medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Well, I'll post one more reaction to the various threads that seem to
have come together in this one:
Obviosuly, I was not arguing that all you find on the web is garbage,
and all you find in print is reliable. (Some of the websites that are
recommended on this list are a good illustartion of this point!) I guess
the old "caveat lector" is true more than ever. I have just spent a
month teaching students how to apply this "caveat" in a reseach methods
class, so maybe I'm sensitive to the issue.
The main point, I guess, is: know what you're citing. If you know that
the Catholic Encyclopeadia is a 1917 work that's still very useful in
many respects, that's fine. (In fact, I often use the Religion in
Geschichte und Gegenwart of 1929, which long has lost its caim to be
representative of the "Gegenwart", or the Theologisches Kirchenlexikon
of 1957, with great profit. And, of course, neither one is searchable by
key-word in the blink of an eye!) As long as no one consuses it with the
the latest scholarship. I am sometimes astonished to see people use the
Migne database without knowing exactly what or who Migne is.
And speaking of Migne, maybe Tom knows more about this. The booklet
"God's Plagiarist" I referred to earlier gives a revealing insight into
Migne's methods. And some of the editions in there are actually very
good critical editions that were made for his edition in the
mid-nineteenth century. (Not that any of his "modern" editors ever
received any credit for this work...). But some are actually very shoddy
nineteenth-century editions, and some are seventeenth-century editions,
or even older. Again: know what you're looking at!
And all those who are working in education: make your students aware of
this problem, and teach them how to deal with it.
Frans van Liere
Department of History, Calvin College
1845 Knollcrest Circle SE
Grand Rapids, MI 49546-4402
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
http://www.calvin.edu/academic/history/faculty/vanlieref/
>>> [log in to unmask] 01/28/06 1:52 PM >>>
medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and
culture
Migne published new editions by others. Thus the role of Pitra in the
compilation of the Patrologia.
Tom Izbicki
Thomas Izbicki
Research Services Librarian
and Gifts-in-Kind Officer
Eisenhower Library
Johns Hopkins
Baltimore, MD 21218
(410)516-7173
fax (410)516-8399
>>> [log in to unmask] 01/28/06 11:40 AM >>>
medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and
culture
From: Frans van Liere <[log in to unmask]>
>I see people happily citing Migne when there are much better and more
current
critical editions available. And Migne, of course, sometimes simply
copied
seventeenth-century editions.
"sometimes" ?
i was under the impression that *all* of Migne's texts were simply
reprints of
previously published editions --that he did no real "editing" (from the
mss)
himself?
is this not the case?
c
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