1968. Millennium-A Latin Reader A D. 374-1374.pdf

MILtENNIUM

F.E.H . ARRISON

A LatinReader/374�1374

MILLENNIUM

A LATIN READER

A.D·374-1374

'Plurimi pertransibunt, et multiplex

erit scientia'

F. E. HARRISON

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

1968

Oxord University Press, Ey Ho use, London W. I

GLASGOW NEW YORK TORONTO MELBOURNE WELLINGTON

CAPE TOWN SALISBURY IBADAN NAIROBI LUSAKA ADDIS ABABA

BOBAY CALCUTTA DS KARACHI LAHORE DACCA

KUALA LUMPUR HONG KONG TOKYO

PREFACE

THIS book is intended fo r all who are interested in ex

ploring the range of Latin literature well beyond the

confines of the 'classical' period. There is, perhaps

fo rtunately, no single label to cover this thousand years,

but the two dates are signiicant. In 374 Aurelius Am

brosius, governor of Liguria, with his seat at Milan, by

now an administrative capital of the Westen Empire, a

layman and an unbaptized Christian, was acclaimed by

the populace bishop of Milan-and sixteen years later he

excommunicated the Christian emperor Theodosius fo r

his part in authorizing a massacre : an exaltation of the

Church, and fu sion or confusion of Church and State,

which would have been inconceivable a century earlier,

on the eve of the last and most violent persecutions. In

1374 Petrarch died-and if the moden world is to be

dated fr om the ifteenth-century Renaissance, he, more

than most in the field of scholarship, heralded and helped

to shape the coIning age. Between these two dates many

fo rces were at work. This book concentrates on two of

them : the leaven of Christianity, and the persistence and

vitality of classical thought and literature-revolution

and conservatism side by side. Ifits theme can be summed

up in a fe w words, it is continuity in spite of unceasing

change : an adventurous, exploring continuity.

Its limitations are conspicuous. It leaves on one side the

major problems of politics, and in particular the central

issue of Church and State ; it is concerned with literature,

not documents, with highlights rather than with shadows,

and with monks and clerics more than with laymen, since

it was they who for most ofthese centuries wielded the pen.

COVER: St. Jerome in his Study,

by Domenico Ghirlandaio,

Mansel Colection

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN

i PREFACE

Of twenty-one known auhors only one seems to be a

layman-the author of the Gesta Francorum-and he is

nameless. Even within these limits the omissions are

glaring both in time and space : fo r example, the Carolin

gians have been crowded out, and, apart fr om the First

Crusade, there is no reference to the world that lay outside

western Christendom. The compiler can only suggest

that longer selections fr om fe wer authors, in spite of the

resulting lack of balance, are more valuable than snippets

fr om a wider field.

Passages are grouped under seven main headings, each

of which spills over into the others, the first two in par

ticular colouring all the rest.

I. The Bible ;

2. The Christian Life ;

3. History and Biography ;

4. The World of Leaning ;

5. Wine, Woman, and Song ;

6. Satire and Complaint ;

7. Ghosts and Marvels.

Selections vary greatly in diiculty, but they have one

thing in common : he ip sissima verba of a wide range of

writers, with all the flavour and diiculty that involves

the walking and climbing pace, compared with the chair

bone ease of a translation. A small dictionary is taken fo r

granted (Langenscheidt's Pocket Latin Dictiona-Latin

English, by S. A. Handford (Methuen, London, 1962) has

been used as a basis) , and words and meanings not

contained there are explained in the commentary.

The historical and biographical introductions are

deliberately fu ll, on the assumption that most readers

leave the Middle Ages behind at the age of twelve or so,

and only retun to them a good deal later. But at least this

PREFACE

vii

gives the period the charm of unfamiliarity, while at the

same time one sees the Latin classics in yet another light,

through the eyes of an Augustine, a William of Malmes

bury, a Petrarch.

The Notes on Language sketch in outline its evolution,

and provide a fr amework ofreference fo r the Commentary.

The texts, according to their sources and period, exhibit

diferent styles of orthography, but these changes are

generally indicated, and after a preliminary dip this

will not cause much trouble.

Where passages are shortened, summaries are sometimes

given in English. With prose passages these may be in

cluded in the text but, with verse, in the commentary, so

as not to spoil the appearance of the page.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I AM deeply indebted all round. First to the authors and

editors who are listed in the Bibliography ; but in addition

to them to a wide range of scholars without whom this

book could not have been written by a latecomer fr om the

classics to medieval studies.

Beyond them I owe special thanks to two societies : to

the Benedictines of Qu arr Abbey, and to Brasenose

College, Oxford, where I have long enjoyed the double

fr eedom of a library and a home ; and to these I should

add the British Museum Reading Room, and that vener

able institution, the Bodleian Library. Among individual

scholars I am especially grateful to Dr. R. W. Hunt,

Keeper of Western Manuscripts in the Bodleian, to

Professor Sir Roger Mynors, to Mr. L. D. Reynolds of

Brasenose College, and to Professor R. W. Southen, fo r

light in dark places, and fo r much personal kindness.

I must not shelter unduly behind such names, and the

proportions (or lack of proportion) and errors are all my

own. I am most grateful to the Press fo r their patience

and skill. Above and beyond all, to my wife, without

whom ...

I am also indebted to the fo llowing editors and pub

lishers fo r permission to use copyright texts : to Messrs.

Nelson & Sons fo r Gesta Fra ncorum, edited by Rosalind

Hill (Nos. 34-36) , and Th e Ch ronicle ofJocelin ofBrakelond,

edited by H. E. Butler (Nos. 37-38) ; to Sansoni, Florence,

fo r Francesco Petrarca, Le Fa miliari, edited by Vittorio

Rossi (Nos. 4--49) ; to Ricciardi, Milan, fo r Francesco

Petrarca, Prose, edited by G. Martellotti (No. 45) ; to

Fiorentino, Naples, fo r Riccardo da Bury,

Ph ilo biblon,

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