Bibliography
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cartography and map-makingletters and correspondenceLetters and correspondence
Results (131)
Bleier, Roman [proj. dir.], St Patrick's epistles: transcriptions of the seven medieval manuscript witnesses, Online: Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz, ?–present. URL: <https://gams.uni-graz.at/context:epistles>
Eska, Joseph F., and Benjamin Bruch, “The Late Cornish syntax of William Bodinar”, Études Celtiques 47 (2021): 197–218.
Joyce, Stephen J., “Attitudes to excommunication in the early Insular church: returning to Gildas’s letter to Finnian”, The Journal of Medieval Monastic Studies 9 (2020): 9–30.
abstract:
This article re-examines Gildas’s attitude to excommunication in surviving fragments of his letter to Finnian, utilized in Irish canon collections of the seventh and eighth centuries. It compares Gildas’s approach to that of Patrick in his open letter excommunicating the followers of Coroticus and, subsequently, to the two synods attributed to Patrick. While Patrick actively relies on excommunication as a disciplinary tool, Gildas offers an exegetically original critique of the abuse of excommunication. These contrary approaches are also reflected in the two ‘Patrician’ synods. Attempts to rehabilitate the opposing positions of Gildas and Patrick on excommunication in seventh- and eighth-century Ireland suggest memories of a connected intergenerational crisis between secular and ecclesiastical authority in the early insular church.
Russell, Paul, “Networks of letters: correspondence between Rhys, Stokes, and Bradshaw”, Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies 77 (2019): 17–31.
Breatnach, Pádraig A., “Kuno Meyer’s boyhood diaries and the letters to family and friends”, Studia Hibernica 44 (2018): 135–148.
Plass, Stephanie, “The scholar and the archbishop: new evidence for dating Gerald of Wales’s letter to Stephen Langton”, Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies 75 (2018): 45–52.
Stancliffe, Clare, “Columbanus and shunning: the Irish peregrinus between Gildas, Gaul, and Gregory”, in: Alexander OʼHara (ed.), Columbanus and the peoples of post-Roman Europe, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. 113–142.
Löffler, Marion, “Famous first words: ‘Never in my life will I master Gaelic’ — Kuno Meyer in his diaries and correspondence”, Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies 74 (2017): 33–39.
Mc Carthy, Daniel, “The paschal cycle of St Patrick”, in: Immo Warntjes, and Dáibhí Ó Cróinín (eds), Late antique calendrical thought and its reception in the early Middle Ages: proceedings from the 3rd International Conference on the Science of Computus in Ireland and Europe, Galway, 16-18 July, 2010, 26, Turnhout: Brepols, 2017. 94–137.
abstract:
Notwithstanding the substantial corpus of early medieval references to St Patrick and his works, the only account we have of a paschal cycle associated with him is that provided by Cummian in his letter addressed to Ségéne of Iona and Béccán the hermit composed in c.AD 633. In this letter, Cummian identified himself and his community with Patrick, but he furnished only limited technical details for both Patrick’s cycle and the cycle he indicated that he and his community had recently adopted. However, critical examination of Cummian’s account shows that Patrick had adapted the 532-year paschal cycle compiled by Victorius of Aquitaine in AD 457, and that this was the cycle that Cummian’s community and other influential southern Irish churches resolved to adopt at the synod of Mag Léne in c.AD 630. Consequently, Cummian’s account of Patrick’s cycle, the earliest attested reference to him, holds significant implications for both the chronology of Patrick’s mission to Ireland, and for the expansion of his cult in the seventh century.
Maier, Bernhard [ed.], Kuno Meyer and Wales: letters to John Glyn Davies, 1892–1919, Bibliotheca Academica, Reihe Geschichte, 8, Würzburg: Ergon, 2017.
Maier, Bernhard [ed.], Ein Junge aus Hamburg im viktorianischen Schottland: Kuno Meyers Briefe an die Familie, 1874-1876, Bibliotheca Academica, Reihe Geschichte, 5, Würzburg: Ergon, 2016.
Maier, Bernhard [ed.], Keltologe zwischen Kaiserreich und British Empire: Kuno Meyers Briefe an Korrespondenten in Deutschland und Österreich, 1874-1919, Bibliotheca Academica, Reihe Geschichte, 6, Würzburg: Ergon, 2016.
Bisagni, Jacopo, “L’Epistula ad Dardanum et l’exégèse irlandaise des instruments de musique”, in: Guillaume Oudaer, Gaël Hily, and Hervé Le Bihan (eds), Mélanges en l’honneur de Pierre-Yves Lambert, Rennes: TIR, 2015. 347–358.
Howlett, David, “Two Irish jokes”, in: Pádraic Moran, and Immo Warntjes (eds), Early medieval Ireland and Europe: chronology, contacts, scholarship. A Festschrift for Dáibhí Ó Cróinín, 14, Turnhout: Brepols, 2015. 225–264.
abstract:
The essay considers by editing, translating, and analysing two famous Irish jokes, first a celebrated exchange between the philosopher Iohannes Scottus Eriugena and the Emperor Charles the Bald, and second the Bamberg Cryptogram. From four sources, one poem by Theodulf of Orleans and three prose accounts by William of Malmesbury, Gerald de Barri, and Matthew Paris, the first joke can be understood to function in five distinct ways. The second part of this paper considers two works by Dubthach mac Máel-Tuile, a colophon and the Bamberg Cryptogram, a letter from Suadbar to Colgu explaining the code of the cryptogram, a colophon by Nandharius, scribe of the letter, a poem by a Welsh priest named Cyfeiliog using Dubthach’s code, and an account of scholarly needle in insular Latin literature. The Appendix by Colin Ireland discusses the Irish names in Suadbar’s letter.
Ohashi, Masako, “The ‘real’ addressee(s) of Bede’s Letter to Wicthed”, in: Pádraic Moran, and Immo Warntjes (eds), Early medieval Ireland and Europe: chronology, contacts, scholarship. A Festschrift for Dáibhí Ó Cróinín, 14, Turnhout: Brepols, 2015. 119–135.
abstract:
Bede’s letter ‘On the vernal equinox, after Anatolius’ was written between AD 725 and 731. The letter is addressed to his friend Wicthed, but the study of both the letter and the Historia ecclesiastica implies that Bede had a different readership in his mind. It is argued in this article that the ‘real’ addressees were the Irish monks expelled from Pictland in AD 717, who had access to the letter of Abbot Ceolfrith, which included a problematic passage on the vernal equinox; this Bede tried to rectify in the Letter to Wicthed.
Henderson, Isabel, “Letters to a pupil: correspondence from Nora K. Chadwick to Isabel B. Henderson (née Murray), 1955–1967”, Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies 69–70 (2014): 215–229.
OʼBrien, Conor, “Exegesis as argument: the use of Ephesians 2,14 in Cummian’s De controversia Paschali”, Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies 67 (Summer, 2014): 73–81.
Early modern letters online (EMLO), Online: Oxford, Bodleian Library, 2013–present. URL: <http://emlo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk>
Sharpe, Richard, Roderick O’Flaherty’s letters to William Molyneux, Edward Lhwyd and Samuel Molyneux, 1696–1709, Dublin: Royal Irish Academy, 2013.
An edition, with introduction and notes, of Roderick O’Flaherty’s letters to William Molyneux, Edward Lhwyd and Samuel Molyneux
abstract:
Roderick O’Flaherty, in Irish, Ruaidhri Ó Flaithbheartaigh (1629–1716/18), was an Irish aristocrat whose father Hugh held the castle and manor of Moycullen, Co. Galway. He was an eminent historian and collector of Irish manuscripts and, as author of Ogygia seu rerum hibernicarum chronologia (London 1685), he enjoyed a high reputation for his learning in the profound antiquities of Ireland. For this reason the great Welsh scholar Edward Lhwyd (1660–1709), when touring Ireland in 1700, visited Ó Flaithbheartaigh at his home in Cois Fhairrge, Co. Galway. From this meeting a correspondence developed, fitful at first but regular from 1704 to 1708. During this period Ó Flaithbheartaigh read and commented on the sheets of Lhwyd’s Irish–English Dictionary, which was published as part of his Archaeologia Britannica (Oxford 1707). A substantial part of those comments still survives, a window on the making of Lhwyd’s book and on the learned Ó Flaithbheartaigh’s command of his native language. The correspondence between the two, almost unknown until now, opens up to us the world of a great Irish scholar in the late-seventeenth and early-eighteenth centuries. In this book, the letters are published and commented upon for the first time by leading medievalist Richard Sharpe FBA, Professor of Diplomatic at Oxford and Fellow of Wadham College. Starting with the 29 letters from Ó Flaithbheartaigh to Lhwyd, Sharpe has framed a unique portrait of a Gaelic lord, Latin author, learned historian, and unique witness to Irish antiquarian learning. Ó Flaithbheartaigh’s Iar Connaught (1684), a lively description of the barony of Moycullen, was written for the philosopher, scientist, member of parliament and political writer, William Molyneux (1656–98), translator of Descartes and founder of the Dublin Philosophical Society. Sharpe also brings together Ó Flaithbheartaigh’s surviving letters to William and the correspondence between Ó Flaithbheartaigh and Molyneux’s son Samuel (1689–1728), who would visit the 80-year-old Ó Flaithbheartaigh in 1709. The letters are edited with rich annotation, and they are preceded by an exceptionally detailed and original biographical study of the life and learning of the author. Ó Flaithbheartaigh lost his estate through the policy of transplantation under Cromwell and made his home at Park between Spiddal and Furbo. During the reign of King James II, he appears to have returned to Moycullen, but he lost almost everything when King William’s government began to assert control over Galway in 1696. The correspondence from late in his life shows Ó Flaithbheartaigh’s continued involvement at a distance with the world of books and learning in Dublin and Oxford and provides a remarkable insight into scholarly engagement and interchange across cultures and countries.
(source: Royal Irish Academy)
Walsh, Maura, “Cummian’s letter: science and heresy in seventh-century Ireland”, in: Mary Kelly, and Charles Doherty (eds), Music and the stars: mathematics in medieval Ireland, Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2013. 99–110.
Roberts, Brynley F., Richard Sharpe, Helen Watt, and Cultures of Knowledge, “The correspondence of Edward Lhuyd”, Early modern letters online (EMLO), Online: Oxford, Bodleian Library, 2013. URL: <http://emlo-portal.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/collections/?catalogue=edward-lhwyd>
abstract:
The second Keeper of Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum, Edward Lhwyd was an important naturalist, archaeologist, and linguist. He published the first catalogue of English fossils, the Lithophilacii Britannici Ichnographia (1699), in a limited edition of 120 copies, and many of the specific fossils he illustrated survive still in Oxford’s collections. A keen naturalist, he assisted (among many others) John Ray with his botanical work. Perhaps Lhwyd’s greatest claim to scholarly significance, however, rests upon the extensive tours he made of the Celtic lands to continue his work as a naturalist and for the dual purposes of archaeological and linguistic survey. This resulted, on the one hand, in the most sophisticated archaeological work of the day; and on the other, in the first serious comparative study of the Welsh, Scots and Irish Gaelic, Cornish, and Breton languages. For this latter achievement Lhwyd is now regarded as the father of Celtic linguistics. His results were printed in Glossography (1707), the first volume of his projected Archaeologia Britannica, giving some account additional to what has hitherto been publish’d, of the languages, histories, and customs of the original inhabitants of Great Britain: from collections and observations in travels through Wales, Cornwal, Bas-Bretagne, Ireland and Scotland. This linguistic work, of course, must be associated with Lhwyd’s broader intellectual pursuits in Oxford, where he was not only Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum, but also an active member of the Oxford Philosophical Society in its early years.
Orr, Jennifer [ed.], The correspondence of Samuel Thomson (1766–1816): fostering an Irish writers’ circle, Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2012.
Elliot, Michael D., “Hibernensis excerpts and Isidorian Epistola ad Massonam (København, Kongelike Bibliothek, Ny Kgl. Saml., 58 8° ff. 69v–80v)”, Abigail Firey [project director], Carolingian canon law project, Online: Collaboratory for Research in Computing for Humanities, University of Kentucky, 2012–. URL: <http://ccl.rch.uky.edu/node/6388>
Melia, Daniel F., “The rhetoric of Patrick’s letter to the soldiers of Coroticus”, in: Morgan Thomas Davies (ed.), Proceedings of the Celtic Studies Association of North America Annual Meeting 2008, 10, New York: Colgate University Press, 2011. 96–104.
Maier, Bernhard, “Comparative philology and mythology: the letters of Whitley Stokes to Adalbert Kuhn”, in: Elizabeth Boyle, and Paul Russell (eds), The tripartite life of Whitley Stokes (1830-1909), Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2011. 119–133.
Bracken, Damian, “‘Whence the splendour of such light came to us’: the account of Ireland in Ermenrich’s Life of St Gall”, in: Elizabeth Mullins, and Diarmuid Scully (eds), Listen, o Isles, unto me: studies in medieval word and image in honour of Jennifer O'Reilly, Cork: Cork University Press, 2011. 73–86.
Probert, Duncan, “New light on Aldhelm’s letter to King Gerent of Dumnonia”, in: Katherine Barker, and Nicholas Brooks (eds), Aldhelm and Sherborne: essays to celebrate the founding of the bishopric, Oxford: Oxbow, 2010. 110–128.
Cain, Andrew, “Patrick’s Confessio and Jerome’s Epistula 52 to Nepotian”, The Journal of Medieval Latin 20 (2010): 1–15.
Howlett, David, “Computus in Hiberno-Latin literature”, in: Immo Warntjes, and Dáibhí Ó Cróinín (eds), Computus and its cultural context in the Latin West, AD 300–1200: Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on the Science of Computus in Ireland and Europe, 5, Turnhout: Brepols, 2010. 259–323.
abstract:
The essay begins with an Introduction to the history of the Latin language, computus, and related disciplines in Antiquity before knowledge of the subjects among the Irish; it proceeds with Part I, three Hiberno-Latin computistic texts, a note about the introduction of computus among the Irish, analysis of the beginning of Cummian’s Letter of 633 to Ségéne and Béccán, and an edition, translation, and analysis of the preliminaries and dating clause of the Oxford computus of 658; it proceeds with Part II, a survey of Computistic Phenomena in Hiberno-Latin Literature under twenty-three headings, considering texts from the fifth century to the twelfth; it ends with a Conclusion.
Herity, Michael, “Whitley Stokes’s correspondence with John O’Donovan, 1857-1861”, Studia Hibernica 36 (2009–2010): 9–89.
Naismith, Rory, “Real and metaphorical libraries in Virgil the Grammarian’s Epitomae and Epistolae”, The Journal of Medieval Latin 19 (2009): 148–172.
Cain, Christopher M., “Sacred words, Anglo-Saxon piety, and the origins of the Epistola salvatoris in London, British Library, Royal 2.A.xx”, Journal of English and Germanic Philology 108:2 (April, 2009): 168–189.
Smith, G. Rex, “The Penmachno Letter Patent and the Welsh Uprising of 1294–95”, Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies 58 (Winter, 2009): 49–67.
Goullet, Monique, Ermenrich d’Ellwangen. Lettre à Grimald, Sources d'histoire médiévale, 37, Paris: CNRS Éditions, 2008.
Naismith, Rory, “Antiquity, authority, and religion in the Epitomae and Epistolae of Virgilius Maro Grammaticus”, Peritia 20 (2008): 59–85.
abstract:
Virgilius Maro Grammaticus’s origins and date have often been discussed: the setting he imagined for his works has not. How Virgilius imagined himself and his ‘authorities’ reveals a fascinating mélange of names, characters, and religious ideas plucked from history, all brought together to emphasise the antiquity and variety within the Latin language. Modelled on the atmosphere of familiar Late Antique and early medieval grammars, Virgilius’s setting was probably created to allow veiled comment on the future of Latin in changing intellectual circumstances. There is considerable manuscript and citation evidence that the name Virgilius Maro Grammaticus was not used in the medieval period, and the Epitomae and Epistolae are ascribed only to Virgilius Maro. The ambiguity this name created was strengthened by the presence of Aeneas and other classical-sounding authorities, and created much confusion amongst medieval readers and copyists trying to distinguish the grammarian from the poet.
(source: Brepols)
Harbison, Peter, “Austin Cooper’s letter on round towers of c.1790”, in: Marion Meek (ed.), The modern traveller to our past: Festschrift in honour of Ann Hamlin, DPK, 2006. 157–162.
Shisha-Halevy, Ariel, “Epistolary grammar: syntactical highlights in Kate Roberts’s correspondence with Saunders Lewis”, Journal of Celtic Linguistics 9 (2005): 83–103.
abstract:
The Modern Welsh epistolary texteme is here introduced and briefly examined, on the basis of the correspondence of Kate Roberts and Saunders Lewis. Following some preliminary general comments on the texteme, six syntactical topics are discussed – the nynegocentric deixis and tensing; presentation; focalization, topicalization and related issues; the epistolary narrative; allocutive and reactive elements; parenthesis – with a view to demonstrating the special grammatical systems of this texteme which, despite its affinities with the dialogue, is idiosyncratic in perspective and juncture.
Carley, James P., and Pierre Petitmengin, “Pre-Conquest manuscripts from Malmesbury Abbey and John Leland’s letter to Beatus Rhenanus concerning a lost copy of Tertullian’s works”, Anglo-Saxon England 33 (2004): 195–223.
Freeman, Philip [tr.], “Ireland before St Patrick: § 63. Symmachus Epistle 2.77”, in: John T. Koch, and John Carey (eds), The Celtic Heroic Age. Literary sources for ancient Celtic Europe and early Ireland & Wales, 4th ed., 1, Aberystwyth: Celtic Studies Publications, 2003. 50.
McLuhan, Elizabeth, “‘Ministerium seruitutis meae’: the metaphor and reality of slavery in Saint Patrick’s Epistola and Confessio”, in: John Carey, Máire Herbert, and Pádraig Ó Riain (eds), Studies in Irish hagiography: saints and scholars, Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2001. 63–71.
Story, Joanna, “Cathwulf, kingship, and the royal abbey of Saint-Denis”, Speculum 74:1 (Jan., 1999): 1–21.
Fischer, Joachim, and John Dillon (eds), The correspondence of Myles Dillon, 1922-1925: Irish-German relations and Celtic studies, Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1999.
Forste-Grupp, Sheryl L., “The earliest Irish personal letter”, Proceedings of the Harvard Celtic Colloquium 15 (1995, 1998): 1–11.
Garrison, Mary, “Letters to a king and biblical exempla: the examples of Cathuulf and Clemens Peregrinus”, Early Medieval Europe 7 (1998): 305–328.
Wright, Neil, “Columbanus’s Epistulae”, in: Michael Lapidge (ed.), Columbanus: studies on the Latin writings, 17, Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1997. 29–92.
Knobloch, Johann, “La voyelle thématique … Bemerkungen zu der Veröffentlichung des Briefes von Holger Pedersen”, Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie 49–50 (1997): 378–387.
Gwara, Scott, “A record of Anglo-Saxon pedagogy: Aldhelm’s Epistola ad Heahfridum and its gloss”, The Journal of Medieval Latin 6 (1996): 84–134.
Borsje, Jacqueline, From chaos to enemy: encounters with monsters in early Irish texts. An investigation related to the process of christianization and the concept of evil, Instrumenta Patristica, 29, Turnhout: Brepols, 1996.
abstract:
This book deals with the theme of 'encounters with monsters' in early Irish texts. Three texts dealing with this theme are central to this study: the Old Irish Adventure of Fergus mac Leite, the Hiberno-Latin Life of St Columba by Adomnan, and the Old Irish Letter of Jesus. The author's investigation of the theme follows two lines. The first main line is the question of how aspects of the process of Christianization were reflected in early Irish literary texts. The second main line focusses on the development of ideas about evil in these textes. These two lines of investigations generated two approaches: firstly, a study into the origin of the descriptions of the monsters and, secondly, an analysis - by means of a hypothesis - of the ideas found in these three texts on this time. The broad scope of the process of Christianization is narrowed down to an investigation of the origin of the monsters and non-canonical scripture, encyclopedic Latin works such as Pliny's Naturalis Historia and Isidore's Etymologiae, related Latin and Old English material, Hiberno-Latin, and Old and Middle Irish texts. The author made this comparison in order to ascertain whether these descriptions were derived from sources and to classify the monsters according to three categories: "native", "imported", or "integrated". The author did this to determine if and how Christian idead influenced the symbolisation of evil in the form of monsters. In order to analyse the ideas about evil, the author distinguishes between two forms of evil: firstly, non-moral evil - evil that occurs without anyone inflicting it intentionally uppn the victims, and secondly, moral evil - evil done intentionally. According to the author's hypothesis, the monsters are said to belong originally to the realm of non-moral evil but, under the influence of Christianity, they also begin to personify moral evil. [...]
Howlett, David, “Five experiments in textual reconstruction and analysis”, Peritia 9 (1995): 1–50.
CELT – edition (pp. 1–2): <link> CELT – Text of Cantemus in omni die (19–30): <link> CELT – Text of Adelphus adelpha mater (30-48): <link>
abstract:
This is an edition and detailed analysis of six complex early Celtic-Latin texts—a note on the Irish reception of the computus, a part of Cummian’s Paschal letter, the incipit of the Egloga and the whole text of the Lorica of Laidcenn mac Baíth, Cú Chuimne’s hymn Cantemus in omni die, and the learned poem Adelphus adelpha mater. The analysis draws attention to their elaborate and intricate structure and the metrical and linguistic skills of their authors. It further demonstrates that their Latin represents correct Classical and Late Latin usage.
