Myth in the Ylias and Alexandreis

2021 ◽  
pp. 123-156
Author(s):  
Justin A. Haynes
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Medieval Latin ◽  
Essential Component ◽  
Bernard Silvestris

Evidence drawn from Bernard Silvestris, Servius, and others shows that myth (fabula), specifically in the form of the divine apparatus, was believed to be an essential component of the Aeneid in the twelfth century. Yet, most medieval Latin epics did not have a divine apparatus, so the allegiance of the Ylias and Alexandreis to the Aeneid stands out even more starkly by comparison. What is more, evidence is presented that the divine apparatus of the Alexandreis and Ylias function in a similar way to the twelfth-century interpretation of the Virgilian divine apparatus—through allegory as personification. The chapter closes with an argument that the Ylias and Alexandreis, when read in their twelfth-century context, are more closely aligned with Virgil than Lucan. This conclusion contradicts the current scholarly consensus.

Aspects of the Language of Latin Prose

2005 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Sentence Structure ◽  
Medieval Latin ◽  
Ancient Novel ◽  
Poetic Diction ◽  
Prose Rhythm

Twenty chapters from two often-dissociated areas of Latin studies, classical and medieval Latin, examine continuities and developments in the language of Latin prose from its emergence to the twelfth century. Language is not understood in a narrowly philological or linguistic sense, but as encompassing the literary exploitation of linguistic effects and the influence of formal rhetoric on prose. Key themes explored throughout this book are the use of poetic diction in prose, archaism, sentence structure, and bilingualism. Chapters cover a comprehensive range of material including studies of individual works, groups of authors such as the Republican historians, prose genres such as the ancient novel or medieval biography, and linguistic topics such as the use of connectives in archaic Latin or prose rhythm in medieval Latin.

‘Ηννσται καί τετέλεσται: An Echo from Traditio I

Traditio ◽  
1955 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 395-400
Author(s):  
Anselm Strittmatter
Keyword(s):  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Latin Translation ◽  
Text Line ◽  
Medieval Latin ◽  
John Chrysostom ◽  
Latin Version

In the medieval Latin translation of the two Liturgies of Constantinople — ‘St. Basil’ and ‘St. John Chrysostom’ —published from the twelfth-century Paris MS, Nouv. acq. lat. 1791, in 1943, the concluding prayer of the first of these two formularies, “‘Ηννσται καί τετέλεσται, contains a clause which, as was noted at the time, had not been found in any Greek MS. Now, after more than twelve years, two Greek MSS have been discovered — Sinait. 961, of the late eleventh or early twelfth century, and the liturgical roll No. 2 of the Laura, of the early years of the fourteenth century — neither of which indeed contains the interpolation of the Latin version in its entirety, but sufficient to warrant publication and study, for we have here the first trace — and more than a mere trace — of the clause, Si quid dimisimus, which has for so long been a baffling problem. Not unnaturally, this discovery has been the occasion of a re-examination of both the Latin version and the attempted reconstruction of the Greek original, with the result that more than one textual problem overlooked in the preparation of the first edition now stands out more clearly defined. This is especially true of the interesting rendering, ‘nutrimentum’ concerning which more is said below (Text, line 11 and Note 5).

Metrical and Rhythmical Clausulae in Medieval Latin Prose: Some Aspects and Problems

2005 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giovanni Orlandi
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
The Body ◽  
Latin Literature ◽  
Medieval Latin ◽  
Preliminary Results ◽  
The Future ◽  
General Preference ◽  
Prose Rhythm

The possibility that quantitative clausulae were sought by authors of the Latin literature of the medieval West offers a new means of entering the debate over ‘continuity or discontinuity’ between late antiquity and the Latin Middle Ages. The principles and aims of calculating prose rhythm, whether quantitative or tonic, have been changed; but much has returned as well. The variation of prosodical structure between the body and the end of a period may well be due to other reasons than the search for rhythm, such as the general preference of a long word to a short one to close a sentence. If the presented preliminary results are confirmed in the future by larger samples, it may be possible to trace in this twelfth-century prose a tendency towards what was to become the system characteristic of the Italian schools of ars dictaminis, namely a division of functions between the cursus tardus, deputed to minor pauses, and the obligatory cursus uelox, used to conclude nearly every sentence.

Géographie Arabe et Géographie Latine au XIIe Siècle

2013 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 408-433 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Gautier Dalché
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Complex Issue ◽  
Medieval Latin ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Arab Origin ◽  
Latin Schools ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Comprehensive Study

Abstract The influence of Arab geography upon the Latin tradition in the Middle Ages is difficult to assess due to several factors including the former’s definition, content, and origin, as well as the tangled historiography on the question of its influence. The purpose of this paper is not to provide a comprehensive study of this complex issue but rather to define the terms of the problem and to examine some concrete cases of contact between both geographical cultures during the twelfth century. The author first considers the impact of the introduction of Greek conceptions, transmitted through the Arabic Ṣūrat al-arḍ (The Picture of the Earth), upon medieval Latin cosmography. Special attention is devoted here to the influence of Greco-Arabic knowledge on contemporary Western Latin ideas about the habitability of the remotest parts of the earth. The author then deals with the relationship between both cultures in the field of descriptive geography and cartography. Unexpectedly, these different traditions can be shown to be largely isolated from one another, and the alleged Arab origin of some documents is, in most cases, dubious. The cause of the obvious lack of interest among Western Christians in Arab descriptive geography could lie in the general conditions of the Latin schools of the time, and perhaps also in the fact that Arabic writings and maps emphasize the domination of Islam over lands formerly under Christian rule.

Medieval Latin Reception

2019 ◽  
pp. 649-666
Author(s):  
Franklin T. Harkins
Keyword(s):  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Sacred Text ◽  
John Duns Scotus ◽  
Medieval Latin ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Form And Function ◽  
And Function

This chapter provides an overview of the nature of medieval Latin reception of early Christian biblical interpretation, proposing that ancient exegesis served as an ‘omnipresent foundational force’ undergirding and guiding medieval engagements with the sacred text. The first part of the chapter broadly sketches several characteristic examples from the dawn of the Middle Ages to the twelfth century, including the reception of Jerome’s Vulgate as the authoritative version of Scripture, the enormous debt that early medieval scholars such as Bede and Alcuin owed the fathers, and the form and function of the Glossa ordinaria. The second part, in contrast, offers a detailed analysis of the reception of early Christian interpretations of 1 Timothy 2.4 by considering the readings that high scholastic masters such as Bonaventure and John Duns Scotus set forth in their Sentences commentaries.

The Medieval Classic

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justin A. Haynes
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Alan Of Lille ◽  
Latin Epic ◽  
Joseph Of Exeter ◽  
Bernard Silvestris ◽  
Walter Of Chatillon ◽  
The Way ◽  
Poetic Composition

This book considers how ancient and medieval commentaries on the Aeneid by Servius, Fulgentius, Bernard Silvestris, and others can give us new insights into four twelfth-century Latin epics—the Ylias by Joseph of Exeter, the Alexandreis by Walter of Châtillon, the Anticlaudianus by Alan of Lille, and the Architrenius by John of Hauville. Virgil’s influence on twelfth-century Latin epic is generally thought to be limited to verbal echoes and occasional narrative episodes, but evidence is presented that more global influences have been overlooked because ancient and medieval interpretations of the Aeneid, as preserved by the commentaries, were often radically different from modern readings of the Aeneid. By explaining how to interpret the Aeneid, these commentaries directly influenced the way in which twelfth-century Latin epic imitated the Aeneid. At the same time, these Aeneid commentaries allow us a greater awareness of the generic expectations held by the original readers of twelfth-century Latin epic. Thus, this book provides a new way to look at the development of allegory and contributes to our understanding of ancient and medieval perceptions of the Aeneid while exploring the importance of commentaries in shaping poetic composition, imitation, and reading.

Anecdota Mediaevalia

Traditio ◽  
1961 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
pp. 469-482
Author(s):  
Marvin L. Colker
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Medieval Latin ◽  
Lives Of Saints ◽  
Almost All

The twelfth-century codex Beauvais 11 is rich in the possession of many medieval Latin verses. Of these almost all have by now been published: poems commonly assigned to Hildebert, by Bourassé; the De prelatis non bene intronizatis, by Rousseau; the ‘Mellifluae Meldi …,' by Lecomte and more recently by Colker; and, principally, works of Fulcoius of Beauvais — his Vterque, by Rousseau; the Epistulae, by Colker; the Epitaphia, by Omont; the Vita sancti Mauri, by the Bollandists; the Vita sancti Blandini, by Poncelet;′ the Vita sancti Medardi (a fragment), by Boutemy. It is true that FulcoiusVita sancti Agili is still unpublished and that his Vita sancti Earonis is represented only by excerpts published at various times, by Mabillon, Suchier, and Krusch. But Sister Mary Isaac Jogues Rousseau, S.S.N.D., will probably edit all of Fulcoius' verse lives of saints. What is left in the Beauvais manuscript are five poems attributed to an Odo Sacerdos, and even two of these have been published (as will be specified below).

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