medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Rochelle,
Thank you, that is most fascinating, indeed. There's always something new you
can learn. The Saint Gall manuscript, incidentally, with its various
"probationes pennae" (including the hexameter "Adnexique globum Zephyrique
Kauna secabant", as well as Luke 1:1, and Psalms 1:1) gave me a good idea for
teaching my next class in palaeography. Thank you for drawing my attention to
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/
>>> rochelle altman <[log in to unmask]> 02/11/07 8:40 AM >>>
medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Frans,
I think one of the problems is that we are accustomed to having a Capital
letter begin a sentence, but it was not always the case. So, when you are
looking at alpha markers and you see a majuscule, it's a ho-hum. but it
wasn't. Every one of those majuscules we see in a late-antique and Medieval
MS is a mnemonic indexing aide.
Professional writing is hard work -- the adage, "waste not, want not"
epitomizes the MSS. Letters did double and triple duty.
The earliest use of letters as mnemonic indexing is definitely BCE. But, if
it's the bibles that are wanted, glad to oblige.
Good enlargable photo of the Vaticanus at Wiki. (The photo at the Vatican
site can't be enlarged.) Note that there are additions and corrections in
the margin. The decorative letter was a ca. 10th-century addition. Also,
the text of the Vaticanus was overwritten because the ink had faded and the
complete bible was a present for the pope.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Codex_Vaticanus_B%2C_2Thess._3%2C11-18%2C_Hebr._1%2C1-2%2C2.jpg>
Look at the first column. No paragraphing markers intrude into the
left-hand margin. In a Greek Biblical uncial, all letters are majuscules,
so no majuscules mark new paragraphs/phrases.
Now, look at this close up of "Esther" in the Siniaticus:
<ttp://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41369000/jpg/_41369365_codex_sinaticus270.jpg>
Again, it's all majuscules in an Biblical uncial script, so we find the
alpha mnemonic indexing markers protruding into the left-hand margin of the
column.
Here's a site for all the MSS of the Vetus Latina.
<http://itsee.bham.ac.uk/vetuslatina/manuscripts.htm>
Note the 4th-century Bobiensis uses both alpha paragraph indexing
mnemonics AND spacing <G> Ditto for the 7th-century Monacensis.
A nice early Latin example at the St. Gall MSS site:
<http://www.cesg.unifr.ch/cesg-cgi/kleioc/e0010/exec/pagemed/%22csg-0006_001.jpg%22/segment/%22body%22>
This is f. 1 and it is a dilly. It has both alpha indexing phrase markers
AND alpha musical notation. I need to really study it to sort the whole
thing out, but in the meantime...
Note the different forms of 'a': Rustic, Caroline, Insular...majuscule,
minuscule, with and without stress notation.
f. 1: Alpha phrase markers: Majuscule B, A, A (Rustic) Z, OE
Musical notation:
Third line from the top across from the 'B'. See the two forms of 'a' on
"ad-nay"?
First one's musical -- gives the tone. Then 'a' space (held and stressed
note -- see the elongated minim?) d with a downward "ladder' -- 'nay'
follows the ladder -- leading to the next majuscule phrase marker.
Farther down the leaf you'll see a mess of g's -- at different heights.
Think musical staff lines.
Turn to leaf 2, Majuscules marking again. Paragraph markers run 6-7 lines
of text on a leaf., So. 'S', H, C, S..., and so on. to the next leaves
Let's see what we can find from ASE,
http://www.trin.cam.ac.uk/kemble/chimg/
Charters: this is the index, look at any charter and you will see
Majuscules stuck in to index phrases -- Charters are formulaic. The
majuscule alpha marker makes it easier to recall the correct order.
The Vespasian Psalter (9th CE) has an index,(at least it's called an
index), but in the front as a modern TOC...
Jo'D has some really nice examples on his site, but he doesn't give dates,
so....
Oh, multiple uses: Can't recall off-hand which EEMF book it was that had
Wulfstan's homilies, but one leaf showed another technique for
differentiating alpha mnemonics all in a row. There were four paragraphs
that began with a 'G' -- one after another: first one, plain Majuscule,
second one had curliques, third had an extended line with doo-dads
depending from it; fourth had something else. Each one, therefore, was an
individual alpha mnemonic indexing aid.
I can dig up more examples out there, but I think you get the point. The
adaptation of alpha mnemonic indexing in the Dominican MS that Winston is
studying is, as I said, clever, but it still is an adaptation of a standard
form of alpha indexing that had existed for at least 1,000 years before.
Hugh of St. Victor? Sure, John of Salisbury, too. but, as you can see, the
technique antedates both. Carruthers put a lot of work into tracking the
different mnemonic techniques.
And I know that you did not make the "cutting edge" comment, but I was
answering Winston... and you stepped into the proverbial line of fire. :-)
Rochelle
At 01:11 AM 2/11/2007, Frans van Liere wrote:
>medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
>
>Rochelle,
>
>No puffs of smoke here, I assure you. On the contrary, I appreciated your
>comments, and I am sorry if my comments sounded terse; they were not intended
>that way. It was probably the result of sending out an e-mail between two
>saturday-morning distractions.
>
>But because you mentioned this method of marking in one breath with the use of
>spacing, I just thought I would clarify for the general reader that these
>particular verse markers are not used in conjuction with any spacing in the
>text. This is, of course, as you rightly point out, not to say that there
>is no
>spacing in the text otherwise; in fact, there is spacing and rubrication at
>each chapter division.
>
>But I'd have to delve more into this. In fact, I looked at a page of a Paris
>Bible right now, and did not find the abcd markers. Perhaps the text was too
>early, and perhaps the system was specifically connected to the cirlce of Hugh
>of Saint Cher? When do MSS start having these reference markers? I'll look up
>the Rouse's article for that. I noticed Nicholas of Lyra uses the same system,
>but that's a bit later, of course (1320s).
>
>Again, no puffs of smoke here, except for dinner that's just been served.
>So if
>I sound terse again, it's because of this distraction ...
>
>And since I was not the one who said that this way of marking up the text was
>"cutting edge", I will not offer an explanation for that, especially since
>dinner smells really good...
>
>
>
>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/
> >>> rochelle altman <[log in to unmask]> 02/10/07 5:30 PM >>>
>medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
>
>Frans,
>
>Goodness, my monitor was issuing little puffs of smoke..
>
>The 13th-CE Dominican MSS use alpha markers. I mentioned alpha markers,
>first. Even gave a ref on rather thorough discussions of alpha markers...
>
>I also, as an aside mentioned spacing... I still can't figure out why such
>a reaction to the mention of the use of spacing. No such thing as an MS
>that doesn't use spacing in some form or another.
>
>So, perhaps you will explain how the use of alpha indexing -- which is
>still intended as a mnemonic aid -- in the 13th-century is cutting edge
>Medieval technology when alpha mnemonic indexing already shows up late
>BCE-early CE?
>
>Just asking,
>
>Rochelle
>
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