Medieval literature (general or comparative)

1066 is one of the most well-known dates in English history: but how far do we understand the mental and emotional lives of those who experienced it? In just over a month England was rocked by two separate invasions multiple pitched battles and the deaths of thousands. The repercussions of these traumatic events would echo through the history and literature of northern Europe for centuries to come.

Drawing on studies of trauma and cultural memory this book examines the cultural repercussions of the year 1066 in medieval England Normandy and Scandinavia. It explores how writers in all three regions celebrated their common heritage and mourned the wars that brought them into conflict. Bringing together texts from an array of languages genres and cultural traditions this study examines the strategies medieval authors employed to work through the traumas of 1066 narrating its events and experiences in different forms. It explores the ways in which history and memory interacted through multiple generations of writers and readers and reveals how the field of trauma studies can help us better understand the mental and emotional lives of medieval people.

L'exemplum antique est l'un des héritages les plus importants de l'Antiquité au Moyen Âge. Les anecdotes tirées des œuvres d'historiens latins tels que Tite-Live Suétone Valère Maxim et même de traités tels que Sénèque et Cicéron étaient diffusées sous la forme d'un récit bref. Mais l'Antiquité n'a pas transmis au Moyen Âge qu'une collection d'histoires. Ils étaient porteurs d'une idéologie le mos maiorum c'est-à-dire une série de vertus qui avaient constitué la base de l'Empire romain et que le Moyen Âge souhaitait appliquer à la chevalerie. Cette forme d'exemplum avait une longue tradition en Espagne. Dès le xii e siècle des auteurs tels que Pedro Alfonso de Huesca s'en servent. Au xiv e siècle il a été revalorisé et a commencé à faire partie du discours politique des ‘miroirs des princes’. Mais son moment de diffusion le plus important se situe au xv e siècle au point que cette période peut être caractérisée comme une aetas valeriana.

During the twentieth century scholars discovered that oral poetry in entirely unrelated cultures in the world share a basic characteristic: the use of verbal formulas more or less fixed word strings which were inherited from tradition. The discovery of formulas revolutionized the understanding of oral tradition and how oral poetry was transmitted. Homer Eddic poems Karelian laments Serbian heroic poetry etc. were suddenly seen in a new light. But the original Oral-Formulaic Theory has also been questioned and revised. New approaches in the study of formulas have been developed among linguists and folklorists.

The present volume discusses new approaches models and interpretations of formulas in traditional poetry and prose. The twenty authors in the volume analyze formulas in a broad context by letting oral traditions from all over the world shed light on each other. The volume aims to deepen our understanding of the function and meaning of these formulas. A unique feature is that the volume focuses as much on formulas in oral prose as in poetry – usually formula studies have focused entirely or mainly on poetry.

The papers gathered in this volume focus on ‘Medieval Translations and their Readership’ the special strand of the 11th Cardiff Conference on the Theory and Practice of Translation in the Middle Ages. The volume discusses the role of the reader in the process of translation communities of readers and their active participation in translators’ choices and the translation as a result of a dialogue between author text and its reader.

Translations of works of theology and religious education the focus of most of the contributions to this volume constitute excellent material for research into medieval lay audiences. Vernacular religious educational texts from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century show a great deal of conformity. Individual authors resorted to similar strategies and techniques to meet any translation challenges to fulfil educational aims or to relate to their readers and to accommodate their expectations. Simultaneously the readers played a crucial role as they shaped the production of texts in many ways.

Research into Middle English pastoral and devotional literature and the conditions of its production still dominates scholarly work in the field. Religious texts in vernaculars other than Middle English have so far received little attention. This volume tries to tackle this lacuna by offering a careful comparative analysis of relevant vernacular texts across Europe including Slavonic works using historiographical philological and linguistic methods as well as literary scholarly approaches.

The sixteen chapters are organized in three sections. The first one ‘Authors and Readers’ brings together articles examining the idea of a model reader as expressed in translations of biblical texts and texts of religious instruction. The contributions in the second section on the ‘Dissimination of Knowledge’ focus on how translators addressed readers how people read and how they used the manuscripts and printed books made for them. The target audience or model reader of the first section is here put into perspective with the help of discussions of reading practices. The last section ‘Religious Education in Transition’ comprises contributions which focus on textual material from the period when printed books gradually changed the relationship between languages texts authors and readers.

This chapter investigates the ways in which Nicholas Trevet’s commentaries on Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy Seneca the Elder’s Controversiae Seneca the Younger’s Tragedies Augustine’s City of God and Livy were published. Analysing authorial paratexts and the philological codicological and book-historical evidence of early manuscripts extant and lost it assesses pertinent actions by the author and his publishing circle a group of associates who contributed to the release and primary circulation of his works. The dedicatory letter of Trevet’s commentary on Boethius betrays two fair copies made by him or under his oversight. Dedications of three of the said commentaries and the execution of certain illustrations in his expositions of the Consolation and the Tragedies likewise reflect his efforts to publish. The Dominican Order furnished Trevet with a setting to circulate his works and his confreres are often mentioned as a target audience. The evidence of the primary circulation and reception suggests that the order actively assisted in publication. Trevet’s teaching positions at Oxford also provided opportunities to obtain readerships. The clearest insight through our sources is however into publishing on the Continent with the contribution of individuals within and without the order. Particularly important figures were Cardinal Niccolò da Prato OP and Pope John XXII. Besides commissioning two of the works studied they supervised and financed the copying of Trevet’s commentaries perhaps combining them with the texts commented on recommended them to potential readers and made copies available.

Vita et miracula s. Symeonis Treverensis (BHL 7963-7964) is a hagiographic composite text written by various authors and released in several versions. Symeon died in the summer of 1035. The first version vita and miracula were composed within months in order to be sent to the pope who quickly canonized him. The author was Eberwinus abbot of no fewer than three monasteries who had known Symeon in person. For as long as Eberwinus lived probably until c. 1040 he was undoubtedly in charge of polishing the text of the vita and adding new contents to the miracula. His successor as author identified by a single manuscript was Warnerus schoolmaster of the collegiate church of St Symeon. Several additions to the miracula were made the last one by an anonymous writer probably at St Symeon’s in 1086. A very complex manuscript transmission ensued characterized by several releases. This chapter maps relationships between all fifty-eight hitherto known extant witnesses. In addition to traditional textual criticism the examination is based on computational analysis with various algorithms applied. The result is a well-grounded hypothetical stemma a point of reference for our historical enquiry into the publication and reception of St Symeon’s vita and miracula. The textual history provides insights into how a saintly cult might be built in the high Middle Ages.

The chronicle that was written by Ralph abbot of the Cistercian abbey of Coggeshall in England is one of the few contemporary chronicle sources for the reigns of Kings Richard (1189-1199) and John (1199-1216) and is the unique source for some famous events in English history. There are several early manuscripts including one Cotton Vespasian D. x in the British Library that contains numerous corrections additions and interfoliations of an authorial nature. This chapter identifies a group of interconnected manuscripts as having been made at Coggeshall and argues that they show Ralph to have been a keen compiler and publisher. He is himself identified here as the principal hand of the Cottonian manuscript of his chronicle a hand that shows considerable deterioration over time. The question of Ralph’s responsibility for the text is important since a large expurgation of annals relating to the central painful years of John’s reign would suggest something in the way of self-censorship apparently carried out towards the end of Ralph’s life. Evidence is presented for this lost material which has historiographical significance. Various historical texts are communicated by the manuscripts produced during Ralph’s abbacy or are otherwise attested as lost copies. These texts were received at Coggeshall edited and then transmitted as part of a dossier of historical material. It is owing entirely to the monks of Coggeshall - directed it would seem by Abbot Ralph - that they owe their survival.

Petrarch began writing his De vita solitaria for Bishop Philippe de Cabassole in Vaucluse in 1346. The process of composition took time: the work was sent to the dedicatee only in 1366. While that act constituted publication it did not conclude the authorial process as Petrarch kept on revising the text. Engaging with his letters manuscripts (some containing autograph marginalia) and the complex manuscript tradition of the treatise this chapter sheds light on Petrarch’s strategies for promoting the circulation of De vita solitaria. In addition to the dedicatory volume Madrid Biblioteca Nacional de España 9633 with its autograph interventions the manuscript Vat. lat. 3357 written when Petrarch was still alive is of particular importance. The latter bears marginalia which attest to dialogue between the author and an anonymous reader attentive to textual issues and various minutiae of the contents. Study of these notes demonstrates that after the first formal dedication copy had been sent to Philippe de Cabassole Petrarch remained concerned for details of the text and the work’s further circulation.

In the context of Renaissance Florence rich in female writers Fiammetta Frescobaldi (1523-1586) a Dominican nun in the convent of San Jacopo di Ripoli stands out for the choice and variety of subjects that she studied and introduced to the sisters of her convent. Her works include a rewriting of Francesco Guicciardini’s Storia d’Italia. She did not simply offer a resumé of that work but she intervened at lexical and syntactical levels rendering Guicciardini’s highly complex rhetorical account in shorter sentences and a more accessible linguistic idiom. Her primary audience consisted of her conventual sisters many of whom belonged to the most important Florentine families. She issued her works for their benefit as high-quality manuscript volumes which imitated the conventions of printed books. As such her works released in a domestic setting emulated publication in the wider world.