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The study of Latin grammar in eighth-century Southumbria

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Vivien Law
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Insular Latinity – its origins, characteristics, affiliations and dissemination – has attracted much attention in the last decade. One area which has benefited from this increased interest is the investigation of the Latin grammars written by Insular scholars: consider, for example, the editions of Insular grammatical writings recently published in the Corpus Christianorum Series Latina. But it is noteworthy that the Anglo-Latin grammarians have profited far less from this upsurge in interest than their Irish counterparts. Although Anglo-Latin as well as Hiberno-Latin texts have been among those recently edited, and have been the subject of several specialized studies, they have failed to excite scholarly attention to the same extent as the Irish works. Their origin, history, relationship and cultural context have not yet been satisfactorily established. Studies such as the series of articles by Louis Holtz, tracing the evolution of the study of grammar in Ireland and the relationship of the surviving texts to one another, are lacking for the Anglo-Latin grammarians. Yet the unknown factors in early England are scarcely fewer. To take one example, the fundamental problem of the rôle of the Irish in the creation of an Anglo-Latin grammatical tradition has hardly been touched upon. Indeed, that the Anglo-Saxons can even be credited with a grammatical tradition of their own has been questioned. Too often, the few surviving Anglo-Latin grammars are held up as an isolated phenomenon and contrasted with the prolific outpourings of a diligent host of Irish anonymi. It is the purpose of this article to investigate the evidence for the study of Latin grammar in England south of the Humber up to the time of its best-known manifestations, the grammars of Tatwine and Boniface, in the early eighth century.

Type
Research Article
Information
Anglo-Saxon England , Volume 12 , December 1983 , pp. 43 - 71
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1983

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References

1 See, e.g., editions of the grammar of Murethach by L. Holtz, Corpus Christianorum Series Latina (hereafter CCSL), Continuatio Mediaevalis (hereafter CM) 40 (Turnhout, 1977); of the Ars Laureshamensis (CCSL, CM 40A (Turnhout, 1977)) and the commentaries of Sedulius Scottus on the Ars Maior and the Ars Minor of Donatus and on Priscian and Eutyches (CCSL, CM 40B-C (Turnhout, 1980)) by B. Löfstedt; of the Ars Bonifatii by G. J. Gebauer and B. Löfstedt (CCSL 133B (Turnhout, 1980)); of the Ars Tatuini by M. De Marco (CCSL 133 (Turnhout, 1968)); and of the paragrammatical works of Bede by C. W. Jones and C. B. Kendall (CCSL 123A (Turnhout, 1975)).

2 ‘Grammairiens irlandais au temps de Jean Scot: Quelques aspects de leur pédagogie’, Jean Scot Érigène et l'histoire de la philosophie (Paris, 1977), pp. 69–78; ‘Le Rôle des Irlandais dans la transmission des grammaires latines’, Influence de la Grèce et de Rome sur l'occident moderne, ed. Chevallier, R. (Paris, 1977), pp. 55–65Google Scholar; ‘Irish Grammarians and the Continent in the Seventh Century’, Columbanus and Merovingian Monasticism, ed. Clarke, H. B. and Brennan, M., BAR International ser., 113 (Oxford, 1981), 135–52.Google Scholar

3 I have touched on some of this evidence in my book The Insular Latin Grammarians, Stud. in Celtic Hist. 3 (Woodbridge, 1982), but in order to avoid substantial overlap I have here tried to concentrate on texts excluded from the book (notably Aldhelm's metrical works) and have devoted more space to details which throw light on channels of intellectual contact than was possible within the more rigid framework of the book.

4 Venerabilis Baedae Opera Historica, ed. Plummer, C., 2 vols. (Oxford, 1896)Google Scholar (hereafter HE).

5 HE 1.25.

6 An attempt at investigating the evidence was made by Jones, P. F., ‘The Gregorian Mission and English Education’, Speculum 3 (1928), 335–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 See Mayr-Harting, H., The Coming of Christianity to Anglo-Saxon England (London, 1972), pp. 117–47Google Scholar and passim.

8 See Cook, A. S., ‘Theodore of Tarsus and Gislenus of Athens’, PQ 2 (1923), 1–25Google Scholar; idem, ‘Hadrian of Africa, Italy and England‘, PQ 2 (1923), 241–58Google Scholar; and Bischoff, B., ‘Wendepunkte in der Geschichte der lateinischen Exegese im Frühmittelalter’, Mittelalterliche Studien, 3 vols. (Stuttgart, 1966–1981) i, 205–73, at 206–9Google Scholar (trans. in Biblical Studies: the Medieval Irish Contribution, ed. McNamara, M. (Dublin, 1976), pp. 74–160, at 75–7)Google Scholar.

9 On the life of Aldhelm see now Lapidge, M. and Herren, M., Aldhelm: the Prose Works (Ipswich and Totowa, N.J., 1979), esp. pp. 5–10.Google Scholar

10 Aldhelmi Opera, ed. Ehwald, R., Monumenta Germaniae Historica (hereafter MGH), Auct. antiq. 15 (Berlin, 1919) (hereafter Aldhelmi Opera), 478;Google ScholarAldhelm: the Prose Works, trans. Herren pp. 153–4.

11 Winterbottom, M. (‘Aldhelm's Prose Style and its Origins’, ASE 6 (1977), 39–76)Google Scholar demonstrated the affinities of Aldhelm's style with that of sixth- and seventh-century continental writers, harking back ultimately to the Asiani of late antiquity. The absence of contact between Aldhelm and the Hisperica Famina, an obscure text probably of Irish origin, has been emphasized by Marenbon, J., ‘Les Sources du vocabulaire d'Aldhelm’, Archivum Latinitatis Medii Aevi 41 (1979), 75–90Google Scholar. Approaching the problem from the historical angle, Lapidge and Herren have exploded the long-cherished legend about Aldhelm's early studies under the Irish hermit Máeldub (Aldhelm: the Prose Works, pp. 6–7).

12 Ehwald in turn based some of his statements about Aldhelm's metrical sources on the earlier study by Manitius, M., ‘Zu Aldhelm und Baeda’, Sitzungsberichte der österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Phil.-hist. Klasse 112 (1886), 535–634.Google Scholar

13 That Aldhelm was familiar with the traditional presentation follows from his use of several Late Latin metricians and also from the list of traditional chapter-headings he gives in his letter to Leutherius Aldhelmi Opera, p. 477, lines 5–6; trans. Herren, (Aldhelm; the Prose Works, p. 152).

14 Aldhelmi Opera, pp. 61–96. The metrical portion of this work begins with ch. 6 (p. 75, line 21). The first five chapters contain a lengthy disquisition on the significance of the number seven and are translated by Herren, Aldhelm: the Prose Works, pp. 34–45. Chs. 6 and 7 contain an introduction to the technical discussion of metrics which follows. Our investigation will be limited to chs. 8 and following.

15 Aldhelmi Opera, pp. 150–204. The concluding Allocutio Excusatiua ad Regem, which does not form part of our subject, is translated by Herren, Aldhelm: the Prose Works, pp. 45–7.

16 The best evaluation of the content of these works is still that of Roger, M., L'Enseignement des lettresclassiquesd'Ausone à Alcuin (Paris, 1905), pp. 355–7 and 360–3Google Scholar. Aldhelm's choice of subject-matter is unique. Although his classical predecessors often give more space to the hexameter than to other metres, they never allow it to usurp all their attention. On the other hand, Aldhelm's treatment of individual feet in the De Pedum Regulis – including feet which cannot occur in a hexameter line – far outstrips the brief lists, sometimes accompanied by an example or an etymological explanation, offered in the ancient sources. Aldhelm's metrical treatises reflect his own preoccupations in verse composition. The only quantitative metre he used was the hexameter, and he depended heavily on ready-made metrical units such as machina mundi or regna Tonantis. For a comprehensive and highly readable account of Aldhelm's techniques in verse composition see Lapidge, M., ‘Aldhelm's Latin Poetry and Old English Verse’, Comparative Literature 31 (1979), 209–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Lists of words which fall automatically into every relevant metrical pattern would have been a great asset to any versifier working in a similar manner, and it is for this purpose that Aldhelm provides the lists which occupy so large a part of the De Pedum Regulis.

17 Ehwald and Manitius tended, in common with (although to a lesser extent than) most of their generation, to see sources in what are merely parallel treatments of the same theme (although it must be conceded that Aldhelm's practice of rewording borrowed information often makes the precise location of his sources difficult).

18 Grammatici Latini, ed. Keil, H., 8 vols. (Leipzig, 1857–1880) (hereafter GL) vii, 320–62.Google Scholar Audax was not widely known in the British Isles at this time, but was used by Bede and Boniface as well as by Aldhelm. Scholars tend to despair when faced with the task of distinguishing between borrowings from the metrical chapters of Audax and those from the often very similar work of Victorinus (GL vi, 206–15). But Audax and Victorinus frequently diverge in their choice of vocabulary: on average, every second line. All but the shortest and most heavily reworked borrowings should be traceable to either one or the other after ten minutes' work with Keil. Consider the following variants from one passage of Aldhelm (p. 82, lines 12–25): minuitur, Aldhelm and Audax: coartabitur Victorinus; heroicus, Aldhelm and Audax: herous Victorinus; qui 3, Aldhelm and Audax: cum Victorinus; sed metrum, Aldhelm and Audax: metrum tamen Victorinus. These examples, and many others, demonstrate that it was Audax and not Victorinus that Aldhelm followed throughout the De Metris. For a possible solution to the problem of a passage apparently borrowed from Victorinus see below, p. 49. On Aldhelm's use of Audax, see further Leotta, R., ‘Una classificazione aldelmiana’, Giornale italiano di filologia 32 (1980), 245–50.Google Scholar

19 Discrepancies between this manuscript and that used by Aldhelm are 50 minor that Clm. 6434 could easily be a direct descendant of Aldhelm's lost copy. For descriptions of Clm. 6434 see Lowe, E. A., Codices Latini Antiquiores, 12 vols. (Oxford, 1934–1972) ix, no. 1285Google Scholar, and the literature there cited; and Bischoff, B., Die südostdeutschen Schreibschulen und Bibliotbeken in der Karolingerzeit, 3rd ed., 2 vols. (Wiesbaden, 1974–1980) 1, 65 and 79–81.Google Scholar

20 R. Leotta has recently shown that Ehwald's reporting of manuscript readings was rather less accurate than had been assumed (see below, n. 29). It is clear that a new edition of Aldhelm's works on metrics is urgently needed and that the future editor will have to take into account manuscript variants in Aldhelm's sources as well.

21 The new edition by Holtz, L. (Donat et la tradition de l'enseignementgrammatical (Paris, 1981))Google Scholar replaces that of Keil (GL iv, 367–402). References will be given to both editions.

22 GL v, 410–39; also available in an edition by F. Casaceli (Naples, 1974).

23 ‘L' Ars de nomine et uerbo de Phocas: manuscrits et commentaires médiévaux’, Viator 5 (1974), 61–156, at 63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

24 GL VII, 143–210, at 146, lines 23–34). These verses do not seem to have circulated independently of Phocas's grammar. In the only manuscript in which they occur alone (Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional, 10029) they were almost certainly extracted from a collection which included Phocas's entire work.

25 Aldhelmi Opera, p. 77, line 21; cf. also De Pedum Regulis (p. 150, line 10): ‘centena metrorum disciplina’ Ep. ad Leutherium (p. 476, line 10): ‘centena scilicet metrorum genera’; and De Virginitate (p. 232, line 25): ‘centenis metrorum generibus’.

26 GL iv, 456–67.

27 See above, n. 18. De Metris, p.90, line 8–p. 92, line 6 = Victorinus, p. 213, line 9–p. 214, line 22.

28 See Aldhelmi Opera, pp. 35–41.

29 On the dating of the manuscripts of the De Metris et Enigmatibus ac Pedum Regulis see Bischoff, B., ‘Die Bibliothek im Dienste der Schule’, Settimane di Studio del Centro Italiano di Studi sull' alto Medioevo 19 (1972), 385–415, at 399Google Scholar, n. 54 (repr. Mittelalterliche Studien III, 213–33 at 223, n. 54). See also Leotta, R., ‘Considerazioni sulla tradizione manoscritta del De Pedum Regulis di Aldelmo’, Giornale italiano di filologia 32 (1980), 119–34.Google Scholar

30 See Aldhelmi Opera, p. 37.

31 A close comparison of the corrections in Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica, Pal. lat. 1753 with the version of the De Pedum Regulis used by Boniface (Aldhelmi Opera, p. 194, line 7– p. 199, line 9 = Ars Bonifatii, ed. Gebauer and Löfstedt, p. 93, line 176–p. 96, line 257) would clarify this problem. Boniface frequently follows Aldhelm so closely that one can correct Ehwald's edition from the Ars Bonifatii. Since the Ars Bonifatii was written before 718, it antedates the earliest extant manuscripts of Aldhelm's work by more than half a century. The recent edition of the Ars Bonifatii by Gebauer and Löfstedt unfortunately fails even to recognize that this passage comes from Aldhelm.

32 See above, p. 48. Aldhelm does, however, know of the existence of Isidore's Synonyma: see Aldhelmi Opera, p. 81, line 15.

33 GL 1, 299–529.

34 ibid. p. 494, line 14.

35 Cf. Donatus, Ars Maior (p. 660, line 9 (Holtz) = p. 395, line 29 (Keil)): ‘huius [scil. metaplasmi] species sum quattuordecim’.

36 Cf. GL i, 496, line 14.

37 L'Enseignement des lettres classiques, pp. 362–3.

38 ibid. p. 362, n. 1.

39 Aldhelmi Opera, pp. 475–8; trans. Lapidge and Herren, Aldhelm: the Prose Works, pp. 152–3.

40 Lapidge and Herren, Aldhelm: the Prose Works, pp. 152–3.

41 Similarly, a section on uersus heroicus catalecticus and ucrsus ypercatalecticus exameter (p. 92, lines 7–23) has not been traced to any extant source. It follows the section taken from Victorinus (present only in KP1), but cannot be paralleled in the text of Victorinus as printed by Keil. If the borrowing from Victorinus was indeed a later addition (see above, p. 49), then the presence of this section in all manuscripts (not just in the two which contain the Victorinus passage) proves that its source was not, as one might have expected, some fuller version of Victorinus than any extant for which there is otherwise no evidence. Have we here another relic of Hadrian's teaching?

42 GL v, 95–312. Ehwald's reference to Isidore's Etymologiae at p. 150, line j is unnecessary: this passage comes straight from Pompeius (v, 122, lines 30 ff.).

43 De Littera: GL iv, 475–85.

44 GL VII, 334, line 17–335, line 14.

45 Etym. i.xvii.2–19. Although the Etymologiae is not used at all by Aldhelm for technical metrical information, he draws upon it extensively in his treatise on the number seven and in his other writings. He seems to have treated the Etymologiae as a giant dictionary rather than as a potential source of scientific information.

46 Paris, Bibliothéque Nationale, lat. 7520 (s. ix), 69r–v.

47 GL vi, 496–546, at pp. 497, line 16–499, line 22.

48 GL vi, 499, lines 7–8. Cf. also Isidore, ‘antibacchius vel palimbacchius dictus quia iteratus a Bacchio est’ (Etym. i.xvii.12); and Audax: ‘palimbacchius dictus, quod contrarius sit bacchio’ (GL vii, 335, line 13).

49 Cf. Isidore, who derives the word quite differently: ‘Choriambus vero, quia ex hoc pede conpositum carmen choris aptissimum sit’ (Etym. i.xvii. 16). Audax does not provide an etymology.

50 Cf. the remark in the Epistula Hieronimi concerning the trocheus: ‘alii trocheum chorium appellant’.

51 GL vi, 498, lines 20–2 (the wording of Sacerdos is identical to that of the Epistula Hieronimi). Isidore has only ‘Dactylus a digito dictus, quod a longiori modo inchoans in duos desinit breves’ (Etym. i.xvii. 8), lacking the reference to the Greek origin of the word and to the articuli. Audax has a completely different derivation: àπò ͭτ$$$ν Ιδαίων Δακτύλων (GL VII, 334, lines 18–21).

52 Reminiscences of the grammar attributed to M. Claudius Sacerdos (GL vi, 427–95) in Insular grammars are sufficiently distant to suggest that they too may derive from a lost intermediate source (like the Epistula Hieronimi) which still awaits discovery. See Law, , Insular Latin Grammarians, pp. 25–6.Google Scholar

53 GL iv, 482, line 19–483, line 10.

54 Ars Iuliani Toktani Episcopi: Unagramdtica latina de la España visigoda, ed. Yenes, M. A. H. Maestre (Toledo, 1973)Google Scholar; see also the review by Holtz, L., ‘Édition et tradition des manuels grammaticaux antiques et médiévaux’, Revue des etudes latines 52 (1974), 75–82.Google Scholar

55 The section called ‘De Pedibus’ (Ars Iuliani Toletani, ed. Maestre Yenes, pp. 153–62)Google Scholar.

56 For the view that Julian's grammar was not known in England see Roger, , L'Enseignement, p. 329, n. 6Google Scholar; and Aldhelmi Opera, p. xx. For the opposite view see Manitius, ‘Zu Aldhelm und Baeda’, p. 597; and Beeson, C., ‘The Ars Grammatica of Julian of Toledo’, Miscellanea Francesco Ehrle I, Studi e testi 37 (Rome, 1924), 50–70.Google Scholar

57 As Ehwald suggested:‘Aldhelmum et Iulianum equidem ad eundem redire puto auctorem, qui tamen ipse est ignotus’ (Aldhelmi Opera, p. xx).

58 Donat, pp. 453–5.

59 Ars Iuliani Toletani, ed. Maestre Yenes, pp. 222–40.

60 GL vi, 229–39; this is found reworked in Julian's grammar, Ars Iuliani Toletani, ed. Maestre Yenes, pp. 136–52.

61 Aldhelmi Opera, p. 185, lines 2–6.

62 Ibid, lines 18–19.

63 Ars Donati quam Paulus Diaconus exposuit, ed. Amelli, A. (Monte Cassino, 1899)Google Scholar; a new edition by F. Buffa and A. M. Tempesti is scheduled to appear in the series Collana di grammatici latini, under the general editorship of Adriana Puccioni Delia Casa in Genoa. The grammar of Peter of Pisa still awaits its editio princeps, announced in the same series. H. Hagen printed a few excerpts from it in Anecdota Helvetica (GL viii, 161, line 8–171, line 23).

64 On Insular elementary Latin grammars see below, pp. 57–69, as well as Law, Insular Latin Grammarians, pp. 53–80.

65 I have in preparation a study of the sources of Paulus’ grammar.

66 See M. Winterbottom, ‘Aldhelm's Prose Style’, esp. pp. 65–8.

67 GL v, 410–39.

68 ibid. 11, 1–597, and in, 1–377.

69 Ibid, in, 443–56.

70 Servii Grammatici qui feruntur in Vergilii Carmina Commentarii, ed. Hagen, G. Thiloand H., 3 vols. (Leipzig, 1881–1902) 111, 128–360.Google Scholar

71 Aldhelmi Opera, p. 202; trans. Herren, Aldhelm: the Prose Works, p. 45.

72 A modern parallel would be to provide a would-be foreign student of English with a collection of textbooks on general linguistics. With patience and ingenuity he might succeed in piecing together a complete description of English, but his task would be immeasurably faciliated by the discovery of an EFL textbook — an option not open to the seventh-century student.

73 The edition by L. Holtz (Donat, pp. 585–602) replaces that of Keil (GL iv, 35 5–66); see also Holtz, ibid. pp. 24–216, for a study of Donatus’ doctrine.

74 Amcdota Helvetica, ed. H. Hagen, GL viii, 39–61. This work has recently been attributed to an Insular author by Löfstedt, B., ‘Zur Grammatik des Asper Minor’, Latin Script and Letters A.D. 400–900: Festschrift presented to Ludwig Bieler, ed. O'Meara, J. J. and Naumann, B. (Leiden, 1976), pp. 132–40.Google Scholar It is attributed specifically to an Irish author by Holtz, ‘Irish Grammarians and the Continent in the Seventh Century’, pp. 142–3; and idem, Donat, pp. 272–4. On the evidence for a Gaulish attribution see Law, Insular Latin Grammarians, pp. 40–1.

75 GL in, 443–56. On the manuscript transmission of this work see Jeudy, C., ‘L’Institutio de nomine et pronomine et uerbo de Priscien: Manuscrits et commentaires médiévaux’, Revue d'histoire des textes 2 (1972), 73–144CrossRefGoogle Scholar. This brief text is not to be confused with the eighteen-book Institutiones Grammaticae, the work on which Priscian's reputation rested during the later Middle Ages. Until the ninth century the name Priscian meant to most Insular authors the Institutio de Nomine, while the Institutiones remained virtually unknown.

76 See Holtz, Donat, pp. 273–4; and Law, Insular Latin Grammarians, p. 39.

77 Insular Latin Grammarians, pp. 53–6 and 109–11.

78 See above, p. 55.

79 On this as yet unpublished group of texts see Law, Insular Latin Grammarians, pp. 56–64.

80 For a description of this unusual manuscript see Holtz, Donat, pp. 409–12; also Jeudy, ‘L'Ars de nomine el uerbo de Phocas’, pp. 120–3.

81 I have an edition of this text in preparation.

82 The Old English glosses were edited by Napier, A. S., ‘Altenglische Glossen’, ASNSL 85 (1890), 309–16Google Scholar, and repr. in his Old English Glosses, Chiefly Unpublished(Oxford, 1900), pp. 218–19 (no. 53).Google Scholar

83 ‘Altenglische Glossen’, p. 312. T o my knowledge these glosses have not been studied since Napier. Since he confessed himself unable to localize them with any certainty, they would merit a fresh examination.

84 An alternative possibility is that the glosses circulated independently, as a batch of glossae collectae, for some time before being added to a blank folio or part of a folio following the Declinationes Nominum.

85 Ars Bonifatii, ed. Gebauer and Lofstedt, p. 32, lines 476–86.

86 However, verb paradigms and lists of varying origin were sometimes combined with it: see Law, Insular Latin Grammarians, pp. 62–4.

87 The boundary between descriptive and theoretical grammars was of course not as rigid as I have portrayed it here; but it is noteworthy that where noun paradigms (for example) creep into Donatus’ grammar their purpose is to demonstrate the workings of gender (e.g. hic magister as against baec musd). That the endings themselves could give trouble was not, apparently, a possibility which presented itself to fourth-century grammarians working in a Latin-speaking milieu. Priscian, in Constantinople, was much more concerned with forms than was Donatus; but, to judge from the level of his works, his audience was composed of university students, not of beginners.

88 Ed. M. De Mario, CCSL 133, 3–93. On this edition see Löfstedt, B., ‘Zu Tatwines Grammatik’, Arctos n.s. 7 (1972), 47–65Google Scholar; and idem, ‘Weitere Bemerkungen zu Tatwines Grammatik’, Ada Classica 15 (1972), 85–94.

89 Our biographical information about Tatwine comes from Bede, HEv.23 and 24, from the Continuatio Baedae (s.aa. 733 and 734), and (on his advanced age) from the epitaph preserved by Leland and repr. by Lapidge, M., ‘Some Remnants of Bede's Lost Liber Epigrammatum’, EHR 90 (1975), 798–820, at 811–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

90 Other elementary grammars, such as the Ars Ambianensis, employ the additional category of language - Latin, Greek (e.g. genesis), Hebrew (e.g. pascha).

91 Adjectives were always treated together with nouns at this date, a morphologically justified procedure.

92 Ars Bonifatii, ed. Gebauer and Löfstedt, CCSL 133B; on the limitations of this edition see the review by Law, V. in SM 3rd ser. 22 (1981), 752–64.Google Scholar For a detailed analysis of the sources of the Ars Bonifatii the reader is referred to Law, V., ‘The Ars Bonifacii: a critical Edition with Introduction and Commentary on the Sources’ (unpubl. Ph.D. dissertation, Cambridge Univ., 1978)Google Scholar. The discussion of the sources in Gebauer, G. J., Prolegomena to the Ars Crammatica Bonifatii (Guildford, N.C., 1942)Google Scholar is, by and large, fairly reliable (and a good deal more so than the apparatus fontium of the Corpus Christianorum edition, which claims to be based on Gebauer's work); see also Law, V., ‘The Transmission of the Ars Bonifacii and the Ars Tatuini’, Revue d'histoire des textes 9 (1979), 281–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

93 Ars Bonifatii, ed. Gebauer and Lofstedt, CCSL 133B, 9–12, replacing the edition by Lehmann, P., ‘Ein neuentdecktes Werk eines angelsächsischen Grammatikers vorkarolingischer Zeit’, Historische Vierteljahrschrift 26 (1931), 738–56.Google Scholar For the convoluted history of the discovery and identification of the Epistola ad Sigeberhtum and the associated acrostic poem and grammar, see Gebauer, , Prolegomena, pp. 1–3.Google Scholar The letter actually accompanies the grammar in only one of its four manuscripts. The replacement of Boniface's name by.N. suggests that the Epistola may early have been detached and copied separately as a model letter.

94 ibid. p. 10, lines 64–6: ‘nee unius saltim ramus regulae in hoc libello insertus repperitur, qui non alicuius horum sit radice fortiter fundatus’.

95 Bonifatii Ars Metrica, ed. B. Löfstedt, CCSL 133s, 109–13, replacing the edition by Gaisford, T., Scriptores Latini Rei Metrical (Oxford, 1857), pp. 577–85.Google Scholar A partial edition, not to my knowledge recognized previously, is printed anonymously from Wolfenbuttel, Weiss. 86 by Keil, GL vi, 645, lines 25–35 (= CCSL 133B, 110, lines 37–48).

96 Ars Bonifatii, ed. Gebauer and Löfstedt, p. 105.

97 L'Enseignement, p. 364.

98 Ars Bonifatii, ed. Gebauer and Löfstedt, p. 110, lines 36–48.

99 GL VII, 333, lines 3–15.

100 Aldbelmi Opera, pp. 95, line 18–96, line 18.

101 Cf. also [Maximus Victorinus], GL vi, 240, lines 1–10.

102 GL v, 126, lines 28 and 31–2.

103 Martianus Capella was not a widely-known author at this date, and his use in the Ars Tatuini calls for comment. Tatwine apparently gained access to Martianus only after his own work was complete, for the main body of the grammar contains no borrowings from it. However, an appendix on the verb (ed. De Marco, pp. 89–93) consists entirely of a passage from Martianus on the formation of the perfect tense, reworked in Tatwine's habitual manner. I know of borrowings from Martianus in early Insular grammatical texts otherwise only in the work of the Anonymus ad Cuimnanum: see Taeger, B., ‘Exzerpte aus Martianus Capella in einer frühen hibernolateinischen Grammatik (Anonymus ad Cuimnanum)’, BGDSL 100 (1978), 388–420Google Scholar; see also Law, Insular Latin Grammarians, p. 23.

104 On Tatwine's sources see, in addition to the works mentioned above, n. 88, the unpubl. Ph.D. dissertation by Cobbs, S. P., ‘Prolegomena to the Ars Grammatica Tatuini’ (Chicago Univ., 1937), esp. pp. 34–71.Google Scholar

105 On this author, who enjoyed considerable popularity in Insular circles, see Löfstedt, B., ‘Zu den Quellen des hibernolateinischen Donatkommentars im cod. Ambrosianus L 22 sup.’, SM 3rd ser. 21 (1980), 301–20, esp. 311–20Google Scholar. Similar conclusions about the identity of this author were reached independently by Law, , Insular Latin Grammarians, pp. 18–19Google Scholar. L. Holtz has identified a copy of the noun section of this work in Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, lat. 7530 (Monte Cassino, 779–97): ‘Le Parisinus Latinus 7530, synthèse cassinienne des arts libèraux’, SM 3rd ser. 16 (1975), 97–152.Google Scholar

106 Aldhelm's enigmata were certainly known to Tatwine (although perhaps at a later stage in his career), but his metrical works were not used in the Ars Tatuini (hardly surprisingly). The possibility that Insular grammarians did not always use all the works at their disposal is one which inevitably hampers research on sources.

107 That the line apparently quoted from Virgilius in Aldhelm's letter to Heahfrith (no. v) constitutes sufficient evidence for Aldhelm's knowledge of this author is, however, a disputed point: see Winterbottom, ‘Aldhelm's Prose Style’ p. 47, n. 3.

108 See the studies by Lofstedt cited above, n. 88. Future studies and editions of this work should take into account, in addition to the parallels from Insular grammars adduced by Lofstedt, the possibility of borrowings from the Dtclinationes Nominum. The identification of further fragments of the Reichenau manuscript (see Law, , ‘The Latin and Old English Glosses in the Ars Tatuini’, ASE 6 (1977), 77–89, esp. 78, n. 2Google Scholar; idem, ‘The Transmission of the Ars Bonifacii and the Ars Tatuini’, p. 282 and n. 3; and idem, Insular Latin Grammarians, pp. 66–7 and n. 64) means that that witness is now available for virtually the whole of the text.

109 Some possible guidelines are suggested in Law, V., ‘Notes on the Dating and Attribution of Anonymous Latin Grammars of the early Middle Ages’, Peritia 1 (1982), 250–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar, where a return is urged to reliance on internal features such as those suggested by Bischoff, ‘Wendepunkte’ (cited above, n. 8) in preference to external features - palaeogtaphical symptoms, glosses, ‘Irish company’ and the like. The Anglo-Saxonist might well ask why it is that so much attention is devoted to ‘Irish symptoms’. Are the characteristics of Anglo-Latin works entirely negative? Since the only securely localizable eighth-century elementary grammars are of English authorship, we should surely work from these texts to ones of less certain date and provenance, rather than the other way round.

110 On this fragment, see Eckhardt, W. A., ‘Das Kaufunger Fragment der Bonifatius-Grammatik’, Scriptorium 23 (1969), 280–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

111 See Lowe, E. A., ‘An Eighth-Century List of Books in a Bodleian MS. from Würzburg and its Probable Relation to the Laudian Acts’, Speculum 3 (1928), 3–15, esp. 9, n. 2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

112 On the provenance of this manuscript see Jeudy, ‘L’Ars de nomine et uerbo de Phocas’, p. 130.

113 On these glosses see Law, ‘The Latin and Old English glosses in the Ars Tatuini’.

114 On the Ars Ambianensis, see Löfstedt, B., Der hibernolateinische Grammatiker Malsachanus (Uppsala, 1965), pp. 23–4Google Scholar; Law, V., ‘Malsachanus Reconsidered: a Fresh Look at a Hiberno-Latin Grammarian’, Cambridge Med. Celtic Stud. 1 (1981), 85–95Google Scholar, and Insular Latin Grammarians, pp. 67–74.

115 If the Ars Metrica attributed to Boniface is genuine, then Pompeius may be added to this list. He is not among the authors used in the Ars Bonifacii.