Medieval Latin

We will read Latin texts that cover the geographical and chronological range of what might be considered "medieval Latin," from c. 350-c. 1500 and from the Mediterranean to Britain and Ireland. We will also visit the Cleveland Museum of Art, not only to view artefacts representing this same geographical and chronological range, but also in order for you to complete your manuscript projects, and we will work in Special Collections on campus to help them catalogue some early modern Latin books.

Spring 2019 reading list - we'll be using Harrington and Pucci, Medieval Latin for all of these excerpts:

Egeria, Itinerarium

Sulpicius Severus, Life of St. Martin (the pine tree)

Prudentius, "Hymn at Cock-crow"

Boethius, Consolation of Philosophy

Gregory of Tours, History of the Franks (Clovis)

Isidore of Seville, Etymologiae (glass)

Bede, Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (Gregory in the slave-market)

Paul the Deacon

Dhuoda

A Mystery Play on the Resurrection

Hrotsvit, Dulcitius

"Alexander in India"

Adam of Bremen (Norsemen discover America)

Abelard and Heloise

Alan of Lille

Matthew Paris (riot at Oxford)

Palaeography packet

Here is a pdf of the palaeography packet. WARNING: This is a very large file, thanks to the gorgeous images it contains, so it may take a while to load.

Assignment at the Cleveland Museum of Art

Here is a pdf of the guidelines for the assignment.

Images

An image from the Hours of Mary of Burgundy (Flanders, c. 1475).

At the CMA, we'll be looking at an image of Jerome and the lion, like this one from the Getty.

Alexander Romances

Alexander the Great being carried aloft in a cage by griffins

The glass submersible: Here, depicted with a cat (purifying the air as it breathes) and a cock (to tell time, even though you can't see the sky from under the sea). A dog was supposedly also there, to be killed in the event of danger, since water would expel the impurity of the dog's carcase! Another image of the submersible, and a sixteenth-century image from an Islamic-influenced manuscript. (See here for more on figural representation in Islamic art.)

Resources

Glossa, an online dictionary based on Lewis and Short - this is a wonderful resource for when you're not within easy reach of a full-size Latin dictionary. You can find links to other resources on medieval Latin here.

Latin resources (grammatical reviews and vocabulary lists) from the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of Toronto

Niermeyer, Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus Ref PA2364.N5

Latham, Revised Medieval Latin Word-list from British and Irish Sources PA2891.L3

This is a smaller volume than Niemeyer, but although it is only citing sources from Great Britain and Ireland, it is often reflecting much broader trends.

Beeson, A Primer of Medieval Latin PA2824.B4

For those interested in medieval Latin but unable to take LT 375, here is an online summer course taught by William Turpin and Jen Faulkner, meeting via Zoom webinars.

For easy access to facsimiles of the volumes in Migne's Patrologia Latina, try this site.

Glossary of terms commonly found in the imprints of early modern printed books