Early Ninth Research Articles

The Textual Tradition of the Carmen de uentis (AL 484) : Some Preliminary Conclusions with a New Edition

The Carmen de uentis (AL 484) is a school poem on the names of the winds, considered by Traube and Diaz y Diaz to be a seventh-century Visigothic composition. It achieved a wide manuscript circulation throughout the Middle Ages, and can be found in over fifty manuscripts, sometimes embodied in wind diagrams. The earliest branch, the oldest witnesses to which date from the early eighth century, circulated mainly in Visigothic milieux and northern Italy. The descendants of a more recent archetype, possibly a revision by a Carolingian scholar which presents a more 'classical' text, are mostly found in Reims, Fleury, Germany and connected centres, from the early ninth century onwards; this archetype is the source for most later copies. This article is the first attempt to provide a full description of the textual tradition of the poem and suggests that Riese's text should be reconsidered.

The Times of Bede: Studies in Early English Christian Society and Its Historian (review)

Reviewed by: The Times of Bede: Studies in Early English Christian Society and Its Historian Martin Ryan The Times of Bede: Studies in Early English Christian Society and Its Historian. By Patrick Wormald. Edited by Stephen Baxter. (Malden, MA: Blackwell. 2006. Pp. xviii, 290. $83.95. ISBN 978-0-631-16655-9.) This collection of nine previously published essays was assembled by Patrick Wormald before his untimely death in 2004 and subsequently finalized and prepared for publication by Stephen Baxter. Although divided into two sections—"An Early Christian Culture and its Critic" and "The Impact of Bede's Critique"—there is in practice considerable overlap between the two and the chronological focus of both is the eighth and early-ninth centuries. The themes and issues of the papers are very much those that Wormald made his own: the aristocratic mores of the English Church, the emergence of a sense of cultural unity among the Anglo-Saxons, and Bede's relationship to his own times. The odd man out is the first essay of the second section, "Æthelwold and his Continental Counterparts: Contact, Comparison, Contrast," which, although demonstrating Æthelwold's debt to the writings of Bede, nevertheless feels out of place in a volume that has a fairly narrow focus in both chronology and theme. Most of the essays have additional notes (explicitly retractationes, not retractions) and more recent bibliography, although the lack of the detailed introduction that Wormald planned is sorely felt. The 1984 Jarrow Lecture "Bede and the Conversion of England: the Charter Evidence" forms chapter 4 and is in many ways the standout piece of this collection. The complex and often daunting subjects of diplomatic and Anglo Saxon land tenure are introduced gently and eruditely and, as always with Wormald, with an eye to the Continent. That this essay remains the best introduction to these subjects despite a near-revolution in charter studies over the past two decades is an indication of the learning and insight that Wormald brought." Bede, Beowulf and the Conversion of the Anglo-Saxon Aristocracy" likewise continues to occupy a central place on many reading lists, and Wormald's basic thesis that Beowulf is a product of pre-Alfredian England and reflects the cultural environment of the secularized monasteries condemned [End Page 783] by Bede remains persuasive, although not totally compelling. Recent work, in particular Mary Garrison's reconsideration of Alcuin's famous phrase "Quid Hinieldus cum Christo?," is likely to necessitate further nuancing of Wormald's ideas, and late-daters of Beowulf will no doubt remain unconvinced, but, again, this piece still has important things to say. Other essays in the collection have unfortunately weathered less well. The opening chapter, "Bede and Benedict Biscop," originally published in 1976, sets out the Continental context for Wearmouth-Jarrow and the various influences operating upon Bede. Yet the cloistered, otherworldly Bede who emerges from this study is precisely the one who did not survive his encounter with Walter Goffart, and the additional notes at the end of the chapter are insufficient to take full account of the seismic shift initiated by The Narrators of Barbarian History (Princeton, 1988). The two essays that focus on the creation of a sense of English identity and unity, chapters 3 and 6, likewise engage with debates that have moved on considerably since the essays were first published, although here it is precisely because Wormald's interventions had such effect. This collection is, then, something of a mixed bag. Some essays remain relevant to ongoing debates; others have predominantly historiographical interest. On display throughout, however, is Wormald's considerable intellect and erudition and in the earlier essays in particular an enviable familiarity with Continental scholarship. There are also occasional flashes of the theater that was a Wormald lecture. If there is one overriding impression, however, it is of a work unfinished and loose ends left untied. Baxter has done an admirable job of bringing this work to publication, but at the end the reader is left only with a sense of what might have been. Martin Ryan University of Manchester Copyright © 2008 The Catholic University of America Press

Μία περίπτωση ἐφαρμογῆς τοῦ βυζαντινοῦ θεσμοῦ τοῦ ἀσύλου στήν Πελοπόννησο: Ἡ προσφυγή τῶν Σλάβων στό ναό τοῦ Ἁγίου Ανδρέα Πατρῶν

Μία περίπτωση ἐφαρμογῆς τοῦ βυζαντινοῦ θεσμοῦ τοῦ ἀσύλου στήν Πελοπόννησο: Ἡ προσφυγή τῶν Σλάβων στό ναό τοῦ Ἁγίου Ανδρέα Πατρῶν

Study of surface of early medieval frescoes by micro-PIXE, SEM and Raman spectroscopy

The author has studied the artist’s palette and the painting techniques in the frescoes of the Longobard temple (late eighth to early ninth century) in Cividale del Friuli (Italy) and of the crypt of San Salvatore in Brescia (Italy) dated from the eighth century. High sensitivity microprobes were used such as PIXE, SEM and micro-Raman for the characterisation of materials in submillimetre samples. Information from multidisciplinary techniques revealed an unexpected richness of details and gave a clue to the economic context in which the two monuments were conceived and built. In both cases the authors found the use of common traditional materials as well as features that distinguish the two sites. Micro-PIXE analysis led to the identification of earth colours and demonstrated a few details of the surface preparation. Raman spectroscopy has identified a carbon based false blue in Cividale and degradation of carbonate into gypsum.

EARLY IRON AGE BALANCE WEIGHTS AT LEFKANDI, EUBOEA

Summary. This report analyses the 16 stone balance weights and fragments recovered in 1994 from the ninth‐century BC Tomb 79 in the Toumba cemetery at Lefkandi, Euboea, the tomb of the ‘Warrior Trader’. In material, shapes, and mass standards, the weights are for the most part virtual duplicates of common LBA balance weights from Cyprus and the Levant and attest to (a) the long‐term continuity of maritime trading across the Bronze/Iron Age divide in the Cypro‐Levantine world, and (b) the active participation of Euboeans in this commercial sphere no later than the early ninth century. Discussed also is the relationship between some of these weights and the later Euboeic weight standard.

Creating Bodhisattvas: Eison, Hinin, and the "Living Mañjuśrī"

Creating BodhisattvasEison, Hinin, and the "Living Mañjuśrī" David Quinter (bio) One of the most significant Buddhist movements in the Kamakura period was the Saidaiji order of Ritsu monks and nuns founded by Eison (or Eizon; 1201-1290), which later became known as the Shingon Ritsu school.1 Eison's movement has traditionally been treated as part of Kamakura "Old Buddhism" because it was based at Saidaiji, an ancient, established temple in Nara. Also, both Shingon and Ritsu were indeed older schools, with Shingon dating to the early ninth century and Ritsu to the eighth. By the time Eison moved into Saidaiji, however, the temple had greatly deteriorated, and the monastic order he formed there was new—institutionally, by lineage, and in terms of its teachings and practices. Eison's synthesis of Shingon esotericism with propagation of the precepts and charitable relief activities was innovative, and his movement rose to prominence.2 Eison and his disciples were able to carve a niche in Kamakura-period society by performing esoteric rituals for both the court and the warrior government while also undertaking social welfare and construction projects. Their social welfare and construction activities included providing charitable relief to lepers, beggars, and other hinin (outcasts);3 maintaining funerary grounds for commoners; and building [End Page 437] or restoring temples, roads, bridges, ports, shelters, and medical facilities. Meanwhile, Eison's widespread conferral of precepts on monks and nuns, warrior and courtier leaders, and commoners and hinin alike helped him to cement bonds with varied social classes as well as to distinguish himself from other esoteric practitioners. Although these wide-ranging activities were tied to the cults of a variety of deities and saints, the Mañjuśrī cult is the one most strongly associated with Eison's charitable relief for hinin. In recent years, revisionist scholars of Kamakura-period Buddhism, especially those following Kuroda Toshio's model of the medieval "exoteric-esoteric system" (kenmitsu taisei ),4 have emphasized the discriminatory aspects of Eison's involvement with hinin and the Mañjuśrī cult. Highlighting Eison's role as an authority figure, these scholars have shown that the cult entailed more than charitable relief. Such studies have certainly yielded valuable insights into Eison's movement and his Mañjuśrī faith. They have argued, for instance, that by attributing the present suffering of lepers and other hinin to past karmic transgressions, Eison in fact helped reify the outcasts' lowly status.5 At the same time, they have tended to perpetuate a privileging of the soteriologies of the so-called "Kamakura New Buddhism" of the Zen, Pure Land, and Nichiren schools, which are considered to be more socially inclusive than the older schools. Selective analysis of brief passages from Eison's writings on Mañjuśrī has exacerbated this tendency. To redress this tendency and provide a more balanced appraisal of Eison's salvational strategies, in this article I examine his Mañjuśrī faith as reflected in two devotional texts (ganmon) he authored in 1267 and 1269 for the enshrinement of a Mañjuśrī statue at the Nara temple Hannyaji . Translations of the two texts, Hannyaji Monju engi (1267) and Hannyaji Monju bosatsu zō zōryūganmon (hereafter Hannyaji Monju ganmon, 1269), follow this introductory analysis.6 I argue that Eison's approach to Mañjuśrī was consistent with his overall soteriology and that, read in full, the two texts suggest a continuity in his religious perspective on different social classes. Eison may have seen the Mañjuśrī cult as particularly appropriate for hinin, but these texts and the circumstances underlying their composition indicate that he promoted the cult as a universal path to enlightenment, or salvation. For monastics, lay elites, and hinin alike, effecting salvation depended on fulfilling a similar set of conditions: forging karmic bonds with the bodhisattva through chanting his name, paying reverence to his image, or otherwise participating in the cult; recognizing the law of karmic deeds and consequences, one's own transgressions, and the need for repentance; generating [End Page 438] the aspiration to seek enlightenment, or the bodhi-mind;7 and engaging in Buddhist practice to advance toward enlightenment. In the context of...

A Heritage of Holy Wood: The Legend of the True Cross in Text and Image, and: Byzanz, der Westen, und das "wahre" Kreuz (review)

Reviewed by: A Heritage of Holy Wood: The Legend of the True Cross in Text and Image, and: Byzanz, der Westen, und das "wahre" Kreuz Hans Pohlsander A Heritage of Holy Wood: The Legend of the True Cross in Text and Image. By Barbara Baert. Translated from the Dutch by Lee Preedy. (Leiden: Brill. 2004. Pp. xxxiv, 527; 30 pages of color plates. $260.00.) Byzanz, der Westen, und das "wahre" Kreuz. By Holger Alexander Klein. (Wiesbaden: Reichert Verlag. 2004. Pp. xii, 402. €58,00.) Within the last two years two scholars, one Belgian, the other German-American, have published books on the True Cross, apparently without being aware of each other's work. Each views his or her subject from a different perspective. A joint, comparative review seems appropriate. Barbara Baert is professor of art history at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium. She comes to her subject exceedingly well prepared. The rich documentation provided throughout her book and the lengthy bibliography (pp. 455-503) indicate her familiarity with a vast body of both primary source material and secondary literature. Jan Willem Drijvers, himself author of Helena Augusta (Leiden, 1992), has given this book his enthusiastic endorsement in a foreword. The introduction provides a digest of the body of the book: "The legend of the Cross . . . comprises three distinct traditions, each of which originated at a different time, which were fused into one in the high Middle Ages" (p. 1), and again: "A Heritage of Holy Wood presents the synthesis of one of the most important apocryphal beliefs of the Middle Ages" (p. 13). Upon having finished the book, readers might do well to return to this introduction for a second reading. In Chapter One the author is concerned not with the inventio of the Cross itself, but rather with the hagiographic and iconographic tradition thereof (pp. 15, 23, and 37). In Chapter Two readers will find a detailed description and masterly interpretation of three illuminations found in three separate manuscripts of the eighth and early ninth century and of several pieces of art dating from the twelfth century and originating in the region of the Meuse and in the Rhineland: the famous Stavelot triptych in New York's Pierpont Morgan Library [End Page 378] is one of them (pp. 80-97). Chapter Three describes the earliest depiction of the restitutio or exaltatio crucis in Western iconography, namely, in the Sacramentary of Mont Saint-Michel which dates from 1066 and is also in the Pierpont Morgan Library (pp. 144-149) and of two cycles of pictures, both dating from the middle of the thirteenth century. In Chapter Four Baert observes that "in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the iconography of the Legend the Cross reached its quantitative peak." The chapter begins with an excellent account of three texts which facilitated this spread of the legend of the Cross in the late Middle Ages: the Legenda Aurea of Jacobus de Voragine, the anonymous legendary titled Der Heiligen Leben, and a miracle play known as the Augsburger Heiligkreuzspiel. The same chapter describes somewhat more summarily a number of fifteenth-century German works of art which further demonstrate the point. In Chapter Five Baert gives an account of the "complex literary history" (p. 348) of the wood of the Cross. The legend of the wood of the Cross, we learn, evolves through different guises (p. 289) and occurs in many variants (p. 306), while the paths of transmission are unclear (p. 307). The subject of Chapter Six is the "iconographic assembly" of the legends of the Cross (the wood, the inventio, and the restitutio) in fifteenth-century painted cycles in Italy, Germany, and Switzerland. Baert has set specific geographic and chronological limits to her study. She realizes that "the start of the sixteenth century did not see an end to the iconographic interest in the figures of Constantine, Helena and Heraclius" (p. 449). Her final word to her readers: "How many Legends of the Cross are still waiting to be discovered?" The strength of this book lies in its topical, chronological, and geographical scope and in its broadly interdisciplinary approach. Baert addresses questions of history, theology, liturgy, literature, and iconography; she...

Lay Confession to Priests in Light of Wartime Practice (1097-1180)

Canon 21 of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) has engendered an enormous scholarly debate regarding the purpose of issuing a requirement that each lay adult confess his or her sins once a year before Easter to his or her own parish priest. For many scholars, the decision by Pope Innocent III and his fellow bishops to issue this requirement is prima facie evidence that confession by laypeople to priests was very rare up to this point. Other scholars, pointing to synodal statutes dating back to the early ninth century, argue that regular confession to priests was a central element of lay religious practice for centuries before 1215. This scholarly dispute has centered on the interpretation of synodal statutes that required lay confession to priests, either as reflecting the reality of lay religious practice or as reflecting the desires of a church hierarchy that was divorced from the religious impulses and practices of the majority of the lay population. This study seeks to break this impasse by drawing attention to a large corpus of texts that have received virtually no attention from scholars interested in the question of lay religious practice, namely narrative texts and letters. This study focuses on the description of religious practice among lay soldiers in the long century before the celebration of the Fourth Lateran Council. It is argued here that the depiction of the religious practices of fighting men, including their confessions to priests, can shed light on the practice of and attitude toward confession by the broader lay population in the pre-Lateran period.

Divide and rule? The military infrastructure of eighth‐ and ninth‐century Mercia

Military might is widely recognized as having been a key element in the Mercian kings’ ability to forge and maintain a large kingdom in midland England in and after the seventh century. The paper argues that its basis was a network of fortified places – all major royal settlements that were given substantial defences in the eighth and early ninth centuries – and a systemic mechanism for manning them. The archaeological evidence of these defences at Hereford, Tamworth and Winchcombe is reviewed; the probable locations of other such early fortified places in midland England are considered; and the significance of this burghal system for our understanding of ‘the supremacy of the Mercian kings’ is weighed.

A Tang Version of Du Fu: The Tangshi Leixuan 唐詩類選

Tang Studies 25 (2007) A TANG VERSION OF DU FU: THE TANGSHI LEIXUAN ~~~J[~ STEPHEN OWEN HARVARD UNIVERSITY The writers who constitute the very top of any literary canon for a long period present us with an interesting problem of judgment. Some say that the greatness of such writers is self-evident, a judgment that is so often and so easily confirmed that we must grant it a certain empirical validity. Another way to think about this fact, however, is to historicize it, to say that the most famous works by canonical writers have themselves become important constituents in the historical formation of literary values, so that judgments of such works will always reproduce themselves, reinforcing both the canonical status of the works in question and the values by which they are judged. A degree of variation is usually allowed-I may prefer Richard II to Richard III or Qjuxing bashou fj(~J\ § to Bingju xing~.$ 1T-but the very top of a literary canon serves its basic cultural purpose, which is to invite members of a cultural community to experience apparently shared values and the long-term continuity of those values as spontaneously reproduced within themselves. Literary canons are usually (but not always) retrospectively constructed. The Greek tragedies that we have through the repeated copying in the Byzantine school system from a canon established by Alexandrian critics were not necessarily the plays that won the prizes. The same was true in China. Some writers were canonical figures in their own day and remained so (Cao Zhi, Xie Lingyun, Su Shi); others had to wait for later generations to stake a claim on their importance. With such delayed preeminence the period when the canon is "under construction" can be unsettling to those who wish to believe that the preeminent value of certain works is both permanent and self-evident. The ever-changing canon of Tang poetry has been, by and large, based on values and judgments of particular poems that go back to the young print culture of the Song. Among Tang anthologies, Yin Fan's ~~:EI Heyue yingling ji 1EJ-ffi5€ II~ of 753 is reassuring by its inclusion of a number of poets and poems that have remained in the canon, even if a full reading of the anthology offers more surprises than old favorites. From the perspective of Song and later taste in Tang poetry, the other anthologies from the Tang itself are more perplexing in the values that informed the anthologists' choices. The Guoxiu ji ~:*~, whose initial form dates to 744, but whose present form postdates Heyue yingling ji, also represents 57 Owen: A Tang version of Du Fu High Tang poetry; it contains a few canonical works, but the most extensively represented High Tang poet is Lu Zhuan mtf€, whose poetry has remained largely ignored ever since that anthology and who survives entirely through that anthology. In the early ninth century, Liu Yuxi referred to "Lu and Du" rather than "Li and DU."l "Lu" here may refer to the somewhat less obscure Lu Xiang J1t~, but Liu Yuxi may have been thinking ofLu Zhuan from Guoxiu ji. Because Heyue yinglingji mostly supports later taste in Tang poetry, it has been taken as the most important contemporary anthology of High Tang poetry. Guoxiu ji, whose taste continues in later anthologies from the eighth century, is largely ignored. This is the norm: we judge the variety of materials in the past and grant them importance by how well they support and contribute to the narrative of what was to come. By and large we remember the Tang anecdotes and references to Tang poems that are still read, while ignoring the much larger range of reference to Tang poetry that is no longer part of the canon. Du Fu presents an interesting case. We know that from the early ninth century Du Fu and Li Bai, "Li and Du," were invoked as the canonical names that represented the height of poetry in the dynasty. Our current collection of Ou Fu, however, consists of over 1400 poems of a great variety of interests and styles, so that the more significant question becomes, just which poems by Du Fu...

Sociolinguistics: A Key to the Typology and the Social Background of Biblical Hebrew

The methods of sociolinguistics enable us to view the large-scale variation in Biblical Hebrew in the light of the interaction between language and society, and thus to relate linguistic phenomena to a certain socio-cultural and socio-political context. One of the important aspects of sociolinguistic analysis is the cross-linguistic and cross-cultural variation between oral and written language (Chafe, Halliday). Thus we attempt the sociolinguistic characterization of three strata of biblical narrative: (1) corpus A— Achaemenid period (Late Biblical Hebrew, including the final stages of the Babylonian period); (2) corpus B—late Judean monarchy (seventh, early sixth century, including the inception of the Babylonian period); (3) corpus C— texts that are not explicitly related to periods A or B. An example for the relationship between linguistic features and the socio-political situation is provided by the Aramaic borrowings in corpus A (Ezra, Nehemiah, Chronicles, and Esther). These borrowings pertain to a large extent to the scribal/administrative register, and thus represent the provincial chancery, where Aramaic was the official language. The imprint of the scribal chancery likewise comes to the fore in the literary style of this corpus. Like the Aramaic contracts and epistolography of the Achaemenid period, these texts stand out by the frequency of long noun groups, elaborate sentence structures and often highly complex hypotaxis. This characterization is confirmed by syntactic-stylistic analysis of a series of passages describing (1) public festivities/festive meals; (2) anointment and public honor; and (3) battles. In spite of the large variety in topic, rhetorical structure, and expressivity, the style of all passages is to a large extent characterized by the same features. These passages embody the elaborate, writerly style, also exemplified by prophetic discourse of the period (Haggai and Zachariah). The writerly style also dominates corpus B, representing the Judean royal chancery (e.g., Deuteronomy, Joshua and Kings, Jeremiah History, and such epigraphic texts as the Siloam inscription, and the documents from Lachish and Arad). A totally different style presents itself in many segments of corpus C (e.g., most narratives in the Abraham and Jacob cycles, large segments in the Samuel-Saul-David narratives, and the Elijah-Elisha cycles). Most narratives in these cycles are characterized by a marked preference for short clauses, and a clear disinclination to long noun groups and hypotaxis. These features are cross-culturally characteristic of spontaneous spoken discourse (Chafe, Halliday), and thus indicate a substrate of oral narrative. This characterization is confirmed by a comparative analysis of passages in corpus C concerning (1) public festivities/festive meals; (2) anointment and public honor; and (3) battles. Highly significant differences exist between the figures for this set of passages and those for the corresponding set from corpus A. From a cultural point of view, writing is a marginal activity in the texts of corpus C, unlike corpora A and B. In corpus C the memorialization typically is oral and ceremonial rather than documentary. Composition of literary texts is referred to as "speaking." Accordingly, we conclude that these tales were written or put into writing in a time of restricted literacy and a predominantly oral literature, in a society in which literary expertise was that of oral poetry and narrative. Hence the tales in this corpus represent Israelite society before the rise of the royal bureaucracy. Comparison with the Mesha inscription indicates a period from late tenth or early ninth until early eighth century B.C.E.

Khukh Ordung, A Uighur Palace Complex of the Seventh Century

AbstractInhabitants of the Mongolian Plateau have been staunchly nomadic. Cities rarely existed before the Russian hegemony, and at that point they first attached themselves to pre-existing Buddhist monasteries. The exception to this general pattern was the Uighurs, who had an empire in the eighth and early ninth centuries. They built several cities, extended and maintained a flourishing trade network, established sufficient agriculture and developed urban manufacturing. Although historians have pointed out these significant distinctions, few have fully considered the thoroughly revolutionary impact of this Turkish group on steppe culture. One result in the Orkhon Valley was the foundation for Karakorum, the only permanent seat of the imperial Mongols in the thirteenth century. That city occupied the same site and, in the early seventeenth century, served as building material for the major religious centre of Erdene Zuu accompanying the re-introduction of Buddhism. Therefore, the Uighurs affected the physical heartland of their empire for a millennium and the habits of the people to this day.

Alcuin: Achievement and Reputation: Being part of the Ford Lectures delivered in Oxford in Hilary Term 1980 (review)

Alcuin: Achievement and Reputation: Being part of the Ford Lectures delivered in Oxford in the Hilary Term 1980. By Donald A. Bullough. [Education and Society in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, Volume 16.] (Leiden: Brill. 2004. Pp. xxviii, 566.) The subtitle to this book indicates how long the scholarly world has been eagerly waiting for it. Donald Bullough had originally intended to publish his work on Alcuin in two volumes, but died in 2002 before he could complete the process of seeing this first volume through the press. Family, friends, and the publisher have joined forces to bring it out with as complete a check as was possible in the circumstances; we are all in their debt for their work. The book, moreover, can stand alongside not only a number of posthumously published papers relating to Alcuin and the royal court of Charlemagne, in Early Medieval Europe (2004) and in Joanna Story's edited volume Charlemagne (Manchester, 2005), but also the celebratory volume edited by P Depreux and B. Judic, Alcuin de York a Tours. Ecriture, pouvoir et reseaux dans l'Europe du haut moyen âge, Annales de Bretagne et des pays de l'ouest, 111 (Rennes and Tours, 2004). Alcuin (c. 740-c. 804) in modem eyes is one of the most famous of the scholars gathered at Charlemagne's court at the end of the eighth century, though his posthumous reputation, even in Francia, appears to have been far greater than contemporary appreciation of him. Apparently summoned from York, where he had already established a reputation as a scholar, to join the Prankish king, Alcuin subsequently composed a great many works relating to teaching-on orthography, rhetoric, dialectic, grammar, the virtues and vices-biblical exegesis, such as commentaries on the Apocalypse, Ecclesiastes, and St. John's Gospel, theology, with a treatise against the Adoptionist heresies propounded by Felix of Urgel, and a substantial corpus of poems and letters. Other works have been credited less securely to Alcuin, including Charlemagne's Admonitio generalis and De litteris colendis, votive Masses appended to the Hadrianum Sacramentary, and a compilation entitled De laude dei. What can be learnt of Alcuin's earlier years at York and what was the extent of his personal influence in Francia, especially on Charlemagne himself? The ninth-century Vita Alcuini from Ferrieres offers little assistance in answering these questions. The introduction to Bullough's book is designed to defend the biographical approach to a study of Alcuin primarily through the corpus of over two hundred and eighty of his letters, largely those written in the last ten to fifteen years of Alcuin's life. The survival and transmission of these letters raises many interesting questions. The major collections of Alcuin's letters are particularly problematic. Who compiled them? When? Why? For whom? Bullough is primarily concerned in the first section of his book -with whether Alcuin himself or at least his pupils at Tours had a role in their selection or compilation. There are three major collections, by and large according to recipient. The first is Vienna ONB 795, associated with Arn, bishop of Salzburg, which Bullough argues was written at St. Amand in 799. In this codex the twenty Alcuin letters, mostly addressed to Arn, are written in four separate blocks of text. A further Arn/Salzburg of sixty-two letters made in the early ninth century is Vienna ONB 808, but this includes letters by Alcuin to English addressees and from Charlemagne to Alcuin. Secondly, there is the of seventy of Alcuin's letters described by Bullough as the expanded basic Tours collection (Troyes BM 1165 part 1, fols. 1-86^sup v^) of the early ninth century, extant also in modified form in a mid-ninthcentury copy from Rheims BAV reg. lat. 272. Here the letters appear to be part of Alcuin miscellanies and comprise letters written by Alcuin to Charlemagne, to recipients in England, and to a host of others including former pupils. …

Baṣran Origins of Classical Sufism

History is largely about rooting out anachronisms. One that bedevils the history of Sufism is an unsurprising tendency to project later forms backward. Our idea of who was a Sufi in the ninth century tends to come from the Ṭabaqāt al-ṣūfīya of the Naysābūran al-Sulamī (d. 412/1021) and a few other books, some dependent on his. Sulamī begins his first generation with notices of al-Fuḍayl ibn ʿIyāḍ (d. Mecca, 187/803), Ibrāhīm ibn Adham (d. al-Ǧazīra, 163/779–80?), Ḏū l-Nūn (d. Ǧīza, 246/ 861?), Bišr al-Ḥāfī (d. Baghdad, 227/841?), Sarī al-Saqaṭī (d. Baghdad, 253/867?), and al-Muḥāsibī (d. Baghdad?, 243/857–58) – the usual big names for the late eighth century and, mainly, early ninth. Massignon ’s lineage of Sufism (leading up to al-Ḥallāǧ) stays almost entirely within this line, and indeed I have no serious quarrel with it as a lineage of classical Ǧunaydī Sufism.

Psalmodi and the Architecture of Carolingian Septimania

Excavations in the 1970s and 1980s at Psalmodi uncovered a pre-Gothic church of two building campaigns. The date of church A, the first campaign, has been disputed. Formal and textual evidence, however, confirms church A as Carolingian, rather than Romanesque, and church B, the second campaign, as dating to about 1000. Indeed, the correlation between church A's plan and the distinctive plan type tied directly to Benedict of Aniane-seen, notably, in the excavated Carolingian church at Aniane-in tandem with documentary evidence for Psalmodi indicate that church A dates no later than the early ninth century. Church A, then, provides rare testimony to monastic architecture in colonial Septimania. The importance of this Carolingian past-remembered as a fabled time-is documented in later texts in which Psalmodi's pedigree is reinforced and even enhanced. Reverence for this past may be reflected in the preservation of much of church A in church B and, moreover, in the tenth-century churches of Saint-Genis-des-Fontaines and Saint-André-de-Sorède, which, with their clear formal affinity to Psalmodi and Aniane, perhaps present pointed reference to, rather than the persistence of, the distinctive, local, Carolingian plan type.

From BaghdāD To <i>Beowulf:</i> Eulogising ‘Imperial’ Capitals East and West in the Mid-Eighth Century

At the core of this paper lies a comparison between two 'short epics': that of king Pippin (d. 768) as told c.886 by Notker of St Gall in his Deeds of the Emperor Charles, and that of the Byzantine ruler Constantine V, a contemporary of Pippin's, as relayed in the Chronicle of the Bishops of Naples (late-eighth century or early-ninth century). It is argued, first, that both texts in their original form belong to the mid-eighth century; second, that they celebrate '(re)founder-kings' who assert their throne-worthiness in combat against wild beasts and show themselves equal to the classical ideal of the ktistes or neos ktistes ('founder' or 'refounder') in saving Constantinople/Aachen from the forces of evil/chaos; and finally, that these encomiastic vignettes may have been composed to coincide with the rulers' quinquennalia, marking their five (or ten, or fifteen, and so on) years in office, another legacy of imperial Rome. A new interpretation of Beowulf is then offered, stressing the similarities with the aforementioned 'epics' with Heorot in lieu of Constantinople or Aachen. The Pippin and Constantine texts express rival aspirations to supremacy. They should be seen against the backdrop of a tense, three-way diplomatic shuttle that in the 760s also included Baghdād, founded around that time as the new capital of the caliphate, the third and last 'post-Roman' superpower.

Le Martyre BHG 2109 et les Passions BHL 2264-2265 de Donnino le céphalophore de Fidenza

The Greek Martyrium of St Domninus (BHG 2109) is an anonymous translation of a lost recension of the early Passion of the patron saint of Fidenza (BHL 2264 and 2265). This local history, which also inspired Odo of Beauvais († 881) in his compilation of the Passion of St Lucian (BHL 5009), was probably written in the early ninth century. The Greek Martyrium, which has survived in one Italo-Greek witness (MS Ambrosianus F 144 sup., 10/11th cent., ff. 116r-117v), as well as the editio princeps of the Passio S. Domnini (BHL 2265) on the basis of MS Boll. 162, ff. 38r-39v of which were copied from MS Barberinus Lat. 586 (10/11th cent., ff. 279-280), have been reedited in an appendix.

Ryōgen and Mount Hiei: Japanese Tendai in the Tenth Century

This work focuses on the transformation of the Tendai School from a small and impoverished group of monks in the early ninth century to its emergence as the most powerful and influential school in Japanese Buddhism in the last half of the tenth century.

Dutch Contributions to the Thirteenth International Congress of Slavists, Ljubljana August 15-21, 2003: Linguistics by J. s> Schaeken P. Houtzagers J. Kalsbeek (review)

938 SEER, 82, 4, 2004 Schaeken, J., Houtzagers, P. and Kalsbeek,J. (eds). DutchContributions tothe 7hirteenth International Congress of Slavists,Ljubljana AugustI5-2I, 2003: Linguistics.Studies in Slavic and General Linguistics, 30. Rodopi, AmsterdamandNew York,2003. Tables.Notes. Bibliographies. i oo.0oo: $I I9.00. THIs book contains thirteen papers on a wide-ranging list of topics. The collection is not entirely representativeof Dutch Slavic studies, in that there are no representatives of formal ('generative') theoretical linguistics, but nevertheless one gets an impression of a small but very lively and active community of Slavic linguists and philologists, centred mainly at the universities of Amsterdam and Leiden. Only three papers are in Slavic languages (twoin Russian, one in Polish).Apartfrom two Germanpapersand one Frenchthe rest are in English, an indication that English of necessityhas become the lingua francafor Slavistics. Andreas Nievergelt and Jos Schaeken describe what may be the earliest Slavic written record (the word hreho,'sin', scratched onto an early ninthcentury manuscript).William Veder discusses a putatively eleventh-century textual compilation claiming religious and hence political authority over all the Slavs for the princedom of Rus'. He argues that the text must have been authorized by Jaroslav the Wise. Rick Derksen discussesthe PIE origins and the development of initial *ji/ju. FrederikKortlandt is represented by two contributions.The firstis a surveyof dialect diversityin the earliestforms of South Slavic (mainly on the basis of sound patterns),but including a potted history of Common Slavic. The second is effectively a referee's report on a paper by MorrisHalle on Slavic accentuationpublishedin Lingua in 200 I, in which Kortlandt argues that the paper should have been rejected. Pepijn Hendriks provides a note on Stang's Law and the Moscow School of Accentology. He warns the reader that his paper will be incomprehensibleto anyone not conversantwith the work of the Moscow School, and he is right. Willem Vermeer's contribution on the progressivepalatalization is a kind of biographical history of the debate, complete with a genuine biographical appendix in which the 'bad guys' and the 'good guys' are singled out in very clear terms.Veryentertaining. The otherpapersdealwith synchroniclinguistics.CorneliaKeijsper'spaper is called 'Notes on intonation and voice in Modern Russian'. 'Voice' here means passives, middles, reflexives, impersonals and so on, and she makes intriguing observations about these constructions. Intonation means something like 'phrasal accent', it seems, though I had difficultyfollowing those sections. Now, argument structureand intonation/accent are indeed linked but the five completely differenttopics in this paper are not. Most peculiar. Anna Peeters-Podgaevskajauses Cognitive Grammar to argue that Russian 'v' is used for locations that can be thought of as containers and 'na' for locations that are like flat surfaces. Although there are some interesting, somewhat hidden, observations about very specific covert lexico-semantic categories, the reasoning seems completely circular where exceptions and borderline cases are concerned. This is the sort of paper that gets Cognitive Grammara bad name amongst theoreticians.Andries Bruenis'scontribution REVIEWS 939 is the longest of the book (62 pages). It is a stream of consciousness diatribe about how Slavists have got Slavic aspect wrong because we don't admit categories such as the frequentative. The paper has no discernible sections, leave alone section headings and as far as I can see is a melange of interesting insight,glaringabsurdityand off-the-wallinvention. The remaining papers I found somewhat more instructive and satisfying. Adrian Barentsen provides a detailed survey of constructionswe can loosely label 'iSt person imperative' in Russian. Wim Honselaar argues for a novel discourse function of 'resumptive'for Russian es'c'e used as a conversational particle. Cecilia Ode presents not a researcharticlebut an advertisementfor an interestingproject aimed at providing a transcriptionsystem for Russian intonation (ToRi) based on the ToBi system pioneered for English by Mary Beckman and colleagues. I very much look forwardto seeing the fruitsof this work. Han Steenwijkprovides a subtle, semantically oriented analysis of the Lower Sorbian supine with verbs of motion (or in semantically related constructions), while Hanna Toby traces the development of the use of the preposition odin Cassubian(Kaszubszczyznia)as a German calque, carefully covering allthe anglesby systematicallyexcluding any cases thatmightbe due to internaldevelopment. Overall, this is a very mixed volume...

Tel Rehov and Iron Age Chronology

The article challenges the notion that Tel Rehov can serve as an anchor for Iron Age chronology. It summarizes the main shortcomings in the analysis of the new 14C readings from Tel Rehov and then points to difficulties in the interpretation of the stratigraphy, pottery (including Greek sherds) and chronology of the site. The author equates Tel Rehov IV with Megiddo VA and concludes that the Megiddo palaces, conventionally described as the best manifestation for the tenth century United Monarchy, date to the early ninth century – the time of the Omride Dynasty in northern Israel.