Latin Sources Research Articles

Indicios de participación ḏimmí o muladí en los asedios carolingios a Tortosa (804/806-809)

El siguiente artículo analiza los conceptos utilizados en la Vita Hludowici imperatoris del Astrónomo para designar a los combatientes andalusíes que defendieron Tortosa de los ataques carolingios entre los años 804/806 y 809. De todos esos términos, el de Mauri y el de cives destacan por encima de los demás y, en consecuencia, reciben un trato especial. Tras compararlos con los datos ofrecidos por otras fuentes latinas, musulmanas y arqueológicas, el estudio concluye que con el primero de esos conceptos se hace referencia a grupos de marineros andalusíes, los conocidos en las obras árabes como baḥriyyūn, y con el segundo a las elites hispano-godas de la ciudad de Tortosa.

Hateful Hills and Joyful Dread: Emotive “Filler Words” in the Old English Metrical Psalms

ABSTRACTThe poet-translator of the Old English Metrical Psalms is widely censured for (among other things) his allegedly mechanical use of filler-words to complete the metre in his lines. This article argues for a more positive purpose for many of these additions, especially those drawn from the semantic field of emotion. Additions to the poet's Latin source can function to reinforce for his Anglo-Saxon audience the theological sense of the psalms he translates, to add a degree of exegesis, and even (at times) to create a moment of poetic intensity. Such possibilities do not entirely acquit the poet of the charge of pedestrian verse production, but they do suggest that he has not always been given enough credit for his achievements. Within the context of his general approach to translation—which is sometimes thoughtful and always orthodox—this poet’s deployment of so-called filler words may frequently be defended as apt and occasionally as successful in its ambition.

A woman saint in the Parisian colleges: Claude Roillet's Catharinae Tragoedia (1556)

AbstractThis article introduces and examines a hitherto little‐discussed tragedy by the French humanist Claude Roillet, professor and principal at the Collège de Bourgogne in the University of Paris during the reign of Henri II. This brief five‐act play entitled Catharinae tragedia, which presents the life of the iconic saint Catherine of Alexandria, based principally upon information gleaned from late‐mediaeval, Latin prose sources, was first printed amongst the author's collected Varia Poemata in 1556. This study shall examine Roillet's debt to his Latin sources, with some consideration of possible influences exercised by the vernacular, dramatic mysteries devoted to Catherine and presented in France during the first half of the sixteenth century. The objective is to situate this Latin play within the tradition of texts of all genres devoted to this well‐known character who is frequently met with in mediaeval and early Renaissance iconography. The article will also discuss the didactic aspects proper to Roillet's presentation of the story.

L’introduction des agrumes en Méditerranée occidentale. Données archéobotaniques, iconographiques et littéraires

On the basis of the descriptions provided by ancient writers, it is generally accepted that the first Citrus known in Antiquity was the citron (Citrus medica), supposedly introduced to the Mediterranean during the fourth century BC. Archaeobotanical remains are scarce and not easily identified to the species level. Greek and Latin sources describe a plant that could be identified as a citrus fruit, but they do not provide any information about how and when it reached Europe. The correlation of all kinds of evidence (archaeobotanical remains, literature and iconography) could shed new light on the introduction of Citrus to the Western Mediterranean region.

Into the Embodied inneweard mod of the Old English Boethius

In his translation of Boethius’s De consolatione philosophiae, Alfred imposes corporeal metaphors to describe the inner mind, constructing an embodied consciousness that contradicts the mind–body dualism of his source text. This article argues that Alfred’s Old EnglishBoethius rehabilitates mind–body dualism to the harmony that is promised by Boethian philosophy. I combine theory of mind with philology to read the OEBoethius comparatively alongside its Latin source text. First, I identify Alfred’s metaphorical descriptions of the inner mind as an embodied consciousness, in accordance with modern cognitive theory. Then, analyzing Alfred’s use of the in lexeme, I argue that Old English in denotes motion into an enclosure. Alfred’s depiction of an embodied consciousness subverts dualism by locating the inner mind within a dialectical process that harmonizes the mind with the body. The purpose of this article is to consider one of the ways in which Alfred contributes to Boethian philosophy, and to incite further scholarship of the Old English encoding of spatial concepts and Anglo-Saxon folk psychology.

El silencio de Aristóteles y los praedicamenta en la obra luliana

In his Ars generalis, Ramon Llull introduces the categories as a set of “revealed” principles. While these concepts come from the Aristotelian tradition, they are re-interpreted within the context of theological discourse and the fundamental description of nature. In so doing, Llull develops a new version of the arbor porphyriana and points out another method of defi nition which ignores the genus>species division. However, the invention of Llull’s Art depends on the assimilation of ancient logic by means of medieval Arabic and Latin sources.

Multi-Dimensional Reading in Two Manuscripts of Troilus and Criseyde

Abstract The Latin source glosses in Cambridge, St. John's College MS L. i (J) and Cambridge, University Library MS Gg. 4. 27 (Gg)—two fifteenth-century manuscripts of Troilus and Criseyde—are, despite their probable Chaucerian origin, infrequently discussed by scholars of Chaucer's works, and still less frequently thought to hold interpretive significance. Yet, these glosses, like their counterparts in the Canterbury Tales, demonstrate a complex hermeneutic of ambiguity that promotes multiple, at times competing, interpretations of the English verse. This article traces the links between the Troilus and Canterbury Tales glosses, charting the evolution of this Chaucerian marginal hermeneutic. It reads the glosses in J and Gg as an experimental early step toward the more elaborate marginal apparatus in the Canterbury Tales, one that demonstrates the same potential for richly intertextual interpretive ambiguity.

Periodization, Translation, Prescription and the Emergence of Classical French

AbstractIn this article we demonstrate how fine‐grained analysis of salient features of linguistic change over a relatively short, but significant period can help refine our notions of periodization. As our case study, we consider whether it is appropriate to distinguish a period called français préclassique (‘Pre‐Classical French’), and if so, what its temporal limits are. As our contemporary informants we take, on the one hand, the comments of writers of remarks on the French language, who were highly conscious of language change, and, on the other, usage in successive French translations of the same Latin source text which can be exploited to track and date the adoption of ‘modern’ linguistic variants. We find atypical patterns of change – and notably changes which move rapidly through Labov's different stages – that contribute to the sense of discontinuity or periodization. However, this sense of ‘rupture’ does not coincide with the chronological boundaries hitherto suggested for français préclassique, thus throwing the validity of this period into question.

Gilte Legende, Vol. III ed. by Richard Hamer

Reviewed by: Gilte Legende, Vol. III ed. by Richard Hamer Alexandra Barratt Hamer, Richard, ed., with Vida Russell, Gilte Legende, Vol. III (Early English Text Society, O.S. 339), Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2012; hardback; pp. 550; 2 b/w illustrations; R.R.P. £60.00; ISBN 9780199668175. The Gilte Legende is a ME translation, with some interesting additions, of Jean de Vignay’s French version of the huge, and hugely popular, Latin collection of saints’ lives, the Legenda Aurea (c. 1265). According to the colophon in one manuscript, it was made in 1438 by ‘a sinful wretch’ (p. 2). Richard Hamer, with the assistance of Vida Russell, published an edition of the text itself in two volumes that appeared in 2006 and 2007, with no editorial matter at all except for minimal notes in the first on editorial procedures. As so often with EETS editions of very lengthy texts, the most interesting material – a substantial introduction, notes, and glossary – appears last (if it appears at all). A poor marketing strategy, perhaps. The Introduction describes in detail the eight complete manuscript witnesses (plus a surprisingly large number of fragments), tabulates which vitae occur in which manuscripts, and discusses the manuscript affiliations. It goes on to consider the various chapters that have been added to the French source or appear in modified form (particularly, lives of Malchus, Alban, John the Baptist, and Catherine of Alexandria). This is of especial interest as it may relate to the identity of the translator, more so than the brief discussion of the language, which is simply ‘typical of the south midlands, and the region around London’ (p. 46). The final sections of the Introduction contain a description of the translation’s characteristics, and some intriguing speculation about the translator’s identity. Hamer considers it likely that the translation was made by a woman, and cautiously suggests Dame Eleanor Hull, who already has a track record as a translator: this hypothesis is ‘presented as a possibility, but in view of the lack of solid evidence, no more’ (p. 56). The bulk of the volume is made up of very extensive notes. These ‘consist largely of a record of changes to the text from its French and Latin sources’ (p. 65) and are therefore vital to any assessment of the text as translation. Finally, the thorough glossary (sixty-five double-column pages) reminds us that the EETS remains true to its original raison-d’être to be a lexicological resource. [End Page 186] Alexandra Barratt University of W aikato Copyright © 2016 Alexandra Barratt

Belgrade episcopate between Orthodoxy and Catholicism (XI - the first decade of the XIV century)

After two centuries of Bulgarian domination, Belgrade came under Byzantum empire rule in 1018. Together with other fifteen cities, Belgrade was mentioned as a bishop centre in a thorough act of the Ohrid Archbishopric, the first sigilion of Tzar Vasilije II Macedonian, from 1019. Belgrade episcopate also comprised Church centres in Gradac, Uzice, Bela Crkva and Glavetin with 40 clergymen and 40 village mayors, which means that it was one of the richest diocese of the Ohrid Archbisopric. Since Belgrade came under Byzantium rule, there have not been any big changes in the character of Church authorities as the Ohrid Archdiocese was established on the spiritual and cultural traditions of The first Bulgaran empire and Samuil`s state, its head was called an archbishop of Bulgaria and in terms of jurisdiction, it was completely independent of Contantinople patriarch. Short reign of Hungarian king Salomon in Belgrade (1071/72) did not lead to any changes in Church organistaion, although certain bishop Franco was mentioned by the King`s counselors. The consolidation of the Catholic Church organisation was enabled only from the fourth decade of the XIII century when Belgrade belonged to the Hungarian king. No later than the beginning of March 1232, according to the decision of the Pope Gregory IX of the Orthodox Eparchy, Belgrade and Branicevo were united with the newly established Episcopate of Syrmia which was founded as a missionary one with the clearly defined aim of the spread of Catholicism among the population of the other part of Syrmia (the regions on the south of the Sava, between the rivers of Drina and Kolubara) which, not long time ago, had been a part of the Diocese of Syrmia under the jurisdiction of the Ohrid Archbishopric. In the period of 1284-1389, Belgrade was under Serbian rule. King Dragutin built the Temple, the headquarters of the bishop of Macva of Serbian Church with the famous Icon of the Most Holy Mother of God, a well-known relic from the period of Byzantium rule, and some other churches, so there were many Orthodox priests in Belgrade and its surroundings. Episcopate of Macva Serbian Church was established in the period of 1284-1290, and it was situated on the country of Macva, i.e. Syrmia. The river Sava was on its northern border, the river of Drina was on the western one, while the Kolubara and the slopes of Avala and Kosmaj were on the eastern border, and the territory reached Crna Gora and Rudnik on the south. Its territory covered the regional unit of Macva only partially. On the basis of the data written down by the Archbishop Danilo II, an expert in Church issues of the time, it is quite uncertain whether there was a metropolitan`s residence in Belgrade. In order to solve the puzzle, some hypotheses were outlined in the reference to the political circumstances and Church practices. The firmly established organisation of the Serbian Church endangered the rights of Belgrade Diocese of the Roman Church; that is why the pope Nicholas IV (1288-1292) and John XXII (1316-1334) reacted in order to establish the Catholic jurisdiction. Although Belgrade bishops Martin and Benedict were mentioned in Latin sources from the nineties of the XIV century, Albensis capitulum, Magister Theodor Albensis Ecclesie Prepositus, Magister Demetrius Canonicus Albensis, those were only titlings. The moment of the formal establishment of the already founded clerical organisation was patiently awaited for. It happened after Belgrade had fallen under Hungarian rule again. Hungarian king Charles Robert was active in the strengthening of the position of the Roman Church. After 1319, the headquarters of the Macva bishop was relocated from Belgrade, but the Episcopate of Macva of the Serbian Church seemed to have continued its activities. The counties of Ub, Nepricava, Rabas, Pepeljevac, Ljig, Toplica, Upper and Lower Obna and the region of Crna Gora and Rudnik were under its jurisdiction, undoubtedly under the authority of the Serbian King. Most likely the Serbian bishop of Macva also had jurisdiction over the Orthodox clergy and the religious people in the regional units of Macva which were returned to Hungary in 1319.

The Middle EnglishLife of St Teilo

This article provides an editio princeps of a neglected Middle English poem, The Life of St Teilo. The introduction discusses the only manuscript to contain the text (British Library MS Egerton 2810) and how St Teilo came to be copied into it. It also investigates the likely date of the original text, and where it was most probably composed. This leads on to discussion of the poet, and the significance of how he adapts his Latin source.

Fenomen religii prasłowian

Compared to other pagan religious systems of Europe, the Slavic religion is one of the least known. There are no known Slavic myths, that is the stories of the gods. However, the written Greek and Latin sources, the Central European (Russian, Czech and Polish), as well as the material relics (eg. The statues of the deities of the four faces ) allows us to specify different forms and characteristics of the Slavic religion: the multiplicity of deities, the worship of the deified forces of nature, the worship of fire, and the original worship of the sky. The gradual process of displacing the original Slavic beliefs in the context of Christianization began in the sixth century, and finally ended with the conquest of Polabians by the Germans (13th century). However, relics of the Slavic religion survived in the private beliefs in the 15th and 16th centuries and in the folklore to this day, although the form and scale of this survival has not yet been clearly defined. This article makes references to contemporary and earlier academic achievements in the field discussed, a reflection based on polidoxy treated as a source of polytheism and prototheism as the primary phase of polytheism. References to historical monuments and findings of historians of antiquity, for whom the Slavs were often a closed and commonly unknown societal circle, which in this manner appeared to be a threat to first the Roman Empire and then later to Western civilization.

Swimming against the Current


 
 
 This article explores Muslim conversion to Christianity using a body of hagio-graphical sources in Arabic, Armenian, Georgian, Greek, and Latin. Through these lives of Christian martyrs, the article seeks to understand why Muslims undertook the surprising journey from “mosque to church” in the early centuries after the conquests. Many studies of Islamization are teleological, aiming to explain the large-scale conversion of the Middle East by the end of the Crusades. In contrast, this article aims to show why Islamization—especially in the Umayyad and early ʿAbbāsid periods—could be highly contingent, even fragile, at a time when Muslims formed a numerical minority in many regions under their control.
 
 

Doctors in English: A Study of the Wycliffite Gospel Commentaries by Anne Hudson

Reviewed by: Doctors in English: A Study of the Wycliffite Gospel Commentaries by Anne Hudson Michael P. Kuczynski Anne Hudson. Doctors in English: A Study of the Wycliffite Gospel Commentaries. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2015. Pp. 256. $110.00. The so-called Glossed Gospels (hereafter GG), extensive Middle English commentaries on the four evangelists, are among the most important texts within the Wycliffite orbit that remain unedited and therefore underappreciated by scholars. Anne Hudson’s Doctors in English is, as she describes it, “a prolegomenon to an edition” (xiii) of this very complex set of texts. In her book, Hudson provides the necessary foundation for a long-term collaborative project that she hopes will be taken up by a group of researchers dedicated, as she has been for many years, to recovering an accurate history of the Wycliffite movement from its manuscript remains. Those who answer this challenge will owe Hudson an immense debt of gratitude for her deliberative preparations. In the meanwhile, readers can marvel at the precision of a scholar operating at the top of her game, on a group of Middle English texts that, as Hudson examines them, seem only to gain in theological and ideological interest because of their manuscript complexities. Aside from the two translations of the Wycliffite Bible and the intertextual and marginal glosses designed by the translators to facilitate an accurate understanding of these, GG represents the movement’s most profound engagement with the basic sense and import of Scripture. The “clear objective” of those responsible for GG, Hudson notes, was “the provision of complete vernacular biblical commentary on each gospel derived from accepted authorities that would be specified in sufficient detail to be traced back to their sources” (cli). At the same time, Hudson explains, “no single ‘recipe’ . . . controlled the production of the commentary for each of the four gospels—on the contrary, each gospel’s commentary reveals individual methods of production and eccentricities of citation” (liii). The commentaries she discusses, then, are both distinct and connected—parts of a comprehensive exegetical endeavor and texts that manifest at times their own peculiar features, practices, and concerns. More than half of Doctors in English (i–cliv) consists of an expert analysis, in seven detailed chapters, of the five most important GG manuscripts: their contents, affinities with each other, and the expository and polemical nature of their materials. Most of the rest of the book (1–98) offers edited selections from these “intended to demonstrate some of the claims that are made in the main chapters . . . and to illustrate the [End Page 323] normal method of each of the commentaries” (3). There are, as well, two brief appendices: the first on problems posed by the use of modern editions of Latin sources in studying the vernacular commentaries—particularly Guarienti’s edition of Thomas Aquinas’s Catena aurea, the chief source for GG—and the second on the text of Odo of Chateau-roux’s commentary on the Psalms in Oxford, Balliol College, MS 37, an intriguing outlier source used heavily in two GG manuscripts. There is also a helpful bibliography of primary (both manuscript and print) and secondary sources. At some point in the late fourteenth-century history of GG’s production, Hudson argues, there were both long- and short-form commentaries for each Gospel—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. What survives, however, is an anomalous long discourse on Matthew based on five separate Latin commentaries but not involving Aquinas—which may represent an abortive early approach to Wycliffite Gospel exegesis (four manuscripts, one of these complete, another consisting of two leaves only; and the other two abbreviated versions of the complete text, one of these a copy of the other)—and five commentaries based predominantly on Aquinas and supplemented by other authorities: a short Matthew independent from but also aware of anomalous long Matthew (two manuscripts); a short Mark (one manuscript); a long and short Luke (one and two manuscripts respectively); and a short John (two manuscripts, included respectively in one of the short Matthew and one of the short Luke copies). Beyond these works, each of which is organized around a subdivided text of one or more Gospel narratives, a single manuscript...

Statius, Thebaid 8 by Antony Augoustakis

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 419 imagery conflicts with Lucretius’ aim of bringing dark subjects before his reader’s eyes. Fratantuono presents a rather bleak view of the DRN, despite its many positive pleasurable aspects and the fact that Lucretius surely intended Epicureanism to appear attractive to his reader. Where the content is less palatable, Lucretius’ reader is armed to feel calm detachment (Epicurean ataraxia). This is overlooked by Fratantuono, perhaps understandably, since his book is “not . . . a primer in Greek philosophy” (x). Yet Lucretius without Epicureanism is scarcely Lucretius at all. Fratantuono suggests the goal of his book might be “to instil a deeper love for Lucretius in his readers” (xi). However, the Lucretius Fratantuono presents, with science divorced from poetry and philosophy subordinate to narrative, is far from the Lucretius this reader knows and loves. Wellington College Matthew Johncock Statius, THEBAID 8. Edited with an Introduction, Translation, and Commentary by Antony Augoustakis. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2016. Pp. lxxv, 449. In the last decade, Antony Augoustakis has contributed significantly to our understanding of Flavian poetry: himself the author of thought-provoking interpretations, he has also engaged other scholars in the task of further defining the “Flavian Renaissance.”1 Now he approaches Statius within the more traditional and, to a certain extent, more rigid compass of a full-scale commentary on Statius’ Thebaid 8 (the first since Caspar von Barth’s handling of the book in his collection of notes on Statius’ works),2 thus adding a welcome and long-awaited contribution to the Oxford University Press’s corpus of commentaries on single books of the Thebaid.3 This detailed and careful volume enriches the landscape of Statian studies with a solid, up-to-date resource and was certainly worth the wait. The volume contains a general introduction, the Latin text with critical apparatus, an English translation, the commentary, and an extensive (but not overwhelming) bibliography . Augoustakis masters an impressive number of primary and secondary sources, and his handling of the bibliography is forward looking. He systematically uses the most recent works on the transmission and reception of Statius4 to assert their relevance in improving our knowledge of the manuscripts and clarifying the poet’s position in the culture of modern Europe. Additionally, he takes into account unpublished or in-progress contributions , allowing us to glimpse future developments in the study of Flavian literature. The introduction balances information and interpretation. Information is provided concisely and effectively, with reference to the most recent critical literature: Statius is 1 He has edited volumes such as Flavian Epic (Oxford Readings in Classical Studies) (Oxford 2016) and Ritual and Religion in Flavian Epic (Oxford 2013). 2 C. von Barth, P.P. Statii quae exstant (3 vols., Zwickau 1664). 3 See M. Dewar (ed.), Statius, Thebaid IX (Oxford 1991); R. Parkes, Statius, Thebaid 4 (Oxford 2012); and K. Gervais (ed.), Statius, Thebaid 2 (Oxford 2017). 4 See especially J. B. Hall, A. L. Ritchie, and M. J. Edwards, P. Papinius Statius: Thebaid and Achilleid (3 vols.; Newcastle 2008); H. Anderson, The Manuscripts of Statius (3 vols.; Arlington 2009); V. Berlincourt, Commenter la Thébaı̈de (16e–19e s.): Caspar von Barth et la tradition exégétique de Stace (Leiden 2013). 420 PHOENIX discussed as poet between two worlds5 and a biography is provided that focuses on the poet’s relationship with his father as its most relevant and securely historical element. In presenting the Thebaid, attention is paid to exemplary critical readings of the poem as a whole, and to links of Book 8 with Books 2, 4, and 7. Augoustakis gathers an exhaustive list of Greek and Latin sources for Amphiaraus’ katabasis and hero worship (xxiv–xxx) and Tydeus’ cannibalism (xxx–xl), and he covers in detail the reception (lviii–lxxiii) of Thebaid 8, from antiquity (noting potential intertexts in Tacitus and Juvenal) to the Renaissance and beyond, with insights into the vernacular tradition, fifteenth-century neo-Latin epic, and the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century English translations that so vastly contributed to "the dissemination of the poem to wider audiences” (lxxii). The extent of Statius’ influence on later centuries inevitably limits Augoustakis to providing us with what is chie...

Naturkonzeption und Spracharbeit im puͦch von den naturleichen dingen Konrads von Megenberg

Medieval ‘books of natural things’ contain various concepts of nature. On the one hand, there is the idea of nature as God’s creation, on the other, the Aristotelian concept of nature shaped by causes and effects and by processes of growth and decline. Practical knowledge about animals pertaining, for instance, to medicine or hunting, appears in late medieval encyclopaedias as well. Konrad’s book shows that these different concepts manifest themselves in the translation from the Latin sources into the vernacular. The choice of German equivalents for Latin words and phrases in Konrad’s ‘book of natural things’ ist guided and shaped by a philosophical reflection upon varying concepts of nature.

Healing with Mercury: The Uses of Mercury in Arabic Medical Literature

Abstract Three textual traditions can be discerned in Arabic medical literature: the early translations from Greek, Syriac and Indian sources; the autochthonous tradition, which reached its height between the tenth and thirteenth centuries; and the translations from Latin sources, beginning in the seventeenth century. This study traces the medical use of mercury and its derivatives within these traditions. The Greek works translated into Arabic like those of Galen or Paul of Aegina did not prescribe mercury as a remedy for human beings because of its toxicity. However, many scholars of the second period, including Rhazes (d. 925), Ibn al-Jazzār (d. 979), Avicenna (d. 1037), Abū l-ʿAlāʾ Zuhr (d. 1131) and Muḥammad al-Idrīsī (d. 1166), described the external application of mercury. Many terms were used to describe these varieties of mercury – the living (ziʾbaq ḥayy), the dead (ziʾbaq mayyit), the murdered (ziʾbaq maqtūl), the sublimated (ziʾbaq muṣaʿʿad) and the dust of mercury (turāb al-ziʾbaq). To reconstruct the meaning of these terms, I examine various recipes for mercurial preparation given in these works. The internal use of mercury is documented in the sixteenth century in a work by Dawūd al-Anṭākī (d. 1599), who used the term sulaymānī to refer to a sublimated derivative of mercury. I attempt to reconstruct the modalities of knowledge transmission from the Indian and Persian East into Arabic medicine, and from the Arabic world into the Latin West. I also address the impact of translations into Arabic of Latin works in the seventeenth century, such as the Practicae medicinae and Institutionum medicinae by Daniel Sennert (d. 1637), the Antidotarium generale et speciale by Johann Jacob Wecker (d. 1586) and the Basilica Chymica by the Paracelsian Oswaldus Crollius (d. 1608).

Cinnabar, Calomel and the Art of kushtasāzī: Mercurial Preparations in Unani Medicine

Abstract This paper examines the role of mercury in “Graeco-Islamic” medicine, which is referred to as Ṭibb-e yūnānī or unani medicine in South Asia. Having its origin in Ancient Greece, unani medicine spread to the Arabic countries and from the fifteenth century onwards to India. With its main roots in the Greek and Latin sources, the most influential works of ‘ilm al-adviya (pharmacology) were translated into Arabic, Persian and Urdu. Mercury (Arabic: zībaq; Persian: sīmāb; Urdu: sīmāb and pāra) played an important role in all Indian traditions of medicine, and had a prominent place in unani medicine. This paper highlights the historical use of mercury in Indian, Persian and Urdu medical literature, the discourses on its efficacy and some of the important mercurial preparations presented in a selection of unani works. Further, the use of mercury as a single and compound drug and its role in the treatment of different diseases will be analysed.

‘WiĐ His Wyrd’ in the Old EnglishMonasteriales Indicia

THE Monasteriales Indicia is a sign language for Anglo-Saxon Benedictine monks bound by a vow of silence. It was copied in British Library, MS Cotton Tiberius A. III, alongside with a Latin version of the Rule of St Benedict, Ælfric’s Colloquy , an Old English translation of Alcuin’s De virtutibus et vitiis , a vernacular prose life of St Margaret and, most famously, one of the two copies of the Regularis Concordia , preceded by the drawing of King Edgar seated between St Dunstan and St Æthelwold. Friedrich Kluge, the first editor of the text, dated the manuscript around 1050, and this dating is still accepted today. 1 The text was edited and translated several times in the century since Kluge first presented it to the public in 1885. 2 No Latin source is known, although there exist similar Cistercian sign languages composed in the second half of the eleventh century. 3

Studying Dream Interpretation from Early Christianity to the Rise of Islam

Early Christian and early Islamic texts on dreams and dream interpretation have come under increased scrutiny in recent decades. Dream literature from pagan and Jewish antiquity to the early medieval period demonstrates that dreams, especially prophetic dreams, were used to establish spiritual authority, enforce compliance, and justify violence in a religious context. The common cultural roots of Christianity and Islam emerge when we recognise the crucial role played by dreams and prophecy in the two traditions. The various methodologies used in recent scholarship on dreams and their interpretation are surveyed with a view to identifying those most relevant to the analysis of first‐millennium CE literary sources in Latin, Greek, Syriac, and Arabic. The key texts from the three major religious traditions in this period (Western Christian, Eastern Christian, and Islamic) are then analysed with a view to assessing whether early Christians and Muslims understood and taxonomised dreams differently. Literary genre and audience (lay, clerical, or monastic) are revealed as the key determinants of difference, rather than religious origins.