Where the Middle Ages Begin
To an early modern, nothing could be fully learned through a “hands off” approach. Heidi Brayman Hackel corroborates this with her book, Reading Material. Critical to early modern thoughts on comprehension was “taking note,” a phrasing that carried the double implication of both noticing and annotating…
In using writing as a means to contain dispute over time, the Anglo-Saxons repeatedly inscribed the troubling evidence of past dispute and anticipated loss into their thinking about land.
The Ars Moriendi is a Mediaeval Christian death manual that appeared around the middle of the fifteenth century. Though no-one is certain who the author was, there is no doubt that Jean Gerson was the major inspiration through his Opusculum Tripartitum.
It is my intention not only to explore the discourse of love and desire in the fourteenth century, but also to examine how the ideas have been altered from those present in the Anglo-Norman and Latin material that was written or widely read in twelfth-century England and what pressures and influences may have brought about these changes.
Historical evidence shows strong interaction between philosophy and the emancipation of the common man or the rise of popular culture in Western Europe during the late Middle Ages and Early Modernity
The content carved on the Franks Casket has remained as obscure as its origin. No-one has managed to properly interpret the artwork and the runic inscriptions, though the piece has often passed under the scope over the 150 years since its discovery; with a range of lenses, which at times have passed the flaw to the thing seen.
Take a foreign language, write it in an unfamiliar script, abbreviating every third word, and you have the compound puzzle that is the medieval Latin manuscript.
To better understand the relationship between linguistics, literature and education in Medieval England, some general background information is necessary to understand how these subjects intertwine…
The Manuale is similarly a pastoral work, addressed to the priest, indeed, to a specific priest. It is however a different sort of work from the Instructions, and it does not provide the details of the tenets of the Church which the Instructions provides…
The Judgement of Urines Canadian Medical Association Journal, v.159:12 (1998) Abstract An earnest physician of Renaissance England counted this as one of the minor benefits of urine. His other jottings concluded that it is an excellent fertilizer for apple trees — it improves the apples’ taste, apparently — and does a fine job treating gout […]
Talking about history in eleventh century England: the Encomium Emmae Reginae and the court of Harthacnut Tyler, Elizabeth M. Early Medieval Europe, 13 (4) (2005) Abstract The Encomium Emmae Reginae was written in the early 1040s to support the interests of Queen Emma amidst the factionalism which marked the end of the period of Danish […]
A Gregorian manuscript in the Ian Potter Museum of Art Martyn, John R.C. University of Melbourne Collections, Issue 6, June (2010) Abstract In about 1000 a very interesting illuminated manuscript that probably held copies of all of the letters of Pope Gregory the Great was created. Five centuries later, 41 of these letters, from books two, […]
The Place of Metrics in Anglo-Saxon Latin Education: Aldhelm and Bede Ruff, Carin (John Carroll University) Journal of English and Germanic Philology, Vol. 104:2 (2005) Abstract The Anglo-Saxons are well known for having been pioneers in teaching Latin as a foreign language and in developing materials for elementary Latin instruction to supplement the grammars they […]
Piracy as Statecraft: The Mediterranean Policies of the Fifth/Eleventh-Century Taifa of Denia Bruce, Travis Al-Masa ̄q, Vol. 22, No. 3, December (2010) Abstract The taifa of Denia on the Iberian eastern seaboard was one of the most dynamic of the regional polities that emerged from the disintegrated Cordovan caliphate. Muja ̄hid al-‘A ̄mir ̄ı based his […]
We’re on a Mission from God: A Translation, Commentary, and Essay Concerning The Hierosolymita by Ekkehard of Aura King, Matthew LaBarge (University of Washington) History Honours Thesis, University of Washington, March 7, 2011 Abstract This project is a translation, essay, and commentary about the Hierosolymita by Ekkehard of Aura. Written in the early 12th century, […]
HISPANISMS IN THE LANGUAGE OF ISIDORE OF SEVILLE Maltby, Robert Hispania terris omnibus felicior: Premesse ed esiti di un processo di integrazione, Pisa (2001) Abstract For the student of late Latin in Spain Isidore of Seville (560-636 AD) is a very important figure, as he is writing at a time when the Latin of the […]
Fragments of Boethius: the reconstruction of the Cotton manuscript of the Alfredian text Irvine, Susan Anglo-Saxon England, 34 (2005) Abstract ‘These fragments I have shored against my ruins’: T. S. Eliot’s metaphor in The Waste Land evokes the evanescent frailty of human existence and worldly endeavour with a poignancy that the Anglo-Saxons would surely have appreciated. […]
A huge number of students ranging from linguists to those studying coins and family ancestry are benefiting from a 100 year project to compile the world’s most comprehensive dictionary of Medieval Latin. Work started on the unique Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources 50 years ago but experts began collecting material early in the […]
The transformation of homosexual Liebestod in sagas translated from Latin Ashurst, David Saga-Book (2002) Abstract The focus of this article will be on a series of texts in which one warrior dies clasping the body of a fallen comrade; but before concentrating on that theme I must explain the term liebestod, ëlove- deathí, and its […]
Ohio Dominican University in Columbus, Ohio is set to offer a summer program in Latin this summer. Under the direction of Dr. Matthew Ponesse, Associate Professor of History, the program is aimed at students pursuing graduate studies in the fields of medieval history, literature, philosophy, or theology. The summer program begins on June 13th, with […]
Kingship In Early Ireland Doherty, Charles The Kingship and Landscape of Tara, ed. Edel Bhreathnach, Four Courts Press, Dublin, (2005) Abstract The earliest reference to the presence of kings in Ireland is in the geography of the known world compiled by Claudius Ptolemaeus c.AD 150 (generally referred to as Ptolemy’s Map). He derived his information from earlier […]
Vagantes Conference Session 2: Reception, Memory & Identity “The Mark of the beast: revisioning the medieval bestiary in the 20th century” Raina Polivka (Indiana University) The medieval period was an era of uncertainty – medieval people gave thought to how they applied their presence to the natural world. Bestiaries assigned a moralization of behaviour and […]
‘In Search of Lost Time: Aldhelm and The Ruin’ Abram, Christopher (Robinson College, Cambridge) Quaestio: Selected Proceedings of the Cambridge Colloquium in Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Celtic, Vol. 1 (2000) Abstract The Ruin – which it is almost traditional to describe as a ruin itself, as bad fire damage has obliterated large parts of the text in the Exeter […]
Instruction and Information in the Works of John Trevisa Barton, Jennifer Marginalia, Vol. 9 (2009) Abstract In John Trevisa’s Dialogue, the character of the Lord explains that the use of Latin as a universal academic language is one part of the ‘doubel remedy’ for the problem of diverse languages that prevents the communication of knowledge between ‘men […]
How you can Follow Us!