Beatus quid est and the study of grammar in late anglo-saxon England

Abstract

Summary Beatus quid est, a Latin grammar of English origin, found in an eleventh-century manuscript, has much to tell us about the pedagogy of elementary grammar in the classroom. The text is assembled from a number of grammmatical authorities, foremost among them Donatus and Priscian, uses the framework of a parsing-grammar, and attempts to forge these contradictory authorities into a coherent practical teaching-text. In particular elaborate glosses, annotations and conventions of capitalization and layout reflect the practices of the classroom. The text emphasizes morphology and supplies illustrations of grammatical points from verse. Glosses suggest paraphrases and serve as a reference-tool for many points not formally discussed in the main text. These features most likely reflect standard pedagogical practice in the classroom; the chief innovation of the manuscript is that such practices appear in written form.