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.

A neverending stream : human trafficking in Medieval Europe

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Christopher Paolella
Keyword(s):  
Human Trafficking ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Slave Trade ◽  
Labor Demand ◽  
Sex Industry ◽  
Agricultural Labor ◽  
Long Distance

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT REQUEST OF AUTHOR.] This study focuses on human trafficking patterns from Late Antiquity to the Early Modern Era. I argue that while slavery, as a means of compelling agricultural labor, disappeared across much of Western Europe by the middle of the twelfth century, the commercial sex industry grew. As slavery died out, the slave trade withered across Western Europe and gradually reoriented itself around the Mediterranean basin. Yet, human trafficking networks remained in Western Europe, if in attenuated form. They continued to supply a smaller, but no less persistent, labor demand that was now fueled by brothels and prostitution rings instead of agriculture. I argue further that the experiences of women link the sex trade and the slave trade, and that twelfth-century socio-economic development linked the earlier long-distance slave trade and the local and regional trafficking networks of the later Middle Ages.

THE POETICS OF LATER GREEK ECPHRASIS: CHRISTODORUS COPTUS, THE PALATINE ANTHOLOGY AND THE PERIOCHAE OF NONNUS’ DIONYSIACA

Ramus ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 216-238 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fran Middleton
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Latin Poetry ◽  
Latin Literature ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Greek Poetry ◽  
To Receive ◽  
The Middle Ages

There is increasing interest in what might be thought ‘special’ about late antique poetry. Two volumes of recent years have focused on Latin poetry of this time, Classics Renewed: Reception and Innovation in the Latin Poetry of Late Antiquity edited by Scott McGill and Joseph Pucci (2016) as well as The Poetics of Late Latin Literature edited by Jaś Elsner and Jesús Hernández Lobato (2017), while it has become increasingly acceptable to remark on late antiquity as a cultural period in its own right, rather than a point of transition between high antiquity and the middle ages. Greek poetry of late antiquity has yet to receive the level of attention offered to Latin literature of this time, and so it is to help answer the question of what may be thought special about late antique Greek poetry that I here discuss the poetics of later Greek ecphrasis.

Sickness and Healing

2020 ◽  
pp. 402-417
Author(s):  
Peregrine Horden
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
The Individual

How should a medieval monk behave when sick? Must submission to divine test or judgement be the only response, or is resort to secular as well as spiritual medicine allowed? What is the role of the infirmary in a monastery and, for the individual monk, what are the benefits and disadvantages of staying in it? The chapter traces medieval answers to such questions through case studies drawn from the earliest phase of monasticism in late antiquity, from Carolingian Europe, from the twelfth century, and from the later Middle Ages, concluding with an outline of a set of topics for further research.

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.

Some Recent Receptions of Early Christian Literature in Bulgaria and Their Ethnical Connotations

Proglas ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christo Christov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
The Body ◽  
Eastern Orthodox ◽  
Moral Choice ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Pelagian Controversy ◽  
Christian Literature ◽  
God's Grace

In this paper, when I use the concept of ‘early Christian literature’ I mean the body of texts from Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages that affects the controversies around the issue of God’s Grace and the role of free human will in the context of making a choice in a strict ethical sense. For that reason, firstly, here I analyze the problems that arose with relation to the doctrine of Pelagius. Secondly, in this paper, by ‘recent receptions of this early Christian literature in Bulgaria’ I mean those receptions – in a theological, literary, and ethical sense - that we encounter in current studies of Christian Latin literature done by the promising young researcher Rosen Milanov. Thirdly, the present study attempts to answer the question of the ethical connotations of those same receptions in the present-day moral controversies in Bulgaria – a country rich in conservative views of Eastern Orthodox nature, concerning contemporary ethical issues such as those related to the ratification of the Istanbul Convention last year. In this way it may be possible to obtain a more clear outlook on how such distant historical events as the Pelagian controversy about the value of free moral choice could still influence the modification processes in the sociocultural layers of modern Bulgarian society with its Eastern Orthodox heritage.

Alexander the Great

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Latin Literature ◽  
Alexander The Great ◽  
Guiding Principle ◽  
Core Set ◽  
Narrative Framework ◽  
Earthly Paradise ◽  
Vast Network ◽  
Modern Perspective

Alexander the Great inspired a body of literature that grew throughout Antiquity and the Middle Ages by accumulating various episodes and local contributions across a host of languages, cultures, and appropriations. This extraordinary transmission of texts resulted in an ever evolving and often contradictory figure. In some accounts, Alexander’s ambition was a defining characteristic, in others benevolence; some writers idealized while others condemned Alexander; and in texts classified as histories from a modern perspective Alexander built an empire as the son of Philip of Macedon, while in texts classified as romance or legend Alexander was the illegitimate son of an Egyptian sorcerer and traveled to exotic lands populated by the creative lens of storytelling. Medieval writers engaged with a core set of plotlines inherited from their predecessors in Antiquity. These provided the narrative framework of Alexander’s childhood in Macedon, expansion of an empire stretching to India, and death in Babylon. However, countless adaptations and interpolations ensured the vibrancy of this narrative and created a version of Alexander dependent on availability of texts and authorial agenda. For example, writers and scribes in southern Italy had access to episodes that emphasized the limitations of Alexander’s ambition—how the intrepid explorer constructed a flying machine that the gods turned back to land and received prophecies of mortality in the far reaches of an earthly paradise. Under the influence of such accounts, they emphasized the temporality of Alexander’s career in allegorical terms that were, at least until these accounts traveled westward, quite different from the idealized warrior portrayed in French romances. The textual corpus that accounted for Alexander’s reception thus comprised a vast network founded on Greek and Latin but shaped by the vernacular. Navigating this network is a formidable task, and this article is written with a guiding principle in mind: to assist readers in finding their starting points for engaging with the medieval Alexander. It includes texts that were largely or exclusively devoted to Alexander’s exploits, and it identifies scholarly works intended for readers in the early stages of their navigation; more specialized research can be found in the scholarship cited. Finally, it organizes the medieval reception of Alexander the Great into two broad categories: Greek and Latin texts (both foundational accounts of Late Antiquity and medieval Latin literature) and the vernacular texts based on them.

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.

scholarly journals SIMBOLO, MIRACOLO, TENTAZIONE. IL CIBO NELLA LETTERATURA AGIOGRAFICA MEDIEVALE PRIMA E DOPO IL SECOLO XII

1970 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giovanni Paolo Maggioni
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Other ◽  
Early Middle Ages ◽  
Christian Religion ◽  
Food And Nutrition ◽  
Ambivalent Relationship ◽  
The One

The Christian religion is characterized by an ambivalent relationship with food. On the one hand, the liturgy is centered on the bread and wine, body and blood of Christ; on the other, the body, that you are forced to feed, has often been seen as an intolerable burden on the path of salvation. Despite this ambivalence, in the hagiographic literature of the early Middle Ages seems to be predominantly a negative conception of food, the trámite of every vice, to which man can not give up, while the twelfth century dominates a new idea of the body and, consequently, a different consideration of food and nutrition. Some hagiographic exempla regarding the primary foods, including bread, wine and milk, illustrate this evolution.

The Medieval Latin Literature of Germany As German Literature

PMLA ◽  
1965 ◽  
Vol 80 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-30
Author(s):  
Edwin H. Zeydel
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
German Literature ◽  
Medieval Literature ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Roman Catholic Church ◽  
Latin Literature ◽  
Medieval Latin ◽  
Vernacular Language ◽  
The Middle Ages

In the vast body of medieval literature written in what is called the Germanic area of Europe—and in the Middle Ages that included parts of present-day France, Italy, Czechoslovakia, Jugoslavia, and Poland—there is an immense amount of writing in a non-vernacular language known as Medieval Latin, in German Mittellateinisch—a term not coined by Wilhelm Meyer in 1882, as Karl Langosch claimed. It was used as early as 1838 by Jacob Grimm in the epoch-making Lateinische Gedichte des X. und XI. Jahrhunderts, prepared in collaboration with Andreas Schmeller. Mittellateinisch, among other things the medium of the Roman Catholic Church, is a language apart, growing not directly out of that of Cicero and Vergil, but rather originating from the late Latinity of Antiquity in its dying stages, and under the influence of tendencies present in the vernacular tongues.

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.

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