the following pages I shall consider the genesis and successive fortune of Abbo's poem and provide a new assessment of the value of theBella Parisiacae Urbis. This assessment is a necessary first step to the understanding of the reasons for the success of his poem – and specifically of its third book – in England, as is witnessed by the number of English manuscripts containing the Latin text and by the Old English gloss which was added to this small, intriguing work.


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