Find texts (beta)

Medieval Latin annals covering the period AD 1265-1480 and thought to have been compiled at the friary of New Ross (Ir. Ros Mic Triuin), Co. Wexford.

Latin grammatical compilation thought to have been produced at an Irish or insular centre. It follows the model of Donatus' grammars and draws extensively on classical and Christian writings. No complete copy of the text survives. The extant sections are headed De partibus orationis, De nomine and De pronomine.

An Old Irish law tract which is thought to have belonged to the third part of the Senchas Már. The full text is lost, but parts of it are known from a marginal fragment and a few citations in O’Davoren’s glossary.

Long Latin treatise written by Sedulius Scottus (fl. 9th c.), which served as a ‘mirror for princes’ (speculum principum) instructing rulers on good governance and proper behaviour and using biblical and patristic examples to frame and buttress its message. Unlike most Carolingian representatives of the genre, it is written in a mix of prose and verse. The poems, some of which are also found in Sedulius’ Collectaneum, are composed in a variety of metrical forms. Both the prosimetric structure and the choice of metrical forms are thought to have been modelled after Boethius’ De consolatione philosophiae.

A short glossary of forms of ‘Gaulish’, mainly toponymic words and phrases, with Latin gloss. It is named for Stephan Endlicher, who discovered the longer version of the text and included an edition in his catalogue of manuscripts in the Imperial Library of Vienna (1836). It is generally thought to have been originally compiled in the 5th or 6th century, on the basis of multiple Latin sources. Because it was created long after the heyday of Gaulish as a living language, it has provoked much discussion about its value and reliability as a source for the study of Gaulish. Alderik Blom has argued that to the compiler(s), the language used was not Gaulish in the modern linguistic sense, distinct from Gallo-Romance, but rather a historical-toponymic version of the native vernacular (lingua gallica).

Anonymous commentary on Donatus’ Ars maior. It is thought to have been written by an insular perhaps Irish author and addressed to one Cuimnanus, whose name may be, like Cummianus, a Latinised version of the Irish personal name Cummíne.

Large Irish genealogical compilation, which covers the whole of Ireland but devotes special attention to Munster families. All extant manuscript copies date from the 18th century or later and are thought to derive from an original of unknown date. There are two complete manuscript copies and these may be said to represent a conflation of three tracts: an introductory world history based on Lebor gabála, the ‘Book of Thomond’, which is concerned with the Dál Cáis, and a tract concerned with the Eóganacht, designated by Paul Walsh as the ‘Book of Desmond’.

A late medieval legendary written at the monastery of Böddeken (Kreis Paderborn). It is thought to have been a substantial collection, spanning twelve volumes for each month of the year, although little of it survives today. Those for February, June, August and November appear to have been lost when Bollandist scholar H. Moretus produced his catalogue description (1908). Those for December and a part of March were later found together in a manuscript at Paderborn. Most of the volumes which Moretus was able to consult were held in Münster, but they were destroyed by fire in 1945, leaving the Paderborn MS (March, December) and a manuscript (October), together with a single leaf (June), in Schloss Erpernburg as the last physical remains of the collection.

Late antique register of the 17 Roman provinces of Gaul and their metropolitan cities and civitates, along with a number of castra and a single harbour (portus). The original text is thought to have been compiled in the late 4th or early 5th century. The text was widely copied during the early middle ages.

Old Irish tale of Uí/Da Derga’s hostel (bruiden), which is thought to have been contained in the lost Cín Dromma Snechtai. Tantalisingly, Ii gives only a summarised version of events, in stark contrast to the later, considerably expanded version known as Togail bruidne Da Derga.

Early Modern Irish version of the Meditationes vitae Christi (traditionally attributed to Bonaventure though not written by him). The translation is thought to have been undertaken by Tomás Gruamdha Ó Bruacháin, canon of Cill Aladh (Killala, Co. Mayo), in c.1450.