SELECT ABSTRACTS


Barnish, Samuel J.

Town, Country, and the Christianization of Italy in Cassiodorus' Variae.


In his letter Variae 8.33, Cassiodorus, writing in A.D. 527, describes a south Italian fair held at a former pagan shrine, now Christianized by a baptistery. Focusing on this text, the paper will investigate the conversion of rural Italy, in relation to changing attitudes to town and country.
Moving from a discussion of the works of Brown and Markus on Gregory of Tours, and of Michael Roberts on Prudentius, the paper discusses the transition from miraculous springs to baptisteries, with examples drawn from Gregory of Tours, Maximus of Turin, and Cassiodorus (the Leucothea spring). Cassiodorus' approach differs from that of Caesarius of Arles and Martin of Braga: the meaning of the spring in Var. 8.33 is best understood inthe context of the author's statements on water imagery, the establishment of civilitas (the Christian order aims at paradise regained in town and country), the Feast of Tabernacles, and pilgrimages. The paper examines Cassiodorus' thought in the context of the general conversion process in sixth century countryside, in Italy and elsewhere.
[Paper read at the 34th International Congress on Medieval Studies at Kalamazoo, Session 209, May 7, 1999]

Breu, Marlene and Marchesi, Roberto

"Constantinople: The Missing Link in Armenian Church Textile Art


The religious artifacts of Armenian Christendom are active agents in constructing social relations, indispensable in human social interaction, and rich sources of cultural beliefs. They are also symbols of deep religious piety and as such provide a visual expression of the mysteries associated with Christianity, especially those related to the Life of Christ. An excellent example is a body of heretofore unknown religious textiles from the Armenian church collections in Constantinople. Although belonging to the second great phase of Armenian religious art that post-dates the sixteenth century, they are important as a link between the religious textiles in Jerusalem, Etchimadzen, and Lebanon (Cilician). Many of the religious textiles from these collections were manufactured and donated to the respective patriarchates from Constantinople. Research initiated between 1996 and 2000 has clarified the "Constantinople School" of religious textile finery as an essential and important element in the production of sacred cloth. The purpose of this paper is to provide an assessment and evaluation of this unknown collection of textile religious art and its impact on the rich artistic traditions of Armenian Christendom.
br> [Paper read at the 36th International Congress on Medieval Studies at Kalamazoo, May 2001]

Csaki, Stephen

INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS ON MEDIEVAL STUDIES

KALAMAZOO, MICHIGAN MAY 1998

Boethius and Dogen are separated by over seven hundred years and a host ofother factors. Yet it is time that brings them together. This paper examines Boethius's explanation of time in the consolation of philosophy and compares it to Dogen's "Uji," or "existence-time." The somewhat startling conclusion is reached that if Dogen's view o f time is taken seriously, it must be the case that an Enlightened person experiences time in the same manner as Boethius asserts that God does.
Kalamazoo 2003

Session sponsored by APICES on “Writing Beyond Words: The Medieval Invention of Hypertext”

HYPERTEXT CA. 600 A.D.: MARGINALIA AND THEIR FUNCTION IN VAT. LAT. 1348, 4950, AND 5730

In Vivarium: i libri, il destino (Turnhout 1998) Fabio Troncarelli identified drawings of vases, cups, and bunches of grapes as distinctive of manuscripts written at Vivarium (see especially the chapter "Botrionum formulae”, pp. 67-78 and the bibliography therein). These drawings are not mere ornamentation, but have the function of communicating – beyond words – specific facts or ideas pertinent to the text, identifying its source(s) or highlighting particularly important data. They are in fact an extension of the text, and their presence in later manuscripts, where they were occasionally misunderstood as simple ornamentation, often points to a Vivarian archetype or one that felt strongly the influence of Vivarium.
Evidence for the fruitfulness of Troncarelli’s method is increasing. My paper will discuss the marginalia (mainly cups and vases) as extensions of the text in manuscripts not examined by Troncarelli, such as Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. lat. 1348 (Chronicon Melliti), Vat. lat. 4950 and Vat. lat. 5730 (commentary to the letters of Saint Paul usually attributed to Florus of Lyon, but actually authored by Petrus Tripolitanus and later revised by Florus). The drawings provide strong evidence, supported by the analysis of the respective texts, that the three Vatican codices derive from two archetypes – respectively, one for Mellitus and one for Petrus – written at Vivarium. The chronicle of Mellitus, a Vivarian edition of Isidore’s chronicle, can be dated to ca 614 A.D., while Petrus is later than 573 A.D. Both works constitute important evidence for the manuscripts transmission (respectively) of Isidore and Saint Augustine and for the life of the foundation after the death of Cassiodorus.

[Deo iuvante and by permission of the BAV, I will show slides from the following pages: Vat. Lat. 1348: fols 167v, 168, 168v, 170, 170v, 171, 171v, 174v, 176, 177v, 178. Vat. Lat. 4950: fols 1, 2, 23, 116v, 117, 118v, 119, 201v, 202v, 204, 221v, 222, Vat. Lat. 5730: fols 9, 10v, 21, 195 v I’ll make my final selection and order the slides at the BAV at the end of November, when I plan to be in Rome for a few days].
For an analogous use of grape-shaped marginalia in the codex Verona, Biblioteca Capitolare XXII, go toManuscript studies.

Luciana Cuppo Csaki Email: dcsaki@yahoo.com

Cuppo, Luciana

The Fountain of St. Agathius at Squillace


Situated on private property belonging to the brother of Gregorio Aversa, present mayor of Stalettì, and safely hidden behind locked gates, the fountain of Saint Agathius, fed by a natural spring, waters the local farms, as it has done at least since the time of Cassiodorus. The fountain is situated on the grounds of the monasterium vivariense, only a few steps from the old Roman road leading from the Ionian shore to the hilltown of Squillace and Stalettì. Before becoming the patron saint of Squillace, Saint Agathius was venerated in Constantinople. The body was translated to Squillace circa 630, to protect it from desecration ab infidelibus. If this is true, then the translation of the relics took place when the monastery of Cassiodorus was still flourishing, and the monks must have been instrumental in bringing the body to Squillace - to what extent, remains to be determined. The present fountain, with the image of the saint, shows signs of possible derivation from a late antique model, and may be the fossil of a shrine built as a memorial to the translation of the relics from Constantinople.
[Paper read at the 34th International Congress for Medieval Studies at Kalamazoo, May 1999]


Cum qui recipit prophetam' and the Rodez Codex: A Study in Textual Transmission.


The authenticity of Cum qui recipit prophetam, an encyclical of Honorius III that committed to the Order of Preachers the ministry of confession jointly with that of predication, was recently questioned, either in part (Koudelka 1966) or in toto (Tugwell 1995), on grounds of textual differences in the tradition of the document. In 1999 Leonard Boyle took a different view, noting that Cum qui recipit had always been accepted as authentic by the Dominicans, witness the early constitutions of the Order and Thomas Aquinas in Contra impugnantes (1257). My paper will examine the variants noted by Koudelka and Tugwell in the light of the textual tradition of Cum qui recipit. Textual variants are not always or necessarily a mark of fraud, but may be due to different circumstances or regional variations. In the case of Cum qui recipit they may indicate the existence of two different textual traditions, one (Roman) derived from ecclesiastical records in Rome, the other (French) based on the original of Cum qui recipit prepared for the Dominicans preaching in south France. Next, my paper will look at the concepts and formulae of Cum qui recipit in the context of related papal pronouncements from Innocent III to Benedict XI. In the light of such documents textual variants, and particularly the disputed passage of Cum qui recipit on hearing confessions, do not appear wayward or isolated; rather, they should be seen as stepping stones in the implementation of the constitution Inter cetera of Pope Innocent III.

Koudelka 1966=Monumenta Ordinis Praedicatorum Historica (MOPH) XXV, ed. V. Koudelka (Rome 1966)
Tugwell 1995=Simon Tugwell, "Notes on the Life of St. Dominic," Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum 65 (1995) 1-163 p. 46 note 67
Boyle 1999=Leonard E. Boyle, O.P., "Saint Thomas Aquinas and the Third Millennium," being the plenary address at the Symposium for Dominican Educators in Higher Education, River Forest, Illinois, 10 April 1999. The address is online at www.op.org/DomCentral/trad/. Sections of the text are also included in "Pastoral Training in the Time of Fishacre" New Blackfriars 80 (1999) 345-53.
[Paper read at the Internationa; Medieval Congress at Leeds, Session 723, July 2001]

The Historia Apostolica of Arator As a Political Tract.


The Historia apostolica of Arator, ostensibly written to celebrate the apostolic labors of the saints Peter and Paul, is an example of thoroughly christianized Latin epic used as an instrument for the promotion of a political agenda.Written by a subdeacon of the Roman church and presented to Pope Vigilius in 544, the poem exploits both classical rhetorical devices and Biblical themes to propose the views of a group identified in ancient sources as Romani. The characterization is ideological, not geographical, for the Romani are attested in Gaul as well as in Rome and include the senators who lobbied for a protracted reading of the H. A. in San Pietro in Vincoli, instead of seconding the wishes of Pope Vigilius, ready to bury the manuscript in the depths of a Roman archive.
The Romani are attested in the version of the De ratione paschali of Anatoliusof Laodicaea preserved in the Vatican manuscript Ross. 247. They are mentioned by Florianus in a letter to Nicetius, bishop of Trier (BAV Pal. Lat. 869 f. 6v), and Florianus himself belongs to a "Roman" monastery, probably Lèrins (Pal. Lat. 869 f. 5v). Anatolius does not approve of the Easter observance proposed by the Romani, and the letter of Florianus to Nicetius, requesting permission to keep the Roman sacramenta, attests the existence of a party that wanted to keep a ritual based on Roman customs.
Easter observance (not merely the date of Easter, but the theological issues underlying the chronology chosen for this feast) was indeed crucial to the Romani. They followed the Easter computation of Victorius of Aquitaine, based on an era made to begin with the year 28 A.D., believed to be that of the death of Christ. The very Roman computistical tract of Vat. Lat. 1548 stresees that Easter reckoning must originate from the Passion of Christ: venerabilis itaque Dionisius nobis in paschalibus argumentis ostendit quatenus ad inveniendum annum cicli decemnovennalis sumamus annos a passione Domini et unum semper super addamus (f. 68). The issue is not chronology, but theology, which determines the choice of days allowed for the celebration of Easter (moon xvi to xxii). "Moon xvi" is when Christ rose from the dead, and it's not coincidental that Arator began his poem with a celebration of the resurrection of Christ, a beginning not found in the Acts.
The Easter observance of the romani was pontedly opposed to that practised in the East, which originated in Alexandria and was proposed in Rome, but not accepted there, by Dionysius Exiguus: his followers began the current era with the Incarnation (year 1 A.D.) and allowed Easter to be celebrated from the xv to the xxi moon. In the year 544, when the Byzantines occupied Rome and good part of Italy, theological differences could quickly assume political overtones, and the celebration of Easter could become as good an occasion as any to express opposition to Justinian.
The literary work of Arator must be seen against this background, for the H. A. is the transposition in literary terms, by a consummated rhetorician, of the theological and political sentiments of the Roman party. While some themes and imagery of the H. A. are common ones in Late Antiquity, others (the strong insistence on the cross as symbol of the Passion of Christ, the affirmation of Easter celebrated on moon xvi in H. A. 2.1120-1155, the use of allegory bypassing the literal meaning of a text, the ascetic view of Christian life as militia and of Christians as an agmen) have an unmistakable "Roman" character. Certain embellishments to the biblical account, such as the glowing account of St. Paul's preaching to the Athenians in H. A. 2.443-505, are best understood as a statement of the superiority of Rome over the Greeks, both contemporary Byzantines and ancient Athenians.
A close reading of the H. A. places the author squarely in the "Roman" camp, in opposition not only to the Goths, but to Byzantium, and makes it possible to identify kindred spirits, as well as opponents, among Arator's contemporaries. The closeness of ideological orientation, rather than biographical details, warrants the identification of Florianus abbas, to whom Arator dedicated his poem, with the Florianus who wrote to bishop Nicetius of Trier (Pal. Lat. 869 ff. 5v-6v) in support of the "Roman" liturgy of Lèrins. Thus, the poem of Arator shows the alliance between the "Roman" party in Rome and the Gallo-Romans of the same persuasion from Provence to Trier. On the other hand, the staunchly Roman views of Arator distance him from the circle of Cassiodorus and his friends, who supported the "Greek" celebration of Easter proposed by Dionysius Exiguus, preferred moderation in lawful pleasures to extreme ascetic practices, translated Greek authors and appreciated ancient rhetoric - all traits that would eventually be typical of the monastic foundations at Vivarium.
[Paper read at the session sponsored by the Medieval Latin Studies Group at the Annual Meeting of the American Philological Association]


Grafinger, Christine

Straying Hither and Thither: Wanderings of Carolingian Manuscripts to and from the Vatican Library


The Latin manuscript of the Palatine Library 574 in the Vatican Library, written in the eighth century probably at Lorsch, records one of the oldest and most important liturgical texts. In the middle of the eighteenth century the last fourteen folios had been cut out by the German Benedictine abbot Gerbert, who brought them to his monastery in the Black Forest and published them as fragments of St. Blasien. After the Napoleonic wars the monastery was secularized and the monks moved to Sanct Paul im Lavanttal, a Benedictine monastery in Carinthia. The monks took with them most of their manuscripts and precious objects, thus these sheets of the Vatican Palatine manuscript ended up in the collection of the Austrian monastery.

At the beginning of the 19th century two French scholars studied this ragment. One of them, Michel Andrieu, while doing research on the 'Ordines Romani' in the Middle Ages, discovered that these pages were a part of Palatinus 574, which had been published by Muratori in his liturgical study of 1757. Andrieu informed the Vatican Library on the whereabouts of the last folios of Palatine 574 and also published a small article informing other scholars about his discovery. These sheets were given back to the Vatican Library; they were sent through the Nunciature in Vienna and brought personally personally to the Secretary of State. After their arrival in the library they were bound at the end of the manuscript Palatine 574, with a note added on their disappearance and restitution.
[Paper read at the International Medieval Congress at Leeds, Session 723, July 2001]


Medieval Latin and Manuscript Studies: Courses and Tutorials
Back to 'Select Abstracts'


Back to Homepage

1