M. Laistner : Knowledge of Greek in Western Europe during the earlier Middle Ages

[1] The derivation of Adam from the initial letters of ἀνατολή, δύσις, μεσημβρία, and ἄρκτος is found in the tract, De montibus Sina et Sion (CSEL, III, 3, p., 108, 5 ff.) and also in Augustine on the Gospel of St John (PL, 35, cοl. 1473) and on the Psalms (PL, 37, cοl. 1236). The Graeca in PL, 100, cοll. l014B and 1025A come from Jerome, PL, 26, cοll. 566A and 597B.

[2] There are two editions of De exordiis, one in MGH, Capit., II, pp. 474ff., the other by A. Knöpfler, in Veröffentlichungen aus dem Kirchenhistorischen Seminar, München, No. 1 (1890). The passage quoted above is in Chapter 7.

[3] Epist., 5 (ed. Levillain, I, p. 50); Epist., 8 (ibid., p. 64). The point is that the "Greek" and Einhard pronounced blasphemus accentually and ignored the quantities of the vowels.

[4] Epist., 80 (ed. Levillain, II, p. 54). To show how old notions die hard, I may be forgiven for referring to a long and friendly review of the first edition of this book by so distinguished a medievalist as the late Lion Levillain (Moyen Âge, 42, pp. 226-35). In opposition to the estimate above he maintained that Lupus, and indeed Alcuin, Hrabanus, and Einhard must have had an adequate acquaintance with Greek because it was the diplomatic language of the Byzantine Empire. Such a priori statements are surely without value when unsupported by evidence drawn from the extant writings of these men.

[5] Epist., 8 (I, p. 66). The same derivation is found in Martin of Laon and after him in Remigius. See Bulletin of the J. Rylands Library, IX (1925), p. 133.

[6] CLA, IV, No. 472, with Dr Lowe's comment at the end, based on entries on the second folio. Another bilingual Psalter is CLA, V, No. 520.

[7] See SMAH, II, St Gallen, Plates XIV and XXVI.

[8] For further examples see particularly Egon Wellesz, "Eastern Elements in Western Chant" (Monumenta Musicae Byzantinae, 1947), Chapters 3 and 4. For traces of the liturgical use of Greek at Metz cf. E. Kantorowicz, Laudes Regiae (Berkeley, 1946), pp. 27-8.

[9] Cf. B. Bischoff, Byzantinische Zeitschrift, 44, p. 35, note 7 and his Südostdeutsche Schreibschulen, p. 97.

[10] E.g., J. E. Sandys, History of Classical Scholarship, I, p. 479, and J. M. Clark, Abbey of St Gall, p. 109.

[11] See von den Steinen, Notker der Dichter, pp. 579-80, and Editionsband, p. 62, for the sequence. He remarks that spermologos was a term of abuse which Notker evidently wished to use in an opposite sense; but he has not observed that the interpretation of spermologos as one who sows the seed of God's word is at least as old as Augustine. Bede on Acts xvii,18, so interprets it in his commentary (p. 65, 26 of my edition), of which there were two copies at St Gall by the end of the ninth century (259, end of the 8th century and 260, late 9th century). Then in his Retractation (p. 137, 7ff.) Bede quotes from a sermon of Augustine's (PL, 38, col. 808) in which Augustine inter alia remarks: "Dictum est quidem ab inridentibus, sed non respuendum est a credentibus; erat enim ille re vera seminator verborum, sed messor morum." This interpretation is found also in Arator's epic on Acts 2, 443 ff.

[12] The authenticity of the Epistle, which is attributed to Notker in only one of nine extant manuscripts, and that by no means the oldest; was denied by R. van Doren, Influence musicale de l'abbaye de St Gall, Chapter X. Von den Steinen (p. 495) abruptly rejects van Doren's arguments without further discussion, accepting the Epistle as genuine apparently on stylistic grounds. This, in face of the other evidence, is not convincing. The additional testimony of Ekkehart IV, writing in the eleventh century, is worth little; for Ekkehart, though an attractive story-teller, is not a reliable chronicler.

[13] The Graeca occur especially in the versified passages. A line like Oenon paleon pimelin gallan eleon (MGH, Epist., V, p. 569, 31), glossed vinum butyrum bibe lac oleum, is just a string of vocables from a word-list forced into the semblance of a hexameter. He also repeats the mystical meaning of Adam which he probably found in Alcuin.

[14] For the Scholica see Bulletin of the J. Rylands Library, VII (1923), pp. 421-56, and for Laudunensis, 444 Bischoff, Byzantinische Zeitschrift, 44, p. 40, with note 2.

[15] See Harvard Theol. Rev., 20 (1927), pp. 142-5. The reference in note 49 to the Ellenici fratres should be deleted.

[16] MGH, Epist., VI, pp. 201 ff, The writer probably lived in northern Italy; cf. Kenney, p. 569.

[17] G. Théry in Moyen Âge, 25 (1923), pp. 111 ff., and in Mélanges Mandonnet, II (Paris, 1930), pp. 23-30.

[18] See G. Théry, Études dionysiennes, two volumes (Paris, 1932-7).

[19] For the thorough revision or "translation" of John's version made by Jean Sarrazin in the twelfth century see now G. Théry in Studia mediaevalia in honorem ... R. J. Martin (Bruges, 1948), pp. 359-381.

[20] See M. Cappuyns, Jean Scot Erigène, pp. 148-9.

[21] The letter which Pope Nicolas I is supposed to have written to Charles the Bald in 859, complaining that John's translation had not been sent to him for approval, is a later forgery. See Cappuyns, op. cit., pp. 155-7.

[22] Epist., 13 (MGH, Epist., VII, pp. 430-34).

[23] Cf. Cappuyns, op. cit., pp. 160-1, and A. Siegmund, Die Ueberlieferung der griechisch christlichen Literatur, pp. 191 ff.

[24] MGH, Epist., VIl, p. 442, 19 - nec post dorsum fratris carnes invidentiae dente decerpat.

[25] In the Byzantine enclave in southern Italy and in Rome, where many Greek monks had found a refuge during the Monothelite disputes of the seventh century, there was considerable activity in translating Greek saints' lives, homilies, and some dogmatic works, as well as Acts of Eastern councils, into Latin. Cf., for example, A. Siegmund, op. cit., pp. 195 ff.

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