Carolingian Scholarship and Martianus Capella: Ninth-Century Commentary Traditions on ’De nuptiis’ in Context

Description

It is well known that the Carolingian royal family inspired and promoted a cultural revival of great consequence. The courts of Charlemagne and his successors welcomed lively gatherings of scholars who avidly pursued knowledge and learning, while education became a booming business in the great monastic centres, which were under the protection of the royal family. Scholarly emphasis was placed upon Latin language, religion, and liturgy, but the works of classical and late antique authors were collected, studied, and commented upon with similar zeal. A text that was read by ninth-century scholars with an almost unrivalled enthusiasm is Martianus Capella’s De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii, a late antique encyclopedia of the seven liberal arts embedded within a mythological framework of the marriage between Philology (learning) and Mercury (eloquence). Several ninth-century commentary traditions testify to the work’s popularity in the ninth century. Martianus’s text treats a wide range of secular subjects, including mythology, the movement of the heavens, numerical speculation, and the ancient tradition on each of the seven liberal arts. De nuptiis and its exceptionally rich commentary traditions provide the focus of this volume, which addresses both the textual material found in the margins of De nuptiis manuscripts, and the broader intellectual context of commentary traditions on ancient secular texts in the early medieval world. Front Matter (“Contents, List of Illustrations, List of Abbreviations, List of Sigla”), p. i Free Access Introduction, p. 1 Mariken Teeuwen https://doi.org/10.1484/M.CELAMA-EB.4.3001 Writing between the Lines: Reflections of Scholarly Debate in a Carolingian Commentary Tradition, p. 11 Mariken Teeuwen https://doi.org/10.1484/M.CELAMA-EB.4.3002 The Stemmatic Relationship between the Manuscripts Transmitting the Oldest Gloss Tradition, p. 35 Sinéad O’Sullivan https://doi.org/10.1484/M.CELAMA-EB.4.3003 Quadrivial Reasoning and Allegorical Revelation: ‘Meta-knowledge’ and Carolingian Approaches to Knowing, p. 57 Calvin M. Bower https://doi.org/10.1484/M.CELAMA-EB.4.3004 On Early Medieval Divisions of Knowledge, p. 75 Anneli Luhtala https://doi.org/10.1484/M.CELAMA-EB.4.3005 Obscurity, Pagan Lore, and Secrecy in Glosses on Books I–II from the Oldest Gloss Tradition, p. 99 Sinéad O’Sullivan https://doi.org/10.1484/M.CELAMA-EB.4.3006 Perceptions of the Past in Ninth-Century Commentaries on Martianus Capella, p. 123 Natalia Lozovsky https://doi.org/10.1484/M.CELAMA-EB.4.3007 Questions and Observations Based on Transcribing the Commentary on Books IV and V, Dialectic and Rhetoric, p. 147 Mary Garrison https://doi.org/10.1484/M.CELAMA-EB.4.3008 Quelques thèmes récurrents dans les gloses du ‘plus ancien commentaire’ sur Martianus Capella VII (manuscrit de Leyde, VLF 48), p. 177 Jean-Yves Guillaumin https://doi.org/10.1484/M.CELAMA-EB.4.3009 The Power of Diagrams: The Place of the Anonymous Commentary in the Development of Carolingian Astronomy and Cosmology, p. 193 Bruce S. Eastwood https://doi.org/10.1484/M.CELAMA-EB.4.3010 Martianus and the Traditions of Early Medieval Astronomies, p. 221 Stephen C. McCluskey https://doi.org/10.1484/M.CELAMA-EB.4.3011 Eriugena’s Commentary on Martianus in the Framework of his Thought and the Philosophical Debate of his Time, p. 245 Ilaria Ramelli https://doi.org/10.1484/M.CELAMA-EB.4.3012 ‘Heed that saying of Terence’: On the Use of Terence in Radbert’s Epitaphium Arsenii, p. 273 Mayke de Jong https://doi.org/10.1484/M.CELAMA-EB.4.3013 The Scholica graecarum glossarum and Martianus Capella, p. 301 Patrizia Lendinara https://doi.org/10.1484/M.CELAMA-EB.4.3014 Counting the Heads of the Hydra: The Development of the Early Medieval Commentary on Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy, p. 363 Malcolm Godden, Rohini Jayatilaka https://doi.org/10.1484/M.CELAMA-EB.4.3015 Back Matter (“Index of Manuscripts, Index of Names, Index of Works, List of Contributors”), p. 377