From the Medieval Historiography of Latin Literature to the Historiography of Medieval Latin Literature

Abstract

From the Medieval Historiography of Latin Literature to the Historiography of Medieval Latin Literature 1 by Ralph Hexter Let me begin by saying what a great honour it is to have been invited to the Centre for Medieval Studies, where I am pleased to find many friends, some of long standing, others of more recent vintage. It is above all an honour to have been asked to deliver the annual J.R. O'Donnell Memorial Lecture on Medieval Latin Studies, particularly humbling when I think of the many great scholars who have given O'Donnell Memorial Lectures before me. Never has a humility topos been more sincere, although I am aware that the title I have chosen hardly bespeaks humility. It would indeed be hubris to imagine I could ever give a full account of the topic I have announced. Accordingly, I trust you will understand that my remarks here are exploratory in nature. Considering the topics I have chosen to broach, I strongly suspect that even as we advance a step or two, new perspectives and new questions will arise, starting - so I anticipated when I delivered the lecture - with the comments and questions of my first audience, which included, naturally, the many experts on Medieval Studies and Medieval Latin who have the Centre as their home. An exculpatory or at least explanatory word or two on the temerity of the broad topic I have announced will be in order. I seem to have a fatal attraction to puzzles and sectors of the map marked danger: do not enter. When I first started to study Medieval Latin in earnest, I recall being quite nonplussed by the attitudes of the classicists who were, after all, teaching me Greek and Latin. (Alas, I did not have the good fortune to study Medieval This paper closely follows a presentation I was honoured to give to the Centre for Medieval Studies of the University of Toronto on November 12, 2004. The text has been adapted somewhat for publication but still bears clear signs of its origins as a public lecture, as David Townsend, to whom I am much obliged for his kindness, patience, and wisdom, recommended. The notes do not conceal that this is a topic on which I have worked over a number of years and from a number of different angles, some quite different from my current perspective; it remains one to which I hope some day to return in greater depth. I further thank Michael Herren and Uwe Vagelpohl for assistance in the fmal stages of preparation.