Statements in Latin concerning such topics as wisdom, truth, and virtue, attributed to the Proverbia Grecorum (less often the Parabolae Gregorum), are found in a number of early medieval manuscripts. They are of interest because of their stated connection with the Greeks, which pertains to the knowledge of Greek and Greek learning in the early medieval West, and because of the obscure vocabulary many of the proverbs contain, which relates to the study of the latinity of early medieval, especially insular, scholars. New findings concerning the origin and transmission of these statements have increased their importance because they have revealed connections between them and other important early medieval Latin texts, notably the Collectio canonum Hibernensis and certain florilegia found in the miscellaneous Collectaneum of Sedulius Scottus. The Proverbia Grecorum have been edited and studied in detail only once, by Sigmund Hellmann, in 1906. Since then new statements attributed to the Proverbia Grecorum have been found, and the characterization of early medieval Latin culture has been significantly revised. Hellmann's text, furthermore, has been found to be faulty in a number of places. Therefore, there is a need for a full re-edition and study of this proverb collection. This has been undertaken in the present work. Following this essay, which defines the current state of knowledge of the Proverbia Grecorum, there is a critical edition of all statements identified as Proverbia Grecorum. This is followed by a commentary in which parallel texts are cited, and points of linguistic interest are noted.

Recent scholarship presents us with a difficult choice between two main trends: Deor as artistic transformation of a charm; and Deor as a ‘veritable Consolatio Philosophiae of minstrelsy.’ Morton Bloomfield's 1964 article compared the form of Deor to that of charms and concluded that it is ‘either a sophisticated, Christianized charm … or a poem influenced by the charm form and meant to suggest its prototype.’ Although strikingly original and brilliantly documented, Bloomfield's idea has not won many followers because a few years after its publication the Boethian trend, announced in Lawrence's 1911 phrase quoted above, set in strongly; following Murray Markland (1968) a series of scholars have pursued the trail of Boethian influence in impressive, if overingenious, articles. Now even essays dedicated to the formal-critical (rather than literary-historical) consideration of the poem usually include an obligatory tip of the hat to the suffering senator, and I think it would be fair to say that the standard view of the poem now combines the older notion of a general consolation with specific Boethian influence into what we might call a mild pseudo-Boethian optimism. The Boethian reading seems to me vulnerable judged under its own principles; but rather than trying directly to refute it, the present contribution will attempt to stake out the essentials of a new position between Bloomfield and Boethius by means of new external evidence. The present effort will, however, remain at the level of a prolegomenon to interpretation; depending on the reception of the present arguments and conjectures, I would hope to offer a fuller reading of the poem and its context in Old English literary history.

Sometime around the year 1090, the monks of Saint-Aubin of Angers became involved in an unusually well-documented dispute when some vineyards previously quitclaimed to them by a man called Vivianus the Rich became the subject of a calumnia or challenge by Vivianus' wife, Aremburgis; his son and heir, Rigaldus; and his daughter's husband, Sevinus. These three calumniae were discusssed at Le Lude before two prominent lords of the region, whose joint decision favored the monks and apparently left the three challengers empty-handed. About three decades earlier, a similar outcome was reached in another well-documented case in which a lay person contested a gift that a relative of his had made to a religious establishment. When Nihardus became involved in a multi-faceted lawsuit concerning a mill that his kinsman Guismandus II had given to the abbey of Marmoutier, Count Guy of Vendôme (1050–66) and others decided in Vendôme at the dwelling of another lord of the region that the first of Nihardus' two calumniae regarding the disputed mill was unjust. In the late eleventh century, however, a third case of the same general type led to a different result. After a youth called Hugo of Sourches had challenged his father Burchardus' gift to the abbey of Saint-Vincent of Le Mans, Hamelinus the forester, Patricius Pertica, and the entire court of Sourches decided that while the monks should keep the gift of Burchardus, they should also give some money to Hugo.

The Vita Heinrici IV. Imperatoris, composed by an unknown author probably around the turn of the twelfth century, is an old-fashioned imperial life which raises serious interpretive questions in a period of social and cultural transformation. There are certain cultural moments characterized by the absence of an interpretive consensus, when older patterns of interpretation no longer seem adequate to experience. Criticism has looked to the work of the imaginative artist at those moments, on whom typically devolves the task of representing experience and rendering it coherent in expression. This is a task at which the artist must necessarily fail insofar as the representation is true to the sense of experience which has left behind available interpretive categories. But what of the historian whose work is necessarily rooted directly in the social transformation ? In what follows I want to consider the peculiarities of historical narrative at one such cultural moment. The Vita Heinrici provides an example of singular narrative power and singular clarity.

In the prologue to his De commixtionibus elementorum, the Salernitan master Urso contrasts the ‘volumina numerosa’ of practical medicine with the ‘pau-cula … in idiomate latino volumina’ on theory. Urso explains the contrast by comparing the ease of compiling a practical manual with the arduous task of discovering and disclosing the secrets of nature. This comparison leads him to standard topics for a preface — the author's own inabilities and need for divine grace, the various demands on diligence in the reader. Indeed, the central contrast of the prologue seems more a topos than a strict judgment of the state of medical theory among the Salernitans.

It is well known that in the Middle Ages mathematics had little part in the study of nature. Natural philosophy, which had in its purview all of nature and natural things, was considered fundamentally distinct from mathematics, both in subject matter and in method. Yet there was a handful of sciences in which mathematics and natural philosophy came together, sciences that were to have a very significant role in later scientific thought. These were what Thomas Aquinas, in the thirteenth century, called the ‘intermediate sciences’ (scientiae mediae), since they were thought of as in some way intermediate between the natural and the mathematical; they included astronomy, optics, harmonics, and sometimes mechanics. They were also known as the ‘subalternate sciences,’ since they were considered under, or subalternate to, pure mathematics, and sometimes to natural philosophy as well.

Although the doctrine of the eternity of the world had evoked much concern and opposition among the Fathers of the Christian Church, it ceased to engage the attention of Latin Christian writers during most of the early Middle Ages. When interest in the question revived during the twelfth century, it was nearly always considered in the context of Plato's Timaeus or Boethius’ De consolatione philosophiae. By 1270, the issue seemed to be between the supporters and the opponents of Aristotle. Although the story of Latin discussions of the eternity of the world during the 1260s and 1270s has been quite thoroughly investigated, the preceding period from about 1230 to 1260 has been largely ignored. It is the purpose of the present study to elucidate this neglected stage in medieval discussions of the eternity of the world and to show its relationship to the earlier and later periods.

The name Boethius of Dacia evokes today an image of a radical thinker, who championed the cause of philosophical freedom, even at the expense of his religious beliefs. His writings have earned him, together with his contemporary, Siger of Brabant, the title of leader of the ‘Latin Averroists’ or ‘Heterodox Aristotelians.’ Boethius’ treatise on the highest good has contributed greatly to the modern opinion of Boethius as a radical thinker. M. Grabmann, who rediscovered the De summo bono, considered the work to be a clear expression of the anti-Christian tendencies inherent in ‘Latin Averroism’; and P. Mandonnet saw the short treatise to be the most radical expression of a program of the natural life, the purest rationalism, and a total denial of the Christian order. More recently, this view has been modified by F. Van Steenberghen and his students, who argue that Boethius of Dacia is indeed a Christian thinker, and in no way excludes ‘supernatural beatitude’ from his notion of the highest good. They point out that, as a teacher of Aristotelian philosophy, Boethius’ main concern is the summum bonum which can be attained on earth. As a result, the De summo bono is a characteristic product of the Arts Faculty at Paris.

A common view of medieval thought focuses on the separation of speculative thought from biblical exegesis which occurs with the rise of the universities. Whereas in the patristic era and the early Middle Ages theology and exegesis formed a unity, the introduction of Aristotle and the techniques of quaestio and disputatio detached theology from the study of scriptural texts. The results were twofold: theology attained a new autonomy and a distinctive form in the summa, and exegesis — free of the demands of theological speculation — could pursue a more literal and historical style of interpretation. Whatever the historical accuracy of this view, it has certainly shaped modern scholarship on medieval thought. Theologians and philosophers have focused on summae and disputed questions to such an extent that the Leonine edition of Thomas Aquinas has yet to publish his major Commentary on the Gospel of John. Since Thomas is considered first of all a theologian, not an exegete, his biblical commentaries have been accorded less interest and attention than his systematic works. In contrast, students of medieval exegesis may so emphasize literal and historical interpretation that they exclude or dismiss commentaries that are speculative or mystical. Beryl Smalley's The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages represents this trend, as it devotes little attention to Bernard of Clairvaux but concentrates on commentators like Guerric of St. Quentin, who gave ‘his attention to the literal sense first and foremost.’

The names of John Buridan (1300–after 1358) and Nicholas of Autrecourt (1300–after 1350) are often associated with the so-called Ockhamist statute of 1340 at the University of Paris. For a long time the discussion centered upon the question: Was this statute directed against Ockham or Autrecourt? Puzzling also was the part Buridan played, who presumably was rector at the time that the statute was promulgated. Should he, as an alleged ‘Ockhamist,’ be accused of patricide or did he defend Ockham against the attacks of Autrecourt?

L'immense mérite de Mgr André Combes d'avoir édité en cinq volumes une grande partie des écrits du Docteur supersubtil et d'avoir étudié dans de nombreux articles les questions annexes à cette édition ne peut cependant pas cacher le fait, aujourd'hui incontestable, que tous les problèmes que nous pose l'œuvre de Jean de Ripa et qui se sont déjà posés à son éditeur ne sont pas encore résolus ou le sont d'une manière provisoire et peu satisfaisante. Parmi eux il y en a un qui domine tous les autres puisque, une fois bien posé et bien résolu, les autres le seront: c'est celui de la chronologie des écrits du docteur franciscain, présent dans toutes les préfaces précédant les textes édités et dans la ‘Présentation de Jean de Ripa’. Il est lié tout naturellement à deux autres demandant, eux aussi, une élucidation: celui du genre littéraire ou de la ‘nature’ des écrits de Jean de Ripa, et celui de ses socii et adversaires.

MS Chapel Hill 522, fols. 159r-202r, contains a hitherto unidentified manuscript of the Latin Kalendarium of Nicholas of Lynn, a medieval astronomical almanac known to and used by Chaucer. Sigmund Eisner has already identified fifteen MSS of the Kalendarium, none of them complete, and has published an edition for the New Chaucer Society. Although Chapel Hill's manuscript is also incomplete, it does contain important materials missing from Eisner's base text, MS Oxford, Bodleian Laud. Misc. 662 — namely, all the lunar eclipse figures and the tables of ascensions and equations of houses for Aries and Taurus. In this paper I provide a brief introduction to Nicholas of Lynn and medieval kalendaria, followed by a summary description of CH 522, fols. 159r–202r, which contains a list of the other astronomical and mathematical texts bound with Nicholas of Lynn's Kalendarium in the book. Then I present my reasons for believing that CH 522 was an early MS, perhaps one intended for use as an exemplar. Finally, I add two plates from the MS and a full list of textual variants for CH 522, collated against Eisner's edition.

Als der Bischof von Burgos, Pablo de Santa Maria, 1429 im Alter von 80 Jahren für seinen Sohn Alonso gleichsam als geistliches Vermächtnis einen Kommentar zur Heiligen Schrift schreiben wollte, da brauchte er nicht von vorne zu beginnen. In der 100 Jahre zuvor (1322–32) verfaßten Postilla litteralis des französischen Franziskaners Nicolaus von Lyra († 1349) lag ihm ein Kommentar vor, der weithin den Vorstellungen des zum Christentum konvertierten ehemaligen Rabbiners entsprach, nämlich ein Kommentar, der in ständiger Auseinandersetzung mit der jüdischen Exegese die ganze Bibel in ihrem buchstäblichen Sinne erläutert; Pablo de Burgos konnte sich damit begnügen, Additiones zur Postilla des Nicolaus zu schreiben.

Though Cicero's authority helped elevate the ideal orator's dexterity and discipline to the status of cliche, the vital link between theory and practice that his dialogues advocate did not long survive him. As professional rhetoricians of the next century became increasingly preoccupied with declamation, practical oratory developed and rewarded other qualities. Eloquence of the old kind could be thought a vanishing art. This then is how the younger Pliny would describe one of the most successful speakers of the late first century, the notorious (and long-lived) delator M. Aquilius Regulus.

Studies dealing with the attitudes of various writers of the patristic period towards Hellenism, including the aspect of paideia, have tended to concentrate, up to the present, on a specific writer or time-span. It is no accident that fourth-century writers have loomed large in recent investigations in this area, since the fourth century was pivotal in determining Christian attitudes to pagan literary traditions. Here it is my aim to draw attention not to a single writer or period but rather to the representatives of a Christian literary genre, and to discuss their stance with regard to Hellenism, in particular paideia. My choice falls on the Greek ecclesiastical historians; although they have been scrutinised increasingly in the past twenty years, their collective attitude to Hellenic culture or Greek letters has not yet received a separate study. Those early Greek historical works that have survived to us more or less intact — the histories of Eusebius of Caesarea, Socrates Scholasticus, Sozomen, Theodoret of Cyrus, and Evagrius Scholasticus — provide us with a more reliable overall picture of the Hellenism of their composers than, for example, the fragmentary Church Histories of Philostorgius and Theodore Lector; taken together, they give us at the same time a useful chronological spread from the early fourth to the late sixth century. The crucial questions to be posed are to what extent these writers deemed Hellenism to be compatible with ecclesiastical historiography, and how typical their perspective on Hellenism was of their own times. Where appropriate, we shall also try to ascertain how these church historians stand with regard to using classical citations and references in their narratives, how they view the classical past, and what their attitude is towards non-Greek culture.

Manuscript Paris, B.N. lat. 7906 could contain the oldest known copy of part of the eighth-century Frankish chronicle, the Liber Historiae Francorum (LHF). The manuscript was an exciting discovery because of its antiquity, and at the same time a challenging one because it does not neatly fit with other known early manuscripts of the work. From folio 81 to 88v, B.N. lat. 7906 contains the first part of the LHF, breaking off abruptly in the course of chapter 17. The break comes in mid-sentence and falls at the end of the last line of a verso. The complete LHF contains 53 chapters, and obviously here, in mid-sentence in chapter 17, is not the place the scribe intended to end his copy. The author took the majority of his first 34 chapters from the Historia of Gregory of Tours. These are chapters of the LHF which are not as valuable historically as the work's later sections, which contain more original material from the author himself. Since the Paris manuscript stops in chapter 17, and since it does not contain any historical information not already known from other early manuscripts of the work, it does not add to the LHF's value as a historical source. It does, however, call into question the now universally held contention that the Liber Historiae Francorum was written in two neatly defined recensions, each with its own known date of composition.

The question of Hildegard's influence and reputation in the centuries following her death is an elusive and vexing one for scholars. We do know that the medieval prophetic tradition is one of the few spheres in which her writings and her reputation sustained anything like their original high profile. To a large extent this popularity was the direct result of two things: first of all, a compilation of extracts from her prophecies made by Gebeno of Eberbach around the year 1220; and secondly, the association of Hildegard's name and a few of her genuine writings with the tradition of anti-mendicant propaganda. These two survivals give us a different but not unrelated view of how Hildegard was known to the later Middle Ages, and in particular what she was best known for: that is, for her prediction of a coming chastisement of the clergy to be brought about partly through the agency of a group of pseudo-prophets. The testimony of Gebeno in his prologue to his compilation of her prophetic works and the testimony of various contemporary chroniclers all agree on one thing: Hildegard had succeeded in scaring the wits out of the local clergy, and even decades after her death they feared the chastisement she had predicted.