Bald’s Leechbook (London, British Library, Royal 12 D.xvii), folio 1r, available at the British Library’s Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts.

By now, the news of the Anglo-Saxon recipe that kills modern day superbug MRSA is old (find a good article on it here). When news hit the internet a few weeks ago, my social media was buzzing with medievalists proud to point out the relevance of our work. I first found out about it because Judy (my wife), a microbiologist, shared a link, pointing out that it’s another way in which “Our nerd loves come together again”–just one example of medieval and modern science intersecting.

Fortuitously, the week that the news hit, my Introduction to Old English class was also translating another scientific text from Anglo-Saxon England: a passage about the development of the human fetus (Reading XI in Reading Old English by Robert Hasenfratz and Thomas Jambeck). Here’s a quick translation I made:

Here it begins to tell about the birth of a person, how in his mother’s womb he turns into a human. First the brain of a person is developed in his mother’s womb, when the brain is covered over [on the] outside with membranes in the sixth week. In the next month the veins are developed, they are divided into 365 shorter and longer [veins] and then the blood flows into the feet and up the hands, and then he is divided into limbs and prepared together. In the third month he is alive and grows, and the mother lies witless and then the ribs are developed, then occur the many pains when the body of the fetus is shaped in her womb. In the sixth month he is covered with skin and bones are grown. In the seventh month the toes and the fingers are grown. In the eighth month the breast-area is grown on him and the heart and blood and he is all firmly set. In the ninth month certainly it is known to women whether they may give birth. In the tenth month the woman does not survive her life if the child is not born, because it may become a disease to her, most often on Tuesday night.

The last line (about Tuesday night) also connected well to a previous prognostic reading, concerned with foretelling how being born on certain days of the week affect personalities and fates.

Since we were discussing Anglo-Saxon scientific ideas anyway, I brought in the Old English text of the recipe with a translation (starting in the last line of this page) for us to talk about it. Students were interested, fascinated, and entertained by these ideas about science and medicine. But they also pointed out how so many elements actually match up with modern knowledge. We were able to talk about junctures and disjunctures, and how and why these types of texts might have appealed to the monks writing them and potential readers.

One of the most striking students points raised was how these texts represent monastic ideals of organizing the world: they help to order and explain knowledge. In this, we concluded, for all of our modern scientific advancements, we’re not all that different from medieval people. And students acknowledged that the potential of medieval science to tell us something about our own pursuits is a nice way to understand the value in learning Old English.

Pseudo-Marcellus Passio Petri et Pauli in Modern Printed Edition and Weissenburg 48.

[N.B. If you only skim this post, or read just a part of it, please jump to the last few paragraphs to read my call for help and collaboration.]

Introduction

Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software has increasingly been a part of scholarship, particularly in digital humanities. For example, it is fundamental to the Google Books project (which so many use for research), corpus creation and curation, and various aspects of ebook media. Yet most of these aspects relate to printed books. One way to expand the methods of OCR is to apply them to extracting data from medieval manuscripts, but this area of research has received much less attention.[1]

My premise is that OCR has potential that can be harnessed for working with medieval texts in their manuscript witnesses.[2] At the outset, I admit that I’m not an OCR expert, but I have jumped into experimenting in order to see what might come from it. In what follows, I outline my experimental process, some results, and some reflections on what might come from further work.

What I imagine as possible is to take every digitized manuscript witness for a text (even hundreds, if that’s how many there are), use OCR extraction to create a plain text file for each, and collate these witnesses with a computer-assisted tool like JuxtaCommons. Such an ideal would not eliminate issues like post-processing correction of OCR extractions, or editorial decisions about modernizing forms like abbreviations, punctuation, and capitalization. The goal is not to eliminate human editorial work with computers, but creating accurate OCR for manuscripts has the potential to limit the time of editing and increase the efficiency of dealing with large numbers of witnesses. This type of work is potentially useful considering how many significant medieval texts survive in hundreds of manuscripts, yet remain unedited—often due to the unwieldiness of an editorial project dealing with every witness. Such a process depends on the abilities of OCR software. To evaluate the possibilities, and to point toward future directions for research, the following explains my process with a set of related documents, with the goal of establishing the current state of OCR software as a baseline for future work.

The sources that I chose for this examination revolve around a Latin text known as the Pseudo-Marcellus Passio Petri et Pauli. Because of the popularity of this text and its significance in the tradition of medieval veneration of Peter and Paul, it has been central to some of my work on apocrypha in Anglo-Saxon England. No modern critical edition of the Passio exists (one is in preparation by Alberto D’Anna), although Richard Adalbert Lipsius and Max Bonnet published an edition in 1891 based on a limited group of manuscripts.[3] This process, then, is both experimental as well as practical, since this text is one among many in need of scholarly editing from hundreds of medieval manuscript sources.

I used two commercial software engines for OCR extraction: Adobe Acrobat Pro X (10.1.10) on Mac OS X; and ABBYY FineReader Pro 12 (12.0.6) on a PC with Windows 7 Enterprise. Both are reputed OCR engines with demonstrated, high results of accuracy. These engines were chosen based on a variety of factors, including OCR accuracy percentages, accessibility,[4] languages recognized, and ease of use. In a recent review, these same criteria and others were used to evaluate the top ten pieces of OCR software; only OmniPage Standard ranked higher in accuracy, and recognizes 123 languages (Acrobat recognizes 42, FineReader recognizes 190), including Greek and Latin.[5]

While all of the engines mentioned so far represent commercial software, open source options also exist, though with varying rates of accuracy. The most prominent and high-quality open source option is the Tesseract OCR Engine, first developed by Hewlett-Packard and now owned by Google. I excluded Tesseract from my experiments because of the technical proficiency in coding needed to use it efficiently (and I want more time to learn the engine and work with it).[6] Unfortunately, I was not able to find definitive evidence about the accuracy of Tesseract in comparison with commercial engines.[7] Although I only used Acrobat and FineReader for this initial study, other OCR engines (especially Tesseract) offer possibilities for future work on manuscript OCR, as I will discuss below.

Processing the Documents

For this experiment, I performed OCR extraction on three documents representing witnesses to the Passio Petri et Pauli. The first is the 1891 edition by Lipsius and Bonnet, digitized and provided by Google but without OCR in the downloadable document. This document serves as a comparison in light of other studies of OCR for historical (particularly nineteenth-century) sources. The other two sources were high-resolution digital photographs of two early medieval manuscripts containing the Passio: Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, Cod. Guelf. Weissenburg 48, folios 22v-32v; and St. Gall, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 561, pages 3-20.[8] Notably, Lipsius and Bonnet consulted both manuscripts for their edition (see lxxv-vi), although neither is part of the critical apparatus of the text. These documents and the results may be found on this GitHub repository.

For the Lipsius-Bonnet edition, I processed the pdf with OCR using each piece of software, saving the extracted text as a plain text (txt) document. After extracting the data, I cleaned the plain text documents (what David Mimno has called “data carpentry”),[9] eliminating extraneous data such as chapter numbers, hyphens, page numbers, page headers and footers, apparatus, etc., in order to retain only the main text for comparison.[10] When cleaning the data, however, OCR readings of the main text were not modified.

I extracted OCR text from the manuscript images in both FineReader and Acrobat with similar processes. In FineReader, modifying some pre-processing settings is possible to optimize results, such as using Latin as the text language, indicating which parts of the page include text, defining text boundaries, and omitting noise (extraneous features detected as text). I took advantage of these options, but otherwise left the settings to the program defaults. In Acrobat, I used only default options. I saved extracted text from each manuscript as a plain text (txt) document. Since the manuscripts did not contain extraneous apparatus, I did not clean the data, particularly in order to establish a baseline for future comparison.

Because color and contrast seemed like one potentially difficulty for OCR with the manuscript images (see discussion of results below), I also processed a single page from each manuscript in an attempt to extract data with higher contrast levels. For this process, I chose page 3 of St. Gall 561 and folio 23r of Weissenburg 48 (since folio 22v has only several lines of text rather than a full page). I edited each image to a black and white (grayscale) color scheme with optimal contrast and balance. For use in Acrobat, I converted each image to pdf before running the OCR process. Acrobat showed sporadic results, since it was unable to extract any OCR text from the St. Gall 561 image, but it did extract text from the Weissenburg 48 image. FineReader, on the other hand, produced results with both manuscripts.

Results

In general, FineReader was a more efficient OCR engine for dealing with both print and manuscript sources. Presumably this is due in part because of the different language capabilities of the two engines. One major benefit of working with FineReader is that the OCR language can be set to Latin (as it was with every document in this process), whereas Acrobat does not include Latin in its language settings. While both English and Latin use Roman letters—English was used for a baseline for evaluating Acrobat—the data incorporated into machine reading of the two languages is largely different in many respects. Many mistakes in the Acrobat results bear out this notion. In what follows, I first discuss the OCR results for the Lipsius-Bonnet edition, followed by discussion of results for the two manuscript witnesses.

In order to assess the basic accuracy of each OCR engine, I compared a set of sample passages from the extracted texts to the Lipsius-Bonnet edition. For this analysis, I compared passages from chapters 1-4, 31-33, and 64-66 of the Passio, taken from the beginning, middle, and end of the text.[11] All together, these passages comprise a total of 676 words. The results of this comparison are summarized in Table 1.

Table 1. Errors by FineReader and Acrobat in OCR of Lipsius-Bonnet Edition (Sample).

This table provides the number of errors for each engine, as well as number of distinct errors for each engine (where errors did not overlap); where there were no distinct errors, the engines sometimes misrecognized the same word (though not always with the same result). As these numbers indicate, Acrobat produced both the most errors as well as the most distinct errors. Additionally, most of the errors found in the FineReader extraction were also found in the Acrobat extraction.

Common Acrobat errors were misrecognitions of in for iu, e for c, b for h, o for u, li for ll, l for t, t for f, periods for commas, and difficulties with dashes for end-of-line word divisions (often rendered as a period). Although FineReader produced fewer errors, it similarly produced misrecognitions of n for u, e for c, periods for commas, and rendering some end-of-line dashes rather than recognizing whole words. For both, occasional numbers and other non-letter characters also appeared in errors.

FineReader also produced the most number of punctuation errors—a total of ten errors in the sample passages, while Acrobat produced only five errors of this sort. The most likely explanation has to do with punctuation and capitalization in the edition. Following certain editorial standards, Lipsius and Bonnet did not capitalize the beginnings of all sentences, causing a disjuncture for modern reading practices. Modern readers hold certain assumptions about reading, including the expectation that sentences end with periods and new sentences begin with capital letters. Difficulties of reading premodern texts with computers arise since software is trained on these reading assumptions and expectations. FineReader, then, likely analyzed periods and lowercase letters together, determining results that render periods as commas—as expected before non-capitalized words. Both training and post-process correction could improve upon these issues (as discussed below).

In several instances, both FineReader and Acrobat produced errors for the same word, as in Table 2.

Table 2. Common FineReader and Acrobat Errors in OCR of Lipsius-Bonnet Edition (Sample).

Because both engines produced errors for these words, the data suggests that the problems were due to obscurities in the digitized page images. My comparison of the page images confirmed this, since many of these errors correspond with words that appear smudged, blotted, or otherwise obscured in the digitized edition. Such problems, and errors in OCR because of them, are not uncommon in dealing with digitized versions of older books, but do present an obstacle that in many ways can only be addressed with post-processing correction.

Based on the number of errors for each engine with the selected passages, I calculated sample accuracy rates. I calculated these accuracy percentages based on word accuracy rather than character accuracy (often the percentage calculated and reported) for two reasons: first, accuracy rates for these engines have previously been generally studied and recognized; and, second, as Simon Tanner claims, for my purposes, “In terms of effort and usefulness the word accuracy matters more than the character accuracy.”[12] For the sample passages, the calculated accuracy (excepting punctuation errors) of FineReader is 97.78%, and of Acrobat is 87.57%. While these percentages are based on only a sample of data, they demonstrate my general findings.

In turning toward the results of OCR with the manuscript images, we encounter even greater problems. A short summary indicates—as expected—that this is not a viable process for extracting text from manuscripts. Yet the process does reveal some possibilities.

While neither OCR engine produced usable results, the texts extracted with FineReader show greater potential. This is not unexpected, given the higher rates of accuracy demonstrated with the FineReader OCR of the Lipsius-Bonnet edition. With the text extractions from the manuscripts, Acrobat results present a higher number of non-letter forms, including special characters and punctuation marks. As already mentioned, Acrobat failed to render any data with the black and white image of St. Gall 561, and it extracted much less data than expected with the color image of St. Gall 561—only 302 characters in 60 lines of text, compared to 21,863 characters in 372 lines with FineReader. The major differences in results between the two engines are likely due to the ability to modify pre-processing settings in FineReader, especially the use of Latin language data built into the software. For these reasons, I will focus mainly on FineReader results in the following discussion.

The text extracted using FineReader is clearly flawed, but there are some indications in this baseline extraction to indicate potential future success. Tables 3 and 4 provide comparisons for assessing the OCR extracted texts. Table 3 presents the manuscript readings and extracted text for the first seventeen lines of the Passio in Weissenburg 48 (folio 22v), while Table 4 presents the manuscript readings and extracted text for the first four lines (excluding the incipit) in St. Gall 561 (folio 3r)—both comprising the first two sentences (six lines) in the Lipsius-Bonnet edition.[13]

Table 3. Comparison of FineReader OCR of Weissenburg 48 with Manuscript Text (Sample).

Table 4. Comparison of FineReader OCR of St. Gall 561 with Manuscript Text (Sample).

As parallels in italicized bold letters indicate, the OCR texts are not completely incomparable with the manuscript texts. While some letters are correctly recognized, others are common OCR misreadings with older documents: long-s, long-r, and f are frequently mistaken; j is frequently mistaken for i (and vice versa); and there is often confusion of minims with letters like i, j, m, n, r, and u adjacent to each other; as with the OCR of the Lipsius-Bonnet edition, there are also confusions between c and e as well as l and I/i. With an instance like Weissenburg 48, line 4, we can recognize how the last letters of UENIS are rendered as N‘15 in the same way in which we might see it in Internet-based leetspeak (“l33t” or “1337”). Still, the amount of post-processing work (even to identify these parallels) is not feasible compared to human transcription.

Using OCR on the edited, black and white images of the manuscripts yielded no substantially better results. This is consistent with the findings of one previous study, which found that editing images of older documents does not improve accuracy rates, and that, in fact, RGB images actually maximize OCR accuracy.[14]  As with the extractions using color images of the manuscripts, there are parallels to be found in the OCR texts based on the black and white images, but they are no more substantial or improved readings. Table 5 presents a representative comparison of the first seven lines from the two OCR text extractions from St. Gall 561, folio 3r, processed with FineReader.

Table 5. Comparison of OCR text extractions from St. Gall 561, folio 3r, from color and black and white images.

For the results of OCR with manuscript images, it is not possible to provide any conclusive accuracy rates, but the sample texts presented demonstrate a baseline. What all of this demonstrates is the need for more robust means of implementing error recognition and correction into the OCR process.

Future Directions

Future possibilities therefore include ways to optimize OCR by incorporating more efficient means of recognizing and correcting errors. These may be implemented with both pre-processing language identification and training data as well as post-processing error correction. Research on OCR with classical languages and texts (Latin and Greek) already exists, as do methods, scripts, and training data. Notably, scholars associated with the Perseus Project and the Duke Collaboratory for Classics Computing like David Bamman, Gregory Crane, David Smith, and Ryan Baumman are already conducting this type of work on editions of classical texts.[15] It may be possible, then, to incorporate their methods and tools for working with manuscripts. For these pursuits, the commercial OCR engines used in this examination become a less useful option, although FineReader does allow for some amount of training.[16] The customizable features of the Tesseract OCR Engine, however, offer more potential.[17]

Post-processing correction of OCR is another way to establish better data from extractions. As Ted Underwood has discussed, “OCR correction becomes much more reliable when the program is given statistical information about the language, and errors, to be expected in a given domain.”[18] For this reason we need to develop customized dictionary-based data and spellchecker scripts to run on extracted texts for correction. Underwood and others working with eighteenth- and nineteenth-century digitized books have developed these types of tools for English, but further work like this on medieval languages is necessary. Still others like Laura Turner O’Hara and Jon Crump have also provided helpful tutorials for wrangling post-processed OCR data, for which there are surely further avenues to follow.[19]

These models provide some directions, but Latin and Greek are only two languages of many used the medieval period. In my own field of research, Old English presents a set of issues similar to Latin but idiosyncratic enough to need specialized methods and data. Especially difficult to reconcile with medieval manuscripts and languages are spelling variations in a time before language standardization (spurred on largely by print as well as many other factors from the early modern period onward). While dictionary forms can contribute to spellchecker corrections, there are also avenues for working to account for scribal idiosyncrasies like dialects, spelling variations, and personal preferences, as well as distinguishing them from mistakes that might need editorial emendation rather than correction in the OCR process.

Finally, all of this points to collaboration, the subject with which I conclude. Since others have already created some solutions, or steps toward solutions, then there is clearly opportunity for bringing together interested scholars to tackle OCR and medieval manuscripts. If you are reading this (and if you’ve made it to the end of this long post), I welcome your feedback, help, and partnership. Please feel free to comment, share, and contact me. I hope that this is just the beginning of work that could push manuscript studies forward.

[1] Some studies of capturing text from medieval manuscripts (not always with OCR) stand out: see, for example, Jaety Edwards, et al., “Making Latin Manuscripts Searchable using gHMM’s,” Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 17 (2004), 385-392; discussion in Frederico Boschetti et al., “Improving OCR Accuracy for Classical Critical Editions,” Research and Advanced Technology for Digital Libraries, ed. Maristella Agosti, et al., Lecture Notes in Computer Science 5714 (Heidelberg: Springer, 2009), 156-67; and Yann Leydier, et al., “Learning-Free Text-Image Alignment for Medieval Manuscripts,” Proceedings: 14th International Conference on Frontiers in Handwriting Recognition (Los Alamitos, CA: IEEE Computer Society, 2014), 363-68, with references to previous studies there.

[2] Other technical methods for reading historical documents also exist, such as Handwritten Text Recognition; see studies already cited, as well as Joan Andreu Sánchez, “Handwritten Text Recognition for Historical Documents in the Transcriptorium Project,” Proceedings of the First International Conference on Digital Access to Textual Cultural Heritage (New York: Association for Computing Machinery, 2014), 111-17, with further references there.

[3] Acta apostolorum apocrypha, ed. Richard Adalbert Lipsius and Max Bonnet, 2 vols. (Leipzig: Hermann Mendelssohn, 1891-1903), 1:119-77.

[4] I already owned Acrobat, so only needed to purchase FineReader, limiting the necessity of funding for this study.

[5] See “OCR Software Review: Reviews and Comparison,” 2015, TopTenReviews, http://ocr-software-review.toptenreviews.com/.

[6] See Ray Smith, “An Overview of the Tesseract OCR Engine,” Proceedings: Ninth International Conference on Document Analysis and Recognition (Los Alamitos, CA: IEEE Computer Society, 2007), 629-633, available at http://research.google.com/pubs/pub33418.html.

[7] See ibid.; and Marcin Heliński, Miłosz Kmieciak, and Tomasz Parkoła, “Report on the Comparison of Tesseract and ABBYY FineReader OCR Engines,” IMPACT: Improving Access to Text (2012), at http://lib.psnc.pl/dlibra/docmetadata?id=358.

[8] Descriptions and digital facsimiles at Wolfenbütteler Digitale Bibliothek, Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel, http://diglib.hab.de/mss/48-weiss/start.htm; and e-codices: Virtual Manuscript Library of Switzerland, http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/en/description/csg/0561. For both manuscripts, digital images were used from these repositories, by permission under Creative Commons licenses.

[9] “Data carpentry is a skilled, hands-on craft which will form a major part of data science in the future,” September 1, 2014, The Impact Blog, The London School of Economics and Political Science, http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2014/09/01/data-carpentry-skilled-craft-data-science/.

[10] For OCR extracted text from the Lipsius-Bonnet edition, each line of extracted text comprises one chapter of the source, based on divisions established by Lipsius and Bonnet (e.g. line 1 corresponds to chapter 1, line 2 to chapter 2, etc.).

[11] Parenthetical citations refer to the edition in Acta apostolorum apocrypha, ed. Lipsius and Bonnet, 1:119-77, by page and line numbers.

[12] Deciding whether Optical Character Recognition Is Feasible (London: King’s Digital Consultancy Services, 2004), at http://www.odl.ox.ac.uk/papers/OCRFeasibility_final.pdf.

[13] For readings from both manuscripts, I provide diplomatic editions; abbreviations are not expanded, and punctuation and capitalization are given as in the manuscripts. To show parallels, the extracted texts have been slightly relineated; see the plain text files for comparison.

[14] Jon M. Booth and Jeremy Gelb, “Optimizing OCR Accuracy on Older Documents: A Study of Scan Mode, File Enhancement, and Software Products,” June 2006 (rev.), Government Printing Office, at http://www.gpo.gov/pdfs/fdsys-info/documents/WhitePaper-OptimizingOCRAccuracy.pdf.

[15] See, for example, David Bamman, “11K Latin Texts,” http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dbamman/latin.html, for a corpus as well as further references; Ryan Baumman, “Command-Line OCR with Tesseract on Mac OS X,” November 13, 2014, ryanfb.github.io, https://ryanfb.github.io/etc/2014/11/13/command_line_ocr_on_mac_os_x.html; and idem, “Automatic evaluation of OCR quality,” March 16, 2015, ryanfb.github.io, https://ryanfb.github.io/etc/2015/03/16/automatic_evaluation_of_ocr_quality.html, with further links to his work there.

[16] See Heliński, Kmieciak, and Parkoła “Report on the Comparison of Tesseract and ABBYY FineReader OCR Engines.”

[17] See, for example, Ray Smith, Daria Antonova, and Dar-Shyang Lee, “Adapting the Tesseract Open Source OCR Engine for Multilingual OCR,” Proceedings of the International Workshop on Multilingual OCR (New York: Association for Computing Machinery, 2009), 1:1-8.

[18] “The challenges of digital work on early-19c collections,” October 7, 2011, The Stone and the Shell, http://tedunderwood.com/2011/10/07/the-challenges-of-digital-work-on-early-19c-collections/.

[19] Laura Turner O’Hara, “Cleaning OCR’d text with Regular Expressions,” May 22, 2013, The Programming Historian, http://programminghistorian.org/lessons/cleaning-ocrd-text-with-regular-expressions; and Jon Crump, “Generating an Ordered Data Set from an OCR Text File,” November 25, 2014, The Programming Historian, http://programminghistorian.org/lessons/generating-an-ordered-data-set-from-an-OCR-text-file.

This academic year was Year One after my PhD, which I defended early last August, just in time to move for a teaching postdoc in English at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. My year at UTK has been filled with great experiences and opportunities, so as the spring semester (and the academic year) comes to an end, I’m reflecting on it all. On top of that, I face another big transition over the summer. I recently made the announcement on social media that I’ve accepted a position as Assistant Professor (Digital Humanities and Medieval Studies) in the Department of English at Rhode Island College (in Providence). I’m extremely grateful for the position, and know how fortunate I am for it–especially given how difficult the job market is, and how few jobs for medievalists popped up this year. Since accepting the position, the reality has been settling in, moving from surreality to excitement as I approach the summer, another big move, and everything that starts when I get to RIC.

This Year

While at UTK, I’ve had a great balance of teaching experiences and time to focus on my own work. I was fortunate to teach a year-long graduate seminar (a two-course sequence) on the History of the English Language, which is the envy of everyone who’s ever tried to cram that subject into a single semester. On top of that, I taught undergraduate courses on World Literature I in the fall and Introduction to Old English in the spring. If that wasn’t already a cream of courses, I was also fortunate to work with a graduate student on an independent study in Old Norse–mostly filled with reading a large amount of sagas and tales, punctuated with language learning.

While much of my non-teaching time was taken up with the job market, I was also able to focus on some research and writing. Since I had just finished writing my dissertation over the summer (a complete version was submitted to my committee in late June), I set that project aside, knowing that I would return to revise into a book but also needing to give myself room to breathe before that. Instead, I worked on a few articles that were not unrelated to the larger project but did not fit within its scope–short projects I had worked on alongside the dissertation and was glad to return to when I had the time. I also worked on aspects of my Judith project, including a short article that grew out of that research. One was a short encyclopedia article on the same topic (apocrypha in Old English literature), as well as a few articles and a shorter note.

This Summer

I have a few projects to occupy me over the summer, including some conference papers and a few revise and resubmits. Over the past several months, I was also invited to contribute to two forthcoming projects, which I will work on in earnest (beyond notes to myself) this summer.

Most of all, I’m looking forward to jumping into revising my dissertation into a book. Throughout the year, I’ve been doing a lot of reading and thinking about this, exploring some new methodological and theoretical ideas. I’ve begun drafting a brand new chapter, incorporating some of these new directions. Over the summer, I hope to move forward with these. I’m especially looking forward to revising part of a chapter to prepare it as a paper for the York Apocrypha Symposium in September, with plans to publish it (so far, the only piece of the larger project that I plan to publish before the book).

Next Year

I’m excited to hit the ground running at RIC in the fall. I don’t yet know what I’ll teach for sure, although Literature of Medieval Britain is supposed to be part of my lineup. While I have more specific teaching and research goals for myself, I won’t spell them out here. Most of all, one of my primary goals is to seek out and foster more collaboration–in my teaching, my research, my writing. As I start to navigate that goal, I’m looking forward to new colleagues, new students, and new courses.

Like many other medievalists, this past weekend I attended the International Congress on Medieval Studies at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo. While there, i was privileged to present on a special session titled “Source Study: A Retrospective,” sponsored by the Sources of Anglo-Saxon Culture (my thanks to Ben Weber for organizing and for including me). I was also grateful for the questions and discussion in the Q&A as well as after the session, so thanks to those who attended. Below is the content of my talk. I’m posting it here in the same spirit with which I presented it: in the hopes that it will be received as a call for other collaborators in the work I love and hope to continue—not only source study as it has been traditionally defined, but as we might continually reimagine, remake, and extend it in our scholarship.

In the “Foreword” to Sources of Anglo-Saxon Literary Culture, Volume One, in 2001, Paul Szarmach (then the Project Director) gave an institutional history of the project, as well as some thoughts about its future directions.[1] He provide some prescient comments about the future of source study in light of computers:

The computer, its pomps, and its works have made much possible and easy, while requiring and demanding other responses such as apparent continual retraining, reconfiguring data for new software, and reinfusion of financial support to keep up with the cunning churn of new equipment….[2]

Over the intervening fourteen years, the Sources of Anglo-Saxon Literary Culture (SASLC) project in particular and source study in general have continued, and computers have, of course, remained increasingly significant in this work. The point here is not to provide another institutional history, but some of the ways in which our so-called “digital age” opens up fresh possibilities for moving source study ahead, for asking new questions, or old questions in light of new developments, and for exploring new avenues for our methods.

This paper is not meant to be a procedural guide to source study. Some already exist, such as various SASLC guides, as well as Rebecca Shores’s recent, provocative blog post, “Ælfric and the Rabbit Hole,” with her discussion of dealing with the many outstanding problems in Ælfrician source study. Nor is this a workshop to introduce the myriad digital tools that might be employed for source study—although there are many, and promising developments in that area regularly emerge. Instead, this paper is a reflection on possibilities that I’m exploring in my own work, with an invitation for others to join me in these pursuits. I want to start with some methodological reflections, move through some critiques, and finish with some practical examples.

While the title of my talk is “Source Study in a Digital Age,” what I’m really interested in is something that I’ve been thinking about more broadly as “transmission studies.” This perspective encompasses manuscript evidence, sources, translations, allusions, intertextualities, and adaptations—not only textual but across different media artifacts. While these topics are necessarily related, each presents a distinct issue, and no one methodology covers all of them. After all, bibliography, source studies, translation studies, and adaptation studies are often undertaken as separate fields of inquiry. How, then, do we pull them all together? In what follows, I suggest that we may do so not only with digital tools but also with methodological frameworks that have emerged from studying digital media.

Recently, space for theorizing the past has opened up due to studies in media archaeology, engaged in excavating artifacts of the past as part of the layers of media leading up to the present.[4] In this light, the medieval world provides an abundance of possibilities for exploring premodern multimedia culture. Yet there has been little sustained critique of medieval artifacts as media specifically and directly, with only a handful of recent examples of this type of work.[5] Kathleen Kennedy has critiqued the tendency toward presentism in studies of so-called “new media,” calling for the use of media archaeology to examine the long history of media stretching back into premodern periods; as she says, “Media and the cultures that produce it today rest high atop substrata that may look quite different from the surface, yet the older still influences the newer.”[6] Under the banner of “Old Media Studies,” it is the responsibility of scholars of premodern media to excavate these layers. From this perspective, in some ways, a subtitle for my talk might be offered as “A Prolegomenon for Transmission Studies through Media Archaeology.” Through this lens, I want to think about one way in which media archaeology can help us think about medieval culture—that is, the “big data” we have inherited from Anglo-Saxons, and how we approach such massive amounts of data. Through a media archaeology lens, thinking about the longue durée of media also allows us to think about the ways in which big data stretches across time, and how we deal with the data of the past in our current research.

By “big data,” I mean the sheer amount of material that we have inherited, particularly from Anglo-Saxon England. According to the Dictionary of Old English website, the “Web Corpus represents over three million words of Old English”—as well as several hundred thousand words of Latin—making up “almost five times the collected works of Shakespeare.”[7] The Latin included, however, is only a small amount, and no comparable Anglo-Latin corpus exists. To give some more numbers, as of 2014, the Brepols Library of Latin Texts series A includes over 74.1 million word-forms, from 3,625 works; series B includes almost 24.7 million word-forms, from 723 works. The Perseus Digital Library contains 10,525,338 words in Latin, and the collection is ever growing. While not all of these works are relevant to Anglo-Saxonists—since they’re from a later period—many of them represent sources or contemporary analogues to explore. Even individual texts (from a range of medieval cultures) pose large amounts of data, as on the slide.[8]

This is big data indeed.

Literary scholars in other fields have found useful ways to wrangle big data from their own periods. This way of viewing texts has been fruitfully used for text mining with digital tools, which Franco Moretti calls “distant reading” and Matthew L. Jockers calls “macroanalysis”—using computers to analyze large corpora of literature for relationships between texts.[9] Much of this has been facilitated by the digitization of and open access to works in the public domain, like eighteenth- and nineteenth-century novels.

All of this poses three interrelated issues that I want to address today: first, the massive amount of Anglo-Saxon textual data that we need to work with; second, the accessibility of this corpus; and, third, what we can do with this data using digital tools. To do so, I will both make general remarks and point to specific examples as they are helpful. My examples are necessarily selective, and many of them come from my own work. But the implications may be extrapolated to myriad other applications for our research.

First, the big data of Anglo-Saxon literary culture. I’ve already mentioned some of the corpora that we have to reckon with in our work, but even those resources represent only the tip of the massive iceberg of textual data that still sits in archives. As the recent catalogue of Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts by Helmut Gneuss and Michael Lapidge attests, there are 1,291 “manuscripts and manuscript fragments written or owned in England up to 1100.” This does not include single-leaf documents, manuscripts written by or accessible to Anglo-Saxons on the Continent, nor the many Anglo-Saxon-related manuscripts and texts that were copied later, well into the thirteenth century. Many of these manuscripts remain untranscribed, unedited, and inaccessible even in digital facsimiles. While the Dictionary of Old English boasts a large corpus of texts, theirs are curated versions, often based on critical editions that conflate readings from individual texts. What of other versions? I suggest—and I’m not the first—that we should consider each iteration of a work, in every manuscript, as a text in its own right. But how do we deal with that amount of big data?

A few thoughts on that issue. Recently, I have been experimenting with Optical Character Recognition (or OCR), with the hope that perhaps digital tools can help us to read and transcribe texts from manuscripts into computer-readable forms. While this type of work has been a boon to those who work with the digitized media available from projects like Google Books, there has been less exploration of OCR for non-printed media. Another possibility is in crowd-sourced transcription. Again, scholars in other periods have found useful ways of harnessing collaborative teams, as with the large task of the Transcribe Bentham project. Perhaps more Anglo-Saxonists turning toward group transcriptions of manuscripts could lead to greater access to the big data that we rely on for literary study in our field. I have begun some of this work with my own Judith project, in which I have transcribed and put online every source accessible to Anglo-Saxons that mentions or engages with the biblical book and figure of Judith (see the Omeka archive [moving soon] and the project blog). These include texts from patristic and early medieval authors, in Latin and Old English, comprising a corpus of fifty works. Yet this is a just a small amount of the larger pool of big data that could be made more accessible.

This leads to my second point: accessibility. I’ve already mentioned some of the major resources for our work as source and literary scholars: like the Dictionary of Old English, the Patrologia Latina, and the Brepols Library of Latin Texts. But we need these to be open and free, not hidden behind paywalls and corporate subscriptions.

Many libraries are already taking the lead in this respect, with thousands of medieval manuscripts now available online for free. In just the past few weeks, the University of Pennsylvania has launched their OPenn project, following in the footsteps of institutions like the Walters Art Museum and the Swiss e-codices initiative. But these are only manuscripts. What about texts in useable forms? We are still reliant on cost-prohibitive subscriptions to access some of our most valuable resources, like the Dictionary of Old English, the Chadwyck-Healey Patrologia Latina database, and the Brepols Library of Latin Texts. Fortunately, projects like the Perseus Library and the Monumenta Latin texts archive are continually growing with free, open access to texts that rest as the basis of source study. Without free, open texts, the use of digital tools to study them is a moot point. We need to develop new textual databases, under licenses like Creative Commons, which allow scholars to use them for innovative pursuits. Of course, there are complicated issues to consider with pleading for free and open resources—including who gets paid, and how, for academic work and publications, how open access works, etc. So instead of harping on, I’ll move on, to discuss what we can do with big data once we have access to it.

In some ways, the results of using digital tools often speak for themselves. Yet, in other ways, these explorations are just in their infancy. Macroanalysis, or distant reading, of big data is becoming more and more an accessible way of analyzing texts with computers as new tools emerge, and such examinations are becoming more sophisticated over time. No longer are scholars just counting word frequencies; we are now starting to conceptualize how word clusters move together, how style can be analyzed from linguistic markers, and how large corpora can reveal trends across texts by a single author or multiple authors.

To give one example of possibilities for source study, I’ll point toward new avenues in classics, exploring Greek and Latin literature with digital tools. Like medievalists, classicists have regarded source study as a foundational staple of their research, using it as the basis of productive theoretical discussions of literary influence and intertextuality. One promising digital humanities project, for example, is Tesserae, a collaborative project led by Neil Coffee, in Classics at SUNY Buffalo, and J.-P. Koenig, in Linguistics at SUNY Buffalo. The Tesserae project has so far created an online interface for studying intertextual parallels across Greek and Latin texts. For example, users are able to select Horace as source author and Jerome as target author, creating an output that shows a list containing: parallel phrases across their texts (based on a minimum of two words across the texts); verbal parallels that determine the matches; and a score (on a scale from zero to ten) representing the intertextual proximity of the source and target text—with rarer words and proximity in the texts determining higher scores.[10] Although the focus is on classical Greek and Latin literature, the project encompasses the entire Perseus Latin corpus (including some medieval texts, such as Bede and Paul the Deacon) plus many Greek and English texts, with further goals of expanding in the future. It’s easy to see the possibilities for source study, if these tools can be harnessed for Anglo-Latin and Old English texts.

Finally, I’ll conclude with just a few aspects my own research exploring the transmission and influence of Judith in Anglo-Saxon England. As I stated before, this work is based on a corpus of 50 texts, including patristic and early medieval Latin, and Old English literature. All of these revolve around the single biblical source of the book of Judith. This project, then, contributes to what more we can say about the text and influence of biblical material in Anglo-Saxon England. But digital tools also show some compelling ways for thinking about the media networks between the Anglo-Saxon materials.

Creating a corpus was the first major step, since it meant compiling known sources and known Anglo-Saxon texts—and evidence for how these were known, in manuscripts, citations, quotations, et cetera. In the case of Hrabanus Maurus’ commentary on Judith, it meant returning to the single surviving manuscript that we know circulated in England before 1200, in order to create a single-text edition (here’s a draft, as pdf, but this is still under development) that represents the version Anglo-Saxons could have read rather than a critical edition. This corpus, once created, could then be published and analyzed using digital tools. Distant reading (see this post) revealed basics like most frequent words in these texts; these were, unsurprisingly, mainly characters and religious terms. But they also revealed how certain word phrases—linguistic collocates, or collocate clusters—appear together in the texts, showing conceptual connections. These are just some simple examples to show how text mining, or distant reading, can reveal interconnections, but they point toward the possibilities of more work like this.

Another aspect worth mentioning is the ability to think about the circulation of manuscripts mapped out geographically. What can we determine about the manuscripts containing texts in this Judith corpus? Where were they held, at what points, and who might have had access to them? Here is one map that shows the provenances; and here are some more experiments in mapping; I hope that, with further work and collaboration, I can place these points not only geographically but also temporally. The motivating question is, If an author were in Canterbury in the year 950, what texts about Judith would he have access to in the local libraries? The implications could go much further, however, if we began to map out every manuscript known to the Anglo-Saxons, to understand libraries and book transmission. But this is not the work of one; this is the work of many collaborators working together.

But the SASLC project is changing, developing a new publishing model in which print publication of entries will be accompanied by an online platform. This Digital Research Center (as we’re calling it) will include publication of entries and resources as well as a space for scholars to work together. Finally, this all leads to one more set of thoughts: Why not use the emerging SASLC Digital Research Center as a meeting-place for the types of work I’ve discussed? In this sense, we might imagine this online endeavor as a repository for corpora of big data, a virtual space for scholars to work on mining the archives and publishing source-related discoveries, and a community for sharing research like entries for SASLC as well as new modes of examination and publication. For all of this, we need the collaboration of financial and research support from a variety of institutions and individual scholars; with a network of cross-institutional support, the Research Center can be all the more robust and central to future research. If we dare to imagine such a collaborative space, we might be able to host resources for source study as it already exists and as we forge ahead into our digital age.

Notes

[1] Paul E. Szarmach, “Foreword,” Sources of Anglo-Saxon Literary Culture, Volume One: Abbo of Fleury, Abbo of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, and Acta Sanctorum, ed. Frederick M. Biggs et al. (Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 2001), vii-xiv.

[2] Ibid., viii.

[3] “Ælfric and the Rabbit Hole,” Suburban Academic: Musings of a Domesticated Scholar, February 6, 2015, http://suburbanacademic.com/2015/02/aelfric-rabbit-hole.html.

[4] See Media Archaeology: Approaches, Applications, and Implications, ed. Erkki Huhtamo and Jussi Parikka (Berkeley, 2011); Jussi Parikka, What Is Media Archaeology? (Cambridge, 2012); and Michael Goddard, “Opening up the Black Boxes: Media Archaeology, ‘Anarchaeology’ and Media Materiality,” New Media & Society (2014), 1-16.

[5] See Martin K. Foys, Virtually Anglo-Saxon: Old Media, New Media, and Early Medieval Studies in the Late Age of Print (Gainesville, FL, 2007); idem, “Media,” A Handbook of Anglo-Saxon Studies, ed. Jacqueline Stodnick and Renée R. Trilling (Malden, MA, 2012), 133-48; Kathleen E. Kennedy, Medieval Hackers (Brooklyn, 2014); and Fiona Somerset, “Introduction,” Truth and Tales: Cultural Mobility and Medieval Media, ed. Fiona Somerset and Nicholas Watson (Columbus, 2015), 1-16.

[6] In a recent talk for the University of Virginia, “Old Media Studies: New Wine from Old Skins,” The Absurd Box, November 17, 2014, http://drredneck.tumblr.com/post/102885823332/old-media-studies-in-motion, accessed January 2015; also see her Medieval Hackers.

[7] http://doe.utoronto.ca/pages/pub/web-corpus.html.

[8] Josephus’ Antiquitates Judaicae 305,870; Augustine’s De ciuitate Dei 303,368;[8] Herodotus’ Histories 184,947; the Greek New Testament 137,783; Josephus’ De bello Judaico 125,221; Homer’s Iliad 111,862; Eusebius’ Historia ecclesiastica 99,674; Homer’s Odyssey 87,185; the Qur’an 79,510; Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum 79,093; Ovid’s Metamorphoses 78,098; Vergil’s Aeneid 63,719; Juvenal’s Saturae, 26,564; and Horace’s Carmina 13,292.

[9] Franco Moretti, Distant Reading (London, 2012); and Matthew L. Jockers, Macroanalysis: Digital Methods and Literary History (Urbana, IL, 2013).

[10] This particular search between texts by Horace and Jerome provides 9672 results, ranging from scores of 0 (only 1 instance) to 10 (2 instances). The methodology behind the software is discussed in various posts on the project blog, at http://tesserae.caset.buffalo.edu/blog/.

Noah’s Ark–stylized as a Viking ship–with raven, in the Old English Heptateuch (London, BL, Claudius B.iv, fol. 15r), courtesy of the British Library.

Last July, I posted a translation of Ælfric of Eynsham‘s Old English Preface to Genesis for the benefit of those interested in a modern rendering. Since then, I’ve been overwhelmingly pleased by the attention it’s garnered–over 1,300 views as of this posting! In the same spirit, I’m now posting my translation of Ælfric’s Libellus de Veteri Testamento et Novi (Little Book on the Old and New Testaments), also known as his Letter to Sigeweard. This “little book” (composed c.1005-6) offers many more insights into the author’s reading, attitudes, and interpretations of the Bible in general, a fascinating companion piece to the Preface to Genesis (composed c.992-1002). For all of that, it provides a significant synthesis of early medieval biblical knowledge.

As with the Preface to Genesis, I offer this translation under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Likewise, for the Old English, I primarily relied on The Old English Heptateuch and Ælfric’s Libellus de Veteri Testamento et Novi, Volume One: Introduction and Text, ed. Richard Marsden, EETS OS 330 (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2009); although I have also consulted the previous edition in The Old English Version of the Old English Heptateuch, Aelfric’s Treatise on the Old and New Testament and his Preface to Genesis, ed. S. J. Crawford, EETS OS 160 (London: Oxford UP, 1922). Since this text is longer, and contains many more quotations, I have supplied some notes about biblical sources (in square brackets); I have retained the Latin for Ælfric’s quotations (since he quoted the Latin Vulgate, compiled and most translated by Jerome), but these should not pose difficulties since they are followed by the author’s own English translations.

Here begins a little book of the Old Testament and New.

This work was composed for one man, but it may nevertheless profit many.

Abbot Ælfric graciously greets Sigeweard at Eastheolon. I tell you the truth that someone is very wise, who speaks with works, and who has advanced for God and for the world, who has adorned oneself with good works. And it is very clear in the holy canon that the holy men who began good works, that they were honorable in this world. And now the saints are in the joy of the kingdom of heaven, and their memory will continue in the world now and forever for their earnestness and their faith in God. The careless men, who dried up their lives in all idleness, and so ended, their memory is forgotten in holy writings, except that the Old Testament tells of their evil deeds and that they are damned. You asked me very often for writings in English, and I did not grant it to you all too quickly, before when you desired this from me with your works; then you eagerly asked me, for the love of God, that I speak with you at home at your house. And then you greatly complained, when I was with you, that you might not obtain my writings. Now I desire that you at least should have this little book, now that you like wisdom. And you desire to have it so that you are not deprived of all of my books.

God loves good works and he desires to have them from us. And indeed it is written about him that he himself rejoices in his own works, just as the psalmist sang about him thus: “May the glory of the Lord endure for ever: the Lord shall rejoice in his works.” [Psalm 103:31] That is in the English language, “May the glory of our Lord be forever and ever; our Lord rejoices in his own works.” Thus spoke the prophet. The almighty Maker manifested himself through the great work which the made at the beginning and he desired that creation should see his glory and dwell with him in glory in eternity under his lordship, ever obedient to him; therefore, it is very evil that the made creation, which he shaped and made, are not obedient. This world was not at the beginning, but God himself made it, who continues without any beginning to his great glory, and in his majesty, just as mighty as he is now, and all so great in his light, because he is truly light and life and truthfulness. And wisdom was ever in his wise thoughts so that he desired to make the wonderful creation, about which he desired to shape creation through his great wisdom, and through his true love he gave life to the life that they have. Here is the Holy Trinity in these three persons. The almighty Father comes from no others, and the great wisdom born of the wise Father ever from himself without beginning, who has since redeemed us from our bondage with his incarnation which he took on from Mary. Now love is ever common to both of them, that is the Holy Spirit, who is so great he gives life to all things; and he is so mighty that with his grace he illuminates all of the angels who dwell in heaven, and the hearts of all men who live on earth, those who rightly believe in the living God. And he truthfully forgives the sins of all men, who willfully themselves repent their sins, and there is no forgiveness except through his grace. And he speaks through the prophets who prophesied about Christ, because he is the desire and certain love of the Father and of the Son, just as we said before. He gives sevenfold graces to humankind (about which I wrote before in some other writings in the English language), just as the prophet Isaiah set in his book of prophecy.

The almighty Shaper, when he shaped the angels, then through his wisdom on the first day he made ten troops of angels in great beauty, many thousands at the creation, so that they would worship him in his glory, all of them bodiless, light, and strong, living in joy without all sins, so beautiful of nature that we may not say. And no evil thing was among the angels yet, nor did any evil come through the creation of God, because he himself is all good and every good comes from him, and the angels then lived in glory with God. Alas, then within six days the true God made the creation which he desired to make. One angel, he who was excellent, perceived how beautiful he himself was, and how shining in glory, and knew his strength, that he was made mighty, and then he greatly liked his worthiness. He was named “Lucifer,” that is “light-bearing,” for the mighty brightness of his great form. Then it seemed to him too unseemly that he should obey any lord, when he was so excellent, and he desired not to worship him who had made him, and not to thank him ever for what he had given him, and not to be subject to him very eagerly for the great glory with which he had honored him. He desired not to have his Maker as his lord, nor did he desire to continue in faithfulness to the true Son of God, who made him beautiful, but he desired to win for himself a kingdom with power, and desired through pride of mind to make himself God, and secured companions for himself against the will of God, to his folly in eagerness. Then he had no throng where he might sit, because heaven desired not to suffer him, nor was there any kingdom that might be his against the will of God, who made all things. Then the proud one found which strengths were his, then when his feet might not even stand anywhere, but then he fell down, and he turned into the devil, and all of his companions fell from the household of God into the torments of hell by their works.

Then on the sixth day after this was done, the almighty God made a man from the earth, Adam, with his hands, and he gave a soul to him, and also afterward Eve from a rib of Adam, so that they, and their offspring with them, should have the fair dwelling that the fiend lost, if they obeyed their Maker rightly. Then the devil also deceived the humans, so that they quickly broke the command of God and became mortal, and he drove both of them out of that joy to this earth, and they lived in sorrow and in great labor, and all of their offspring who came from them afterward, until our Savior Christ redeemed our evil, just as the narrative tells us after.

We take from these books the order that Moses wrote, the famous leader, just as God himself dictated in their private speech, then when he dwelled with God on Mount Sinai for forty days and undertook his teaching, and he did not care for food in all of that time because of the great example of that book learning. He wrote five books with wonderful language. The first is Genesis, which includes the first narrative from creation and about the sin of Adam, and how he lived nine-hundred-thirty years in the first age of this world, and had children by his wife Eve. And afterward he went with sorrow to hell. His son was Cain, who killed his brother, named Abel, an innocent man, because of his own envy that he had toward him. And the offspring of Cain, who came from him afterward, were all drowned in the deep flood, which killed all of humankind in Noah’s days, except for the eight who were in the ark, and afterward nothing came from that evil family line. But after the murder of Abel, Adam had another son who was named Seth. From that line came those who remained alive, Noah and his wife and their three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, with their three wives. Now we will quickly tell the order—because we have often written about this with more understanding than you might see—and also the significance.

That Adam, who was made by God on the sixth day, signified our Savior Christ, who came to this world and renewed us to his likeness. Eve, who God himself made from the side of Adam, signified the church of God that was afterward born from the side of Christ. The murder of Abel signified the murder of our Savior, whom the Jews murdered, evil brothers just as Cain was. Seth, the son of Adam, is said to be first, and he undoubtedly signified Christ, who arose from the dead on the third day. The seventh man from Adam was named Enoch. He did the will of God, and God took him with whole body up out of this life, and he is alive still, just as Elijah, the noble prophet, who was also taken to the other life, and they both will come against Antichrist, so that they will throw down his falsehood through God and then both will be murdered by the fiend himself. And they will rise again just as all men will. Noah, who was in the ark during the great flood that drowned the whole world except for eight people, is interpreted “requies,” that is “rest” in English. And he signified Christ, who came forth to us so that he might bring us from this world to rest and to joy with him. And so forth to the end, each holy father with words or with deeds announced our Savior and his certain journey.

Here was the first age of this world. And the second age of this world was from the time of Abraham, the old patriarch. Now the book tells us about the offspring of Noah, that his sons had seventy-two sons, who began to build that wonderful city and the high tower that would rise up to the heavens by their foolishness. But God himself came to that place, and looked at their work and gave to each of them a different language, so that to each of them it was unknown what the other said. And so they quickly ceased the building, and then they journeyed to far lands and so there were as many languages as there were men. In the same age people raised up idolatry widely throughout the world, just as we wrote about before in another treatise for the strengthening of belief. And in this age the evil people of the five cities, the entire people of the land of the Sodomites, were all suddenly burned with sulfurous fire, and their city with them, except for Lot alone, whom God out of there with his three relatives for his righteousness. From Noah’s eldest son, who was named Shem, came the Hebrew people, who believed in God, Abraham’s forefathers, and his father was Terah, who first lived in the kingdom of Chaldea, until Abraham journeyed to Canaan by God’s command, where his people lived afterward. Abraham the patriarch had two sons, Ishmael and Isaac, and he worshipped God with all of his heart, and the heavenly God often spoke to him because of his great belief, because he desired to offer to God his own son, Isaac the beloved, as an offering on his altar in the old way, if God so desired it. Then God blessed him and his son was safe. And God himself promised that through his offspring all humankind should be blessed for his great belief and for his obedience that he had toward God. Abraham, who desired to offer Isaac by God’s command, had signified the heavenly father, who sent his son to die for us. And Isaac signified the Savior Christ, who was killed for us.

Then the third age remained until David the great king, of Abraham’s offspring, from whom afterward came Christ, who delivered all humankind. From Ham, Noah’s son, came the Canaanite people. And from Japheth, the youngest, who was blessed through Noah, came the northern people by the North Sea, because three parts of the world are divided through them: Asia in the eastern part for the eldest son, Africa in the southern part for the people of Ham, and Europe in the northern part for the offspring of Japheth. And after Noah’s flood the almighty God gave to all humankind in common many fish and birds and four-footed beasts and clean cattle out of his great goodness. But nevertheless he forbade them from taking blood. Isaac then had Esau and Jacob, two twins of great significance, but the younger brother, who was named Jacob, was beloved by God for his good customs, and he was blessed for his innocence. He had twelve sons, who were the patriarchs, famous men. And there was a great famine for seven years altogether, and they all journeyed to the land of Egypt, where they found food. His [Jacob’s] youngest son (except for one) was named Joseph, who in the land of Egypt was a lord under the king, who was greatly pleased with him. And there he held his father in full honor with all his brothers and their children together. And Joseph lived in the land joyfully for one-hundred-ten years. And the book of Genesis thus ends here.

The second book is named Exodus, which Moses wrote, about the great signs and the ten plagues that were done to Pharaoh the king and to his people by the almighty God, in the time of Moses. He was born, just as this book makes known to us, and his brother Aaron, the son of Amram, in Pharaoh’s day, very dear to God, men very mighty in many wonders. Then God desired to have from that land those people, Abraham’s offspring, again in their land, but the Pharaoh did not desire to let those people go from him, until God sent to him ten kinds of very terrible torments for his injuries. And afterward Moses let that people out of Pharaoh’s slavery, after four-hundred years since Jacob came there with the Hebrew people. In that army, which journeyed from Egypt, were six-hundred-thousand men besides wives and children, except the tribe of Levi, which was not named there. Then through God’s strength Moses led them all over the Red Sea, just as we read in the books. And Pharaoh the king still followed behind them, with a greater army; he desired to have that people again in his land in his loathsome slavery. Then the sea opened in front of Moses and the water stood around them as stone walls above their heads, and they went on the ground until they all came up safely, praising the heavenly God with song. Moses then struck the sea with his staff, and then the water fell over Pharaoh’s army, over his many chariots and great riders, and it drowned them all, so that not one man survived there. Now the book tells us that God afterward fed the entire army with heavenly food, and each day for forty winters he came down from heaven during the journey in the wilderness, and from hard stone came running water for them. And God gave to them the law, that is an open law as rules for the people, in the five books that Moses wrote, just as God directed him.

We have named two books. Leviticus is the third, Numbers the fourth, the fifth is named Deuteronomy, that is “the second law.” These three books tell us how afterward they went over that wide wilderness, there where no man had lived before, and about the great wonders that God worked for them for forty years through the entire narrative. And we have certainly translated it into English, in which men may hear how the heavenly God spoke with works and with wonders to them. And then he also set those works in writings, for people to remember in great significance. And the famous Moses, when he was one-hundred-twenty winters in age, then he went from life, and God himself buried him and set Joshua in Moses’ place, as the leader for the people. And Moses had blessed him before, and God himself promised him that he desired to be with him in great wonders just as he was with Moses.

The book that he wrote, the book of Joshua, says how he went with the people of Israel to the land of Abraham, and how he then won the land, and how the sun stood until he had the victory, and how he divided all the land. I also translated this into English for the ealdorman Æthelweard, in which people may see God’s great wonders done with works. His father was named Nun, and he lived for one-hundred-ten years altogether, and then after his great victory he died, and afterward the people lived there under Moses’ law. Joshua had signified the Savior, because he led the people to the land that was promised to them, just as does the Savior, who leads those who believe in him to the kingdom of heaven, if they please him with good works.

After this there were certainly judges in the same land for the people of Israel, who guided the people, just as it is written in Liber Iudicum, that is “the book of Judges.” The book clearly tells us about that people, that they lived in peace as long as they eagerly worshipped the heavenly God in his religious observances, and as often as they abandoned the living God, then they were plundered and reproach done to them by heathen people who lived around them. Again when they called out in earnest to God with true penance, then he sent help to them through some judge who withstood their enemies and delivered them from their misery. And so they long lived in that land. This one people may read, whoever cares to hear it, in the English book that I translated about this. I thought that through that wonderful narrative your mind might turn to the will of God in earnest; but this book is thus here ended. After this there was one woman who was named Ruth, of the Moabite people, but she was married to the grandfather Jesse, and this Jesse was the father of David. The book that tells this is named the book of Ruth, and it is arranged in our Bible.

After these judges the people of Israel chose kings from themselves, just as the narrative tells us, in the time of Samuel, the faithful prophet. About this are written certainly four books, which are named Liber Regum in Latin, that is “the book of kings” as it is called together. And Chronicles lies beside them. This is the fifth book, for the many instructions that this one book has before the others, and they wrote these books as Samuel and Kings. In these books it tells us that Saul was chosen first as king over the Israelite people, because they desired to have some defender that would protect them from the heathen people, and they made their desires known to the prophet Samuel, that they desired the people to have a king, just as other people in all lands had. So then Samuel told that to God, and God allowed that they set as king over them Saul, son of Kish. And afterward he ruled for forty years’ time and he defended that people against heathen peoples strongly with weapons, although he went astray in many other things. David, the son of Jesse, the worthy psalmist of the first tribe that was called Judah, was afterward chosen through God as king over the people of Israel, to defend them. And he ruled strongly and defended that people against heathen peoples who lived among them. And he always had victory and killed the heathens in every battle, because he worshipped the almighty God with all his heart, and with good works he set his kingdom in order, and he held this kingdom for forty years altogether, and his fame is fully told in faithful books.

And the fourth age of this world remained from David until Daniel the prophet. David is called “fortis manum”; in significance that is “strong hand” in English, because he tamed the wild bear and tore open his jaws without any weapon. And he also tamed the wild lion, broke his jaws with his bare hands. And he went into combat against the giant, who was named Goliath, when he was a boy, and with his sling killed the unbelieving giant so that he lay senseless, and he cut off his head and brought all of the Philistines to flight, who fought against Saul, and he had the victory. He had signified the Savior Christ who is the strong hand, who easily tames the powerful devil; and he won from him all the faithful into his church, just as David took the sheep from the beasts. He is a holy prophet and he prophesied much about our Savior Christ, just as the Psalms make known to us, which he sang through the Holy Spirit as praise to God, and the Psalter is one book that through God he set among the other books in the Bible. In his old age he set as king his son, the wise Solomon. And afterward he ruled for forty winters, ever in full peace, and for his great wisdom kings honored him and men sought his wisdom from far lands, and they came from every land to honor him with offerings. And he held his people from every battle. He raised up for God that incomparable temple in Jerusalem, in wonderful skill, so beautifully built and so well built and so wide-spreading a house, wrought with gold and with white silver, so we may not say. He wrote three books through his wisdom. One is Parabole, that is “the book of proverbs,” not as you say, but proverbs of wisdom and warning against error and how people may best avoid sins and the way to journey that directs us toward God. The other is called Ecclesiastes, that is in English “advice for all people,” and suitable to hear in high council. The third is called Cantica Canticorum, that says in English “foremost of all songs”; this he sand about Christ and about the church of Christ, that is all the congregation who believes in Christ. And now these books stand in the Bible. Solomon is called “peaceful” in English, and he signified our Savior Christ who brought peace to us and is the Prince of Peace, who united us with the host of angels and raised up for us a church, which is his congregation.

Now many kings are in the book of Kings, about whom I also wrote a certain book in English. Some of them were righteous and always worshipped God, just as Hezekiah was, and afterward Josiah, and some others also, who were victorious and held their kingdom fittingly through God, whom they worshipped, and they lived in peace. Some were lawless and did great evil, when they did not obey God, nor did God help them, and they murdered their people through their misdeeds and in shame through unbelief, and they ended evilly in their disrepute, just as Zedekiah the unhappy king who was led in bonds to the city of Babylon, and a man killed his two sons before his sight and afterward blinded him and set him in prison, and afterward misery came over the land. Nebuchadnezzar, the famous king in the Chaldean land, came to Jerusalem with a great army and killed the people and overthrew the city and tore down the temple, four-hundred years after it was built, because of the unbelief of the kings, who abandoned their Lord, and the carelessness of the people, who did not obey God; and he led the king, who was named Achan, with him to Chaldea, very unseemly, so that while in captivity he might know his evil deeds against the heavenly God. Then the king of Chaldea came to his land with the plunder and the remnant, in which was Daniel, the worthy prophet, and the three boys who were named thus: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. And otherwise they were named Hananiah, Azariah, and Mishael. The king commanded these three boys to be cast into the burning oven, but their bonds were soon burned up and they were safe, praising with song the heavenly God, who held them in the hot oven so that their hair was not even burned up. And the king commanded them to come out of the oven.

Here begins the fifth age of this world. It remained straight until Christ himself came in the sixth age of this world, born in human form from the womb of Mary, he who was ever with God his almighty Father. Then the remnant of the ravaged [Israelite] people lived in the Chaldean land und the king; they knew their sins against the almighty God. They lived there for one-hundred-seventy years in misery until King Cyrus sent them back again to the land of Judea, from which they had been led, and commanded them to raise up the incomparable temple again, just as the almighty God sent it into his mind, so that he might be merciful to his people after such great misery. And afterward they lived there until Christ himself was born. Now there were two more books set in order as books of Solomon, since he composed them; because the language is disposed in his likeness and for their eloquence, some have ascribed them to him, but Jesus, the son of Sirach, wrote them. One is Liber Sapientiae, that is “the book of wisdom”; the second is called Ecclesiasticus, very great books, and people read them regularly in church for great wisdom.

Now we will take the prophets, who prophesied about Christ through the Holy Spirit, about the coming of the Savior to this earth in true human form, just as we will write about hereafter. A certain prophet in the time of the kings was named Isaiah, just as the book makes known to us. He prophesied about Christ very wisely, just as if he were an evangelist, very worthily, and said in his writing just as we say here: “Ecce uirgo concipiet et pariet filium et uocabitur nomen eius Emmanuel” [Isaiah 7:14] and so on. “Behold a virgin shall conceive and give birth to a son and his name will be called ‘God himself is with us.’” Again the same prophet wrote in his writing: “Puer natus est nobis et filius datus est nobis” [Isaiah 9:6] and so on. “A child is born and a son is given to us, and his rule is on his shoulders. And his name will be called Wonderful Counselor, certainly the strong God, and Father of the world to come, truly the Prince of Peace. And his kingdom shall be manifold and there will never be an end to his eternal peace.” His book is very great and has much about Christ and about God’s fame over all humankind, in spiritual meaning for the church of God. He preached belief in the land of Judea and forbade unrighteousness, until the cruel king named Manasseh, the son of Hezekiah, cut him in two and so killed him.

The prophet Jeremiah was a very holy prophet in the land from his childhood. About that God himself said to him: “Truly I knew you before I shaped you in your mother’s womb, and I made you holy before you were born, and I set you as a prophet to the people.” He lived in purity and he wrote on book through the Holy Spirit in his prophecy, great and manifold in teaching of spiritual meaning for the people, also about the Savior. He was often bound and brought to prison for his holy teaching, and he lamented greatly for the sins of the people, just as his book tells us. And he was stoned to death in Egypt for his belief. The wise man Plato, and the wisest man among the heathen people, had spoken to him, and the wise prophet then instructed him so that he knew belief in the living God, just as Augustine wrote it in his books. And Jeremiah is our special prophet.

The prophet Ezekiel was ravaged with the people, when the king of the Chaldeans killed the Jews and drove the remnant to his land, when Daniel the prophet was also taken. And then Ezekiel lived there in misery, and prophesied there and wrote one book great in writing about humankind and about our Lord, very deep in meaning, until the leader of that remnant people killed him, just as a certain teacher makes known to us.

The prophet Daniel lived in Chaldea, worthy to the kings, and wrote one book in his prophecy, which God himself made known. And he clearly told in his writing about the birth of Christ, just as he came to humanity, four-hundred-ninety years from Darius the king until our Lord came in true human form from the womb of Mary. His book is very great in manifold significance, too long to tell here about their writings, and how he was thrown to the wild lions; we have written about that in English in a certain sermon once. He was not killed, but he himself died, when he was one-hundred-ten years in age, and he was buried in Babylonia.

In addition, there are still twelve prophets, who wrote twelve books in their prophecies, in certain parts smaller in writing, great in meaning, about the incarnation of Christ and about the people of God, just as God himself made known to them, whose names we will write in this work. Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah (who was within the whale for three nights, and the whale bore him to the city of Nineveh, and his deeds signified our Lord’s death, who lay in the grave for so long a time, but he arose from death through his divine strength) Micah, Nahum, Habbakuk, who named the Savior by his name thus: “Ego autem in Domino gaudebo et exultabo in Deo Iesu meo.” [Habakkuk 3:18] That is in English, “I rejoice in the Lord and I exult in God my Savior. Our Savior was named Jesus in life and so this prophet said before he was born, and just as the archangel said it in the gospel. He is also named Christ. A certain prophet told about that many hundreds of years before he was born: “Adstiterunt reges terre et principes conuenerunt in unum aduersus Dominum et aduersus Christum eius.” [Acts 4:26] “Earthly kings and princes will rise against our Lord and the Savior Christ.” That was King Herod and Pilate the prince, just as the apostles understood about it. Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi.

There were also other prophets who did not write any books, just as there was Elijah and Elisha, but their wonders are written about in the book of kings in famous memory. There were ten maidens at different times among the heathen people, who some called “Sibylls,” that is “prophetess.” And they prophesied all about the Savior Christ and their books set out very clearly the true God about all of his deeds with full belief, because God desired the heathen people to have knowledge and belief in him, but their books are not in our canon in the Bible, just as the others are.

The writer Ezra wrote one book, how that people again came from the land of Chaldea to the land of Judea, and they raised up the city Jerusalem and the temple within, just as King Cyrus gave them leave after the seventy years that they lived in their land. And the book is set in this canon with deep meaning in secret signs.

One high servant of God in the land of Uz was named Job, a very faithful man wealthy in possessions. He was tested by the deceitful devil, just as his book tells us, which he himself wrote after he was tested. I translated into English a certain sermon about that before, and it is also certainly a prophecy about Christ and about his church, just as teachers say. And the book is included in this canon.

Another Jewish man was also tested, named Tobias, very benevolent and very believing in the living God. He was also taken to the land of Syria, but nevertheless he held his belief here with good works. And God tested him, so that he was blind and so lived for ten years, but God healed him again through his archangel, named Raphael, just as the narrative tells us in his own book which he himself wrote. And the book is added to this total, because there is also great meaning in it.

Queen Esther, who delivered her people, also has one book in this total, because the glory of God is told in it.

Judith the widow, who overcame Holofernes the Syrian chief, has her own book among these books, about her own victory. It is also set into English in our manner, as an example to you men so that you eagerly defend the land with weapons against the attacking army.

Two books are set among these books according to the custom of the church, which bear the love of God, named Maccabees, for their great victory, because they fought greatly with weapons against the heathen army who greatly fought them, who desired to destroy them and take them from the land that God gave them, and to destroy the glory of God. Behold, then Matthias, the great servant of God, with his five sons, fought against the great army more often than you would believe. And they had victory through the true God, whom they believed according to the law of Moses. They did not desire to fight with beautiful words only, so that they spoke well, and turned back in case the troublesome saying came to them that the prophet spoke about a certain people thus: “Et iratus est furore Dominus in populo suo et abhominatus hereditate suam” [Psalm 105:40] et cetera. “The Lord was angry with fury at his people and he abhorred his inheritance. And he took them to heathen hands and their enemies truly had power over them, and the enemies injuriously afflicted them, and they were humbled under their hands.” Maccabee the famous champion of God did not desire to have this judgment through his Lord’s anger, but it was more pleasing to him that he called out in earnest to his God with belief in another speech: “Da nobis Domine auxilium de tribulatione quia uana salus hominis” [Psalm 59:13; 107:13] et cetera. “Give us, dear Lord, your true help in our trouble and make us stronger, because the help of humans is weak and idle, but let us work greatly in the strong God, and he will turn our injurious enemies to nothing.” Then Maccabee fulfilled these aforesaid words with strong works and overcame his enemies, and therefore his victorious deeds are written in two books in the Bible, for the glory of God. And I translated theme into English and you may read them if you desire, to read them for yourself.

Here ends the Old Testament.

Here begins the New Testament.

I tell you now, Sigeweard, that I have set here these few examples from the old books in the Old Testament under the law of Moses, and now if you desire all the wisdom that is in those books,[1] you might believe that I do not deceive you in this work. Now I desire to tell you briefly again about the New Testament after the coming of Christ, so that you might not be deprived of the meaning, although you may not fully receive all of the writings of this work, so that you will have an example through this little book.

“Lex et prophete usque ad Iohannem sicut legitur in euangelio.” [Matthew 11:13] “The law of Moses, and truly the prophets, remained until John was born,”[2] who baptized Christ. He is the end of the old law and with him begins the preaching of the gospel, and he was born at the coming of Christ. Just as the daystar goes up at daybreak before the sun, so John shone in holy preaching before the Savior. And he was his herald in his preaching, and with his baptism he made known that the baptism of Christ was to come. Christ himself said about him that not a single one among the children of women had come who was a greater man than he, but Christ was not included in this comparison, he who was born from a pure virgin. Nor did John right any book specially, but his deeds are written in the gospels of the Lord, whom he baptized, and his forerunner in life and in death, and now his fame stands wherever Christendom might be and the books of Christ might come.

Four books of Christ are written about himself. Matthew wrote one of those, who was with the Savior, his own disciple traveling in this life, and he saw his wonders and wrote them in a book, so that they might come as a reminder, in the Hebrew language, after the passion of Christ in the land of the Jews, those who believed in God; and he is the first evangelist in the order. The evangelist Mark, who was with Peter in teaching, his own godson grown up in the teaching of God, wrote the second book about the preaching of Peter, about which he learned from his education in the city of Rome, just as he was asked to do by the faithful citizens from that city who believed in God through the preaching of Peter. The evangelist Luke wrote the third book, who from childhood followed the apostles and afterward traveled with Paul on his journey and learned from him the gospel teaching, living in purity, and wrote the book of Christ in the land of Achaia in the Greek language, as learned it from the teaching of Paul and the teaching of the apostles. In the land of Asia, just as the bishops asked, John the apostle began the fourth book about the divinity of Christ, in the Greek language, and about the deepness which the Lord uncovered to him, when he laid on his lovely breast, in which was hidden the heavenly gold-hoard. These are the four rivers from one wellspring that go widely out of paradise over the people of God. And these four evangelists were long ago signified as Ezekiel saw them: Matthew in the form of a man, Mark as a lion, Luke as a calf, John as an eagle, because the signs signified them. Matthew wrote about the humanity of Christ; and Mark as a lion called out to tame humankind, as in the wilderness; and Luke began with the priest Zechariah, who offered a calf to God as an offering; and John as an eagle eagerly looked at high mysteries with his sharp eyes and wrote his gospel about the divinity of Christ.

These four books make known how Christ came to humans through Mary the virgin, the Redeemer of the world, in the sixth age of this world, about which the prophets wrote in books, in the city of Bethlehem within Judea, in the days of Augustus the noble Caesar, and then many thousands of angels made his birth known with heavenly song. Then three kings came to Christ with gifts, from far eastern kingdoms. And Herod killed all the little children who were in the land, so that he might kill Christ, but he did not come to him, because he so sought him with deceit, and the evil king died in misery. These books clearly tell us about Christ, how he worked wonders and how he was baptized and how he chose apostles, who are messengers, twelve in the beginning, when he first preached. The names that are named in books: Peter and Andrew, James and John, Thomas and the other James, Philip and Bartholomew, Thaddeus [Jude], and Paul. But Paul was chosen after the Ascension of Christ, and Matthias also was chosen to replace Judas, who betrayed Christ and then was condemned. After these he chose seventy-two for his teaching, as his disciples. Then he sent all of them to every city where they were to go, so that people might know of his coming, but we did not find their names written in books.

Then he lived with people on this earth for thirty-three years, and also some more, and raised up Christendom and made known with wonders, just as his gospel says, that he is the Son of God, when he raised dead men through his strength and easily healed each illness. And he turned water into wine-like drink and went over the sea on dry feet and stilled the winds with the command of his words and drove devils out of the afflicted with madness and gave mind after madness. Then afterward he died of his own will, hanged on a cross for our redemption, and arose from the dead on the third day and ascended into heaven to his heavenly father, winning the victory, and he rules all things and will come again to judge all humankind on the great day, each one by deeds. I tell this briefly, because I have written about these four books in forty sermons in the English language, and some others also. Then you may read about this narrative in more understanding than I tell here.

Then the apostles also wrote teachings for the people who live in belief, so that through their exhortations the mind is strengthened in belief in Christ and in Christendom, which newly sprang up in the great New Testament. The apostle Peter wrote two epistles, but they are more than one may read at mass and have great statements for the strengthening of belief. James the righteous wrote one epistle great in teaching, for the understanding of people, for everyone who holds to Christianity in their life. The evangelist John, worthy to God, wrote three epistles; those are three books filled with love, for the teaching of people. The apostle Jude wrote one epistle, not the lost Judas who betrayed the Savior but the holy Jude who always followed him, and here now are seven books in this canon. The apostle Paul wrote many epistles, because Christ set him as a teacher to all people, and in true earnestness he wrote about the customs that the faithful people hold in their lives, those who order themselves and their lives for God. The one apostle wrote fifteen epistles to the people who turned to belief. These are great books in the Bible and they profit us toward our righteousness, if we follow the teachings of the teacher to the people. He wrote one to the Romans, two to the Corinthians, also one to the Galatians, one to the Ephesians, one to the Philippians, two to the Thessalonians, one to the Colossians, also one to the Hebrews, and to his own disciples, two to Timothy and one to Titus, one to Philemon, one to the Laodiceans. Fifteen in all, as loud as thunder to the faithful people.

About them I will say some few words. First about the Savior, how he taught us in his holy gospel, to love him: “Si diligitis me mandatu mea seruate” [John 14:15] et cetera. “If you love me, hold my commands. The one who loves me holds my speech and my father loves him and we will come to him and certainly will live with him afterward. He who does not love me does not hold my speech.” Here we may hear that the Savior loves the deed more than smooth words. Words wither, works stand. About this James the righteous apostle said: “Estote factores uerbi et non auditores tantum, fallentes uosmet ipsos.” [James 1:22] “Certainly be workers of the word with deeds and do not deceive yourselves, so that you listen to the words alone without the works.” John also taught us in these words: “Filioli mei non dilagamus uerbo neque lingua sed opere et ueritate.” [1 John 3:18] “My beloved children, let us not love, I ask, with word and with tongue, but with work and truthfulness.” The apostle Paul about the same said: “Qui dicunt se nosse Deum, factis autem negant.” [Titus 1:16] “They say that they know the true God, but with their works they deny him.” The one who promises repentance from evil and gives his pledge and again turns from that, how then may he have the help of the Savior, who sees and knows his heart, that he desires to turn his word against him again? But one might speak in earnest with his Lord, who desires that we speak with him with works, because the one who speaks well and does not fulfill his word, he does nothing except condemn himself.

The evangelist Luke, who was a doctor in life, wrote two books to heal our souls. One is the book of Christ, the other is named thus: Actus Apostolorum, that is in English language “the deeds of the apostles,” which they did together, and how afterward they journeyed to far lands, just as the Savior commanded in his holy gospel, that they should teach people and to turn them to belief with their preaching. Peter preached in the city of Antioch and there they were first called “Christian” men through him. And afterward he journeyed quickly to Rome and there preached belief to the citizens for twenty-five winters with wonders and signs, until Nero the Caesar killed him on a cross. Paul journeyed widely throughout this world, preaching to many people, until at last he came into the city of Rome and also preached there. And Nero commanded that he be beheaded on the same day on which he hanged Peter. Andrew preached in the land of Achaia and in Scythia, and afterward he was hanged on a cross for the name of the Savior. James the younger, who was the brother of John, preached to the Jews who were divided into twelve tribes, working signs, until King Herod beheaded him. His brother John preached in Asia in the eastern part of the world, and he was not killed but after many wonders he went to Christ, when he was ninety-nine winters old. Philip preached to the heathen people beside the Silver Sea, and afterward he went to Hierapolis and then died. Thomas preached in Parthia and Media and Hyrcania, until he came to India and there was killed for true belief. Bartholomew preached in India, in the far India, and was killed there. Matthew preached in the land of Ethiopia, who are the Sigelhearwa, and the king killed him, not the believing one but the unfaithful. James the righteous lived in the land within Jerusalem, preaching belief, until the Jews killed him. Simon and Judas were martyred together in the land of Persia for belief in Christ, which they preached, and they ordained bishops in their twelve dioceses, until a man killed them. Matthias, who was chosen in the place of Judas, so that the total of the apostles was filled, preached in the land of Judea. I have written about the endings of all of these apostles, except for Matthias, about which I cannot learn. You may read and lift yourself up in them, if you were to care for your own souls.

John lived in this life the longest. And in his exile he wrote the book named Apocalypse, that is “the uncovering,” which Christ made known to him in a spiritual vision about the Savior himself and his church and about the Judgment Day and the devil Antichrist, and about the resurrection to eternal life. And this book is the last in the Bible. I may say some more things about John, so that you will believe that he spoke with works to a certain boy, just as the narrative makes known to us, whom he loved and also served. Jerome the worthy and the wise writer, who brought our Bible into Latin from Greek and Hebrew books, he wrote about John the holy evangelist, the son of Christ’s aunt, in the ecclesiastical book Ecclesiastica Historia, saying about him thus: “Audi fabulum, non fabulum sed rem gestam de Iohanne apostolo” et cetera. “Hear this narrative, not as a false tale, but a thing done by John the apostle, and greatly remembered by all the faithful, done by him in old days.” The devilish Caesar was named Domitian, after Nero, who set cruel persecutions for the Christians and killed them with torments. He commanded the holy apostle to be taken, and he commanded him to be bathed in boiling oil, because the hot oil goes into the bone. And the oil for the bath was easily prepared for him. They brought John into that vat, into the boiling oil, but he was shielded through the strength of God and he went out of the bath with a safe body, just as he was innocent from fleshly lust and full lasciviousness. After this the hostile Caesar commanded, because John would not cease his preaching, that he be brought to an island, far in exile, which was named Patmos. And there he lived until the counselors of this Caesar killed their lord, just as it was done to him because of his cruelty and his mindlessness. And then the counselors deemed that all [of Domition’s deeds], what he desired before to do with his evil counsel, were worthless and overturned them all. Then the faithful apostle was called back from that island, home to the city of Ephesus, where he had lived, working God’s wonders and always teaching that people to believe.

Then after some time, the apostle went, just as he was called by the faithful, to nearby cities, to preach belief. And he raised up churches in every diocese, where there were none before, and he also set ordained priests with them, about whom the Holy Spirit always made known to him, just as the narrative tells us. Then he came to one city, just as he was asked, near to Ephesus, and he ordained a bishop there and taught ecclesiastical customs himself to the ordained priests whom he called there, and with great glory he taught the people there to believe in God with glad hearts.

Then John saw a certain boy in the people, younger in age and of special form, strong in size and handsome in the face, very glad in mind and sharp in action, and he began to love the young boy in his gentle custom, so that he converted him to Christ. Then John looked up at the bishop, who was newly ordained, and spoke to him thus: “Dear bishop, know that I desire that you have this young man with you in your teaching at home, and I entrust him to you with great diligence in the witness of Christ and this church.” So then the bishop happily undertook the aforesaid boy and said that he desired to take care of him with eagerness, as he asked him, with him in his living. Then John again repeated his words and often asked the bishop with commands that he should make known holy belief to the young boy. And he went home again to the city of Ephesus, to his bishopric.

Then the bishop, just as he was asked, undertook the young boy and daily taught him the teachings of Christ and held him dearly until he baptized him with the full truth so that he was faithful. And so he lived with him in honor, until the bishop let him go by his will, expecting that he should remain in the gift of God in spiritual customs. Then he [the bishop] quickly saw that he [the boy] was keeper of himself, in immature freedom and unsteady customs, and then he began to love sins too greatly and many vices with his young companions, who unadvisedly followed their idle lusts into defilement and perverse behaviors. He and his companions then began to love great drunkenness in nightly error, and they brought him so that he began to steal in their custom, and he often took himself to their sinful customs and to more crimes with the wicked flock. Then he severely took their teachings in his skill of terrible deeds. And just as a spirited horse who is unbridled and does not obey the one who sits upon him, so the boy went in his wicked deeds and in crimes, greatly strengthened in despair of his own salvation, so that he doubted the mercy of his Lord and he did not heed his baptism which he had undertaken. Then it seemed to him too insignificant that he should do the lesser sins but he always learned more and more in his wickedness and he let no one be his equal in evil. He did not allow that he might be subjected by his evil companions who had led him astray before, but he desired to be the greatest in that evil flock and worked his companions to all be robbers, in all wickedness in the wide hills.

Then after some time again, the apostle went to the aforesaid city, in which the bishop lived who had the boy in his came before, just as John commanded. And he entrusted him and he was very happy at the bishopric. After he had done the service of the Lord and fulfilled the thing for which he was called, then he said earnestly: “So, dear bishop, now bring me that one that I entrusted to you before in the trust of the Lord and in the witness that you shall make known in this church.” Then he was pale and believed that he asked some other treasure or some property, which he had undertaken from the apostle. But he thought again that the blessed John would not be in error, nor ask about what he had not entrusted before, and he hesitated timidly. Then John saw that he was pale and again spoke to him thus: “I ask you now about that young boy and that brother soul, who is dear to me, whom I entrusted to you.” Then the old man began to sigh grievously and was certainly overcome with tears, and said to John, “Dear one, he is now dead.” Then John suddenly asked and said: “Alas, how is he dead, or which death?” He spoke to him again to answer thus: “He is dead to God, because he broke away viciously and unbelieving. And now he has become a bandit and leader of the criminals who he has gathered to himself, and he lives in a hill with many criminals, over whom he is now leader and general.”

So then John shook his head with immense sadness and said to the bishop: “I gave to you the good shepherding of the soul of this brother to hold, but now a horse to ride should be prepared for me and you will lead the way that goes to the criminals.” And soon men found for him what he was asking, and he very quickly hastened from the church, until he saw the passage of the criminals and certainly came to the guards. Then the guards took his reins firmly, so that he might not break away in flight in any way. But he did not desire to flee, nor to take flight, but he called out over all: “I come to you myself. Now lead me forward, without harm, to your leader.” Then they quickly called out to the boy, who was their general, and then he came armed. And he was quickly overcome with shame, when he knew the apostle of Christ, and he began to flee from his presence. Then John roused the horse with his spurs and was after him and did not regard his age, called out loudly and said to the fleeing boy: “Oh, my son. Why do you flee from your father? Why do you flee from this old and unarmed man? Do not fear, oh wretched one; you still have hope of life. I desire to give an account for your soul to Christ, and I willingly desire to give my life for your soul, just as the Savior gave himself for us, and I would give my soul for yours. Now stand here and hear these words and believe that the Savior sent me to you.”

Then when he heard these words the bandit stood and fell to the ground with all his body and cast away his weapons and wept very bitterly, and he fell trembling at John’s feet with sadness and howling, overcome with tears, asking that he might have mercy on him, and hid his right hand, greatly ashamed for the criminal deeds that he had done and for the murders that he committed with that hand. Then the apostle swore that he truly desired to obtain mercy for him from the merciful Savior. And he also bent down to him and seized his right hand, for which he was fearful for his criminal deeds, and led him away weeping to the church, and he prayed often for him with brotherly love, just as he promised to him, to the Savior, and also with fasting for many days, until obtained for him mercy from the merciful Christ. He also comforted him with his beautiful teaching, and his frightened mind very splendidly with his soft comfort, so that he would not become hopeless. And he ceased for nothing until his soul within was gladdened through the Holy Spirit, and he had mercy for all of his misdeeds. He also ordained him to the service of the Savior, but the narrative does not tell us where he set him, except that he gave a true example to all the repenting who convert to the Lord, so that if they might be wise they may arise from the death of their souls and from the bonds of their sins and gladden their Maker with true penance and have that eternal life with the beloved Savior, who rules for eternity. Amen.

Now we have told about the ecclesiastical books in the old law and also in the new. Then there are the two testaments about the incarnation of Christ and about the Holy Trinity in true oneness, as Isaiah saw in his spiritual vision how God himself sat. And two seraphim sung around him, who are two of the host of angels: “Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus, Dominus Deus sabaoth.” [Isaiah 6:3] That is in English: “Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God of hosts. All the expanse of the earth is filled with his glory.” The two seraphim truly signify the Old Testament and also the New, which with words and with works always praise the Almighty God, who alone rules in one Divinity without beginning and end. The teachers who do not desire to take their learning from these holy books, nor their examples, are like the teachers about whom Christ himself said: “Cecus si ceco ducatum prestet, ambo in foueam cadent.” [Matthew 15:14] “If the blind man is leader of the blind, then they will both fall into some blind pit.” The teachers who desire to take their teachings from these holy books, and their examples, from both the Old Testament and the New, are like the teachers about whom Christ himself also said: “Omnis scriba doctus in regno celorum similis est homini patri familias qui profert de thesauro suo noua et uetera.” [Matthew 13:52] “Every learned scribe in the kingdom of God is like the lord who continually brings out of his own gold-hoard old things and new.” Seventy-two books are in the Bible, because some of them are set in two for their length in the faithful church: he may see that, who knows the canon. And so many people were divided at the marvelous city, which the giants desired to make with boasting, after Noah’s flood, before they were separated. And so many were the disciples that our Savior sent to humankind to preach the book learning with Christendom, which came into this world through the Savior himself and through his preachers. So other books are written by the holy teachers that people have everywhere throughout Christendom, to the praise of Christ.

And the sixth age of this world stands from Christ straight until Judgment Day, unknown to all humans, but it is known to the Savior. The seventh age is flowed with these six from the righteous Abel until the end of this world, not in living people but in dead souls in the other life, where they rejoice, praying still for eternal life when they will arise, just as we all shall rise from the dead safely to our Lord together. The eighth age is the one eternal day after our resurrection, when we will rise with God in soul and in body in eternal joy. And there will be no end to that one day, when the saints will shine just as the sun does now. How may the man go well who turned his mind from all these books and is so willful that it is pleasing to him that he always lives by his own conduct, cut off from these, so he may not know the writings of Christ? Moses the great prophet taught us in his writings, thus saying to all: “Interroga patrem tuum et adnuntiabit tibi maiores tuos et dicent tibi” [Deuteronomy 32:7] et cetera. That is in English: “Ask your Father about the true God and he will make him known to you. Ask your elders and they will tell you.” If you do not desire to know and be wise, you shall learn there, where there will be pains in terrible torments, so that you know whom you rejected and whose writings.

The wise should consider with wise thoughts, when too much evil is upon humankind, which of the leg of the royal throne might be broken, and quickly repair it. The royal throne stands on these three legs: Laboratores, bellatores, oratores. Laborers are those who toil for food, farmers and peasants who undertake that one thing. Prayers are those who intercede for us to God and further Christendom among Christian people in the kingdom of God, with spiritual battle, committed to the one thing, for the need of us all. Warriors are those who hold our cities and also our land against the surging armies, fighting with weapons, just as Paul, the teacher of the people, said in his teaching: “Non sine causa portat miles gladium” [Romans 13:4] et cetera. “The warrior does not bear his sword without cause. He is the servant of God, a need for himself, to set misery to evil workers.” The royal throne stands on these three legs, and if one is fractured, it will quickly fall down, to the certain harm of the other legs. But what does this offer us about which to consider? Those who should take care should consider this. The righteous God loves right judgments, but rewards too often turn right judgments to wrong against the will of the Lord, and the evil comes over all people, where vice rules securely. He who is the servant of God should judge rightly without any rewards with truthfulness. Then he glorifies God with good customs and his reward will be great from God, who lives and rules world without end. Amen.

I would tell about the unfortunate people, about the Jews, who hanged our Lord, but first I would say that which I have said before. Many of the people there believed in Christ, but the most part of that people id not believe in him and therefore perished. Much misery came upon them after the passion of Christ in all misfortunes, and many of that people were killed with sudden attacks. And they killed the apostles of Christ, the younger James and the righteous James, and they stoned Stephen with hard stones and their evil increased, to their harm, and they would not lament the killing of the Savior, nor with any repentance ask for his mercy. Then he [God] sent strange signs to them and afterward an invasion by the Romans. Vespasian was Caesar at the time. He sent to them his son Titus with a great army of the Roman people and beset their city, until they died from hunger. And human bodies were cast out over the wall because of the hateful stench, and in no way might they defend the many because of their weakness. They chewed their belts and eagerly ate grass, and each one took what little others had, and meat from their mouths, very immoderately, and robbers ran through all the city and sharply sought with great threat for hidden food in their treasure chambers, and beat every man who had anything if he would speak against their madness. It is not for us to tell of the shameful murder that was done there, but many hundreds of the poor people were killed by the great famine—more than we will tell—and afterward the robbers killed each other and the city was seized and torn down entirely, as the Savior said before his passion. Of the young boys who came through the famine in all the land, they led away to make fine linens, just as they were strung along. And from the boys the race is still everywhere, and this was the retribution for their evil deeds, and also the torments of hell, which is heavier on them. Now you might well know that works speak more than the naked word, which has no efficacy. Even so there is good work in good words, when a man teachers another and strengthens him to belief with true learning, and a man speaks wisdom for the need and direction of many, so that God who rules forever is praised. Amen.

You desired to invite me, when I was with you, that I drink for pleasure much more than my custom. But know, dear man, that the one who compels another over his strength to drink, that he might bear both of their guilt, if any harm comes upon him from that drink. Our Savior Christ in his holy gospel forbade over-drinking to all those who believed; let he who desires hold his instruction. And after the Savior, the holy teachers set the vices through their teachings and taught that a man should not drink so to harm, because over-drinking undoubtedly destroys a man’s soul and his health. And illness comes from drinking.

Whoever might copy this book, let them copy by the exemplar and, for the love of God, let them correct it so that it might not be in error, a danger to the writer and slander to me.

[1] Here the manuscript is damaged, and I have provided a conjectural translation, partly based on reconstructions in the previous edition by William L’Isle, A Saxon Treatise concerning the Old and New Testament (London, 1623)—though Marsden only notes these emendations and does not include them in his text.

[2] Marsden does not indicate this as a translation, but it is clearly Ælfric’s rendering of the verse, with some adaptations.

I recently had the pleasure of reading Kathleen E. Kennedy’s Medieval Hackers (Brooklyn, NY, 2014)–available in both paperback and an open access ebook through punctum books–and want to offer a brief review here. In short: I recommend this book, which should appeal to a wide audience of medievalists, early modernists, media studies specialists, as well as those interested in the long history of intellectual property and hacker culture.

Kennedy’s core claims focus on translation, on the uses of texts in an age before modern ideas of copyright and textual ownership had developed; she argues, “in a manuscript culture, texts were part of an information commons. The concept of ‘the hacker’ did not exist because everyone was one” (20). With this argument, Kennedy demonstrates the differences between medieval manuscript culture and what happened with modern print culture–highlighting disparate assumptions about information production, circulation, and ownership, as well as cultural changes that occurred alongside print culture: in the sixteenth century, “the revolution was not one of print, but of information technology broadly construed” (140). Before the onset of ideas about information property in the sixteenth century, hacker culture–with notions of “the information commons” revolving around ideals of “commonness, openness, and freedom” (17ff)–were normative, far from our modern concepts of intellectual property rights.

Kennedy does not, however, merely retell familiar stories overlaid with twenty-first-century jargon. Hers is an account of the shifting uses and abuses of media in the late medieval and early modern periods, tracing information culture from open access to controlled regulation. For this, she draws on the emerging field of media archaeology (see 4-9), intent on exploring the long history of media before the so-called “new media” of digital culture. The result is that Kennedy tells a literary history of late medieval and early modern translation practices informing the long evolution of information production, ownership, circulation, use (reuse, adaptation, etc.), control, and hacking.

The organization of the book moves both chronologically and thematically, in order to demonstrate the shifts in media, from manuscript practices in the late medieval period to the proliferation of print in the early modern period. After a chapter introducing the subjects, arguments, methodologies, and issues of hacker culture, Kennedy provides four chapters each focused on a different aspect of translation and hacking: adaptive accretions of layers in bread laws, Wycliffite biblical translations, early modern English bibles (especially Tyndale), and early modern printed laws. In all of this, Kennedy traces the shifting uses of and assumptions about media and information from the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries. Much of this revolves around developments of notions surrounding intellectual property, government control over media, and the need for hacking as subversion rather of these currents than cultural norm.

Overall, Medieval Hackers clearly demonstrates the relevance for reading medieval and modern media together, contributing to many conversations. Furthermore, Kennedy’s implied argument calls for rethinking modern copyright laws. As she demonstrates, our contemporary concepts of intellectual property are recent developments in the long history of media. To be sure, recent conversations about open access and the significance of Creative Commons offer new directions for this subject. Indeed, Kennedy’s choice to publish with punctum books, offering an open access ebook under a CC license, engages directly with these issues, as do the implications of her project. Hackers, therefore, are not to be denigrated without considering their history; their practices should be reconsidered in light of past ideals; and, in reconsidering these issues, perhaps we will find good reasons to question our own assumptions about media, information, and cultural property rights. With these threads running through Medieval Hackers, Kennedy provides a model for thinking about and bringing together past and present in a delightful example of academic hacktivism.

CFP: Society for the Study of Anglo-Saxon Homiletics at the 51st International Congress on Medieval Studies
Western Michigan University (Kalamazoo, MI)
May 12-15, 2016

Preaching Texts in Early England: Homiletics and Beyond

For over ten years at the ICMS, the Society for the Study of Anglo-Saxon Homiletics has thrived in its aims to promote scholarship related to the sources, compositions, appropriations, and early studies of Anglo-Saxon homilies. Over the years, the Society has fostered a wide range of interests and methodologies both old and new: for example, source studies, Anglo-Saxon theologies, rhetoric and style, linguistics and philology, the interplay of Christian and pagan practices, paleography and codicology, afterlives of Anglo-Saxon homilies, translation theory, gender studies, and digital initiatives.

For this year’s session, we invite papers on the theme of “Preaching Texts in Early England,” broadly construed. This theme includes papers about not only homilies and sermons in a specific sense but also preaching and related subjects beyond traditional generic boundaries. Furthermore, the title affords the play of double meaning, indicating texts related to preaching as well as ways of thinking about preaching conceptually—and the interplay between these ideas. We hope that participants interpret this theme broadly, to ask nuanced questions about myriad meanings of “preaching” and “preaching texts”: What are preaching texts? How do we look beyond generic boundaries to consider other related texts and contexts? Who preached, how and why? What were the roles of preaching, texts, and contexts? How do we situate all of these ideas in our studies of Anglo-Saxon culture? We look for papers that might address these and other questions on this subject from voices of all stages of experience—ranging from early career to established scholars.

Please send abstracts of no more than 500 words with a completed Participant Information Form (available here) to Brandon Hawk by September 15, 2015.

Abstracts not accepted for this session will be forwarded to the Congress Committee for consideration in general sessions. For more information, please visit the conference website here.

Babel in Old English Heptateuch (London, BL, Claudius B.iv, fol. 19r), courtesy of the British Library.

In the June 8 issue of The New Yorker, a story appeared by Robyn Creswell (Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature, Yale) and Bernard Haykel (Professor of Near Eastern Studies, Princeton) about reading the poetry of Muslim extremists (known as ISIS) in order to understand them. The tagline of the article suggests, “Want to understand the jihadis? Read their poetry.” This claim, of course, seems intuitive: it is what many of us do when we study the past. Want to understand Judaism? Start with the Hebrew Bible. Christianity? The New Testament. Islam? The Qur’an. These are only the beginnings, however, as people who identify as followers of these religions have produced massive amounts of literature over the centuries, and continue to do so. Literature is good evidence for culture.

Only a few days later, another discussion about literature appeared in the June issue of New Statesmen (guest-edited by author Neil Gaiman and artist-musician-author Amanda Palmer), a conversation between authors Neil Gaiman and Kazuo Ishiguro. In this conversation, Gaiman and Ishiguro discuss genre, canon, the ways stories are told, and a range of subjects related to reading and thinking about literature. They demonstrate how literature is entwined with culture.

So far none of what I’ve said here is new. Scholars of literature and cultural studies have long read texts in these ways–indeed, there is a long line of historicist readings of literature, and a clear marriage between literary and cultural studies. But I’ve been thinking a lot lately about these issues, about literature representing culture, as I construct my syllabi for the fall semester. I’ll be teaching three classes:

• Studies in Literature and the Canon (a general education course), which I’m planning to teach around the theme of the Bible and literary adaptations;
• Literary Studies: Analysis (an introduction to the English major that also satisfies general education requirements), which I’m planning to teach around the theme of “mimesis,” or how stories are told, from antiquity to contemporary literature;
• Literature of Medieval Britain (an upper-level course), which will be a grand survey from Bede to Mallory.

Culture necessarily infuses each of these courses. In the Canon and Analysis courses, I plan in the first week to read and discuss the conversation between Gaiman and Ishiguro as a way to start thinking about literature, culture, and a whole host of ideas related to reading, writing, and analyzing.

I’ve also been thinking about how we reflect our own culture onto our readings. Bias. Perspective. Identity. Theory. We all have our own agendas when reading and analyzing. We read, interpret, write, and analyze through different lenses. We use glasses of various tints. And, in many ways, using these glasses is often necessary, sometimes justified, and even honest to who we are. Part of academic work means reflecting on, acknowledging, and challenging our own personal assumptions and biases. Sometimes we (and our students) view bias as negative, although it’s not; it’s part of being. I’m skeptical that we ever can (or should) wholly discard our own biases and, in many ways, our identities, as we learn to analyze somewhat more objectively. I aim to address these issues as a key part of all of my teaching.

A few weeks ago, after the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold marriage equality as a constitutional right across the United States, I received a message from my father-in-law, who wanted to do some research and reading on the history of marriage. He wanted to know about medieval ideas of marriage, particularly in the Anglo-Saxon period, pre- and post-Christianization. I provided him with some thoughts of my own, as well as some references to a few helpful resources. But I’m under no illusion that I offered these from a wholly objective position. I have clear views on this issue, and my own opinions about interpreting medieval texts, and those are certainly informed by my biases, perspectives, identities, and theories.

Reflecting on these issues, I’ve come face to face with what I personally bring to my reading and interpreting. How is culture written on myself? How am I entwined with culture? What are the micro-cultures that have shaped me, that I have encountered, accepted, and rejected? I realize that I’ve been asking these hard questions for several years, through my time in graduate school, and I’m sure that I’ll continue to ask them for many more years. That seems to be the responsible thing to do. These seem, to me, to be necessary questions.

My article “Psalm 151 in Anglo-Saxon England” has been accepted for publication in the Review of English Studies. This essay presents the first sustained examination of the apocryphal psalm in early England, focusing on manuscript witnesses and the two extant Old English gloss translations. Below are the abstract and introduction to the article.

The Psalms were a central aspect of Anglo-Saxon religious and biblical learning, and for this reason they have garnered much attention in recent scholarship. Yet the apocryphal, supernumerary Psalm 151 in particular would benefit from greater sustained attention. By focusing on this individual psalm, the present article situates the apocryphon within its intellectual, material, and literary contexts. In the first part of this essay, the surviving patristic and medieval evidence for learned attitudes toward the psalm in relation to the rest of the canonical Psalter are discussed, as well as the manuscript witnesses in Anglo-Saxon England. In the second part of this essay, focus is turned toward the two surviving Old English gloss translations of Psalm 151 in the Vespasian and Eadwine psalters. More specifically, it is suggested that the Vespasian gloss translation of Psalm 151 is yet another unidentified Old English poem.

In the last chapter of his Enarrationes in Psalmos, commenting on Psalm 150, Augustine discusses the number, organization, and unity of the Psalter. He writes: ‘Hunc quinquagenarium triplum habet centesimus et quinquagesimus numerus, tamquam eum multiplicauerit trinitas. Vnde et hac causa non inconuenienter intellegimus istum numerum esse psalmorum’ (‘The number 150 contains this fifty three times, as if it were multiplied by the Trinity. Therefore, and for this reason, we know that this number of the Psalms is not inappropriate’). Indeed, this understanding of the number, threefold organization, and unity of the book of Psalms continued through the medieval period. But beyond this distinct structure, there was another psalm that circulated in the late antique and medieval periods: the apocryphal Psalm 151, attributed to David and relating his youthful rise to fame as the victor against Goliath.

The apocryphal and supernumerary character of Psalm 151 did not hinder its widespread transmission, which in many ways mirrors that of the canonical Psalms. This text was presumably composed in Hebrew (though it is not included in the Masoretic Text of the Hebrew Bible) before the second century BCE, was translated into a shorter Greek version and incorporated into the Septuagint (LXX), and was later translated into Syriac and Arabic from the Greek. The Septuagint provides the heading: ‘Οὗτος ὁ ψαλμὸς ἰδιόγραφος εἰς Δαυιδ καὶ ἔξωθεν τοῦἀριθμοῦ ὅτε ἐμονομάχησεν τῷ Γολιαδ’ (‘This psalm is written by David, and outside the number, when he fought Goliath in single combat’). In its transmission to the West, the psalm was translated from Greek in Old Latin versions of the Bible, was taken over into the Roman Psalter, and was subsequently incorporated into manuscripts of the Vulgate. Following the Septuagint, the standard heading in the Latin Vulgate (from Old Latin) reads: ‘Hic psalmus proprie scriptus David et extra numerum cum pugnavit cum Goliad’ (‘This psalm is written by David himself, and outside the number, when he fought with Goliath’). To this cluster of textual versions of Psalm 151 may be added the various medieval translations into vernacular languages, including Old English.

While numerous studies have focused on the Psalter generally, and some on individual psalms, little scholarship (and no single study) has focused on Psalm 151, which stands out as a singular case in the larger scope of Anglo-Saxon receptions of biblical materials. What is revealed through this examination is that Anglo-Saxon interactions with the apocryphal psalm are found across a range of significant learned enterprises, including material culture, commentary traditions, and vernacular translations. Presented first are the broad outlines of the reception and circulation of the psalm, highlighting its presence in the intellectual landscape. The first section examines attitudes toward Psalm 151 in commentaries, while the second section presents the material evidence of manuscripts. The third section focuses on the two Old English translations in the Vespasian and Eadwine psalters, which depict innovative intellectual and literary engagements with the psalm. More specifically, evidence suggests that the glossator of Psalm 151 in the Vespasian Psalter sought to create an Old English poem in translating into the vernacular.

Recently, because of my new commute, I found and have been listening to the backlog of episodes of the WNYC podcast Note to Self (formerly New Tech City). According to the show’s website, “Host Manoush Zomorodi talks with everyone from big name techies to elementary school teachers about the effects of technology on our lives, in a quest for the smart choices that will help you think and live better”–and the show’s frequent catchphrase tell us that it’s about “finding balance in the digital age.” I’ve been enjoying the podcast so much that I’ve also begun thinking about how to incorporate it into my classes; for example, I assigned this episode about reading in the digital age to students in two of my courses.*

Last week, on my morning drive, I listened to one of the most recent episodes, aired August 19, 2015, titled “LEGO Kits and Your Creative Soul.” I couldn’t stop thinking about how this could be incorporated into my literature courses. So I took a risk and tried something new, perhaps a little wacky, on the second day of class in two of my courses. At the very start of class, I produced a box of around 300 Lego pieces and told students that they had ten to fifteen minutes to free-build with them while thinking about the nature of creativity and the creative process. The goal was to use it as an object lesson, to let them build and think (or let their minds wander while being creative), then to talk about creativity, art, and criticism before discussing the daily reading, this conversation between Neil Gaiman and Kazuo Ishiguro.

They were all unsure. There was some nervous laughter. One student gave me such a look of confusion and hesitation that I was sure she saw me sprout a second head. When I slowly poured out the Lego pieces onto the desk at the front of the room, it took around twenty seconds before any students moved. Then, slowly, they walked to the front: one or two at first, then more following. They all took a handful and returned to their desks, and the creativity began.

As they got more comfortable, students talked about what they worked on. In one class, I heard a couple discussing creativity, and the keyword “imagination” emerged. Some joked with each other about the activity, their creations. After a few minutes, they started looking at what pieces their neighbors had, swapping with each other, talking about “stealing” and “sharing,” some students joining their pieces together into a single creation.

Eventually, when they had exhausted their own supply, students returned to the remaining pieces still on the desk at the front of the room. Some grabbed pieces indiscriminately, while others were more strategic and circumspect, looking for particular pieces that would work for their creations, a few repeatedly returning.

The conversations afterward unfolded into brainstorming ideas, questions, examples of art and other creations, my own brief survey of how many have creative hobbies and what they are, and challenges to how we think about creativity, imagination, and art. I asked my leading questions and gained a hoard of insightful answers.

What did you build? How would you describe your project? I wanted them to take some first steps toward both describing and interpreting their creations, even if they were abstract. Some had definite answers, while a few admitted that they didn’t know. Among the identified creations, they had built a performance stage, several rocket ships (one had built-in wi-fi), a chameleon, a dog-thing, a room with a window, a functional parking garage gate, a wizard (but without any minifigure pieces), a boat, the world’s tallest tower (“in a micro-world”), a knight, his horse, and a ship for them to go on (the last three by a thee-student team).

What was your process? Some said that they just started putting pieces together until something emerged. Others talked about working with whatever they had in front of them until they had some a creation. Some talked about how certain pieces just seemed to fit together somehow, so they started with those and went from their. A few based their creations on a single centerpiece (like a window). One student said that he spent all his time just trying to create the most stable, dense creation, one that wouldn’t (or couldn’t) fall apart.

What does this reveal about the creative process? About art in general? Ultimately, this led to a discussion about (seeming) complexity and simplicity as related (or not) to effort or lack of it; the nature of an artistic product in relation to the process; aesthetic and functional creations, or how something can be both; surface-level analysis and paying deeper critical attention. We ranged across examples from visual arts to literature, from metalwork to poetry, from pottery to music. Some admitted the need to start building, assess, take apart, restart, reassess, and repeat until something that made sense came out of it; this part of the conversation led to thinking about how writing often means doing the same. Others acknowledged the process as adaptive, noting that they still hadn’t finished, even as some continued to fiddle, add, and change details as we talked. One astute student, thinking ahead in the class, asked if I had them do this to make a point about the accumulation of a piece of literature like the Bible, which developed over time with lots of accretions.

For my last question about this exercise, I asked: If you were to step back and analyze what you’ve created, how would you start? In both classes, they started by telling me that they would focus on individual pieces: color, shape, size, telling how they fit together. One student said that she would do this “starting from the bottom and going to the top,” in a structural, organized way. Following this, another pointed out the need to go back and forth between analyzing individual pieces and relating them to the whole creation. In one class, one student brought up the significance of perspective to understand the creation, especially the difference between talking about it as the creator or a critic.

Finally, I with the groundwork laid, we were able to shift to a more specific discussion about literature. We didn’t leave behind the Lego activity, but it helped to propel us forward. We had some baselines (generalizations, assumptions, and challenges) for thinking about how to approach creativity, imagination, and art as academic critics. By the end of the class, a few students even acknowledged the usefulness of the Lego activity. And we found that these worked as a bridge to discussing keywords for literary analysis with the ideas posed by Gaiman and Ishiguro.

* One student told me that she liked the episode so much that she subscribed and has been listening to older episodes.

This weekend, the End is finally upon us. At least, that’s what some outspoken would-be prophets are saying about one upcoming astronomical event on September 27, 2015: the first occurrence in over thirty years of a total lunar eclipse of a supermoon. (The last eclipse like this occurred in 1982, the next is set to occur in 2033.)

One outcry has come from John Haggee, who has pointed to a specific passage in Joel 2:31–especially as it reads in the King James Bible–to claim that, at the End, “The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the Lord comes.”

Illustration from an astronomical treatise by Persian polymath Al-Biruni (973-1048), explaining the phases of the moon.

But these types of predictions based on astronomical signs and portents are nothing new, and certainly much older than modern Christianity. In fact, we would need to look to sources from the ancient Near East to understand many of the roots of modern apocalyptic eschatology (apocalyptic being related to cataclysmic world events, and a certain ideological outlook; and eschatology being related to things related to the End, personally or cosmically). Many sources of this nature exist from early Judaism, early Christianity, and the medieval period–from which we can glean examples for this post.[1] For instance, in some of his scientific writings on time, the eight-century Anglo-Saxon monk Bede argued against others around him whom he saw as “heretics” for their continual insistence on counting dates and trying to discover the specific time of the Final Judgment. He was just one writer who rolled his eyes (and worse) when contemporaries tried to predict the specific date of the apocalypse to come.

While various scholarly arguments rage about whether or not medieval people looked to the year 1000 (or other dates) as the End, one thing is clear: Christianity was (arguably, it always has been) an apocalyptic religion with a stark eschatological outlook at its heart. Some Anglo-Saxons looked to astronomical events as part of their national history. And at least some authors saw the turn of the new millennium as a significant event.

Illustrations of omens from the biblical history known as the Nuremburg Chronicle (1493).

Some Anglo-Saxons expressed apocalyptic eschatological urgency related to recent and contemporary events such as celestial signs and Viking raids. Tenth-century entries in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle are especially telling.[2] Within the Chronicle, certain entries have extended accounts of major military, political, and social events, while other years have only brief references. Some of the most significant entries with astronomical events are a series of references to comets in 892, 905, 975, and 995. One representative is found in the entry for 975:

& sona on þam ilcan geare on hærfest æteowde cometa se steorra, & com þa on ðam æftran geare swyðe mycel hungor & swyðe mænigfealde styrunga geond Angolcynn.
(And then immediately in harvest-time in that same year, the star cometa appeared. And then in the following year came a very great famine and very manifold disturbances throughout the English race.)

Two other tenth-century entries contain further celestial signs:

926: Her oðeowdon fyrena leoman on norðdæle þære lyfte.
(Here fiery rays appeared in the northern part of the sky.)

979: Þy ilcan geare wæs gesewen blodig wolcen oftsiðas on fyres gelicnesse; & þæt wæs swyðost on middeniht oþywed & swa on mistlice beamas wæs gehiwod þonne hit dagian wolde; þonne toglad hit.
(The same year a bloody cloud was seen, many times in the likeness of fire; and it appeared most of all at midnight; and it was formed thus of various beams; and when it became day it glided away.)

It appears that astronomical signs of the times have been touted out by apocalyptic thinkers for a long time. It might even be that Anglo-Saxon authors behind these entries in the Chronicle might have been worked up because of an event like a supermoon eclipse. In any case, if the earth has survived strange astronomical occurrences in the past, we can at least hope that we will also survive our upcoming event.

[1] For an excellent overview of this subject, see James Palmer’s recent book, The Apocalypse in the Early Middle Ages (Cambridge, 2014).

[2] See The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, A Collaborative Edition, ed. David Dumville and Simon Keynes (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1983-); translations are adapted from The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, trans. and ed. Michael Swanton (New York: Routledge, 1998), which includes an introductory overview and further bibliography.

A few weeks ago, I was fortunate to attend the York Christian Apocrypha Symposium in Toronto, Canada, organized by Tony Burke in consultation with Brent Landau. You can learn more about the conference, presenters, and papers delivered here. I was a medievalist in a sea of experts on early Christianity–a field to which I often look in my own research and teaching–and it was great to be welcomed into that community with common interests in studying apocrypha. For my own presentation, I talked about “Preaching the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew in Anglo-Saxon England,” a part of my larger project examining the uses of Christian apocrypha in the earliest English sermons.

Here are some excerpts from my presentation:

In this essay, I examine uses of the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew for preaching and related media in late Anglo-Saxon England. Christian apocrypha enjoyed a prominent afterlife in the medieval period (and beyond), particularly as subjects for preaching; this is especially the case in Anglo-Saxon England. This essay examines a partial translation of Pseudo-Matthew in an Old English sermon designated Vercelli 6 [surviving in the Vercelli Book], with the contention that this sermon should be considered as part of a larger network of media drawing on apocryphal narratives for details about Jesus’ childhood, including historical documents, liturgical objects, and visual arts.

This examination specifically addresses how visual images serve as translations of apocrypha, and therefore key contexts for the culture surrounding parallel narratives in Old English preaching. Adopting an interdisciplinary framework of transmission studies—encompassing book history, translations, and adaptations across media—allows for considering apocrypha beyond verbal representations, to encompass the many cultural currents that surrounded and affected Anglo-Saxons in their attitudes toward para-biblical narratives. Taken together, multimedia witnesses to Pseudo-Matthew further demonstrate how this apocryphon permeated Anglo-Saxon preaching contexts across a variety of porous social boundaries linked by common materials. Just as vernacular sermons containing apocrypha could have been preached to both elites and commoners as well as men and women, these narratives appeared in other media accessible to audiences across the spectrum of social strata.

[…]

One significant feature of representations in sermons and visual arts is how they emphasize Jesus’ deeds rather than his teachings. In Christian tradition, Jesus’ teachings are of course central, but Old English sermons based on apocrypha about his life do not use them as a basis; instead, they focus on narrating his actions. Similarly, artistic representations of Jesus’ life depict scenes that emphasize narrative action—not surprisingly, since actions lend themselves to pictures more readily than words. By highlighting narrative actions in verbal and visual media, Anglo-Saxons acknowledged that Jesus’ deeds are as significant as his words for teaching Christian doctrine, even when certain events are either not present or not related explicitly in the canonical gospels.

Extended narratives surrounding Jesus’ infancy miracles are wholly absent from biblical accounts, and the popularity of these traditions largely relies on details from apocryphal narratives. In other words, for medieval authors, apocryphal stories suitably embellish those in the canonical gospels. These deeds are central to understanding Jesus’ miraculous and divine nature as well as soteriological doctrines, making them, subsequently, central to Christian teaching. In fact, when considering the incarnational theology surrounding Jesus’ life—especially for the Nativity, Crucifixion, and Resurrection—the lines between Jesus’ words and actions are blurred, since he is considered the Word of God. Jesus’ words and actions are simultaneously representative of his transcendent character, entwined together as signifiers of his divinity. In this sense, messages relayed through his speeches are no different from messages relayed through his actions. Reflection upon verbal and visual translations of apocryphal materials reveals this convergence.

[…]

One claim in the following examination is that sermons and visual arts are not so different in their adaptive translations of apocryphal gospels. Catherine E. Karkov has pointed out that visual translations (like sermons) refer to influences besides strictly textual sources, such as pictorial resonances.[1] If, as scholars have readily acknowledged, translation is a process contingent on complex contexts and influences, then associations that may not be apparent in a primary written source should be considered seriously. In this manner, it is useful to examine translations as analogous to each other, such as those related to a common source, which may open up keys to reading analogues in other media, or to the cultural meanings that resonate in and across media. When various materials are examined together as comparative projects of translation, we are able to see, as Jessica Brantley has productively pointed out, that they “represent related responses in different media.”[2] In this, we are urged to remember that each of these responses is a specific, ideological representation of how the creator perceived and used traditions from which the product was shaped. This reminder is particularly important for the present study, since Anglo-Saxon cultural artifacts provide us with an understanding of not only the transmissions but also the receptions via translation of apocrypha in mainstream culture.

[…]

An appreciation for the importance and role of Pseudo-Matthew in Vercelli 6 is further highlighted with examination of translations in other media. Previously, textual influences of this apocryphon have gained much attention, especially in relation to Marian devotion. Yet, as with many Christian apocrypha in Anglo-Saxon culture, one aspect of this text’s influence that has remained largely overlooked is in visual arts. As I suggest in the following, the early eleventh-century Sacramentary of Robert Jumièges (Rouen, Bibliothèque Municipale 274 (Y.6) contains a series of thirteen illuminations, two of which portray iconography ultimately indebted to Pseudo-Matthew. Such identifications provide further circulation of these apocryphal traditions as well as expanded contexts for Vercelli 6 and related preaching texts based on this apocryphon.

[1] Text and Picture in Anglo-Saxon England: Narrative Strategies in the Junius 11 Manuscript, Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England 31 (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2001), 17.

[2] “The Iconography of the Utrecht Psalter and the Old English Descent into Hell,” Anglo-Saxon England 28 (1999), 43-63, at 62.

This week, one of the most highly anticipated pop culture events hit theaters everywhere: Star Wars, Episode VII: The Force Awakens. I saw the film as early as I could, and have a lot to say about it. Most specifically, as a medievalist, I was struck by a certain amount of medievalism built into this movie.

Is this a medieval Twi’lek? Panotti depicted in the Wonders of the East, from the eleventh-century London, British Library, Cotton Tiberius B.v, folio 83v (image courtesy the British Library).

I’m not the first to consider Star Wars and the Middle Ages together. Peter Konieczny has previously discussed a number of parallel ideas on Medievalists.net. Bryan C. Keene used Star Wars as a lens to think about the “close link between the celestial and the spiritual” in medieval manuscripts at the Getty’s online magazine The Iris. A while back, there was quite a bit of interest in a Yoda-look-alike from a medieval manuscript, London, British Library, Royal 10.E.iv–which isn’t the only image like it, as Erik Kwakkel noted another in London, British Library, Royal 2.B.vii, and Discarding Images found figures similar to both Yoda and Gandalf in Warszawa, Biblioteka Narodowa, Rps 8002 III. The British Library Medieval Manuscripts Blog has collected a host of other images from medieval treasures with characters resembling various aliens (including the one above). With another perspective in mind, Tom O’Donnell has recently retold the story of Episode IV as an Irish saga.

In this post, I want to focus on how some ideas and themes from The Force Awakens resonate as parallels to medieval European culture.

[While the following discussion is somewhat general, some spoilers do creep in, more notably at the end. I’ve marked some of the more egregious ones, but read at your own risk!]

The trajectory of the Star Wars films (and the expanded universe beyond them) is, in many ways, similar to the general history of Rome, especially in late antiquity. In the pre-cinematic Star Wars universe, there was the development of the Old Republic–the golden age of classicism, when learning, philosophy, peace, justice, and culture flourished. The prequel films (Episodes I, II, and III) portrayed the rise of the Galactic Empire, with the autocratic rule of an emperor and expansive colonization. In the original film trilogy (Episodes IV, V, and VI), we see the Empire at its height as well as the civil war raging as colonized peoples fight to reconcile their own cultures in the face of new imperial rule over them. In many ways, these events mirror the supposed golden age of the Roman Republic, the rise of the Roman Empire, and its decline as the colonized (insiders as well as outsiders) resisted expanding imperial control. No doubt George Lucas was aware of these parallels in his conceptions of the larger narrative.

The Roman Forum in ruins.

With The Force Awakens, we encounter a world thirty years later, in the middle of a civil war, as the Galactic Empire fights to hold on despite its seeming decline–similar to the late antique and early medieval period after the Roman Empire has receded from its once-expansive boundaries. In both trajectories, legends circulate as reminders of the past and people’s connections to it; oral stories are the vehicles for memory as people seek to collect fragments of knowledge; people seek relics of the past to root themselves in a larger narrative; figures–both would-be colonizers and colonized–struggle to reconcile the old world with the new as they also struggle to understand it all.

Metaphorically, the protagonist Rey’s search for the truth about her identity amid legends and ruins of the past in The Force Awakens is not all that different from how some medieval people viewed their world. Someone like Bede (672/3-735), for example, saw himself as sifting through his sources to understand connections between ancient Israel, Christian Rome, his own Germanic ancestors, and what that meant for the identity of the inhabitants of Britain (himself included). We learn early in The Force Awakens [minor spoiler] that Rey is an orphan, left on the desert planet Jakku at a young age. Although it might be anachronistic (and a bit simplistic) to call Bede an orphan because he was sent to the monastery of Monkwearmouth at the age of seven, there is a curious parallel. Indeed, the medieval example of sending children into monastic life is a clear link to children entering Jedi orders in the Old Republic era of the Star Wars galaxy–and one reason, presumably, why Yoda uses the excuse that Luke is “too old to begin the training” in The Empire Strikes Back. To push parallels further, Bede spent his life exploring the ruins of culture in written books to find historical and religious truth; whereas Rey has spent much of her life and the plot of The Force Awakens (true to classic Star Wars, following the archetypal hero’s journey) exploring ruins of the legendary past to sort out the truth about herself and her place in the galaxy.

Relics also play a central role in The Force Awakens, as a sort of thematic and material link to the previous films. Familiar from the trailers, the two most prominent material objects used as relics are the melted helmet of Darth Vader and the lightsaber once owned by Anakin Skywalker and then his son, Luke. In one scene, we see the main antagonist Kylo Ren praying to the remains of Vader’s helmet, seeking guidance to follow in his path as a Sith lord. Throughout the film, it becomes clear that Kylo Ren venerates Vader as a type of spiritual father and Dark Side anti-saint. In another scene [minor spoiler], Rey finds the Skywalker lightsaber, has a series of visions linked to its history, and learns about it from the character who has had it for years, Moz Kanata. After initially rejecting the lightsaber, Rey later embraces her connection to the weapon and its spiritual heritage. The lightsaber remains a contested artifact through the movie, as it shifts hands and Kylo Ren seeks to take it for himself–presumably to add it to his Vader shrine. Not in the trailers, another relic featured in the film [bigger spoiler] is a fragmented map (many connections could be raised here about manuscript and digital media) that leads to the secret hideout of Luke Skywalker, who has gone missing. As the impetus for the whole plot of the film from the beginning, this object is also contested and sought by both sides of the war.

Mummified head of Simon of Sudbury, Archbishop of Canterbury, in St Gregory’s Church in Sudbury.

With both Vader’s mask and the Skywalker lightsaber, it is hard not to see similarities with the veneration and spiritual meaning afforded to relics in the medieval period. Relics from the Middle Ages may be found in churches across Europe, including items claimed to be corporeal objects, clothing, and possessions of certain saints or even Jesus himself. Some famous examples are pieces of the True Cross on which Jesus was crucified; the Veil of Veronica or the Shroud of Turin that represent Jesus’ burial; even the foreskin of Jesus from his circumcision. In other cases, churches and holy places had shrines with bodies, mummified skulls, fingers, or vials of blood supposed to be from saints. All of these drew pilgrims from local and distant places.

Like Kylo Ren, medieval people regularly prayed to such relics, either at the shrines of saints or in the churches where they were held, for physical and spiritual assistance. Like the Skywalker lightsaber and the map to Luke’s location, relics were often hot items, as their possession was contested, debated, and some were even stolen and traded for their value (see Patrick J. Geary’s Furta Sacra: Thefts of Relics in the Central Middle Ages). After all, relics in both the medieval world and the Star Wars universe are not only objects but also vessels for greater spiritual power and meaning.

Finally, a convergence between the plot and production of The Force Awakens reveals another aspect of medievalism connected to monasticism. Even during the movie’s production it became known that part of it was filmed on location in Ireland’s beautiful Skellig Michael, an island on which a secluded Christian monastery was founded in the early medieval period, perhaps as early as the sixth century.

Stairs on Skellig Michael, Ireland.

As already mentioned, echoes of monasticism are especially prominent in relation to the Jedi. These include common ideals of peace and justice, emphasis on spiritual life and beliefs, a certain amount of asceticism, even simple clothing to represent simple lifestyles (just look at the robes on this Yoda look-alike!).

Yet the use of Skellig Michael for The Force Awakens evokes stronger resonances between medieval monasticism and the Jedi than simple parallels. [Major spoilers abound in this paragraph.] In the last scene of the film, we finally see Luke at his haven, confirming earlier rumors that he has followed his predecessors Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda in taking up the ascetic life of a hermit on a secluded outpost. Yet this life of seclusion echoes more than only Jedi models, as similar figures range from the early centuries of Christianity through the Middle Ages: Anthony the Great in the desert (like Obi-Wan on Tatooine), Guthlac of Crowland in the marshy fens of England (like Yoda on Dagobah), and especially Irish monks who sought out lives as homeless drifters or in complete seclusion from society on islands like Skellig Michael. In seeking his own isolation–for spiritual, personal, or psychological reasons–Luke joins in a long line of religious ascetics through the medieval period.

In all of these parallels, a strong thematic thread between the medieval and The Force Awakens is the notion of looking back in time to make meaning of the present. This idea is, really, at the heart of medievalism, in making the medieval modern through adaptation. And, like medievalism, as with much science fiction, this is partly the appeal of Star Wars: while set “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away,” it resonates with our own perspectives. Indeed, these resonances reach much deeper, into early foundations of our own culture in the medieval period.

Updates (12/31/15): See now Terry O’Hagan’s post about Skellig Michael and medieval archaeology in relation to the film; and Howard M. R. Williams’s post on Vader’s mask as an archaeological crematifact.

Several weeks ago, Kisha Tracy (at Fitchburg State U and co-founder of the MASSMedieval blog) sent out a message soliciting fellow medievalists to share some of our ideas about what we value as the significance of studying the Middle Ages (that link will take you to her own post about this). She set up a public Facebook group for this, with the plan to invite her students to read the posts, write reflections of their own, and to discuss them in class at the start of the semester. Since this sounded like such a great idea, I took her cue and asked students in my British Literature through the Eighteenth Century course to do the same.

Here is what I originally posted in the Facebook group:

In general, I firmly believe that the most significant reason to study the Middle Ages–or to study any culture–is to learn critical thinking. If we can learn to critically think about medieval culture, we can learn to critically think about any culture. When we encounter medieval culture, we simultaneously encounter both alterity and familiarity. Reflecting on the similarities and differences is important, but so too is considering how we face them and what we do in response.

Medieval people were, in many ways, like us, wrestling with the same questions we do, even if on different terms or in different contexts. Medieval people reflected on and wrote about their everyday lives, their relationships, their place in the world, their beliefs, their fears, their hopes, as well as cultural issues like religion, race, sexuality, and politics. Some students might cry at the death of Marie de France’s Nightingale; others might embrace the portrait of heroism created by the Beowulf poet; some might champion the proto-feminism in The Wife of Bath’s Tale. What we learn from all of these is how to empathize. Yet, in our empathy, we can also learn to be critical, to see the problematic even behind texts that we like or want to embrace.

As much as we might empathize, studying the medieval period also forces us to face the Other in many ways. Studying the Middle Ages causes us to wrestle with very different perspectives that emerged from very different assumptions. Some students might find the Christianity of The Dream of the Rood very foreign, even disturbing; others might find the irreverence and wit of the mystery plays offensive; some might decry the xenophobia in representations of Jews or Muslims in various texts. All of these issues offer opportunities to discuss why we react in these ways, and how we should harness these reactions critically. While we do not need to embrace medieval perspectives or assumptions (and in many cases we should not), we do need to consider them critically, to discuss and write about them in ways that help us to understand the past. Indeed, critically understanding that past can also help us to critically understand our present.

Students came to class with great ideas. They found ways to incorporate what they had read by others in the Facebook group, their own ideas, and connections to the two pieces of literature they read for today (Bede’s account of Cædmon’s Hymn and The Dream of the Rood).

The list generated by our discussion (that does disservice to students’ engagement and discussion) includes the following:

Landscape
Critical thinking
Influence on later people & authors
Gender, “connected to time”
Religion
Language (especially rhetoric)
Socio-cultural issues
Similarity of the modern & medieval
Social/class status
Technological and scientific advances in the period
The “uniqueness” of the period (not pictured above)
“Magic” & “superstition” (as evidence of belief systems)

With these ideas, and the expanded thoughts attached to each bullet-point on the board, we established a host of themes to which we will return. In their discussion, students set up basic questions to follow throughout the course. And, as one student pointed out early on in the discussion, these are not exclusive to studying the medieval period; they are notions applicable to literary study, the humanities, and reflecting on culture generally.

Several months ago, wandering through the large Antique Flea Market in Brimfield, Massachusetts, I came across a surprise. Sitting on the ground, leaning against an old clothes trunk out in the sun, I saw from a distance a large page of antiquated musical notation and text in an old frame. As I walked closer, I recognized it as a liturgical manuscript, containing musical staves and notation with Latin text. I discovered that the frame was not closed in the back but had glass on both sides, to allow viewing both sides of the page. Examining it some more, I became sure that the page was vellum, and it looked late medieval or early modern.

While looking it over, the vendor approached and asked if I knew what it was. I told him generally what I could–that this looked like a medieval musical manuscript, and that studying objects like this is my job, although I was unable to tell him much more without researching it. He was surprised, since he previously had no idea what it was. The manuscript had come into his hands, along with many of the other objects he had for sale that day, as part of an estates sale from the home of a wealthy doctor in Hartford, Connecticut. Beyond that, the vendor knew very little–nothing more about the doctor, not even his name–and he told me that he had found the framed manuscript sitting in the basement of the house when he purchased part of the estate at auction.

We quickly settled on a deal. As little as he was asking, I was sure that I could not pass up the opportunity to buy the manuscript. I did feel some guilt at buying a manuscript fragment, knowing the terrible histories behind codices being ripped apart by booksellers. But it was clear to me that the original manuscript had been broken up years before it came into the hands of the vendor I met, and well before the Hartford doctor owned it. (The frame was old enough to be held together in the back by old brown paper glued around the edges of the glass, rather than modern ways of holding glass in place.) I spent several minutes asking the vendor different questions (sometimes similar questions different ways) about the fragment, how he acquired it, and his potential involvement in book destruction; it was clear he had no idea about its history before finding it in a basement. I even gave him my views on how sad it is to see fragments like this, and warned him about these types of pages as a vendor. By buying the manuscript, I hope that I am contributing less to the problem of breaking up manuscripts and more to preserving cultural heritage by caring for the fragment and using it to teach students. Indeed, I have already found it useful in a medieval literature class for teaching about medieval text technologies, their modern afterlives, and the sad outcomes for some broken books.

What follows are a series of notes I have compiled about the manuscript, with some information and references about what I learned so far from some initial research. I took all photographs under natural lighting with my iPhone, after removing the manuscript from the frame.

Physical Description

The full page measures approximately 760-80 millimeters (30-30.75 inches) in height by 545-50 millimeters (21.5-21.6 inches) in width. The page is foliated as “99” in dark ink in upper right corner of the recto.

On the verso, the edge on the far right is discolored where it would have been bound into the spine of the original codex. Upon further examination, the discoloration turns out to be a strip of vellum folded over approximately 10-15 millimeters (0.4-0.6 inches) of the page; this is ostensibly part of the other half of the full bifolium as it would have been bound into the book–which was cut but left attached to this fragment when the codex was disassembled. As it had been framed, the verso would have faced outward for display, while the recto would have faced the wall. The verso, after all, has a more elaborate layout, containing more diverse elements. (See more on the layout below.)

A few distinctive features helped me to decide that this piece is vellum when I first saw it. The first was a conspicuous hole that had been sewn up, measuring approximately 25 millimeters (1.13 inches) in length, with five stitches with white thread.

The second were speckles from follicles on the hair side (verso), more noticeable toward the portion of the page that would have formed the gutter of the book. As usual, the flesh side (recto) is whiter and softer, while the hair side (verso) is darker and more coarse. The whole page is more stiff than pliable, with many wrinkles, likely from less than ideal storage, climate, and moisture in the display frame.

Concerning the mis-en-page, there are a number of noticeable characteristics. While the recto has five consistent lines of text and music above, the verso has a more complex layout. A more qualified musicologist could say more about the staves, notes, and their significance. For now, I only note that the music is consistently written out, on five-line staves drawn in red. I would be grateful for other thoughts on these traits.

The layout of the verso is fundamentally different because of the use of an inset block of seven lines of smaller text without music, including a versicle and response; these lines intrude on the text and staves for the third and fourth lines in the overall layout. The majority of text is written in dark ink, with a few exceptions. Indications of the psalms to be sung (ps.) as well as notations for the versicle and response (V. and R.) are written in red. Three red punctus marks appear in the middle of moriemini on the bottom line of text on the verso to indicate note changes on the single syllable e. The fragment contains two decorated initials, a yellow Q for “Quae est ista” on the recto and red O for “Omnes moriemini” on the verso.

The text is written in a Gothic Southern Textualis (see Albert Derolez, The Palaeography of Gothic Manuscript Books: From the Twelfth to the Early Sixteenth Century (Cambridge, 2003)). Without giving a full paleographical assessment, I will note a few features. In general the page shows a consistent, clean script, following the guidelines. Letters are generally rounded, conforming to southern rather than northern characteristics. The scribe uses both long-s and short-s, reserving the latter for terminal positions. The digraph æ is used consistently (as in quae and caeli). The words Dominus and Deus are always capitalized. While it is difficult to generalize from such a short text, the scribe clearly distinguishes between u and v, as in -stravit, the indication for the versicle as V, and Vere directly following. Overall, only a few abbreviations appear, for psalmus (twice), Dominus regnauit (both words), and Cantate.

A few manuscripts with comparable features include:

Burlington, University of Vermont, Robert Hull Fleming Museum, 1971.10.4, from a sixteenth-century gradual

New Haven, Yale University, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library 485.3, from a sixteenth-century antiphonary

New Haven, Yale University, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library 627, from a fifteenth-century (?) antiphonary

Based on comparable manuscripts, I believe this folio is from the sixteenth century, although that is only a tentative conclusion. I will discuss a possible origin below.

Text

The following is a transcription of the manuscript fragment, as well as a translation noting biblical sources according to the Latin Vulgate (edited by Robert Weber, Biblia sacra vulgata; translations are from the Douay-Rheims). Because I provide photographs, I have not indicated line breaks, but I present each chant as a new item. I silently expand all abbreviations, while retaining manuscript capitalization and punctuation (except for one case: a dash for a line break in the middle of aliud on the verso). I provide some reconstructions in brackets for the text on the previous and following pages, based on close parallels from other sources.

/99r/ [Ferculum fecit sibi rex Salomon de lignis Libani: columnas eius fecit argenteas, reclinatorium aureum, ascensum purpureum, media charitate con]stravit.
psalmus. Dominus regnauit.
Quae est ista, quae progreditur quasi aurora consurgens, pulchra ut luna, electa ut /99v/ sol, terribles ut castrorum acies ordinata.’
psalmus. Cantate.
Vere Dominus est in loco sancto isto; et ego nesciebam.
Non est hic aliud, nisi domus Dei, et porta caeli.
Omnes morie…mini, quia in [Adam peccavistis….]

King Solomon hath made him a litter of the wood of Libanus: The pillars thereof he made of silver, the seat of gold, the going up of purple, the midst he covered with charity. (Canticles 3:9)
Psalm. The Lord hath reigned.
Who is she, that cometh forth as the morning rising, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, terrible as an army set in array? (Canticles 6:9)
Psalm. Sing.
Indeed the Lord is in this holy place; and I knew it not. (Genesis 28:16)
This is no other but the house of God, and the gate of heaven. (Genesis 28:17)
All die, because in Adam you all sin…. (1 Corinthians 15:22)

This liturgy is for the Third Nocturn of the Office for the Conception of Mary, celebrated on December 8. The chants on this manuscript page are a close parallel to the office that F. E. Gilliat-Smith from the (unreformed) Roman Breviary of 1481, in “Some Notes Concerning the Earliest Known Office of the Immaculate Conception,” The Ecclesiastical Review, Sixth Series, 5 (1916), 605-22, at 616-17. Other early modern breviaries (to which Gilliat-Smith did not have access to search via Google Books) contain closer parallels, some with the exact wording of this manuscript (indicated with asterisks), as in the following books.

*Breviarium romanum: ex decreto Sacrosancti Concilii Tridentini restitutum, S. Pii V Pontificis Maximi jussu editum, Clementis VIII et Urbani VIII auctoritate recognitum (Dionysius Thierry, 1669), 601 [and in various later reprinted versions, e.g. 1798 and 1831].

Die VIII Decembris. Officium proprium cum octava Inmaculatae Conceptionis Beatae Mariae Virginis: In hoc Mysterio Hispaniarum, & Indiarum Principalis Patronae: ex Breviario Franciscano desumptum (Ignatius Frau, 1762), 48-50.

Breviarium Romano-Monasticum, Pauli V et Urbani VIII PP. MM. jussu editum, oro omnibus sub Regula S. Patris Benedicti militantibus, praecipue nunc ad usum Congregationis Hispanae (J. Ibarra, 1779), 732.

*Officia sanctorum á summis pontificibus, tam pro Hispaniarum regnis, quam Pro Universali Ecclesia (Agustinus Figaró, 1827), 480-81.

Also from the closest parallels, I have gathered that the liturgy would often include the gospel reading from Luke 11:27, followed by a homily on this passage by Bede. The reading and homily would follow the lines derived from Genesis 28:16-17, preceding the line from 1 Corinthians 15:22.

Leonardo de Nogaroli

As Gilliat-Smith mentions, this liturgical office is credited to a certain Leonardo Nogaroli. Although Gilliat-Smith was unable to identify this figure, sixteenth-century sources relate that he was a cleric for the household of Pope Sixtus IV (pope 1471-84). A number of early modern accounts present information about Nogaroli composing a mass expressing the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, which had gained growing support and was authorized and promoted by Sixtus IV. Irénée Henri Dalmais, Pierre Jounel, Aimé Georges Martimort present a brief overview in “The Veneration of Mary,” The Church at Prayer: An Introduction to the Liturgy, New Edition, Volume IV: The Liturgy and Time, trans. Matthew J. O’Connell (Collegeville, MN, Liturgical P, 1985), 130-56, at 140. The following are some sources closer to Nogaroli’s own lifetime, as well as a few interesting later retellings.

Rodolpho Hospiniano on the “Conceptionis B. Mariae festum,” in De origine progressu, ceremoniis et ritibus festorum dierum Iudaeorum, Graecorum, Romanorum & Turcarum Libri tres (Zürich: Ioannem Wolfium, 1592), 107v: “Anno Domini 1466. Sixtus 4. decretum edidit, qod extat in Extrauagantibus libro 5. de Reliquijs & vener. Sanct. in quo constituit festum de mira conceptione B. Mariae, cum peculiari officio, quod composuit Leonardus Nagarolus Italus, in eoq, docet, sine peccato originali Mariam conceptam, ab omnibus fidelibus celebrandum esse, additu ijsdem indulgentijs, quas consequuntur homines in Corporu Christi solemnitate.”

Adriano Moerbecio, Scala Purpurea in sex gradus divisa (Antwerp: Hieronymus Verdussius, 1634), 134: “Ad tempora Sixti quarti R. P. D. Leonardus Nagarolus Protonotarius Apostolicus, composuit Officium de immaculata Conceptione, quod iam pene per centum annos decanatum est.”

Bartholomaei Carrana and Dominico Schram, Summa Conciliorum: Dudum Collecta Cum Additionibus Francisci Sylvii, Tomus III (Augsburg: Rieger, 1778), 640: “Joannes Gnesnensis in Polonia Archiepiscopus An. 1510. Concilium Provinviale celebravit, in quo Festum Conceptionis B. M. V. cum Octava, & Officio a Leonado Nagaroli composito celebrari jussit.”

Don Antonio Lobera y Abio, El por qué de todas las ceremonias de la Iglesia y sus misterios (Mexico: Libreria de J. Rosa, 1846), 465, in a question and answer dialogue about the Conception of Mary, between a Vicario and Curioso:
“Cur.– Qué oficio rezaba y tenia nuestra madre de Iglesia?”
“Vic. — Aquel rezo quo compuso Leonardo de Nagaroli, clérigo Veronense, el qua aprobó Sixto IV.”

Carl Joseph von Hefele and J. Cardinal Hergenröther, Conciliengeschichte. Nach den Quellen bearbeitet, Aahter Band (Freiburg: Herder, 1887), 542, for the year 1510: “Das Fest Mariä Empfängniß ist mit Octav zu feiern nach dem vom Papste approbirten Officium des apostolischen Protonotars Leonardo Nagaroli, und zwar in der ganzen Provinz.”

Ideas about the Immaculate Conception ultimately derived from apocryphal gospels and an accumulative tradition reaching back to early Christianity, and during the Middle Ages the concept was hotly debated. Ambivalence about the feast continued for centuries after the medieval period. Pope Pius V (pope 1566-72) reacted against the term “Immaculate” and did away with the special mass for a more general feast-day liturgy.

“Quae est ista, quae progreditur”

From searching the CANTUS Database, I discovered some significant features of this version of the Office. The first striking feature is the chant “Quae est ista, quae progreditur” (CANTUS 004425). As Rachel Fulton discusses, the biblical Canticles (Song of Songs) was central to medieval conceptions about the Virgin Mary, and this particular chant from Canticles 6:9 became a defining feature in the Office of the Assumption. (“‘Quae est ista quae ascendit sicut aurora consurgens?’: The Song of Songs as the historia for the Office of the Assumption,” Mediaeval Studies 60 (1998), 55-122. My thanks to Yvonne Seale for helping me get a hold of this article.) This use of Canticles in the Assumption liturgy is surely the starting point for its inclusion in the Office of the Conception. The rendering of this chant with the verb progreditur is especially significant in comparison with other uses in the liturgy, since this rendering follows the Vulgate, not the form with ascendit as found in other liturgical texts (the version Fulton discusses).

Other parallels between the manuscript fragment with the Office of the Conception and other feasts also appear in medieval liturgy. Fulton notes parallel uses of Canticles for the feasts of the Assumption and the Conception, as well as connections between offices for the Assumption and the Dedication of a church (see esp. 65, n. 27). Of the other chants in the manuscript fragment discussed here, CANTUS lists both “Vere dominus est in loco isto” (006540a) and “Non est hic aliud nisi domus” (003913) for the Dedication of a Church in a host of manuscripts. In addition, “Quae est ista…” also appears for the Feast of Anne, Mother of Mary (July 26) in Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, lat. 15182 (c.1300, Notre Dame Cathedral), 508v; Common of Several Virgins in Piacenza, Basilica di S. Antonino, Biblioteca e Archivio Capitolari, 65 (s. xii, Piacenza Cathedral), 431v; and memorial chants for Mary in Karlsruhe, Badische Landesbibliothek – Musikabteilung, Aug. LX (s. xii, Zwiefalten), 272r. All of these parallels point to the interrelated nature of liturgical elements for various feasts related to the Virgin Mary.

“Omnes moriemini”

In the last element of the fragment, the rendering of 1 Corinthians 15:22 as “Omnes moriemini quia in [Adam peccavistis]” is also anomalous. This phrasing is not found in Vulgate (neither the textus receptus of Jerome nor the Clementine revision, which read “in Adam omnes moriuntur”) or Vetus Latina versions. It comes closest to the phrasing “in Adam omnes morimur” used by Irenaeus and Augustine (Pierre Sabatier, Bibliorum sacrorum latinae versiones antiquae seu Vetus Italica, 3 vols. in 4 (Rheims, Reginald Florentain, 1743), 3:715), although further research could reveal even closer parallels outside of Sabatier’s sources. In addition to the breviary parallels already noted, this particular chant appears in the Office for the Conception of Mary in Cardinal Gousset, La croyance générale et constante de l’Eglise touchant l’Immaculée Conception de la Bienheureuse Vierge Marie (Paris: Jacques Lecoffre, 1855), 801, in extracts with reference to Leonardo Nogaroli.

Notably, this specific rendering of the verse appears in explicitly Spanish texts. For example, I have already cited parallels in the 1762 Die VIII Decembris and the 1779 Breviarium Romano-Monasticum, both of Hispanic origins. Similarly, “Omnes moriemini” is also used in other early modern religious texts regarding the Conception of Mary, as in the following.

A. P. F. Pedro de Alva y Astorga quotes this verse in his Spanish-Latin treatise Militia Immaculatae Conceptionis Virginis Mariae, contra malitiam originalis infectionis peccati (Immaculatae Conceptionis Lovanij, sub signo Gratiae, 1663), col. 927.

In Sermones panegíricos de varios misterios, festividades y santos, Tomo Segundo (Madrid: La Administración del Real Arbitrio de Beneficiencia, 1801), 180, Miguel de Santander also quotes it in a sermon on the Conception composed in 1786:
Pero apartad, señores, de la Concepcion de María la idea de estas desgracias, calamidades y miserias. Todo quanto intervino en ella, decia San Gerónimo, fue pureza, justicia, santidad, verdad, gracia y misericordia. Es innegable qu el decreto estaba dado, y la sentencia de muerte se habia executado con todo el rigor de la ley: Omnes moriemini quia in Adam peccavistis. Vió el mundo á algunos nacer ya santificados; pero ninguno fue concebido que dexase de ser inficionado con el mortífero veneno de la serpiente.

Angelino Brinckmann quotes it, invoking Pope Sixtus IV, while discussing the doctrine of original sin in his Theologia Universa Speculativa, Moralis, Polemica (Wetzlar: Nicola Ludovic Winckler, 1733), 209.

Finally, from slightly later, the Spanish Bishop Hipolito Antonio Sanchez Rangel de Fayas uses this verse rendering in a discussion of death in Fracmentos de una pastoral escrita en Mainas en la fuga de su primer obispo (Madrid: E. Aguado, 1825), 44, 49, and 53.

From these correspondences, it might be possible to associate the manuscript fragment with a Spanish provenance, or a copy of the Office as it was used in Spain. Additional circumstantial support for this is one manuscript already mentioned, Beinecke 485.3, which is from Spain and has similar features (and is bound with other Spanish and Italian liturgical fragments; see the description here). Still, these are only tentative conclusions. By posting these notes, and with further research, I hope others might have more to tell me about the manuscript fragment’s contents, origins, and possible provenance.

As an added bonus, while researching all of this, I also came across a recording of a sixteenth-century arrangement of Quae est ista quae progreditur by Giovanni Palestrina (c.1525-1594), which is well worth a listen.

My article “Ælfric’s Genesis and Bede’s Commentarius in Genesim” has been accepted for publication in Medium Ævum, forthcoming within the next year. In this article, I suggest that one contributing factor to Ælfric’s decision to stop translating Genesis halfway through (at chapter 22) is his knowledge of and use of Bede’s Commentarius in Genesim, which also concludes after the story of Isaac. With this basis in mind, I trace connections between Ælfric’s Preface to Genesis and Bede’s commentary, the tradition of Genesis exegesis, and a textual crux in the manuscript texts of the Old English Heptateuch. The implications suggest a more nuanced understanding of Ælfric’s reasons for concluding his project where he did, his fusing together of translation and exegesis, and problems that later scribes faced in reconciling Ælfric’s Genesis with various other Old English versions of the Heptateuch as a whole.

Below are the introduction and a few brief excerpts (minus some footnote references) to tantalize readers:

Sometime between 992 and 1002, the Anglo-Saxon monk Ælfric (c.955-c.1010) translated part of the Latin Vulgate version of Genesis into Old English and wrote a vernacular Preface to his work. During this same time period, he also translated the Quaestiones in Genesim by Alcuin of York (c.735-804) and composed an Old English Hexameron on the six days of Creation. With such concerted interest in Genesis, Ælfric became one of the earliest translators of the Bible into the English language and joined the legacy of patristic and medieval scholars who had previously written about the biblical book. Prominent figures in this legacy who wrote works on Genesis influential for Ælfric include Basil of Caesarea (329/30-379), Ambrose of Milan (c.340-397), Augustine of Hippo (354-430), Bede of Monkwearmouth-Jarrow (672/3-735), and Alcuin—authors whom Ælfric judiciously echoes at the same time that he supplements them with his own contributions, synthesizing biblical exegesis up to his own time. This article examines one aspect of Ælfric’s engagement with sources, arguing for his use of Bede’s work on Genesis as a model for his own exegesis and translation.

In his Preface to Genesis, Ælfric gives a clear statement about his reason for translating only the first part of the biblical book. According to his claims, the practical reason is that his patron Æthelweard already had possession of a translation for the latter part of the book. Yet there is good reason to believe that Ælfric’s assertions in such instances have more complicated explanations behind them. […] I propose that another suitable explanation for Ælfric’s translation stopping point is found in reference to Bede’s Commentarius in Genesim and the author’s note about this text at the end of his Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum. The implications of this proposed source allow for exploring two related aspects of Ælfric’s work on Genesis: first, a set of relationships between Ælfric’s work on Genesis and previous exegesis on the biblical book; and, second, a textual crux in the manuscripts containing the longer and later (eleventh-century) translation project known as the Old English Heptateuch.

[…]

As evidence for Ælfric’s thinking on the topic of Bede and where to end his translation of Genesis, a number of other related texts may be brought together. Bede and Ælfric, in fact, stand in a long line of those who worked on Genesis but never addressed the whole book. For all of their popularity and influences on later authors, Basil’s Hexameron (translated into Latin by Eustathius) and Ambrose’s work by the same title constitute commentaries only on the first six days of Creation. Augustine famously wrote multiple commentaries on Genesis (De Genesi contra Manichaeos, De Genesi ad litteram imperfectus liber, and De Genesi ad litteram), none of them explicating the latter part of the book. Bede used all of these works throughout his corpus. In the preface to his own Commentarius in Genesim (a letter to Acca, Bishop of Hexham [c.660-740/2]), Bede cites Basil, Ambrose, and Augustine by name, referring to their commentaries on Genesis as chief among his sources, and including further references to Augustine’s Confessiones and Contra aduersarium legis et prophetarum. As already noted, Ælfric’s sources for work on Genesis include Alcuin’s Quaestiones in Genesim, which he knew directly since he translated it into an Old English text now known as Alcuini Interrogationes Sigewulfi. Alcuin’s treatise has a complicated relationship of reliance on Augustine’s De Genesi ad litteram and Bede’s In Genesim, since Alcuin echoes both authors but thoughtfully reworks their exegesis in ways that make it difficult to distinguish his dependence on one or the other. Even before Ælfric’s time, exegesis on Genesis that he would have read and relied on is already a complicated network of scholarly interplay.

[…]

The correlations I have proposed so far may be further considered to explore the implications of the present argument by turning to a crux in manuscripts of the Old English Heptateuch. Whereas Ælfric translated only part of Genesis, other, anonymous Anglo-Saxon translators also worked to render the first seven books of the Bible into Old English. The collective, cumulative work of Ælfric and other translators is represented in a combined text now known as the Old English Heptateuch. […]

The conventional view is that Ælfric’s translation of Genesis as it survives in the Old English Heptateuch ends at xxiv.22 or xxiv.26, based on the text ending at this point in Cambridge Ii.1.33. Yet there are reasons for reassessing the end-point of Ælfric’s translation, particularly regarding the suggestions I have posed. […]

Today marks 1380 years since of the death of Isidore of Seville (c.560-636), the famous sixth-/seventh-century Spanish archbishop and scholar. As a diverse writer, who synthesized ideas from the late antique world (including both pagan and Christian authors), his works were significant, influential, and highly popular touchstones for medieval thinkers. This British Library Medieval Manuscripts Blog post highlights some of his work. For the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Clement VIII canonized him in 1598, and he was declared a Doctor of the Church in 1722. In the twenty-first century, people might know Isidore as the patron saint of the internet–along with computer users, computer technicians, programmers, and students.

Isidore, his works, and their afterlife represent a fusion of several things that I love: a bridge between cultures (late antique and medieval periods), encyclopedic knowledge, and the possibilities of information transmission across the longue durée of media history. As a general characteristic of his scholarship, Isidore set out to capture, synthesize, organize, and preserve the knowledge of his predecessors for future thinkers. These impulses are particularly pronounced in his most famous work, the Etymologies–a striking case for considering how Isidore’s work represents old media practices in premodern manuscript culture.

Above (clockwise): Excerpts from Isidore’s Etymologies, Book VII, in St. Gall, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 230 (c.800), p. 93; beginning of Isidore’s Etymologies in Cologny, Fondation Martin Bodmer, Cod. Bodmer 92 (13th c.), fol. 1r; and detail of “De caelo” from Isidore’s De natura rerum in Zofingen, Stadtbibliothek, Pa 32  (9th c.), fol. 62r. All images in this post are from e-codices: Virtual Manuscript Library of Switzerland, used under a Creative Commons License.

In the Etymologies, Isidore aims to collect and transmit knowledge in something like a comprehensive encyclopedia, covering topics ranging from classical liberal arts like grammar, rhetoric, mathematics, medicine, laws, science, and music, as well as notes on the Bible, God, angels, saints, languages, peoples, geographies, animals, elements, earthly and heavenly topography, urban and rural spaces, natural resources, agriculture, military, maritime navigation, and domestic subjects. While Isidore never completed his massive work, it nonetheless contains 20 books with a total of 448 chapters, relying on around 475 texts from over 200 authors. (For an excellent overview of Isidore’s life and his Etymologies, see the “Introduction” in The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville, trans. Stephen A. Barney, W. J. Lewis, J. A. Beach, and Oliver Berghoff, with the collaboration of Muriel Hall (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2006), 3-28.)

Considering Isidore’s task and accomplishment with the Etymologies, it is no surprise that he has been deemed the patron saint of the internet. Thinking in terms of our own information-overloaded digital age, we might consider how he set out to distill the “big data” of knowledge passed on from his predecessors–indeed, the vast learning of the information-overloaded classical world–into pieces that could be taken in, retained, and used in smaller parts. For these reasons, medieval people often turned to the Etymologies for quick facts or the starting points of learning, just as many of us turn to Wikipedia.

Index to Isidore’s Etymologies from Cologny, Fondation Martin Bodmer, Cod. Bodmer 92, fol. V7.

Medieval means of wrangling big data may be seen beyond Isidore’s production of his Etymologies, as part of the later transmission and use of this text. One example appears in Cologny, Bodmer 92 (pictured left, folio V7), a copy of the Etymologies produced in the early thirteenth century. On folios V7-V11, a user of the book from the later thirteenth or early fourteenth century has added a series of index tables meant to facilitate looking up and finding specific subjects in Isidore’s encyclopedia. Subject terms are alphabetized and keyed to specific references (e.g. “f.33.A. biblioteca” and “f.2.0.A. celestis”), which may be found by following the apparatus of the text throughout the codex. The index and textual references, then, work much like hyperlinks, allowing users of the Etymologies to find information about specific topics, rather than reading the whole book from cover to cover. In fact, as an abundance of evidence from medieval manuscripts shows, readers were likely just as used to jumping around books as we are with engaging in non-linear reading. This indexical feature in Bodmer 92 is one framework that users created for navigating the platform of knowledge in front of them. It is, in other words, a means of information management. This example demonstrates how later medieval users valued, revalued, adapted, and worked with Isidore’s Etymologies for their own needs. It also represents one way in which Isidore’s work–and medieval manuscripts generally–presaged certain later practices in the ages of print and digital media.

Once we start looking for such structural and organization frameworks in medieval media, even basic examples may be understood as part of the desires for book producers and users to come to terms with big data like the vast amount of topics covered in Isidore’s encyclopedia. Old media reveal how medieval platforms of knowledge were further manipulated for key content management. Bodmer 92 contains another example of such a technique in its basic rubrication. On folios 2r-v (pictured below), the scribe has provided a compact but decorated list labeled “Capitulum,” with the titles of the numbered sections appearing again as rubrications for chapter headings in the following pages.

For instance, the contents lists “III. De gramatica.” and the section headed with this title is found on the other side of the leave, on folio 2v (pictured above). What makes this system all the more striking as assistive is the use of different colors of ink: while the main text is generally written out in dark ink, the list of contents on folios 2r-v is signaled by the use of red and blue inks, and the headings for each section throughout the manuscript are rubricated in red. The start of each new section is also marked by a decorated initial, making the division more pronounced for browsable use. Additionally, the tops of pages are marked with alternating numerals to indicate the book (recto, in blue) or section (verso, in red) of the content in relation to the whole of the Etymologies. Although these various paratextual features are common in medieval manuscripts, the creator(s) of Bodmer 92 harnessed them to facilitate user-friendliness, to build readerly success into the book itself in the face of the big data of this voluminous encyclopedia.

I end this post with the start of a set of verses attributed to Isidore known as Versus in bibliotheca, which offers an exhortation to continual education as he saw fit for a world filled with innumerable knowledge. The following verses, in fact, seem as fitting in a world with the internet as they were some 1380 years ago, when even the information contained in books was more vast than a single person could master in a lifetime.

Versus in bibliotheca

These bookcases of ours hold a great many books.
Behold and read, you who so desire, if you wish.
Here lay your sluggishness aside, put off your fastidiousness of mind.
Believe me, brother, you will return thence a more learned man.
But perhaps you say, “Why do I need this now?
For I would think no study still remains for me:
I have unrolled histories and hurried through all the law.”
Truly, if you say this, then you yourself still know nothing.

(Translation from The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville, trans. Barney, et al., 16.)

CFP: Society for the Study of Anglo-Saxon Homiletics at the 52nd International Congress on Medieval Studies
Western Michigan University (Kalamazoo, MI)
May 11-14, 2017

Preach It, Sister! A Roundtable about Women and Homiletics

Hildegard of Bingen receiving a vision and dictating to her scribe and secretary. From the Rupertsberger Codex Scivias.

For over ten years at the ICMS, the Society for the Study of Anglo-Saxon Homiletics (SSASH) has thrived in its aims to promote scholarship related to the sources, compositions, appropriations, and early studies of Anglo-Saxon homilies. In 2016, the session sponsored by SSASH gathered nearly 40 attendees, providing evidence for continued relevance and support. The session proposed for 2017 seeks to continue this presence at the ICMS, as well as the vibrant scholarship and collaborative discussions that Anglo-Saxonists have come to expect from the Society, with a specific focus on the work of women in the field.

2017 marks the 60th anniversary of the publication of Dorothy Bethurum’s edition of The Homilies of Wulfstan (1957), which remains a monument in the field. Yet this publication is just one representative of how women have been integral to the study of Anglo-Saxon preaching. For example, we also have the recent work of Mary Clayton, Mechthild Gretsch, Joyce Hill, Clare Lees, Joyce Tally Lionarons, Mary Swan, Elaine Treharne, Dorothy Whitelock, and Samantha Zacher. The past decade has brought about the publications of major books discussing sermons, such as Zacher’s Preaching the Converted: The Style and Rhetoric of the Vercelli Book Homilies (2009); Lionarons’s The Homiletic Writings of Archbishop Wulfstan (2010); and Treharne’s Living Through Conquest: The Politics of Early English, 1020-1220 (2012). The proposed roundtable, then, will feature a celebration of the work of women on Anglo-Saxon homiletics, allowing for not only showcasing past scholarship but also a forum for lively discussion of future possibilities within the field. Toward this end, the roundtable to be an all-female panel, in order to foreground women’s voices.

Please send abstracts of no more than 500 words with a completed Participant Information Form (available here) to Brandon Hawk by September 15, 2016. For more general information about the ICMS, please visit the conference website here.

Scrolling through my social media feeds this morning, I was reminded that today is #InternationalTalkLikeAPirateDay; and, serendipitously, I’m reading various accounts of Viking ships and sea-battles as I prep for my class on Vikings. When I made the schedule, I didn’t realize this happy coincidence, but I am glad for it. This is one of our first major readings in primary sources (we read “The Tale of Thorstein Shiver” and “The Tale of Audun from the Westfjords” early in the semester to get a taste for the subject matter), after a few weeks of reading modern perspectives on Scandinavian peoples during the Viking Age. Vikings remain some of the most popular pirates from the Middle Ages–as I noticed is noted on the Wikipedia page for “Piracy”–and later medieval literature looking back to the Viking Age provides some great accounts of their nautical exploits.[1]

Harold Godwinson’s ship as depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry

First, we learn a lot about Viking Age ships, their construction, and what was valued in the best of them. A few passages stand out from a description of the Long Serpent of King Olaf Tryggvason (c.960-1000) in The Saga of Olaf Tryggvason (chapter 88; number 32 in Somerville and McDonald), included in Snorri Sturluson’s Heimskringla:

During the winter after his return from Halogaland, King Olaf Tryggvason built a ship at Hladhamar. This ship was bigger than any other in the country and the stocks on which it was built survive as visible proof of this. Thorberg the Woodcarver was responsible for the stem and stern, but there were many others involved in the work as well. Some of them felled trees; some shaped the wood; some forged nails; and some hauled timber. All the materials used were of the best quality, and the ship was constructed with large timbers. It was long and broad and stood high above the water.

[E]veryone agreed that such a large and beautiful ship had never been seen before.

King Olaf named it the Long Serpent…. The Long Serpent had thirty-four rooms, or rowers’ benches [with room for sixty-eight men]. The dragon’s head at the prow and the coiled tail at the stern were both heavily gilded and the sides stood as high above the water as those of ocean-going ships. The Long Serpent was the best and most costly ship ever built in Norway.

This passage seems to be a sort of prototypical description of a ship, as other literary accounts (including Snorri’s own description of King Harald Sigurdarson’s ship, also in the Heimskringla) mimic, allude to, or even comparably rely on this passage as a type of reference point.

But perhaps more fascinating–from the perspective of looking for pirates and piracy in literature about the Vikings–are accounts of sea battles. One particularly fascinating narrative occurs in The History of the Earls of Orkney (chapters 87-88; number 37a in Somerville and McDonald), which describes the journey of Rognvald Kali Kolsson, Earl of Orkney (c.1103-1158), to Rome and the Holy Land. In one episode, Rognvald and his troops wage battle against a group of Muslim merchants on a ship called a dromond in the Mediterranean. Rognvald’s men see the dromond first, and Rognvald is able to call together his ships to formulate a plan for attack. After consulting with his advisors, a bishop (unnamed in this section) and a warrior named Erling, he seems rather confident in his strategy, saying, “If it turns out to be Christian merchants, we can make peace with them, but if they’re heathens, as I think they are, then almighty God in his mercy will give us victory. We’ll give the poor every fiftieth penny of whatever booty we take.” With that, the men from the Orkneys set their plan into motion, drawing their ships up alongside the enemy dromond to attack.

One of the problems with such an attack, as the bishop had previously mentioned, was the danger of a larger, taller ship pouring down hot pitch on a longship that sat lower in the water. As the battle starts, “The crew of the dromond began pouring burning sulphur and pitch over them, but most of it fell beyond the ships as Erling had predicted, and so they had no need to shield themselves from it.” With multiple ships drawn up beside the dromond, a few ships retreat farther out, and the bishop directs the men on these ships to fire arrows toward the enemies: “This attack was very effective. The people on board the dromond were so busy protecting themselves that they paid little attention to what the Norsemen at the sides of their ship were up to.” The Norsemen hack at the sides of the merchants’ ship, and soon begin to find ways to climb aboard while the enemies are distracted–in a series of adventuresome and even humorous moments involving a pile of burly Viking men climbing up an anchor onto the ship. The text even offers a brief anecdote about Erling’s neck injury, earning him the nickname “Wry-Neck” for his inability to hold his head upright afterward.

As Rognvald had guessed, the text identifies the enemies as non-Christians, but not until the battle is well under way. There comes a pause in the middle of the battle to describe the enemy warriors: “The men on the dromond were Saracens, whom we call Mohammed’s heretics. There were many black men too, and they put up the strongest resistance.” Pitting Christians and Muslims against each other is a rather widespread trope in later medieval literature, and it isn’t all that surprising to find this type of polemic here, with the common term “Saracens” used for the Muslim warriors. Given the complex and widespread networks of travel end trade in the twelfth century, it also isn’t difficult to accept the plausibility of this type of encounter between Muslims and Norsemen in the Mediterranean during the time. But the detail that some of the enemy merchants were “black men” is intriguing, since it adds another layer of racial sentiments as well as some sort of distinction from the Muslim men. All of these details distance the merchants, othering them for medieval audiences. Another curious detail occurs just a few lines later: “The Norsemen noticed that one man aboard the dromond was taller and handsomer than the others and they thought for sure that he must be their leader.” No mention is made, however, of the religious, ethnic, or racial identity of the leader, here or elsewhere in the passage. What makes him handsome to the Norsemen? Is he one of the Muslims, or one of the black men? What marks this man as leader is his physicality, but the text offers no specific detail to solidify his identity; this devil is not in the details, but purely in his otherness as a non-Christian, non-Viking, and presumably non-European.

Once the onslaught is over, and the Vikings have predictably won the battle, one last, strange moment is recorded at the end of the episode. Taking what they wanted from the dromond, the Norsemen set the whole ship on fire:

When the tall man they had captured saw this, he started and grew pale and agitated. They tried to make him talk, but no matter how much they threatened or cajoled, he didn’t say a word or make a sign. When the dromond was completely ablaze, they saw something that looked like a burning stream flowing into the sea. This greatly affected their prisoner. They concluded that they hadn’t searched carefully enough for treasure and that metal, either gold or silver, had melted as the fire took hold.

The narrator seems more interested in the loss of treasures like those known to the Vikings–gold and silver objects valued across the medieval world. But perhaps the reason this treasure escaped the notice of the men from Orkney is because it was easy for them to overlook, not knowing it was precious cargo, despite its seeming value to the merchant. Could this “burning stream flowing into the sea” be oil, catching fire as it leaked out of whatever containers held it on the ship? Oil of various types were part of the mercantile world of the Mediterranean by the twelfth century, as it was known not only in the Middle East but also to Western Europe by way of Islamic Spain. Perhaps this passage provides one glimpse of its presence, a casualty of Viking piracy on the high seas.

[1] All passages discussed in this post come from selections in The Viking Age: A Reader, ed. Angus A. Somerville and R. Andrew McDonald, 2nd ed. (Toronto: U of Toronto P, 2014), 151-80 (chapter 6, “Fjord-Serpents: Viking Ships”).

I recently had a conversation with two of my pastor friends, Andrew and Rick, about the tensions between religion and politics, both in America and across history. A large part of this conversation revolved around the upcoming presidential election in the United States. At one point in the conversation, Andrew posed a question to me about the historical angle: What does the medieval period have to tell us about Christianity and political engagement? My reaction was to say that there’s quite a lot. And the more I considered the question, the more I realized how much I had to say about the subject.

Over the next couple of weeks, as a lead-up to the US election, I plan to post a series of examples to answer to the question. In this first post, I pose some preliminary thoughts by way of three different cases from the medieval period. In two future posts, I will consider more examples through the lenses of biblical precedents and monasticism as key models for how some medieval people thought about these issues. First, a few general remarks.

The Middle Ages were a hotbed of back-and-forth conflicts between ecclesiastical and governmental leaders as well as discussions of issues still relevant to current disputes about “church” and “state.” To call one side “religious” and the other “political” is disingenuous, since medieval people would balk at such false distinctions as much as politicians who claim their own public stances on government policies stem from their personal religious affiliations. A nuanced consideration poses questions about the interactions, potential separations, and inevitable tensions between Church and State still under discussion. No single, monolithic model emerges, but a variety of possibilities offers room to consider our own views in light of the past. Three examples serve as representatives of some of these issues.

The Maartyrdom of Archbishop Thomas Becket, from the Walters Art Museum, W.34.15V, used under a Creative Commons license.

When Andrew initially posed his question, the first answer that came to mind was the English Archbishop Thomas Becket (c.1120-1170), who was murdered for his conflict with King Henry II (r.1154-1189) about the rights and privileges of the Church versus the secular courts. The story, in fact, presents parallels with our own current moment, since tradition reports that Becket’s murderers took their cue from Henry’s vexed question, “Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?”—much like some have interpreted Donald Trump’s comments about Second Amendment rights activists taking care of his opponent Hillary Clinton as a nod toward assassination.

The martyrdom of Becket could be understood as a cautionary tale just to stay away from politics altogether. The struggle between the two leaders could, in some ways, be seen as a tale of escalation ending in a zero-sum game: Becket hurled threats of excommunication and church trials, while Henry volleyed back with charges of contempt against royal authority, sending the Archbishop into exile for a time and causing Pope Alexander III to get involved as mediator. But this conflict also underscores the gray area of tensions between church and state. Becket never fully denounced the rights and responsibilities of the Crown, as much as he wanted to demarcate clear boundaries; and Henry never denied the importance of Church authority, as much as he wanted to find his own role in ecclesiastical politics. In other words, both actors in this drama found themselves trying to navigate what it means to be both Christian and politically engaged at the same time.

Another example of how religion and political engagement intertwines is in warrior clerics, as with the figure of Bishop Turpin in the French poem The Song of Roland (composed c.1040-c.1115). This chanson de geste relates the events surrounding the historical Battle of Roncevaux in 778, waged between the Emperor Charlemagne’s Christian army and King Marsile’s Muslim army, focused on the heroic protagonist Roland, Charlemagne’s nephew. Among those at Roland’s side is Turpin, whose battle deeds are celebrated in stanza 121:

Par le camp vait Turpin li arcevesque;
Tel coronet ne chantat unches messe
Ki de sun cors feïst […] tantes proecces.
Dist al paien: «Deus tut mal te tramette!
Tel ad ocis dunt al coer me regrette.»
Sun bon ceval i ad fait esdemetre,
Si l’ad ferut sur l’escut de Tulette,
Que mort l’abat desur le herbe verte.

(Swift through the field Turpin the Archbishop passed;
Such shaven-crown has never else sung Mass
Who with his limbs such prowess might compass;
To th’pagan said “God send thee all that’s bad!
One thou hast slain for whom my heart is sad.”
So his good horse forth at his bidding ran,
He’s struck him then on his shield Toledan,
Until he flings him dead on the green grass.)[1]

To modern audiences, it might seem odd to find a church leader in the heat of battle, but this was not uncommon in the medieval period.

The Song of Roland depicted in St. Petersburg, Hermitage fr. 88 (Grandes Chroniques de France), folio. 154v.

In many ways, the figure Turpin speaks as much to a representation of the events of in 778 as it does to the religious politics surrounding the First Crusade (1095-1099) contemporary with the poem’s composition and popularity, as many clerics took part in the Crusades not only as prayer warriors but also on the battle-field and strategizing tactics. Surely the setup of the poem’s action as a great battle between the Christian Franks and the Muslim “Saracens” resonated with eleventh- and twelfth-century readers. Much more could be said about the Crusades —and has been said by others more qualified—especially in the disturbing parallels of rhetoric used by recent politicians regarding wars in the Middle East. But even when considered briefly, the example of Turpin in The Song of Roland demonstrates the close ties between theological conviction and military action that might coexist within a single ideological perspective.

For a third case, we might turn to the Italian poet Dante Alighieri (c.1265-1321), author of, most famously, the Divine Comedy. Both his biography and bibliography attest to Christian political engagement. During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Italy was swept by internal struggles for power between the Papacy and the Holy Roman Empire, a high point for tensions between church and state in the Middle Ages. Factions of family loyalties developed between the Guelphs, who supported the Pope, and Ghibellines, who supported the Holy Roman Emperor. Even among the Florentine Guelphs, however, tensions were hot, and the faction eventually split into two sides known as the White and Black Guelphs. The Alighieri family had a long-standing loyalty to the White Guelphs, and Dante fought both on the battle-field and in his writings to support their causes. His allegiance, in fact, led to exile from his hometown of Florence in 1302, during which he wrote his magnum opus, which he called the Commedia.

In the first part of the Divine Comedy, known as Inferno—a fictionalized travelogue through hell—Dante uses scathing satire as his mode of political engagement. Throughout his tour of hell, Dante recounts many encounters with various political figures from legend, history, and his own time, offering scathing depictions of certain rivals. For example, while traveling through the fifth circle of hell, reserved for the wrathful, Dante and his spirit-guide Virgil are accosted by a famous Florentine politician named Filippo Argenti:

Mentre noi corravam la morta gora,
dinanzi mi si fece un pien di fango,
e disse: “Chi se’ tu che vieni anzi ora?”
E io a lui: “S’i’ vegno, non rimango;
ma tu chi se’, che sì se’ fatto brutto?”
Rispuose: “Vedi che son un che piango.’
E io a lui: “Con piangere e con lutto,
spirito maladetto, ti rimani;
ch’i’ ti conosco, ancor sie lordo tutto.”
Allor distese al legno ambo le mani;
per che ’l maestro accorto lo sospinse,
dicendo: “Via costà con li altri cani!”
[….]
Dopo ciò poco vid’ io quello strazio
far di costui a le fangose genti,
che Dio ancor ne lodo e ne ringrazio.
Tutti gridavano: “A Filippo Argenti!”
e ’l fiorentino spirito bizzarro
in sé medesmo si volvea co’ denti.

The fifth circle of Dante’s Inferno, (canto VIII) as depicted by the Flemish artist Giovanni Stradanus (1523-1605) in 1587.

(VII.31-63: While we crossed the stagnant swamp
one cloaked in mud rose up to say:
“Who are you that you come before your time?”
And I to him: “If I come, I do not stay.
But you, who are you, now become so foul?”
He answered: “As you can see, I am one who weeps.”
And I to him: “In weeping and in misery,
accursèd spirit, may you stay.
I know you, for all your filth.”
When he stretched both his hands toward the boat,
the wary master thrust him off, saying:
“Away there with the other dogs!”
[….]
Soon I watched him get so torn to pieces
by the muddy crew, I still give praise
and thanks to God for it.
All cried: “Get Filippo Argenti!”
And that spiteful Florentine spirit
gnawed at himself with his own teeth.)[2]

This moment is surely fueled by personal animosity between the men, since Filippo is assumed to be among the family who both supported Dante’s exile and seized his belongings when he was cast out of Florence. But beyond personal issues, this scene also represents the ways Dante used his literature to strike out at the political leaders of the day. We might even see him as a type of literary John Stewart of the fourteenth century. While this episode is not (on the surface) overtly Christian in its aims, the very framework and details of Dante’s Comedy necessitate reevaluating any neat separation between “religious” and “secular” worlds for medieval people. Dante still used the theological concepts of hell and the deadly sin of wrath to pose his satire. These facets of people’s lives were not separated, but just as complexly connected as the various facets of our own lives in the twenty-first century.

In these three preliminary examples, we find three very different types of political engagements and implications that come out of them. No clear way of synthesizing Christian and political views emerge; and that in itself is a clear suggestion for considering the complexity at work in questioning how these two issues have been navigated historically and how we should navigate them now. Even more, these cases are only a few examples of the many to be found in medieval culture. We will see more instances of the myriad ways that medieval people juggled both religious convictions and political affinities in the posts to come over the next few weeks.

[1] Les textes de la Chanson de Roland: La version d’Oxford, ed. Raoul Mortier (Paris: Éditions de la Geste Francor, 1940), available online at Bibliotecha Augustana, http://www.hs-augsburg.de/~harsch/gallica/Chronologie/11siecle/Roland/rol_intr.html; translation from The Song of Roland: Done into English, in the original measure, trans. Charles Scott Moncrieff (London: Chapman & Hall, 1919), available online at Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/songsofroland00chesuoft.

[2] Both text and translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy come from the Princeton Dante Project, ed. Robert Hollander, http://etcweb.princeton.edu/dante/pdp/.