sehepunkte 25 (2025), Nr. 11

Carolinne White (ed.): The Cambridge Anthology of British Medieval Latin

Medieval Latin across Europe has suffered from the sense that it sits between Classical Latin and the Renaissance and so has been seen as a low point between peaks. The vast geographical and chronological range of Medieval Latin has likewise proved an impediment to appreciation, since there are clear local and temporal differences. British Medieval Latin (generally abbreviated throughout this volume as 'BML') has furthermore suffered both from a lack of any general sense of its range and variety and from the difficulty of accessing reliable texts and translations.

This extremely welcome volume, covering the period from the so-called aduentus Saxonum ('coming of the Saxons'), which Bede dated to 449 (rounded up here to 450), to the Norman Conquest of 1066, addresses both of these issues head-on, with representative texts and translations from each of the seven centuries covered. Given the vast date-range and the commendably broad choice of authors and texts, it is perhaps inevitable that such a book of largely extracts should have a somewhat staccato feel; but the editor-translator is to be congratulated for bringing so much material (and the means to interrogate it further) to wider attention in such an accessible and informative form. In particular, the precise and often elegant translations are all followed by necessarily brief bibliographical pointers to primary sources, related texts, and further reading. All the texts and translations are preceded by brief notes on date, author, subject, work, and linguistic points, with the last effectively revealing the deep debt of the choices to the Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, in which the editor played a major role before its completion in 2013. The clear focus throughout is understandably on what the editor describes as 'language and related areas', with the selected passages also chosen for their 'historical and cultural interest and import' (xv).

There is, however, no mention of any supposed literary merit to the collection, and while there is a somewhat limited scattering of verse, including some rather repetitive riddles (aenigmata: three of the seven selected have the same solution, 'pen'), and a particular focus on the so-called 'twinned work' (opus geminatum), with, for example, both prose and verse versions of Bede's Life of St Cuthbert and Alcuin's Life of St Willibrord appearing alongside the riddles in the rather crowded section devoted to the eighth century, the overall emphasis is relentlessly on language and history.

A useful Introduction (1-33) highlights the categories of material included here: Charters (11-12), Educational Works (12-13), History and Biography (13), Letters (13-14), and Poetry (14-15). The inclusion of so many charters, representing the seventh to tenth centuries, again emphasizes the historico-linguistic emphasis, while the selection of a range of educational works is likewise firmly focussed on the linguistic, including Bede's 'How to write well', from his works on spelling and rhetoric (De orthographia and De schematibus et tropis) and a tenth-century selection from the Grammar and Glossary of Ælfric of Eynsham, as well as from the Colloquies written both by him and his namesake, Ælfric Bata. Also included is a gratifying abundance of history and biography, so assisting the reader in situating much of the material, in which - perhaps unsurprisingly - saints abound: Gregory, Cuthbert, Ceolfrith, Guthlac, Boniface, Willibrord, Æthelwold, Dunstan, Oswald, and Neot are all represented.

Letters appear to have been selected for their focus on female authors, recipients, and subjects: three of the five authors of 'The Letters from Boniface's Circle' are women of differing authority, such as Eangyth, Leoba, and Berhtgyth, while other letters, such as that of Burginda ('to a young man'), Ælfflæd of Whitby's letter to Abbess Adolana in Germany, and Æthelbald of Mercia's letter to Eadburg, granting immunity from tax, all also reveal a welcome interest in the lives of women, as do both Hugeburc's somewhat eccentric Life of Willibald, representing 'the longest extant Latin work by an Englishwoman in the early Middle Ages' (284), and the anonymous work In Praise of Queen Emma.

As for poetry, which certainly seems somewhat under-represented here, the editor acknowledges that: 'In this anthology more space has been devoted to BML writings in prose on the grounds that the prose tends to be of greater interest historically and linguistically', which rather begs the question as to the choice of focus, before going on to state that 'Readers interested in BML ('Anglo-Latin') poetry may start by looking at the excellent compositions of Bede, Alcuin, and Wulfstan of Winchester' (15). Such an apparently even-handed apologia is, however, rather undercut by a later comment on one of these recommended poets that 'Alcuin's verse displays the typical vagueness of so much hexameter verse, as if all particularities have been washed out and it has been dyed in an epic generality. Alcuin's verse is studded with collocations and phrases also found in the Christian hexameter verse of late antiquity' (305). All of Alcuin's extracts appear in the section devoted to the eighth century, which comes out here as something of a golden age, with more pages devoted to the eighth than the other six centuries combined. More commentary might have perhaps been offered as to why this should be.

By contrast, the first two centuries are each represented by a single author and text: Patrick for the fifth century and Gildas for the sixth; both British authors with a deep Celtic provenance and influence. Adomnán of Iona's The Holy Places and the anonymous History of the Britons, once attributed to Nennius, also feature in the sections dedicated to the seventh and ninth centuries respectively, the latter alongside the Welshman Asser's biography of King Alfred, thus fleshing out the Celtic perspective. On the other hand, the eleventh century is somewhat sparsely represented, taken up on the one hand with three separate, if related, accounts of the story of King Alfred and the cakes, and on the other several brief extracts from the lavish work In Praise of Queen Emma, sometime consort of two kings, namely Æthelred the Unready of England and Cnut of England, Denmark, and Norway.

Though the rather bitty nature of the selections makes for a somewhat hit-and miss experience: one might easily assemble an undergraduate course, for example, as the publishers presumably intend, but in that case much of the discussion would necessarily focus on what is left out. But there is much of merit here. It is a wonderful thing to read through this book, though maybe few will do so, marvelling at the variety of extracts presented, while recognizing that a less linguistic focus could easily yield a quite different set of selections.

The editor is to be congratulated for bringing such a rich and varied seam of material to the wider attention it undoubtedly deserves; indeed, the very fact that there is an equally lavish, extensive, and wide-ranging second volume, covering the years 1066-1500 (which, one notes, contains far fewer female authors than here) only highlights the potential for future reading and research that this enlightening and accessible work should undoubtedly inspire.