"The Glosae in regula S. Benedicti - a text between the Liber Glossarum and Smaragdus' Expositio in regulam S. Benedicti" in Dossiers d'HEL 10, 2016 (original) (raw)
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In her Carolingians and the Written Word, Rosamond McKitterick discusses a select but highly suggestive body of evidence for Carolingian rulers and aristocratic lay men and women who borrowed books from monastic libraries. 1 Later annotations in a mid-ninth century library catalogue from St Gall yield some very distinguished borrowers and/or recipients of biblical commentary. King Charles the Fat (d. 888) received one of the volumes of homilies on the Gospels by Gregory the Great; he had also requested an "excellent lectionary" (lectionarium optimum) which Abbot Hartmot (872-883) did indeed give him. Hartmot duly replaced this volume with another one. Charles' spouse, Queen Richgard, borrowed Gregory's twelve homilies on the first part ofEzechiel, as well as Jerome's commentary on Jonas and three minor prophets. 2 This clearly reveals a royal interest in biblical commentary, which was by no means a new phenomenon. At that time, there was a tradition of four generations of Carolingian rulers commissioning biblical commentaries or being the grateful recipients of such texts offered to them, with the understanding that a good ruler who was responsible for the salvation of his populus christianus would need a firm grasp of the significance of the lex divina which was to guide both king and people. As time went on, royal knowledge of the intricacies of Scripture became the hallmark of the true Christian ruler. Thus, Louis the Pious's biographer Thegan, writing in 836, portrayed Charlemagne preparing for death by correcting the Gospels. 3 This was a view inspired by hindsight, but it was based on a by then well.:.established reputation of Charles as a learned king, who had commissioned a comriJ.entary on Genesis from the otherwise unknown cleric Wigbod. 4 Louis the Pious and his sons, notably Lothar and Louis the l R. McKitterick, The Carolingians and the Written Word, Cambridge 1989, 261-66. 2 P. Lehmann, Mittelalterliche Bibliothekskataloge Deutschlands und der Schweiz I, (Konstanz u. Chur), Miinchen 1918, 72-79. About the 'Bildungsstand' in the East Frankish kingdom, with a much more positive verdict than before, cf. W. Hartmann, Ludwig der Deutsche, Darmstadt 2002, 212-41. 3 Thegan, Vita Hludowici c. 7, E. Tremp (ed.), Thegan, Die Taten Kaiser Ludwigs, MGH SRG in usum scholarum, Hannover 1995, 184-86: Postquam divisi fuerant [i.e. Charlemagne and Louis], domnus imperator nihil coepit agere, nisi in orationibus et elemosinis vacare, et libros corrigere; et quattuor evangelia Christi, quae praetitulantur nomine Mathei, Marci, Lucae et Iohannis, in ultimo ante obitus sui diem cum Grecis et Siris optime correxerat. 4 M. Gorman, 'The Encyclopedic Commentary on Genesis prepared for Charlemagne by Wigbod', Recherches Augustiniennes 17 ( 1982) 173-201; Id., 'Wigbod and Biblical Studies under Charlemagne', Revue Benedictine 107 (1997) 40-711.
Smaragdus of Saint-Mihiel and the Carolingian Monastic Reform
Revue Bénédictine 116:2, (2006), 367-392.
Of all of Smaragdus' works, the Expositio in regulam sancti Benedicti is perhaps the most deserving of a reevaluation. Written at the height of the ninth-century Benedictine monastic reform, the commentary acknowledges difficulties surrounding the observance of the Rule of St Benedict in Frankish monasteries and is well positioned to shed light on the daily practice of monks during a formative period of Carolingian monasticism. Yet Smaragdus is seemingly unconcerned with the daily observance of monasticism, but instead limits his commentary to the explanation of the rule in the context of monastic spirituality. In this study, I demonstrate that the commentary reveals a more personal response to Carolingian monastic legislation than has previously been considered.
Reading the Catholic Epistles: Glossing practices at early medieval Wissembourg
M. Teeuwen and I. van Renswoude (eds), The Annotated Book in the Early Middle Ages. Practices of Reading and Writing, 2017
This article was published in: M. von Teeuwen – I. van Reswoude (eds.), "The Annotated Book in the Early Middle Ages: Practices of Reading and Writing", Utrecht Studies in Medieval Literacy 38 (Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2017), pp. 705-742. Three different manuscript produced by the scriptorium of Wissembourg in the second half of the ninth century transmit the text of the Catholic Epistles with both marginal and interlinear glosses. They are MSS Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, 47 Weissenburg and 59 Weissenburg, as well as MS Wien, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, 1239. The glosses contained in MS 59 Weiss. are regarded as autographic annotations by Otfrid, the well-known author of the Old-High-German poem called Liber Evangeliorum, This article analyses the characteristics of the three corpora of glosses in terms of contents, sources and intended audiences. It concludes that Otfrid's MS 59 Weiss. has to be regarded as an innovative manual for the personal study of the Catholic Epistles, which provided a model for the production of the further two glossed editions of the same biblical book.
Teaching Emperors: Transcending the Boundaries of Carolingian Monastic Communities
Meanings of Community across Medieval Eurasia, 2016
This article, part of the first VISCOM volume on Meanings of Community across Medieval Eurasia, set out to show how the self-identification of Carolingian monastic communities in part depended on their ability to open up to outside influences - specifically, to the influence of the imperial court, which safeguarded their existence and set itself up as one of the main propagators of religious and educational reform. Looking in turn at the foundation of Inda, the conflict between Ratgar of Fulda and his monks, and the portrayal of Charlemagne's "court school" in the works of Notker the Stammerer, this article aims to show that the influence between court and cloister was not a one-way street, but rather part of a complex set of interdependent representations. The complete book has been published Open Access online at http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/books/9789004315693
2012
who lead the new edition project of Capitularia at the Monumenta Germaniae Historica, defined Frankish "capitularies" as "edicts, orders or announcements with legislative, administrative and religiously enlightening character which were issued from Frankish monarchs and which were mostly divided into clauses (capitula)". 2 As one of fundamental sources for Carolingianists, capitularies have been studied continuously. But in this short paper I cannot handle all the debates about capitularies which have been discussed by historians. 3 Instead, I will concentrate on reflecting upon characteristics of this source genre as texts. What kind of text were the documents which historians understand as "capitularies"? Probably we cannot give a single answer which would be valid for all "capitularies" because of their diversity in form and content. We must divide and subdivide them and must consider a possible change in their meanings as written texts as time goes-at the time of writing down, of dissemination by royal agents, of codification by locals or by posterity and so on. 4 So rather than discussing the matter theoretically and systematically from the beginning, I would like to begin with the analysis of a concrete example.
Manuscripts for local priests and the Carolingian reforms
With the onset of the Carolingian reforms, priests were given the important task to improve the moral lives of the laity. Whether or not regulations to this extent were an empty letter has been long debated. Manuscripts used by local priests shed new light on this matter and show how ideals of correctio did reach the Frankish countryside. It also shows how there were priests well educated enough to work with these books and teach the laity how to be good Frankish Christians.
Gregory the Great, the Rule of Benedict and Roman liturgy: the evolution of a legend
Journal of Medieval History, 2011
Gelasianum codicem de missarum solemniis, multa subtrahens, pauca convertens, nonnulla vero superadjiciens pro exponendis evangelicis lectionibus in unius libri volumine coarctavit. In canone apposuit: "Diesque nostros in tua pace dispone, atque ab aeterna damnatione nos eripi, et in electorum tuorum jubeas grege numerari.". Deinde in domo Domini, more sapientissimi Salomonis, propter musicae compunctionem dulcedinis, antiphonarium centonem cantorum studiosissimus nimis utiliter compilavit; scholam quoque cantorum, quae hactenus eisdem institutionibus in sancta Romana ecclesia modulatur, constituit; eique cum nonnullis praediis duo habitacula, scilicet alterum sub gradibus basilicae beati Petri apostoli, alterum vero sub Lateranensis patriarchii domibus fabricavit, ubi usque hodie lectus ejus, in quo recubans modulabatur, et flagellum ipsius, quo pueris minabatur, veneratione congrua cum authentico antiphonario reservatur, quae videlicet loca per praecepti seriem sub interpositione anathematis ob ministerii quotidiam utrobique gratiam subdivisit.' 3 Originally propounded by F.A. Gevaert, Les Origines du chant liturgique de l'église latine: etude d'histoire musicale (Gand, 1890), this was suggested by H. Hucke, 'Die Entstehung der Überlieferung von einer musikalischen Tätigkeit Gregors des Grossen',
Lectures on the Glossa ordinaria FOLEY and WHEDBEE Peter Comestor's oral lectures on the Glossa ordinaria were originally delivered at the cathedral school of Paris around the year and survive in the form of student transcripts. As one of the period's pioneering masters, Comestor lectured using the newly-fashioned biblical Gloss as his textbook, meticulously weaving its component glosses into his teaching to distil its richly varied patristic exegesis. While at times elegant and consciously rhetorical, Comestor's lectures are preserved in vividly conversational Latin, bearing traces of the master's direct address to his students and lively examples drawn from contemporary life in the schools. Edited for the rst time from the late twel h-century manuscript Troyes, Médiathèque du Grand Troyes, MS , the prefatory material of Comestor's lecture courses on the four glossed Gospels o ers a unique glimpse into the classroom of one of Paris's preeminent masters at the height of the renaissance of the twel h century. Bruges, Openbare Bibliotheek, MS , fol. r. e Luke Gloss, with paraphrases of Peter Comestor's lectures on Luke added as marginal and interlinear glosses. Reproduced by permission.