Do all roads lead to Waterford? The codex BnF fr. 1822 and its context

This contribution aims to offer new insights into the context of the manuscript Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, fr. 1822. Keith Busby has recently ascribed this miscellany of Old French moral texts (sole witness of Jofroi de Waterford’s translations) to the Irish city of Waterford. The paper discusses this hypothesis, focusing on the codicological and historical aspects of the manuscripts. Moreover, the article presents my research on the (probably Anglo-Norman) redaction of the Livre de Moralitez transmitted by the codex.

THE DEATH OF BATRADZ AND THE DEMISEOF BASTARD

В контексте признаваемой историчности осетинского нартовского эпоса на основании рассказа англо-нормандского церковного историка XIIв. Ордерика Виталия о смерти и погребении Вильгельма Завоевателя и нартовских кадагов, посвящeнных гибели и захоронению нарта Батрадза, впервые ставится вопрос о сравнении нартовского героя Батрадза с историческим деятелем. Основное внимание уделено следующим сюжетообразующим мотивам: конфликт с народом/высшими силами; жар как причина смерти; смертельное ранение, полученное на поле брани, но не от рук врага; зловонность усопшего; упоминание названия усыпальницы; проблемы при захоронении слишком крупного человека в неподходящую ему по размерам усыпальницу; выплата выкупа за возможность захоронить героя. Решение данного вопроса во многом определяется статусом текста церковной хроники. Признание его валидности может служить основанием для рассмотрения данных нарративов как описаний одного исторического события разными средствами. Такой подход даeт возможность рассматривать алгоритмы мифологизации и институционализации прошлого в народной памяти. Таким прошлым для осетин является история их предков, сармато-аланских племeн. В родословной Вильгельма есть определенные пересечения с аланами, что подтверждается наличием множественных бретонских и нормандских родственников с именем Алан в ближайшем окружении короля. В качестве альтернативной интерпретации допускается возможность возведения текстов к одному первоисточнику, и если рассказ Ордерика является фабрикацией, подражательством существовавшей устной традиции, то отмеченные параллели можно квалифицировать как выход на поверхность архаических пластов, общих для двух традиций. Не исключается вероятность прямого заимствования, вектор, траектории распространения и время которого нуждаются в уточнении. Возможно, данные сюжетные мотивы являются произвольными совпадениями. In the context of the acknowledged historicity of the Ossetian Nart epic, based on the systemic coincidences of the story of the 12th century Anglo-Norman church historian Orderikus Vitalius about the death and burial of William the Conqueror and the Narts’ Kadags dedicated to the death and burial of the Nart Batradz with the historical hero Batradz, the question of comparing the Nart hero Batradz is raised for the first time. The main attention is paid to the following plot-forming motives: conflict with the people / higher powers; extreme heat/fire as the cause of death; mortal wound received on the battlefield, but not at the hands of the enemy; the stench of the deceased; stating the name of the burial-place; problems with burying an oversized corpse in a too narrow tomb; payment of the ransom for the opportunity to bury the hero. The solution to this issue is largely determined by the status of the text of the church chronicle. The recognition of its validity can serve as a basis for considering both types of narratives as descriptions of one historical event by different means. This approach makes it possible to consider the algorythms for the mythologization and institutionalization of the past in the people's memory. Such past for the Ossetians is the history of their ancestors, the Sarmatian-Alan tribes. In the genealogy of William there are certain intersections with the Alans, which is confirmed by the presence of multiple Breton and Norman relatives named Alan in the immediate circle of the king’s kins. As an alternative interpretation, these narrative can be traced to one primary source, and if Orderic's story is a fabrication, an imitation of the existing oral tradition, then the noted parallels can be qualified as an emergence of archaic layers common to the two traditions. The possibility of direct borrowing is not excluded, the vector, propagation trajectories and time of which need to be clarified. Less likely these plot motives are arbitrary coincidences.

The Anglo-Catalan Connection: The Cult of Thomas Becket at Terrassa—New Approaches

The wall paintings adorning the south transept apse of Santa Maria at Terrassa are among the most notable surviving items pertaining to the iconography of St. Thomas Becket. Recently found documents in which diplomatic archives reveal English connections are essential for understanding the quick reception of the Becket cult in the Crown of Aragon. The presence of an Anglo-Norman canon—Arveus or Harveus (Harvey)—and his position of scribe during the second half of the twelfth century when Reginald, probably also of English origin, was prior there—seem to be the likely source of inspiration for this project. These English connections, which are essential for understanding the quick reception of the Becket cult in the Crown of Aragon, stemmed from the endeavours undertaken some years earlier south of the Pyrenees by the abbot of Saint-Ruf at Avignon, Nicholas Breakspear, who subsequently became Pope Adrian IV.

Irish song and the idea of tradition

Defining ‘tradition’ as something passed on within a community that provides a matrix for its understanding of past events and present choices, this essay discusses the evolution of Irish poetry and song since 1200. It explores the connections between vernacular poetry and various learned (literary) traditions, including bardic poetry (syllabic verse) and the later ‘poetic courts’ and ‘schools of poetry’, in terms of themes, verse structure, social context, and sung performance. It demonstrates that while some practices were bound to specific social contexts, the strand that most people today identify as ‘the Irish song tradition’ still employs centuries-old themes including panegyric and the Anglo-Norman ‘courtly love’ rhetoric, and displays prosodic features evidenced in Middle Irish bardic sources. Finally, we consider the emergence of ‘tradition’ as a concept, the impact since 1850 of song collecting and technology on repertoire and performance, and the implications of ‘authenticity’ for today’s definition of ‘tradition’.

Of travels and travails: The role of semantic typology, argument structure constructions, and language contact in semantic change

This paper is an investigation into the role of argument structure constructions as catalysts or blockers of lexical semantic change. It presents a case study of the divergent semantic development of French travailler ‘work’ and English travel ‘journey’ from their shared earlier meaning ‘labour, toil’. This divergence is shown to not be random: It can be explained as a product of the different intransitive motion constructions (IMCs) and different communicative habits in these two languages. Consequently, the development of travailler ‘journey’ in the Anglo-Norman dialect of French can be understood as the result of contact influence of Middle English. By pointing to similar instances in which verbs meaning ‘labour, toil’ have acquired a polysemous ‘motion’ sense in languages with an IMC that can coerce non-motion verbs into contextual motion readings, the paper argues that this is most probably a regular semantic trajectory in satellite-framing, manner-conflating languages.