Hisperic Latin: ‘Luxuriant Culture-Fungus of Decay’

Extract

The pejorative phrase of the title, penned by Eóin MacNeill in his article ‘Beginnings of Latin Culture in Ireland’ has clung tenaciously to the study of Hisperic texts. Indeed, it was repeated some twenty-odd years later by Bieler in his ‘Hibernian Latin’. However, the belief that Hisperica Famina and the texts related to them — the Lorica of Laidcenn, the Rubisca (possibly by Máeldub of Malmesbury), the St. Omer Hymn, some of the writings of Aldhelm, and a few other works — are the products of a literary decadence rests squarely on the assumption that they spring from southwestern Britain, especially Wales, around the middle of the sixth century; to cite MacNeill:

The destruction of the cities of Britain and the exposure of the eastern and southern regions of the island to Germanic raiders must have caused a kind of congestion of such academic worthies in the western parts where Irish aggression had ceased and where the Britons, under new tyranni, had learned to defend themselves or, like Coroticus, had become aggressors. Gildas looks back to a lengthy period of security and degeneracy under these conditions. There, and not in Ireland of that time, we may recognise the fitting environment of the decadent Latin culture exemplified in the Hisperica Famina.