Early Medieval Mauscripts

Here’s another static page. The focus is on digitized facsimiles of early medieval biblical and liturgical materials. It’s not meant to be exhaustive or comprehensive but rather selects the sites and manuscripts I work with the most.

Dissertation Work

Things have progressed to the point where I’ve been able to designate some brain cycles to dissertation work again. (I’ve had it–it *will* be finished by the end of the summer if it kills me. So far the odds are 50-50.)

Whereas before I started with more methodological stuff, I’ve dived into Æ’s sermons directly. What this has helped me see is that some of the stuff I pruned out before absolutely has to be put back into my re-formed chapters 2 and 3. Fr. Director thought that some of my work on patristic homilies was smoke-chasing; I’ve determined that it’s completely critical to the project.

Traditionally, early medieval homileticians have been accused of simple plagiarism. Indeed, Henri De Lubac’s only comment on Æ

is that he is a plagiarist of Gregory’s work. Rather, my work on the patristic material identifies not simply content but method and the purpose that derives from the method. What this let me do is to look at Æ’s sermons and to show that while, yes, he is recycling some content, he is using it in a very different way and with its own quite distinct method that throws light on what an early medieval preacher thought that he was creating.

My use of the Breviary has also been helpful. I now know I need to revisit some of my earlier liturgical work and look for some new evidence in different places.

Medieval Databases

No, silly, databases about medieval things…

There’s been some discussion about medievalist folks thinking about manuscript databases. I have a great deal of interest in the subject–but absolutely no time to do anything about it. If I may offer a few points of professional advice–since I am a database programmer in my day job:

• Don’t choose a database because it happens to be the one on your computer. I.e., yes, you may well have MS Access on your computer if you’ve got the full Office Suite. No, don’t use it just because it’s there. Consider how you will use the database. Is it for merely personal use? Maybe Access will work for you. Do you want to put it on the web? Think about using MySQL instead. It integrates really well with a dynamic programming language called PHP. In fact, a whole lot of commercial websites are MySQL/PHP integrations. Limited project budget? You’re in luck–MySQL is free… (And so’s a good front-end for Windows here.)
• Plan your database in advance. The biggest failing of most amateur databases is a lack of planning in the beginning stages. Think about you want to capture. Then, consider what fields make sense together in terms of tables, and what will tie those tables to one another.
• A major issue that often comes back to haunt beginners is field normalization. In plain English, it means making sure that your data is in small enough bits. Thus, a shelfmark field shouldn’t contain “London, BL, Cotton Nero D IV” Rather, three different fields should have “London”, “British Library” and then “Cotton Nero D IV”. When in doubt, use multiple fields.
• In terms of front-ends (that is, what a user will see as opposed to the back-end which is what the programmer interacts with) flashy is cool–but achieve stability first. Then go for cool. All the napkin drawing will be pointless if you can’t get your data out the way you want it…
• Academics spend years learning dead languages and grappling with French poststructuralists, et al.; not all have invested the time in learning the technologies to disseminate what fruits they’ve gathered. When in doubt, talk with your IT department and their techies. Consider taking the money saved from buying a database and get a research assistant fluent in computer…

No, I haven’t been putting any thought into this recently. Why do you ask? Of course it had completely slipped my mind that Mediawiki works off a MySQL back-end… As does WordPress…

I’m going to stop talking now…

OE Easter Vigil

Okay–read over the RC and LME on the train. Here’s the thing…both the RC and the LME (Ae’s adaptation or customary-on-the-customary of the RC) both mandate Easter festivities “According to Gregory” and in line with OR I. In the secular office (supposedly written by Gregory the Great), the Easter Vigil has *4* readings. The twelve reading schema we’re used to was just appearing at the time. So, of the top two missals that we use as indicators of A-S liturgical practice one, the missal of Robert of Jumièges has the four reading system but the Leofric missal has the twelve!

Thus, while Ae could have known about the 12 reading system (and must have *if* the core of the Leofric missal is Dunstan’s missal) both he and his metor legislated the four reading system. (As does Amalar–Ae’s favorite go-to guy on the liturgy…)

Curioser and curiouser…

OE Question

For the medievalists in the house…

I’m puzzled by some lines (ll. 150-152) in Pope XIa on Easter.

And we wurðiað þa tid wurðlice mid sangum
Seofon niht on an, swylce hit an dæg sy,
For ðære micclan mærðe manncynes alysednysse.

Literally:
And we celebrate the time worthily with songs
[?seven nights in one, as if it were one day?]
for the great joy of humanity’s redemption.

What’s up with line 151? The combination of the prep ‘on’ and the swylce+subj. leaves me unsettled (my grammatical skills in OE still suck…). As a liturgist I immediately think that he’s talking about the extraordinary length of the Easter Vigil but, not having neither the RC or the LME close to hand, don’t remember how long their Vigil was…

Thoughts?