Abstracts of talks

The Parisiana poetria of John of Garland presents an unusual treatment of invention. While previous scholarship, particularly Rita Copeland's influential analysis, has emphasized the work's adaptation of hermeneutic categories to composition, less attention has been paid to a distinctive feature of Chapter One: the discussion of inventio verborum, the finding of substantives, adjectives, and verbs. This paper argues that the treatment of invention in the Parisiana poetria is shaped by a coherent didactic approach to vocabulary and Latin composition. The first part of the paper reconstructs the organization of the two chapters devoted to invention and selection (inventio and electio). Beneath their explicit divisions, a threefold structure emerges: finding content, finding words, and choosing style. These three stages are connected through recurring themes, namely character, exempla, and lexical knowledge. The second part focuses on the section on finding words. It shows that the seven figures of speech, the discussions of substantives and adjectives, and the treatment of verbs all address different aspects of lexical competence. Some devices teach students how to exploit vocabulary already acquired, others how to retrieve words appropriate to a specific context, and others how to vary or extend expression through derivation, conversion, and metaphorical transfer. Finally, the paper relates these observations to John’s lexicographical works and to the mnemonic section of Chapter Two. It argues that the same principles of lexical organization underlie both the Parisiana poetria and works such as the Dictionarius, Commentarius, and Unus omnium. Rather than reproducing classical rhetorical doctrine, John reshapes invention to address a fundamental problem faced by medieval learners of Latin: the transition from passive lexical knowledge to active composition. The Parisiana poetria thus reveals a coherent pedagogy of learning, remembering, retrieving, and deploying vocabulary in written Latin.

Ovid’s Metamorphoses consist of a succession of pagan myths and could not, therefore, be accepted by the Christian mindset. The ‘lectura Ovidii’ began only in the 11th century, when teachers found a way – through allegory and exegesis – to moralize the work and transform it into a sort of encyclopedia whose content was consistent with medieval precepts. The Integumenta by John of Garland, which synthesize the 15 books of the Metamorphoses in just over 250 moralized verses, are frequently cited within commentaries, particularly in the accessus. Indeed, they constituted an excellent compendium of the work, easy to memorize and to employ as an introduction.

In my presentation, I intend to compare the categories of reading offered by the Integumenta in the first part of the work with the actual application of these same categories within the commentaries. Specifically, I will focus my attention on the concepts of fabula, sermo fictus, historia, sermo verus, velamen, and allegoria, which John of Garland condenses in vv. 54-60:

«De terra figulum finxisse Promethea primo / fabula fert hominem. Res clamidata latet. / Est sermo fictus tibi fabula vel quia celat, / vel quia delectat, vel quod utrumque facit. / Res est historia magnatibus ordine gesta / scriptaque venturis commemoranda viris; clauditur historico sermo velamine verus, / ad populi mores allegoria tibi».

Accounts of Latin pedagogy in medieval England vary between scholars who argue, broadly speaking, either that Latin was taught through Latin and/or English throughout the period, or, alternatively, that Latin was taught through French, at least until the advent of the Black Death, then English after that. These arguments are bound up with hypotheses regarding the vitality, longevity, and currency of French in England, and they are increasingly understood to be of interest to scholars of Middle English literature. In From Literacy to Literature: England, 1300-1400 (2016), Christopher Cannon shows how the experience of the Latin classroom inflects the style of the great Ricardian authors. At the same time, Cannon argues against the instruction of Latin through French. I am currently embarking on a project that asks whether French should be reintroduced to analyses of this kind. As a preliminary step, this paper summarizes and critiques the current state of research on the languages of Latin instruction and isolates questions for future research.

The term integumentum appears for the first time in the Integumenta at verse 61 («Fabula voce tenus tibi palliat integumentum»), following the verses on the concepts of velamen historicum and allegoria. The concept of integumentum is central to the moralizing framework that defines the relationship between John of Garland’s poem and Ovid’s Metamorphoses. In my presentation, I will begin with a preliminary study of the term ‘integumentum’, surveying its use in earlier authors to clarify its various meanings.

The second part of the presentation will address ‘Integumenta’ as the title of John of Garland’s work. By examining a wide range of manuscripts, I will identify specific trends, assessing whether the work typically appears without a title or with its own heading within Ovidian commentaries. In the former case, I will investigate whether the text is treated as an undifferentiated part of the accessus materials. In the latter, I will analyze whether commentators gloss the term integumentum or if they view the title itself as a self-sufficient synthesis of the work’s intended meaning. 

This contribution aims to provide a comprehensive assessment of John od Garland’s approach to grammatical figures and rhetorical colors, both as a commentator and reviser of Eberhard of Bethune’s Graecismus (Chapters I, II, and III) and Alexander of Villadei’s Doctrinale (Chapters XI and XII), and later as a grammarian in his own right. The investigation will highlight the various stages of his critical work, which evolves and reaches its peak in the composition of independent grammatical works—even as these continue to engage with the legacies of his two major predecessors.

A careful reading of Walter de Bibbesworth’s mid-thirteenth-century Tretiz, the earliest known French teaching text, reveals its author’s exploitation of Latin-learning materials as models for both the form and content of his own work, such that it becomes possible to trace through it what materials were being used for the education of English gentry in the first half of the thirteenth century. In this paper, I show that John of Garland’s popular Dictionarius provided a model for Bibbesworth’s topical wordbook, while the intriguing possibility that the Commentarius may also have been a source will be considered. More interesting still, the Tretiz’s use of English translation glosses to support the learning of French vocabulary appears to draw on Garland’s similar integration of vernacular language into his target text; other hints of Bibbesworth’s familiarity with Garland suggest both that the latter’s works were speedily adopted in English Latin teaching and that Bibbesworth himself was an attentive and appreciative reader of his pedagogical predecessor.

This paper analyses one of John of Garland’s grammatical texts devoted to compound verbs, Composita verborum. The distinctive structure of the work, combining the graphic schematism of the core text with explanatory commentary, is a hallmark of this scholar’s writing. This format, together with the focus on a single, clearly defined grammatical issue, made such texts particularly suitable for glossing in vernacular languages. The paper discusses three selected manuscripts of Composita verborum containing Old Polish glosses (15^th century), which shed light on the reception of Latin grammatical reflection in medieval Polish language contexts and on mechanisms of linguistic knowledge transfer between Latin and the vernacular.

William Fitz Stephen began his ‘Life of Thomas Becket’ with a description of London, the city in which both he and the saint were born. Against the backdrop of the city’s bilingual culture, Fitz Stephen wrote about its landscape, inhabitants and occupations. To overcome the technical challenges of writing such a description in Latin, he employed extensive terminology as well as periphrasis. A comparison with the Dictionarius of John of Garland highlights different strategies for describing urban life in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

John of Garland distinguished himself in two of the disciplines of the trivium: grammar (in the broad sense, including lexicography) and rhetoric (as conceived from the 12th century onwards, including a strong poetic dimension). To this end, he revisited ancient and modern sources and authorities in a selective and critical manner in order to produce a state-of-the-art work that was both up-to-date and comprehensive.

What do his works tell us about his approach to writing his treatises, but also about his perspective and the purpose for which he wrote them? What pedagogical practices do these texts respond to, given that we know they were accompanied by different levels of glosses, both Latin and vernacular, some of which can be attributed to the author himself? To answer these questions, the investigation will focus on several of the author’s normative texts, such as the manuscripts believed to be closest to the archetype, from a pragmatic perspective.

This paper will examine the aims and objectives of the AHRC-funded project ‘An Englishman in Paris: John of Garland’s Dictionarius.’ Garland presents a snapshot of medieval urban life in the guise of teaching essential Latin vocabulary through the medium of French. The 30+ surviving manuscripts offer further insights into language teaching in the period, recording annotations in a number of vernaculars. The discussion will outline the rationale for a new edition of the work and highlight the innovative database of multilingual glossing under preparation, which will allow scholars to further investigate language change, manuscript affiliation and language teaching in the medieval period.

John of Garland’s Dictionarius is not merely a lexical aid for schoolboys, but a carefully structured pedagogical device in which linguistic instruction is connected to moral formation. By presenting the text as a collection of “dictiones magis necessariae” to be preserved “in cordis armariolo”, John explicitly frames lexical learning as a process of interiorisation and, implicitly, as an instrument of ethical discipline. In the opening chapters, the author distances himself from rusticitas, understood both as vulgarity of content and as impropriety of register. While John censures rustic language for educational purposes, he also justifies the treatment of sensitive subjects “causa doctrine”, thereby presenting linguistic correctness as a vehicle of knowledge. The ethical subtext of the work further emerges in a series of concrete warnings scattered throughout the manual concerning the pitfalls of the urban marketplace: John alerts his pupils to fraudulent practices, teaching honesty by contrast and encouraging prudence. The Dictionarius therefore belongs to a broader medieval tradition in which grammar also functions as a tool of social discipline and ethical formation, shaping not only competent speakers, but morally aware subjects attuned to the dynamics and risks of human interaction.

John of Garland may be best-known for his many works on language and grammar, but his oeuvre is, indeed, a lot more wide-ranging. In his didactic poem Morale scholarium, he demonstrates a sustained interest in moral teaching, focusing on the conditions of living and learning at the University of Paris. John himself presents the Morale scholarium as a ‘satire’ that is intended to expose and correct contemporary misconduct by offering guidance on how to behave properly. Topics range from table manners and students’ general way of life to the denunciation of greedy prelates. Despite its strong focus on ethical contents, the Morale scholarium is also closely linked to John’s works on language teaching: in chapter XIV, for instance, John recommends reading the classical authors and Geoffrey of Vinsauf, while polemicising against the Doctrinale of Alexander de Villa Dei or the Grecismus of Eberhard of Béthune – two ‘best-selling’ manuals on learning Latin. Furthermore, it is striking that the Morale scholarium survives complete only in manuscripts primarily dedicated to language teaching, such as the heavily glossed copy in Brugge, Openbare Bibliotheek, MS 546. This paper will argue that the Morale scholarium can be understood as a medieval verse satire, examining to what extent the work is situated at the intersection of moral instruction and language didactics.

In the 12th and 13th centuries, the Englishmen Adam of Balsham, Alexander Neckam and John of Garland created lexicographic works, which were used for learning and teaching Latin, and which were hugely popular throughout the Middle Ages. These texts represent a particular genre of discursive or contextualized lexicography, in which lexical items are embedded in running text (Lendinara 2005). Adam of Balsham’s Oratio de utensilibus ad domum regendam pertinentibus describes a visit to his own estate, Alexander Neckam’s De utensilibus lists objects and appliances encountered at home, while John of Garland’s Dictionarius undertakes a fictional walk through the streets of Paris (ed. Wright 1857). As such, the meaning of words is primarily made clear through context information. Yet, many copies of these works are provided with extensive glossing in both English and French (Hunt 1991), which suggests that context alone was not sufficient to understand the Latin words. On the other hand, English and French may well have been target languages of their own. This paper analyses the functions of vernacular glosses in the three lexicographic works. I will argue that translanguaging is an important strategy employed by the authors as well as by later glossators and readers of the texts.

The later Old English period seems to have had a robust and extremely popular set of (Latin) teaching materials in Ælfric’s Grammar, Glossary, and Colloquy: “Apparently Aelfric’s grammar completely displaced other grammars at the elementary level soon after its appearance, and retained its dominating position into the twelfth century” (Law 1987: 64). Contained in these materials were the technical terms needed to describe, in this case, language and language learning. And although at least the Tremulous Hand of Worcester was aware of these texts and, presumably, the terminology used therein as late as the early thirteenth century, in the aftermath of the Norman Conquest, the “technical vocabulary elaborated by Aelfric and his predecessors was forgotten” and later elaborated anew by grammarians in the fifteenth century (Law 1987: 64).

A quick glance at the Historical Thesaurus of English (HTE), section 03.07 education and subsections of 02.07.04.01 study of grammar, confirms Law’s observation and further reveals that only the most general of terms in this domain, such as learning/learner, school, or teaching, are attested across this temporal divide. This presentation will first give a general overview, using data from the HTE, of the vocabulary used in medieval English to talk about teaching, learning, and other aspects of education. The second part of the presentation will take a closer look at a few examples, both of terms that stayed in use and terms that only show up on one or the other side of the temporal divide.

The Latin Cornutus, a metrical school text composed by John of Garland in the early thirteenth century and later supplemented by Otto von Lüneburg, was widely used in medieval schools across Western and Central Europe. Modeled on the Disticha Catonis, the work consists of couplets and places particular emphasis on less common and unfamiliar vocabulary, especially words of foreign origin, thus offering a distinctive pedagogical approach to the expansion of students’ lexical competence.

The poetic text was frequently accompanied by a prose commentary providing grammatical and semantic explanations, as well as moral interpretations. Many manuscript copies also contain vernacular glosses intended to facilitate the understanding of difficult Latin terms; such glosses are attested in several languages, including English, French, and German.

In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, Cornutus was likewise used in the Czech lands. To date, five manuscripts containing Czech glosses are known. These manuscripts differ considerably in both content and form, ranging from teachers’ school handbooks with extensive glossing and commentary to copies with limited glossing and no commentary, likely intended for self-directed study.

These functional differences are reflected in both the quantity of Czech glosses and the translation techniques employed. This paper focuses on the translation strategies used in rendering Cornutus into the vernacular in these five Czech manuscripts, examining terms referring to everyday material culture—such as names of vessels and household tools—and comparing the Latin terms, their vernacular translations, and translation strategies with other works by John of Garland, especially his Dictionarius, and with contemporary lexicographical production in medieval Bohemia.

This paper will explore three manuscript fragments of John of Garland’s Dictionarius held in college libraries at the University of Oxford.

1. Oxford, Corpus Christi College 491, nos. 73 and 74 (siglum Ox4)
2. Oxford, Queen’s College 389, ff. 137-138 (Ox5)
3. Oxford, St John’s College 235, fragments 62 and 68 (Ox6)

The three fragments are comparatively early Dictionarius witnesses, from the thirteenth century. During their history, the manuscripts were dismembered, and individual parchment sheets were used in the (re)binding of other books. Preliminary investigations show that Ox5 and Ox6 clearly constitute parts of the same original manuscript (Pagan, Seiler & Wallis 2023); Ox6 consists of two bifolia containing chapters 1-8 and 42-51 of the Dictionarius, while Ox5’s two bifolia contain chapters 9-41. Ox4, on the other hand, includes chapters 22-36 and thus forms part of a separate manuscript.

The paper will investigate the volumes the fragments came from, the dates and reasons for their dismemberment, and the ecology of book acquisition, binding and recycling at and around the university during that time. The following research questions will be explored:

1. What can the fragments tell us about the manuscripts they came from?
2. What more can be discovered about the history of the fragments after dismemberment, e.g. a) the books the fragments bound and b) when the manuscript material was recycled (and, by implication, when and why these particular copies of the Dictionarius fell out of use)?
3. What do the fragments tell us about the ecology of book acquisition, binding and recycling in Oxford, and specifically at the university (where the fragments are now housed)?