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Epistola Ad Acircium
The ''Epistola ad Acircium, sive Liber de septenario, et de metris, aenigmatibus ac pedum regulis'' ('letter to Acircius, or the book on sevens, and on metres, riddles, and the regulation of poetic feet') is a Latin treatise by the West-Saxon scholar Aldhelm (d. 709). It is dedicated to one Acircius, understood to be King Aldfrith of Northumbria (r. 685-704/5). It was a seminal text in the development of riddles as a literary form in medieval England. Origins Aldhelm records that his riddles, which appear in this collection, were composed early in his career "as scholarly illustrations of the principles of Latin versification"; they may have been the work where he established his poetic skill in Latin.Andy Orchard, 'Enigmata', in ''The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo-Saxon England'', ed. by Michael Lapidge, John Blair, Simon Keynes, and Donald Scragg, 2nd edn (Chichester: Wiley Blackwell, 2013), s.v. Aldhelm's chief source was Priscian's ''Institutiones Grammaticae''. Co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Riddles Of Aldhelm, London, British Library, Royal MA 12 C Xxiii Folio 83r
A riddle is a statement, question or phrase having a double or veiled meaning, put forth as a puzzle to be solved. Riddles are of two types: ''enigmas'', which are problems generally expressed in metaphorical or allegorical language that require ingenuity and careful thinking for their solution, and ''conundra'', which are questions relying for their effects on punning in either the question or the answer. Archer Taylor says that "we can probably say that riddling is a universal art" and cites riddles from hundreds of different cultures including Finnish, Hungarian, American Indian, Chinese, Russian, Dutch and Filipino sources amongst many others. Many riddles and riddle-themes are internationally widespread. In the assessment of Elli Köngäs-Maranda (originally writing about Malaitian riddles, but with an insight that has been taken up more widely), whereas myths serve to encode and establish social norms, "riddles make a point of playing with conceptual boundaries and cross ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Symphosius
Symphosius (sometimes, in older scholarship and less properly, Symposius) was the author of the ''Aenigmata'', an influential collection of 100 Latin riddles, probably from the late antique period. They have been transmitted along with their solutions. Biography Nothing more is known of Symphosius's life than what can be gleaned from the riddles themselves: even his name is clearly 'a joking pseudonym, meaning “party boy” or the like'. Proposed dates of composition have ranged from the third century to the sixth. The prevailing view today is that they were probably composed in the late fourth or early fifth century. A range of circumstantial evidence in the content of the riddles suggests that Symphosius was writing in Roman North Africa. The riddles The riddles themselves, written in tercets of dactylic hexameters, are of elegant Latinity. The author's brief preface states that they were written to form part of the entertainment at the Saturnalia. This could be a literary co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michael Lapidge
Michael Lapidge, FBA (born 8 February 1942) is a scholar in the field of Medieval Latin literature, particularly that composed in Anglo-Saxon England during the period 600–1100 AD; he is an emeritus Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, a Fellow of the British Academy, and winner of the 2009 Sir Israel Gollancz Prize. Education and career Lapidge completed his B.A. at the University of Calgary and taught there for three years after completing an M.A. (U of Alberta), before going to the University of Toronto in 1967 to begin work on a Ph.D. in the Centre for Medieval Studies. His doctoral dissertation, supervised by Brian Stock, studied the transmission of a nexus of cosmological metaphors, first articulated by Greek Stoic philosophers, to classical and late antique Latin poets, and ultimately to Medieval Latin philosophers and poets of the twelfth century. After completing course-work in Toronto, he went to Cambridge in 1969 to have better access to manuscript depositories while co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Exeter Book Riddles
The Exeter Book riddles are a fragmentary collection of verse riddles in Old English found in the later tenth-century anthology of Old English poetry known as the Exeter Book. Today standing at around ninety-four (scholars debate precisely how many there are because divisions between poems are not always clear), the Exeter Book riddles account for almost all the riddles attested in Old English, and a major component of the otherwise mostly Latin corpus of riddles from early medieval England. Sources One riddle, known as Exeter Book riddle 30 is found twice in the Exeter Book (with some textual variation), indicating that the Exeter Book was compiled from more than one pre-existing manuscript collection of Old English riddles. Considerable scholarly effort has gone into reconstructing what these exemplars may have been like. Four of the riddles originate as translations from the Latin riddles of Aldhelm, emphasising that the Exeter Book riddles were at least partly influenced by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Saint Boniface
Boniface, OSB ( la, Bonifatius; 675 – 5 June 754) was an English Benedictines, Benedictine monk and leading figure in the Anglo-Saxon mission to the Germanic parts of the Frankish Empire during the eighth century. He organised significant foundations of the Catholic Church in Germany, church in Germany and was made archbishop of Mainz by Pope Gregory III. He was martyred in Frisia in 754, along with 52 others, and his remains were returned to Fulda, where they rest in a sarcophagus which has become a site of pilgrimage. Boniface's life and death as well as his work became widely known, there being a wealth of material available — a number of , especially the near-contemporary , legal documents, possibly some sermons, and above all his correspondence. He is venerated as a saint in the Christian church and became the patron saint of Germania, known as the "Apostle to the Germans". Norman F. Cantor notes the three roles Boniface played that made him "one of the truly outsta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Riddles Of Eusebius
The ''Enigmata Eusebii'' (riddles of Eusebius) are a collection of sixty Latin, hexametrical riddles composed in early medieval England, probably in the eighth century. Example An example of Eusebius's work is enigma 42, on the dragon: Authorship The manuscripts of the riddles name the author as Eusebius. This person has traditionally been identified as Hwætberht, the Abbot of Monkwearmouth-Jarrow Priory, based on Bede's identification of Hwætberht with the cognomen of 'Eusebius' in his ''Commentary on I Samuel''. However, the identification with Hwætberht has been questioned by several scholars, including Emily V Thornbury, who has suggested that a Kentish author might be likely. Origins The ''Enigmata Eusebii'' seem to have been composed to expand on the forty riddles of Tatwine, a collection composed by the eighth-century Mercian priest and archbishop Tatwine Tatwine ( – 30 July 734) was the tenth Archbishop of Canterbury from 731 to 734. Prior to becoming ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Riddles Of Tatwine
Tatwine ( – 30 July 734) was the tenth Archbishop of Canterbury from 731 to 734. Prior to becoming archbishop, he was a monk and abbot of a Benedictine monastery. Besides his ecclesiastical career, Tatwine was a writer, and riddles he composed survive. Another work he composed was on the grammar of the Latin language, which was aimed at advanced students of that language. He was subsequently considered a saint. Biography Tatwine was a Mercian by birth. His epigraph at Canterbury stated that when he died he was in old age, so perhaps he was born around 670. He became a monk at the monastery at Breedon-on-the-Hill in the present-day County of Leicestershire,Brooks ''Early History of the Church of Canterbury'' p. 80Yorke ''Kings and Kingdoms'' p. 31 and then abbot of that house.Stenton ''Anglo-Saxon England'' p. 183 Through the influence of King Æthelbald he was appointed as Archbishop of Canterbury in 731 and was consecrated on 10 June 731.Fryde, et al. ''Handbook of Brit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Riddles Of Aldhelm, London, British Library, Royal MA 12 C Xxiii Folio 93r
A riddle is a statement, question or phrase having a double or veiled meaning, put forth as a puzzle to be solved. Riddles are of two types: ''enigmas'', which are problems generally expressed in metaphorical or allegorical language that require ingenuity and careful thinking for their solution, and ''conundra'', which are questions relying for their effects on punning in either the question or the answer. Archer Taylor says that "we can probably say that riddling is a universal art" and cites riddles from hundreds of different cultures including Finnish, Hungarian, American Indian, Chinese, Russian, Dutch and Filipino sources amongst many others. Many riddles and riddle-themes are internationally widespread. In the assessment of Elli Köngäs-Maranda (originally writing about Malaitian riddles, but with an insight that has been taken up more widely), whereas myths serve to encode and establish social norms, "riddles make a point of playing with conceptual boundaries and cross ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alaric Hall
Alaric Hall (born 1979) is a British philologist who is an associate professor of English and director of the Institute for Medieval Studies at the University of Leeds. He has, since 2009, been the editor of the academic journal '' Leeds Studies in English'' and its successor ''Leeds Medieval Studies''. Biography Hall received his B.A. in Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic from the University of Cambridge, his M.Phil. in Medieval Studies from the University of Glasgow, and his Ph.D. in English from the University of Glasgow. His Ph.D. thesis was on elves in Anglo-Saxon England. He has subsequently become an associate professor of English and director of the Institute for Medieval Studies at the University of Leeds. Hall researches and teaches the languages, cultures and history of Northwest Europe in the Middle Ages. He has written and edited several works on these subjects. Hall is also an authority on Icelandic language and literature. His 2007 book ''Elves in Anglo-Saxon England ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Woody Nightshade
''Solanum dulcamara'' is a species of vine in the genus ''Solanum'' (which also includes the potato and the tomato) of the family Solanaceae. Common names include bittersweet, bittersweet nightshade, bitter nightshade, blue bindweed, Amara Dulcis, climbing nightshade, felonwort, fellenwort, felonwood, poisonberry, poisonflower, scarlet berry, snakeberry, trailing bittersweet, trailing nightshade, violet bloom, and woody nightshade. It is native to Europe and Asia, and widely naturalised elsewhere, including North America. Overview It occurs in a very wide range of habitats, from woodlands to scrubland, hedges and marshes. ''Solanum dulcamara'' is a very woody herbaceous perennial vine, which scrambles over other plants, capable of reaching a height of 4 m where suitable support is available, but more often 1–2 m high. The leaves are 4–12 cm long, roughly arrowhead-shaped, and often lobed at the base. The flowers are in loose clusters of 3–20, 1–1.5 cm across, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hellebore
Commonly known as hellebores (), the Eurasian genus ''Helleborus'' consists of approximately 20 species of herbaceous or evergreen perennial flowering plants in the family Ranunculaceae, within which it gave its name to the tribe of Helleboreae. Despite names such as "winter rose", "Christmas rose" and "Lenten rose", hellebores are not closely related to the rose family (Rosaceae). Many hellebore species are poisonous. Description The flowers have five petal-like sepals surrounding a ring of small, cup-like nectaries which are actually petals modified to hold nectar. The sepals do not fall as petals would, but remain on the plant, sometimes for many months. Recent research in Spain suggests that the persistence of the sepals contributes to the development of the seeds. Taxonomy The genus was established by Carl Linnaeus in volume one of his ''Species Plantarum'' in 1753. The scientific name ''Helleborus'' could derive from the Ancient Greek word (), the common name for '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
De Creatura
''De creatura'' ('On Creation') is an 83-line Latin polystichic poem by the seventh- to eighth-century Anglo-Saxon poet Aldhelm and an important text among Anglo-Saxon riddles. The poem seeks to express the wondrous diversity of creation, usually by drawing vivid contrasts between different natural phenomena, one of which is usually physically higher and more magnificent, and one of which is usually physically lower and more mundane. ''De creatura'' is one of two of Aldhelm's riddles known to have been translated into Old English (the other being the Leiden Riddle): a fairly close but expansive, albeit now fragmentary, translation survives as the 108-line Riddle 40 of the Exeter Book (according to the numbering of the Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records). This was itself shortened and reworked as the ten-line Riddle 66, and adapted even further as the now largely lost, presently six-line Riddle 94, both also found in the Exeter Book. These riddles stand as a rare example of an Old English p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
