Glossing the Psalms

Alderik H. Blom

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9783110498264
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Medieval & Early Modern Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

This study proposes a new view of glossing as a universal phenomenon. Starting from the Psalter, a centrepiece of devotion and education in early medieval Europe, it combines historical sociolinguistics, comparative philology, manuscript studies and cultural history in order to assess and compare the interface of Latin with Old Irish, Old English, Old Frisian, Old Saxon and Old High German within the context of its multilingual and textual culture.

The close study of thirteen glossed manuscripts, such as the Anglo-Saxon Vespasian Psalter and the Old Irish Milan Glosses, reveals when and why scribes switched from Latin into the vernacular, how the vernacular was used in studying Latin, how glosses interact with construe marks and punctuation, and how such manuscripts were intended to be read in a period covering the seventh to the twelfth centuries and in an area stretching from Ireland to Central Europe.

The book is an essential textbook for specialists in the growing field of glossing, and also reaches out to scholars of early medieval liturgy, education, palaeography and Christian literature.

Part I

Chapter 1:Introduction and Scope

1.1Introduction

For native speakers of Celtic and Germanic languages in early medieval Europe, Latin was a foreign language that needed to be learned: literacy meant first and foremost Latin literacy.1 However, in order to become literate in that Mediterranean language with its prestigious classical and Christian heritage, the surviving manuscript evidence suggests that, besides Latin itself, there was a developing role for the vernaculars. Some of the earliest manuscript attestations of the medieval vernaculars of Western Europe therefore occur in the form of glosses: annotations inserted into the Latin texts that were studied. Nonetheless, the unique window that glosses provide unto the emergence of the early European written vernaculars has yet to be explored. It is with this form of vernacular use, therefore, within an otherwise overwhelmingly Latinate context, that this book is concerned.

The close study and comparison of these glossed manuscripts may tell us when and why scribes switched from Latin into the vernacular, how the vernacular was used in studying Latin, how verbal glosses interact with other elements on the manuscript page such as construe marks and punctuation, and how such manuscripts were intended to be read. Only recently has the study of glosses and marginalia started to focus on broader issues such as their value as witnesses to literary and textual culture, the history of reading and the medieval transfer of learning: whereas the study of early medieval vernacular glosses tended until recently to be dominated by lexicographers and historical linguists, the last few decades have seen a broader and more interdisciplinary approach. This new interest has involved a more ‘holistic’ analysis of the entire manuscript context, including Latin glossing and other forms of annotation present on the page. This renewed interest in glossing has by now broadened its scope to study, among other things, the value of glosses as witnesses to literary and textual culture, the ways in which glosses were compiled and redacted, and the way in which they were used in medieval libraries and classrooms.2 However, while individual instances of this phenomenon have been discussed, a large-scale comparison of early medieval glossing has not yet been undertaken.3

The recent attempts to trace the dynamics and the Sitz im Leben of glossing activity has firmly placed it within the wider context of the history of reading, writing and teaching in the medieval monasteries.4 Indeed, glosses have come to be regarded as the most important extant source for the study of all these forms of medieval literacy. It is glossing, together with other traces of active use such as probationes pennae, corrections and other forms of annotation, which can tell us anything about whether and how manuscripts were read. Thus, glosses are both the handmaiden of, and prime witnesses to, the early medieval acquisition, structuring and exchange of knowledge and thought, as well as to its encyclopaedic compilation in the form of glossaries. The study of vernacular and Latin glossing therefore directly contributes, not only to the history of the book and that of literacy in general, but also to the history of the exchange and appropriation of Latin learning. Glossing provides glimpses into the intellectual workshop of the medieval monasteries and, more specifically, into textual appropriation, translation strategies and the role of multilingual communication, as they took place in the margins and between the lines of medieval manuscripts.5

This volume therefore presents an innovative and interdisciplinary study of the glossing on one of the most frequently used and most intensively studied Latin texts of the Middle Ages: the Psalter. The Latin Psalter is particularly suitable for such an undertaking, as the central importance of the psalms in monastic life in the Middle Ages has resulted in a large number of surviving glossed psalters, glossaries and commentaries from Ireland, Anglo-Saxon England and the Frankish territories,6 constituting an early medieval ‘paratextual network’ (see 2.2.2 below) which should be studied as a whole. While most of these individual texts have received some attention in the past, they have not been included in a large-scale cross-disciplinary assessment. Moreover, previous studies have mostly focused on the English and German sources, leaving out the pivotally important material written in the Celtic languages, especially Irish. Equally important is the fact that most of the existing studies have appeared in languages other than English. Many of the glossed texts and their modern scholarship are therefore here presented to the English-speaking public for the first time.

Combining historical sociolinguistics, comparative philology, manuscript studies and cultural history, this volume therefore assesses and compares the interface of Latin and several different European vernaculars in the context of medieval bilingual and multilingual textual culture. The extensive reach of the volume enables readers to explore and compare when, how and for what purpose the Old Irish, Old English and Continental Germanic vernaculars came to be employed. It seeks to recover, where possible, what criteria governed a scribe’s choice of glossing language and reading strategy in a period covering the seventh to the twelfth centuries and in an area stretching from Ireland to Central Europe.

1.2Structure of the Book

This volume presents a comparative study of the types and functions of Latin and vernacular glossing. It treats the mise-en-page of a manuscript as a complete unit and concentrates on the understanding of the location and function of the glosses within what are complex and multi-layered texts.7 Introducing a new glossing typology which includes Latin glossing as well as non-verbal glossing such as construe marks and punctuation (see 2.4 below), the uses of vernacular glossing are studied in their manuscript context. In a carefully selected corpus of manuscripts from Ireland, Anglo-Saxon England and Germanic-speaking Europe, the written uses of Celtic (Old Irish) and Germanic (Old English, Old High German, Old Saxon and Old Frisian) vernaculars, hitherto mostly studied in isolation, are compared and contrasted in their interface with Latin. The important glossing materials in the Brittonic Celtic languages, Welsh and Breton, could not be included as they do not concern the psalms.

This study consists of three parts. Each of the three concentrates on a selection of manuscripts representing a specific type of glossing activity: glossed psalters and glossed commentaries (part 1), interlinear versions (part 2) and a selection of glossaries (part 3), all written in a combination of Latin and various vernaculars. Individual chapters offer new insights into these texts and frequently challenge received ideas on how the glosses were compiled, transmitted and used. The book’s chapters present detailed studies of different types of glossing in a selection of manuscripts, adopting a stimulating variety of perspectives and themes. In part 1, the introductory chapters 2 and 3 form a unity with chapters 4 and 5, in that the concepts and methods set out in chapter 2 are illustrated by means of two psalters and two commentaries with vernacular glossing from the Irish tradition. Part 2, consisting of ten short chapters, shifts the attention to interlinear versions. In part 3, finally, chapter 15 treats another type of glossing, namely that of text glossaries. The final chapter 16 puts all the varied evidence for glossing the Psalms together, evaluating the concepts and methodologies set out in the introduction, summarising the results and putting these in a comparative European context. The book closes with an appendix on glossing typology and a full bibliography.

1.3Summ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Front Matter
• Acknowledgements
• Table of Contents
• List of Abbreviations
• Part I
• Part II
• Part III
• Appendix: Functions and Types of Glosses
• Bibliography
• Manuscript Index
• Subject Index