From the beginning of the Divine Comedy — ‘where the sun is silent’ — to the final vision of light, the poem is a carefully ordered hierarchy of light and shadows. We are not only asked to see clearly but we are asked to see qualitatively, to distinguish degrees of light and kinds of vision. It is in the last canto of the Paradiso that the degree of light is most intense and that our attention is called to a unique kind of seeing. With extraordinary insistence, Dante repeats some form of the verb vedere (to see) or a derivative there-of every few lines. The transition from time to eternity and from the finite to the infinite makes all the more sophisticated resources of language inadequate, and one must revert to a childlike form of emphasis, mere repetitions. This simplest of rhetorical devices is, by some miracle of art, adequate for the expression of the most unimaginable of possible experiences. In every line we feel something of Dante's joy in the possession of a ‘novella vista’ and his rapture in the divine vision, an effect conveyed by the very struggle to express the inexpressible. The struggles of course are those of Dante the pilgrim; Dante the poet is in perfect control of his artistic resources, and it is through the masterly rendering of inadequacy that the whole presentation becomes — paradoxically — adequate.

The early thirteenth century saw the rise of a new exegetical technique: divisio textus, or text division. Commentators engaged in subtle structural analyses, parsing texts into increasingly smaller units, and at times represented these structures as complex tree diagrams. For a case study of this technique, this essay presents a previously unnoticed series of such marginal diagrams in MS Assisi, Bib. Com. 51 that depict the structure of the first three chapters of the Book of Job. Following the manner in which the author analyzes the narrative functions of character description, dialogues, and other aspects, the essay reconstructs the narratological principles embedded in these diagrams, and compares them with other divisions of Job by thirteenth century theologians. It sets the diagramming of divisiones textus in its the broader context of medieval horizontal tree diagrams and discusses the peculiar implications of the spatialization of biblical narrative. Appendices include full transcriptions, translations and auxiliary materials for comparison.

Crowland Abbey was one of many English monasteries after the Norman Conquest to forge documents that claimed a right to permanent sanctuary rooted in the Anglo-Saxon period. Yet Crowland's claims stand out because while other ecclesiastical chronicles that grounded their sanctuary claims in an earlier tradition did so in order to defend those rights in the twelfth century or later, Crowland never claimed this privilege for anything other than the abbey's Anglo-Saxon past. Indeed, I argue that the three forged “Anglo-Saxon” charters that make this assertion, which all appear in the Pseudo-Ingulf section of the abbey's chronicle, the Historia Croylandensis, do so in order to emphasize a more fundamental claim about the institution's authority — its association with one of the most significant fenland saints, Guthlac. Moreover, I argue that the most likely date when this material was forged is the late twelfth century. In the context of the narrative in which they appear, these charters reveal that later medieval Crowland constructed a narrative that saw permanent sanctuary as an important feature of the abbey's Anglo-Saxon past.

The following checklist includes work published in the quarter-century between 1935, the twelve-hundreth anniversary of Bede's death, and 1960, inclusive. It lists editions, studies and translations into Modern English of his Latin works; it omits translations into other languages, including Old English, and studies of these, as well as the Old English poems sometimes attributed to Bede. Most reviews of the listed books have also been omitted, although some which make substantial modifications have not. A universal writer like Bede is mentioned in many studies; only those that deal directly with him, or that seem to make real contributions to Bede scholarship, are in this checklist, which would otherwise have been many times its present length. The grouping is by topic, chronologically within each topic, alphabetically within each year. An asterisk marks those works which I have not been able to see.

Wie wohl alle grossen Epen der europäischen Antike, so enthält auch die Thebais des Statius eine ausführliche dichterische Darstellung von Wettspielen. Wie wohl alle grösseren Partien der Thebais, so hat auch diese in der Forschung der letzten Generationen Kritik und Tadel gefunden. Man meinte zu sehen, dass hier nicht die Poesie, sondern gelehrte Tradition bestimmend gewesen sei. Man meinte, den Passus als unselbständige Imitation ablehnen, als unoriginale Nachahmung abtun zu können. Natürlich handelt es sich bei der Schilderung der Spiele, die zu Ehren des ersten Toten auf dem Zuge der Sieben gegen Theben, des Opheltes/Archemorus, veranstaltet wurden (Theb. 6.249–946), um eine offenkundige Nachahmung der Darstellung der Leichenspiele, von denen im dreiundzwanzigsten Gesang der Ilias und im fünften Buch der Aeneis berichtet wird. Natürlich genügt dieser Bezug allein aber nicht, um ein Verdammungsurteil zu rechtfertigen. Ist doch gerade Wiederaufnahme und Neugestaltung überlieferter Motive eine tragende Gegebenheit antiken Dichtens. Die Aufgabe, durch Einzelvergleich mit den Vorbildern die wesentlichen Eigenschaften dieser statianischen Dichtung zu bestimmen, kann im Rahmen dieses Aufsatzes nicht in Angriff genommen werden; das genauere Studium einer so umfangreichen Partie mit 700 Versen muss einer Monographie vorbehalten bleiben. Hier können darum nur einige wichtigere Sonderfragen erörtert werden, die jedoch von grundsätzlicher Bedeutung für den Passus selbst wie auch für die dichterische Technik des Statius zu sein scheinen.

En présentant cette contribution à l'examen critique de l'œuvre de Hugues de Saint-Victor, nous avons d'abord à rendre hommage à B. Hauréau qui, au siècle dernier, entreprit une étude analogue, en 1859, sous le titre, Hugues de Saint-Victor: Nouvel examen de l'édition de ses oeuvres, puis, en 1886, sous le titre, Les oeuvres de Hugues de Saint-Victor. Compte tenu des travaux parus depuis lors et des résultats de nos propres recherches nous devons faire un certain nombre d'additions aux constatations faites par Hauréau, et un certain nombre de corrections aux jugements qu'il prononça. Il n'empêche que notre étude comme la sienne a un caractère provisoire et appelle à son tour additions, perfectionnements et corrections. Puissions-nous du moins être quelque peu utile aux chercheurs qui s'intéresseront à ce grand penseur du XIIe siècle.

An oath was sworn by Pope Leo III at St. Peter's on December 23 of the year 800 before a synodal assembly at which Charlemagne presided; it occupies a central place among the events that culminated, only two days later, in the coronation of the Frankish king as Imperator Romanorum. The document customarily known as the text of this ‘oath’ was in 1899 edited by Karl Hampe, and in 1906 by Albert Werminghoff, who followed his predecessor ad verbum usque, as he says. The apparatus of both editions establishes the insertion of a slightly reedited oath in the Decretum of Burchard of Worms. Ivo of Chartres and, in an apologetic treatise, Gerhoh of Reichersberg follow Burchard without major changes. The variants listed by Hampe and Werminghoff indicate that they both distinguished between the basic text of the oath in the oldest, ninth-century MS, Würzburg M. p. theol. fol. 46 (and its descendants, the Monacenses 6241 and 27246, saec. x-xi), and the oath's transmission by Burchard and the above-named authors who depend on Burchard. And Hampe assigns the twelfth-century Vaticanus 1348 to the Burchard tradition, when he says that its readings largely correspond with Burchard's (‘paene omnibus conveniunt Burchardi Wormat. decret. …’). Both scholars are fully conversant with the textual history of the document; they reprint in the notes the abbreviated version of the oath in Gratian's Decretum, and the text in a Roman Ordo which represents a version re-written in accordance with certain concepts of Roman law. The Burchard-tradition has been discussed in a recent study. Some of the changes made by Burchard in the original text of the oath are readily understandable. The variant in … conspectu, instead of in … basilica, probably resulted from a scribal dittography, because the same expression occurs in the oath of purgation in the lines preceding and following the correct reading. The variant adversum, instead of adversus, is an emendation of the original text. Burchard evidently recognized the resemblance between the original reading, ‘qualiter homines mali adversus me insurrexerunt and Psalm 53.5 ‘quoniam alieni insurrexerunt adversum me.’

When William Langland revised his poem Piers Plowman for the second time, he added a long, intricate analogy to the third passus. In all three versions of Piers, the dreamer, Will, finds himself in this early passus at a king's court and witnesses a debate between two figures, Lady Meed and Conscience, about the appropriateness of their possible marriage. The B text, the one scholars most often discuss, presents the would-be bride, Lady Meed, arguing that regardless of their nature the gifts she dispenses at court are integral to the smooth operation of society. These gifts, then, are honorable, and Lady Meed's nature need not prevent her marriage to Conscience. The reluctant Conscience, however, distinguishes between two kinds of meed, one holy and one corrupt. He holds that Lady Meed represents only the corrupt meed and so is intrinsically immoral. Her ‘gifts’ and ‘payments,’ he says, are not proportionate to desert, as she claims, but are instead bribes and payoffs. Rather than easing the functioning of society, they subvert it. On these grounds, Conscience refuses to marry Lady Meed. The king before whom Lady Meed and Conscience argue is initially torn about the nature of Lady Meed, as indeed readers of the poem have remained. In what appears to be an effort to clarify Conscience's argument, Langland adds almost a hundred lines to the debate in the C text.

Karl Jost first noted the use of a passage from Atto of Vercelli, De pressuris ecclesiasticis, in Archbishop Wulfstan's Latin composition De Christianitate. Dorothy Bethurum, however, in her essay on the group of manuscripts associated as representatives of Wulfstan's “Commonplace Book,” suggested that an extract in one of these, Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 190, pp. 96–97, was an intermediary between the original work of Atto and Wulfstan's De Christianitate. Jost and Bethurum used the edition of Atto by d'Achery, reprinted in Migne. Now Joachim Bauer has re-edited Atto's tract and, finding early manuscripts rare, has read CCC 190 and identified more quotations from Atto in this English manuscript.

‘Abaelard,’ ‘Abelard,’ ‘Baiolard’ …? Twelfth-century scribes were as uncertain of the exact spelling and pronunciation of the famous philosopher's cognomen as scholars have been in more recent centuries. Trivial as it might seem, correct pronunciation provides the key to understanding a short anecdote copied onto the opening folio of a twelfth-century manuscript (MS Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Clm. 14160 = M), formerly belonging to the Benedictine abbey of St. Emmeran, Regensburg. It tells the reader that the peripatetic philosopher wanted to supplement his studies of the trivium by following the lectures of master Thierry on mathematics, but then found the subject too difficult. Thierry gave Peter the name ‘Baiolard’ because he was like a greedy dog who had eaten his fill yet still wanted to lick (given as the meaning of baiare) lard, here used as an image of the quadrivium. The word lardum may itself be a pun on artium. The story-teller goes on to claim that Peter changed ‘Baiolard’ (‘lick-lard’) to ‘Abelard’ (‘have-lard’) because he came to master geometry and arithmetic. The patent absurdity of a number of details in this anecdote — such as, that Abelard was an Englishman or that he wrote on geometry and arithmetic — has led most scholars to dismiss the story as a spurious invention. In this study I shall examine whether there are any historical insights to be gained from the anecdote, the text of which is given here with an attempt at a translation.

In dem Tractatus de legibus et consuetudinibus regni Angliae, der gegen Ende des 12. Jahrhunderts geschrieben wurde und unter dem Namen des damaligen obersten englischen Richters Ranulph de Glanvill bekannt geworden ist, spielt der Begriff der causa debendi bei der Darstellung des Schuldrechts eine beachtenswerte Rolle. Er hat hier eine augenfällig hervortretende technische Bedeutung. Ihm kommt die Funktion des systematischen Oberbegriffs zu, unter dem im 10. Buch des Werkes das materielle Schuldrecht vorgetragen wird.

Some twenty years ago Canon Étienne Delaruelle and Janine Povill wrote a history of the parishes of Toulouse from their origins to 1160. My design is to review their findings for the mid-twelfth century and carry the history forward until about 1250. The limitation of 1250 is imposed essentially by a change in the nature of the documentation of Toulousan local history, which among other things involved a great diminution in preserved private documents.

The establishment of a chronology of Saint John Chrysostom's early life is beset with difficulties arising not from a lack of sources, but from a relative abundance of incomplete accounts, which sometimes contradict one another and which are of uncertain reliability. The fifth chapter of Palladius’ Dialogue is generally considered to be our most valuable source. Yet even in the use of this document some caution is advisable. Palladius knew Chrysostom during the last years of the latter's life; consequently his account of the events in Constantinople is of great value. But what were his sources for the saint's early life? Two in particular have been proposed: Chrysostom himself, and his aunt, the deaconess Sabiniana. Our own experience of human nature should warn us that a man in his late fifties or early sixties does not always remember accurately the details of his youth, and that the testimony of elderly aunts about the early years of their famous nephews is never entirely above question. Moreover, it should be remembered that Palladius’ Dialogue had an apologetic purpose.

John Trevisa, fourteenth-century scholar and translator, was born in Cornwall, studied at Oxford University, and served as vicar of Berkeley and chaplain to Thomas IV, Lord Berkeley, in Gloucestershire. He died sometime prior to May 21, 1402. The main facts of Trevisa's life and works were collected by the late Professor A. J. Perry of the University of Manitoba, who visited England in the summer of 1914, and reported the results of his research there in the Introduction to his edition of Trevisa's minor works, published by the Early English Text Society in 1925.

En este trabajo nos proponemos revisar uno de los sucesos trascendentales que repercutieron sobre la cultura del Imperio Romano, produciendo modificaciones sustantivas en todos los órdenes de su vida, y de tan pronunciada magnitud, que incluso se consolidó como sustrato medular del imaginario medieval, en general, y de su literatura, en particular. Ese acontecimiento, de dinámica progresión temporal, es la paulatina infiltración del cristianismo, cuya actividad culmina con la conquista del poder político — observando principios que seguirá ejercitando hasta en tiempos de absoluta hegemonía —, y su relación con la cultura oficial.

Admiration for the achievements of the thirteenth-century Catalan mystic Ramon Lull ran deep in many currents of learning in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It was during this period that Lullism became a potent force in the intellectual life of Western Europe, being blended with mysticism by Lefèvre, with philosophical encyclopedism by Lavinheta, and with occultism and symbolism by Agrippa and Bruno. The penetration of Lull's thought into diverse areas of intellectual life was in agreement with his own contention that the Ars was universally applicable, but at the same time it obscured Lull's fundamental apologetic aims, his eremitic ideals, missionary wanderings, and his martyrdom.

Sometime between 1070 and 1077, Anselm, then prior of the monastery of Bec in Normandy, wrote to his friend Maurice, a former Bec monk residing at Christ Church, Canterbury, and asked him to seek out copies of various texts, including Bede's De temporibus and the Regula of St. Dunstan — presumably the Regularis concordia, the platform-document of the English Benedictine reform of the tenth century. Shortly thereafter, Anselm wrote again to Maurice, indicating that another text had been added to his desiderata:

Philip V's negotiations with his subjects to secure subsidies and support in 1318 and 1319 significantly affected the evolution of royal policies and general attitudes toward taxation and consultation in fourteenth-century France. Though many aspects of these governmental activities have been studied, the precise nature of the monarchy's aims and plans, and the complex interrelationship of the reactions of different groups and different regions are still not fully understood. The work which has been done has concentrated on analysis as a prelude to synthesis: the various stands taken by townspeople, by nobles, and by ecclesiastics have been treated, and the responses of various areas have been considered. Much of the material necessary for a comprehensive assessment has been examined and ordered, yet there remain problems, relatively restricted in nature and scope, which demand consideration before the meaning and implications of the events of 1318 and 1319 can be adequately comprehended.