eine» uae h thi, Be Hy
AS ak Pee
sp Ae
+. Soe ls
Mase Ly
4
2 A ety
vite P aa, i See
pte
‘sud
i X sep Bt Se OQ siae vate Fol es e <¥ ‘ ay"
icate with the
SPECULUM
A JOURNAL OF MEDIAEVAL STUDIES
CONTENTS ARTICLES THE SECOND ANNUAL MEETING OF THE CORPORATION OF
THE MEDIAEVAL ACADEMY OF AMERICA ............. 231 RULES GOVERNING THE AWARD OF THE EDWARD KEN-
NARD RAND PRIZE IN MEDIAEVAL STUDIES ........... 234 THE LATIN LITERATURE OF SPORT .......... C.H.Hasgrns 235 BISHOP CUTHWINI OF LEICESTER (680-691), AMATEUR OF
ILLUSTRATED MANUSCRIPTS .............. A.S.Coox 253 A BRIEF STUDY OF THE LATINITY OF THE DIPLOMATA
ISSUED BY THE MEROVINGIAN KINGS. ....... H.M.Martrn 258 WILLIAM OF MALMESBURY AND THE IRISH ...... C.H.Stover 268 RHETORICAL INVENTION IN SOME MEDIAEVAL TRACTATES
ee ioe eign igt a wwe bo H. Cartan 284 TWO DERIVITIVE SONGS BY AIMERIC DE PEGUILHAN W.P.Suerarp 296
NOTES THE LANGUAGE OF THE STRASSBURG OATHS L. F. H. Lows, B. Epwarps 310 GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH’S KING ARTHUR ....... W.A.Nitrze 317 Demers UMM wk wk ttt tt R.D. Cornetrvs 321 ALFODHOL AND ALMADEL ................ L. Toornpixe 326 NOTES AND EMENDATIONS ON FARAL, LES ARTS POETIQUES
DU XIle ET DU Xlille SIECLE............. W.B.Sepewirck 331 ZU HROTSVITHAS WIRKUNGSKREIS ........... B. I. Jarcnoo 343
345
EERE REY ee eee ne eee ee ee a L. Behrendt, The Ethical Teaching of Hugo of Trimberg (P. S. Allen); A. H. Gilbert, Dante’s Conception of Justice (K. McKenzie); K. Strecker, ed., Die Gedichte Walters von Chatillon (C. U. Clark); Ch. Diehl, H. Bell, trans., Byzantine Portraits (D. C. Munro); E. N. Stone, trans., Adam, a Religious Play of the Twelfth Century (G. R. Coffman); Ch. Petit-Dutaillis, ed., Fragment de l’Histoire de Philippe-Auguste, Roy de France (J.D. M. Ford); J. M. Clark, The A of St Gall as a Centre of Literature and Art (E. K. Rand); U. Monneret de Villard, Les Couvents prés de Sohdig (Deyr-el-Abiad et Deyr-el- Ahmar) (A. K. Porter); R. L. Poole, ed., Ioannis Sarisberien- sis Historiae Pontificalis quae Supersunt (C. H. Haskins).
ANNOUNCEMENT OF BOOKS RECEIVED ............... 361
VoLuME II JULY, 1927 NUMBER 3
PUBLISHED QUARTERLY BY THE MEDIAEVAL ACADEMY OF AMERICA
ae
H) ia i
#
| Hf rie 1]
SPECULUM, A JOURNAL OF MEDIAEVAL STUDIES
EDITORIAL BOARD
Eprtor-1n-CHIEF Epwarp KEnNnarp Ranp
Manaartnec Epitor Pous.isHine Epitor Francis Peaspopy Maagovun, Jr Joun NicuHotas Brown
It is kindly requested that all communications intended for the above editors be addressed Lehman Hall, Cambridge, Mass.
Wituiam WITHERLE LAWRENCE James Hue Ryan Columbia University Catholic University of America
Cuartes Rurus Morey Ernest Hatcu WILKINS Princeton University University of Chicago
Louis Joun Partow Kari Youne University of California Yale University
ADVISORY BOARD
Partie ScouyLer ALLEN Georce La PIANA University of Chicago Harvard University Harry Morcan AYRES JoHnN Matruews MANtLy Columbia University University of Chicago CHARLES Henry BEESON Dana CarRLTON Munro University of Chicago Princeton University Gerorce RatzeiaH CorrMaNn Wituiam ALBERT NITZE Boston University University of Chicago CorNELIA CATLIN COULTER ArtTHUR KINGSLEY PorRTER Mount Holyoke College Harvard University Rates Apams Cram Frep Norris Rosinson Boston, Massachusetts Harvard University Gorpon Hatt GEROULD JoHn Strone Perry TATLock Princeton University Harvard University GrorGE LIVINGSTONE HamiILTON JAMES WESTFALL THOMPSON Cornell University University of Chicago CaarLeEs Homer Haskins Lynn T'HORNDIKE Harvard University Columbia University JAMES Fretp WILLARD University of Colorado
Specutum, A JournaL or MepiaEvat Srupres, is published quarterly by the Meprazval Acapemy or America. The issues appear in cen, Sane uly, and October. The sub- scription price is Five Dollars; single copies may be post-free for One Dollar and Fifty Cents. Members of the Acapemy receive Specuium free. In case of accidental omission in the delivery of Specutum, Members are requested to communicate forthwith in writing with the Executive Secretary. MSS submitted for publication should be forwarded to the Managing Editor, but MSS will not be returned unless accompanied by a stamped and self- addressed envelope. For the details of editorial practice Contributors are directed to “Notes for Contributors” at the end of this number. The Editors cannot assume responsibility for the loss of MSS in the mails.
Vor. LI, No. 3. — Copyright, 1927, by the Mediasoal Academy of America. — Patntep um U.S. A. Entered as second-class matter, May 8, 1926, at the Post Office at Boston, Mass., under the Act of August 24, 1912.
SPECULUM
A JOURNAL OF MEDIAEVAL STUDIES
Ae
THE SECOND ANNUAL MEETING OF THE CORPORATION OF THE MEDIAEVAL ACADEMY OF AMERICA
N ACCORDANCE with the provisions of the By-Laws, the
Second Annual Meeting of the Corporation of the MepIAEvAL AcaDEMY OF AMERICA was held on Saturday, April 30, 1927, at 10 am., at the building of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 28 Newbury Street, Boston, Massachusetts.
After attending to such routine business as the approval of the minutes of the First Annual Meeting and the appointment of a nominating committee, the meeting listened to the Clerk’s report of the work of the Council of the Acapemy during the year:
On the resignation of President Rand in July, before his departure for a year’s study in Europe, the Council, with the power granted it by the By-Laws, appointed Charles Homer Haskins President of the Acapemy until the Annual Meeting of the Corporation; subse- quently James Field Willard, then Third Vice-President, was ap- pointed Second Vice-President, to fill the vacancy created by the appointment of Mr Haskins, and Charles Rufus Morey was ap- pointed Third Vice-President.
On January 29, 1927, the AcADEMy was admitted to membership in the American Council of Learned Societies, application having been duly made in accordance with the vote of the Council. The Council at its meeting of April 29, 1927, appointed as delegates of the Acapemy to the American Council of Learned Societies, John
231
232 The Second Annual Meeting
Strong Perry Tatlock for a term of four years, and Charles Henry Beeson for a term of two years.
In July, 1926, the Acapemy received from an anonymous donor the sum of five thousand dollars for the establishment of a publica- tion fund. In November gifts of six hundred dollars were received for the purpose of paying to Dom Wilmart the subvention of one hundred dollars already reported, and a further subvention of five hundred dollars to assist him in the completion of his studies of the Script of the School of Autun.
The Council of the AcapEmy has been occupied in drawing up a program of definite projects for consideration by possible donors. Among the AcapEmy’s more immediate plans are the publication in the near future of a Concordance to the De Consolatione Philosophiae and the Theological Tractates of Boethius by Professor Lane Cooper of Cornell University, made possible through a grant to Mr Cooper from the Heckscher Fund; and, somewhat later, the publication of a work now nearing completion by Professor Edward Kennard Rand of Harvard University on the Script of the School of Tours.
Finally the Clerk announced the establishment, for a period of three years, through the generosity of Professor John Daniel Logan of Marquette University, of an annual prize of $200 to be known as “The Edward Kennard Rand Prize in Mediaeval Studies”; the rules governing the award of this prize will be found following this report.
The report of the Treasurer, besides accounting for the current finances of the Acapemy, announced that the Endowment Fund was now $16,794.70. Interesting reports were also heard from Mr J. F. Willard as Editor of the Progress of Mediaeval Studies in the United States of America, and Mr F. P. Magoun, Jr as Managing Editor of Specutum. Mr Willard announced that Bulletin Number 5 was now in the process of preparation. Mr Magoun brought to the at- tention of the Corporation the fact that the entire range of the AcaprEmy’s interest had not yet been represented by articles pub- lished in Specutum, and hoped that articles might be submitted in the near future on subjects in the fields of mediaeval philosophy, music, science, Byzantine studies, or other phases of mediaeval civilization deserving attention.
hy, val
The Second Annual Meeting 233
Following a report from the Committee on Local Chapters, it was voted that the present policy of the AcapEmy toward the Local Chapter at Philadelphia be continued for the current year, but with- out prejudging the policy of the Acapemy toward the formation of any other local chapters.
After the report of the Nominating Committee had been heard and the nominations duly declared closed, the following officers were unanimously elected: President for three years, Edward Kennard Rand; Second Vice-President for one year, James Field Willard; Third Vice-President for three years, Charles Rufus Morey; Councillors each for three years, to succeed the Councillors whose tems had expired, Carleton Brown, Charles Homer Haskins, William Witherle Lawrence, and William Albert Nitze.
The meeting then heard the presidential address,' “The Latin Literature of Sport.” The meeting then heard an address, illus- trated by lantern slides, on ‘Constantinople in the Twelfth Cen- tury,” by Professor Charles Diehl of the University of Paris, a
Corresponding Fellow of the AcADEmy.
The meeting adjourned at twelve-fifteen.
By an election begun at the meeting of the Fellows of the AcapEemy that afternoon, and subsequently concluded by mail, the following were elected Fellows of the ACADEMY:
Epwarp CooKE ARMSTRONG Witu1am WITHERLE LAWRENCE Tuomas FREDERICK CRANE WituiamM Epwarp Lunt ErHraAiM EMERTON ALEXANDER Marx
JEREMIAH Dennis Matruias Forp WitiiAM ALBERT NiITzE
Kuno FrRANCKE Davip EvGENE SMITH
Grorce Epwarp WoopsBINE
and the following Corresponding Fellows of the AcapEmy:
Joseph BépIER EmiteE MALE
Grorce Gorpon CouLTOoN Max Manitivus
EtENNE GILSON HeEnr1 PIRENNE
ALFRED JEANROY Josep Pure 1 CADAFALCH CuarRLes Victor LANGLOIS Lurie SCHIAPARELLI Anprew GEorGE LITTLE Rupo.tF THURNEYSEN
Tuomas FreEpeERIcK Tout. 1 Published pp. 235-252 below.
: ' : '
The Second Annual Meeting
RULES GOVERNING THE AWARD OF THE EDWARD KENNARD RAND PRIZE IN MEDIAEVAL STUDIES!
1. The Edward Kennard Rand Prize in Mediaeval Studies, of Two Hundred Dollars, established by the generosity of Mr John Daniel Logan, shall be awarded for 1928, 1929, 1930 by the Mxprazva Acapemy or America for an essay of high distinction on a subject connected with Mediaeval Latin Literature or Mediaeval Philosophy.
2. Essays submitted in competition for this prize may be written in English, French, German, or Latin. They should not be less than five thousand words in length. They should ordinarily embody the results of original investigation, but the judges may also consider essays which involve a new and significant synthesis of the results of earlier investigation.
8. Essays in competition for this prize shall be submitted to the Executive Secretary of the AcapEmy on or before the first day of January, and announcement of the award shall be made at the annual meeting of the AcaprEmy the following April.
4. The Executive Committee of the Acapemy shall appoint each year as judges for this prize two scholars, one of whom shall be an expert in Mediaeval Latin Literature, and the other in Mediaeval Latin Philosophy. These two judges shall have authority to adda third judge in the event that they find such action desirable.
5. For the year 1927-28, an essay already published may be ad- mitted in competition, provided that the date of such publication is not earlier than January 1, 1926. After the year 1927-28 only unpublished essays may be entered in competition.
6. The Acapemy reserves the right to make no award in any year when no essay of sufficient merit is submitted.
1 Copies of the rules governing this prize may be obtained by applying to the Executive Secretary of the AcapEmy.
—— Pe oft fk tes i a ck cc
le of al
THE LATIN LITERATURE OF SPORT’ Br CHARLES HOMER HASKINS
HE MepraEvat AcapEMy OF AMERICA, by the terms of its
organization, is interested in every phase of mediaeval civiliza- tion. Literature, language, art, archaeology, history, philosophy, science, religion, folklore, economic and social conditions and mat- ters of daily life — nothing is foreign to us. The whole breadth of the Middle Ages is ours, the only limits are chronological. While, however, the Acapemy has thus staked out a large field for itself, it has no desire to dislodge or interfere with previous cultivators. Its purpose is rather to break new ground where possible, to supple- ment existing agencies, and to serve as a clearing-house and meeting- point for investigators. Especially does it seek to promote com- bined and coérdinated effort in the study of those aspects of the Middle Ages which need the united forces of historians, phil- ologists, archaeologists, students of art, literature, and philosophy. It welcomes new material, new attacks on old problems, new points of view, new syntheses.
Inevitably one of the major concerns of the AcapEmy is Mediaeval Latin. Not only is the AcapeEmy itself the outgrowth of a Committee on Mediaeval Latin Studies, but nothing can better express and illustrate its interest in a many-sided approach to mediaeval culture.
jithout Latin no understanding of the Middle Ages is possible. The international language of the epoch, it was the speech of treaties and formal international intercourse, of the international Church in all its relations, and of religious observance in the several countries of the Occident. Men prayed in Latin, sang in Latin, preached in Latin throughout Western Christendom. It was the language of education, ‘as reflected in textbooks and lectures, in student conver- sation, and in the intercourse of educated men. Learned early, it was in such constant use that there was little likelihood of its being forgotten. It was the language of philosophy and theology and seri-
1 Presidential address delivered at the annual meeting of the MepiaAEvAL AcapEmMy or America, April 30, 1927.
235
a DE IE SRE I
236 The Latin Literature of Sport
ous literature in general. Down into the thirteenth century it was the almost exclusive language of history and also of law, both in the form of legislation and of current record, the language of adminis- tration in charter and writ and fiscal account, whether on the part of royal treasurers or of local bailiffs. If it was the language of science, it was also a language of belles lettres, of poetry and parody, of tales and stories, of drama and romance. Though it ultimately yielded these more popular themes to the vulgar tongues, Latin literature long ran parallel to the vernacular, which in many fields it had preceded. There is no aspect of mediaeval life which does not leave its traces in Latin.
Nevertheless, so enormous is the amount of serious literature in Latin, theological, philosophical, religious, legal, and didactic, that its mere bulk creates the danger of taking the period too soberly, if not too sadly, and of falling into that gloom from which our Presi- dent sought to release us in his address of last year.! I cannot hope to vie with Professor Rand as a dispeller of gloom, but I may per- haps reénforce his point by an example drawn from a different field, the literature of sport. We shall understand the Middle Ages better if from time to time we glance at their lighter side, and we shall like- wise understand the significance of Latin better if we recall that even in their gayer moments men did not shake off their Roman inheri- tance. If they played in Latin as well as prayed in Latin, we ought to know it, prepared for the worst. And if my theme appear trivial to the sober-minded, I can further plead in extenuation that it is now April, Chaucer’s April, and Saturday.
Tempus instat floridum, Cantus crescit avium,
sang the Goliardi, likewise in Latin.
In the long perspective of the literature of sport, from the victors’ odes and systematic treatises of the Greeks to the contemporary glorifications of big game and big games, a place must be found for what was written in Latin, since no international language could remain untouched by so universal a human interest. Curiously
1 E. K. Rand, “Mediaeval Gloom and Mediaeval Uniformity,” Specuium, I (1926), 253-268.
wD oe a ad
or
d y
The Latin Literature of Sport 237
enough, this phase of Latin literature is mediaeval, and not Roman. The Romans had spectacles rather than sport; they took their exer- cise vicariously on the side-lines, applauding the professional gladi- ators and charioteers who existed for their amusement. Under such circumstances it was natural that they should produce no Pindaric odes, none of those works on hunting and fishing which the Greeks turned out naturally, not even any important translations of these. Hunting, a servile occupation according to Sallust but popular among the provincials of the Empire, inspired nothing beyond the meagre verse of obscure writers like Grattius and Nemesianus. The ‘mule medicine’ of the later Empire served agriculture not sport, and sport has no place in agricultural literature, whether in prose or verse. Thus Varro’s chapter on wild boars is occupied merely with fatten- ing them in captivity, and leads up to a chapter on fattening snails! The Romans had no books on racing; inveterate gamblers, they did not even write on betting. The arm-chair sportsman who went be- yond such works as Pliny’s Natural History was forced to read Greek.
Even the circuses and spectacles which were so important in the life of mediaeval Constantinople disappeared from the West. The Western Church set its face against them as works of the Devil, and their literary memory was preserved chiefly in Isidore’s Etymologies and the flaming denunciation of Tertullian On Spectacles. The arenas became ruins or castles, and men went to church. The sports of the Middle Ages spring up anew out of combat, out of hunting and hawking, and out of various minor forms of amusement, sports of the nobility rather than of the populace and reflected for it in the new courtly literature of the time. They leave little record from the earlier Middle Ages,’ but by the twelfth and thirteenth centuries they have begun to create a literature of their own, and first of all in the chief language of the period, Latin. In general these Latin writings antedate the better-known vernacular works of the four- teenth and fifteenth centuries, but there is much overlapping and translation back and forth between the several idioms. Still, back of the English period and the French period in the literature of sport
1 See G. W. Pfandler, “Die Vergniigungen der Angelsachsen,” in Anglia, XXIX (1906), 417-524; and for Old French the monographs listed by Ch. V. Langlois, La vie en France au moyen age (Paris, Hachette, 1924), appendice bibliographique, nos. 18, 19, 103, 195, 201.
238 The Latin Literature of Sport
lies a Latin period. We must not, however, infer from this that Latin had a place in the actual language of sport analogous to that held by English in recent times and, somewhat earlier and to a more limited extent, by French. Those who knew Latin best, the clergy, were debarred from most forms of sport, and the knights who made up the sporting class rarely knew Latin. If men wrote on sport in Latin, they commonly hunted and fought in the vernacular. The Latin treatise usually codified vernacular practice. And when one who knows both Latin and sport comes along in the person of the scholar-emperor Frederick II, he complains that he cannot find suit- able Latin equivalents for the technical terms of falconry. So the more classically minded, who derived tournaments (T'rotana agmina) from Troy via the games described in the Aeneid, would have found serious gaps in the Virgilian vocabulary.
The major sport of the Middle Ages was war, with its adjuncts the tournament, the joust, and the judicial duel. War had its open and closed seasons dependent upon conditions of climate and upon the great festivals of Christmas, Easter, and Ascension, even its attempts at quiet week-ends in the Truce of God, and the right of private war was the most valued of the sporting privileges of the mediaeval barons; but war was after all grim business rather than sport, the vocation rather than the avocation of the military classes, dominating their life and giving color to their amusements. Business or sport, war produced no special literature beyond that recording deeds of valor and military prowess. Vegetius was copied in the monasteries but not imitated, and no mediaeval works on military science arose in his place, whether in Latin or in the western ver- naculars, to parallel the great Byzantine works on tactics. Just as description of feudalism began when feudalism was declining, so treatises on tournaments meet us only when the institution is about to disappear, the best example being the Traité de la forme et devis d'un tournot of that patron of the Renaissance, good King René of Provence. Appropriately enough for what was peculiarly a French sport (ludi gallict), this was written in French.!
1 See J. J. Jusserand, Les sports et jeux d’exercice dans V'ancienne France (@d ed., Paris, 1901), pp. 73 ff.
ae em es af a2 sf a
—>~—_>— Js
The Latin Literature of Sport 239
The judicial duel, on the other hand, that crowning illustration of the sporting theory of justice, did produce a Latin literature, for it early fell into the hands of the lawyers, who wrote in Latin. This ancient institution not only canalized into legal channels some- thing of the fighting instincts of the epoch, but it gave wide scope to those technicians of sport who have been in all ages concerned with the qualifications, equipment, and handicaps of contestants, particularly after the introduction of hired champions raised compli- cated questions of eligibility and professionalism. So in that age of summae, the thirteenth century, the eminent civilian Roffredo of Benevento composed a Summa de pugna, where he discusses the cases to which the wager of battle is applicable and the cases in which champions are allowed to take the place of those handicapped by youth, old age, illness, sex, servile rank, or ecclesiastical disabili- ties. The defects of the duel as a form of sport appear in his uncer- tainty as to the proper procedure when one of the contestants loses his weapons (c. 9):
Some say that if the weapons are broken others should be given, since the battle must legally be fought with clubs, but that if the weapons fall to the ground others shall not be supplied, and he who has dropped his arms must blame himself and his evil fortune. For if arms are given back toa man when he is losing, this would really be lifting him up and starting him a second time, which would be unjust. Others say that arms are not to be given back whether they break or fall. In this matter we declare that the custom of the place should be observed and if there is no custom then what seems most just and equitable to the judge shall prevail.
Already the judicial duel has begun to decline; Roffredo’s contem- porary and one-time master, the sporting emperor Frederick II, found it to be only “a sort of divination, out of harmony with natural reason, common law, and equity.” ?
Next to war came the chase, that sport of all times and places, which was considered the special delight of kings and princes. The
1 Edited in F. Patetta, Le ordalie (Turin, 1890), pp. 478-492. Cf. the Scottish examples in G. Neilson, Trial by Combat (London, 1890), cc. 65, 66, 73, 74; and B. Prost, Traités du duel judiciaire (Paris, 1872).
* Constitutions of 1231, ii, 38, ed. J. L. A. Huillard-Bréholles, Historia diplomatica Friderict Secundi (Paris, 1859 ff.), IV, 105.
' a ' i
ESTES DOT.
240 The Latin Literature of Sport
vernacular literature of the chase is well known, at least from the fourteenth century: the Livre du Rot Modus et de la Reine Ratio; the Ars de venerie of William Twici, master huntsman of Edward II; the Roman des déduis of Gace de la Buigne; and the famous Livre de chasse of that mighty hunter and master of six hundred well-loved dogs, Froissart’s patron, Gaston Phébus, count of Foix.' The Latin literature is earlier, going back apparently to the eleventh century, and clearly antedating the great cyclopaedias of the thirteenth cen- tury in which it is cited. Severely practical throughout, it is con- cerned in the first instance with the animals which aid in the chase, horses, dogs, hawks, and falcons, and especially with the diseases of these and their remedies. It would be rash to deny any connection between this and the veterinary medicine of antiquity, but for the most part it shows a humbler origin, its precepts drawn rather from the popular cures and leechdoms of current practice. All kinds of ailments are included, even parasites receiving careful attention toa degree which reminds one of the course on “ Domestic Entomology” announced by an American agricultural college. Those who prac- tise this art, says Adelard of Bath,? not only must be sober, patient, and chaste, alert and of sweet breath, but must avoid those from whom hawks might become infested with vermin, for which special remedies are prescribed. These treatises, chiefly relating to falcons, claim an ancient origin under such titles as the letters “of Aquila and Symmachus and Theodotion to King Ptolemy” and “of Girosius the Spaniard to the Emperor Theodosius,” and they have parallels in Byzantine literature. Those who derive falconry from the East would doubtless trace them all to the Orient, but in these days of multiple hypotheses it is not necessary to assume a common origin for the Norway falcons supplied annually to King Henry II of England and the hawking which Marco Polo describes at the court of the Great Khan. Certainly the treatise which Adelard of Bath in the early twelfth century compiled from ‘King Harold’s
1 See H. Werth, “‘ Altfranzisische Jagdlehrbiicher,” in Zeitschrift fiir romanische Philologie, XII (1888), especially pp. 383-415. D. H. Madden, A Chapter of Mediaeval History: The
Fathers of the Literature of Field Sport and Horses (London, 1924), is a popular account, de-
voted almost entirely to vernacular writers. 2 Engl. Hist. Rev., XXXVII (1922), 399.
— SS
al — tt Mil
— =
The Latin Literature of Sport 241
books’ and his own experience shows no indebtedness to the East,' and the same is apparently true of the work of one Grimaldus, ‘Count of the Sacred Palace,’ which meets us in an eleventh-century manu- script at Poitiers.?, By the thirteenth century we have translations from the Arabic, notably the work of Moamin on the diseases of falcons and hawks turned into Latin ca. 1240 by Theodore, court philosopher of Frederick IT, and the similar work of a certain Yatrib. Another popular Latin treatise goes under the name of an imaginary King Dancus but cites the precepts of William, falconer of King Roger of Sicily, one of the earliest authorities on this art. In spite of its brief account of the different species of hawks and falcons, this is still a work on diseases rather than on sport proper, and the same can be said of the earliest mediaeval book on horses, compiled in Latin by Giordano Ruffo of Calabria for Frederick II and soon translated into Italian and other languages.’ So their contempo- rary, Albertus Magnus, while devoting most space to horses and hawks in his great treatise On Animals, concerns himself only with their diseases.‘
The sport of falconry first comes fully to its own in the De arte venandi cum avibus of the Emperor Frederick II. Of Frederick as a man of science I have written elsewhere ® — his spirit of free in- quiry, his keen interest in animals, his tireless observation and experiment on birds, his wide-ranging activity as a collector, his extraordinary menagerie of beasts from other climes. In another age he might have stalked big game in Africa or explored the fauna of the Upper Amazon with the energy of a Theodore Roosevelt, but without sharing the Rooseveltian certainties or zeal for the better- ment of his fellow men. In any event he was one of the great sports- men of the Middle Ages and indeed of any age, a tireless devotee of hunting who delighted in the wings of a bird as well as in the strength
1 See my Studies in the History of Mediaeval Science (2d ed., Cambridge: Harvard Uni- versity Press, 1927), ch. 17.
* MS. 184, ff. 70-73: “Incipit opusculum Grimaldus baiuli et comitis sacri palacii ad Karulum regem de dieta ciborum et nutritura ancipitrum.”
2 Mediaeval Science, p. 256.
* De animalibus, ed. H. Stadler (Miinster, 1916-20), xxii, 2, 1, cc. 52-93, xxiii, 1, cc. 1-24, pp. 1377-1400, 1453-1493. 5 Mediaeval Science, chs. 12, 14.
: : . ’
242 The Latin Literature of Sport
of a horse and the legs of a man. A man of the open air, his sporting life can be followed in fragments of his administrative correspon- dence, but best of all in his own treatise on falconry to which he de- voted the leisure of thirty years. This art, he tells us, “we have always loved and practised,” and his high standard of sport stands out in his description of the ideal falconer:
Whosoever desires to learn and practise the art of hunting with birds, so as to be competent in feeding, keeping, taming, carrying, and teaching them to hunt other birds, in hunting with them, and if necessary in curing their diseases, should have with him the science of this book, both what is now said and what follows, and when he has this in sufficient measure from one worthier he may receive the title and name of falconer. [Of me- dium stature and medium weight] he must not weary of the art or the necessary labor, but should love it and persevere in it so that even in old age he will be no less devoted to it, all of which will come from the love which he has for the art. For since the art is long and many new things happen in its pursuit, one should never desist from its practice but keep it up throughout life in order to attain greater perfection therein. The fal- coner should have great natural intelligence, since, although he will learn much concerning birds from the experts in this art, he will still need to discover and devise many things out of his own head as occasion arises. For it would be impossible and it would in any case be tiresome to write down everything and consider all possible eventualities, both good and bad, in dealing with individual birds of prey of different temperaments, so let each man supply what is needed from his own mind and from the art of this book. . . . Of those who follow this art there are some who practise it neither to satisfy appetite nor for the sake of gain nor even for the joy of the eye, but only for the sake of having the best birds of prey which shall bring them surpassing fame and honor, and who take their delight in this that they have good birds.!
1 “ Quicunque itaque vult discere et exercere artem venationis cum avibus ad hoc quod possit esse sufficiens in nutriendo, etiam custodiendo mansuefaciendo portando docendo ipsas ut venentur alias aves, in utendo eis in venationibus et in curando eas si opus fuerit, oportet ut in se habeat ea que dicentur iam et postea scientiam huius libri, que omnia cum sufficienter habuerit a digniori nomen accipiens falconarius poterit merito nuncupari. Qui sit mediocris stature ne propter magnitudinem superfluam plus lassus et minus agilis habeatur neque propter parvitatem nimiam sit minus agilis tam equester quam pedester. Sit mediocris habi- tudinis ne propter extenuatam maciem deficiat sustinere laborem aut frigus neque propter corpulentiam et pinguedinem nimiam fastidiat laborem et calorem et pigrior et tardior habe- atur quam convenit huic arti. Non fastidiat artem neque laborem sed diligat et perseveret in ipsa in tantum quod etiam quando devenerit ad senectutem non minus intendat arti, quod totum procedit ex amore quem habebit in arte. Cum enim ars longa sit et plura in usu
zslUC<C rlCUMh hOlUhC PCé3W FH Olle
Aes se
=
Ye 8&8 Seca sa
The Latin Literature of Sport 243
Frederick’s De arte has not reached us in its original form, which jncluded material on hawks and on diseases of falcons which is absent from the surviving manuscripts, perhaps also books on other forms of hunting which he promises “‘if life permit.” A book of his on hawks and dogs was captured at the great defeat before Parma in 1248, and was in the hands of a certain William Bottatus of Milan in 1264; this de luxe copy then disappears, and King Manfred had
access only to an incomplete text and scattered notes of his father’s .
which he used in his revision of the first two books. Manfred’s re- vision is the basis of the printed editions, although they lack the beautiful illuminations with their extraordinarily faithful depiction of birds which have come down to us in the Vatican manuscript. Four other books as yet unpublished are preserved in a different family of manuscripts, but we must repeat that we have not the work as Frederick planned it, perhaps not as he executed it.
The first complete treatise on the subject of falconry, as its author tells us, the De arte is a big book, five hundred and eighty- nine pages in the Mazarine manuscript, and a detailed book. It is a scientific book, approaching the subject from Aristotle but based closely on observation and experiment throughout. Divisivus et inguisitivus, in the words of the preface, it is at the same time a scholastic book, minute and almost mechanical in its divisions and subdivisions. It is also a rigidly practical, even a technical book, written by a falconer for falconers and condensing a long experience secundum eam noviter incidant, nunquam debet homo desistere ab exercitio huius artis sed perseverare quamdiu vixerit ut ipsam artem perfectius consequatur. Debet esse perfecti ingenii, ut, quamvis didicerit plura et a doctis huius artis circa ea que sunt necessaria avibus, tamen ex suo naturali ingenio sciat invenire et excogitare que necessaria fuerint incidenter. Non enim esset possibile scribere singula et noviter emergentia in operationibus bonis et malis avium rapacium, nam cum diversorum sint morum longe durum esset scribere omnia, pro qua te singulis (singulus?) ex suo ingenio et ex arte huius libri quicquid erit expediens ministrare tenetur .. . Alii intendunt in hoc neque causa gule neque causa lucri alterius neque etiam causa delectamenti visus sui, sed tantum ut habeant suas aves rapaces bonas et meliores quam ceteri ex quo adquirant sibi famam et honorem pre ceteris, et in hoc habent magnum delectamentum, scilicet quod habent bonas aves.” Vatican, MS. Pal. Lat. 1071, foll. 68r-69v; Bibliothéque Mazarine, MS. 3716, pp. 173-177; Reliqua librorum Frederici II Imperatoris de arte di cum avibus, ed. J. G. Schneider (Leipzig, 1788-89), I, 107-109.
1 Thave discussed the manuscripts and editions of the De arte in my Mediaeval Science,
th. 14. The preparation of a critical edition has at last been undertaken by Professor J. Strohl of Zurich.
ST ey enn rrremernperseeene
|
A RSET
244 The Latin Literature of Sport
into systematic form for the use of others. To the great regret of the modern reader, it is not discursive or narrative, for there are few specific references to time or place and no hunting stories. Only be- tween the lines can we see the emperor rising betimes for a morn- ing’s sport beside Apulian watercourses, writing respecting the homes and haunts of herons in Sicily, ranging the country about Gubbio under a winter sky for those fat cranes which he describes in a letter to one of his falconers in the South.' Everywhere it is the work of a sportsman.
After a preface exalting the art of falconry, the first book is devoted to zotlogy, and very good zodlogy it is, treating of the structure and habits of birds in general and then of birds of prey in particular. Book Two then takes up the rearing, feeding, and seeling of falcons, and the implements of the art, including the hood which the emperor borrowed from the Arabs on his Crusade and improved for western use. Book Three is concerned with various kinds of lures and their use, especially those made of crane’s wings for that noblest of birds the gerfalcon, and the special training of the swift- footed dogs necessary to aid the falcon against large birds. In Book Four we reach the climax, the pursuit of cranes with gerfalcons, for “cranes are the most famous of all birds which birds of prey are taught to hunt, and the gerfalcon is the noblest of birds of prey and the bird which captures cranes better than other falcons and best goes after them.” ”
When a falconer goes out to hunt cranes with the gerfalcon his gar- ments should be short, for the sake of greater agility, and of a single color, preferably grey or an earthen hue such as farmers wear, for such clothing best stands exposure to changes of place and weather. If he wears fine and many-colored raiment with striking colors, his prey will more quickly fly away. He should have on his head a broad hat, so as to conceal his face from the cranes and frighten them as little as possible, and, if need be, to shelter the falcon from sun, wind, and rain. He will also need heavy leg- gings as a protection against water and brambles. His horse should be
1 Huillard-Bréholles, Historia diplomatica Friderici Secundi, V, 510, 698.
2 “Sed quoniam grues sunt famosiores inter omnes aves non rapaces ad quas docentur capiendas aves rapaces et girofalcus nobilior est avibus rapacibus et est avis que melius capit grues quam alii falcones, et que melius volat ad ipsas.” Mazarine MS. 3716, p. 282.
SQt¢esas8eer
—— a ~~
Ss 2
The Latin Literature of Sport 245
gentle and quiet, running only at the rider’s will and not quickening his pace if the reins are thrown on his neck when that hand is busy with the falcon, obedient and swift-footed and quick to turn to right or left when there is need. He should not be frightened by sudden or strange sounds nor should he whinny easily, for this scares the birds. He must not be hard in the mouth or difficult to curb, lest he injure the falcon in hastening to its aid, and there should be no bells on bridle or breastpiece, which would also frighten the birds.!
The habits of cranes are taken up in detail, their feeding accord- ing to climate, season, and time of day, the advantages and disad- vantages of the various sorts of ground, the means employed to separate one or two or three cranes from the flock, the various methods of attack, the six reasons why a gerfalcon may be driven back by a crane. There is a concluding comparison of the gerfalcon with other falcons. The treatment in the two remaining books is closely parallel, dealing with the hunting of herons with the sacred falcon and of river birds with the peregrine falcon. Thus it is said that against herons, which nest in cane-brakes and in trees near the water, the best time to train falcons is the nesting season, which is early; the best terrain for hunting them is low, open places and small, tortuous rivers. They feed especially on fish, lizards, and young frogs (“worms with a large head and a small tail which are said to
1 “Falconarius quando exire debet foras ad exercendum venationem cum girofalcis ad grues habeat pannos vestimentorum suorum curtos, ut agilliJor sit cum eis, et si[n]t unius coloris qui color sit bisus aut similis coloris terre quali panno utuntur coloni, tales enim panni exponuntur convenientius oportunitatibus temporum et locorum. Si vero vestes haberet splendidas et variorum colorum per quos colores panni essent melius discernibiles, quando indutus talibus pannis exiret foras ad venandum aves quas capere intendunt cum falconibus, minus expecta- rent et facile aufugerent. Habeat pileum amplum super caput, ut per ipsum minus appareat facies eius gruibus et per hoc minus pavescant, et sub ipso defendat falconem a pluvia vento et sole si necesse fuerit. Habeat ocreas crossas in cruribus suis que sint tutamen tibiarum et pedum contra aquam cardos et spinas et cetera nocumenta. Equus vero quem equitare debebit sit mitis stans quiete qui non currat nisi ad voluntatem equitantis et si dimittantur habene sibi super collum causa faciendi aliquid circa faleconem cum alia manu, ipse equus non acceleret propter hoc passum suum sed sit obediens et agilis ad girandum se de|x]trorsum et sinistrorsum ubi necesse fuerit et velox ad currendum. Non sit ad improvisa aut insueta pavescens neque hyniat libenter, nam aves ad auditum hinitus aufugerent. Non sit effrenis neque dure boce, quoniam quando curreretur ad succurrendum falconi posset de facili pesun- dari falconem. Non habeat frenum aut pectorale cum nolis seu campanellis quarum sonitu possent deterr[er]i aves.” Bibliothéque Mazarine, MS. 3716, pp. 373 f.; Rennes, MS. 227, p. 248,
246 The Latin Literature of Sport
become frogs when they grow up”),' and move southward as the water-courses freeze over toward winter, though a few remain in the North about warm springs. Their migrations are discussed accord- ing to the seasons, and it is noted that they are most abundant in Egypt. All this is preliminary to a detailed discussion of the actual pursuit of herons, which closes again with a comparison of the char- acteristics of the sacred falcon with other birds.
The thirteenth century, which saw the climax of the Latin liter- ature of sport in the De arte, also saw its disappearance before the vernacular, unless we make a place for some Latin verse of the Cinquecento.? The beginning of the century produced the Provencal Romans dels auzels cassadors of Daude de Pradas, which probably had predecessors in the vernacular, and Frederick II’s son Enzio was the patron of the translator of Moamin and Yatrib into French. Before the end of the century Frederick’s De arte has been turned into French, and brief works in French and Italian prefigure the more ambitious treatises of the fourteenth century.*
Likewise, it would seem, of the thirteenth century is a brief un- published treatise on hunting the stag, De arte bersandi, which goes under the name of Guicennas, “most excellent hunter by the tes- timony of the princes of Germany and especially of the hunters of Emperor Frederick.” It begins:
Si quis scire desiderat de arte bersandi, in hoc tractatu cognoscere poterit magistratum. Huius autem artis liber vocatur Guicennas et rationabiliter vocatur Guicennas nomine cuiusdam militis Theutonici qui appellabatur Guicennas qui huius artis et libri materiam prebuit. Iste vero dominus Guicennas Theutonicus fuit magister in omni venacione et insuper summus omnium venatorum et specialiter in arte bersandi, sicut testificabantur magni barones et principes Alamanie et maxime venatores excellentis vin domini Frederici Romanorum imperatoris. Dixitque ergo hic dominus
1 “Vermium crossi capitis et pectoris subtilis caude de quibus dicitur quod fiunt rane quando crescunt.” Bibliotheque Mazarine, MS. 3716, pp. 423 f.
2 See J. E. Harting, Bibliotheca Accipitraria (London, 1891), pp. 163-167.
3 Mediucval Science, ch. 17. See now Gunnar Tilander, *‘Etude sur les traductions en vieux frangais du traité de fauconnerie de |’"Empereur Frédéric II,” in Zeitschrift fiir roman- ische Philologie, XLVI (1926), 211-290.
4 Vatican, MS. Reg. Lat. 1227 (saec. xv), foll. 66v-70r; MS. Vat. Lat. 5366 (ca. 1300), foll. 75v-78v: “‘Incipit liber Guicennatis de arte bersandi.”
in-
eS-
rit ter tur ius nus
The Latin Literature of Sport 247
Guicennas quod qui vult scire et esse perfectus in arte ista primo debet apponere cor et etiam voluntatem, et debet esse levis et non piger. Debet etenim cogitare ad occidendum bestiam quam venatur.
Audiatis ergo de ista venacione que quasi domina omnium venacionum reputatur. Primum oportet quod bersator sciat bene trahere et bene menare bestias, et cum istis continetur bene multe alie, ut videlicet quod bersator debet scire aptare brachetum ad sanguinem, et sciat bene stare ad arborem et habeat bonam memoriam rememorandi ubi posuit archarios, et hec est res que magis convenit bersatori quam alii venatori. . . .
After further description of the qualifications of the hunter we are told that he should also know how to make an arrow and a leash as well as how to sound his horn and dress a stag. His equipment should contain among other things cord and flint (petra focalis) and hammer and nails for shoeing his horse in case of necessity. After several chapters on the training of brachets to follow the deer, the author ends with this account of an actual pursuit, even to such details as the disposition of the archers and the patting of the dog’s head :
Postquam vero bersatores viderint bestias, illi qui debent menare de- bent equitare quasi ante faciem bestiarum et debent facere similitudinem quasi non videant eas, et postea circum eas, si bestie expectant, pone arch- atorem quasi contra primam spalam bestiarum et alium archatorem quasi ad pectus et tercium archatorem quasi ad alteram spalam sive ad pulmo- nem, et taliter sint ordinati quod unus non possit ferire alterum cum archa- bunt ad bestias. Si vero unus archator esset qui libentius trahat aliis, pone illum retro pectus bestie. Si vero recedunt bestie et fugerent multum a longe et non videres illas et velles ire retro illas, tunc pone brachetum in terra et reinvenies eas cum bracheto, et quando videbis eas surgere brache- tum attira retro te et frica caput leviter cum manu et monstra ei bonam voluntatem, et istud est quare brachetus multum se letificat. Postea equita circumgirando bestias sicut superius diximus archatoribus ordinatis, et si bestie sunt bone pone archatores deprope et fac trahere taliter ut bestie non videant eos, quia si bestie viderent eos ipse irent tam solitarie quod non posses taliter facere alia vice quod ipse bestie non viderent te. Item debes equitare cum bestiis quamdiu potes, quia quanto cum illis equitabis tanto meliores erunt et quando equitabis post bonas bestias. Explicit liber Gui- cennatis de arte bersandi.
Fishing, on the other hand, has left no similar literary remains from our period, for it was not a recognized sport of the upper classes.
4
' Ht H i] ! { i 4
248 The Latin Literature of Sport
There was, of course, the example of St Peter — did not the Popes seal their breves sub annulo piscatoris?—and fish were a necessity during Lent, but neither the castle and monastery fish ponds nor the great herring fleets of the North tempted a mediaeval Izaak Walton to discourse upon angling as a fine art. Nor did the Middle Ages take kindly to other forms of aqueous diversion. No one wrote on swimming, although the chroniclers recount such exploits as the feats of Lady Petronilla in the fish pond at Guines! or of a diver known as Nicholas the Fish who explored the watery fastnesses of Seylla and Charybdis at the behest of Frederick IT.? There is a litera- ture on bathing, notably verse on the baths of Pozzuoli,’ but this is medicine not sport. A bath in the Middle Ages was a serious affair!
Serious, too, is the treatment of hawking, hunting, and fishing in the manual of country life by Petrus de Crescentiis, whose Rura- lium commodorum libri XII was written ca. 1300 and went through many printed editions both Latin and vernacular. Serious, but hardly sporting, for to him wild beasts are either food, or nuisances to be exterminated after taking them as best one can. What shall we say of a man who catches fish with nets, with quick lime, and — horror of horrors! — with a baited hook? Somehow we do not visualize this sober Bolognese agriculturist as taking a day off with the patient anglers by the banks of Seine, nor yet as registering Viscount Grey’s self-denying vow not to fish the trout streams in imagination before the first of January. Still, his book has a tradi- tional place in the lists of collectors’ books on sport, and it is germane to our present purpose in reminding us that the oldest mediaeval treatises on agriculture are written in Latin, like their models
Varro and Palladius.
Of all indoor games, chess easily took the lead in the Middle Ages. Indeed we are told that “especially from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century chess attained to a popularity in Western
1 Lambert of Ardres, ed. J. Heller, in Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores, XXIV,
629. 2 Salimbene, ed. O. Holder-Egger, in M.G.H., SS., XXXII, 250 f. 2 See Ries, in Mitteilungen des Instituts fiir dsterreichische Geschichtsforschung, XXXII
(1911), 576 ff., and the literature there cited.
IV,
xi
The Latin Literature of Sport 249
Europe which has never been excelled and probably never equalled at any later date.” ! As the favorite pastime of lords and ladies chess leaves its trail throughout the mediaeval chronicles and at greater length in the feudal romances, while it develops a con- siderable literature of its own, and this largely in Latin. As an excellent survey of these texts exists in Mr H. J. R. Murray’s History of Chess, we shall confine ourselves to brief extracts by way of illustration. There are three principal types of these treatises: “didactic works, generally in verse, which are intended to teach beginners the moves and the most elementary principles of play, or to give a rapid description of the game”; moralizing works; and collections of chess problems.’ The first and third of these have a modern sound, although Alexander Neckam in a Latin chapter on the rules of chess, ca. 1200, finds it necessary to begin with the state- ment that the game was invented by Ulysses, and in closing to illustrate the passionate devotion of the players by reference to the romance of Renaud de Montauban: “How many thousands of souls were sent to hell in consequence of that game in which Reginald the son of Eymund, while playing with a noble knight in the palace of Charles the Great, slew his opponent with one of the chessmen.” * Even so did Homer sing of the many valiant souls of heroes which Achilles had sent to Hades before their time.
The ‘moralities’ are more characteristically mediaeval. An age which allegorized everything from the Bible to the spots on dice was not likely to neglect the opportunity presented by a popular game which suggested on the very surface the course of battle, the classes of society, and the vanity of all things earthly. Thus we read in the so-called Innocent Morality, which is obviously of English origin:
The world resembles a chessboard which is chequered white and black, the colors showing the two conditions of life and death, or praise and blame. The chessmen are men of this world who have a common birth, occupy different stations and hold different titles in this life, who contend together,
‘1H. J.R. Murray, A History of Chess (Oxford, 1913), p. 428.
? Ibid., p. 418.
* Ibid., pp. 501, 512, 741. See Neckam, De naturis rerum, ed. T. Wright (Rolls Series), pp. 324-326.
; ’ ' | if ;
250 The Latin Literature of Sport
and finally have a common fate which levels all ranks. The King often lies
under the other pieces in the bag. The King’s move and powers of capture are in all directions, because
the King’s will is law. The Queen’s move is aslant only, because women are so greedy that
they will take nothing except by rapine and injustice. The Rook stands for the itinerant justices who travel over the whole realm, and their move is always straight, because the judge must deal
justly. ... The Pawns are poor men. Their move is straight except when they
take anything; so also the poor man does well so long as he keeps from
ambition. . . . In this game the Devil says ‘Check!’ when a man falls into sin; and
unless he quickly cover the check by turning to repentance, the Devil says, ‘Mate!’ and carries him off to hell, whence is no escape. For the Devil has as many kinds of temptations to catch different types of man, as the hunter has dogs to catch different types of animals.’
Much more elaborate is the enormously popular work of the Lombard Dominican, Jacopo da Cessole, of which we have perhaps a hundred manuscripts in Latin, not to mention early editions and vernacular versions, including an English one by Caxton. When we learn that these twenty-four chapters are really an expanded sermon, we are prepared to find that its chess is secondary to its moral teach- ing and that it is better described by its sub-title Liber de moribus hominum et officiis nobilium. It begins and ends with Babylon, the large, square city of Jeremiah, for the betterment of whose king Evil-Merodach chess was originally devised, and its description of the various classes of society is full of second-hand illustrations, chiefly out of John of Salisbury and the Bible. Thus the knights serve as a text for the military and knightly virtues, with quotations from Paul the Deacon and many gentile writers, and mention of Alexander, David, and Codrus, Sulla, Damon and Pythias, and the laws of Lycurgus. The knight’s victorious progress across the board shows that he who humbleth himself shall be exalted.
Finally it must be remembered that the game of chess was sup- posed, in England at least, to have another application, namely to
1 Murray, p. 530.
e
il
The Latin Literature of Sport 251
the reckoning of the king’s Exchequer, the name of the Arabic chess- board having reached the royal treasury long before the Arabic numerals. The Exchequer unquestionably drew its name from the checkered table or chessboard (scaccartum) about which the royal reckoning took place, and it was easy to find a parallel with this royal game in which the king was never mated. Thus the Dialogue on the Exchequer says:
For just as, in a game of chess, there are certain grades of combatants and they proceed or stand still by certain laws or limitations, some presiding and others advancing: so, in this, some preside, some assist by reason of their office, and no one is free to exceed the fixed laws; as will be manifest from what is to follow. Moreover, as in chess the battle is fought between kings, so in this it is chiefly between two that the conflict takes place and the war is waged, — the treasurer, namely, and the sheriff who sits there to render account; the others sitting by as judges, to see and to judge.'
To quote the Dialogue (1178-79) is to remind ourselves that the Exchequer also had a Latin literature of its own, the earliest de- tailed description of fiscal operations of any western government of the Middle Ages, and a very remarkable description for the twelfth or any other century. Later the Exchequer even inspired poetry, of a very mediocre sort, in the lines which describe the functions and the corruption of its members, ca. 1400:
O scacci camera, locus est mirabilis ille; Ut dicam vera, tortores sunt ibi mille.
Dici miranda scacci domus ergo valebit, In qua si danda desint chekmatque patebit.”
When Latin verse reaches this point, it is time to stop, checkmated.
This paper makes no claim to have exhausted the Latin literature of sport, even in its systematic forms, while of course there is much to glean from scattered references in the Latin chronicles, stories,
‘i, 1, as translated in E. F. Henderson, Select Historical Documents of the Middle Ages (London, 1892), p. 24.
* Printed in full by Mrs M. D. George and C. H. Haskins in Eng. Hist. Rev., XXXVI (1921), 58-67,
A EAE
252 The Latin Literature of Sport
and poetry of the epoch. I trust, however, that enough has been said to establish my main contention that there is a considerable body of such material in Latin, and that account must always be taken of Latin sources for the lighter as well as for the more serious sides of mediaeval life. Omnia tempus habent, said a Book much read in the Middle Ages, and a tempus ridendi and a tempus saltandi are included in the Preacher’s ensuing enumeration. There was a time for play in Latin as well as in the vernacular, as the copyists
remind us:
Explicit expliceat, ludere scriptor eat.
Harvarp UNIVERSITY.
BISHOP CUTHWINI OF LEICESTER (680-691), AMATEUR OF ILLUSTRATED MANUSCRIPTS
By ALBERT STANBURROUGH COOK
N 1902, Traube published (Neues Archiv der Gesellschaft fiir Altere Deutsche Geschichtskunde 27.277-8 ') the following passage from MS. Paris Lat. 12,940, of the 9th century:
IN EPISTULA AD CORINT. SECUNDA.’ A Iudais quinquies quad- ragenas una minus accepi. Quinque vicibus tricenas et novenas quasi trans- gressor legis accepit. Quod dicit ‘a Iudgis quinquies quadragenas una minus accepi’, significat se a Iudzis quinquies flagellatum, ita tamen, ut numquam XL. sed una minus feriretur. Praeeceptum namque erat legis, ut qui delinquentem verberarent, ita modum vindictz temperarent, ut pla- garum modus quadragenarium numerum minime transcenderet. Quod ita ab antiquis intellectum testatur etiam pictura * eiusdem libri, quem reveren- tissimus vir Chuduini, orientalium Anglorum antistes, veniens a Roma, secum Britanniam detulit,* in quo videlicet libro omnes pene ipsius apostoli passiones sive labores per loca oportuna erant depicta. Ubi hic locus ita depictus est, quasi denudatus iaceret apostolus laceratus lacrimisque per- fusus, super asstaret et tortor quadrifidum habens flagellum in manu, sed unam e fidibus in manu sua retentam, tres vero reliquas solum ad feriendum habens exertas. Ubi pictoris sensus facillime patet, quod ei ternis fidibus eum fecit verberari, ut undequadragenarium plagarum numerum com- pleret. Si enim quaternis fidibus percuteret decies percutiens, quadraginta plagas faceret. Si vero ternis tredecies feriens, undequadraginta plagas impleret.
! The whole article, pp. 276-8 (alluded to in Camb. Hist. Eng. Lit. 1. 79), was reproduced (1920) in Traube’s Vorlesungen und Abhandlungen 3. 239-241, the passage in question being found on pp. 240-1.
2 2 Cor. 11. 24.
+ In the light of Lehmann’s attribution of this paragraph to Bede (see below), it is sug- gestive to compare the sentence (Migne 93.459) from Bede’s Questio VI, quoted by Lehmann on his p. 6, contrasting, as it does, the hue of the African with that of the Saxon, and so re- minding us of Gregory’s “‘angelicam habent faciem,” and of Bede’s “niger Aethiops et Saxo candidus” (Opera, ed. Giles 8. 29): “‘Sicut autem in pictura parietum, neque obscurum Aethiopem candido, neque candidi corporis sive capilli [see Plummer, ed. Bede Opera Historica 1. 80, line 1] Saxonem atro decet colore depingi, ita in retributione meritorum juxta suum quisque opus recipiet, et qualis erit actu, talis etiam parebit vultu in judicio; neque omnino ad rem quid quisque figurarit, sed quid egerit pertinebit.”
‘ See p. 256, note 1.
253
|
254 Bishop Cuthwini of Leicester
Traube was also interested in a Cuthwini whose name he found on fol. 68’ of MS. 126 (probably 10th century) of the Plantin-Moretus Museum at Antwerp, containing, among other things, some of which pointed to England, the Carmen Paschale of Sedulius, with illus- trations; and this Cuthwini he believed to designate the owner of an antecedent manuscript from which the Antwerp codex had been derived. Accordingly, he promptly identified him with the one mentioned in the passage quoted above, in these terms (ibid., p. 277):
Einen Cudwini aber kennen wir als Bibliophilen, der hier recht eigentlich hinpassen wiirde. Es ist der Bischof von Dunwich, um 750.
Incidentally, Traube pointed out that a considerable part of the quoted passage had been published as early as 1836, in Victor Cousin’s appendix (p. 622) to his Ouvrages Inédits d’ Abélard, adding that in the meantime he was not aware that any one had paid the slightest attention to it.
Here the matter rested until 1919, when Paul Lehmann! made the discovery that the same passage, with a few slight variants, occurred as Questio II of Aliquot Questionum Liber, in Migne’s Patrologia Latina 93.455 (reproduced from Vol. 7, pp. 390-1 of the Basel edition of Bede’s works, published in 1563), but among the Dulia et Spuria. If the passage were to be regarded as dubious or spurious, matters would remain as they were, and the pilgrim from Rome might have continued to be identified with the Bishop of Dunwich; but Lehmann proceeded to bring forward proofs that Bede was really the author of the passage, and perhaps of the whole Book of Questions. The summation of these proofs is as follows (p. 16):
Gegen Oudin und seine Nachtreter spricht fiir Herkunft von einem Angelsachsen des 8. Jahrhunderts, spricht fiir Beda
1. dass man in karolingischer Zeit (Smaragd, Claudius, Hrabanus, Haimo) in Beda den Verfasser gesehen hat;
2. dass zweimal einzigartige Angaben iiber angelsachsische Bischife des 7. und 8. Jahrhunderts, und an einer anderen Stelle ausdriicklich von einem Sazo, d. h. einem Angelsachsen, die Rede ist;
1 Sitzungsberichte der Phil.-Phil. und der Hist. Klasse der Bayer. Akad. der Wissenschaften, Abhandlung 4.
le
Bishop Cuthwini of Leicester 255
$. dass der Inhalt und vor allem die Form der oder, vorsichtig gesagt, mehrerer Quzestiones vorziiglich zu Beda passen.
And again Lehmann says (p. 21):
Einstweilen ist so viel sicher, dass zum mindesten die niher behand- elten “‘Queestiones Biblice” geschrieben sein kiénnen, und so viel sehr wahrscheinlich, dass sie tatsichlich geschrieben sind von Beda.
In an extended discussion, Lehmann tried to show (pp. 16-20) that Cuthwini may be placed between 716 and 731 as Bishop of Dun- wich. His argument is too long to follow here; but Stubbs (Regis- trum Sacrum Anglicanum, 2d ed., p. 9) makes Hscwulf (whom Bede, 5.28, names Aldberct: cf. Plummer 2.341; Dict. Chr. Biog. 1.76) the incumbent between 675 and 731; and Bright (E. E. Church Hist., 1878, p. 449), retaining Bede’s “ Al(d)ber(c)t,” assigns this same period, though he adds: “The date of his accession is unknown. He may have been bishop in 709.” Moreover, Stubbs said in 1877 (Dict. Chr. Biog. 1.732) of Cuthwini: “His date falls about the middle of the 8th century, but is not exactly determined”; and this he seems to confirm by the position he assigns to him in 1897 (Registrum, p. 230). Accordingly, I cannot follow Lehmann when he says (p. 20):
Damit ist fiir die Regierung Cuthvines, dessen Vorkommen im “ Liber Questionum”’ die Kirchenhistoriker bisher iibersehen haben, ein Spielraum in der Zeit zwischen 716 und 731 gewonnen. Wir diirfen annehmen dass er um 720 gewirkt hat: Cuthvine war Zeitgenosse Bedas.
If, now, we cast about for a Cuthwini who will fulfil all the con- ditions, we shall find him, I believe, in the Bishop of Leicester to whom Stubbs (Registrum, p. 224; cf. p. 6) assigns the period 680-691. Elsewhere Stubbs calls him (Dict. Chr. Biog. 1.732)
the first bishop of Leicester, who was appointed in 679 by Archbishop Theodore when the Mercian dioceses were divided. He is not mentioned by Bede; and Florence of Worcester makes him bishop of Lichfield (M.H.B. 622), but the ancient lists of bishops place him at Leicester. Nothing else is known about him.!
Cf. Haddan and Stubbs, Councils 3. 129, note d; Bright, pp. $10, 450; Oman, England before the Norman Conquest, p. 306.
| | | | |
ii tht a '
; if
De
256 Bishop Cuthwini of Leicester
The bishopric of Leicester was that of the Middle Angles, con. cerning whose extent we are told by Oman (p. 231):
In Bede’s time the whole of the region from the borders of Essex as far as Leicester was known as the land of the Middle Angles. . . . This would include the modern shires of Cambridge (minus the Isle of Ely), Hunting. don, Bedford, Northampton, Leicester.
It seems the more reasonable to attribute to this Cuthwini an interest in illustrated manuscripts because it is precisely during the period of his incumbency that Benedict Biscop, by his importation of paintings into England, must have stimulated the curiosity and interest of at least the higher clergy throughout the land. These pictures were brought in on his return from his last two journeys to Rome (he died early in 690), in 680 and 686 respectively. Bede's accounts are classic (Hist. Abb. 6 and 9: Plummer 1. 369-370, 373):
Picturas imaginum sanctarum quas ad ornandum ecclesiam beati Petri apostoli, quam construxerat, detulit;! imaginem videlicet beate Dei genetricis semperque virginis Maris, simul et duodecim apostolorum, quibus mediam eiusdem ecclesie testudinem, ducto a pariete ad parietem tabulato precingeret; imagines evangelice historize quibus australem secclesise parietem decoraret; imagines visionum apocalipsis beati Iohannis, quibus septentrionalem eque parietem ornaret, quatinus intrantes zccle- siam omnes etiam litterarum ignari, quaquaversum intenderent, vel semper amabilem Christi sanctorumque eius, quamvis in imagine, contemplarentur aspectum; vel Dominice incarnationis gratiam vigilantiore mente recol- erent; vel extremi discrimen examinis, quasi coram oculis habentes, dis- trictius se ipsi examinare meminissent.
. .. Magna quidem copia voluminum sacrorum; sed non minori, sicut et prius, sanctarum imaginum munere ditatus. Nam et tunc Dominice historiz picturas quibus totam beat Dei genetricis, quam in monasterio maiore fecerat, ecclesiam in gyro coronaret, adtulit; imagines quoque ad ornandum monasterium ecclesiamque beati Pauli apostoli de concordia Veteris et Novi Testamenti summa ratione conpositas exibuit: verbi gratia, Isaac ligna quibus immolaretur portantem, et Dominum crucem in qué pateretur zque portantem, proxima super invicem regione, pictura con- iunxit. Item serpenti in heremo a Moyse exaltato, Filium hominis in cruce exaltatum conparavit.?
1 Earlier in this chapter, when speaking of books, relics, etc., Bede had used the verbs
adportavit, advexit, adduceret, adtulit. For the love of books displayed by Ceolfrith (d. 716), Benedict Biscop’s successor a8
3 far
ould ing-
| an the tion and lese s to de’s 13): eati
‘um, tem lem
scle- aper ntur col-
icut ice erio ad rdia tia, qua
ruce
rerbs
yr as
Bishop Cuthwini of Leicester 257
It may be objected that Bede refers to Cuthwini as Bishop of the East Angles, whereas he must in reality have held for eleven years the see of the Middle Angles. To this it may be replied:
(1) of the bishops of East Anglia, Bede, writing in 731, gives no account between 673 (Eccl. Hist. 4.5) and then, which would seem to argue that, for whatever reason, he lacked information concerning them;
(2) The see of Leicester never had but the one regularly ordained bishop, Cuthwini (680-691), since it was next administered by Wil- frith until 705, and in that year was joined to Lichfield until 737, two years after Bede’s death (Stubbs, Registrum, p. 224);
(3) As Bede does not mention the Aliquot Questionum Liber in the list of his works at the end of the Ecclesiastical History (731), he may have composed it in the last four years (731-5) of his life (so Lehmann, p. 20), between the ages of 59 and 63, at a time when he had perhaps grown somewhat forgetful. It is then possible, seeing that he had failed in his history to note Cuthwini’s occupancy of the Middle Anglian see, that he may have confused this see with that or rather with those (Dunwich and Elmham) of East Anglia, only whose first incumbents he had mentioned (4.5) until finally he came to the two (Aldberct and Hadulac) who were ruling when he finished his history (5.23).
abbot, see my article, The Old English Andreas and Bishop Acca of Hexham (Trans. Conn. Acad. of Arts and Sciences 26 (1924). 313-5); by King Aldfrith of Northumbria (d. 705), Bede, Hist. Abb. 15 (Plummer 1.380); by Bishop Wilfrith (d. 709), my cited article, pp. 315-6; by Bishop Aldhelm of Sherborne (d. 709), William of Malmesbury, Gesta Pontificum, ed. Hamilton, pp. 376-8; by Bishops Eadfrith (d. 721) and 2thilwald (d. 740) of Lindisfarne, Dict. Chr. Biog. 2. 7, 229-230; my cited article, pp. 312-3, 315-6.
Yate University.
He iif a e We |
ee
A BRIEF STUDY OF THE LATINITY OF THE DIPLOMATA ISSUED BY THE MEROVINGIAN KINGS
By HENRY MILLER MARTIN
HE Latin documents written at the Merovingian court in the
seventh century would have been barely intelligible to a purist of Cicero’s age. Weakening or complete loss of terminations, confu- sion of function and a transformed vowel and consonant system have strangely altered the language of the man of Arpinum. Analogy has also played its freaks. Some of the secretaries, Christians if not clerics, were very familiar with the Vulgate, and through this channel Grecisms found their way into barbarity. Above all, directness tends to displace circumlocution. A few of the more striking phenomena observed in a field so rich are here presented for consideration.’
Forms I. Irregularities in declension:
1. Nouns.
(a) Second and fourth declensions. In the interchange that took place between nouns of different gender, the neuters tend to become masculine:? beneficius, 74, 52; templus, 83, 13; bonarios, 101, 10; privilegius, 83, 5; vinus, 63, 7. Fredum is once declined in the plural as masculine: fredos, 17, 40; but also by a natural confusion the neuter plural has passed bodily into the first declension: fretas con- cessas, 79, 53. Very infrequently masculines become neuter: locella, 55, 27, is certainly traceable to the influence of loca. Parallel with fructus (de omnes fructus terre, 24, 43) is seen the neuter plural fructa: illa fructa, hoc est vinus, etc., 63, 7; tam illa fructa de illa alia medietate, 74, 22. Such alternative forms may be first collective;’
1 The material here examined comprises the 121 diplomata of the sixth, seventh, and
eighth centuries, published in Mon. Germ. Hist., ed. G. H. Pertz, Diplomatum imperii, I (Hannover, 1872).
2 Max Bonnet, Le Latin de Grégoire de Tours (Paris, 1890), p. 345.
3 Cf. grada, J. Pirson, La Langue des Inscriptions Latines de la Gaule (Brussels, 1901), p. 155; thyrsa, Archiv fiir Lat. Lex., X11, 180; A. J. Carnoy, Le Latin d’ Espagne d'aprés les Inscriptions (2d rev. ed., Brussels, 1906), p. 227; M. H. d’Arbois de Jubainville, La Déclinavson
258
SS ean naff ee 6aeslUuhelC CUCU lc lC lO
the rist ifu- ave has not nel nds
ena
ook yme 10; iral the “On- lla, vith iral alia re; and ii, I
01), 3s les 1180N
The Latinity of the Diplomata 259
in the next stage they are treated as feminine singular. This has evidently happened to fructa: Et quicquid de fructa aut paecunia vel reliqua rem, quod, etc., 59, 20. Patronus shows in one example the genitive singular patronis: de baselica peculiaris patronis nostri, 74, 3. It is likely that the juxtaposition of peculiaris facilitated transfer of its ending to the word immediately following, and that the change had no foundation in usage.
(b) Third declension: A few masculine and feminine nouns ter- minating in -is, e.g., pulvis, cinis, show in Vulgar Latin a form in -ug as well, and hence reversion to neuter is supposedly marked. In the cartularies comus once stands for comes: Bertoaldus, comus palate nostri, 68, 6. In this isolated example it seems evident that -us was loosely taken over from the preceding word.”
The popular tendency to make over the nominative of impari- syllabics on the genitive, when no shift in accent was involved, be- came operative in Vulgar Latin in any case.* Hence we find palu- dis=palus: qui paludis esse videtur, 32, 6 and optimatis =optimas: ut dum inluster vir Ermenricus, optimatis noster, 61, 16. Optimatis is also dative and ablative plural as a result of possible correspondence with optimus: (cum) Agnerico, Antenero . . . optematis, 62, 32. Pondus is peculiar in a double sense. First, the accusative singular is used where the plural is required:* argenti pondus tres, 96, 40. Secondly, the plural ponda is found: carne ponda vegente, 76, 41. The writer was led astray by the monoptote pondo, which he sup- posed to be the ablative of pondus. Ponda is therefore a compromise between pondo and pondera. Frater has apparently passed into the second declension: pro oportunetate ipsius basilice vel necessetate fratrorum, 46, 28. No other examples occur, and the Latin, also, is corrupt. Inscriptions, however, yield the dative and ablative forms benemerentis, C. I. L., II1., 14535; manis, C. I. L., 111, 14217; castoris,
Latine en Gaule (Paris, 1872), p. 56; C. H. Grandgent, An Introduction to Vulgar Latin (Boston: Heath, 1908), p. 147, § 351; Bonnet, op. cit., p. 350.
1 Grandgent, op. cit., p. 155, § 370.
* Jubainville (op. cit., p. 79), considered this a change of declension; cf. dolum = dolorem, C.1.L., X11, 2033.
* Grandgent (op. cit., p. 153, §367 ult.) cites heredis; Jubainville, op. cit., p. 85.
‘ Fr. Neue, Formenlehre der Lateinischen Sprache ($d ed., Leipzig, 1892-1905), I, 867-869.
ere ee
260 The Latinity of the Diplomata
C.1.L., X11, 2999, while frequently dolus =dolor (C.I.L., XII, 2033), The nominative plurals patri, homini, pedi, together with parentorum are cited as of a very late period.’
2. Adjectives. The form alicus as nominative singular occurs:? homo alicus, nomine Friulfus, 74, 3. The ending -us, for -cs, is prob- ably the borrowed accusative form, i.e., alicus = aliquos; cf. ad alecus de suis propinquis, 14, 3; mansellus alicus . . . visi fuemus concessisse, 43, 44. Plus, defective at all periods, tends to keep only pluris for all cases and genders in the plural: (cum) reliquis quam- pluris nostris fedilebus, 58, 42. The partial declension of adjectives* is abundantly attested by other adjectives as well. Especially was the termination -ibus avoided in declining present participles: a Deo timentis hominebus, 37, 37; 62, 4; apendiciis ad se pertenentis, 74, 17; loca nuncupantes Scancia et Cambrione, 109, 6, 7 and 8; de caduces rebus, 72, 15. In proper names, where the two elements virtually fused into one, and occasionally in common nouns also, vetus resisted declension ‘: in fisco nostro Vetus Clippiaco, 77, 33; (habeat) Vetus Vineas . . . Tilerias, Beriam, 40, 20; ad vetus viam quae venit, etc., 4, 43; cf. Tyro vetere, Justin., 11, 10, 11.
II. Irregularities in conjugation:
Like pono, censeo shows the perfect censivi: hoc ibidem cinsiverunt, 60, 24; but censiut corresponding to posiut ® in inscriptions is not found. Dego influenced by tenui and habui gives degut® for degi: sub qua sancta Caesaria deguit, 9, 12. Similarly possideo shows possiduit. It will be noticed that its model, tenuit, closely precedes: ibidem tenuit, vel . . . possiduit, 66, 44. Here, then, are additions to the relatively small class’ which made analogical perfects in -ui. Irregular verbs are conjugated regularly in certain parts: recepire
1 Grandgent, op. cit., p. 154, § 368; Kr. Nyrop, Grammaire Historique de la Langue Frangaise (Copenhagen, 1903), Il, 178, § 239, 2.
2 Grandgent, op. cit., § 226 and § 254; Pirson, op. cit., p. 57; Carnoy, op. cit., p. 230; H. Schuchardt, Vokalismus des Vulgdrlateins, IT (Leipzig, 1867), 482 f.
3 Arbois de Jubainville, op. cit., pp. 123, 125.
4 M. Petschenig (Archiv f. Lat. Lexikog. u. Gramm., X, 1898, 532) mentions only Urbemvetus.
5 Pirson, op. cit., p. 151; Carnoy,.op. cit., p. 252.
6 Neue (op. cit., III, 413) gives one example from Ennodius.
7 Grandgent, op. cit., p. 180, § 428.
The Latinity of the Diplomata 261
vellibat, 33, 38; 84, 25; inferrire, 54, 52. Possum’ shows regular forms conjugated on the stem pot(d): potibat, 62, 53; non podibat, 31, 20; pottbu<nt>,? 64, 21. Minuo is regularly found in the first conjugation: auferre aut menoare . . . non debeat, 20, 23; 5, 11.
Syntax I. Concord of the demonstrative and relative:
The neuter singular of the demonstrative hic is used with a free- dom far exceeding that of the comic poets* to represent plurality, referring indifferently to a series of nouns or to one noun in the plural. The nouns usually designate property, and hoc is therefore, roughly speaking, ‘this stuff’ or ‘this tax’: oleo..., garo..., pipere, etc., ad ipsus missus, qui hoc exigeri cnleheren, 76, 39; ubicumque telleneus, portatecus . . . vel aliquas reddebucionis . . . qui hoc inferrire vidintur, 54, 44; de carra eorum qui hoc inferre solheber, 73, 28; inter ceteras peticiones illud, quae pro salute adscribetur,‘ 19, 44. In the same way quod may refer to a masculine, feminine, or a plural noun.’ Bonnet denominates quod, as thus misused by Greg- ory of Tours, a mere relative sign or even a conjunction.’ The con- cord in some cases, however, is not totally faulty, because the writer was thinking in terms of mass or quantity, and the nouns are not the true antecedents: seu reliqua, facultatem vel villas illas, quod . .
1 Grandgent, op. cit., p. 168, § 403.
2 A few deponents become active and vice versa: officium fungire, 62, 10; debiat in augmentis profeciscere, 62, 12; Condecet . . . prosequere, 15, 12; cf. debeatur, 25, 4; 24, 41; ut haec aucto- retas firmiorem obteniatur vigorem, 44, 7; (generare) penitus non praesumatur, 60, 14; 30, 43; 4, 31; quantum .. . ad fiscos nostros pertinetur, 25, @.
* R. Kithner, Ausfiihrl. Gram. d. Lat. Spr. (Hannover: Hahn, 1912), II, i, 57, 3a; A.A. Draeger, Histor. Syntax der Lat. Spr. (2d ed., Leipzig, 1878), 1, § 112; R. Klotz, Handbuch der Lat. Stilistik (Leipzig, 1874), p. 91. In the same way ea may in Arnobius Afer refer to res, E. Lifstedt, Arnobiana (Arsskrift Lunds Universitets, Afd. 1, Bd. 12, Nr 5, 1917), p. 88.
‘ Examples of a slightly different kind occur in abundance illustrative of agreement found even in Cicero: cuius petitione(m) mercedem aeternam . . . adquirere cupientes, nos id praestitisse, 40, 15; omnis emunaetas de villa prefate sancti baselice fuit concessa, . . . et hoc usque nune inviolabiliter adserit esse conservatum, 72, 22; cf. Klotz, op. cit., pp. 91 f.; Kiihner, op. cit., p. 62, 2.
* Draeger, op. cit., I, 189.
* Bonnet, op. cit., p. 509; Jubainville, op. cit., p. 154. Quod referring to a determinate antecedent persisted in Old French; cf. Ferd. Brunot, Histoire de la Langue Frangaise, I (Paris: Colin, 1905), $44
262 The Latinity of the Diplomata
nuscuntur pervenisse, 14, 34; qualibet redebicione quod exinde fiscus noster sperare potest, 46, 38; vaccas cento soldaris, quod . . . sperabatur, 74, 47.
A situation of some uncertainty to the clerks arose in the case of the two adjacent monasteries, Malmédy and Stavelot. In men- tioning them the writers sometimes said monasteria, other times monasterium,' yet the relative or attribute is always plural. A variant reading monasteria on monasteritum (26, 37) points to an attempt by a later hand to perfect the concord: monasteria Mal- mundarium, sive Stabulaus cognominata . . . quae vir . . . consiruzit, 23, 34; 87, 38; 28, 26; ad monasterium Stabulaus et Malmundarium, quae tpse princeps . . . construxit, 26, 37; abba de monasterio Stablau et Malmunderio, quae sunt in honore, 48, 3.
II. Case syntax:
(a) Genitive. A noun of material normally sustains to its corre- sponding noun expressing measure or weight a partitive relation. Its case is the genitive in the literature? (cf. omnia genera avium, Petron. Cena Trimal., 69; omne genus poma, ibid., 71). In the charters, on the contrary, the two are often independent, each being sepa- rately object of the verb. The popular mode of expression, common in commercial language of all nations and times, restores the fresh- ness of the original transaction and reproduces the items as they might be read from the ledger: (dare) carne ponda vegente . . . piper uncia 1, cimina uncias 2, sal, etc., 76, 41; argento liberas dece ... dare debirit, 54, 9; vino bono modios cento, 54, 2. The following curious reversal* should then be noticed: vineas non minimae quantitatis, 40, 25. A few lines farther on the writer corrected him- self: vinearum non modicam quantitatem, 40, 29.
After de parte the genitive is strictly correct (de parti aecclisiae suae, 59, 49), but rarely used. Curiously enough the clerks thought
1 Kiihner (op. cit., p. 55, 2) partially treats the case. The inference seems to be that 4
substantive in apposition with two others should be plural; cf. provincias Siciliam atque Africam, Caesar, B.C., ii, 32, 2.
2 Neue, op. cit., 1, 867-869; F. Kaulen, Handbuch zur Biblischen Vulgata (Mainz, 1870; Freiburg, 1904), p. 221, par. 146.
3 Sex dies .. . spatii, Caesar, B.C., i, 3,6; Ktihner, op. cit., p. 429, 3a, Anm. 7. Note that in Spanish veinte minutos de parada is correct and normal.
CUS tur,
1en- mes
) an
fal-
um, blau
rre-
Its ron. cers, epa- mon esh- they per ving mae him- isiae ight
hat a atque
1870;
e that
The Latinity of the Diplomata 263
of de parte as a single preposition, the equivalent of de, and requiring the ablative. Many examples occur: de parte Bertino abbate, 36, 36; de parte domno Mummoleno, 36, 34; de parte genetore suo, 84, 15; de parti genetrict sua, 45, 13.
(b) Dative. The dative nobis stands at the same time as the object of facere and subject of a dependent infinitive. An accidental resemblance to a well-known French construction then ensues: Dum ea nobis Dominus in solio parentum nostrorum fecit sedere, 35, 49; Dum et nobis divina pietas ad legitema etate fecit pervenire, 51, 22. Since other examples, though not so certain, occur, it seems clear that these writers regarded facere ' as a verb of ordering; * in general these, including tubere, may govern the dative in the diplomata: vobis omnino iobemmus, 54, 47.
Analogy, it would seem, also plays a prime réle in causing the use of the dative after certain purely transitive verbs. The starting point is with obaudire, rightly construed with the dative: Si petitiont- bus servorum vel ancillarum Dei . . . libenter obaudimus, 45, 39. Then the dative may stand with any verb of similar meaning. Examples are plentiful enough to debar accident or mere confusion of endings: (debet) praecipue petitionibus sacerdotum . . . benigno animo suscipere 49, 35; 29, 36; 28, 24; st oportunitatibus ecclesiarum . . . perducimus ad effectum, 27, 35; cf. St petitiones sacerdotum . . . perducimus ad efectum, 47, 50. With audio the dative of a thing,’ familiar in the expression audiens dicto sum, is extended to other nouns: petitionibus sacerdotum . . . libenter audimus, 56, 14.
The dative of the person after verbs of asking is familiar in the Latin of Gregory of Tours.‘ In the diplomata it is the favored con- struction. The accusative and the ablative with a preposition also occur, if seldom (petiit a nobis, 41, 9). The very diversity is indica- tive of the uncertainty felt about the case regimen of rogo and com-
? Ph. Thielmann, “ Facere mit dem Infinitiv,” Archiv f. Lat. Lerikog. u. Gramm., III (1886), 177 f.; Bonnet, op. cit., p. 673; Heinrich Hoppe, Syntax und Stil des Tertullian (Leipzig, 1903), p. 51.
? Thielmann (art. cit., pp. 191 f.), mentions the circumstance; but the dative is not found in the examples cited by him; Arbois de Jubainville, op. cit., p. 152.
* Kiihner, op. cit., p. 312 c: audio (“Vorklass. zweifelh., nachklass.”’).
* Bonnet, op. cit., p. 543; Kaulen, op. cit., p. 228.
264 The Latinity of the Diplomata
panion verbs: nobis petierunt, 109, 24; in quo nostris auribus recte poposcerint, 47, 51; petit . . . abba celsitudini nostrae, 52, 43; clemen- tiae regni nostri expetiit, 12, 36. Interrogo regularly governs the dative: interrogatum fuit ei, 61, 9. But when the clerk attempted to use it in the passive with a noun subject, he failed, halting between the personal and impersonal constructions: interrogatum fuit ipsius Wulframnus, an etc., 98, 16.
Deviations from correct usage are observed with a few impersonal verbs. With delectat, occasionally impersonal in Late Latin, e. g., Boethius, the dative supplants the accusative by confusion with placet: (ut) delectet ipsis monachis, 18, 1; et ipsis servis Det . . . delectit, 52, 1. A further advance is then marked by the employment of the accusative with ad. The preposition is, of course, a mere sign of the dative: et ad ipsa congrigacione delictit . . . deprecare, 62, 13. Licet correctly stands with either the dative or accusative; but the secre- taries nodded when they wrote the attribute in the accusative closely following the substantive in the dative. In Classical Latin, this occurred rarely,’ and then only when the adjective was in the predicate. Illud etiam nobis . . . virorum pensantes merita, placuit addendum, 17, 34; cf. Sed liceat eis sub sermone nostrae tuitionis . . . qutetos vivere, 12, 43.
(c) Accusative. Anhelare shows the irregularity of taking its object in the accusative with ad: quem . . . videmus iugiter ad caeles- tem patriam anhelare, 15, 21. The influence of the Vulgate is here manifest.? The verb, never popular, entered Romance late and with- out the preposition; cf. Spanish anhelar (por) un bien, and the obso- lete French anhéler. The accusative of the person freely appears with peto in accordance with a usage directly biblical, although ulti- mately Greek: * (monachus) petiit mansuetudinem nostram ut hoc nos- trum praeceptum . . . plenius confirmare deberemus, 32, 11; abba petiit celsitudinem nostri, ut... judex . . . ingressum habire non deberit, 61,43.
1 Kiihner, op. cit., p. 679, par. 125, 5c. 2 Quemadmodum desiderat cervus ad fontes aquarum: ita desiderat anima mea ad te, Deus.
Sitinit anima mea ad Deum fortem vivum, Ps., 41, 1 and 2. 3 H. Rénsch (Itala und Vulgata, 2d ed., Marburg, 1875, p. 441), considered this a Grecism. Peto may properly take a second accusative only with a neuter pronoun. Kiihner, op. cit.
p. 301 (§ 73, 6).
ti- 08- nit 3.
“it,
The Latinity of the Diplomata 265
Placet and its compounds admit the accusative of a pronoun which cannot be construed as subject of the following infinitive or clause: ideo nos . . . placutt propalare, 17, 8; Ideo nos . . . conplacutt, 44, 35. By evident corruption suggero ' allows the accusative instead of the required dative (abba clementie regni nostri sugessit, eo quod . . . rex ... villam . . . contradidit, 26, 36; 32, 3) in a single example while still retaining its original force: (Papolenus) clementiam regni nostri suggessit, eo quod domnus noster et avunculus . . . locella aliqua com- mutassent, 55, 24. Decidedly peculiar is superstes esse converted into a transitive verb. No doubt, the construction of swper was vivid in the writer’s mind at the moment of composition: et si nepus . . . illum superstis fuertt, 102, 31. An analogous case is intersum, which is often transitive in inscriptions of Gaul.*
(d) Ablative. In one instance utor, in popular speech frequently transitive, is followed by the ablative with de. The preposition is not the partitive sign, but serves to mark more precisely the instru- mental ablative: quatinus tpsi de predictis villis utentes . . . exorent, 18, 29. The usage seems to have survived in French user de and Spanish usar de.
Ill. Verb syntaz:
1. Tense. The future infinitive is found after volo* where the present would suffice. The writer felt that increased precision was thereby gained. The type was credo (puto) id futurum esse, e.g., quod futurum esse non credimus, 99, 19. The way then lay open for volo id futurum esse: volomos esse mansurum, 46, 32; 51, 37; quod in perpetuum volemus esse mansurum, 44, 1; 49, 14.
The perfect is freely employed to express contemporaneous action after other verbs than volo and its synonyms.‘ This may be said to be a legal and poetic convention. First its unique use after videor in its proper sense in Gregory of Tours ° is here duplicated: hoc . . .
1 J. Durel, Commodien (Paris, 1912), p. 301.
? Pirson, op. cit., p. 171.
* Kiihner, op. cit., p. 715, 11, Anm. 5, 6; Draeger, op. cit., II, 401 and 407.
‘ Kiihner, op. cit., p. 184; Meyer-Liibke in G. Griber’s Grundriss d. Roman. Philol., I, 489; Bayard, Le Latin de Saint Cyprien (Paris, 1902), p. 266; Hoppe, op. cit., p. 5%, 8; Rénsch,
op. cit., p. 431. * Bonnet, op. cit., p. 638.
266 The Latinity of the Diplomata
vist fuimus concessisse, 29, 41; 83, 41; but the perfect in this sense also occurs after consisto, possum, and sollicito: consteti decrevisse, 32, 45; 70, 8; sicut ad cellario fisce potuerant esse exactati, 73, 21; sollicetum fuit ipsi [Aigathelo a nobis . . . interrogasse, 65, 6. The perfect may be coupled with the present as its coequal: et hoc ad praesens pars . . . possedisse vel dominari videtur, 42, 35.
2. Gerund and gerundive: The distinction between these two is lost (ad causas audiendum vel fridda exigendum, 62, 6) and their sphere is widely extended.! They may stand after practically any verb, when the intent is to express futurity or doubt. Therefore they may replace: (a) the infinitive or the subjunctive with ut of classic prose: et tllud nobis placuit inserendum, 94, 8; et tllud viro... placuit inserendi, 83, 33; nec rotaticum . . . extorquendum, nec... redibutiones exactare praesumatur, 50, 6; (b) the future passive parti- ciple: Gengulfus omnes causas ipsius monasterti ad prosequendum é redintegrandum deberet recipere, 41, 6; hoc dibiat recipere ad posse- dendum, 44, 6. A real advance, however, is marked in its use to express purpose after verbs of motion: de eius villas tam ambolandum quam revertendum perrexirent, 46, 36; seu cellario fuerint egressi mer- candum, 35, 18. Sporadic examples occur also in Lucifer of Cagliari, and perhaps several in Venantius Fortunatus.?
8. Mood. (a) Infinitive: The infinitive in the so-called Greek construction * serves to express purpose, as it does in other writers subject to Christian influence: qui hoc exigeri ambularent, 76, 38. It is further freely extended, as universally in the late period,‘ to verbs which in classic prose did not allow an infinitive or were prefer- ably followed by a substantive clause:
dignor: ® non minima miracola virtute Christi per tpsus dignabatur,
operart, 82, 45.
1 H. Goelzer, Etude Lex. et Gram. de la Latinité de St.-J éréme (Paris, 1884), p. 387; Bonnet, op. cit., p. 655; W. Hartel, Archiv f. Lat. Lexikog. u. Gramm., III (1886), 48; Bechtel Unis. of Chicago Studies in Class. Philol., 1V, 125 (Peregrinatio).
2 W. Hartel, Archiv f. Lat. Lerikog. u. Gramm., III (1886), 41 (iste homo dei qui a deo objurgandum Hieroboam regem fuerat missus).
3 Rénsch, op. cit., p. 447; Goelzer, op. cit., p. 370.
4 F. Gabarrou, Le Latin d’ Arnobe (Paris: Champion, 1921), p. 136 f.; Goelzer, op. cit. p. 363 f.; Hoppe, op. cit., p. 45.
5 Draeger, op. cit., p. 332; Kiihner, op. cit., p. 674b.
36,
) is eir
ny ore
of
rti- ret 33e-
um ur- eek
ters
' to fer-
tur,
nnet, iv. of
a deo
The Latinity of the Diplomata 267
mereor:' ex hoc habyre meriamur in aeterna tabernacola, 72, 18; 82, 43; 83, 1.
pertimesco:* et nullam refragationem . . . habere non pertimescant, 87, 12.
peto:* episcopus abba eorum una cum tpsis monachis nobis exinde confirmationem . . . petierunt adfirmare, 28, 36; eam nostra regali auctoritate confirmari petitt, 27, 5.
procuro: (quam) ad missus . . . dare et adimplere procureiis, 77, 7.
rogo: * et ipsa vindicione fiere et firmare rogasit, 84, 24; precariam ob hoc fiert rogassit, 57, 27.
sollicito: > Relecta ipsa strumenta, sollicetum fuit ipsi [Aigathe]o a nobis vel a proceribus nostris interrogasse, 65, 6.
The infinitive preceded by ipsum and dependent on dono ® corre- sponds to the Greek articular infinitive, of which it is a transcription. The writer was without doubt a priest: qui eis donavit ipsum vivere vel regnare, 10, 16.
(b) Subjunctive: The pluperfect subjunctive occurs in direct de- pendence on videor and on verbs of saying as well, taking the place of the perfect infinitive. This peculiarity is observed in other collec- tions of charters, and is variously attributed to loss of final -t, -né in pronunciation or to confusion between two constructions, quod subj. and the perfect infinitive: 7 testimuniavit ligibus visus futt adimplissit, 45, 26; placitum eorum vise sunt custudissent, 54, 14; ipsi nec vinissit ad placitum .. . nec nulla sonia nunciassit adfirmat, 54, 15; 59, 9.
1 Goelzer, op. cit., p. 367; Draeger, op. cit., p. 331 (par. 420).
* Goelzer, op. cit., p. 368, 10; one example is cited by Draeger (op. cit., p. 667): Afran. com. 270.
* Goelzer, op. cit., p. 371; Draeger, op. cit., p. 321 (par. 417).
‘ Draeger, op. cit., p. $21 (par. 417, 1); ibid., p. 408, 6 a.
5 Ibid., p. 328 e.
® Kiihner, op. cit., p. 681 b; Goelzer (Gram. in Sulp. Severum Observationes, Paris, 1883, p. 65) cites from Severus: quibus donaverit habere Martinum, Dial., ITI, 17, 6.
7 J. Pirson, “Le Latin des Formules Mérovingiennes et Carolingiennes,” Roman. Forsch., XX VI (1909), 898; L. Beszard, La Langue des Formules de Sens (Paris: Champion, 1910), p. 57.
Howarp COLLEGE.
WILLIAM OF MALMESBURY AND THE IRISH By CLARK HARRIS SLOVER
N the imaginative literature of mediaeval England, especially in the material dealing with King Arthur and his knights, there are numerous stories and motifs which find close parallels in the Celtic literature of Wales and Ireland. How far we are justified in accepting such parallels as evidence of Celtic origin, however, is a matter of controversy. As the controversy proceeds, it becomes increasingly apparent that the attempt to make a just estimate of the influence of Celtic literature on the literature of mediaeval Eng- land is seriously hampered by lack of information about the channels available for the transmission of Celtic culture to English literary consciousness. Celtic ideas, to be sure, could have been communi- cated by the Welsh to their Norman conquerors, but, unfortunately, the scantiness of early Welsh imaginative literature makes it diffi- cult to find out just what literary ideas the Welsh had to communi- cate. As we turn hopefully to the generous supply of Celtic literary material represented by the literature of early Ireland, we are con- fronted by the question, what channels were available for the trans- mission of Irish literature and literary ideas from Ireland to England before and during the period in which the literature of romance in England took its rise?
The purpose of this study, therefore, is to consider the part played in this transmission by William of Malmesbury, the distin- guished twelfth-century historian, during his period of service as a writer of advertising propaganda for the great publicity campaign at Glastonbury Abbey.
During the eleventh and twelfth centuries the power and influ- ence of Glastonbury were seriously impaired by the growing reputa- tion of Canterbury and Wells. The Glastonbury monks, in order to enlist public support for their abbey, embarked upon a comprehen- sive scheme of advertising. Their procedure consisted largely of gathering up various ecclesiastical and secular traditions — British,
268
William of Malmesbury and the Irish 269
Saxon, and Irish — and reshaping them in such a way as to reflect honor and glory upon Glastonbury.
The significance of this process for the history of mediaeval Eng- lish literature lies principally in the fact that one set of traditions thus utilized were those dealing with King Arthur. According to Glastonbury propaganda, Arthur granted lands and immunities to the abbey out of gratitude to St Gildas, who rescued Guinevere from an_abductor;! he endowed a choir of twenty-four monks to pray for the soul of his nephew Ider, who died there from his wounds after fighting against three giants; * and finally both he and Guinevere were buried at Glastonbury.* The most interesting achievement, perhaps, was the Arthurian romance, Perlesvaus, which consists of a combination of Arthurian and Glastonbury traditions.‘
William’s intimate connection with a movement which was so largely concerned with the collection and dissemination of romantic material gives special importance to his interest in Irish culture and his use of Irish documents. It should prove profitable, therefore, to make rather careful inquiry into the following details of his career: (1) his contact with Irish tradition before he came to Glastonbury; (2) his contact with Irish tradition at Glastonbury; (3) his use of Irish material at Glastonbury; and (4) his position as an intermedi- ary between Ireland and the English literary world of the twelfth century.
William was sieiated at Malmesbury Abbey, a place which pre- served for many years a strong tradition of Irish influence. The Abbey was said to have been founded by an Irish cleric, Maidulphus (Maelduibh).’ Aldhelm, the famous Bishop of Sherborne, received
1 See the Vita Gildae ascribed to Caradoc of Llancarvan, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auct. Ant., Chronica Minora, iii, 109, 110.
* De Antiquitate Glastoniensis Ecclesiae, by William of Malmesbury, in Migne, Pat. Lat., CLXXIX, col. 1701.
5 Giraldis Cambrensis Speculum Ecclesiae, ii, 8-10, in Opera, IV, ed. J. S. Brewer, London, 1878 (Rolls Ser., No. 21).
‘ The Glastonbury connections of this romance have been treated in a series of articles by W. A. Nitze, Modern Philology, I (1903-04), 1 ff., 255 ff.; Studies in Philology (University of North Carolina), XV (1918), 7 ff.; Mod. Phil., XVII (1919-20), 151 ff., 605 ff.
5 Willelmi Malmesbiriensis Monachi de Gestis Regum Anglorum, edited by W. Stubbs,
london, 1887-89 (Rolls Ser., No. 90), p. 30. The statement here presented is based on a letter ascribed to Pope Sergius I (Mon. Germ. Hist., Auct. Ant., XV, 513), in which the
270 William of Malmesbury and the Irish
part of his education there under an Irishman, possibly Maelduibh himself. In subsequent years he corresponded with friends in Ire- land ? and with Irish on the Continent.* If we may trust the tradi- tion mentioned by Giraldus Cambrensis,* he engaged in an exag- gerated form of asceticism very similar to that ascribed to certain
Irish monks.*® ; It is also worthy of note that during the twelfth century Malmes-
bury Abbey seems to have had rather close relations with Abingdon, another monastery which fostered a tradition of foundation by the Irish. The chief connecting link between the two monasteries was Faricius (f 1117), the biographer of Aldhelm, who was at first cel- larer of Malmesbury and later abbot of Abingdon. His interest in Malmesbury must certainly have been preserved and intensified by his labors in compiling the Vita Sancti Aldhelmi.’
When William went to Glastonbury, therefore, he must have been well acquainted with Irish tradition. At Glastonbury, moreover, he
name of the founder is given as Meldum. On the form of the name, see the note by Charles Plummer in his Venerabilis Baedae Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum (Oxford, 1896), II, 310.
1 See the letter written to him by an Irish cleric who wished to become his pupil in Mon. Germ. Hist., Auct. Ant., XV, 494.
2 Ibid., pp. 486-494.
3 Ibid., p. 494, note 1. It is through the correspondence of Aldhelm that we learn of the increasing popularity of Irish learning among the Saxons. In spite of his Irish training, Aldhelm seemed deeply concerned over the numbers of English who left home to take scho- lastic training in Ireland (Ibid., pp. 492, 493).
4 Gemma Ecclesiastica, in Opera, II, edited by J. S. Brewer, London, 1862 (Rolls Ser.), pp. 236, 237.
5 Félire Oengusso Céli Dé. The Martyrology of Oengus the Culdee, ed. W. Stokes (Henry Bradshaw Soc., London, 1905), pp. 40, 41.
6 See the story of the foundation as preserved in MS. Cott. Claud. C. iz, an early thirteenth- century document probably based on an earlier report (Historia Monasterii de Abingdon, ed. J. Stevenson, London, 1858 (Rolls Ser., No. 2), I, 23. The story goes that Abban, an Irish monk who came to preach in Britain, was granted land in Berkshire for the erection of a mon- astery. This monastery was called Abbendun, which, according to the account, was a name based either upon the Irish word dun plus the name of the founder, or upon the Saxon name for mons Abenni. Here Abban placed three hundred monks, ruled over them for some time, and then returned to Ireland. This resembles the account given by the Hiberno-Latin Vite Sancti Abbani, which tells of the foundation of “‘ Abbaindun vel Dun Abbain” in Britain by the well-known Munster saint. (See the text as edited by Charles Plummer, Vitae Sanctorum Hiberniae, Oxford, 1910, I, 11, 12.) The similarity of the two accounts and the reference to the Irish name in the English story would lead us to conclude that the Vita Sancti Abbani was known in England. 7 See the edition, Pat. Lat., LXXXIX, coll. 63 ff.
SS ae wee we af me ae ee
ibh [re-
udi-
ain 1€s-
the was cel- t in
| by
een , he
896), pil in
of the ining,
William of Malmesbury and the Irish 271
found himself in contact with even stronger Irish associations than those he had encountered at Malmesbury. Not only was the abbey situated in Celtic territory which had long been populated by people in close touch with Irish culture,' but it was apparently a gathering- point for direct Irish influence.
The first * reliable mention of Irish at Glastonbury occurs in a tenth-century anonymous Life of St Dunstan. The passage is as follows :
Porro Hiberniensium peregrini locum, quem dixi, Glastoniae sicut et ceterae fidelium turbae, magno colebant affectu, et maxime ob B. Patricii junioris honorem qui faustus ibidem in Domino quievisse narratur. Horum etiam libros rectae fidei tramitem philosophantes, diligenter [Dunstanus] excoluit.®
Perhaps the most striking detail of this statement is the reference to Glastonbury as the burial place of St Patrick junior. Although
1 See my discussion of the secular contact between the Irish and the Celtic Britons during the early Middle Ages, Studies in English (University of Texas), No. 6 (1926), pp. 5 ff.; a study of the ecclesiastical relations will appear shortly.
2 This is offered as the first reliable evidence for the presence of Irish at Glastonbury even in the face of the statement, so often quoted from the Irish Glossary of Cormac (f{ 908), in which Glastonbury is referred to as Glastonbury of the Irish. The passage in the Glossary which contains this reference is as follows:
“Inde dicitur Dind Tra-dui .i. dun tredui .i. tredue Crimthain Mair maic fidaig rig Héirenn 7 Alban co Muir nIcht. 7 inde est Glassdimbir (na nGaoidel) .i. cell for br Mara hIcht.”
(The foregoing text is that of R. Thurneysen, “Zu Cormac’s Glossar,” in Festschrift fiir Ernst Windisch, Leipzig, 1914, pp. 23 ff.)
“Hence is said Dind Tradui, i.e. Dun Tredui, i.e. triple-fossed fort of Crimthann the Great, son of Fidach king of Ireland and Alba to the Ictian Sea [English Channel].
“ And hence is [said] Glassdimbir (of the Irish), i.e. a cell on the shores of the Ictian Sea.”
Waiving for the present the doubts aroused by the equation of Glassdimbir with Glaston- bury and by the situation of the cell referred to on the English Channel, let us observe that Thurneysen’s study of the text shows that all the existing texts of the Glossary go back to three main recensions. Next we may notice that the phrase “‘na-n@aoidel”’ does not appear in the texts which, according to Thurneysen, most faithfully reproduce the original. In fact it appears only in certain manuscripts of one recension, represented by the Yellow Book of Lecan text and two other texts descended from a cognate of YBL. We may observe, furthermore, that Thurneysen finds the YBL text valuable for word-forms, but unreliable as regards con- tent, because of the unusual number of additions. It hardly seems safe, therefore, to accept this passage as evidence that Glastonbury in the late ninth or early tenth century bore the name “‘Glastonbury of the Irish.”
* AASS (Boll.), May, IV, 347.
272 William of Malmesbury and the Irish
we may not be accustomed to the conception of a St Patrick the younger (which, of course, presupposes a St Patrick the elder), the idea of two Patricks was quite familiar to both Irish and English ecclesiastical writers of the Middle Ages. Patrick the younger was the great apostle of Ireland. There can be no doubt, therefore, that the writer of the Life of St Dunstan was attempting to meet an assertion that it was not the younger but the elder St Patrick who was buried at Glastonbury. The tradition which assigns to Glaston- bury the elder Patrick, or Sen-Patrick, was well known in Ireland. The commentaries on the eighth-century Félire of Oengus contain the following statement of the tradition:
Sen-Patrick .i. ic.Rosdela i Maig lacha ata Senpatraicc. N6é hi nGlos- timbir na nGoedel ata Senpatraic .i. cathair sin fil a ndescert Saxan et Scoti
(ibi) habitabant.
Another commentary reads:
Senphatraicc o Ross dela im-maig locha, sed uerius est commad hi nGlastingibercc na nGéidel i ndescuirt Sachsan até Senphatraicc. Scotti enim prius in peregrinatione ibi habitabant.
A similar statement appears in the commentaries on a Hymn to St Patrick ascribed to Fiacc of Sletty, a sixth-century disciple of Patrick. This statement explains that Patrick mac Calpuirn (the apostle of Ireland) promised Sen-Patrick that they should go to heaven together, and that he waited for Sen-Patrick from the six- teenth of March until the first month of Autumn.? The statements of the Glastonbury writer and the Irish commentators, therefore, are contradictory. If we knew something of when this difference of opinion arose, we might be able to fix at least an approximate date for the beginning of the Patrick tradition at Glastonbury.
1 Ed. W. Stokes, p. 188. Stokes’ translation is as follows: ‘“‘ Patrick Senior, i.e., at Ross dela in Mag locha is Patrick Senior. Or Patrick Senior is in Glastonbury of the Gaels, that is a monastery in the south of England, and the Scott [Irish] used to dwell there.’’ The second passage differs little from the first except in that the Latin clause mentions the fact that the Irish who dwelt in Glastonbury were pilgrims. This statement, of course, recalls the pilgrims mentioned in the passage quoted from the Life of St Dunstan.
2 The Tripartite Life of St Patrick, ed. W. Stokes, London, 1887 (Rolls Ser.), p. 247.
Sen-Patrick’s day is August 24.
k the ), the glish r was , that et an : who ston- land. ntain
1Glos- Scoti
ad hi Scotti
mn to le of . (the go to e six- nents efore, ice of . date
at Ross , that is _ second hat the pilgrims
p. 27.
William of Malmesbury and the Irish 273
The Glastonbury statement that Patrick the younger was buried at Glastonbury is certainly not the beginning; for it bears clear indications of being a denial of a previous statement that it was some other Patrick that was buried there. The Irish statement, of which the Glastonbury statement seems to be a denial, occurs in the com- mentaries on the Félire, a body of material that is still undated. We may infer, however, that some of it is of very early date; for there is a passage in these commentaries which refers to the “com- mentary on the martyrology which from the time of the saints is in Armagh.” 1 We may therefore conclude that although the com- mentaries in their present form can hardly be dated earlier than the eleventh century, certain parts of them must depend on a body of material at least as old as the ninth century, the end of the so-called “age of the saints.” It seems fairly certain, moreover, that the statement made by the commentators on the Félire, that it was Sen-Patrick who was buried at Glastonbury, is the one which the Glastonbury writer was attempting to controvert. The controversy, then, if such we may call it, must have been started before the com- pilation of the tenth century Life of St Dunstan, and may go back to the beginning of the ninth century. Let us observe, furthermore, that Sen-Patrick, who seems clearly to be an invention, is always associated with Glastonbury. This fact, taken in connection with the disagreement as to the identity of the Patrick who was buried at Glastonbury, affords a strong presumption that Sen-Patrick owes his existence to an attempt on the part of Irish clerics to account for two contradictory traditions regarding the burial place of Patrick. This again leads us to the ninth century; for a passage in a treatise on the Cain Adamndin (Law of Adamnan), composed during that period, includes in a list of saints ‘the two Patricks.’ ?
On the basis of the foregoing facts we may assume, tentatively at least, that Glastonbury’s claim to be the burial place of St Patrick was in existence as early as the ninth century.
! Félire Oengusso, p. 152: “...ar is ed fil issin trachtad ind Felire até 0 remus no néem a n-Ardmacha.”
* Céin Adamndin. An Old-Irish Treatise on the Law of Adamnan, ed. K. Meyer, Oxford, 1905 (Anecdota Oxoniensia), p. 12.
274 William of Malmesbury and the Irish
In the later biographies of Dunstan, composed by Osbern of Canterbury and William of Malmesbury, there is evidence of the continuance of Irish sentiment at Glastonbury. Osbern emphasized the importance of Irish clerics at Glastonbury '! more than did his anonymous predecessor, and William takes special pains to compli- ment the skill and erudition of Irish teachers.?
One is inclined, moreover, to see special significance in the close relations between Glastonbury and Abingdon, the Irish connections of which have already been noticed.* Aethelwald, abbot of Abingdon (955-984), had been a pupil of Dunstan at Glastonbury.‘ When he went to Abingdon, he took with him three other Glastonbury monks, Osgar, Foldbricht, and Frithgar.° Osgar succeeded Aethelwald as abbot in 984, but died in the same year.® From 1034 to 1044 Abing- don was ruled by another Glastonbury monk, Siward.’ In view of these close relations we are inclined to suspect that the Irish founda- tion-legend which gained currency at Abingdon may have been due to Glastonbury influence.
As we turn again to the work of William of Malmesbury, we are not surprised to find that a writer, brought into contact with Irish influence as it prevailed at Malmesbury and Glastonbury, should give Irish material a prominent place in his work.
William composed Lives of the Irish saints, Benignus, Indract, and Patrick.* All of these Lives were unquestionably based on Hiberno-Latin materials. He included a considerable amount of Irish material also in his advertising tract, De Antiquitate Glastonien- sis Ecclesiae (DA). This material includes a short sketch of the life of
1 In Memorials of Saint Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, ed. W. Stubbs, London, 1874 (Rolls Ser., No. 63), p. 3.
2 Ibid., pp. 256, 257.
3 See above, p. 270, note 6.
* See his Life by Aelfric (¢ 1006) in Hist. Mon. de Ab., II, 257.
5 Ibid., I, 124; II, 258.
3 Jbid., II, 261.
7 I[bid., I, 443, 444.
8 De Antiquitate Glastoniensis Ecclesiae, in Adam of Domerham’s Historia de Rebus Gestis Glastoniensibus (ed. T. Hearne, Oxford, 1727), I, 3. I offer the reader my humble apologies for referring to two different editions of the De Antiquitate. When I began this study I had access to the comparatively good edition of Hearne; later I found it necessary to fill in cer- tain references from Migne’s reprint of Gale’s edition.
1 of f the sized d his npli-
close tions gdon n he onks, id as ping- w of inda- | due
e are Trish ould
ract, d on it of nien-
fe of
1, 1874
slogies I had
in cer-
William of Malmesbury and the Irish 275
St Patrick, a spurious charter which claims St Patrick as the founder of monastic life at Glastonbury, accounts of the martyrdom of St Indract, of the ministry and abbacy of St Benignus, successor to St Patrick, of the visit of St Columba, whom William calls by his Irish name, Columkille, and of the visit of St Brigit.1_ This material, like the Lives, must have been based ultimately on documents from Ireland. In addition to this purely ecclesiastical material, there is, in the description of the secular beginnings of Glastonbury, a tale in which some are inclined to see a reflection of the Irish story of Glass mac Caiss, the swineherd.?
Before we may ascribe this material directly to William, however, there are certain questions to be settled. It is fairly well established that DA underwent rather extensive interpolations after William had finished it. W. W. Newell, the last writer to discuss the text of DA,’ includes among the interpolations the very passages to which we have just referred. It is necessary, therefore, to examine his argument.
Newell’s chief weapon in his attack against the authenticity of the extant text is a series of excerpts in one of William’s later works, De Gestis Regum Anglorum (GR).‘ These excerpts, according to the testimony of the author himself, are taken from his tract, De An- tiquitate. Newell regards this material as the only trustworthy re- production of the original tract and looks with great suspicion on any passage in the extant text of DA which does not agree with it. In arguing against the authenticity of the Irish material under con- sideration he invokes the authority of the GR extracts still further. Although most of the DA material appears in abbreviated form in GR, he will not allow its genuineness because it does not appear in the same place in the narrative. It is difficult to follow this argu- ment. As a matter of fact, when we come upon material in GR avowedly taken from DA and then find in the extant text of DA the same material in somewhat fuller form, we should have every right
1 Pat. Lat., CLXXIX, coll. 1688-1691; on the abbacy of Benignus, col. 1701, and on the translation of his relics, col. 1729.
2 Ibid., col. 1687.
* Publ. Mod. Lang. Assn, XVIII (1903), 459 ff.
* Ed. W. Stubbs, London, 1887-89 (Rolls Ser., No. 90), pp. 24 ff.
276 William of Malmesbury and the Irish
to accept this particular portion of the DA text as authentic. William, moreover, when he was composing GR, was engaged in a serious and fairly conscientious piece of writing. He was covering a wide field and using many sources. It is therefore not at all strange that when he found it expedient to include certain material relating to Glastonbury he turned to the tract that he had already composed. But it would have been strange indeed if he had felt under obligation to reproduce the original text in the same words and in the same order. The very nature and purpose of DA would make its material and arrangement unfit for direct transference to GR. Newell, there- fore, is hardly justified in branding as an interpolation every passage in the extant text of DA which does not occur in GR, or which occurs in GR in different order.
Another objection to the authenticity of the material under con- sideration seems to be that its position in the text violates William’s promise of chronological arrangement as given in his prologue. Here again the objection is hardly sustained. The promise of chronological arrangement was not by any means sacred or inviolable, and the violation was only trifling, consisting merely of the inclusion of the mention of Gildas before that of Patrick.
On the whole, the arguments against the authenticity of the Irish material in DA are not particularly strong. On the other hand, there is ample reason for believing that it was originally included by the author himself. William had long been in contact with Irish tradi- tion and must have formed rather a close acquaintance with Irish hagiographical lore in writing his Lives of Patrick, Benignus, and Indracht.! In view of the strong Irish influence at Glastonbury, nothing is more natural than that William should have included some of this material in his tract.
Let us now turn to the passage describing the secular beginnings of Glastonbury.? According to this passage the founder, Glasteing, was one of twelve brothers, descendants of Cuneda, and had founded Glastonbury as a result of finding there under an apple tree a sow
1 In addition to the material relating to these three saints, he had read a life of Brigit. See his reference to the “‘celeberrimus sermo,”’ Pat. Lat., CLXXIX, col. 1690. 2 See above, pp. 271 ff.
1a
ge
& ga
on
William of Malmesbury and the Irish 277
and pigs that he had been chasing. In commemoration of his good fortune he called the place Insula Avalloniae, or Isle of Apples. This equation of Glastonbury with Avalon, the place to which Arthur was carried to be healed of his wounds, and the similarity between Glasteing and Glais, a character in the Perlesvaus,? has aroused the interest of a number of students of mediaeval literature.
Baist, in his investigation of this passage,’ discovered that the source of the names of Glasteing’s brothers was a genealogy in a Harleian manuscript of the Historia Britonum attributed to Nen- nius.! Baist suggested that the passage, before it came to the notice of William, passed through the hands of an intermediary who altered the successive descendants to brothers. This explanation was satis- factory as far as it went, but it did not explain the origin of the swineherd himself. This deficiency was supplied by Thurneysen,*® who recalled that Muirchu, an early commentator on the life of St Patrick, tells a story of a certain Cass mac Glaiss, a swineherd who was resurrected and baptized by St Patrick. Here, as may be observed, the name is not Glass, but Cass. A short recapitulation which appears in the ninth-century Glossary of Cormac, however, reverses the names, giving Glass mac Caiss, and, still more inter- esting, localizes the story at Glastonbury.*®
This was a most interesting discovery, but it did not solve the problem completely. There still remained the difficulty of bridging the gap between Cormac’s Glossary and DA. It was not safe to assume that William had seen Cormac’s Glossary or that he could have read it if he had seen it; and there seemed to be no other docu- ment in which the story could have been accessible. It seemed nec- essary, therefore, to frame some sort of hypothesis to fit the situa- tion. The hypothesis devised by Thurneysen and his successors may best be expressed in the words of F. Lot:
1 For the text of this passage see Hearne’s edition of DA, 1727, pp. 16, 17.
* See the discussion by W. A. Nitze, Mod. Phil., I (1903-04), 3, 4.
* Zs. f. Roman. Philol., XTX (1895), 326-347.
* One of the Welsh genealogies attached to the ninth-century Annales Cambriae. See the edition by E. Phillimore, ¥ Cymmrodor, IX (1888), 180.
* Zs. f. Roman. Philol., XX (1896), 316-821.
® For the text see Thurneysen’s “Zu Cormac’s Glossar,” in Festschrift fiir Ernst Windisch, pp. 23 ff.
278 William of Malmesbury and the Irish
. . . le conte du porcher, localisé 4 Glastonbury dés la fin du [Xe siécle ou le début du Xe siécle, parvint 4 la connaissance d’un moine de labbaye dans le courant du XIe. Il y rattacha, par des légends étymolo- giques de sa fabrication, la typonomie des environs du couvent. C’est un manuscript de la famille harleyenne ainsi interpolé que Guillaume de Malmesbury a eu sous les yeux vers 1135 et auquel il se référe.
Nous sommes donc fixés sur la premiére partie du chapitre. C’est ’ceuvre d’un moine de Glastonbury qui a mis a profit un légend ou fabri- cation indirectement irlandaise et directement galloise ou plutét due a un clere gallois.!
This hypothesis of an intermediary, though brilliantly conceived, is unsatisfactory because it leaves William himself entirely out of account. Furthermore, a closer examination of the material con- nected with this question shows that the hypothesis is unnecessary. As we have already seen, William asserted that he had composed a Life of St Patrick. Although this Life is no longer extant, a rather full summary of it was made in the sixteenth century by John Leland, antiquary to Henry VIII. A detailed comparison of this summary with the biographical material relating to St Patrick shows that William used, as a basis for his work, two Hiberno-Latin Lives, one analogous to the Vita Secunda and Vita Quarta printed by John Colgan? and the other corresponding closely to Colgan’s Vita Tertia. Finally, it has been shown that there was at one time in the possession of the monks of Glastonbury a Life of Patrick closely resembling the Vita Tertia and containing an interpolation which made Glastonbury the place of Patrick’s burial.‘ This Life, and all the Lives belonging to the same recension, contain the incident of Glass the swineherd. The text is as follows:
Quadam autem die cum ambularet Patricius, in uia inuenit magnum sepulcrum longitudine .xx. pedum, et uidentes hoc fratres cum magno
1 “Glastonbury et Avalon,” Romania, XXVII (1898), 534.
2 Triadis Thaumaturgae seu Diversorum Patricii Columbae et Brigidae, trium veteris & maioris Scotiae seu Hiberniae sanctorum insulae, communium patronorum, acta, etc., Louvain, 1647, pp. 11 ff., 35 ff.
3 Ibid., pp. 21 ff. See my study of these Lives as compared with Leland’s summary,
Mod. Phil., XXIV (1926), 5 ff. 4 J. B. Bury, “A Life of St. Patrick (Colgan’s Tertia Vita),” Transactions of the Royal
Irish Academy, XXXII (1903), Sect. C, pp. 199-262.
William of Malmesbury and the Irish 279
stupore dicebant: Non credimus quod esset homo huius longitudinis. Dixit eis Patricius: Si volueritis uidebitis eum. Tunc signauit Patricius baculo sepulcrum, et ecce vir magnus surrexit et dixit, Bene sit tibi, uir sancte, quia et in una hora a penis liberasti me. Et fleuit amarissime et dixit ei: Si licet, ambulabo uobiscum. Et respondit Patricius: Non possumus ut ambules nobiscum, quia non possunt homines uidere faciem tuam pro timore tuo. Sed crede Deo celi, et baptismum accipe, et non reuerteris in locum penarum in quo fuisti; et indica nobis quis es. Et respondens dixit: Ego sum Glas, filius Cais, qui fuit porcarius Lugir regis Hirote; et iugulauit me filian maic eom ' in regno Coipre Niethfer post annos centum.?
In view of the fact that William had undoubtedly read this story, the hypothesis of an intermediary becomes unnecessary.
The basis of the story of Glast coming to Glastonbury and found- ing a town where he discovered his pigs is a tale relating the selection of an ecclesiastical or secular building site by following a sow or boar. This story was readily accessible to William in such Irish and British hagiographical material as he must have used in composing Lives of saints and other Glastonbury propaganda.’ It is interesting to observe, moreover, that Irish secular literature contains a story of a certain Glass, son of Donn Desa, who engaged in a long and arduous chase for a pig.‘ There is another story which combines the essential elements of the Glastonbury legend, namely, the swineherd, his pigs, and a sheltering tree. Although it remains to be demon- strated that William had seen the particular documents in which these tales are preserved, we may easily see from the evidence already presented that he could have heard them from Irish monks at Glas- tonbury, or could have found them in Irish saints’ Lives. It is not necessary, therefore, to assume that the story of Glast or any other
1 The reading in Cormac’s Glossary is “‘do fianib Maic Con (by the soldiers of Maccon).”
? Text according to Bury, op. cit., pp. 247, 248.
3 See the Vita Cadoci, MS. Cott. Vesp. A., xiv, fol. 21v; Vita Dubricii in The Tezt of the Book of Llan Dév, ed. J. G. Evans and J. Rhys, Oxford, 1893, pp. 80, 81; Vita Finniani in Acta Sanctorum Hiberniae ex Codice Salmanticensis, ed. C. De Smedt and J. De Backer, Edin- burgh and London, 1888, col. 199; Vita Mochoemog in Vitae Sanct. Hib., ed. Plummer, II, 170; Vita Ruadani, ibid., II, 241; Vita Mocteo in AASS Hib., col. 909; Vita Bernaci in Lives of the Cambro-British Saints, ed. W. J. Rees, Llandovery, 1853, pp. 8, 9.
‘ See the Dindsenchas (place-name stories) in the Book of Ballymote (facs.), p. 369a; Book of Leinster (facs.), p. 195b16.
* “The Dindsenchas of Srutar Mata,” Book of Leinster (facs.), p. 169251, and Introduc- tion, p. 45.
280 William of Malmesbury and the Irish
material from Irish lore made its way into DA through the efforts of anyone but the author.
Let us now turn to the argument for interpolation.
Newell, in his observations on the Glast passage, says: “This passage, referring asit does to theungenuine initial chapter, evidently proceeds either from the same reviser or more probably from a third hand.” ! The passage mentioned is the introductory phrase, “De- scriptis fundacione, dedicacione, ac post eainvencione huius oratorii....” The ‘ungenuine’ initial chapter consists (1) of an account of the foundation of the church of St Mary at Glastonbury by the disciples of Philip the Apostle, and (2) of the restoration of St Mary’s by Phaganus and Deruvianus. The reasons for considering it ungenuine as presented by Newell are as follows: (1) the authentic extract in GR states that the missionaries were nameless, whereas DA asserts that the church was erected by disciples of Philip and restored by Phaganus and Deruvianus; (2) the extract in GR gives as an alterna- tive account the apostolic origin, and adds, as the author’s own con- jecture, that the apostle may have been Philip, whereas DA gives a detailed account of the foundation by Philip’s disciples.*
It must be admitted that these accounts do not agree; but they are hardly, as Newell asserts, contradictory. The difference is only that difference which we should naturally expect to find between work done hastily and perhaps unscrupulously for advertising and work done carefully and conservatively for purposes of genuine his- tory. In other words, here Newell’s argument again leans too heavily upon the supposition that the extract in GR is intended to be a faith- ful reproduction of the original. Certainly the ungenuineness of the initial chapter under discussion is not sufficiently clear to allow of our assuming that a reference to it is proof of interpolation.
For the present, therefore, there seems no valid reason for with- holding from William the credit or the blame for the Glast passage.
As we glance back over the foregoing material, we observe the following significant facts concerning William’s contact with Irish culture: (1) he was educated at Malmesbury, a place where Irish traditions were fostered; (2) he went from there to Glastonbury,
1 Op. cit., p. 475. 2 Ibid., p. 471.
William of Malmesbury and the Irish 281
where connections with the Irish were still stronger; (3) he wrote Lives of three Irish saints of Glastonbury and included material dealing with them in his Glastonbury advertising tract; (4) he com- bined Irish and British traditions to form the tale of the secular foundation of Glastonbury. All these things help to establish William as a channel through which Irish literary ideas could have reached the English literary world.
As we look further into William’s career, we find even more inter- esting facts. When he composed his De Gestis Pontificum (ca. 1125) he apparently had no special enthusiasm for Glastonbury. He men- tions it among the well-known monasteries of the country, but be- stows no unusual attention upon it. But by 1129 he had written a tract which had no other purpose than the glorifying of Glaston- bury; he had composed the Lives of three Irish Glastonbury saints, one of which had for its object the vindication of Patrick’s sojourn and death at Glastonbury; and he had compiled at least a part of his Life of Dunstan, which was undertaken for the avowed purpose of correcting certain misapprehensions about Glastonbury, arising out of statements made by previous biographers, particularly Osbern of Canterbury.
All this inclines us to the suspicion that William was called to Glastonbury for the special purpose of assisting with the advertising of the great abbey. This suspicion grows stronger as we read William’s statement that the monks furnished him with material for the writing of the Vita Dunstani,! and that he submitted DA to them for approval or revision.* And when we see the evidences of haste, carelessness, and lack of critical judgment in DA and the almost slavish adherence to the structure of his sources in the Life of Patrick,*® the suspicion becomes almost a certainty.
We are inclined to ask ourselves, furthermore, why William should have consented to undertake such work. The answer to this ques- tion lies near at hand. Glastonbury in the eleventh and twelfth centuries had other rivals than Canterbury and Wells. As one of the outposts of Norman monasticism it came into conflict with the
1 Memorials, ed. Stubbs, p. 252. 2 De Ant., ed. Hearne, p. 3. 3 See my study of this Life, cited above, p. 278, note 3.
282 William of Malmesbury and the Irish
old Celtic foundations of Wales and the border. Under Norman control Welsh lands were appropriated to the use of Norman monas- teries, and Welsh churches were transferred to the jurisdiction of Norman bishops. As may well be supposed, the Welsh did not sub- mit tamely to this imposition. They had never been thoroughly conquered and they had unusual talents for making life disagree- able for the border lords. It was highly desirable, therefore, that the Celtic population should be properly impressed not only with the sanctity and antiquity of Norman foundations, but also with the extent of favors shown to them in days of old by Celtic saints and heroes.
Not only was Glastonbury a strategic point for putting into prac- tice tactics intended to propitiate the Celtic population, but it was fortunate in enjoying the favor of the highest Norman powers. One of the abbots was Henry of Blois, brother to King Stephen, and the lord of the territory in which it stood was Robert of Gloucester, son of Henry I. There was every reason, therefore, why it should com- mand the best services available. When we observe, further, that Robert of Gloucester was a direct patron of William,' it is not hard to understand why that reputable historian should have undertaken the work of writing advertising material for Glastonbury Abbey. Robert, moreover, must certainly have been interested in both Irish and Welsh history; for his mother was Nest, daughter of Rhys ap Teudwr, king of South Wales,” and his wife, Mabel, was a daughter of Robert Fitzhamon, who ruled in Glamorgan.
Now let us see what all this means for the transmission of Irish material to the English literary world. We have observed that William was engaged in the writing of propaganda, that part of his work consisted in the gathering up and publishing of Irish traditions, and that his work was carried on at Glastonbury, where Irish tradi- tions were prevalent and where, be it especially noted, certain legends about King Arthur took shape. It remains now but to notice Wil- liam’s place in the literary world of his day.
1 See Gesta Regum, ed. Stubbs, pp. 355, 518-520, 525. 2 Rhys ap Teudwr spent a good part of his life in Ireland, and was probably educated
there.
ne he
on
at
on
th of
sh at is S,
ds I-
William of Malmesbury and the Irish 283
William’s work was only part of a general movement to write British history in such a way as to show Norman institutions to the Celtic population in a favorable light. The Brut y Tywysogion (Chronicle of the Princes) ascribed to Caradoc of Llancarvan is another example. The outstanding work in this movement is, of course, Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae, which presents Arthur, legendary hero of the Welsh, in the complete guise of a twelfth-century Norman monarch. Geoffrey brings the narra- tive of British history down to the time of Cadwaladr. He then assigns to Caradoc of Llancarvan the task of continuing it down to the present, and allots to William of Malmesbury and Henry of Huntingdon the history of the Anglo-Saxon ‘kings.' Each of these assignments was fulfilled. If anything further is needed to show that William was a member of Geoffrey’s literary circle, we may find it in the fact that Geoffrey dedicated his history to Robert of Gloucester, William’s patron. It would be strange indeed, then, if William was not fully aware of Geoffrey’s intention to write about Arthur, especially since he knew the Welsh traditions about Arthur and had expressed the hope that someone would put them into re- spectable historical form.’
On the basis of the foregoing evidence we may regard the follow- ing points as established:
(1) William was interested in Irish material; he had access to Irish documents; and he was actively engaged in the adaptation of Irish material to the needs of Glastonbury Abbey. The Glastonbury advertisers, moreover, used Arthurian material. The work of William, therefore, added to the Irish influence already established at Glas- tonbury and provided a means of contact between Arthurian ro- mance and Irish tradition.
(2) Contact between Irish tradition and English literature in general was further effected through William’s connection with the Norman court and with Arthurian literature in particular through his association with Geoffrey of Monmouth.
1 Hist. Reg. Brit., xii, 20 (ed. San Marte, p. 176.) 2 Gesta Regum, ed. cit., p. 342.
Tae University or Texas.
RHETORICAL INVENTION IN SOME MEDIAEVAL TRACTATES ON PREACHING '*
By HARRY CAPLAN
ROFESSOR ETIENNE GILSON has aptly said that no other epoch was so conscious of the ends it pursued and the means required to attain them as the mediaeval period. It had its poetry and its Arts of Poetry, its eloquence and its Arts of Rhetoric. If you seek the key to its art of oratory, you must search in its Artes Praedicandi.?, Now if one sets out to study the sacred rhetoric of the Middle Ages, one does well to note what the great classical rhetoricians selected to emphasize as rhetorical egsentials, and to heed what their sense of rhetorical values dictated. We need not belittle the importance of attention to Elocutio, which for the litera- ture of the mediaeval period happily has begun to fare well at the hands of scholars,’ but at present I intend rather to accept the logic which prompted Cicero to adopt the title De Inventione as represent- ing the whole field of rhetoric. Invention was to him the most im- portant element of the art.‘ We respect the prominence which the principle of invention has in his De Oratore, and we observe that his Topica is a tract on inventional method. We note the care the author of the Ad Herennium bestows upon invention. Aristotle bases his first two books upon the processes of invention; in fact, some critics * believe that his original plan may well have excluded Book ITI, the book which he devotes to style. The De Inventione, Cicero’s Topica, and the Rhetorica ad Herennium were well known throughout the Middle Ages. The contributions of Boethius, whose works were also very influential, notably upon St Bonaventure, —
1 Part of a paper read before the Mediaeval Latin Section of the Modern Language Association, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Dec. 29, 1926.
? Etienne Gilson, “Michel Menot et la Technique du Sermon Médiévale,” Revue d'His- toire Franciscaine, II (1925), 303.
3 See, e.g., M. B. Ogle, “Some Aspects of Mediaeval Latin Style,” Specutvm, I (1926), 170 ff.
4 See E. M. Cope and J. E. Sandys, edd. Rhetoric of Aristotle (Cambridge, 1877), I, 28.
5 See J. E. Sandys, Introduction to Jebb’s translation of Aristotle’s Rhetoric (Cambridge, 1909), p. xxi.
284
ge,
Rhetorical Invention 285
his Commentary on the Topica of Aristotle, his Commentary on the Topica of Cicero, and his own De Differentiis Topicis !— were like- wise in the field of invention. And, finally, we may regard it as highly significant that Augustine gives first place to invention in oratory.’ In the following pages I purpose, therefore, to subordi- nate the guo modo (orator dicat) to the quid.
One may confidently assert of classical rhetoric in the mediaeval period that it was by no means neglected. The persistence of the rhe- torical discipline as an integral part, however modified, of the school curriculum, is well attested.* And R. Cruel ¢ and other students of mediaeval preaching do not think to question the influence of classi- cal rules on preaching. Despite the fact that Gregory opposed theatrical preaching, and that Augustine * thought it necessary to defend the use of rhetoric by a Christian teacher, the view of St Thomas that eloquence and secular learning could profitably be used by a preacher ® must be regarded as more generally characteristic of the mediaeval attitude towards pagan rhetoric. If the Fathers did try to check the rhetorical tendency in themselves, it was merely to subordinate eloquence to the main, and high, purpose of preaching. In some cases the classics were directly and consciously, in others, indirectly influential, even though the winning of souls was a different end from the usual ends of deliberative, epideictic, or forensic ora- tory. The effect of tradition is often too subtle to detect. In any event, preaching had a rhetorical function in the clear exposition of Scripture, with the persuasive purpose of winning souls to God — a function and a purpose germane to the universal uses of rhetoric. With the aid of rhetorical criteria, then, preaching can be studied in the treatises we are now considering. In them we find the character-
! Gilson, op. cit., p. 207, points out the great debt St Bonaventure’s Rhetoric in the Colla- tiones in Hexaemeron, iv, 21-25 (Opera Omnia, V, 353) owes to Boethius’ Speculatio de Rheto- ricae Cognatione (Migne, Pat. Lat., LXIV, 1217 ff.).
* De Doctrina Christiana, IV, i, 1. See M. Roger, L’ Enseignement des Lettres Classiques @Ausone a Alcuin (Paris, 1905), p. 142; A. F. Ozanam, La Civilisation au Cinquiéme Siécle (Paris, 1862), p. 160.
* See T. Haarhoff, Schools of Gaul (Oxford, 1920), pp. 157 ff.
‘ Geschichte der Deutschen Predigt im Mittelalter (Detmold, 1879), p. 244.
® De Doctrina Christiana, IV, i and ii.
* See J. Walsh, “St. Thomas on Preaching,” Dominicana, V (1921), 6-14.
286 Rhetorical Invention
istic distrust of the ornaments of rhetoric, but, as well, a live aware- ness to and regard for classical rhetorical authorities.
William of Auvergne writes: “A simple sermon, unpolished, un- adorned, moves and edifies the more.” He despises the preacher “‘who, with ornate words, casts naked truth into the shadow,”! Humbert de Romans: “They who seek adornment are like those who care more for the beauty of the salver in which food is carried than for the food itself.” ? Alain de Lille: “Preaching ought not to contain scurrilous or puerile words, or rhythmic melodies, or metric consonances. These contribute rather to soothing the ear than to instructing the mind. Such preaching is theatrical, and therefore should be unanimously contemned. . . . Yet though preaching should not shine with purple verbal trappings, neither should it be depressed by bloodless words. Rather a middle course should be pursued.” *
So much for the attitude toward embellished style; on the atti- tude to classical rhetoric the following outline of opinions and prac- tice will be informative.
William of Auvergne has modeled his Divine Rhetoric upon Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero.t; Humbert would like the preacher to know pagan history as well as Christian, and makes use of Seneca, Horace, and Cicero. The author-compiler of the ‘Aquinas’-tractate quotes Tully in recommending the art of preaching, and approvingly offers William’s argument: “Since so many volumes of rhetoric have beer written by the band of rhetoricians, is it not more just and worthy that their own art and doctrine should enjoy treatment by the band of preachers, so that they will be divine rhetoricians?” ® Alain: “It will be possible on occasion to insert the sayings of Gentiles, just as Paul in his Epistles inserts philosophers as authorities.” ® Alain has called Rhetoric the daughter of Cicero, and named her Tullia;’ nor
1 A. de Poorter, “Un Manuel de Prédication Médiévale,” Revue Néo-scolastique de Philo- sophie (1923), p. 202.
2 Maxima Bibliotheca Veterum Patrum, ed. M. de la Bigne (Lyons, 1677), X XV, 432.
3 De Arte Praedicatoria, Migne, Pat. Lat., CCX, 112.
4 A. Lecoy de la Marche, La Chaire Frangaise au Moyen Age (Paris, 1886), p. 68.
’ H. Caplan, “A Late Mediaeval Tractate on Preaching,” in Studies in Rhetoric and Public Speaking in Honor of J. A. Winans (New York: C-ntury Company, 1925), p. 71.
6 De Arte Praedicatoria, c. 1.
7 Anticlaudianus, iii, 2, Migne, Pat. Lat., CCX, 513.
Rhetorical Invention 287
in the present tractate does he think it necessary to exclude profane authors —-in fact he uses pagan myths, and quotes from Plato, Cicero, Seneca, Lucretius, and Persius. But one need only glance in the works of Cruel ' and Lecoy ? at the long list of pagan, Arabic, and Jewish authors used by mediaeval preachers in order to con- clude that more than one preacher must have accepted the old saying: “It is no sin to be taught by the enemy, and to enrich the Hebrews with the spoils of the Egyptians.” *
The secret of rhetorical invention lies in the conscious artistic use of the topics or commonplaces. The rézos‘ is the head under which arguments fall, the place in the memory where the argument is to be looked for and found, ready for use, the storehouse or the- saurus,° the seat,® the haunt’ (as if the argument were the game to be captured), or the vein * or mine where arguments should be sought. One recalls how Cicero in his Topica applies eleven cate- gories to the establishment of legal proof,® and how the author of the Ad Herennium, also with a forensic case in mind, uses the fol- lowing ten commonplaces of amplification — adaugendi criminis causa: 1. Consider authority and precedent; remind the jury how weighty this matter has been held to be by our ancestors. 2. Con- sider to whom the charge appertains; if it affects every one, then the matter is most atrocious. 3. Ask what would happen if the same
1 Op. cit., p. 463.
? Op. cit., pp. 472, 473.
+ E.g. John de Bromyard in the Prologue of his Summa Praedicantium, cited by G. R. Owst, Preaching in Mediaeval England (Cambridge, 1926), p. 304.
‘ Aristotle, Rhetorica, II, 26, 1. See H. H. Hudson, ‘‘Can We Modernize the Theory of Invention?” Quarterly Journal of Speech Education, VII (1921), 325-334.
* Cicero, De Finibus, IV, iv, 10; cf. Quintilian, v, 10, 20-2.
§ Cicero, Topica, II, 7: Ut igitur earum rerum quae absconditae sunt demonstrato et notato loco facilis inventio est; sic cum pervestigare argumentum aliquod volumus locos nosse debemus; sic enim appellatae ab Aristotele sunt eae quasi sedes e quibus argumenta promuntur. Itaque licet definire locum esse argumenti sedem.
’ Cicero, De Oratore, II, 34, 147; cf. De Inventione, I, vii, where he calls invention the most important of the divisions of rhetoric.
* Cicero, De Oratore, 11, 174. See E. M. Cope, Introduction to Aristotle's Rhetoric (Cam- bridge and London, 1867), pp. 124 ff.
* Relationship; similar derivation; species; similarity; difference; contraries; adjuncts; antecedents, consequents, and contradictories; efficient cause; what has been done; authority.
” ii, 30-47.
288 Rhetorical Invention
concessions were made to all; if we neglect this matter, we shall undergo great dangers. 4. Show that, if you indulge this defendant, you will encourage others, to whom his summary punishment would serve as a deterrent from crime. 5. Prove that nothing can remedy this wrong. Other things can be cured by time; this cannot. 6. The crime was premeditated; there can be no just excuse. 7. This is q foul crime, cruel, infamous, tyrannical. From such crimes comes harm to women, from such arise causes for wars that are fought to a finish. 8. This is not a common crime, but a singularly base one, for which vengeance must be quick and drastic. 9. Compare crimes: this is not a pardonable, necessary crime, but one committed through intemperate arrogance. 10. Sharply, incriminatingly, and carefully, review the crime and its consequences. Or, for an example in demonstrative oratory, the rhetor Menander, in his work On the Epideictic develops topically twenty-three varieties, including the types used in praise of 2 sovereign, in praise of a city, the farewell speech to one departing, and others. Or notice in the index to Halm’s Rhetores Latini Minores the long list (pp. 664, 665) of loci communes argumentorum used by the authors he has collected.
The extension of the method from deliberative, forensic, or epi- deictic rhetoric to sacred rhetoric is not difficult. We shall see how this method functioned in preaching.
In this paper on invention, I regret that I cannot consider ser- mons nor even ‘homiletische Hilfsmittel’ other than treatises on preaching.' I do not consider, I mean, the collections of homilies, of text-materials for sermons, of sermons for each day, of commen- taries, Biblical glosses in alphabetical order, theme-sentences, concordances, moralities, comparisons, image-books, anecdotes, tracts on vices and virtues, exempla and bestiaries, chrestomathies, natural histories, parables, and homiletical lexicons — the preachers’ helps and anthologies that were common in European libraries, the preachers’ storehouses from which the less competent drew. These
1 See Cruel, op. cit., pp. 244 ff., 451 ff.; Owst, op. cit., chap. 7; A. Linsenmayer, Geschichte der Predigt in Deutschland von Karl dem Grossen bis zum Ausgange des V ierzehnten Jahrhunderts (Munich, 1886), pp. 168 ff.; C. V. Langlois, “‘L’ Eloquence Sacrée au Moyen Age,” Reowe ds Deux Mondes, CXV (1893), 194 ff.
Rhetorical Invention 289
were, if anything, aids to invention. But on grounds of relative availability, I limit myself to representative tractates on the art of preaching of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, to wit: the Liber quo ordine sermo fiert debeat* of Guibert de Nogent (early twelfth century), the Swmma de Arte Praedicatoria* of Alain de Lille (end of twelfth century), the De Instructione Praedicatorum * of Humbert de Romans (thirteenth century), a manual of preaching ‘ attributed to William of Auvergne (thirteenth century), and a late Dominican tractate * professing the influence of St Thomas Aquinas. They ap- peared at an important juncture in the course of the history of oratory, when both general culture and preaching had reached a high level — the period of the rise of new orders,® the spread of mysticism, and the growth of scholasticism. In these tractates we discover a highly developed rhetoric of invention, particularly in the method of applying commonplaces.
The Dominican Humbert’s extensive work, De Eruditione Prae- dicatorum, is divided into two books. The first, entitled “De erudi- tione religiosorum praedicatorum,” does not especially interest us except for the very instructive chapter (vi) dealing with the difficulty of good preaching. Therein Humbert compares the incompetent preachers who yet disdain to study other, good, preachers, with bad bakers who insist on making bread; and considers as terribly vicious the practice of those who multiply distinctions, authorities, reasons, examples, synonyms, prothemes, and the manifold exposition of words. This is in striking contrast to the inventional procedure of the Auvergne-tractate and the ‘Aquinas’-tractate. But it is no
1 Prooemium ad Commentarios in Genesim, Migne, Pat. Lat., CLVI1, 21-32.
? Migne, Pat Lat., CCX, 110-198.
* Mazima Bibliotheca Veterum Patrum, XXV, 426-567.
* See A. de Poorter, “‘Un Manuel de Prédication Médiévale: Le Ms. 97 de Bruges,” Revue Néo-scolastique de Philosophie (1923), 192-209.
* In a volume of incunabula in the Cornell University Library, press No. 2964 E 51 (Hain No. 1854): Tractatulus solemnis de arte et vero modo predicandi ex diuersis doctorum sactorum scripturis, et principaliter sacratissimi cristiane ecclesie doctoris Thome de Aquino &xparuo suo quodam tractatulo recollectus, ubi secundum modum et formam materie presentis procedit. Translated by H. Caplan, op. cit., pp. 61-91.
* lecoy, op. cit., p. 201, in enumerating the preachers of the thirteenth century, points out that, of $18, 98 were Dominicans and 53 Franciscans. The preéminence of Dominicans, the Ordo Praedicatorum, makes particularly interesting the Dominican ‘Aquinas’-tractate.
290 Rhetorical Invention
indication that Humbert generally opposed inventional method, for his second book comprises two treatises with the ambitious titles: (1) De modo prompte cudendi sermones circa omne hominum genus, and (2) De modo prompte cudendi sermones ad omne negotiorum genus. Humbert industriously goes about this work of supplying ready materials for address to many kinds of men, in every diverse field of the preacher’s operations, and in accordance with every variety of seasons and holidays. He says: “Concerning sermon materials, note that it is often much more difficult to invent useful matter out of which to compose a sermon than to weave together a sermon from the material already invented” (p. 457). So in one hundred chapters he tells the preacher what kind of special thing to say: to all men, to all ecclesiastical people, to all the pious of a good life and of a bad life, to every kind of monk, to converts, to all scholars, to the laity, to all nobles, bad and devout, to paupers, boys, lepers, and harlots. The scholar in grammar, for example, should be admonished to remember that letters without a good life do not bring salvation; he should be told: “ multae litterae te facitunt insanire” (Acts, 26, 24). Scholars in philosophy should be warned against se- duction by philosophy. And in the second tractate of Book ii, Humbert completes his inventional plan of preparing the preacher for one hundred types of negotia, advising him what to say, for example, at councils, synods, elections of secular priests, solemn confirmations, solemn communions, solemn obsequies for the dead, solemn condemnations of heretics.
In the Introduction to his edition of the tractate! which he ascribes to William of Auvergne, de Poorter mentions a De Faciebus by William, which furnished an inventional list of images and alle- gories for the preacher to use at his need. Indeed, the manual which de Poorter has edited is also on invention. It employs the usual dialectical commonplaces for Scriptural explication — quis, quibus, ubi, quando, quomodo, and quid, and aims, typically, to adapt the preacher to different classes of hearers — ad varios status. But, and most important, in Part II appear twenty paragraphs setting forth repertories of ideas, where the preacher can get themes for artistic
1 See p. 289, note 4.
t se- k ii, cher , for lemn lead,
h he rebus -alle- which usual wibus, yt the t, and forth rtistic
Rhetorical Invention 291
development. Thus the author fulfils his purpose of furnishing not oily modum praedicandi but also copiam loquendi. The common- places * are to be worked out in the usual fashion. If you develop by contrartes, and are discussing gluttony, contrast it with absti- nence. If you seek exemplification of various virtues, recall these types: David stands for humility and kindness, Job for patience, Stephen for charity, Susanna for continence and bravery, Anthony for discretion, John the Baptist for sobriety, Katherine for virginity.” If you use division, discuss the kinds of sin. If you use derivation, know that Christ is Sol because He shines solus. Monachus is de- rived from monos ischos, Dominus is analyzed into dans minas, and, one is astonished to read, mulier into molliens herum.
Alain de Lille’s Summa does not contain much theory; it gives general advice, but pursues its inventional aim largely through examples and sermon materials, in the form of forty-seven sketches of homilies on ordinary subjects, varied, again, according to the audience. Both Alain and Humbert had composed separate collec- tions of sermones ad status, and Alain had also written both a Summa quot modis,* a preacher’s dictionary, and a Liber Sententiarum, a book of aphorisms for preachers. But the Summa, although it has under- taken to teach the qualis, quorum, quibus, quare, et ubi of preaching, succeeds in discussing only the first three. Alain’s definition of preaching is the one that is later used by the author of the ‘ Aquinas’- tractate:* “Preaching is open and public instruction in morals and faith, devoted to the informing of men and proceeding from the path of convictions, and from the source of authorities.”” The preacher’s sources are, par excellence, the Gospels, the Psalms, the Epistles of Paul, and the Books of Solomon. Thirty-seven chapters® are devoted to the subjects of preaching: to sermon-sketches against luxury, atogance, and other vices; and to sketches upon such virtues as peace, mercy, obedience, spiritual joy, and the love of God. Alain’s
' Resemblances, relative notions, contraries, cause and effect, vices, virtues, Heaven, Hell, exemplification, anecdotes, continuation, definition, distinctions, observation of the issue or end of a thing, setting forth the essential weight of a word, kind, species, interpreta- tion of Hebrew names, etymology, parts of speech.
* Cf. Philo’s similar practice, discussed by F. W. Farrar, History of Interpretation (London, 1886), p. 146, 3 Lecoy, op. cit., p. 496. 4 Ibid., p. 72. 5 Chaps. 2-38.
292 Rhetorical Invention
method can be seen in the plan of Chapter ii, on the subject: De Mundi Contemptu. The theme is Vanity of Vanities. The general topic of division is used to set forth vanity in its three aspects, the vanity of change, of curiosity, of falsehood, each with a Biblical authority; further, the dialectical uwbi is applied in turn to vanitas, vanitatum vanitas, omnia vanitas. Next it is explained wherein all three vanities apply to riches, in its fears, suspicions, and greed, The same is done with honors, and with mundane pleasures. Then the ancient Fathers are called to witness as authorities upon the contempt of riches, and a vigorous exhortation ends the homily. The last ten chapters deal with the audience of preaching: soldiers, doctors, prelates, princes, widows, maidens, and others. For ex- ample, in Ad Oratores seu Advocatos (xli) the orator is eloquently exhorted to seek truth and justice, follow charity and bring aid to the needy, spurn greed and the popular favor, and avoid venality. The compiler of the ‘Aquinas’-tractate points out that the ma- terial for all sermons is found in ten topics: God, the Devil, the Heavenly City, the Inferno, the world, the soul, the body, sin, peni- tence, and virtue. But the author’s main contribution to a theory of invention consists in his treatment of sermon-dilatatio. If you wish to expand a sermon, you will find nine methods of amplification. (1) Through concordance of authorities. (2) Through discussion of words. On the theme (cf. Ps., xcii, 12): “The righteous shall flourish like the palm-tree in the house of the Lord,” ask “why the house?” “why the palm?” “why the Lord?” “why the house of the Lord?” (3) Through the properties of things. “God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows” (Ps., xlv, 7). Grace is conveniently denoted by oil, for oil has a sanative virtue. Thus Grace cures the wounds of the soul by destroying sins. (4) Through a multiplication of senses, in four ways: ' (a) according to the sensu
1 Caplan, op. cit., pp. 79 ff. Of the other treatises, only Guibert’s specifically suggests the employment of this popular mediaeval method of hermeneutics. The quatrain used by Nicolas of Lyra, and probably others before him, no doubt served as a mnemonic aid to invention:
Littera gesta docet, quid credas allegoria,
Moralis quid agas, quo tendas anagogia. I reserve for another time fuller treatment of the use in homiletics of the four senses of expli- cation.
Rhetorical Invention 293
historicus or literalis; (b) the sensus tropologicus; (c) the sensus alle- goricus; (d) the sensus anagogicus. “David rules in Jerusalem,” according to the literal sense, is to be explained exactly as the words sound; allegorically, by a “sense other than the literal,” it means “Christ reigns in the Church Militant.” “Let thy garments be always white” (Eccles., ix, 8) tropologically is explained: “At all times let thy deeds be clean.”” With the anagogical sense “the minds of the hearers are to be stirred and exhorted to the contemplation of heavenly things.” So, “Blessed are they who wash their gowns in the blood of the Lamb that they may have right to the tree of life.” (Vulg. Rev., xxii, 14) means “Blessed are they who purify their thoughts so that they may see Jesus Christ.” (5) Through analogies and natural truths. It is natural for every creature to love its par- ents; how much more ought we to love God from Whom it becomes natural for us to love our parents; then a fortiori, we should love Him from Whom our parents and we come. (6) Through marking of an opposite, to wit, correction. The Lord God in His goodness is to us like a good father to a son, in that He provides for us, and recalls us to possess eternal life. Therefore the acts of Grace ought to be performed. (7) Through comparisons, when an adjective is used in some authority. “He that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin” (John, xix, 11). Continue as follows: Judas was guilty of a sin, because from greed he coveted a great reward; of a greater sin, because he betrayed his master; of the greatest sin, because he despaired of the mercy of God. (8) Through interpretation of aname. If in some authority the name ‘Israel’ appears, interpret itas man seeing God. (9) Through a multiplication of synonyms. “Man that is born of woman is of few days and full of trouble” (Job, xiv, 1). Amplify by synonyms. Man is filled with woes in that heis oppressed by cares, surrounded by worries, irritated by adver- sity, choked by perils. And the author-compiler leaves the treatment of amplification with the assurance that if you commit these topics to memory, retain them, and resort frequently to them, selecting such as are most convenient to time, place, and audience, you will well use Scripture to teach, to argue, and to arrest injustice, and by instruction you will perfect man in every good work of God.
294 Rhetorical Invention
I include for brief consideration Guibert’s work, not because it jg actually a homiletical manual in plan or in effect. It has not, like the others, a developed scheme of invention. Guibert does advise the employment of the four senses of exposition, and accepts the moral as the most salutary for his purpose. Indeed, this work is the Prooemium to his Moralium Geneseos, which was designed to supply the preacher with sermon-material. But his discussion of the senses of explication does not appear in an organized theory of amplifica- tion. Yet in his general theoretical observations on the spirit of the preacher, the sermon, and the hearer, he serves clearly to show us that the mediaeval preacher did not confine himself to considerations of sermon-structure only. Guibert is interested largely in the grandis animi feruor; and counsels an inner, psychological study as a means to learning the vices and virtues, in order that the preacher may be able to show forth man himself objectively. Conviction and belief are not sufficient; persuasion and action are required.
One is struck by the failure of all the authors, and especially the later ones, to formulate a clear-cut treatment of the exemplum. | do not think Alain has in mind ezempla in the stricter sense when he briefly says: “In fine vero debet uti exemplis ad probandum quod intendit, quia familiaris est doctrina exemplaris.” + And although Lecoy says? that Humbert also recommends the use of exempla, | have been unable to discover the reference. In two passages’ Guibert advises the use of illustrative material, but he does not employ the technical term exempla.
In accordance with these treatises, then, the sermon was based on Scripture, the Fathers, and the moral philosophers. The method was to unfold truth for instruction’s sake, by expounding the text and developing the sermon from that as a centre. Perhaps partly because it was useful against the failure of inspiration, and certainly because it could be an artistically effective means of invention, ac-
! Migne, Pat. Lat., CCX, 114. ? Op. cit., p. 201, citing Max. Bibl. Vet. Patr., XXV, 433. See T. F. Crane, The Exempla
of Jacques de Vitry (London, 1890), Introd., p. xix. 3 Op. cit., coll. 23 and 29. See T. F. Crane, ‘Mediaeval Sermon-Books and Stories and
Their Study Since 1883,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, LVI (1917), 14, note 11.
Rhetorical Invention 295
credited by the rhetorical theory of centuries, the preachers filled out the analytical design of organization with a topical system of amplification. It is not for us here to judge how banal could be the whole scheme of diversified members, definitions, divisions, dialec- tical inquiries, or how over-refined and trivial it could be; yet one may affirm that, when allied to talent, it must have been highly effective. As we have seen, invention concerned not only the quid, but also the guibus. The tractates therefore show a careful study of the psychology of audiences, even as Jacques de Vitry’s discourses covered one hundred and twenty categories of hearers. Since these tractates circulated all over Europe, no doubt a great many preach- ers, through “the sermon of the Lord, the food of the mind,” as the ‘Aquinas ’-author defines it, were successfully taught “how to recall men from error to truth, from vices to virtues, how to change de- pravity to rectitude, how to provide faith, raise hope, enkindle charity, dislodge the injurious, implant the useful, and foster the honorable.”
ConNELL UNIVERSITY.
TWO DERIVITIVE SONGS BY AIMERIC DE PEGUILHAN
By WILLIAM PIERCE SHEPARD
HE two following songs, never before edited, are good examples of that affected and often absurd figure called by the Latin rhetoricians adnominatio and by the mediaeval prosodists of Old Provencal rims dirivitius. The writers and theorists of the Middle Ages obtained their definition and examples of this figure from the Rhetorica ad Herennium, which defines it as follows: Adnominatio est, cum ad idem verbum acceditur cum mutatione unius aut plurium litterarum, ut ad res dissimiles similia verba adcommodentur.' This rhetorical figure is recognized and defined by most of the mediaeval writers on grammar and prosody,’ and is used by many of the poets in Latin and in the vulgar tongues. In Provengal it was employed mainly as a variety of rime. Molinier and the other pedants who in the fourteenth century compiled the Leys d’Amors define the rim dirivitiu thus: Si la us (rims) se desshen del autre per mermamen o per ajustamen d’una letra o d’una sillaba o de motas sillabas, adonz son dig rim dirivitiu.s The source of this definition is at once ap- parent: it comes straight from the Rhetorica ad Herennium. The rim dirivitiu of the troubadours is the adnominatio of the rhetoricians. It is frequently called ‘grammatical rime’ by modern prosodists. This affectation is not very commonly used by the troubadours,* many of the better poets avoiding it entirely; but examples are to be found in all the periods of Provencal song. From Provence it 1 M. Tullii Ciceronis, Opera, ed. Baiter and Kayser, Leipzig, 1860, I, 74. 2 See E. Faral, Les Arts Poétiques du XII* et du XIII° Siacles (Paris: Champion, 1924),
pp. 93-97; and also M. B. Ogle, “Some Aspects of Mediaeval Latin Style,” Specutuu, ! (1926), 170-189.
3 Las Leys d’ Amors, ed. A. F. Gatien-Arnoult, Monumens de la Litt. Romane, I (Tou- louse, 1841), 186-189, 274-278; ed. J. Anglade (Toulouse, 1919-20), II, 112-114, 140.
4 Cf. especially F. Diez, Die Poesie der Troubadours (2d ed., Leipzig, 1883), pp. 86-88; A. Jeanroy, “Etudes sur l’Ancienne Poésie Provengale,” Neuphilol. Mitteilungen, XXVI (1926), 157.
5 For a good example of a song entirely composed in rims dirivitius, see the one begit- ning Al prim pres dels breus iorns braus, by Aimeric de Belenoi, No. 30, printed by C. Appel Provenzal. Chrestom. (4th ed., Leipzig: Reisland, 1912), pp. 71, 72.
296
Two Derivitive Songs by Aimeric de Peguilhan 297
spread to the North, where it was used, infrequently, by lyric and narrative poets in French.! The same trick of rime is also found in early Italian poets.”
The method of rims dirivitius followed by Aimeric de Péguilhan in these songs differs in each case. In I each strophe has a separate rime-root, and the final words of each verse ring the grammatical and etymological changes on this root. In strophe I we find the root franh, in II the root pren, in III the root man, in IV the root trai, in V-VI the root ferm. In II, however, Aimeric arranges his rimes in pairs, alternating the masculine and feminine endings of the same stem. The latter is the more usual form of rim dirivitiu in Provencal, and the only one recognized by the Leys d’ Amors.
The poetical value of such tours de force is of course slight. Nevertheless, we cannot deny that in both songs Aimeric displays acertain mental nimbleness, which however often disappears in the translation. It is impossible, in English prose, to juggle with ety- mological jingles as the troubadour does in Provengal verse. He never quite attains absolute nonsense; and the second song especially is not unpleasing to the ear. Probably that is all that can be ex- pected of such verbal acrobatics.
No. 1: K. Bartsch, Grundriss zur Geschichte der provenzalischen Literatur,
10, 25.
Manuscripts and reprints:* A 140 (C. De Lollis, Studj Romanzi, III, 1904, 437), C 86, D 67, I 54, K 40, J 5 (P. Savj-Lopez, Studj Romanzi, IX, 1912, 636), M 96, (N), Q 12 (G. Bertoni, Il canzoniere provenzale della Riccardiana No. 2909, p. 25), R 48, S p. 163 (Sg), U 44 (Griitzmacher, Herrig’s Archiv XXXV, 1864, 393), c 53 (M. Pelaez, Studj Romanzi, VII, 1911, 385), f 7.
1 See the examples cited by A. Tobler, Von Franz. Versbau, (5th ed., Leipzig, 1910), pp. 111 ff. A good example, quite similar in structure to Aimeric’s first song, is the Dis de la Pomme by Baudouin de Condé in A. Scheler, Dits et Contes de Baudouin de Condé (Brussels, 1966-67), I, 181.
* See for a sonnet and a canzone in rims dirivitius, Le Rime de Fra Guittone d’ Arezzo, ed. F, Pellegrini (Bologna, 1901), I, 98, 269-271.
* For explanations of these sigla and description of the MSS, see A. Jeanroy, Bibliographie Sommaire des Chansonniers Provencauz, Paris, 1916. I have indicated in parentheses the reprint of the MS. when such exists. I have examined and collated myself the MSS ACDIKMRSf. For the others I have relied on the diplomatic reprints. I have unfortunately not been able
to secure copies of the MSS N and Sg (Cheltenham and Barcelona); but I doubt if they con- tain anything to modify the text as established by a comparison of the other MSS.
298 Two Derivitive Songs by Aimeric.de Peguilhan
The order of the strophes in the various MSS is: 1234567 ADIKJ 123457 Qe 12345 f 12345768 123457 U (with an additional strophe after 5) 1243576C 124357 MR This allows a rough classification of the MSS, which is supported in general by the variants. However, there are too many contaminations to permit of the establishment of a family tree. Ordinarily, ADIKJ form one group (cf. the variants of vv. 22, 28, 41), CMR another (cf. 3, 10, 41), SUc another (cf. 7, 30). Q and f go often with the first group (cf. 10), but
No. I. — Criticat Text
En Amor trob alques en que -m refranh, Qu’al menhs d’Amor mals o bes no -m sofranh, Ni ieu per mal no -m luenh d’Amor ni - m franh; On plus m’auci plus ves Amor m’afranh. Mas no conose qu’Amors vas me s’afranha, Ni ieu non ai d’Amor poder que - m franha. Res no -m sofranh, sol qu’Amors no -m sofranha, Quar ses Amor no sai en que - m refranha.
D’Amor no -m puesc partir, qu’Amors mi pren, E quan m’en cug emblar plus mi repren Ab un esguart don mos cors s’escompren, Que - m fai venir de lieys en cuy m’enpren. Mas a son dan no - us cuidetz que m’enprenda, Ni per autra mos fis cors s’escomprenda, Don hom per fals amador mi reprenda, Qu’en lieys es tot, si -] platz, que - m lais o - m prenda.
Aissi suy faigz del tot al sieu coman
Que nulha re no -n desdic qu’elha -m man. Pero d’un be la prec que no -m desman Qu’al comensar me promes del deman;
Two Derivitive Songs by Aimeric de Peguilhan 299
also show some relationship with CMR (cf. 28, 45). I have chosen A as base, but have adopted the orthography of C, which is certainly nearer to Aimeric’s native dialect.!
Metrical schema: 10aaaadbbb
The poem consists of five coblas singulars of eight verses each, with grammatical rime, and of two tornadas, which repeat the rimes of the cauda of strophe V. The metrical schema is that of No. 33 of Maus’ list.? The same arrangement is found in Guillem Anelier 4 and in Guiraut d’Es- panha 1, both of whom in all probability imitate Aimeric.
1 @ was probably compiled in Toulouse,: Aimeric’s birthplace.
2 F. W. Maus, Alphabetisches Verzeichniss Sémmtlicher Strophenform der Provenzalischen Lyrik, appendix to his Peire Cardenals Strophenbau in seinem Verhiiltnisse zu dem anderer Trobadors, Marburg, 1884.
No. I. — TRANSLATION
I. I find in Love somewhat of solace, for at least I lack not ill or good from Love; nor do I, for ill, depart or take myself away from Love. The more he maltreats me, the more I humble myself before him. But I do not see that Love humbles himself before me, and yet I have not the power to depart from him. I lack nought, if Ilack not Love, for without Love 1 know not in what to seek solace.
II. I may not part from Love, since Love seizes me; and when I think to steal away from him, the firmer he seizes me again, by means of a look which fires my heart and which he sends upon me from her who snares me. But think not that I am snared to her hurt, nor that my faithful heart will ever be snared by another woman, for which one might blame me as a false lover. In her, if she will, is all power to take me or to leave me.
III. I am so mindful of her behests that I gainsay nought which she commands me. However, I beg her in her turn not to gainsay afavor she promised me about a question I put to her at the begin- ting. Hence she commits a sin now in that she does not question
300 Two Derivitive Songs by Aimeric de Peguilhan
Don fai peccat hueymais quar no -m demanda E granz merces savals quar no -m desmanda; Mas ieu tenh be per desman si no -m manda: Pero assatz qui no -n desditz comanda.
IV. En lieys son tug li bon ayp qu’om retrai, 26 Estiers que greu promet e leu retrai, Per qu’ieu no puesc sufrir lo mal qu’ieu trai Si qualque be Amors no m’en atrai. Mas pero be o mal qual qu’ieu n’atraya 30 Sufrirai tot, que ja per mal qu’ieu traya No -m estrairai d’amar, qui que -s n’estraya, Ni ja nulh temps no vuelh qu’om m’o retraya.
Don’, en vos ai mon cor tan fin e ferm Que ges non ai poder qu’ieu |’en desferm. 35 Abans vos jur sobre sanhs e - us aferm Cum plus m’en cug partir, plus mi referm;
E si Merces que -ls partimens referma
Per chauzimen en vos plus no s’aferma,
Totz mos afars s’i destrui e -s desferma, 40 Qu’autra del mon no vuelh que m’estia ferma.
VI. L’adregz Guilhems Malaspina referma
Don e domnei, si que quasqus aferma y Que de bon pretz no -s laissa ni -s desferma, d Per qu’om en luy deu tener prova ferma. a Na Biatritz d’Est, tant etz fin’ e ferma
46 Que -1 vostre sens no -s camja ni -s desferma, t Don vostre laus se melhur’ e s’aferma; gr
E pueys mos chans e mos digz o referma. VARIANTS Ni I. (In C the first four verses have been mutilated by the excision of a mini- ad ature) I. Amors R; a gem U; alges c. 2. Cal mens al mal damor bes non .
sofranh f; amors RS; mal al be Q, ben o mal R, mal o ben SUc; no DS. 3.
Two Derivitive Songs by Aimeric de Peguilhan 301
me, and at the same time she is very merciful in that she does not gainsay me. I hold it nevertheless to be a gainsaying if she does not send for me. Yet it is evident that whoever does not gainsay com- mands.
IV. In her are all the good qualities that are told of men, save that she is slow to promise and quick to retract. Therefore I cannot endure the woe I suffer, unless Love bring me some good from it. But whatever of good or ill I may bring upon myself 1 shall endure all, for never for ill that I endure shall I cease loving, whosoever may cease; nor do I wish that one should ever accuse me of that.
V. Lady, my heart is so faithful and true to you that I have no power in me of taking it from you. Nay, I swear by the saints and I affirm that the more I think to part from you the more I abide. Yet if Pity who heals all divisions abide not in you by your grace, all my cause is ruined and overthrown, since I will not that any other lady in the world save you be constant to me.
VI. The upright William Malaspina abounds in largess and lady-service, so that every one asserts that he does not cease nor desist from seeking good fame. One should find in him therefore a faithful witness.
VII. Lady Beatrice of Este, you are so faithful and constant that your mind wavers not nor is shaken, wherefore your glory grows and abides. My song and my words affirm that ever.
Niieu per mal damor nom luenh CMRS; Ni lacking R; damors J, damar Q; no 1. ni f. M. 4. Com plus mauci ves a. me flaing c; On mai ma uei pus ves 4. mafranh f; Con plus JMSUc; amors JRSU, amar Q. 5. lacking Q; Enon JR; amor Uc; sofraigna c. 6. Ni ieu damor non ai poder (Nisquieu J,
302 Two Derivitive Songs by Aimeric de Peguilhan
Ni ges M) CIKJMQRSUcf; damors JR, damar Q; quem flagna c. 7. Re Q, Ren SUcf; camar Q, camor SUc; no sofranha Q; no sostaigna D. 8. Mas y;
amar Q, amors Rf; reflagna c.
II. 9. Damars Q, Damors R; camar Q, camor SUc. 10. Qe gan S; cug partir CMU, puesc partir R; me cug U. II. mon cor QUc, mos cor S, mon cors f; si conpren MU, sencompren R. 12. Qem f. v. celei en c. mespren Q; Qem f. v. sela de (en f) cui Rf; Qem fai plaizer celei de mi pren U. 13. M. al son dan S, M. aizo non U, M. a so non ¢; non cug ies quelam prenda (, non cuides que menprenda DIK, non cuges gieu menprenda JM; non cug ges qe mesprenda Qf, non cug ies qieu menprenda R, non cuies geu mi prenda Sc, non cuiez qeu reprenda U, 14. Ni ves autra R, Ni por a. §; mon fin cor DQUc; si conprenda M. 15. Don ia nulhs fals amadors mi re- prenda C. 16. lacking f; tog Q; qeu lais o p. M, que lais comprenda R, ge illais om p. U; o prenda S.
Ill. 17. Caissi ADIK; Car ieu soy f. R; fait SUc; a son c. IK. 18. res R; noylh d. CUe; de dic Q; gelan mant S, que li man U, qil o man ¢, quella man f. 19. Mas duna res la p. R; Pero lo ben la p. gil non d. S; qil non d. C; non desman D, non desman Q, nol d. U. 21. Don sol peggat c; peccaz U; oy mai mai car nom desmanda f; gar no mi manda M; non demanda DIKSUc. 22. lacking f; E gran merce CMRSU, gran merces Qc; daitan quar R; que nom CJ Mc; non d. QSUc. 23. eus teing c; be lacking R; sil U; sil non desmanda ¢; qi nom manda MR. 24. desdi IKS; ge c; nom desditz.
IV. 25. totz los bos aibs R, tot li bons aibs U, tot los bons aibs c. 27. los mals R; qui entrai 1K, gen trai Q. 28. cals ge bes R; bes U; cal ben IK; S. q. b. merces no CMQRSU¢f; atraia Q; non matrai c; non men uetrai f. 29. lacking Q; Perol mal ol ben Uc; bes o mals cals qieu traia R; qual que matraya CSc, cal qieu en traia AIK, cal qem natraia DJM, qalge me traia U, cal ge zieu traia f. 30. lacking f; Sofrirai lea MS; mals R; gien traia DI (inserted on margin I) KJ MQ, gem atraia S, gem traya Uc. 31. Non esterai qi qis nestraia U; Non estarai qi ge me ne straia c; Nom nestrairai M; Nom nestrai R; Non estarai S; damor IK, damors J; qi ges estraya Q, qui gen estraia S, qi quis nestraia f. 32. Ni ia nuill teing non uoill como r. D; Qe ia n. t. nom v. gom r. (qom me r. ce) Ue; null iorn M.
V. 33. Dompna vos ai Ac; lo cors Q; mon cor fin e ferm U; tan fi ferm f; e tan ferm R. 34. Que res non a p. quel me d. R; Qeu DIK; ge len desferm AQ, ge lem d. S; ge lom deferm Uc. 35. Enans CMQRyY; e aferm ¥. 36. On c; Que can men R; me cug IKMUc; plus men referm Q. 37. Mai si f; E lacking Uc; gel partimen Q, al partimens R, ge partimens S, ql partimen U, qil pertinenga c. 38. I begins Per chausimenz referma, then corrects to P. ch. en vos etc.; E chausimentz M; chausimeng Qc. 39. lacking ¢;
Two Derivitive Songs by Aimeric de Peguilhan 303
Tot mon afar CM; Tot D; se destrui DMQ; se destruis ses ferma R; si desclaus es desferma f; e desferma QSU. 40. lacking f; Quautra mais vos CDIKJ MQRSUc; que mesteu A, quen estia C, que mestec DIK, mestei J, mestes M, mistea U, me steia c, qus hestic Q, que sia ferma R.
After V, U adds this strophe:
Lai on vos es me vao rendre per pres,
Bona donna, c’aisi m’ai enapres
Ab fin’ amor ge -m fai estar ab pres
De ben amar, ge non sia repres.
Ma dieus mi lais viure tro q’eu prenda
Vostre bel cors dedins cambra o reprenda,
Qe semblan m’er, donna, c’ab dieu mi prenda, Ab ge merces en vostre cors s’aprenda.
VI. lacking MQRUcf. 41. Ladreg Guilhem C; Conratz Malaspina A, Cora D, Coral I, Coralz K, Conrat S. 42. chascun KS. 48. non laissi ni d. 8. 44. lacking A; Per ge en lui es ades valor ferma S.
VII. lacking f. 45. Na B. tant etz de beutat (beutaz R, bontat SUc) ferma CRSUc; de bon prez ferma M. 46. Qe vostres prez MS; non chania nis d.SU, non chania ni disferma c; ni desferma C; deferma I. 47. lacking M; Don vostre sen Q; D. v. 1. melhura e R; De v. 1. anz meilhura e Uc; si millor anz saferma S. 48. Anz puei ades e mos chantz o r. M; E pos mos di¢ emos chang o r. Q; E p. mos ditz e mos cors co r. R;.E p. mos diz en ren no se disferma S; E p. mos chanz e mos d. eus (uus U) referma Uc; mo referma C.
Notes
17-24. The sequence of thought in this strophe is confused and paradoxi- cal. It may be paraphrased as follows: Whatever she commands I do. When I first wooed her, she promised to ask me a favor. She has not done s0. That’s too bad; but not so bad as retracting the promise would be. Not asking is retracting; but yet not retracting is asking.
41. I have preferred here the reading Guilhems of CJ to Conratz of ADIKS, because William Malaspina is often mentioned in other songs by Aimeric (for example, in 11, 12, 25, 34, 41), Conrad never (except possibly indirectly in 40). Aimeric’s fine elegy (10, 10), Ara par be que valors se desfai, is a planh for William’s death (1220). For the Malaspina family at this time and its relations with the troubadours, see O. Schultz-Gora, Die Briefe des Trobadors Raimbaut de Vaqueiras an Bonifaz I, Markgrafen ton Monferrat (Halle,1893), pp. 122-132. That the MS. J, which goes in general with ADIK, here agrees with C, is very significant.
304 Two Derivitive Songs by Aimeric de Peguilhan
45. Beatrice of Este, daughter of Azzo VI, born 1191, took the veil about 1220, died 1226. She is often mentioned by Aimeric, for example in Nos, 2, 3, 12, 15, 16, 33, 34, 41, 45. She was also praised by the Bolognese troubadour Rambertino Buvalelli. See F. Bergert, Die von den Trobadors genannten oder gefeierten Damen (Halle, 1913), pp. 81-85.
No. 1: Bartsch, Grundriss, 10, 47.
A 140 (De Lollis, p. 436), C 90, D 67, I 147, K 39, (N), P 56 (there strophes only; Stengel, Herrig’s Archiv L, (1872), 264, prints only the first strophe), Q 15 (Bertoni, p. 31), R 51, U 43 (Griitzmacher, p. 392), ¢ 50 (Pelaez, p. 329).
Of these MSS, CR form a group by themselves, as the variants of verses 15, 24, 43, show. PUc agree with CR, as against ADIKQ, in verse 9. In the latter group, AD go together, in opposition to 1KQ, as in verse 18, These variants permit a loose classification as follows:
No. II. — Criticat Text
Ses mon apleg no vauc ni ses ma lima, Ab que fabreg motz et aplanh e lim, Car ieu no veg d’obra suptil ni prima De nulha leg __ plus suptil ni plus prim, Ni plus adreg _obrier en cara rima Ni plus pesseg _ sos dicz ni mielh los rim. Mas el destreg d’Amor, tan no m’escrim, Suy, fe que -us deg, eno men val escrima.
Si per merce- m fetz Amors apercebre La belha que mos precs non apercep Que denhes me per servidor recebre, Mout feira be, _ e falh quar no -m recep. No sai per que m/auci ni -m vol decebre, Que bona fe _l’ai on plus mi decep. Non aense merce, si no -n soisep; Mais erguelh cre, que no -n li cal soisebre.
Ben es d’amor _-vuej’ e de merce sema. Las! per que plor? qu’elha m’a de joi sem; Que no-m socor, ans se luenh’ e s’estrema
Two Derivitive Songs by Aimeric de Peguilhan 305
|
AD IKQ PUc CR
I have adopted A as base, using the orthography of C. Metrical Schema: labababba
I have preferred to print these verses as decasyllables, with interior rime, rather than as alternate four- and six-syllables, though I recognize that the latter arrangement is possible. The majority of the MSS favor the former arrangement.
The poem consists of five coblas singulars of eight ten-syllabled verses, with interior rime at the fourth syllable of each verse, and of a tornada of four verses.
Maus, loc. cit., No. 249, cites no other example of this rime-arrange- ment in decasyllables.
No. II. — TRANSLATION
I. I do not go about without my plane and my file with which I fabricate words and plane and file them; for I see no subtle and delicate work of any sort which is subtler and more delicate than mine, nor a more skillful worker in precious rimes nor anyone who dissects more his words nor who rimes them better than I do. But I am so in the stress of Love that struggling avails me nought, however much I struggle.
II. If of his grace Love should make the Fair One who heeds not my prayers heed me, so that she should deign to accept me as her servant, he would do exceedingly well. She errs since she does not accept me. I know not why she slays me and wishes to deceive me; for 1 am of good faith toward her when she deceives me most. She has no mercy in her, unless she borrow some; but she trusts in pride, s0 that she cares not to borrow any.
III. In sooth she is void of love and deprived of mercy. Alas! Why do I weep? Because she has deprived me of joy, in that she helps me not, but on the contrary departs and takes herself away
306 Two Derivitive Songs by Aimeric de Peguilhan
20 Demi, quaillor vol que -m mut e m’estrem. Non a paor, _ni tan ni quan no trema Dela dolor don ieu fremisc e trem, Per qu’ai major mal e-m par que plus crem, Quar del ardor que m/art elha non crema.
Tan doussamen’ mi ve nafrar e ponher
Qu’ieu non o sen, _ini no sai ab que -m ponh; Pueys ses enguen mi sap guerir et onher
Ab un plazen _esguart: ve -us ab que m’onh; Que fai mo sen ab ma voluntat jonher
Que d’un talen _los truep que -Is li’ e -1s jonh,
Per qu’ieu corren — venc vas lieys don mi lonh, Tan promet len _ e fai de lonhor lonher.
Senes manjar, dona -m poiriatz paisser Ab gen parlar, que -! cortes digz me pays, Qu’ab esquivar me tornatz en iraisser, Per qu’om blasmar _ no -m deu si m’en yrays. Neis l’engraissar _en perc; qu’ieu fora graisser. Per autr’ afar no-m falh la carns ni -| grays; E s’ab prejar en vos Merces no nays, Fora-m,so-mpar, mielhs que fossetz a naisser.
Ab dous esgar _ sap sos vezedors paisser Et ab honrar N’Emilla cui joys pays, Qu’onor ten care pretz, qu’ab lieys renays, E domnejar _ sofr’ e -] fa renaisser.
VARIANTS
I. I. Ses mos apleitz n. v. e ses ma 1. R; Eng mos apselg c; ses mal lima P; lina J, lina corrected to lima K. 2. plan P, aplane e R, aplan U. 3. Qieu non hi veg CIKR, Qieu non vieg PQ, Qeu non veg Uc; non uieng D; 4, tan s. ni tan p. C. 5. adrez Uc; obrar CRU; obrier ni cara r. Q. 6. Ni plus speg sos motz P; plech U, speseg c; pesses R; ni pus los rim R. 7. Mas el destrig tan non es ecrim c; damor non nos crim D; non nes crim IK; ab destreg P, al destreg U. 8. Son que feus dreg 1K; Sotz so queus
Two Derivitive Songs by Aimeric de Peguilhan 307
from me, since she wills that I depart and betake myself otherwhere. She has no fear, neither does she tremble at all from the pain which makes me shudder and tremble; wherefore my woe is greater and I seem to burn the more, because she does not burn at all with the passion which burns me.
IV. So softly she comes to wound and pierce me that I do not feel it, nor do I know with what she pierces me. Then without oint- ment she can cure and anoint me, with a loving look. Behold with what she anoints me, in such a way that she joins my reason and my will. I find them both animated by one desire which binds and joins them, wherefore I come running toward her from whom I de- part. She makes such smooth promises and makes one depart from further away (brings one back from a distance).
V. Without eating, Lady, you could feed me with a gracious speech, since the courteous word feeds me. But by your reserve you turn me to wrath, wherefore no one should blame me even if I am woth. I even lose my fat on that account, for I should be fatter. Flesh and fat forsake me for no other reason. And if pity be not born in you with my prayer, better were it, methinks, that you were still unborn.
VI. Lady Emilia, whom joy feeds, knows well how to feed the eyes of those who look upon her, with a sweet look and with honor- able entreaties, for she holds dear honor and worth, which is reborn with her, and she maintains lady-service and resurrects it when dead.
deg gel no me val e. P; Que fe queus deg res no me v. e. R; Per fe qeus dei U; que no mi val CUe.
II. 9. fezes amors percebre ADI KQ; fos amor P; merces U.10. apercebr P; non percep R; non maperceub U. 11. doignes D; mes IK (with the s expunctuated in K). 12. Molto fera fol qar non receub U; be lacking c; cornom recebr P, ca nom percep Q; non ADc. 13. Non sa U; mi uol aisi decebre R; ni vol Q. 14. Que per ma fe C; Qi bona fe Q; Quen JU; iai on p. me decebre P; ai eu p. me deceub U; ai on c. 15. Non a merce ab se ni non
308 Two Derivitive Songs by Aimeric de Peguilhan
soyssep C; Non ai Uc; si nol i soi sebr P; per que no mi soi sep R; si non sonrceub U, si non sox be c. 16. Mos orgoills D; cre lacking D; len cal (; ge no qal ge sen soi sebre P; que nol calha R; ge no lor (lol c) cal so cebre Ue,
III. 17. voia de m. DIKQ, vogo de m. c; Ben es amors v. de m e sema R. 18. per queu 1KP; quel cor ma de ioi sem CIKQPRUc; ge ma D; mai U. 19. non DU; Si non socor [K; salloing e se screma P; anz loing esestrema U, ang loing sestrema c. 20. que mande mescrem P; quen mut J; geu mud Uc; e mi strem c. 21. no lacking C; ni tan non trema P. 22. De ma dolor A; que yeu f. e t. R. 23. e par C; par lacking P; e pus par que crem R; en ger qe plus trem U; trem c. 24. Qar la dolor qi mor della non trema U; Qar de la dolor qi mard ella non trema c; quieu ai CR.
IV. lacking P. 25. me uen afar Q; uence Uc. 26. non ai sen CR; a gem p. U, ab ge p. c. 28. D repeats here Quar non o sen and then adds the rest of the verse; uei ab ge U; ab gé dg Q. 29. quem CR; ma ley e ma v. j. R; e ma v. Ce 30. Qi dun t. lo trob qils U; after los, prec expunctuated R; Qu dun t. las trob a gel jung U; las trob gels lie noing c. 31. vos leis D; veing QU. 32. T. p. leu e fay del onor 1. R; Tan mi p. len e f. de langor logner U; Tan mi p. c; de loignor loing Q.
V. lacking P. 33. podiatz AD; domna me podes IK. 34. dig CQe. 35. Qabels chiuar Q; en ira issir D, en ni ras ier U. 36. non deu DIKQUe; si mirais R, seu men irais c. 37. N. lin grassar em perd qeum (qeun c) fora g. Uc; Neus DIKQ; les graissar Q; la graysa en R; graissier I; quem feira g. C. 38. non fail U; la carn CRUc, lan car Q; el grais U. 39. E sapchatz sien uos merce no nais R; preia J; merce CDQU. 40. Foran son par D; son par I, so’n par Q; queu fossetz Qc.
VI. lacking P. 41. so fogedors Q, los uencedors R, senz uenzedor Uc. 42. E ab emar ne nulla c. j. p. Q; E ab onrat U; ma dona cui C, la bela cul R; joi Uc. 43. qu’ lacking R. 44. Ab bels captiens quen aysa fai r. R; Ed. sufrer fai mort r. U; sa mort enaisser A, fa mort enaisser D; soste e fai r. C; sofrel famor enaisser Q; fal IK.
Notes
8. d’obra. This construction, partitive de after negative verbs, is very rare in Provengal. Cf., however, Bernart de Ventadorn (ed. C. Appel), $1, 45: non ai de sen per un efan.
6. The subject of pesseg (3 sg. pres. subj. of the verb pesejar, “break, crush, tear,” here used figuratively, “dissect, analyze’’), is the relative que understood. For similar paratactic constructions in Provengal se Publ. Mod. Lang. Assn, XXI (1906), 566 ff.
Two Derivitive Songs by Aimeric de Peguilhan 309
9. Here the rime arrangement forbids the adoption of the reading feces amors percebre of the MSS ADIKQ, which is otherwise preferable to the reading adopted in the text. I interpret fetz as a shortened by-form of the imperfect subjunctive, equivalent to the later fes, found in Amanieu de Sescas, Guiraut Riquier and other late troubadours.
21-22. Appel (in E. Levy, Provenzal. Supplement-Worterbuch, VIII, 426) doubts the existence of a verb tremar in Old Provencal. He was apparently unacquainted with this passage, which confirms Jeanroy’s in- terpretation of William of Poitou, 10, 15. The existence of tremar (which I would explain as a contamination-form from tremer + tremblar) must now be recognized.
$1-32. The most difficult passage in this song. The reading de lonhor lonher seems assured by the agreement of all the MSS except MR. I inter- pret len, 32, as adverbial lene and believe that Aimeric has coined the verb lonher (ordinarily lonhar) for the rime’s sake. The expression lonher de lonhor “‘go far from farther,” I take as a conceit for “come nearer,” quite in keeping with the affected taste of the whole piece.
$3. Here the sense demands the reading poiriatz rather than podiatz of ADIK.
42. N’Emilla is evidently the lady of like name praised by Aimeric in two other songs, 10, 3, and 10, 53. She was the wife of Count Pietro Traversara, and flourished ca. 1220. See Bergert, op. cit., pp. 76,77, and Modern Philology, XXIII (1925), 23.
Hammtton CoLLEGE.
NOTES
THE LANGUAGE OF THE STRASSBURG OATHS
In his article published in Specutum, I (1926), 410-438, Mr James Westfall Thompson seeks to show that the French portion of the text of the Strassburg Oaths was a tenth-century translation. He asserts that the two passages recited in “romana lingua” by Louis and by the army of Charles, according to the sole extant manuscript of Nithard’s Historia, in which the Oaths are contained, were originally in the usual Latin of the ninth century. By “usual Latin” Mr Thompson explains that he means written Mediaeval Latin, not the lingua vulgaris. In support of his thesis, he argues: (1) that the ninth-century testimony bearing on the term romana lingua is that it invariably means Latin; (2) that, as used of the Oaths, romana lingua could not mean Old French; for Old French did not exist in the ninth century, no Romance language being at that time sufficiently differentiated from the Latin to possess a separate identity and to be regarded as a national speech; (3) that north Gaul was predomi- nantly German in the ninth century; that the only other language was the Vulgar Latin of the peasantry of Roman ancestry, and this Latin had not yet become Old French; (4) that in the other pacts or treaties of the period the vernacular is not quoted, and that, unless it be in the treaty of Coblenz, no mention is made of its having been employed; (5) that many of the word-forms in the French text of the Oaths are of a period later than 842, and that other linguistic evidence in the text suggests that it is a transla- tion from Latin.
Mr Thompson lists as the languages of Latin origin which were written or spoken in ninth-century Gaul: (1) Written Latin (i.e., classical Latin modified by ‘low’ Latin and by Vulgar Latin), (2) Vulgar Latin, and (3) Ecclesiastical Latin. He then makes two equations: romana lingua = Written Latin; and lingua rustica or rustica romana lingua or lingua wil- garis or lingua inerudita = Vulgar Latin. His citation from an itinerary’ of 868-870, where he interprets omnes . . . linguam loquentes romanam as meaning ‘all those of Latin blood, whether from Gaul, Italy or Spain, among whom Latin was still a common and universal speech,’ would seem to indicate that he considers written Mediaeval Latin to have been at that time the colloquial speech of Romania.
The accredited view has been that the lingua romana was the language spoken by that portion of the population of the Roman empire which
1 Jtinerarium Bernardi Monachi Franci. $10
Notes 311
used in their intercourse speech of which the basis was Latin but which differed materially from written Latin, and that thus lingua romana was the name employed when need was felt to apply a distinguishing term to the colloquial speech. This interpretation makes lingua romana the equivalent of lingua vulgaris (vulgaris meaning ‘usual,’ ‘every-day,’ ‘common’). To this lingua romana or lingua vulgaris still other terms could be applied, such as lingua inerudita, sermo cotidianus, sermo vivus, sermo usualis. Varieties of the lingua vulgaris could, according to circumstances, be em- braced in the general term or be specially designated; for example, lingua rustica. As between the designations lingua vulgaris and lingua romana, the first was more particularly appropriate when the contrast was with the lingua erudita (i.e., written Latin); the second, when the contrast was with the lingua barbarae of the non-Latin-speaking peoples or with some lingua barbara such as the lingua teudisca. In cases where there was occasion to differentiate between geographical varieties of the lingua romana, such terms as lingua gallica or lingua ttalica were employed.
For a century evidence has progressively accumulated of the changes differentiating in ever-increasing measure the colloquial language from the general form of all the written Latin we know or have ground to think existed in the corresponding periods: entire disappearance of vowels in certain positions, weakening and alerntations of others, assimilation of consonants, simplification of genders, disappearance of cases and of whole declensions, reductions and confusion of terminations, veritable revolu- tions in vocabulary, and endless things more. The written language reveals numerous traces of the modifying influence of the colloquial language, and consequently, in degree varying according to epoch and author, it deviated from the classical Latin. The divergence between the written language and the colloquial language must by the ninth century have been vast, all the more so because the revival of letters in Charlemagne’s time had brought the written Latin back much nearer to the classical Latin. That the church ritual continued to be recited in Latin doubtless preserved for the ears of the laict a certain familiarity with the external form of the ecclesiastical latin. However, since, as Mr Thompson very justly observes, “languages do not spring, they grow,” and since French is unquestionably a continu- ation of the lingua vulgaris, it would be surprising if there is evidence that the book-Latin of Nithard and his contemporaries, or anything approxi- mating it, was a current colloquial medium for any save perhaps the eruditi in their intercourse with eruditi. It would be even more surprising if there is evidence that the lingua vulgaris of north Gaul, which is but an early stage of Old French, is to be differentiated from the lingua romana of north Gaul. Such evidence might well have been equally surprising to the writers of the Old-French period itself, who regularly used the term roman
312 Notes
when they wished to contrast their langue vulgaire with the langue deg clercs. Let us see then what facts and arguments Mr Thompson brings in support of his claims.
Mr Thompson begins by pointing out the use, during Merovingian times, of lingua romana to differentiate Latin from German (lingua barbara), He next presents the cases of Saint Mummolinus (seventh century) and Saint Adalhard (ninth century), of whom it is stated that they were versed in three languages, romana lingua, theutonica, and Latin. But, he con- tinues, the statements are made in Vitae of the tenth and eleventh centuries, at which time “‘ French was the dominant speech of all Gaul.” Further, in the case of the Vita Adalhardi the eleventh-century writer must have embroidered his facts, since a ninth-century Vita Adalhardi mentions only barbara quam Teutiscam dicunt, and latina. Therefore Mr Thompson draws a conclusion that there is no evidence in the ninth century for the existence of Romance speech. The term lingua romana, he says, which in the tenth century meant ‘roman,’ was the ninth-century designation for written Mediaeval Latin. The sole evidence brought forth in support of this last statement is two passages, one from Einhard, the other from the already- mentioned Jtinerarium of the monk Bernard. In the first passage, Einhard speaks of himself as a “barbarian [i.e., a German], and little versed in the Roman tongue (in romana locutione),”’ and as one who imagined that he “could write Latin without offense and usefully (decenter aut commode latine scribere posse putauerim).” “Obviously, says Mr Thompson, here romana locutio means normal written Mediaeval Latin.” But he does not define latine. It would seem rather that latine means ‘in normal written Mediaeval Latin,’ and in romana locutione means ‘in the language of Ro- mania’ as distinguished from Einhard’s own lingua barbara. Let us con- tinue to the second passage, from the Itinerarium. As we have already seen, Mr Thompson states that linguam romanam, in the phrase omnes ... linguam loquentes romanam, indicates the “common and universal speech” of the Latin inhabitants of Romania, and that none of the Romance lan- guages were as yet sufficiently differentiated from Latin to possess distinct identities as national speeches.! Despite Mr Thompson’s statement that
1 Certainly such a statement would have been denied by G. Paris, who writes (Lecturt faite a la réunion des Sociétés savantes, 1888): “Si on avait demandé, il y a un millier d’années, a un habitant de la Gaule, de l’Espagne, de I’Italie, de la Rhétie, ou de la Mésie: ‘Que parle tu?’, ilaurait répondu, suivant son pays: ‘ Romanz, romanzo, romance, roumounsch, roumeuns, toutes formes variées d’un seul et méme mot, I’adverbe romanice, qui signifie ‘dans la langue
>”
des Romains. For more recent discussions of Vulgar Latin in Spain and Gaul, see J. Pirson, “Le Latin
des Formules Mérovingiennes et Carolingiennes,” Roman. Forsch., XXVI (1909), 834-94,
and Menéndez Pidal (Ortgines del Espaftol, Madrid, 1926).
It must be observed also that Mr Thompson (p. 416, note 3) quotes a passage from the
Notes 313
lingua romana meant written Mediaeval Latin, we hesitate to infer that he believes that the ““common and universal speech” was also written Mediaeval Latin. That it was ecclesiastical Latin is out of the question. Mr Thompson is therefore committed to an acceptance of lingua romana as a possible designation for the vernacular, namely, Vulgar Latin. How- ever, he continually maintains a distinction between Vulgar Latin and Old French, though he avoids any statement more specific than that in the ninth century Vulgar Latin had not yet become Old French.' This latter, he asserts, was designated lingua gallica. But this assertion is based on passages in which there is no evidence that the term had any other meaning than “the language of Gaul,” which was Vulgar Latin. In one case, where both lingua gallica and lingua romana are found (p. 416, note 3), he ac- cepts them both as equivalent to Old French. Mr Thompson is clearly at a loss to preserve separate identities for Vulgar Latin and Old French; this is not surprising. So confused is he in fact that near the close of his article (p. 434) he writes, unconsciously abandoning the futile attempt: “French or the Vulgar Latin which passed for it in the ninth century.” Mr Thompson has produced no evidence which contradicts the accepted view that Old French of the tenth century, the existence of which he ad- mits, was anything save the direct and sole continuation of the lingua romana of Gaul; and he has presented no facts which in any way discredit the equally accepted view that lingua romana is the equivalent of Vulgar Latin, of which other equivalents were, according to circumstances, lingua inerudita, sermo cotidianus, sermo vivus, sermo usualis, lingua rustica, lingua vulgaris, lingua gallica, rustica romana lingua.
Mr Thompson asserts, as further support of his hypothesis, that owing to certain political facts the use of “a ‘roman’ form of language” in the Oaths would be out of the question in 842. He bases this assertion upon the affirmation that in the ninth century “German was the reigning lan- guage all over northern Gaul,” and says: “Since Charles’s adherents were almost wholly drawn from the North and Northeast provinces which, as we have seen, were still strongly German in language, and further, since the language of the court was German, why should a ‘roman’ form of lan- guage have been resorted to in the Strassburg Oaths? For the benefit of Charles’s mere handful of supporters from the Midi? One cannot believe
monk of Saint Gall to prove that lingua gallica meant Old French in 884, only fourteen years after the time of Bernard’s account of the Itinerartum.
' His inference (p. 429, note 2), from Hist. Litt., VI, 3, that Vulgar Latin, as distinct from Old French, seems still to have persisted in some regions, is not justified by the article in question. Furthermore, the same paragraph from which he draws his inference contains the following illuminating words: “en gaulois du temps, ou langue vulgaire, qu’on nomma depuis romanciére.”
314 Notes
it.” A second and perhaps more pertinent question, which Mr Thompson does not ask, is: If Charles’s adherents, with the exception of a “mere handful of supporters from the Midi,” were strongly German in language, why was it necessary for Louis to swear in lingua romana? For the benefit of the “mere handful from the Midi’? And why did the troops of Charles swear in lingua romana instead of in German? The answer to these ques- tions is clearly that lingua romana was the prevailing vernacular among the people north of the Loire in 842. It is a matter of common knowledge that German was in the ninth century the reigning language of the court, although we may question the statement which denies to Louis the Pious knowledge of any other idiom and pronounces upon the linguistic preference of Charles the Bald. But there is no evidence that German was the reigning language of the people. The letters of Loup de Ferriéres referred to by Mr Thompson show how difficult it was to maintain a knowledge of German even among the nobility, their sons having to be sent to school in German territory that they might acquire it."
Mr Thompson next invokes the testimony of other compacts in which Charles the Bald and his brothers figured, stating that an examination of these will strengthen the hypothesis that the original text of the Strassburg Oaths was in Latin. What does result from an examination of them is a realization that the circumstances of the Strassburg Oaths are in no way comparable to those of these other pacts, the treaty of Coblenz excepted. These other pacts are treaties, which were subscribed to in an ecclesiastical building and distinguished by the “‘cautious minuteness”’ necessary in such documents, and for which Latin would be the normal legal medium. The Strassburg Oaths, being sworn to in the open and with the assembled armies as co-jurors, have a particular reason for the use of the vernacular. Written Mediaeval Latin would have been incomprehensible to the mass of the soldiers, and these same soldiers, in pronouncing their reciprocal oaths, must of necessity have employed their respective vernaculars. In contrast to the Strassburg Oaths, the treaty of Aachen, in 877, is a diplomatic docu- ment, and as such offers an explanation for the use in it of Latin and Ger- man, and also for the absence of need for transcripts into the Romance vernacular, even if Fulda’s testimony were conclusive that there were none. As for the treaty of Coblenz, the record states: (1) that Louis makes his
1 Loup, in expressing his gratitude to Mareward of Priim for teaching German to the three youths who had been sent to Priim to acquire the language, refers to it as one would toa foreign tongue (linguae ‘vestrae’ pueros fecistis participes). Regarding this lingua vestra, Loup says: cuius usum hoc tempore pernecessarium nemo nisi nimis tardus ignorat, a statement into which Mr Thompson reads more than it contains, when he interprets it as meaning: “A knowledge of German is still very necessary around Ferriéres unless a man would be con- sidered a blockhead.”
Notes 315
declaration in lingua theodisca (the text thereof being set forth in Latin and in Latin only); (2) that Charles made the same declaration in romana lingua (text not quoted) and recapitulated it in lingua theodisca (text not quoted); (3) that Louis requested in lingua romana a promise of pardon for men of Charles who had adhered to Louis, and that Charles gave this promise in lingua romana (the text of request and response being set forth in Latin). The procedure is, as Mr Thompson says, similar to that at Strassburg, care being taken to employ German when those were involved who could understand only German and employ lingua romana when those were involved who could understand only lingua romana. In the present instance, however, the wording of the declarations in German and in lingua romana was not made a matter of record, it being considered ade- quate to record their content in the written Latin of the annalist.
Before passing to his linguistic argument, Mr Thompson states that his- torical conditions in the tenth century lend support to his hypothesis that the original form of the Oaths was Latin. He argues that the translation of the Strassburg Oaths into ‘roman’ took place during the reign of Charles the Simple, when the search for precedents for the feudal oath then in process of development “created a keen interest in the Strassburg Oaths.” Even if it were possible to prove the interest of the tenth-century legists in the Strassburg Oaths, there would be nothing to show that they must have gone back to a Latin original rather than to one in ‘roman.’ It is not impossible that Charles the Simple may have known and employed the Strassburg Oaths to strengthen his position; it is equally possible that they were wholly unknown to him.
The argument advanced by Mr Thompson as to the part played by the scribes in the deformation of the extant Old-French text of the Oaths isnot sufficiently clear to admit of analysis. He is misleading in asserting that the German text is remarkably accurate and in assuming that the French is extremely faulty.! He seems to be in favor of a German copyist who did not understand French. Faced with the possibility that a later sxtibe might have been unable to understand the language of a previous generation, he demands: “Why have we so few monuments of so potent and virile a language?”’ It would seem reasonable that a language will show change much more rapidly when not fixed by writing, and that any attempt at transcribing a speech lacking in written precedent will prove puzzling to those who came afterwards.
From a consideration of the linguistic forms of the Strassburg Oaths, Mr Thompson advances arguments to the effect that these forms would have been impossible in the ninth century. The greater part of these argu-
' For a discussion of the German text, see J. Grimm, Kleinere Schriften, VI, 403, 404.
316 Notes
ments consists of unanswered questions to which the answers would almost invariably be unfavorable to the author’s thesis. As regards the forms of the future, there is no testimony in all the north French territory save for the amalgamated forms. The Deus satisfacere habet — which would certainly be most surprising in a French text — is not from the Sainte Eulalie, as Mr Thompson states, but from a Latin life of Saint Euphrosyne.' A bit more than personal doubt would seem necessary to convict dreit of an. achronism when we find drictum in 802. Dist is quite probably to be read dift (debet). Mr Thompson fails to realize that fazet and facet can represent the same pronunciation, the z and c being alternative writings for the same sound, ts. There is reason why om and pois should be not only possible in the ninth century, but even very natural. Ad Ludher is without value as argument one way or the other, since it merely represents an influence from the South. As for the dialect, for which Mr Thompson suggests a Burgundo-Lotharingia