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A third Old English translation of part of Gregory's Dialogues, this time embedded in the Rule of Chrodegang

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Brigitte Langefeld
Brigitte Langefeld
Affiliation:
Bury St Edmunds, England
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Extract

Gregory's Dialogues are a hitherto unnoticed source of the final chapter of the enlarged version of the Rule of Chrodegang of Metz. The chapter in question, no. 84 or 86 depending on the recension of the Latin text, is preserved in the following manuscripts (the letters in brackets are the sigla used for these manuscripts throughout this article):

Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, lat. 1535 (P), 113V–149V. Second quarter of the ninth century, possibly written at Fécamp. Latin text only, 86 chapters.

Type
Research Article
Information
Anglo-Saxon England , Volume 15 , December 1986 , pp. 197 - 204
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1986

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References

1 I am grateful to Professor Helmut Gneuss and Dr David Dumville for their help and critical suggestions when they read the first draft of this article.

2 See Langefeld, B., ‘Die lateinische Vorlage der altenglischen Chrodegang-Regel’, Anglia 98 (1980), 403–16, at 406–8Google Scholar, and ‘Die Chrodegang-Regel in England. Lateinischer Text und altenglische Ubersetzung’ (unpubl. Ph.D. dissertation, Univ. of Munich, 1985), pp. 25–7.Google Scholar

3 For previous editions, see d'Achery, J. P., Spicilegium Veterum Aliquot Scriptorum 1 (Paris, 1723), 565–83Google Scholar, and, following that edition, ed. J. P. Migne, Patrologia Latini 89, cols. 1057–96. For information on this manuscript, see Delisle, L., Bibliotheca Bigotiana Manuscripta (Rouen, 1877), p. 28Google Scholar, and Lauer, P., Bibliothèque Nationale. Catalogue des manuscrits Latins 11 (Paris, 1940), 56Google Scholar; see further Langefeld, ‘Die lateinische Vorlage’, pp. 406–7 and 411–12, and ‘Die Chrodegang-Regel in England’, pp. 25–7. For a confirmation of my suggestion that the manuscript was very likely written at Fécamp, cf. Branch, B., ‘Inventories of the Library of Fécamp from the Eleventh and Twelfth Century’, Manuscripta 3 (1979), 159–72, at 161–2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 No previous edition. For information on the manuscript, see Ker, N. R., Catalogue of Manuscripts containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford, 1957)Google Scholar, no. 10 (A), and van den Gheyn, J., Catalogue des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque Royale de Belgique iv (Brussels, 1904), no. 2498; cfGoogle Scholar. Langefeld, ‘Die Chrodegang-Regel in England’, pp. 32–3.

5 For the only previous edition, see The Old English Version of the Enlarged Rule of Chrodegang together with the Latin Original etc., ed. Napier, A. S., EETS o.s. 150 (London, 1916; repr. New York, 1971)Google Scholar. For information on the manuscript, see Ker, Catalogue, no. 46; see further Drage, E., ‘Bishop Leofric and the Exeter Cathedral Chapter 1050–1072: a Reassessment of the Manuscript Evidence’ (unpubl. D.Phil, dissertation, Oxford Univ., 1978), pp. 322–4Google Scholar, and cf. Langefeld, ‘Die Chrodegang-Regel in England’, pp. 33–6.

6 Werminghoff, A., ‘Die Rezensionen der Regula Chrodegangi’, Neues Archiv der Gesellschaft für ältere deutsche Geschichtskunde 27 (1902), 646–51, at 649–51.Google Scholar

7 Dufner, G., Die Dialoge Gregors des Grossen im Wandel der Zeiten und Sprachen, Miscellanea Erudita 19 (Padua, 1968), 38–45Google Scholar, and de Vogüé, A., Grégoire le Grand. Dialogues. I, Sources Chrétiennes 251 (Paris, 1978), 141–3Google Scholar; cf. Gregorii Magni Dialogi, ed. Moricca, U. (Rome, 1924), p. lxxix.Google Scholar

8 See Dictionnaire d'histoire et de geographic ecclésiastiques, ed. Aubert, R. xvii (Paris, 1971), col. 1179.Google Scholar

9 Grégoire le Grand. Dialogues. II, ed. de Vogüé, A., trans. Autin, P., Sources Chrétiennes 260 (Paris, 1979).Google Scholar

10 See Keynes, S. and Lapidge, M., Alfred the Great. Asser's ‘Life of King Alfred’ and other Contemporary Sources (Harmondsworth, 1983), pp. 92, 123 and 292–3.Google Scholar

11 Ker, Catalogue, nos. 60 and 182. Another, fragmentary, copy, in Canterbury, Cathedral Library, Add. 25, is irrelevant here, since it contains only parts of bk iv; see Yerkes, D., ‘The Text of the Canterbury Fragment of Werferth's Translation of Gregory's Dialogues and its Relation to the other Manuscripts’, ASE 6 (1977), 121–35.Google Scholar

12 Ker, Catalogue, no. 328; cf. Yerkes, D., The Two Versions of Wærferth's Translation of Gregory's Dialogues: an Old English Thesaurus (Toronto, 1979), p. xviGoogle Scholar, and, Syntax and Style in Old English: a Comparison of the Two Versions of Wærferth's Translation of Gregory's Dialogues, Med. and Renaissance Stud. 5 (Binghamton, NY, 1982), 9–10.

13 Cf. Förster, M., ‘Lokalisierung und Datierung der altenglischen Version der Chrodegang-Regel’, Sitzungsberichte der Bayer. Akademie der Wissenschaften, Phil.-Hist. Abt., Jg. 1933, Schlussheft, pp. 7–8Google Scholar. For the influence of ‘Winchester vocabulary’ on this translation, see now Hofstetter, W., ‘Winchester und der spätaltenglische Sprachgebrauch. Untersuchungen zur geographischen und zeitlichen Verbreitung altenglischer Synonyme’ (unpubl. Ph.D. dissertation, Univ. of Munich, 1984), pp. 128–31Google Scholar, and, for an assessement of his results, Langefeld, ‘Die Chrodegang-Regel in England’, pp. 93–8.

14 See Drage, ‘Bishop Leofric and the Exeter Cathedral Chapter 1050–1072’, pp 322–4.

15 Bischof Wærferth's von Worcester Ubersetzung der Dialoge Gregors des Grossen, ed. Hecht, H., 2 vols., Bibliothek der angelsächsischen Prosa 5 (Leipzig, 1900, and Hamburg, 1907Google Scholar; repr. Darmstadt, 1965).

16 Any use of the Worcester revision of the Dialogues would suggest that the revision was carried out c. 950 or not long after (see above, p. 000), since the translation of the Rule was produced by c. 1000; cf. Langefeld, ‘Die Chrodegang–Regel in England’, pp. 107–8.

17 See Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. Buchberger, M., 2nd ed., 11 (Freiburg, 1958), col. 594.Google Scholar As far as can be judged from the existing editions there is no known manuscript of the Dialogues which shares this name confusion with the Rule.

18 The translator of the Rule used doublets now and again, chiefly for stylistic, and occasionally for explanatory, reasons; cf. Langefeld, ‘Die Chrodegang-Regel in England’, pp. 54 and 56–8.

19 I owe this suggestion to Professor Peter Clemoes, whom I would also like to thank for his generous help.

20 See, e.g., Jordan, K. R., Eigentümlichkeiten des anglischen Wortschatzes. Eine wortgeographische Untersuchung mit etymologischen Anmerkungen, Anglistische Forschungen 17 (Heidelberg, 1906), 95Google Scholar; Menner, R. J., ‘Anglian and Saxon Elements in Wulfstan's Vocabulary’, Mod. Lang. Notes 63 (1948), 1–9, at 5CrossRefGoogle Scholar and n. 25, and ‘The Anglian Vocabulary of the Blickling Homilies’, Philologica. The Malone Anniversary Studies, ed. Kirby, T. A. and Woolf, H. B. (Baltimore, 1949), pp. 56–64, at 59Google Scholar; Sisam, K., Studies in the History of Old English Literature (Oxford, 1953), p. 89 and n. 1Google Scholar; and Wenisch, F., Spezifisch anglisches Wortgut in den lnterlinearglossierungen des Lukasevangeliums, Anglistische Forschungen 132 (Heidelberg, 1979), 156–60.Google Scholar

21 Ubersetzung 11, 161 and n. 1.

22 See Schabram, H., Superbia. Studien zum altenglischen Wortschatz, Teil I.die dialektale und zeitliche Verbreitung des Wortguts (Munich, 1965), pp. 111–13Google Scholar; cf. above, n. 13.

23 See Langefeld, ‘Die Chrodegang–Regel in England’, pp. 102–4.

24 Cf. Wenisch, , Spezifisch angliscbes Wortgut, p. 160 and n. 441.Google Scholar

25 For two other recent discoveries of previously unknown sources of the enlarged Rule, see Trahern, J. B., ‘Caesarius of Aries and Old English Literature’, ASE 5 (1976), 105–19, at 113–14Google Scholar, and Wallach, L., Alcuin and Charlemagne. Studies in Carolingian History and Literature, rev. ed. (New York, 1968), pp. 266–8.Google Scholar

26 Thus Napier's edition has Fortunatus in its Latin text (p. 98, lines 18 and 22; but cf. p. 131, where the correction in MS C relating to p. 98, line 18, is reported) and Bonefacius in its Old English text (p. 99, line 21).