Myriads of Musty Tomes
21 hours ago
Thursday, February 26, 2009
BBC Article of Note
'Oldest English words' identified: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7911645.stm
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Dead Sea Scrolls and Medieval Manuscripts
I'm composing my follow up post to the Within poem I talked about almost two months ago now, in usual piecemeal fashion. But whilst I do that, the news came across my desktop today that a study was done on one of the Dead Sea Scrolls' ink, the so-called Thanksgiving Scroll. For those not up on some of the issues, the traditional view of DSS and the community that produced them has been that on the shores of the Dead Sea there was an ascetic community with a scriptorium who produced the majority if not all of the DSS and hid them at the approach of the Romans c. 68 CE. There are those who have questioned either the whole or parts of this reconstruction: little evidence of a scriptorium for example and there's the whole alternative theory by a guy at U Chicago whose name is escaping me at the moment but whose book I read some years ago that argues that the DSS are someone's (or someones') library from Jerusalem taken to the wilderness to hide as the Romans closed in, but never retrieved, and so nothing to do with an Essene community at all.
Anyway, that's a gross oversimplification, and so somewhat wrong, but it will do as a set up for the news. The study determined that at least on that scroll, the ink was prepared with waters from the Dead Sea, and so it is likely then that the scroll was written or copied in the vicinity.
Interesting evidence, and while it doesn't prove that the DSS were composed, or even that scroll, were written at Qumran, it is rather suggestive that it was. In addition to that news, though, I wonder in the face of the DNA studies on sheep and calf skin that have been in the news of late, and Michael Drout's similar project, if there might not be a need and interest in doing similar ink studies on medieval manuscripts. There are a large number of unprovenanced manuscripts in our modern repositories that could at least be given a possible point of origin by testing ink composition with the waters of rivers, lakes, etc in and around monastic sites.
There are some of course that would resolve some longstanding issues: the Vinland Map for example. That map's ink has been tested, specifically to look for modern elements in the ink, such as commercial grade anatase. But since the map and the manuscript it appears in are part of another manuscript as I recall, it might worth testing the inks of the various pieces and their composition. If one has ink with water from England in the map and ink with water from Poland in the rest, for example, it demonstrates the map wasn't produced by the same scribe in spite of the similar palaeographical features....and I'm going off my memory so may be misreporting a fact or two.
But who wouldn't want to know precisely where Junius 11 was produced? Or the Augustine Gospels? Certainly there are others, Boernianus would be a good one to consider. Anyway, worth thinking about....find the water, find the origin site.
Anyway, that's a gross oversimplification, and so somewhat wrong, but it will do as a set up for the news. The study determined that at least on that scroll, the ink was prepared with waters from the Dead Sea, and so it is likely then that the scroll was written or copied in the vicinity.
Interesting evidence, and while it doesn't prove that the DSS were composed, or even that scroll, were written at Qumran, it is rather suggestive that it was. In addition to that news, though, I wonder in the face of the DNA studies on sheep and calf skin that have been in the news of late, and Michael Drout's similar project, if there might not be a need and interest in doing similar ink studies on medieval manuscripts. There are a large number of unprovenanced manuscripts in our modern repositories that could at least be given a possible point of origin by testing ink composition with the waters of rivers, lakes, etc in and around monastic sites.
There are some of course that would resolve some longstanding issues: the Vinland Map for example. That map's ink has been tested, specifically to look for modern elements in the ink, such as commercial grade anatase. But since the map and the manuscript it appears in are part of another manuscript as I recall, it might worth testing the inks of the various pieces and their composition. If one has ink with water from England in the map and ink with water from Poland in the rest, for example, it demonstrates the map wasn't produced by the same scribe in spite of the similar palaeographical features....and I'm going off my memory so may be misreporting a fact or two.
But who wouldn't want to know precisely where Junius 11 was produced? Or the Augustine Gospels? Certainly there are others, Boernianus would be a good one to consider. Anyway, worth thinking about....find the water, find the origin site.
Monday, February 16, 2009
PEAA Awards Redux
There's been enough interest I think in the PEAA awards that I think I shall do them for 2009 too. So here's the deal: rather than wait until December before asking for nominations: simply nominate now. Read a blog post, hear a podcast, see an article or book that you think deserving? Send it to me at larsprec@gmail.com In Dec I'll send out a call for nominations, but also publish all those that have come in over the course of the year for people to vote on. No limits on number of nominations per person or per blog etc....just email me what you think good and deserving of recognition.
Sunday, February 08, 2009
My First Tolkien Post: How Tolkien Helped Me With Aelfric
A few people on the Usenet group rec.arts.books.tolkien, a group I joined on the first or second day of its creation back in the early 90s and first posted to in 1994 on Leaf by Niggle, found this blog through Mike Drout's reference to it regarding the PEAA awards (more on which anon). So in honor of them, this is my first Tolkien post.
I'm not sure why I haven't really had a Tolkien related post before. Tolkien and Lewis were rather influential on my early thinking and imagination and I'm hoping to continue to make both part of my academic as well as my entertainment endeavors. But here's the story:
One of the first Old English poems I read in its entirety in the original language was Exodus. I later discovered, or rather rediscovered, that Tolkien taught this poem many times, and had even worked on an edition and commentary, later edited and published by Turville-Petre. One of the oddities in that poem for those familiar with the Biblical story is that the children of Israel went south out of Egypt but couldn't go further because they encountered the land of "sigelware", too often glossed as "Ethiopian" without further ado.
I decided, out of interest, some years back to collect and read not just Tolkien and Lewis (and Sayers for that matter) professional and scholarly works and not limit myself simply to their creative output--a move that eventually moved me to consider becoming a medievalist. One that I had difficulty locating and reading was the two part "Sigelware Land" published in 1932 and '34 in Medium Aevum. But eventually I found it and read it with interest, and it made it into my discussions about Exodus in the Tolkien Encyclopedia and elsewhere.
Now, one of the things Tolkien does in those 2 articles is detail where the term occurs in Old English literature, or some form of the term. One of the most prolific users of the word is Aelfric, and this before now has elicited little comment. One of the places that Aelfric uses the term is in the Letter to Sigeweard where he talks about Matthew's demise, in Latin sources said to be among "the Ethiopians." I used Aelfric as a watershed in determining why he uses the term so often, and uses it in that specific and particular context.
Before Aelfric c. 1000, Genesis A, Exodus, and Cynewulf use the term in poetry, and in prose the Old English Martyrology and Alfred the Great in the Paris Psalter. All other instances of the word or form thereof are roughly contemporary with Aelfric or post-date him. There is no evidence that Aelfric knew the Martyrology (and if Lapidge is correct, done by Acca in the early 8th century and contemporary with Genesis and Exodus) or the Paris Psalter. But I have argued that Aelfric derives the term or at least resuscitates it in prose from Genesis, Exodus, and Cynewulf's Fates of the Apostles....all poems that I argue in the grand, sprawling, never ending dissertation influence Aelfric. Interestingly, he uses the term in exactly the same place and in the same way as Cynewulf does in the Fates, and elsewhere similarly to the Exodus poet. This to me was simply the last cherry on top of the sundae that sought to illustrate Aelfric's dependence on those poems. But I wouldn't have even thought twice about it had it not been for Tolkien's articles on the meaning of the word in Exodus 69.
I happen to think that Tolkien's study of the term has a lot to do with his mythology and LoTR, things I unfairly hinted at in articles for The Tolkien Encyclopedia ed. by Michael Drout. But perhaps if I have time I'll outline what those are in preparation to a pair of articles on Tolkien, one about Exodus and one about the study itself that I'll blog here too.
I'm not sure why I haven't really had a Tolkien related post before. Tolkien and Lewis were rather influential on my early thinking and imagination and I'm hoping to continue to make both part of my academic as well as my entertainment endeavors. But here's the story:
One of the first Old English poems I read in its entirety in the original language was Exodus. I later discovered, or rather rediscovered, that Tolkien taught this poem many times, and had even worked on an edition and commentary, later edited and published by Turville-Petre. One of the oddities in that poem for those familiar with the Biblical story is that the children of Israel went south out of Egypt but couldn't go further because they encountered the land of "sigelware", too often glossed as "Ethiopian" without further ado.
I decided, out of interest, some years back to collect and read not just Tolkien and Lewis (and Sayers for that matter) professional and scholarly works and not limit myself simply to their creative output--a move that eventually moved me to consider becoming a medievalist. One that I had difficulty locating and reading was the two part "Sigelware Land" published in 1932 and '34 in Medium Aevum. But eventually I found it and read it with interest, and it made it into my discussions about Exodus in the Tolkien Encyclopedia and elsewhere.
Now, one of the things Tolkien does in those 2 articles is detail where the term occurs in Old English literature, or some form of the term. One of the most prolific users of the word is Aelfric, and this before now has elicited little comment. One of the places that Aelfric uses the term is in the Letter to Sigeweard where he talks about Matthew's demise, in Latin sources said to be among "the Ethiopians." I used Aelfric as a watershed in determining why he uses the term so often, and uses it in that specific and particular context.
Before Aelfric c. 1000, Genesis A, Exodus, and Cynewulf use the term in poetry, and in prose the Old English Martyrology and Alfred the Great in the Paris Psalter. All other instances of the word or form thereof are roughly contemporary with Aelfric or post-date him. There is no evidence that Aelfric knew the Martyrology (and if Lapidge is correct, done by Acca in the early 8th century and contemporary with Genesis and Exodus) or the Paris Psalter. But I have argued that Aelfric derives the term or at least resuscitates it in prose from Genesis, Exodus, and Cynewulf's Fates of the Apostles....all poems that I argue in the grand, sprawling, never ending dissertation influence Aelfric. Interestingly, he uses the term in exactly the same place and in the same way as Cynewulf does in the Fates, and elsewhere similarly to the Exodus poet. This to me was simply the last cherry on top of the sundae that sought to illustrate Aelfric's dependence on those poems. But I wouldn't have even thought twice about it had it not been for Tolkien's articles on the meaning of the word in Exodus 69.
I happen to think that Tolkien's study of the term has a lot to do with his mythology and LoTR, things I unfairly hinted at in articles for The Tolkien Encyclopedia ed. by Michael Drout. But perhaps if I have time I'll outline what those are in preparation to a pair of articles on Tolkien, one about Exodus and one about the study itself that I'll blog here too.
Sunday, February 01, 2009
Healthy Fields? And What About the Rest of You?
Since my last post on what I'm reading, back in Sept, I've been a bit whelmed with editing, course prep, in-laws, outlaws, and the like. And my wife bought me cooking magazines and professional journals which have kept me busy and away from ancient/medieval books and such. But in the midst and process of all that, I did find the time to read through back issues of the Old English Newsletter. I'd missed reading a number of issues, 39.4 to 41.1, so six issues total.
From the perspective of the OEN, Old English and Anglo-Saxon studies is a healthy field. There's some really impressive and great work going on. One would wish to see more Names studies, but they were never great in number anyway. But the other linguistic fields receive great attention, wearying even to me who has some theoretical linguistics training! But all fields of endeavor seem to be thriving, and not just in the USA and Britain and Canada. There's a proper showing of articles/books/conference papers in Australia, South Africa, Spain, Russia, Eastern Europe, Korea, Japan, and even South America. At times energizing because some article or book or paper piqued my interest, or just seeing all that great work in the field makes me want to get more of my work out there. At other times, ennui set in: with so much good work going on, surely there's no one interested in a 55 page article on a half-line in Beowulf. Mostly though, energizing, exciting me to want to do more and look into more things. But the point is, there a lot of mind blowing good stuff being done in Anglo-Saxon studies.
This is of course of interest to me since in the last Heroic Age we published a discussion of the current state of things in Anglo-Saxon studies. And internally there are great signs of health. And from a medievalism point of view, there are great signs of health. From other perspectives, not so much. But I've talked about this before in this and other venues and what we can do about it.
It has made me wonder though. What about other fields?
1) Is there in say Carolingian studies or Old Norse studies tools like OEN? I don't mean just journals, etc, but a bibliography in the field that is regularly updated?
2) If not, would there be interest?
From the perspective of the OEN, Old English and Anglo-Saxon studies is a healthy field. There's some really impressive and great work going on. One would wish to see more Names studies, but they were never great in number anyway. But the other linguistic fields receive great attention, wearying even to me who has some theoretical linguistics training! But all fields of endeavor seem to be thriving, and not just in the USA and Britain and Canada. There's a proper showing of articles/books/conference papers in Australia, South Africa, Spain, Russia, Eastern Europe, Korea, Japan, and even South America. At times energizing because some article or book or paper piqued my interest, or just seeing all that great work in the field makes me want to get more of my work out there. At other times, ennui set in: with so much good work going on, surely there's no one interested in a 55 page article on a half-line in Beowulf. Mostly though, energizing, exciting me to want to do more and look into more things. But the point is, there a lot of mind blowing good stuff being done in Anglo-Saxon studies.
This is of course of interest to me since in the last Heroic Age we published a discussion of the current state of things in Anglo-Saxon studies. And internally there are great signs of health. And from a medievalism point of view, there are great signs of health. From other perspectives, not so much. But I've talked about this before in this and other venues and what we can do about it.
It has made me wonder though. What about other fields?
1) Is there in say Carolingian studies or Old Norse studies tools like OEN? I don't mean just journals, etc, but a bibliography in the field that is regularly updated?
2) If not, would there be interest?
Congress Program
The 2009 Congress Program is live and online! Spread the word:
http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/congress/index.html
http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/congress/index.html
Friday, January 23, 2009
Sigeweard
For those interested, there's a somewhat corrected version of my diss up at my site: www.geocities.com/theswain/sigeweard/ultima. I'll be submitting this version to the graduate school on Monday. It will have to come down then, as I'm signing the piece of paper that says DIA or whatever their called has permission etc and so on. BUT I'll leave the page up with my email so that anyone who wants to circumvent that may contact me.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Announcing PEAA Awards
Award for Best Blog Entry of the Year
There is no award for this category. There were nominations: some nominated a post from a history oriented blog, some from theory blogs, some literature, our humorists gained votes. And in a few cases, some blogs received multiple votes, but utterly different individual posts were suggested! So no single blog entry received more than one vote. The problem isn't with my colleagues' blogs, methinks, but with the category's very general nature. Should I do this next year, I will refine.
Award for Blog Entry that Fueled Research
This too is a category not worded properly. But the intent is to find out what blog entry written by someone other than the nominator caused the nominator to take on some research (though there were some who nominated their own blog entries, that once written, fueled research and are now being written up into papers).
The winner getting the most votes is Jonathan Jarrett's Carolingian Charters Series.
Award for Blog That Best Serves the Medieval Community
This was a hard one, many votes. There were 2 that came out on top, but the winner by a nose is The Great Nokes' Unlocked Wordhoard. Congratulations Scott!
Recognition for Best Electronic Article on a Medieval Topic
No nominations in this category. So I'll propose one. Really 4 articles in a column, but three began as blog posts before showing up in the Heroic Age. State of the Field in Anglo-Saxon Studies
Award for Best Entry Making Fun of Ourselves
Well, the monkey manuscript images at Got Medieval received some votes, but the most votes went to Geoffrey Chaucer Hath A Blog
Best New Medieval Book of the Year
Only one nomination in this category, and it was for a 2007 book: Alaric Hall's Elves in Anglo-Saxon England
Best Medievalism Web Site of the Year
the PEAA goes to: Got Medieval?
Best Podcast on Medieval Subject
There were several nominees in this category, which surprised me especially as I added it late. The nominees are all worth mentioning:
Scott Farrell's www.ChivalryToday.com was a frequent vote getter.
All Things Medieval also received some nods, a site I had not known about before.
Scott Nokes podcasts for Old English class was mentioned, though I don't know that he was able to finish the podcasts or get them collected into a site.
But the PEAA goes to: Anglo-Saxon Aloud--what a great project. I would love to see some similar endeavors in other Medieval literatures!
There were several categories that nothing was nominated in. Obviously some refinement is necessary.
But let me say that I always find my fellow medieval bloggers a collegial and informative group. Thank you all, even those not mentioned, for all you do for the field and for me personally. Keep writing!
There is no award for this category. There were nominations: some nominated a post from a history oriented blog, some from theory blogs, some literature, our humorists gained votes. And in a few cases, some blogs received multiple votes, but utterly different individual posts were suggested! So no single blog entry received more than one vote. The problem isn't with my colleagues' blogs, methinks, but with the category's very general nature. Should I do this next year, I will refine.
Award for Blog Entry that Fueled Research
This too is a category not worded properly. But the intent is to find out what blog entry written by someone other than the nominator caused the nominator to take on some research (though there were some who nominated their own blog entries, that once written, fueled research and are now being written up into papers).
The winner getting the most votes is Jonathan Jarrett's Carolingian Charters Series.
Award for Blog That Best Serves the Medieval Community
This was a hard one, many votes. There were 2 that came out on top, but the winner by a nose is The Great Nokes' Unlocked Wordhoard. Congratulations Scott!
Recognition for Best Electronic Article on a Medieval Topic
No nominations in this category. So I'll propose one. Really 4 articles in a column, but three began as blog posts before showing up in the Heroic Age. State of the Field in Anglo-Saxon Studies
Award for Best Entry Making Fun of Ourselves
Well, the monkey manuscript images at Got Medieval received some votes, but the most votes went to Geoffrey Chaucer Hath A Blog
Best New Medieval Book of the Year
Only one nomination in this category, and it was for a 2007 book: Alaric Hall's Elves in Anglo-Saxon England
Best Medievalism Web Site of the Year
the PEAA goes to: Got Medieval?
Best Podcast on Medieval Subject
There were several nominees in this category, which surprised me especially as I added it late. The nominees are all worth mentioning:
Scott Farrell's www.ChivalryToday.com was a frequent vote getter.
All Things Medieval also received some nods, a site I had not known about before.
Scott Nokes podcasts for Old English class was mentioned, though I don't know that he was able to finish the podcasts or get them collected into a site.
But the PEAA goes to: Anglo-Saxon Aloud--what a great project. I would love to see some similar endeavors in other Medieval literatures!
There were several categories that nothing was nominated in. Obviously some refinement is necessary.
But let me say that I always find my fellow medieval bloggers a collegial and informative group. Thank you all, even those not mentioned, for all you do for the field and for me personally. Keep writing!
Sunday, January 04, 2009
Medieval Literature I Didn't Know III: Within
For this installment, I finally blog the piece that actually inspired the series! It was this poem I had in mind, but then I ran into the Worcester Fragment and was thinking a lot about it and so blogged that instead, and then I've spent the last several months on the beast, in which Worcester Frag A makes an appearance, and voila...the first two installments in the series were done. So here I return to a piece of literature that I dearly love and want to return to and write on.
More than 20 years ago now I had opportunity to take part in a course called Medieval Latin Poetry. I was already at that point thinking about grad schools and being a medievalist and how to go about that. The professor for the course advised me not to do it through a Classics dept, which was what I was thinking at the time. Anyway, one of the poems we read that semester was this one, what I personally call the Within poem, after the main character in the tale. It is technically called De quodam piscatore quem ballena absorbuit, About a Certain Fisherman Whom a Whale Swallowed.
The poem is written by a French monk named Letaldus in the late 10th century. Letaldus is a well known figure, attached to abbeys Le Mans and Micy. He entered the latter c. 960-970 (making him a contemporary of Aelfric by the way). He is best known for a series of hagiographical pieces, the first written between 970-980, the Miracula S. Maximini. In this work, he wove together a story out of previous lives of Maxminus and Carolingian era documents regarding the foundation of the house at Micy and told his story in such a way as to try to wrest Micy from the control of the bishops of Orleans. Some of his works are available here. He also wrote a life of Martin of Vertou, on St. Junianus, a heroic poem titled Versus de eversione monasterii Glomnensis, and other works. Overall his career is marked by concerns for monastic rights over against bishops and secular lords and the cult of saints and saints' lives, often using the latter to say something about the former. He even led a rebellion of sorts against Robert of Blois that Abbo of Fleury disdained calling Letaldus the "head" of the stiinking affair. It was unsuccessful.
In the midst of all this politicking and attempts to establish monastic rights in France, Letaldus writes this tale about a fisherman swallowed by a whale. The story is a fairly simple one: an English fisherman named Within from Rochester sets about his business one day in his coracle. Its a routine day of fishing in the channel, until that is Within and his coracle are swallowed by a whale. For four days and five nights the poor fisherman tries to free himself, eventually setting fire to his boat and grabbing his sword, he kills the whale. The whale washes up miraculously near Rochester, and the villagers come out to get a free meal of whale meat. Within cries out to the townspeople, and they think the whale is possessed of a demon, flee, and fetch the priest. The priest comes, performs an exorcism, and then Within is allowed to tell his story. In the scene when the priest is trying to figure out what's up, he asks who is within and the answer is "Within" which naturally causes all sorts of confusion and misunderstanding. Once all is straightened out, the townspeople free Within by cutting the whale open, and the fisherman emerges bald, blind, and his fingernails protrude, the skin having been eaten away in the whale's belly. But he shortly recovers his hair, sight, and skin and returns to a normal life.
Its a charming, graceful little poem. 208 dactylic hexameters tell the story. Its a mock heroic epic and alludes to the Aeneid and other Latin epics frequently, as well as the obvious Jonah connections. Letaldus creates then a "high literary" tale reserved usually for high matters, kings, national importance etc, and in stead applies all that "high literary" toolbox to a humble fisherman with the unlikely name Within from Rochester. The disjunction and the obvious Old English pun on the name create the humor in the piece that the author claims to have heard.
The audience is obviously one familiar with both oral traditions and stories and with the Bible and Latin epics. Not only told in dactylic hexameters and referring to Latin epic, Letaldus also employs leonine rhymes in imitation of oral poetry.
The poem survived in two manuscripts: one a twelfth century and the other an eleventh century. The 12th century manuscript was destroyed in a fire in 1940. In the 11th century, the piece survives after a copy of Bede's Ecclesiastical History. It's a lovely little poem. In my next post, I'll outline some of the things I've been thinking about it. Well, the PEAA awards need to be compiled first, then a return to Within!
More than 20 years ago now I had opportunity to take part in a course called Medieval Latin Poetry. I was already at that point thinking about grad schools and being a medievalist and how to go about that. The professor for the course advised me not to do it through a Classics dept, which was what I was thinking at the time. Anyway, one of the poems we read that semester was this one, what I personally call the Within poem, after the main character in the tale. It is technically called De quodam piscatore quem ballena absorbuit, About a Certain Fisherman Whom a Whale Swallowed.
The poem is written by a French monk named Letaldus in the late 10th century. Letaldus is a well known figure, attached to abbeys Le Mans and Micy. He entered the latter c. 960-970 (making him a contemporary of Aelfric by the way). He is best known for a series of hagiographical pieces, the first written between 970-980, the Miracula S. Maximini. In this work, he wove together a story out of previous lives of Maxminus and Carolingian era documents regarding the foundation of the house at Micy and told his story in such a way as to try to wrest Micy from the control of the bishops of Orleans. Some of his works are available here. He also wrote a life of Martin of Vertou, on St. Junianus, a heroic poem titled Versus de eversione monasterii Glomnensis, and other works. Overall his career is marked by concerns for monastic rights over against bishops and secular lords and the cult of saints and saints' lives, often using the latter to say something about the former. He even led a rebellion of sorts against Robert of Blois that Abbo of Fleury disdained calling Letaldus the "head" of the stiinking affair. It was unsuccessful.
In the midst of all this politicking and attempts to establish monastic rights in France, Letaldus writes this tale about a fisherman swallowed by a whale. The story is a fairly simple one: an English fisherman named Within from Rochester sets about his business one day in his coracle. Its a routine day of fishing in the channel, until that is Within and his coracle are swallowed by a whale. For four days and five nights the poor fisherman tries to free himself, eventually setting fire to his boat and grabbing his sword, he kills the whale. The whale washes up miraculously near Rochester, and the villagers come out to get a free meal of whale meat. Within cries out to the townspeople, and they think the whale is possessed of a demon, flee, and fetch the priest. The priest comes, performs an exorcism, and then Within is allowed to tell his story. In the scene when the priest is trying to figure out what's up, he asks who is within and the answer is "Within" which naturally causes all sorts of confusion and misunderstanding. Once all is straightened out, the townspeople free Within by cutting the whale open, and the fisherman emerges bald, blind, and his fingernails protrude, the skin having been eaten away in the whale's belly. But he shortly recovers his hair, sight, and skin and returns to a normal life.
Its a charming, graceful little poem. 208 dactylic hexameters tell the story. Its a mock heroic epic and alludes to the Aeneid and other Latin epics frequently, as well as the obvious Jonah connections. Letaldus creates then a "high literary" tale reserved usually for high matters, kings, national importance etc, and in stead applies all that "high literary" toolbox to a humble fisherman with the unlikely name Within from Rochester. The disjunction and the obvious Old English pun on the name create the humor in the piece that the author claims to have heard.
The audience is obviously one familiar with both oral traditions and stories and with the Bible and Latin epics. Not only told in dactylic hexameters and referring to Latin epic, Letaldus also employs leonine rhymes in imitation of oral poetry.
The poem survived in two manuscripts: one a twelfth century and the other an eleventh century. The 12th century manuscript was destroyed in a fire in 1940. In the 11th century, the piece survives after a copy of Bede's Ecclesiastical History. It's a lovely little poem. In my next post, I'll outline some of the things I've been thinking about it. Well, the PEAA awards need to be compiled first, then a return to Within!
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
PEAA Awards Additional
Its been suggested that I add a new category to the voting: Best Podcast on Medieval Subject. Consider it added.
Sunday, December 28, 2008
PEAA Awards
Just a reminder to send in your nominations for the PEAA awards, I'll announce the winning nominations after the 1st of the year, hopefully very soon after the beginning of the year.
Friday, December 19, 2008
PEAA Additional Categories
Let me add some categories, though I won't post these to the other blogs:
Best Journal Article of the Year
Best New Medieval Book of the Year
Best New Medieval Web Project of the Year
Best Use of Electronic Media of the Year
Best Medieval Movie/TV Show of the Year
Best Medievalism Web Site of the Year
Best Medievalism Book/Movie/TV of the Year
Best Journal Article of the Year
Best New Medieval Book of the Year
Best New Medieval Web Project of the Year
Best Use of Electronic Media of the Year
Best Medieval Movie/TV Show of the Year
Best Medievalism Web Site of the Year
Best Medievalism Book/Movie/TV of the Year
First Annunal Unofficial PEAA Awards
Announcing the first annual Praemium Ephemeridis Aetheriae Auctoribus awards (Award for Authors of Ethereal Diaries). Ok, I'm not that caffeined (rhymes with fiend) yet, so if you have a better name or acronym, write in. Anyway, here's the deal. Nominate the best medieval blog *entry* of the year that is not one written by you. So: medieval, an entry, written by someone other than the person nominating. Here are some categories I've thought of:
Award for Best Blog Entry of the Year
Award for Blog Entry that Fueled Research
Award for Blog That Best Serves the Medieval Community
Recognition for Best Electronic Article on a Medieval Topic
Award for Best Entry Making Fun of Ourselves
Write suggestions and nominations to larsprec AT gmail dot com
I'll collate and between the 25th and the 1st announce things that are gaining votes and announce those whom we wish to recognize after the first of the year.
The prize contains nothing other than the approbation of fellow medievalists.
Award for Best Blog Entry of the Year
Award for Blog Entry that Fueled Research
Award for Blog That Best Serves the Medieval Community
Recognition for Best Electronic Article on a Medieval Topic
Award for Best Entry Making Fun of Ourselves
Write suggestions and nominations to larsprec AT gmail dot com
I'll collate and between the 25th and the 1st announce things that are gaining votes and announce those whom we wish to recognize after the first of the year.
The prize contains nothing other than the approbation of fellow medievalists.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Why I'm a Medievalist Meme Ruminated: Warning Terribly Autobiographical and Rambling!
Being on the job market has reminded me of "meme" not long ago that addressed why one becomes a medievalist. I started this journey a long, long time ago, well, a long time ago to me. While I've defended successfully, I'm still finishing the editing, so it'll be January before I have a piece of paper in hand. That's ten years after I walked in Paul Szarmach's office in the middle of snow storm to have our first face to face, a little over 12 years since I began to apply to graduate schools, and about 14 years since I had a sit down with myself and said I "gotta finally do this thing" and began researching what it would take to get me there and started buying books and reading. For me that's ahead of the story.
So how did I become a medievalist? I'd like to be able to list all these grand scholarly things that sound impressive....but I can't. I became a medievalist more or less through the back door and well, out of love.
My family has no tradition of higher education. My father's father, whom I never met, apparently went to college in Minnesota for awhile. I have notebooks that my father gave me where Granddad did his botany homework, drawing plants and making notes of their physical descriptions and properties. But when he went West to the then "wilds" of Montana, working to take the railroad across the state, he apparently left family and education behind. I know few details, as my Dad's family is dominated by my grandmother: anytime I ask my father or his siblings about Granddad, the focus quickly turns to Grandma. Anyway, point is, Granddad had a college education at the turn of the last century: and that's it. None of my father's siblings went to college, my father didn't even finish high school and later earned his degree.
My mother's side is new American. Both my mothers parents came to the US just a hair before the first world war, one in 1910 and the other in 1914. Both were of good, German, peasent stock, and when they married in 1915, they set up farming in North Dakota. Needless to say, they didn't go to college either, and neither did any of their children.
Well, that reading thing....reading was the one thing that I was good at all the way through school. So I read. All the time. English classes introduced me to adapted versions of the Aeneid and the Odyssey and Shakespeare and of all the stuff we read, I found that that was the literature I loved best. So when I went to library and slowly but surely my reading evolved into three areas of interest: current politics, history, esp. pre-modern, and classical and medieval literature. Now when my poor high school councilor was dubious about me making it in college he stirred my inner Beowulf. I was ok: areas I was good in I excelled, areas I wasn't, I bombed. Hence PSAT, SAT, and ACT scores were mixed and my grades were B average. Rather than rip his arm off, though, I worked like a dog. Since my councilor wasn't really going to help me much get into anything except the local college, which I didn't want to do, and my parents had no clue, and there was no internet to use, I started researching colleges at the public library. I had no idea what I was doing. Quite by chance, someone asked me about Seattle Pacific Univ and if I thought that would be a good school. I looked it up, applied, and got in.
Now, a major....given my interests at the time, I thought that I'd become a Relgion-Philosophy major. I spent the summer before and after my freshman year on fishing boats. The great thing about gill netting is that you have periods of intense activity, followed by a few hours of inactivity. So I'd sit on deck and read. I even had a library card for the Juneau Public Library--yes, I've seen Sarah Palin's house--well the governor's mansion which I walked by on my way to the library when we came into town after the weekly fishing period was done. Go to the laundromat, buy a shower while the clothes are in the washer, head up the hill past the mansion and over to the library was my weekly routine, return and set about swabbing decks, repairing and cleaning nets, and joy of joys....occasionally scrubbing the bottom of the boat....a most unpleasant of jobs. Give me shoveling manure any day of the week (yes, done that too). Anyway, I read on deck. I read all of Shakespeare, tried to read the Fairie Queene, read Augustine's Confessions and City of God, read all of C. S. Lewis and read Tolkien's Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, read Milton, read Chaucer, read the Odyssey, the Aeneid, the Bible.....When I got to college however I found out that reading some Augustine and Aquinas wasn't the same as being a philosophy major. So I switched to Religion-Greek and Linguistics.
Ah...now there's something. I'd already had some German and Latin in high school. Now I added Greek and Hebrew and during a History of English course, discovered Old English and Beowulf...and I was in love! I think of it this way now: Greek is a great intellectual challenge that I love working in. Latin is like my lifeblood, I love working in Latin....but for those moments of linguistic FLOW, moments at which I completely lose myself and its all about the task in hand....those moments belong to working in Old English and Old Norse. I'm not sure yet where Old Irish and Hebrew fit on that scale, but I enjoy those too.
So, my career as a medievalist was sealed: I kept reading these texts, I loved learning and working in these languages. I can't point to some grand intellectual thing, but I can point all the way back to elementary school for the initial elements that led me to become a medievalist. It took me 14 years with stops and starts to get from college graduation to graduate school in medieval studies. But I did it for the simple reason that I love it: I love the stories, I love the manuscripts, I love the languages. Its my personal love affair with this material. And should it happen, heaven forfend, that I not be in academia, I love this material enough to grab that proverbial, figurative arm and rip it off: i. e. I'll still be working in it because I love the material.
So that's why I'm a medievalist. Nothing grand. Just a love affair that's been growing stronger for forty years now.
So how did I become a medievalist? I'd like to be able to list all these grand scholarly things that sound impressive....but I can't. I became a medievalist more or less through the back door and well, out of love.
My family has no tradition of higher education. My father's father, whom I never met, apparently went to college in Minnesota for awhile. I have notebooks that my father gave me where Granddad did his botany homework, drawing plants and making notes of their physical descriptions and properties. But when he went West to the then "wilds" of Montana, working to take the railroad across the state, he apparently left family and education behind. I know few details, as my Dad's family is dominated by my grandmother: anytime I ask my father or his siblings about Granddad, the focus quickly turns to Grandma. Anyway, point is, Granddad had a college education at the turn of the last century: and that's it. None of my father's siblings went to college, my father didn't even finish high school and later earned his degree.
My mother's side is new American. Both my mothers parents came to the US just a hair before the first world war, one in 1910 and the other in 1914. Both were of good, German, peasent stock, and when they married in 1915, they set up farming in North Dakota. Needless to say, they didn't go to college either, and neither did any of their children.
Well, that reading thing....reading was the one thing that I was good at all the way through school. So I read. All the time. English classes introduced me to adapted versions of the Aeneid and the Odyssey and Shakespeare and of all the stuff we read, I found that that was the literature I loved best. So when I went to library and slowly but surely my reading evolved into three areas of interest: current politics, history, esp. pre-modern, and classical and medieval literature. Now when my poor high school councilor was dubious about me making it in college he stirred my inner Beowulf. I was ok: areas I was good in I excelled, areas I wasn't, I bombed. Hence PSAT, SAT, and ACT scores were mixed and my grades were B average. Rather than rip his arm off, though, I worked like a dog. Since my councilor wasn't really going to help me much get into anything except the local college, which I didn't want to do, and my parents had no clue, and there was no internet to use, I started researching colleges at the public library. I had no idea what I was doing. Quite by chance, someone asked me about Seattle Pacific Univ and if I thought that would be a good school. I looked it up, applied, and got in.
Now, a major....given my interests at the time, I thought that I'd become a Relgion-Philosophy major. I spent the summer before and after my freshman year on fishing boats. The great thing about gill netting is that you have periods of intense activity, followed by a few hours of inactivity. So I'd sit on deck and read. I even had a library card for the Juneau Public Library--yes, I've seen Sarah Palin's house--well the governor's mansion which I walked by on my way to the library when we came into town after the weekly fishing period was done. Go to the laundromat, buy a shower while the clothes are in the washer, head up the hill past the mansion and over to the library was my weekly routine, return and set about swabbing decks, repairing and cleaning nets, and joy of joys....occasionally scrubbing the bottom of the boat....a most unpleasant of jobs. Give me shoveling manure any day of the week (yes, done that too). Anyway, I read on deck. I read all of Shakespeare, tried to read the Fairie Queene, read Augustine's Confessions and City of God, read all of C. S. Lewis and read Tolkien's Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, read Milton, read Chaucer, read the Odyssey, the Aeneid, the Bible.....When I got to college however I found out that reading some Augustine and Aquinas wasn't the same as being a philosophy major. So I switched to Religion-Greek and Linguistics.
Ah...now there's something. I'd already had some German and Latin in high school. Now I added Greek and Hebrew and during a History of English course, discovered Old English and Beowulf...and I was in love! I think of it this way now: Greek is a great intellectual challenge that I love working in. Latin is like my lifeblood, I love working in Latin....but for those moments of linguistic FLOW, moments at which I completely lose myself and its all about the task in hand....those moments belong to working in Old English and Old Norse. I'm not sure yet where Old Irish and Hebrew fit on that scale, but I enjoy those too.
So, my career as a medievalist was sealed: I kept reading these texts, I loved learning and working in these languages. I can't point to some grand intellectual thing, but I can point all the way back to elementary school for the initial elements that led me to become a medievalist. It took me 14 years with stops and starts to get from college graduation to graduate school in medieval studies. But I did it for the simple reason that I love it: I love the stories, I love the manuscripts, I love the languages. Its my personal love affair with this material. And should it happen, heaven forfend, that I not be in academia, I love this material enough to grab that proverbial, figurative arm and rip it off: i. e. I'll still be working in it because I love the material.
So that's why I'm a medievalist. Nothing grand. Just a love affair that's been growing stronger for forty years now.
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
Spice
A few months ago, I read Spice: The History of a Temptation by Jack Turner and had intended to mention it here, but had forgotten. Now we've moved and the book is packed away in the 2 dozen book boxes we didn't have room for when we went from 2 bedrooms to 1 (meaning I lost my office at the same time I was losing my school office). And to boot, I'm out of town....and get to catch up on blog posts! Yay!
Anyway.....Spice.....now, I'm no expert on the history of potables and comestibles....far from such a state. Its something I want to look into and I've collected a few volumes to read up on when I suddenly have free time. I took History of the World in Six Glasses with me on a trip to Merry Olde Angleterre a few years back since there's about 8 hours of free time each way. (I actually had about 12 on the way there, but that's a different story and watched 6 movies while reading said book.) So to the book....
It isn't a scholarly tome. Its non-fiction, seems fairly well researched, but aimed at educated, interested, intelligent non-professional sorts of folk. I enjoyed it immensely, and at the back of the book the author includes a Narrative sort of "Works Cited". So it isn't footnotes, and it isn't just bibliography, but gives the reader good sources, both primary and secondary, to run to for further information.
The book was brought back to mind as I was deciding what of my spice store I was packing to bring with to T-giving holiday here in the USA. I do the cooking in my house, the price of marrying a much younger woman I suppose. But especially now that my wife's mother has passed, I do the cooking for her family too. Ok, those of you who have seen me in the flesh have probably realized that I look the way I do because I'm actually quite good at that cooking thing. So anyway...back to the book again....
Its a wide ranging study. It begins with the early modern period and talks about the beginnings of the modern spice trade as the Western powers go out in search of spices etc in the Far East. But then after the introduction we go backwards in time. But Turner, the author, does not tell simply a chronological tale.
I learned a great deal. There was material about ancient uses of spices, a find in Iran of a village from about 6000 BCE in which a spice from the Far East was found, and still rather fresh. Loads of good tidbits about the Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians. But he doesn't neglect the medieval either. There was stuff from Bede and Aldhelm and Aelfric, and Christian comments about the wrongs of spicy foods and rents paid in pepper in the late middle ages. He illuminated the familiar too by looking at the land of Cockayne and its appearance in various sorts of medieval literature, and spice and its smell as signs of heaven. In the late medieval period, there were even spice mongers in lower class neighborhoods in larger cities, much less the personal spice expert to the nobles, who sometimes was at odds with the cook in the castle!
Turner details the double-mindedness of the Church: spices signified heaven, or the stink of hell depending on the need of the preacher. He also talks a bit about the uses of spices in medieval medicine which was interesting, even invoking an Anglo-Saxon charm as I recall. Fortunately he also debunks the common false preconceptions of the medieval period. For example, the wide spread use of spice to disguise rotten food (uh, no). He talks about spice as a status symbol in the medieval period, and the medieval diet. He even talks a little about spices as aphrodisiacs (though how our forebears thought that applying pepper to the male genitalia would Viagra-like aid in sexual performance is beyond me.)
In all, the thesis of the book is simply that spice and spices were catalysts for history: art, intellectual, and caused humans to act to get them. He proves that thesis I think.
This was a pretty easy read, geared as I said to a popular, educated, and intelligent audience though not necessarily the specialist. I learned a lot, even about things medieval, and looked at things I did know through a new lens that expanded my view of things, and eventually my teaching. I'd recommend this book.
Anyway.....Spice.....now, I'm no expert on the history of potables and comestibles....far from such a state. Its something I want to look into and I've collected a few volumes to read up on when I suddenly have free time. I took History of the World in Six Glasses with me on a trip to Merry Olde Angleterre a few years back since there's about 8 hours of free time each way. (I actually had about 12 on the way there, but that's a different story and watched 6 movies while reading said book.) So to the book....
It isn't a scholarly tome. Its non-fiction, seems fairly well researched, but aimed at educated, interested, intelligent non-professional sorts of folk. I enjoyed it immensely, and at the back of the book the author includes a Narrative sort of "Works Cited". So it isn't footnotes, and it isn't just bibliography, but gives the reader good sources, both primary and secondary, to run to for further information.
The book was brought back to mind as I was deciding what of my spice store I was packing to bring with to T-giving holiday here in the USA. I do the cooking in my house, the price of marrying a much younger woman I suppose. But especially now that my wife's mother has passed, I do the cooking for her family too. Ok, those of you who have seen me in the flesh have probably realized that I look the way I do because I'm actually quite good at that cooking thing. So anyway...back to the book again....
Its a wide ranging study. It begins with the early modern period and talks about the beginnings of the modern spice trade as the Western powers go out in search of spices etc in the Far East. But then after the introduction we go backwards in time. But Turner, the author, does not tell simply a chronological tale.
I learned a great deal. There was material about ancient uses of spices, a find in Iran of a village from about 6000 BCE in which a spice from the Far East was found, and still rather fresh. Loads of good tidbits about the Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians. But he doesn't neglect the medieval either. There was stuff from Bede and Aldhelm and Aelfric, and Christian comments about the wrongs of spicy foods and rents paid in pepper in the late middle ages. He illuminated the familiar too by looking at the land of Cockayne and its appearance in various sorts of medieval literature, and spice and its smell as signs of heaven. In the late medieval period, there were even spice mongers in lower class neighborhoods in larger cities, much less the personal spice expert to the nobles, who sometimes was at odds with the cook in the castle!
Turner details the double-mindedness of the Church: spices signified heaven, or the stink of hell depending on the need of the preacher. He also talks a bit about the uses of spices in medieval medicine which was interesting, even invoking an Anglo-Saxon charm as I recall. Fortunately he also debunks the common false preconceptions of the medieval period. For example, the wide spread use of spice to disguise rotten food (uh, no). He talks about spice as a status symbol in the medieval period, and the medieval diet. He even talks a little about spices as aphrodisiacs (though how our forebears thought that applying pepper to the male genitalia would Viagra-like aid in sexual performance is beyond me.)
In all, the thesis of the book is simply that spice and spices were catalysts for history: art, intellectual, and caused humans to act to get them. He proves that thesis I think.
This was a pretty easy read, geared as I said to a popular, educated, and intelligent audience though not necessarily the specialist. I learned a lot, even about things medieval, and looked at things I did know through a new lens that expanded my view of things, and eventually my teaching. I'd recommend this book.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Shivering me timbers
Wow. I was just at In The Middle and read Eileen Joy's post, ending with the introductory lines of one of her short stories. Here it is below. Fabulous line!
"History has many skins, layer upon layer of fragile papyrus, a thick apocrypha of facts and fictions, strands of white hair, cups full of brown teeth and jewelry gone green with rust."
I'm gonna have to steal that.....
"History has many skins, layer upon layer of fragile papyrus, a thick apocrypha of facts and fictions, strands of white hair, cups full of brown teeth and jewelry gone green with rust."
I'm gonna have to steal that.....
Friday, November 07, 2008
Medieval Literature I Didn't Know II.a Bibliography
Just a quick one here. Not much has been written on the Letter to Sigeweard. Its a rich text, and it is now beginning to attract attention beyond just my own work. By the way, it has traveled under 3 names: Letter to Sigeweard (its a letter and its addressed to Sigeweard), Treatise on the Old and New Testaments (translation of the incipit in Laud 509), and Libellus or Libellus de veteri testamento et novo, the Latin incipit in Laud 509. In my work, I opted for "Letter to Sigeweard" since the text of the letter contains so much more than simply a discussion of the Bible.
At the time I started, this was just in process:
Hall, Thomas N. "Ælfric and the Epistle to the Laodiceans." Apocryphal Texts and Traditions in Anglo-Saxon England. Ed. Kathryn Powell and Donald Scragg. Publications of the Manchester Centre for Anglo-Saxon Studies 2. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2003. 65-83.
Then followed news that Richard Marsden was updating the EETS volume edited by Crawford, S. J. The Old English Version of the Heptateuch, The Treatise on the Old and New Testament, and His Preface to Genesis, EETS os 160 (London: 1922) and will someday appear as The Old English Heptateuch and Ælfric's Libellus de veteri testamento et novo for EETS os 330 by OUP. When I exchanged emails with Dr. Marsden, it was to appear in Dec. 2006. Last May it was advertised at K'zoo by Boydell who handles EETS volumes as appearing in October. But the Oxford site now says Nov. 21, 2008. We'll see. And that's only volume 1!
The first editor of the text was William L'Isle whom I mentioned in my original post on the subject. He is the first modern editor, publishing in 1623 and stands as a bridge figure between Parker, Cotton and that generation of Old English scholars and Junius later in the 17th century. He was interested in establishing the theology of the Anglo-Saxon church to use in the ongoing Protestant Reformation especially in terms of the Bible in the vernacular and the Eucharist. Thus, his interest in the letter. His work is: A Saxon Treatise on the Old and New Testaments written at the time of King Edgar (Aboute 700 Yeares Agoe) by Aelfricus Abbas....(the title is hugely long) Printed by John Haviland for Henrie Seile, 1623. In 1638, after L'Isle's death, the book was reiussed as Divers Ancient Monuments....I should mention too that in addition to the Letter, L'Isle reprinted Matthew Parker's edition of an Easter sermon by Aelfric, that itself was the first printed Old English.
I'm told that the great Hugh Magennis has published a translation of the text in Metaphrastes, or, gained in translation: essays and translations in honour of Robert H. Jordan, Edited by Margaret Mullett and published by the Belfast Byzantine Texts and Translations series in 2004. I haven't seen it. Magennis also wrote an entry on it for the membership driven The Literary Encyclopedia that is online, but one can only read the first snippet for free. But from that, it appears to be mostly descriptive.
But that's all. There are no other articles or books on the Letter that I know of. There are many places, though not as many as one might think, where some aspect of the letter is discussed such as Paul Remley's Old English Biblical Verse or Hugh Magennis' Images of Community in Old English Verse. One curious reference is in Allen Frantzen's Before the Closet where Frantzen says that Sigeweard is a priest, which he wasn't. But these references usually have a paragraph or two to illustrate some point and move on. I should compile all these, but well, I have other projects to finish, including my editing!
At the time I started, this was just in process:
Hall, Thomas N. "Ælfric and the Epistle to the Laodiceans." Apocryphal Texts and Traditions in Anglo-Saxon England. Ed. Kathryn Powell and Donald Scragg. Publications of the Manchester Centre for Anglo-Saxon Studies 2. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2003. 65-83.
Then followed news that Richard Marsden was updating the EETS volume edited by Crawford, S. J. The Old English Version of the Heptateuch, The Treatise on the Old and New Testament, and His Preface to Genesis, EETS os 160 (London: 1922) and will someday appear as The Old English Heptateuch and Ælfric's Libellus de veteri testamento et novo for EETS os 330 by OUP. When I exchanged emails with Dr. Marsden, it was to appear in Dec. 2006. Last May it was advertised at K'zoo by Boydell who handles EETS volumes as appearing in October. But the Oxford site now says Nov. 21, 2008. We'll see. And that's only volume 1!
The first editor of the text was William L'Isle whom I mentioned in my original post on the subject. He is the first modern editor, publishing in 1623 and stands as a bridge figure between Parker, Cotton and that generation of Old English scholars and Junius later in the 17th century. He was interested in establishing the theology of the Anglo-Saxon church to use in the ongoing Protestant Reformation especially in terms of the Bible in the vernacular and the Eucharist. Thus, his interest in the letter. His work is: A Saxon Treatise on the Old and New Testaments written at the time of King Edgar (Aboute 700 Yeares Agoe) by Aelfricus Abbas....(the title is hugely long) Printed by John Haviland for Henrie Seile, 1623. In 1638, after L'Isle's death, the book was reiussed as Divers Ancient Monuments....I should mention too that in addition to the Letter, L'Isle reprinted Matthew Parker's edition of an Easter sermon by Aelfric, that itself was the first printed Old English.
I'm told that the great Hugh Magennis has published a translation of the text in Metaphrastes, or, gained in translation: essays and translations in honour of Robert H. Jordan, Edited by Margaret Mullett and published by the Belfast Byzantine Texts and Translations series in 2004. I haven't seen it. Magennis also wrote an entry on it for the membership driven The Literary Encyclopedia that is online, but one can only read the first snippet for free. But from that, it appears to be mostly descriptive.
But that's all. There are no other articles or books on the Letter that I know of. There are many places, though not as many as one might think, where some aspect of the letter is discussed such as Paul Remley's Old English Biblical Verse or Hugh Magennis' Images of Community in Old English Verse. One curious reference is in Allen Frantzen's Before the Closet where Frantzen says that Sigeweard is a priest, which he wasn't. But these references usually have a paragraph or two to illustrate some point and move on. I should compile all these, but well, I have other projects to finish, including my editing!
Canon II
Wow, what a 2 months! I'm returning to catch up on a couple posts in the wings before moving on to new material. As the title to this one indicates, this post is responding to some issues raised in the comments on the first post on Canon that I thought better answered here than in the comments section, especially after more than a month has passed.
Ed Gallagher wrote in the comments:
First, let me challenge your definition of canonicity. I do not believe that we can equate "status as scripture", a religious and theological category with "canonical status" a literary category. The two may certainly overlap, especially in Judaism and Christianity, but both also developed canonical works and lists that are "scriptural", for example, and certainly the Greco-Roman world around them had canonical texts that were not scriptural, if they even understood what "scriptural" might be.
Second, you report the typical interpretation of the phrase. The problem as I see it is that it lacks evidence, and of course is contradicted by other dicta in the Mishnah's corpus. There is no evidence that the rabbis had in mind ALL copies of Ecclesiastes say and all translations in their pronouncement, and of course had no way to enforce it even if they did so mean it. Further, they don't bother to list for us all the books that "defile the hands." There is also that lovely debate between the Pharisees and Sadducees regarding the books of Homer, which according to the Pharisees the Saducees believe make the hands unclean. Are we seriously to believe that the keepers of the Temple and the High Priest's party placed Homer on a par with Moses, David, and the Prophets? Or reduce the comment to mere insult hurling, and the rabbis simply don't record the Saduceean response? The last speaker in rabbinic lit usually is the winner.
So here it is in a nutshell for me:
1) there is no evidence directly connecting the idea of sanctity to canonicity: i. e. that sanctity is the cause for a text to be considered canonical
2) There seems in some groups any way to be a way in which a holy text is not necessarily canonical: how else do we explain the reference to Homer and the Sadducees without a reduction to absurdity?
I rather think the direction flows the other way: the book was canonical, copies of it were in the Temple, it therefore must be determined if the object is holy or not. Thus, the canonical status comes first, the sanctity second rather than the majority of thinkers who have it the other way round.
I realize that this isn't an adequate response, especially for a view that goes against the usual interpretation and understanding. But it will have to do for now.
Ed Gallagher wrote in the comments:
A difficulty with your take on the rabbinic discussion of what "defiles the hands" is that the rabbis not only discuss writing material and styles, but also specific books. For instance, Ecclesiastes or Song of Songs (m. Yad 3.5). This seems to mean that certain books would not defile the hands under any conditions, while other books would defile the hands if they are written in a certain way. So the issue is one of sanctity (= defiling the hands), which can only occur if certain conditions are met. The book itself has to be holy (= canonical), and it has to be written in a certain way and on certain material. You are right to point out that more than just canonicity is involved, but I think that canonicity (= status as scripture) is one of the things involved.
First, let me challenge your definition of canonicity. I do not believe that we can equate "status as scripture", a religious and theological category with "canonical status" a literary category. The two may certainly overlap, especially in Judaism and Christianity, but both also developed canonical works and lists that are "scriptural", for example, and certainly the Greco-Roman world around them had canonical texts that were not scriptural, if they even understood what "scriptural" might be.
Second, you report the typical interpretation of the phrase. The problem as I see it is that it lacks evidence, and of course is contradicted by other dicta in the Mishnah's corpus. There is no evidence that the rabbis had in mind ALL copies of Ecclesiastes say and all translations in their pronouncement, and of course had no way to enforce it even if they did so mean it. Further, they don't bother to list for us all the books that "defile the hands." There is also that lovely debate between the Pharisees and Sadducees regarding the books of Homer, which according to the Pharisees the Saducees believe make the hands unclean. Are we seriously to believe that the keepers of the Temple and the High Priest's party placed Homer on a par with Moses, David, and the Prophets? Or reduce the comment to mere insult hurling, and the rabbis simply don't record the Saduceean response? The last speaker in rabbinic lit usually is the winner.
So here it is in a nutshell for me:
1) there is no evidence directly connecting the idea of sanctity to canonicity: i. e. that sanctity is the cause for a text to be considered canonical
2) There seems in some groups any way to be a way in which a holy text is not necessarily canonical: how else do we explain the reference to Homer and the Sadducees without a reduction to absurdity?
I rather think the direction flows the other way: the book was canonical, copies of it were in the Temple, it therefore must be determined if the object is holy or not. Thus, the canonical status comes first, the sanctity second rather than the majority of thinkers who have it the other way round.
I realize that this isn't an adequate response, especially for a view that goes against the usual interpretation and understanding. But it will have to do for now.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
An Official Word
I passed. There's loads of editing to do before final submission of the dissertation, but the 5 members of my committee saw fit to pass me, and even praised sections of the work as being "groundbreaking" and "fascinating". I for one am quite pleased.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)