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.

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 The northern world of the Anglo-Saxon mappa mundi

2018 ◽  
Vol 47 ◽  
pp. 275-305
Author(s):  
Helen Appleton
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
British Library ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
The Mediterranean

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.

Two composite texts from Archbishop Wulfstan's ‘commonplace book’: theDe ecclesiastica consuetudineand theInstitutio beati Amalarii de ecclesiasticis officiis

1998 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
pp. 233-271
Author(s):  
Christopher A. Jones
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Old English ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
British Library ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Editorial Work

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.

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 sources of the Old English Martyrology

2003 ◽  
Vol 32 ◽  
pp. 89-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine Rauer
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Literary Culture ◽  
Contemporary Literature ◽  
Ninth Century ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Old English Martyrology ◽  
Literary Legacy

For much of the ninth century, Anglo-Saxon interest in literary culture was apparently not as great as it could have been. Medieval and modern commentators have spoken of a pronounced early-ninth-century neglect of English libraries, which seems to have affected contemporary literature as well as the literary legacy which had been inherited from the seventh and eighth centuries. It appears that fewer books and texts were produced; the Latin texts produced may to some extent have been of inferior linguistic quality, and were, so it would seem, used with greater difficulties by a smaller and less educated readership. Comparatively fewer books seem to have survived the ninth century than any other period of Anglo-Saxon history.

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.

Wynflæd's wardrobe

1979 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 195-222 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gale R. Owen
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Old English ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
British Library ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
General Terms ◽  
Relative Value

An Old English document, composed probably in the middle of the tenth century and extant in a not very careful, mutilated, eleventh-century copy, London, British Library, Cotton Charter, VIII, 38, lists the bequests of a woman named Wynflæd. The bequests of clothing in this will are particularly interesting. Anglo-Saxon testaments do not itemize elaborate garments as do some English wills of the later Middle Ages; they refer to clothing only rarely, and then sometimes in general terms. Wynflæd's will is unusual in mentioning several different items of clothing and in specifying them more precisely. Descriptive references to non-military clothing are uncommon in Old English texts generally. Although many garment-names are documented, some which occur only in glossaries or translations from Latin may never have been in common use in England and some words are of uncertain meaning. In most cases the sex of the wearer of a named garment and the relative value of the garment are unknown. The garment-names in Wynflæd's will, by contrast, refer to items of clothing which were certainly worn by women at a known date and were valuable enough to be bequeathed.

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
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Old English ◽  
English Translation ◽  
Ninth Century ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
Bodleian Library ◽  
Latin Text

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.

Lapidary traditions in Anglo-Saxon England: part II, Bede's Explanatio Apocalypsis and related works

1983 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 73-123 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Kitson
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Old English ◽  
Critical Edition ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Early Middle Ages ◽  
Medical Traditions

Part I of this article1 treated the three main streams of lapidary knowledge current in the early Middle Ages (the classical encyclopaedists, the patristic2 and the medical traditions, with particular attention, in the last-named, to the lapidary of Damigeron and its recensions);3 gloss traditions, terminology and popular beliefs about jewels in Anglo-Saxon England; and the origin and content of the Old English Lapidary, with a new edition of it. This part II treats the lapidary passage in Bede's Explanatio Apocalypsis; a Hiberno-Latin tract De Duodecim Lapidibus (henceforth DDL) used by Bede; and (with a critical edition) a tenth-century Latin hymn Cives celestis patrie, quite likely composed in Anglo-Saxon England, and closely based on Bede's work.4

For Pastoral Care and Political Gain: Ælfric of Eynsham's Preaching on Marital Celibacy

Traditio ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 59 ◽  
pp. 39-78
Author(s):  
Robert K. Upchurch
Keyword(s):  
Pastoral Care ◽  
Old English ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
English Word ◽  
Self Control ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Virgin Birth ◽  
Good Works ◽  
The Devil

Writing early in the last decade of the tenth century, the Anglo-Saxon monk Ælfric begins his Second Series ofCatholic Homilieswith a sermon for Christmas Day. The second of five Old English sermons he wrote for the Nativity, it combines dense doctrinal matters with concrete advice about how Christians should commemorate the birth of Christ. After discussing Christ's Incarnation and Virgin Birth, and the Old Testament prophecies anticipating his appearance, Ælfric concludes the sermon with a series of instructions directing believers how to conduct themselves at Christmas. Of particular interest is his singling out ofclænnyss, an Old English word for “chastity” or “purity,” as the virtue to be most highly prized among the laity:We sceolon eac cristes acennednysse. and his gebyrdtide mid gastlicere blisse wurðian. and us sylfe mid godum weorcum geglengan. and us mid godes lofsangum gebysgian. and ða oing onscunian. ðe crist forbytt. pæt sind leahtras. and deofles weorc. and ða ðing lufian ðe god bebead. pæt is eadmodnys. and mildheortnys. rihtwisnys. and soðfæstnys. ælmesdreda. and gemetfræstnys. gepyld and cleennyss; pas ðing lufað god and huru ða clænnysse ðe he sylf ðurh hine. and ðurh pæt clæne mreden his modor astealde; Swa eac ealle his geferan ðe him filigdon ealle hí weeron on clænnysse wuniende. and se mæsta dæl prera manna pe gode geðeoð purh clsennysse hi geðeoð. (CHII.1.277–87)[We ought also to honor the birth and nativity of Christ with spiritual joy, and adorn ourselves with good works, and occupy ourselves with songs of praise to God, and shun those things which Christ forbids, which are sins and works of the devil, and love those things which God commanded, that is humility and mercy, justice and truth, almsgiving and self-control, patience and chastity. These things God loves, and especially chastity, which he established through himself and the chaste virgin, his mother. So also all of his companions who followed him were living in chastity, and the greatest portion of those men who achieve favor with God achieve it through chastity.]

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