First the Bad News, then some Good News

I'm a bit late on some of this, but here goes:

First, I found out this week that I am but a second choice for a position I had applied for and some one else will be filling the bill. Congratulations to that person whomever he or she may be.

Second, Martin Hengel died last week, Thursday I think, after a bout with cancer at age 82. Hengel was instrumental in Second Temple Judaism, Christian Origins, and early Rabbinics. He reopened the door to consideration of the shape of late Second Temple Judaism(s) as the mileau of the early Christian movement in his magisterial Judaism and Hellenism, the translation of his 1973 Judentum und Hellenismus. In that work, Hengel set the groundwork that has now become the shape of the field. Before his work, it was customary to talk about "Hellenistic Judaism" in the Diaspora, particularly at Alexandria, and "Palestinian Judaism" as differing approaches to being Jewish in the Greco-Roman world. Palestinian Judaism was largely seen as more consertive, Semitic, Temple oriented etc while Hellenistic Judaism was seen as more liberal, taking part in the larger Hellenistic culture, and concerned with merging the Torah and Greek philosophy as in the works of Philo. Hengel's work showed that it was not a question of "Hellenism vs. Resistance to Hellenism" in late Judaism, but rather "how Hellenistic was X", that is, all Second Temple Jews of whatever group in the Roman Empire were to some degree Hellenistic, even the Sadducees who oversaw the Temple and some of the early Rabbis in Palestine. Likewise, one finds conservative "Semitizing" elements in Diaspora Judaism as well. So he argued that a simple dichotomy of Diaspora vs. Palestine, Hellenistic vs. Semitizing was not a valid approach.

I read that book first in 1986, and read it through twice and have read in it many times. Masterful. If only I had the gifts to create such a work. Hengel wrote other influential works, or at least ones that questioned current assumptions such as his Acts and Earliest Christian History that to some degree bucked the trend to reading Acts purely as fiction, The Zealots is a very good book, and there are others spanning the field. It is sad to see him go.

Carin Ruff blogging at Ruff Notes notes the passing of Virginia Brown of PIMS. She too apparently has had a bout of cancer. I never knew her personally, but I do know that when I wanted to go to Toronto that she was one whom various contacts said I should get to know and be sure to take her palaeography class. Generations of PIMS and U Toronto students have done so, and her impact can be seen in their work, though she doesn't seem to have published extensively herself. She translated Boccacio's "Famous Women" and was apparently working on some Caesar Bellum Civile. Nonetheless, my condolences to all who knew her.


Update and Clarification: Carin Ruff dropped this comment in, where else, the comments and I thought it best to have it here so that others will see it:


Thanks for the link about VB. To clarify: the focus of Prof. Brown's life's work was manuscripts in Beneventan script, and her extensive publications were mainly notices of new manuscript discoveries, many published over the years in Mediaeval Studies and collected in Terra Sancti Benedicti: Studies in the Palaeography, History and Liturgy of Medieval Southern Italy. VB was one of E.A. Lowe's last assistants on CLA. It's an interesting metacomment on the intersection of our interdisciplinary profession with disciplinary databases that the products of such a monumental life's work can lie all but hidden even from other medievalists. (I mean this not as a criticism of you, but a rumination on the balkanization of our field.)


Like Intel, our Medieval Rock Stars aren't like other rock stars (Michael Jackson), but no less rock stars for all that.

But now the good news:

Friend and co-blogger (though he owns it) at Modern Medieval Matthew Gabriele appears twice, count it, twice in the latest issue of Speculum! His review of Rosamund McKitterick's Charlemagne: The Formation of a European Identity appears on pg. 753 and Matt's own book The Legend of Charlemagne in the Middle Ages: Power, Faith, and Crusade made it into the Brief Notices section. Congratulations Matt!

PostMedieval: A Journal of Medieval Cultural Studies now has a website as well as a cover design. Kudos to Eileen Joy and all involved.


If you've been just wondering what to do over the weekend, let me suggest some Altoid catapults and binder clip trebuchets. Lifehacker saves the day AGAIN!

And utterly unrelated to anything medieval or scholarly, but Eureka returns this evening with a new season AND I've hooked the Spouse so I don't have to wrestle with her for the remote.

Also, test your knowledge of current events at McSweeney's Star Wars or Iran quiz.

Medieval Literature I Didn't Know IV: Codex Boernerianus

Returning to the series at last, I'd like to introduce you to Codex Boernerianus. Now the two of you reading this might be thinking, "Hey, that's not "literature", its a manuscript. Swain, you ruminate you, you're stretching the meaning of literature here." And you wouldn't be wrong to say so. But this codex is of interest for several literary reasons.

Boernerianus is a ninth century diglot (well, as we'll see a diglot plus) manuscript probably from St. Gall. For the most part, its contents are the Letters of Paul from the New Testament, though there are lacunae, present in the manuscript's exemplar. The Greek text of the NT is the main text with the Latin text written interlinearly, and is much smaller in size. The Greek text is fairly unique in many ways and belongs to the "Western" text type. Other interesting features are the attempts at word and clause separation,clauses often marked at the beginning with a simple punctus. The Latin text has multiple Insular features, though quite cramped in the interlinear space. Boernerianus is connected to the gospel manuscript Codex Sangallensis, also a Greek/Latin diglot and to another codex containing the letters of Paul, Codex Augiensis.

Anyway, my purpose here isn't to talk about the New Testament text. There are two quite different pieces of literature that interest me. The first is that in the back of this manuscript is a brief commentary on the gospel of Matthew that to date NO ONE has published anything on. I was alerted by email a while back that there is a student in Europe working on it, but I emailed back to inquire if said student wished to do something about the text for Heroic Age or if he would at least alert me when his work was finished. I was met with silence. So should it ever happen that I find myself in a stable job in academia and some time on my hands, I fully intend on offering a diplomatic edition and translation of it. Unless someone publishes one first.

The second literary work I wish to talk about has had some work done on it and some may even recognize the piece from anthologies and such. On folio 23 verso an Old Irish poem is written in the bottom margin. The letter forms bear some similarity to the Latin letter forms suggesting that the scribe is responsible for both. However, I have read that the scribe both was and was not an Irish or native Irish speaker. I haven't reviewed the evidence in detail myself, though so far as I know Old Irish was not a taught language on the continent in the ninth century, and one wonders why a scribe at St. Gall's would write this poem with its message in Old Irish if that were not his native tongue. For a future post, I hope to talk about the provenance of several Old Irish pieces in Latin manuscripts and by then I hope to know more about the details of the debate as to whether this scribe was a native Old Irish speaker. At any rate, here's an English translation of the poem:

To come to Rome, to come to Rome,
Much of trouble, little of profit,
The thing thou seekest here,
If thou bring not with thee, thou
findest not.

Great folly, great madness,
Great ruin of sense, great insanity,
Since thou has set out for death,
That thou shouldest be in disobedience
to the Son of Mary.

Taken from: B. M. Metzger, Manuscripts of the Greek Bible: An Introduction to Palaeography, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1981, p. 104. He's getting it from somewhere else too, but I've forgotten where and can't find my copy at the moment to check.

Folio 23 verso contains I Corinthians 2:9-3:3. The verse *MIGHT* be connected loosely to the passage in that the passage speaks of having received the "spirit of Christ" rather than the spirit of the world. But there is nothing explicit to tie them together. One might speculate that the poet had but recently returned from a pilgrimage to Rome and was disappointed by what he found there. I know only the barest outlines of what was going on at Rome during the ninth century, but considering how much difficulty the popes were having with the senatorial families and Byzantine politics and Frankish politics etc, that might give a monk in search of spiritual things pause. I think others probably can fill in that picture better than I at the moment, but I'll see what I can dig up for a follow-up post on the piece.

Congress 2010

The CFP for Congress 2010 seems to be up. http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/Assets/pdf/congress/Sessions10.pdf

headwords bleg

I'm hoping to enlist your help. I'm generating headwords for an upcoming encyclopedia from Brill on NW Europe in the period 400-1100. I'll likely be posting other groups of headwords and asking for input and even a reader or two (dozen?)to contribute articles. Anyway, the headwords may be found here: headwords for Languages and Linguistics and related matters; just send comments to larsprec@gmail.com.

A brief word about format: its a spreadsheet in Open Office at the moment saved as an html file. Perfectly readable, but not as smooth as I would like it to be.

Connections: Early Medieval and Enlightenment Edition

I've been reading a book about Capt. Cook that I referred to in an earlier post and when I finish the book, I will post here a bit more. Ok, so I've also just finished The University in Ruins which will earn a post over at Modern Medieval, but I digress. Anyway, I like Bede. I like thinking about Bede, and early Anglo-Saxon England, writing about Bede and early Anglo-Saxon England, talking about Bede and Early Anglo-Saxon England.....

So I was a bit surprised to learn that Capt. James Cook (not Kirk who was from Iowa) was not only a Yorkshireman, but spent some time working in Whitby and it is from that town that he first took ship and the fledgling steps on his way to becoming the Captain Cook of well deserved fame. The author refers to the "7th century ruins of an abbey" on an outcrop of hill overlooking the town (ahem: Hild's place). He also attended services as part of a Cook celebration at a Norman era church, St. Mary's that has furnishings and additions that date from many subsequent eras. Being largely a fishing and shipping town, the church has pews made from lumber salvaged from ships and other such features.

I personally have little direct "Cook" connection. I've been to the Bering Sea where he sailed on his third voyage searching for the NW Passage. I've been to Cook's Inlet in AK, and to Vancouver Island, though admittedly I never made it to Nootka Sound...I was too preoccupied then with other beauties on the island and the wonderful city of Victoria (or at least it was 25 years ago). I have more connection in that sense with one of Cook's men, George Vancouver, having sailed and/or driven over much of the territory Vancouver explored after Cook's death.

Nonetheless, the personal connection of having been where Cook went myself as a deckhand, my interest in Whitby, Bede, and Hild, only to find another connection in that way to Cook who lived in the town early in his career. My one and only trip into Yorkshire so far only took me to York, but not to Whitby. So I guess I'm just going to have to go again.

Another item of interest to me in connection to Whitby is that apparently Bram Stoker used the town as a model for the seaside town in Dracula. I had no idea. I have to say that I've never been into vampires and the like, but the of a medievalist I become the more I've come to appreciate Stoker's work in Dracula as a medievalism. Anyway, it was another medievalesque connection that piqued my interest.

Hrolf Kraki: Impressions

I mentioned awhile back reading Old Norse-Icelandic Literature: A Critical Guide and made some comments on its contents and usefulness. I read somewhere in the long ago, in the before time, either by or about C. S. Lewis that for every modern book one reads, one should read an old work. Especially in my reading for my chosen profession, I try to keep this as a rule of thumb: for every scholarly tome I read, I also read a text in primary literature and a journal issue of some journal to which I subscribe or would like to subscribe. So, after reading ONIL mentioned above, I picked up a saga I've read bits in, even translated some from the selection in Gordon's Old Norse I've mentioned previously: The Saga of Hrolf Kraki. I had on hand, on the altar to Penguin, a copy of Penguin Classics' translation and introduction by Jesse Byock, whose web site I only discovered just now while creating this post. I'll have to have a close look at that and I'll enter comments about it then. But anyway, to the saga.....

Written in the 14th century, like so much else in Old Norse, the saga is one of the "tales of ancient times" or fornaldar . The scene is largely the Danish kingdom of the Scyldinga (Skjoldung in ON), and relates the rise of Rolf, the gathering of his heroes, and their final fall.

Its a great story full of all sorts of goodies: heroes, incest, evil lords and husbands, witches and dangerous Finns, a dragon, shape-shifting, magic, revenge, trickery.....all the stuff of a corker! Spoiler alert! If you haven't read it and don't want to know what happens, stop reading here.




There are connections to England: some of the early part of the story takes place in Northumbria. And of course there are connections to Old English literature, specifically Widsith and Beowulf.

Rather than review the story or stories or even the scholarship, I thought I'd just jot down some of my impressions and points that I'd like to teach someday. The thing that I think struck me most was the finale. Seriously, the last battle scene in which all the heroes die is poignant. It brought a brief choke to my throat.

I also liked the beginning which is much different in character, but that is the section that explicitly mentions England and has the story well connected in Northumbria, which since I like studying Northumbria, and am fascinated with the Adventus period, suits me just fine!

There is plenty to entertain the folklorist and keep him busy. Totemism, magic of various kinds and from various sources, men given mammalian forms and abilities, magical objects etc.

The role of women is interesting here as well: nefarious magic all stems from a female person. The little "good" magic comes from men.

There's a dragon!

Beware men who throw bones at you at dinner! Gives whole new meaning to the barbecues of summer!

There is much to keep the Anglo-Saxonist busy: connections galore to Beowulf and Widsith including same setting, same characters or names in some cases, similar difficulties facing the heros, similar name meanings, and so on. There's even a burning hall!

There is also plenty to keep the Tolkienista busy: incestuous relationships originally unknown to the partners and later revealed, rings, dragons, burning halls, unlikely heroes, a final battle scene complete with a bear, of sorts. Most of all though there is a sublime beauty to some of the tragic scenes that I can only imagine is what Tolkien and Lewis meant when they referred to the beauty of northern myth. There were several places where I was honestly moved.

As mentioned above, I translated a short portion in Gordon, but I think someday I'd like to return to this saga and read the whole in Old Norse. I know even with just going through the English translation, there is much to think on and consider and this will be a text that I return to again and again.

Connections: Early Modern Edition

So....this might be a long shot. But I was reading my daily dose of the Bestaria Latina Blog and noted that one of today's proverbs is: Induis me leonis exuvium...you dress me in a lion's skin....

This is from Erasmus' Adagia and he there gives it two interpretations, one from myth, the other on fable. In mythology, Hercules is depicted draped in a lion's skin: the first task of Hercules' 12 was to kill the Nemean lion that had been terrorizing, well, Nemea. Hence the skin....imitated later by Alexander the Great, who stressed Herculean connections among others. But later, Hercules becomes reinterpreted as a type of Christ, and so there come to be Christological associations (sorry, an old Dante paper coming in there, but I digress.) Erasmus doesn't really go into that aspect though....

From fable, Erasmus notes Aesop's fable about the ass dressed as a lion. The donkeys note that they are whipped and treated badly by humans, but that humans fear lions. So they decide that they will go and put on lion's skins, and when people see them, they run away. Alas, the donkeys bray, the people realize when they see their feet that they have donkeys in lions' skins and not lions, and the lot of the donkeys is as bad if not worse than previously.

So....now we come to C. S. Lewis and the Chronicles of Narnia. The last book, The Last Battle opens with Shift the ape convincing Puzzle the Donkey that he should wear a lion's skin, improve his and everyone else's lot, and imitate the Narnian Christ figure Aslan. Puzzle, simple though he is, goes along at first and by the time his misgivings come to the fore, it is too late.

I'm sure that others have been here before me, I'm a bit slow like ol' puzzle (hence the name of the blog). Now we have here I think the sources for this part of Lewis' tale. Lewis was familiar with Aesop, Dante, and Erasmus (he quotes them all often enough in his non-fiction that there is no doubt on the question). And Puzzle, like Hercules, is a type of Christ: the falsehood comes in when the type is passed off as the real thing. And of course we have donkeys in lion's skin, just as the fable. And we have both together in the same context just as in Erasmus.

A nice set of connections: a chance reading of a blog entry on a daily Latin fable, brings me to Erasmus who brought me to Greek myth, Christian typology and my beloved Dante (oh, yes, I love my Dante!), and Erasmus, and finally, Lewis. Well done, Jack, well done.