50 A Latin Reader (A.D. 374-1374), The Ultimate Latin Language Learning Pack
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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.
©
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
1968
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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