Seventh-century Ireland Research Articles

From Scripture to Law in Seventh-Century Ireland: The De XII abusivis saeculi and Exegetical Tradition

This paper situates the De XII abusivis saeculi [DDAS] within the evolution of scriptural exegesis in seventh-century Ireland, paying particular attention to the De mirabilibus sacrae scripturae, the anonymous commentary on the catholic Epistles, and Cummian’s Penitential as well as to the Turonensis, an early version of Hibernensis as a legal code.

Varia I. Hiberno-latin quantotus, tantotus

VARIA I Hiberno-Latin quantotus, tantotus The technique that I have elsewhere labelled ‘disunderstanding’, apparently at its height in seventh-century Ireland, was a method of finessing new Latin words into existence by creatively reparsing truncated passages taken from established texts. Thus, for example, a noun crassum, meaning ‘breast, chest, lungs’, was arguably generated by disunderstanding (as a neuter substantive) the initial adjective in the Isidorean phrase crassum aerem facit, originally meaning ‘it makes the air thick’.1 Similarly, the opening adverb of the Seville bishop’s phrase facile scintillas emittit, ‘it easily produces sparks’, seems to have been taken instead as a noun, designating the steel against which a flint is struck. Again, the second noun in the Biblical phrase gurgustium piscium, ‘the cabin of fishes’, was apparently viewed as standing in apposition to the first (or as a gloss on it), so that gurgustium was no longer the (accusative) singular of a word for a hovel, but the genitive plural of a new word for fish.2 And so on; such words went on to be employed with their new senses in freshly minted sentences (indeed, that is where we detect them), and examples could easily be multiplied both from the Hisperica famina and from the enigmatic Virgilius Maro Grammaticus.3 Indeed, one particular coining by Virgilius, namely a Latin adjective quantotus, appears from its etymology not merely to be a further neologism generated by means of the technique, but to represent a refinement thereof: it results not from the disunderstanding of a phrase consisting of several words, but rather from the serial application of disunderstanding to a single word. The present note constitutes an attempt to trace the process involved. The coining in question is to be found in section VI.7 of Virgilius’s Epitomae, and only there.4 Claiming one Fabianus as his authority for it, Virgilius states that a verse by the latter reads quantotae tuae tonant carminibus, Iuliane, uxores aptae which, lacking any wider context, I suggest might best be translated as ‘All your talented wives without exception, Julian, give hearty voice to Bmy? DOI: https://doi.org/10.3318/ERIU.2016.66.8 Ériu LXVI (2016) 191194 # Royal Irish Academy 1 Anthony Harvey, ‘Blood, dust and cucumbers: constructing the world of Hisperic latinity’, in Emer Purcell et al. (eds), Clerics, kings and vikings: essays on medieval Ireland in honour of Donnchadh Ó Corráin (Dublin, 2015), 35262: 35657. 2 Anthony Harvey, ‘Frankenstein in the scriptorium: bringing Latin to life in early medieval Ireland’, in Mı́cheál Ó Flaithearta (ed.), Code-switching in the medieval classroom (Bremen, forthcoming). 3 On Virgilius’s lexical innovations in general, see Anthony Harvey, ‘Linguistic method in his literary madness? The word-coinings of Virgilius Maro Grammaticus’, in Elisa Roma and David Stifter (eds), Linguistic and philological studies in early Irish (Lewiston, NY and Lampeter, 2014), 79104. 4 Giovanni Polara (ed.), Virgilio Marone grammatico: epitomi ed epistole (Naples, 1979), 76. compositions’. Never mind that the content of the quotation is arresting, or that both the verse and its alleged author appear to have been made up by Virgilius; this is par for the course with him. Rather, let us trace what lies behind his (feminine plural) form quantotae, and how it comes to mean what it does. In a passage just before the ‘quotation’, and without providing a definition, Virgilius states that his lexeme quantotus has a genitive form quantotius. He does not provide such forms for the other lexemes that he mentions in that passage,5 and I believe that this gives us the clue to his real (as opposed to his pretended) starting-point: his etymologising actually begins with quantotius (this being a form that he is likely, in fact, to have come across: see below), and proceeds by serially ‘disunderstanding’ it. The process appears to have been as follows. There had developed within international Late Latin an adverb quantocius meaning ‘as quickly as possible, immediately’. It was, in general, quite common, and indeed occurs frequently in the corpus of specifically Celtic latinity: the draft entry for it in the Dictionary of Medieval Latin from Celtic sources cites instances in...

Varia I. Hiberno-latin <em>quantotus, tantotus</em>

VARIA I Hiberno-Latin quantotus, tantotus The technique that I have elsewhere labelled ‘disunderstanding’, apparently at its height in seventh-century Ireland, was a method of finessing new Latin words into existence by creatively reparsing truncated passages taken from established texts. Thus, for example, a noun crassum, meaning ‘breast, chest, lungs’, was arguably generated by disunderstanding (as a neuter substantive) the initial adjective in the Isidorean phrase crassum aerem facit, originally meaning ‘it makes the air thick’.1 Similarly, the opening adverb of the Seville bishop’s phrase facile scintillas emittit, ‘it easily produces sparks’, seems to have been taken instead as a noun, designating the steel against which a flint is struck. Again, the second noun in the Biblical phrase gurgustium piscium, ‘the cabin of fishes’, was apparently viewed as standing in apposition to the first (or as a gloss on it), so that gurgustium was no longer the (accusative) singular of a word for a hovel, but the genitive plural of a new word for fish.2 And so on; such words went on to be employed with their new senses in freshly minted sentences (indeed, that is where we detect them), and examples could easily be multiplied both from the Hisperica famina and from the enigmatic Virgilius Maro Grammaticus.3 Indeed, one particular coining by Virgilius, namely a Latin adjective quantotus, appears from its etymology not merely to be a further neologism generated by means of the technique, but to represent a refinement thereof: it results not from the disunderstanding of a phrase consisting of several words, but rather from the serial application of disunderstanding to a single word. The present note constitutes an attempt to trace the process involved. The coining in question is to be found in section VI.7 of Virgilius’s Epitomae, and only there.4 Claiming one Fabianus as his authority for it, Virgilius states that a verse by the latter reads quantotae tuae tonant carminibus, Iuliane, uxores aptae which, lacking any wider context, I suggest might best be translated as ‘All your talented wives without exception, Julian, give hearty voice to Bmy? DOI: https://doi.org/10.3318/ERIU.2016.66.8 Ériu LXVI (2016) 191194 # Royal Irish Academy 1 Anthony Harvey, ‘Blood, dust and cucumbers: constructing the world of Hisperic latinity’, in Emer Purcell et al. (eds), Clerics, kings and vikings: essays on medieval Ireland in honour of Donnchadh Ó Corráin (Dublin, 2015), 35262: 35657. 2 Anthony Harvey, ‘Frankenstein in the scriptorium: bringing Latin to life in early medieval Ireland’, in Mı́cheál Ó Flaithearta (ed.), Code-switching in the medieval classroom (Bremen, forthcoming). 3 On Virgilius’s lexical innovations in general, see Anthony Harvey, ‘Linguistic method in his literary madness? The word-coinings of Virgilius Maro Grammaticus’, in Elisa Roma and David Stifter (eds), Linguistic and philological studies in early Irish (Lewiston, NY and Lampeter, 2014), 79104. 4 Giovanni Polara (ed.), Virgilio Marone grammatico: epitomi ed epistole (Naples, 1979), 76. compositions’. Never mind that the content of the quotation is arresting, or that both the verse and its alleged author appear to have been made up by Virgilius; this is par for the course with him. Rather, let us trace what lies behind his (feminine plural) form quantotae, and how it comes to mean what it does. In a passage just before the ‘quotation’, and without providing a definition, Virgilius states that his lexeme quantotus has a genitive form quantotius. He does not provide such forms for the other lexemes that he mentions in that passage,5 and I believe that this gives us the clue to his real (as opposed to his pretended) starting-point: his etymologising actually begins with quantotius (this being a form that he is likely, in fact, to have come across: see below), and proceeds by serially ‘disunderstanding’ it. The process appears to have been as follows. There had developed within international Late Latin an adverb quantocius meaning ‘as quickly as possible, immediately’. It was, in general, quite common, and indeed occurs frequently in the corpus of specifically Celtic latinity: the draft entry for it in the Dictionary of Medieval Latin from Celtic sources cites instances in...

Book Review: Astrology in Medieval Ireland and Wales: Fiery Shapes: Celestial Portents and Astrology in Ireland and Wales 700–1700

ASTROLOGY IN MEDIEVAL IRELAND AND WALES Fiery Shapes: Celestial Portents and Astrology in Ireland and Wales 700-1 700. Mark Williams (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2010). Pp. 218. £60. ISBN 978-0-19-957184-0.The literature on the history of astrology continues to expand, even if slowly, following Otto Neugebauer's rejection sixty years ago of George Sarton's query as to why any serious scholar would wish to study the past of this wretched subject. The body of reliable literature, though, remains slight (Sartonesque attitudes have proved remarkable tenacious), which is all the more reason to greet Mark Williams's exploration of astrology in what is commonly known as the British 'Celtic fringe' (specifically, Ireland and Wales) in the millennium between the early medieval period and the early modern - approximately 700 to 1700. The earlier date is determined by the beginning of manuscript evidence, the latter by the end of astrology's status as a fit topic for intelligent discourse. The only previous work in this area, Marina Smyth's Understanding the universe in seventh-century Ireland (Boydell Press, 1996), covers only the earlier period, so Williams's book is to be welcomed.The book is divided into several distinct sections, each of which could be considered as a smaller self-contained unit. The five chapters consider celestial portents and apocalypticism in early medieval Ireland; Druidic cloud-divination and portents of Antichrist; the two great literary works, the Welsh Taliesin and the History of Geoffrey of Monmouth; astrology in medieval manuscripts, chiefly from the fifteenth century; and the work of the seventeenth-century Calvinist astrologer, Morgan Llwyd. The narrative connecting the earliest chapter, a discussion of evidence for the existence of Druidic astrology in Ireland, to the latest, is tenuous. In this, the book reflects the difficulties of Williams's material, in that, having taken Celtic astrology as his subject area, the ground vanishes before his eyes. This, of course, is a familiar problem amongst Celtic scholars, some of whom have questioned the entire notion of 'Celtic' as a suitable category. Williams avoids this pitfall by defining his work regionally instead of culturally, not as Celtic astrology but as astrology in Wales and Ireland.In spite of the apparent disjunction between the Irish and Welsh material, Williams finds at least one major linking theme: a focus on astrology as the interpretation of celestial portents, a rationale amply justified by the Star of Bethlehem, rather than as, say, the interplay of natural forces which is favoured within Aristotelian cosmology. …

The dove and the star: enduring ideas from seventh-century Ireland

In the cosmology of Augustinus Hibernicus, scriptural data are combined with the classical theory of the four elements as the sole components of all matter. For him the dove at the baptism of Christ was a semblance fashioned from the element air. Similarly, the Magi saw a semblance of a star temporarily fashioned from the element fire, and he stressed also that Scripture never said that the star guided the Magi all the way from the East. The fortuna of these ideas is followed into the high middle ages.

The Origins of Purgatory through the Lens of Seventh-Century Irish Eschatology

Many of the surviving texts associated with seventh-century Ireland deal with eschatology. In general, these texts convey assumptions on the fate of the soul after death that are consistent with the traditional Christian view in late antiquity in the West, namely, that the ultimate destiny of most Christians will not be determined till the great universal judgment at the end of time. To illustrate this point I will adduce the theological treatiseLiber de ordine creaturarumand the moral treatiseDe XII abusiuis saeculi,as well as religious poetry and hagiographical works, and set them in their likely liturgical context. In contrast, theVision of Furseyand Adomnán'sLife of Columbastand out as revealing the strong influence of concepts originating in the early Christian ascetic circles of Egypt. Irish Christians were thus also exposed to the idea that the fate of all individual souls will be determined immediately after death. Awareness and even endorsement of this point of view will have prepared the way toward accepting the novel teaching that a finite period of painful purification immediately follows the death of most Christians. The survival of these two texts demonstrating the presence in seventh-century Ireland of the belief that the final determination of an individual's fate occurs at the time of death draws attention to the radical change in perspective that must have been an essential initial step in the very formulation of the doctrine of purgatory.

The Origins of Purgatory through the Lens of Seventh-Century Irish Eschatology

THE ORIGINS OF PURGATORY THROUGH THE LENS OF SEVENTH-CENTURY IRISH ESCHATOLOGY By MARINA SMYTH Many of the surviving texts associated with seventh-century Ireland deal with eschatology. In general, these texts convey assumptions on the fate of the soul after death that are consistent with the traditional Christian view in late antiquity in the West, namely, that the ultimate destiny of most Christians will not be determined till the great universal judgment at the end of time. To illustrate this point I will adduce the theological treatise Liber de ordine creaturarum and the moral treatise De XII abusiuis saeculi, as well as religious poetry and hagiographical works, and set them in their likely liturgical context. In contrast, the Vision of Fursey and Adomnán's Life of Columba stand out as revealing the strong influence of concepts originating in the early Christian ascetic circles of Egypt. Irish Christians were thus also exposed to the idea that the fate of all individual souls will be determined immediately after death. Awareness and even endorsement of this point of view will have prepared the way toward accepting the novel teaching that a finite period of painful purification immediately follows the death of most Christians. The survival of these two texts demonstrating the presence in seventh-century Ireland of the belief that the final determination of an individual's fate occurs at the time of death draws attention to the radical change in perspective that must have been an essential initial step in the very formulation of the doctrine of purgatory.1 Background From the earliest stages of Christianity it was generally understood that at the moment of death the souls of the very good (martyrs and confessors, for instance) go straight to heaven, and the souls of the very bad go immediately to hell, without any intervening judgment. The terms "good," "bad," "heaven," and "hell" may have been understood in different ways at different times and in different places, but the basic idea remained constant. The more interesting question is: What did Christians in late antiquity think happened after death to most Christians, who were neither very good nor very bad — the boni non ualde or the mali non ualde, to use the terminology 1 It was not until the end of the Middle Ages that the Roman Catholic Church issued formal statements on the doctrine of purgatory, such as the 1336 decree Benedidus Deus of Pope Benedict XII. 92traditio derived from variant readings of St. Augustine's Enchiridion HO.2 The Bible foretold a great, public universal judgment at the end of time, in which the Lord would scrutinize each life, to be followed either by a call to eternal reward in heaven or by confinement to eternal damnation in hell (e.g. Matt. 25:31-46, Rom. 2:5-16, Apoc. 20:11-14). This scriptural teaching soon became incorporated into credal statements.3 Attempts to reconcile this doctrine with the early Christian assumptions mentioned above regarding saintly and evil people led to a more or less conscious fourfold division of mankind: those who would be judged and those who would not, each category being further subdivided into two subgroups, namely, those who would spend eternity in heaven and those who would spend it in hell. This was the common scheme in the Latin West during late antiquity. It is found in the works of Lactantius (fl. 323)," Hilary of Poitiers (ca. 315-367),° Zeno of Verona (d. 371/72),6 Ambrose (ca. 334-99),7 and Paulinus of Ñola (353-431),8 all of whom assumed that the judgment at the end of time would apply only to the "middle" group of those neither very good nor very bad. Gregory the Great spelled out the fourfold scheme clearly in the Moralia in lob, a treatise he had largely completed before he became pope in 590, but which he revised as late as 595: There are in truth two classes, namely, of the elect and the reprobate. But two ranks are comprised in each of these classes. For some are judged and perish; others are not judged and perish. Some are judged and reign; others are not judged and reign...

Seventh-Century Ireland as a Study Abroad Destination

In order to reconstruct the life of “study abroad students” in seventh-century Ireland I rely primarily on three sources. The first two sources are the English churchmen Aldhelm and Bede. Aldhelm (d.709), abbot of Malmesbury and later bishop of Sherborne, was the first Anglo-Saxon man of letters. Fortunately, at least two letters by him to Anglo-Saxon students who studied in Ireland survive. Bede (d.735), a priest at Wearmouth-Jarrow, was the greatest of the Anglo-Saxon men of letters. He wrote a history of the Anglo-Saxon Church (Historia Ecclesiastica [HE]), cited frequently in this article, which often notes the relationships between the English and the Irish in the seventh century. As English clerical scholars, Aldhelm and Bede are eager to promote the Church of Rome and Anglo-Saxon England’s role in its growth. Nevertheless, they frequently acknowledge the Irish contribution to English Church history and Anglo-Saxon learned culture. Bede tells us, for example, that Irish schools provided English students with free books and free instruction. My third major source is the Hisperica Famina1 “Western Sayings,” a cryptic Latin text written in Ireland by, or about, foreign students sometime probably between c.650 and c.665. The Hisperica Famina are secular in tone and give us our most intimate

Introduction

This volume of Frontiers signals a further maturation in the short history of this journal. Frontiers is now cosponsored by ten colleges and universities, and their support reflects the academic nature and purpose of this journal. In addition, our new Editorial Board members bring with them expertise in a variety of academic fields that relate to study abroad. The journal's expanded Board and its sponsors will assist Frontiers in fulfilling its mission of providing the profession of study abroad with a broad, provocative, and stimulating approach to topics within the field. 
 The articles in this volume offer excellent examples of this purpose. Skye Stephenson's lead article, "Study Abroad as a Transformational Experience and Its Effect upon Study Abroad Students and Host Nationals in Santiago, Chile" provides insights into the views of the "other" in study abroad and how students affect a local culture and are in turn affected by it. Stephenson's research helps us to understand the myriad ways in which student, professor, and host family effect one another. 
 John and Lilli Engle's article, "Program Intervention in the Process of Cultural Integration: The Example of French Practicum" describes the French Practicum course they developed as part of the curriculum of the American University Center in Aix-en-Provence. The presentation and analysis of this course alerts us to a number of substantial issues regarding study abroad pedagogy and learning that strike at the very nature and purposes of international education. 
 Colin Ireland's article, "Seventh-Century Ireland as a Study Abroad Destination," examines an early form of study abroad and reveals that the issues that were at work within the study abroad experience of the seventh century, including the challenge of cultural integration, are similar to the ones facing international educators today. Ireland's article is a provocative example of the rich traditions of study abroad that lie buried in our collective past. 
 "College Students with Disabilities and Study Abroad: Implications for International Education Staff," by Brenda Hameister and colleagues, addresses a critical topic in the field and suggests a useful approach toward advising students with disabilities about study abroad. Drawing on their considerable collective experience in this field, the authors present important concepts and case studies to help guide international education staff in their work with students with disabilities. 
 In their article, "Evaluation and Study Abroad: Developing Assessment Criteria and Practices to Promote Excellence," Joan Gillespie and her colleagues focus on an essential topic for the field of study abroad: how best to evaluate and improve programs abroad. The Model Assessment Practice developed by IES should stimulate discussion and debate among international educators concerned about program quality. 
 I hope that you find the variety of articles contained in this volume of Frontiers both stimulating and useful. The next volume of Frontiers, scheduled to be published in fall, 2000, will be a thematic one that focuses on the topic of Study Abroad and Area Studies. 
 Brian Whalen Dickinson College

Book Reviews

Neil Christie and S.T. Loseby. Towns in Transition: Urban Evolution in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. London: Scolar.Thomas Owen Clancy and Gilbert MÄrkus. Iona. The Earliest Poetry of a Celtic Monastery. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Edited and translated by Diana Greenway. Henry, Archdeacon of Huntingdon, ‘Historia Anglorum: the History of the English People’. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Dominic Janes. God and Gold in Late Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Edited by J. Steen Jensen. Tusindtallets Danske Mønter fra Den kongelige Mønt‐og Medaillesamling. Danish coins from the 11th century in The Royal Collection of Coins and Medals. Copenhagen: Nationalmuseet.Hugh Kennedy. Muslim Spain and Portugal. A political history of al‐Andalus. London and New York: Longman.Simon Keynes. The Liber Vitae of the New Minster and Hyde Abbey Winchester, British Library Stowe 944, together with Leaves from British Library Cotton Vespasian A. viii and British Library Cotton Titus D. xxvii. Early English Manuscripts in Facsimile 26. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde and Bagger. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde and Bagger. 1996. 132 pp. with 21 plates and 71 facsimile folios.Claus Krag. Vikingtid og Rikssamling 800–1130. (Aschehougs Norges Historie Bind 2). Oslo: H. Aschehoug & Co (W. Nygaard).Niels Lund. Lið, leding og landeværn. Roskilde: Vikingeskibshallen.Ramsay MacMullen. Christianity and Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.Philip Rahtz and Lorna Watts. St. Mary's Church, Deerhurst, Gloucestershire. Woodbridge: Boydell Press (for the Society of Antiquaries of London and the British Archaeological Association).Marina Smyth. Understanding the Universe in Seventh Century Ireland. Woodbridge: The Boydell Press.

Marina Smyth. <italic>Understanding the Universe in Seventh-Century Ireland</italic>. (Studies in Celtic History, number 15.) Rochester, N.Y.: Boydell. 1996. Pp. 341. $70.00

Journal Article Marina Smyth. Understanding the Universe in Seventh-Century Ireland. (Studies in Celtic History, number 15.) Rochester, N.Y.: Boydell. 1996. Pp. 341. $70.00 Get access Smyth Marina. Understanding the Universe in Seventh-Century Ireland. (Studies in Celtic History, number 15.) Rochester, N.Y.: Boydell. 1996. Pp. 341. $70.00. Wesley M. Stevens Wesley M. Stevens University of Winnipeg Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume 103, Issue 4, October 1998, Pages 1233–1234, https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/103.4.1233 Published: 01 October 1998

Understanding the Universe in Seventh-Century Ireland

Creation - conclusions the elements - conclusions the heaven of heavens - conclusions the supercelestial waters - conclusions the firmament - general considerations on the shape and structure of the sky, conclusions, the heavenly bodies - the stars and constellations, the planets, the great luminaries, conclusions, appendix 1 - the star of Bethlehem and astrology, appendix 2 - the animation of the luminaries the fiery space the two layers of air - the upper layer, the lower layer, conclusions, meteorological phenomena, conclusions the sea - the nature of water - sweet or salt?, conclusions, the great abyss, tides, the tides and the moon, conclusions, appendix - sea-weed ashes and salt water the earth - paradise, the shape of the earth, divisions of the inhabited world, geographical data, are there inhabitants under the earth?, general considerations, conclusions hell and the purgatorial fire overview.

Understanding the universe in seventh-century Ireland. By Marina Smyth. Pp 341. Woodbridge: Boydell Press. 1996. £35. (Studies in Celtic History XV)

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Understanding the Universe in Seventh-Century Ireland. Marina Smyth

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewsUnderstanding the Universe in Seventh-Century Ireland. Marina SmythMaria TymoczkoMaria Tymoczko Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Isis Volume 88, Number 3Sep., 1997 Publication of the History of Science Society Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/383794 Views: 2Total views on this site Copyright 1997 History of Science Society, Inc.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Marina Smyth, Understanding the universe in seventh-century Ireland

Marina Smyth, <i>Understanding the universe in seventh-century Ireland</i>