KING ALFRED AND THE OLD ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF OROSIUS

1970 ◽  
Vol 1970 (88) ◽  
Author(s):  
JANET M. BATELY
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
English Translation ◽  
King Alfred

The Latin and the Old English Versions of St Augustine’s Prayer in his Soliloquia: A Study and a Rhetorical Synopsis

2019 ◽  
Vol 137 (4) ◽  
pp. 561-611
Author(s):  
Hans Sauer
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Old English ◽  
English Translation ◽  
Textual Criticism ◽  
Special Kind ◽  
British Library ◽  
Latin Text ◽  
Short Text ◽  
Entire Text ◽  
King Alfred

Abstract A special kind of a short text that is embedded in a larger text is the prayer near the beginning of St Augustine’s Soliloquia, which serves as a kind of introduction to the ensuing dialogue. The relatively independent nature of this prayer was recognized early on, and in addition to its transmission in the manuscripts of the Soliloquia it has also been transmitted as an independent prayer. Something similar happened to the Old English translation. There is a full translation of the entire text, traditionally ascribed to King Alfred (and his learned helpers), but preserved only in a much later manuscript (London, British Library, Cotton Vitellius A.xv); however, a shortened version of the prayer was included in a collection of brief penitential texts in an earlier manuscript (London, British Library, Cotton Tiberius A.iii). In the present article I look at the structure of the Latin prayer and at its Old English translation, especially the relation of the two manuscript versions and their value for textual criticism and the reconstruction of the original version, their relation to the Latin source, and the rhetoric of the Latin prayer and its Old English translation, including a brief discussion of the binomials used. The Appendix provides a synoptic version of the Latin text and the two manuscript versions of the Old English translation, highlighting their rhetorical structure, something that to my knowledge has never been done for the Old English translation.

An Alfredian Reading Project

2021 ◽  
pp. 89-136
Author(s):  
Francesca Brooks
Keyword(s):  
Pastoral Care ◽  
Old English ◽  
English Translation ◽  
Ninth Century ◽  
English Hegemony ◽  
Cultural Project ◽  
Rhetorical Tropes ◽  
King Alfred ◽  
Christian History

Chapter 2 compares the rhetorical tropes employed in the ‘Preface’ to The Anathemata (often overlooked in the scholarship) with those of the preface to King Alfred’s Old English translation of the Pastoral Care. This comparison establishes the idea of Jones’s artful construction of his ‘Preface’ as a manifesto for the cultural project of The Anathemata. Reflecting on the Alfredian rhetorical ideal of an English nation (and more specifically an English nation of Catholics) as both a medieval and a post-medieval construct, this chapter illuminates the direct challenge of Jones’s ‘Preface’ to Alfredian assertions of English hegemony. Key to this effort to disrupt the hegemony of British Christian history, this chapter argues, is Jones’s use of Latin and how this implicates the work of two other ninth-century writers—Asser and Nennius—in Jones’s dialogue with King Alfred.

The text of the Old English translation of Gregory's ?Dialogues?

Neophilologus ◽  
1937 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 281-302 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. N. U. Harting
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
English Translation

Chancery norms before Chancery English?

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-77
Author(s):  
Olga Timofeeva
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Middle English ◽  
Old English ◽  
Oral Traditions ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Discourse Community ◽  
Document Type ◽  
Local Courts ◽  
William The Conqueror ◽  
King Alfred

Abstract This study analyses two Old English formulae gret freodlice (‘greets in a friendly manner’) and ic cyðe eow þæt (‘I make it known to you that’), which form a salutation–notification template in a document type called writs. It connects the emergence of this formulaic set to previous oral traditions of delivering news and messages, and to their reflection in dictation practices from at least the time of King Alfred. Their later routinisation and standardisation is seen as a factor brought about by the centralised production of royal writs and their subsequent adoption as templates in monastic scriptoria across the country. These templates continue to be recycled in the early Middle English period both in English and in Latin writs, ultimately shifting to Latin-only documents during the reign of William the Conqueror. Although this shift does not hinder the continuity of the selected bureaucratic template into the later Middle Ages, it affects the structure of the discourse community associated with the chancery norms, consolidating its core (those literate in Latin who are involved in production and preservation of writs) and marginalising its periphery (English speakers who used to make up the informed audience for writs in local courts).

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.

IX.—A Contribution to the Study of the Beowulf Codex

PMLA ◽  
1921 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 167-185
Author(s):  
Stanley I. Rypins
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Alexander The Great ◽  
Present Volume ◽  
King Alfred

The Old English ms. volume, Cotton Vitellius A XV, in “which the unique copy of Beowulf is preserved, consists of two separate codices which have been bound together since the time of Sir Robert Cotton to make the present volume. The first, in two main hands of the twelfth century, contains four articles: Flowers from St. Augustine's Soliloquies, translated by King Alfred, fol. 4a; Gospel of Nicodemus, fol. 60a; Dialogue between Solomon and Saturn, fol. 84b; and a fragment of eleven lines concerning martyrs, fol. 93b. The second codex, likewise in two hands, but of considerably earlier date, consists of five articles: A fragment of the Life of St. Christopher, imperfect at the beginning, fol. 94a; Wonders of the East, fol. 98b; Letter of Alexander the Great to Aristotle, fol. 107a; Beowidf, fol. 132a; and Judith, a fragment, fols. 202a-209b.

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.

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