medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

"Stephen J. Harris" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>An interesting numerological point. Is there a corroborating source? I'm
intrigued since it just occurred to me that Beowulf is broken into 43
fitts, or sections. Perhaps 43 is just one better than 42!


Welcome back, Stephen!

as i'm sure you know better than i, there's quite a vast secondary literature
on the various numerological goings on in primary literature.

my all-time favorite amongst the latter is the 11th c. _Vie de Saint Alexis_,
which consists of --what is it?-- 125 stanzas of 5 lines each, each line of
ten beats, a cesura between the fifth and sixth.  something like that.

significant events in the poem *seem* to be placed in what *seem* to be 
numerically significant stanzas (or lines), in a fashion similar to the way
many Romanesque sculptures *seem* to have been laid out according to 
a pre-determined (usually foliate or abstract geometric) pattern.  

(on the latter, see Jurgis Baltrusaitis' _La Stylistique ornementale dans le
sculpture romane_ [1931], which fleshes out in considerable detail the idea of
his art historical mentor, Henri Focillon, on the "_Loi du 
cadre_" as a determining factor in the composition of romanesque 
sculpture and painting.   an example of Focillon's idea may be seen in 
the famous "Last Judgement" tympanum at Conques
http://www.conques.com/visite24.htm ,
where the Elect are arranged in good order under a Heavenly Arcade [lower
left] while the Damned appear, at first glance, to be undergoing their
torments in utter Chaos [lower right]. 

a closer look, however, 
http://rubens.anu.edu.au/htdocs/bycountry/france/auvergne/Conques/tympanum/181.JPG

reveals that the Damned are equally compositionally constrained by a "frame"
[_cadre_] and one can superimpose the *same* arcading explicitly shown on the
left on the figures of the right: they, too are subject to the same "law.")

to my mind and eye the same principles are at work in both genres, the 
St. Alexis just happens --by accident of survival perhaps-- to be a
particularly clear example of the process at work.

composing such works, whether literary or in the plastic arts, in this fashion
is so alien to the method of work which most of us "moderns" use that it is
difficult for us to imagine how the process actually would work; and this lack
of imagination is reflected, if i recall correctly, 
in the scholarly literature, where there is much scepticism evident, much of
it very poorly founded, it seems to me.

best from here,

christopher








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