The composite volume now known as Cambridge, Corpus Christi College [CCCC] 190, contains on pages 143 to 151 a mixture of liturgical exposition and prescription. The Latin passages constitute neither a polished work nor, like much else in the manuscript, an obvious antecedent to Old English texts, and so the group has never attracted much notice. I offer here the first discussion and edition of the passages in the belief that they shed new light on the sources and applications of liturgical commentary in late Anglo-Saxon England. Of equal or perhaps greater interest, the excerpts also include portions of the ordo for a pontifical mass on Christmas Day. The ordo, as we shall see, resists close dating or localization, but the very type of document has rarely survived in pre-Conquest English manuscripts and so merits attention. Both the expository and ordinal passages occasionally hint of access to unusual sources at some late Anglo-Saxon church, possibly Worcester cathedral during the pontificate of Wulfstan I (1002–16).

The major sources for an inquiry into the customs of the Spanish military Order of Calatrava are the difiniciones or statutes enacted in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The difiniciones were formulated by the Cistercian abbots of Morimond, or by their representatives, and, on two occasions, by the masters of Calatrava.

The legislative authority of the abbots of Morimond resulted from the incorporation of Calatrava into the Order of Citeaux in 1187. At that time, the Cistercian general chapter affiliated Calatrava with the abbey of Morimond. Henceforth, the abbots of this monastery possessed the right of visiting the knights and of regulating their observances. Oftentimes this right was delegated to the abbots of Spanish Cistercian monasteries affiliated with Morimond.

In a description of a trip through the Midi of France in 1835, Prosper Merimée devotes a lengthy paragraph to the analysis of the Christ in Vézelay's Pentecost tympanum (fig. 1). He marvels at the carving of the figure's feet and “blessing” hands, as well as the placement of the thighs in relation to the torso. Later in his treatment of the abbey church and its sculpture, the author notes that figures on the nave capitals convey a “savage zeal” (zèle farouche) by means of posture and facial expressions. Gestures, in the widely construed, medieval sense of the word, clearly struck the celebrated French author as a salient feature of Vézelay's sculpture. Merimée sympathized with Romantic visions of the Middle Ages as a period less tainted by the stifling effects of civilization, and perhaps his fascination with the dramatic body movement carved throughout the abbey church reflects the belief that these were unfettered by the artistic or social constraints of the early nineteenth century. Yet throughout his description of Vézelay's sculpture, he never attempts to explore the meanings that the carved body might have held for a medieval audience; their meaning is not considered to be historical, but rather to be self-evident. The operative assumption that gestures in medieval art are transparent in meaning anticipates much subsequent scholarship.

Critics have amply considered how Christian authors in late antiquity adapted the forms, language, and themes of classical poetry to create an ecclesiastical poetic tradition. Studies related to this topic have largely focused upon biblical epic and the carmina of well-known poets like Prudentius and Paulinus of Nola. In this paper, I wish to proceed into the less trodden area of Christian bucolic poetry, and specifically to one of the first examples of the form, Pornponius's Versus ad Gratiam Domini. This text, dating to the late fourth or early fifth century, is a 132-line Virgilian cento (with a concluding lacuna), or a work created out of unconnected verse units of varying length taken from the Eclogues, Georgics, and Aeneid that an author pieces together to compose a new narrative. These units can be up to three lines long, but usually consist of a segment of a hexameter line. Sixteen centos ranging in date from ca. 200–ca. 530 survive from antiquity, with four handling Christian topics. Because the ecclesiastical centonists reuse Virgilian verses directly, their texts serve as extreme examples of how Christian authors created poems by reworking the classical past. It is this transformative gesture that will concern me in this paper. I will investigate how Pomponius redeploys Virgil's language to compose his Christian Versus ad Gratiam Domini and, in the process, endows his text with specific features manifesting the continuity with and change of classical bucolic that is so fundamental to the development of the Christian pastoral form.

The Moralia is an unfortunate term for the writings that have come down to us under the name of Plutarch of Chaeronea (ca. A.D. 50–120). They discuss rhetorical topics and general philosophical issues. A few are expressedly devoted to medical themes, for example, the tract entitled De sanitate tuenda praecepta (Mor. 122B–137E). But the medical material is sadly scattered throughout the extensive oeuvre, and it is difficult to gain a clear perspective.

The human face has the capacity to generate expressions associated with a wide range of affective states. Despite the fact that there are few words to describe human facial behaviors, the facial muscles allow for more than a thousand different facial appearances. Some examples of feelings that can be expressed are anger, concentration, contempt, excitement, nervousness, and surprise. Regardless of culture or language, the same expressions are associated with the same emotions and vary only in intensity. Using modern psychological analyses as a point of departure, this essay examines descriptions of human facial expressions as well as such bodily “symptoms” as flushing, turning pale, and weeping in Old Norse-Icelandic literature. The aim is to analyze the manner in which facial signs are used as a means of non-verbal communication to convey the impression of an individual's internal state to observers. More specifically, this essay seeks to determine when and why characters in these works are described as expressing particular facial emotions and, especially, the range of emotions expressed. The Sagas and þættir of Icelanders are in the forefront of the analysis and yield well over one hundred references to human facial expression and color. The examples show that through gaze, smiling, weeping, brows that are raised or knitted, and coloration, the Sagas and þættir of Icelanders tell of happiness or amusement, pleasant and unpleasant surprise, fear, anger, rage, sadness, interest, concern, and even mixed emotions for which language has no words. The Sagas and þættir of Icelanders may be reticent in talking about emotions and poor in emotional vocabulary, but this poverty is compensated for by making facial expressions signifiers of emotion. This essay makes clear that the works are less emotionally barren than often supposed. It also shows that our understanding of Old Norse-Icelandic “somatic semiotics” may well depend on the universality of facial expressions and that culture-specific “display rules” or “elicitors” are virtually nonexistent.

An assiduous interest in the plain sense of Scripture and shared interpretations of particular biblical passages can be observed in certain twelfth-century Jewish and Christian commentaries composed in northern France. While Hugh of Saint Victor and Rashbam engaged in independent endeavors to shed light on the sensus literalis and the peshat of Scripture, Andrew of Saint Victor attributed his knowledge of particular rabbinic interpretations to encounters with contemporary Jews. Yet points of convergence in Jewish and Christian exegesis can be observed even before the work of the Victorines and Rashi's disciples. The purpose of this study is to examine the midrashic interpretations transmitted in northern France around the beginning of the twelfth century in both the Glossa Ordinaria and Rashi's biblical commentaries. Interpretations are found in both corpora on occasions when their late-antique sources, such as Midrash Genesis Rabba and Jerome's Hebrew Questions on Genesis, themselves transmit similar insights. By analyzing an exposition found in both Rashi and the Gloss, the narrative of Abraham in the fiery furnace, this study seeks to clarify the nature and extent of this relationship. It thereby enables a more detailed understanding of the ways that midrash reached twelfth-century Jews and Christians and of how Rashi and the Gloss ensured the wide dissemination of these interpretations.

The allegories of Alain de Lille, though their historical importance is generally acknowledged, have been more admired, and at times deprecated, than closely examined, and there has been a remarkable divergence of opinion as to their intrinsic significance and literary quality. The De planctu naturae and Anticlaudianus present a remarkable blend of rhetoric, metaphysics, and dogma which led Barthélemy Hauréau to call Alain ‘le plus fecond et le plus brillant de tous les mystiques de ce temps,’ and Emile Mǎle to call him ‘le plus grand poète latin du moyen ǎge.’ So sensitive a critic as Huizinga, however, while recognizing the richness and subtlety of Alain's language, nonetheless relegated him to the second rank among the poets of his century. His very virtuosity seems finally to have exasperated C. S. Lewis who, despite certain concessions, dismissed Alain the poet as a ‘cold-hearted stylist,’ and it appeared now frivolous, now pedantic to the more sympathetic Raynaud de Lage.

With each investigation into the literary activities of Monte Cassino during the second half of the eleventh century, the reputation of the Desiderian milieu has taken on new and greater proportions. In this circle of learned monks the name of Alberic the Deacon has been brought into sharper focus. Speculation about his family background has yielded little beyond the conjecture that he was of Beneventan origin. In the records of his monastery he appears for the first time as one already arrived at maturity, since he is introduced as vir disertissimus ac eruditissimus and as vir illis temporibus singularis. It would seem, however, that at least by 1065 — possibly as early as 1057 — Alberic had taken up residence at Monte Cassino and had at about that same period launched his literary career in the stimulating atmosphere of the ‘Desiderian renaissance.’

In the second century, A.D. (c. 177), the Christian philosopher and apologist, Athenagoras, inveighing against the pagans for immoralities forbidden by their own codes, incorporated in his harangue an expression which was to have a long and interesting history in Christian literature.1 These are his words:

Like the Preacher, son of David, Nicholas of Cusa knew that wisdom excels folly as light excels darkness and he gave his heart to search it out. In phrases reminiscent of the classical definition of philosophy, the wisdom literature of the Old Testament, and medieval venery, he pictured his intellectual life as a venatio sapientiae and himself as a keen and pious hunter. Virtually all his important philosophical and theological works, from the De docta ignorantia of 1440 to the De venatione sapientiae of 1463, document the chase. Wisdom is the principal subject of the dialogues Idiota de sapientia. And when the Pseudo-Petrarch incorporated most of the first of these two dialogues in his De vera sapientia (put together around 1470 and printed in all the collected editions of Petrarch's works), his definition of wisdom was given added publicity and authority.

The amount of research and publication on the problem of Herodotus' historicity has been gigantic. Recently Jameson's publcation of the newly discovered ‘Themistocles Decree’ has added a new phase to this ever vital controversy. The present paper, however, will evaluate another incident in the Histories and in the history of the Histories: the debate preceding the accession of Darius the Great to the Persian throne in 522 B.C.

The metropolitans of Seleucia-Ctesiphon for the fourth century comprise Papa, Simeon bar Sabbae, Shahdost, Barbashmin followed by a long vacancy, Tomarsa, Qayuma, and Isaac. The parallel Sassanids were Sapor II (309-379), Ardashir II (379-83), Sapor III (383-88), Bahram IV (388-99) and Yezdegerd I (399-420).

The list of catholici is preserved in a number of different writers: PsEN (c. s. x), ChrS (c. 1036), Mari (c. 1150), PsED (c. 1260), BarH (1286), Amri (c. 1350), Sliba (c. 1350), and others.

The chronology has already been studied by G. Westphal in connection with his investigation of the sources and reliability of Mari, Amri and Sliba. He bases his dates principally on the Syriac acts of the Persian martyrs, but, as the present paper attempts to prove, this cannot be done: we must work the other way around, settle first the succession of the catholici and then turn to the acts. Furthermore, since the publication of his excellent work, the very valuable ChrS has been discovered and a critical edition of PsEN has appeared.

Scholars tracing the development of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit in the fourth century tend to pass over the Catechetical Homilies of Cyril of Jerusalem (c. 350) rather quickly, with the observation that, from the perspective of systematic theology, Cyril made no new contributions to the doctrine, and even warned against going beyond the texts of Scripture when speaking of the Spirit. But such lack of attention to Cyril as a theologian leaves several questions unexplored. Cyril's homilies were a central part of the preparation of adult converts for baptism, a task crucial for the Church's survival; in the baptismal rite the converts would receive the Holy Spirit. Given the foundational nature of Cyril's homilies in forming the members of the Jerusalem church, might it not be useful, when tracing how the understanding of the Holy Spirit developed in the fourth century, to consider how Cyril uses Scriptural material concerning the Spirit? Which Scriptural texts on the Spirit does he employ? Are there any texts later considered significant which he omits? What is Cyril's purpose in citing these texts on the Spirit and how does he present them to his hearers? Even though he confines himself to presenting Scriptural material, what understanding of the Spirit is communicated by his shaping of that material? Is there any sense in which the understanding of the Spirit inculcated by Cyril's preaching prepares the way for the conceptual doctrinal distinctions concerning the Spirit's nature and divinity made in the next generation?

Montfaucon's edition of St. John Chrysostom and Migne's Patrologia after him put among the dubia six sermons De fato et providentia (Πεϱὶ εἱμαϱμένης τε ϰαὶ πϱονοίας). In the Admonitio we read: ‘Et vero cum de fato Chrysostomus disserit, alio orationis utitur modo: unde forte nascatur quaedam νοθείας suspicio.’ Henry Savile, in his edition (1612), rejected the view of Fronton du Duc, who had written of these orations: ‘Videntur concionum a Chrysostomo habitarum ἀπανθίσματα potius et florilegia, seu morales digressiones, quam integrae homiliae: necdum tamen areolae et loca unde sunt decerptae, nobis occurrerunt.’ Savile's rejection reads: ‘Non assentior Frontoni Ducaeo has πεϱί πϱονοίας orationes ἀπανθίσματα esse: neque enim memini ea quae hic afferuntur alibi apud hunc nostrum legisse eodem modo dicta.’

Fundamental to Christianity is the belief in the redemptive death of Christ. But not always has there been complete agreement among theologians as to the precise reason or reasons for Christ's death. For centuries the soteriology of the Church may be said to have been in large part demonocentric. The devil had certain rights over fallen man, rights which could not be violated, still less taken away. If his dominion over man was to be destroyed, it must be done not by any arbitrary exercise of the divine Omnipotence, but in a manner reasonable and just. Some theologians even spoke of Christ's death as a ransom paid to the devil for man's release. With varying nuance such ideas as these were dominant from the days of St. Irenaeus of Lyons' until the very end of the eleventh century, when St. Anselm of Canterbury struck out upon entirely new lines of thought. In his Cur Deus Homo new concepts were introduced into the discussion of the problem. By sin man had offended the infinite majesty of God: God's rights had been violated. Satisfaction must be made, and that by man, for it was he who had sinned. But since the infinite offence which we call sin could not really be atoned for by a finite creature, the necessary satisfaction called for a God-man.

The Tribal Hidage is a list of about thirty tribes of Anglo-Saxon England together with the number of lands of one family (hides) belonging to each tribe. Historians agree that it is a seventh or eighth century Mercian document so difficult to understand that it is a ‘puzzle’ and ‘a mysterious catalogue—barely intelligible’. Part of the mystery is caused by failure to identify even large tribes in the list, and perhaps more mystery is produced by the inability to fit the data into its alleged historical setting. As a piece of literature it belongs to the intellectual movement sometimes known as the Mercian Renaissance which has received little attention. The great epic, Beowulf, has recently been assigned to it, and another, Widsith, falls in the same period. Alfred drew a majority of his scholars from Mercia. This Mercian Renaissance is thus worth further study for its general significance, but it has a peculiar interest for students of the Tribal Hidage as the environment for this singular document. It is the thesis of this study that the Tribal Hidage, although a Mercian survival, is actually a revision of data of the time of Aethelbert of Kent of about 590 A.D. and that it gives a valuable picture of the political divisions of England of that important time.

The South English Legendary (hereafter SEL) is an anonymous thirteenth-century vernacular liber festivalis, following the calendar written primarily for a ‘lewid’ audience. Beyond that limited assertion there still remain fundamental unanswered questions as to its source, place of origin, and authorship. The situation is only somewhat better concerning the date of composition. Indeed, in the face of so many vexing and unanswered questions concerning the SEL, I hope to be able to give a more precise date for the original composition than has been hitherto established.