Canterbury Glosses from the School of Theodore and Hadrian: The Leiden Glossary

Michael Lapidge's new two-volume edition of the Leiden Glossary (LdGl) is both the crowning achievement of his four-decade-long engagement with the renowned Canterbury school of Archbishop Theodore and Abbot Hadrian and a key contribution to the recent surge in scholarly interest in early English glosses and glossaries as pivotal evidence of the earliest phases of English intellectual history and literary culture.As Lapidge acknowledges in the “Preface” (pp. 11–12), his brothers-in-arms in his ongoing dealings with the Canterbury school have been Helmut Gneuss, to whose memory the book is dedicated, and Bernhard Bischoff, with whom Lapidge edited the Biblical commentaries produced at the same school. LdGl itself has previously been edited twice, by P. Glogger (1901–1907) and J. H. Hessels (1906), and “both these editions remain valuable for the accuracy of their editing and the wide learning of their annotation” (p. 32, n. 60). The present book does not, however, just look back to the impressive array of scholarship produced by Lapidge and others, but also offers further refinements and new insights, supported by a meticulously updated bibliography, as well as looking forward to further research, such as the edition of the as yet unpublished alphabetical glossary known as Aptet and of the congeners of LdGl, i.e. a group of related Continental glossaries making up the so-called “Leiden-family” glossaries, which will make up a companion book to the present one (p. 12).Volume 1 of this book consists of a comprehensive introduction (pp. 19–139), followed by the bibliography (pp. 141–155) and five indexes of lemmata and interpretamenta (pp. 157–215), offering indispensable tools for navigating the wealth of material presented. The first four chapters of the introduction thoroughly illustrate the cultural context that produced LdGl, the Canterbury school (ca. 670—ca. 710), “a glorious high-point in the record of Anglo-Saxon education” (p. 19), which hosted one of the largest libraries of pre-Conquest England (pp. 76–91) and left its distinctive mark on the subsequent history of the early English church and wider literary culture by training a generation of leading ecclesiastics, most notably Aldhelm of Malmesbury († 709 or 710). Indeed, it is argued that the Canterbury school also proved impactful and influential across the Channel, and “to some extent [it] helped to determine the curriculum of patristic and grammatical literature which was studied everywhere in Europe during the early Middle Ages” (p. 76).A detailed profile of Theodore—born in Tarsus in 602 and archbishop of Canterbury from 668 to 690—and Hadrian—most likely a native of Cyrenaica and abbot of the monastery of St. Peter and St. Paul (later St. Augustine's) at Canterbury from 670 to 710 or 711—is key to understanding the kind of scholarship fostered at their school, that is their areas of expertise, their teaching method, the range of the library they assembled, and, last but not least, the texts produced at Canterbury, whether by the two masters or by their pupils recording their opinion (pp. 33–45). Perhaps the most idiosyncratic trait of the education imparted at the Canterbury school, as well as of its literary output, is a distinctively Greek brand, which highlights the uniqueness of the cultural milieu set up by the two masters, as public teaching of Greek had ceased in the West since the end of the fourth century. Indeed, the European transmission of the so-called Hermeneumata pseudo-Dositheana, the chief tool for learning Greek in the Latin West throughout the Middle Ages, “very probably begins at the Canterbury school[,] with a manuscript brought to England by [Theodore and/or Hadrian]” (p. 85). Moreover, “with respect to Greek patristic literature, [Theodore and Hadrian's] knowledge was unrivalled until at least the Renaissance, and perhaps until the eighteenth century” (p. 124).The surviving evidence that brings us closest to Theodore and Hadrian's teaching practice is a corpus of glossae collectae, of which LdGl is the most extensive, but by no means the only or most reliable, witness. Glossae collectae are glosses recorded in the same order in which they occur in a glossed exemplar of a given text. LdGl—so called because it is attested in Leiden, Bibliotheek der Rijksuniversiteit, MS Voss. lat. Q. 69 (St Gallen, s. viii/ix; fols. 20r-36r)—consists of forty-eight batches of such glossae collectae (except the first two batches which have been rearranged alphabetically), nineteen of which concern books of the Bible, while the remaining twenty-nine pertain to a number of patristic, grammatical, and metrological texts. (The Biblical batches are not included here, because they were edited by Vaciago in 2004, in what is “a mere transcription, with no accompanying commentary, and no description of the manuscripts in question” [p. 32, n. 61]).While W. M. Lindsay suggested that the Leiden glosses were copied sequentially from the codices from which they were extracted (The Corpus, Épinal-Erfurt and Leyden Glossaries, 1921, pp. 1–2), Lapidge argues that they are instead records by the Canterbury students of Theodore and Hadrian's viva voce explanations as they expounded a given school text (pp. 47 and 133). In particular, “it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Aldhelm must have been one of the Canterbury students who was involved in recording these glossae collectae” (p. 78). Aldhelm's vast reading shows significant overlaps with what we may reconstruct as the library assembled by Theodore and Hadrian (p. 78). Indeed, Lapidge rests his case for the (otherwise doubtful) debt of LdGl (batch xli, 7–16) to Pliny, Naturalis Historia (book xxxvii) on Aldhelm's familiarity with Pliny's encyclopedia (pp. 107–109).In sum, LdGl provides a unique blend of classroom interaction between the two celebrated masters and their students—in fact, LdGL is “the only surviving witness to the actual teaching practice of an Anglo-Saxon school” at all (p. 132)—and of the syllabus of the Canterbury school. In particular, the “almost invariably lexical” (p. 110) glossing reveals that the two masters’ teaching method was focused on elucidating (difficult) words, especially Greek or Greek-derived vocabulary, and typically they did so by resorting to etymological explanations. Indeed, it could be argued that this method would leave a distinctive imprint on early English literary culture, as shown by the lexicographic indulgence and the fascination with learned verbal games which appealed to different generations of English literati, as well as by the pervasiveness of the (Isidorean) category of etymology as both a heuristic tool and a key device for the ornamental sound- and word-play in both literary languages of early England.Admittedly, LdGl itself is at some remove from Theodore and Hadrian's putative classroom in late seventh-century Canterbury, since it is a copy, made by two rather careless scribes at St. Gallen ca. 800, of an earlier English exemplar. Evidence of the origin of this exemplar is provided by the patterns of orthographical mistakes of the St. Gallen scribes, but most of all by the 216 Old English interpretamenta contained in LdGl, the language of which show that they were first recorded ca. 700, if not slightly earlier. (This chronological terminus is also confirmed by the Old English interpretamenta in the related Épinal glossary, attested in a Southumbrian codex dated to s. viiex or vii/viii, Épinal, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 72 [7], fols. 94–107.)The putative archetype of the Canterbury collection of glossae collectae was eventually transmitted to the Continent. Exactly how this happened is a question that “must be postponed until edited texts of the fourteen ‘Leiden-family’ glossaries are available” (p. 60). For now, Lapidge suggests that the Canterbury corpus of glossae collectae was not preserved as a unified collection but in unbound booklets, perhaps even unbound folios, and as such they were copied and disseminated upon request. The propagation on the Continent may have been prompted by the early English missionaries, with Fulda likely being the first Continental destination, although at this stage it is not possible to establish the centers where the putative hyparchetypes were written (pp. 60–62).There are no fewer than fourteen related Continental glossaries, each of which preserves between two and twelve batches corresponding to those of LdGl (pp. 50–62). While the copying of LdGl was badly affected by the scribes’ lack of familiarity with the early English system of script of their exemplar, their ignorance of Old English and of Greek, as well as by their apparently carefree curtailing of both batches and individual entries, the scribes of other glossaries of the “Leiden family” have often proved more reliable. Thus, these related glossaries “supply a very useful control on the accuracy, and the original content, of the original Canterbury compilation” (p. 50).Another important body of evidence to verify the correctness of LdGl and reconstruct the Canterbury archetype is provided by three English glossaries, the Épinal–Erfurt glossary (ÉE), the Corpus Glossary, and Werden A, themselves derivative alphabetical compilations which, however, include entries from the original Canterbury corpus of glossae collectae (p. 71). Since they were compiled in England by English scribes, these glossaries, especially ÉE and the Corpus Glossary, accurately preserve numerous Old English interpretamenta, which made up an important element of the original Canterbury corpus but were often miscopied, replaced by Old High German interpretamenta, or altogether omitted by Continental scribes.As to the long-held view that Aldhelm may have been the compiler of ÉE, Lapidge cautions that despite the “many undeniable links with the writings of Aldhelm,” “the extent of [the latter's] involvement in the compilation of [ÉE], can never be defined with absolute certainty” (p. 69). The presence of Old Irish lemmata or interpretamenta, as well as the use of the rare Vergil commentary by Junius Philargyrius, points to the school of Adomnán at seventh-century Iona, where Aldhelm likely studied during the 660s, as Lapidge has argued elsewhere. More recently, in an essay of 2024, M. Herren has envisaged an Irish student as an important contributor, if not himself the compiler, of ÉE. Be that as it may, the Irish component of ÉE draws attention to an often-overlooked aspect of the Canterbury school: that is, the role of Irish scholarship. In this regard, it may be noteworthy that analysis of the lemmata from Orosius, Historiae aduersum paganos (batch xxxvi) shows that the manuscript of this work in use at Canterbury must have been “[a now lost] English gemellus of the ‘Bobbio Orosius’” (p. 89), namely Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, MS D. 23 sup., written either in Ireland or Bobbio in s. vii1.Finally, the correctness of LdGl can be checked by comparing a given lemma with the corresponding reading in the relevant source text. This comparison has greatly benefited from the availability of such electronic databases as the Library of Latin Texts and Patrologia Latina, and of modern critical editions of many of the LdGl sources. Comparisons between the lemmata of LdGl and the apparatus critici of the modern editions have also “throw[n] light on the nature of the text in use at the Canterbury school” (p. 78), sometimes providing otherwise unrecorded evidence of the tradition of a given text. Such is the case with the LdGl lemmata from Jerome, De uiris inlustribus (batch xxx), which feature numerous variants unrecorded in the apparatus criticus of the current critical edition, thereby attesting to “an as yet unidentified copy among the 100+ manuscripts of De uiris inlustribus which have yet to be fully collated” (pp. 87–88). Refinements in the study of the sources of LdGl has also afforded precious insights into the broader literary culture of early medieval England. For example, LdGl reflects a familiarity with the Corpus iuris ciuilis, which suggests that copies of at least part of the Corpus must have been available at the Canterbury school, even though no pre-seventh century witness of the Corpus survives from early medieval England (pp. 120–23).As regards one of the major sources of LdGl, the Etymologiae by Isidore of Seville, Lapidge expands the number of Isidorean entries, showing that glosses from the Etymologiae amount to around 7% of the total of LdGl (pp. 105–106). What is more, the interpretamentum to the lemma candelabrum coincides with a distinctive reading (a candendo) of the Spanish branch of the tradition of the Etymologiae, attested both in T, an eighth-century manuscript from Toledo, as reported in Lindsay's 1911 complete edition of the Isidorean encyclopaedia, and in U, a later Spanish codex, as reported in Guillaumin's 2010 edition of Book xx of the Etymologiae. As Lapidge points out, this circumstance contributes significant evidence to the enduring controversy concerning the route followed by the Isidorean encyclopedia to England and the putative role of Frankish or Irish intermediaries, supporting the notion of direct transmission from Spain (pp. 86–87). Further testimony to exchanges between Spain and England in the late seventh century comes from the Abstrusa-Abolita glossary, an amalgam of two Latin-Latin glossaries compiled in Spain and itself heavily indebted to the Etymologiae, which was among the reference works consulted at the Canterbury school, as Lapidge conclusively demonstrates (pp. 93–94).The painstaking survey of the sources of the LdGl batches and of the texts that provided means of interpretations of those sources—such as encyclopedic works and earlier glossaries—as well as of cognate glossaries of LdGl not only affords background information about LdGl but is part and parcel of the very editing of its entries in volume II. Typically, each batch is introduced by a preface detailing the sources of the lemmata, namely the text from which the glosses have been excerpted, with relevant comments—whenever possible—about the relationship of the Leiden lemmata with the tradition of that given text; the sources of the glosses, specifically the reference works or glossaries used to expound the lemmata; the entries in glossaries of the “Leiden family”; finally, the entries in derivative English glossaries. Accordingly, each gloss is then commented on by providing an extended quotation from its source text, parallel glosses from the “Leiden family” glossaries, explanations of the interpretamenta traceable to reference works and/or earlier Latin-Latin glossaries, and, finally, parallel glosses in derivative English glossaries.This editorial modus operandi is ascribed to the distinctive origin of the tradition of the Canterbury glossae collectae in oral-aural exchanges. As Lapidge cautions, this oral-aural context prevents the standard practices of textual criticism, aimed at establishing the genealogical relationships between witnesses, because “an error introduced at [the very first link in the chain of transmission] may be suspected, but can never be verified” (p. 135). Hence, Lapidge argues, in the case of LdGl “the editor's principal duty [is] that of presenting all relevant information which is needed to illuminate the suspected original (oral) form of an entry,” bearing in mind that “the sum of such information can never guaranteedly reconstitute the form of the original Canterbury entry” (p. 139).The book is pristinely presented and edited (I spotted just one typo, “comtests” for “contests” at p. 129). Inevitably, perhaps, given the content and scope of this study, there is some repetition, and not all Latin quotations are translated into modern English. Otherwise, though obviously a very erudite and specialist study, Lapidge's unparalleled mastery and terse prose manage to make complex material accessible and a pleasure to read. The Leiden Glossary will undoubtedly become an indispensable reference work for anyone interested not only in the glossography and lexicography of pre-Conquest England, but also in the development of the early English curriculum and literary culture. It affords fresh, perceptive insights into the lively network of exchanges of books and scholars across the Channel and into the creative process of adopting and adapting the cultural legacy of classical and late antiquity in pre-Conquest England and beyond.