Notes
CHAPTER 1: THE MEDIEVAL SITUATION
See Before Philosophy, J. A. Wilson, etc. (1949).
Ed. F. Madden, 3 vols. (1847).
. In Lydgate’s trans. (E.E.T.S. ed. F. J. Furnivall, 1899), 3415 sq.
. De Gen. Animalium, 778a; Polit. 1255b.
. There is a tradition that Hipparchus (fl. 150 B.C.) detected one (see Pliny, Nat. Hist. II, XXIV). The great Nova in Cassiopeia of Nov. 1572 was a most important event for the history of thought (see F. R. Johnson, Astronomical Thought in Renaissance England, Baltimore, 1937, p. 154).
. Metaphys. 1072b. Cf. Dante, Par. XXVIII, 42.
. De Mundo, 392a. Whether this essay is Aristotle’s or merely of the Aristotelian school does not matter for my purpose.
CHAPTER 2: RESERVATIONS
. The text of Aristotle in Latin translations (themselves often of Arabic translations) begins to be known in the twelfth century.
. Ia XXXII, Art. I, ad secundum.
. A. O. Barfield, Saving the Appearances (1957), p. 51.
. Cf. the maxim (quoted in Coleridge’s Aids to Reflection) heterogenea non comparari possunt.
CHAPTER 3: SELECTED MATERIALS: THE CLASSICAL PERIOD
. Mathematikes Suntaxeos, Greek text and French trans. M. Halma (Paris, 1913).
. Cicero, De Republica, De Legibus, text and trans. by C. W. Keyes (Loeb Library, 1928).
. In the sense of Latin statio, i.e. ‘post’.
. De Mundi Universitate, II, Pros. V, p. 44, ed. Barach and Wrobel (Innsbruck, 1876).
. Eternal Life, I, iii.
. i.e. doctrine, theorem.
. Inferno, IV, 88.
. See E. R. Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, trans. W. R. Trask (London, 1953). Unfortunately the translations of Latin quotations in the English version of this book are not to be relied on.
. Convivio, IV, xxviii, 13 sq.
. Pt. I, 2, M. 3, subs. 2.
. Pt. II, M. 2, 6, subs. 3.
. Pt. III, 2, M. 1, subs. 2.
. Pharsalia, VI, 507 sq.
. Qua niger astriferis connectitur axibus aer.
. Quodque patet terras inter lunaeque meatus.
. Se lumine vero Implevit.
. Quanta sub nocte iaceret Nostra dies. I think this might mean either ‘How dark, compared with the aether, our terrestrial day is’, or ‘Under how huge an abyss of nocturnal phenomena (stars, see 11, 12, 13) our terrestrial day takes place’. Much more probably the former, see below, p. III.
. The Allegory of Love, pp. 49 sq.; ‘Dante’s Statius’, Medium Aevum, XXV, 3.
. In Lydgate’s version, 3344 sq.
. Passages which can be quoted from Cicero, Chalcidius, and doubtless many others, show only a momentary (metaphorical, not allegorical) personification of Natura—such a personification as any important abstract noun is likely to undergo.
. At whose pronouncèd name earth never failed To tremble, who alone dares see unveiled The Gorgon’s face.
. Cf. Phaedrus, 242b–c.
. P. L. III, 461.
. Timaeus, 38e.
. For another, and very different, sense of genius, see my Allegory of Love, Appendix I.
. Confessions, VII, ix.
. On this, see A. O. Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being (Harvard, 1957).
CHAPTER 4: SELECTED MATERIALS: THE SEMINAL PERIOD
. S. Dill, Roman Society in the Last Century of the Western Empire (1898), cap. 1.
. Confessions, VII, ix.
. Apology, II, xiii.
. Platonis Timaeus interprete Chalcidio, ed. Z. Wrobel (Lipsiae, 1876).
. Op. cit. LV, p. 122.
. CXXVI, p. 191.
. CLXXVI, p. 225.
. CXXXII, p. 195; CCC, p. 329.
. CXXXII, p. 195.
. De Civitate, VIII, 14–X, 32.
. Chalcidius CCLXXVI, p. 306.
. CLXXVI, p. 226.
. CCXXXV–CCXCV, pp. 319–27.
. LXXVI, p. 144.
. CCCIV, p. 333.
. CCCII, p. 330.
. CXCVIII, p. 240.
. CXXVII, p. 191.
. CCLIII, p. 285.
. Macbeth, II, i, 7.
. CCLVI, p. 289.
. LIX, p. 127.
. LXXIII, p. 141.
. LXXV, p. 143.
. LXXVI, p. 144.
. CC, p. 241.
. CCLXIV, p. 296.
. CCLXV, p. 296.
. CCLXVII, p. 298.
. CXXXVI, p. 198.
. CXXXII, p. 195.
. CXXX, p. 193.
. CXXXVII, p. 199.
. CXXXI, p. 194.
. CCLV, p. 288.
. CXXXII, p. 269.
. Ibid.
. De Planctu Naturae, Prosa, III, 108 sq. in Wright, Anglo-Latin Satirical Poets.
. Chalcidius, LXV, p. 132.
. CCL, p. 284.
. CCLXXXVI, pp. 316 sq. Cf. Aristotle, Physics, 192a.
. Chalcidius, p. 317.
. II, ix, p. 52.
. Chalcidius, CXXIX, p. 193.
. Wright, op. cit. VII, ii, 4, p. 384.
. CCIII, p. 243.
. Timaeus, 43a.
. Trans. W. H. Stahl, Macrobius: On the Dream of Scipio (Columbia, 1952).
. I, ix.
. II, xii. This is an old Greek semi-pun on σωµα and σηµα.
. II, xii.
. I, xvi.
. Acts XV. 34.
. Authorship disputed.
. Sancti Dionysii . . . opera omnia . . . studio Petri Lanselii . . . Lutetiae Parisiorum (MDCXV).
. See Dante, Par. XXVIII, 133–5.
. C. T. Prol. 624.
. Essay on Man, I, 278.
. Original . . . of Satire, ed. W. P. Ker, vol. II, pp. 34 sq.
. P.R. I, 447.
. Urn Burial, V.
. Summa Theol. IIIa, Qu. xxx, Art. 2.
. I Met. I, 5; p. 128 in the Stewart and Rand’s text with I.P.’s translation (Loeb Library, 1908).
. I Pros. IV, p. 152.
. II Pros. V, p. 202.
. I Pros. III, p. 138.
. II Pros. I, p. 172.
. I Pros. IV, p. 154.
. Ibid.
. II Pros. IV, p. 192.
. Ibid.
. I Met. I, 15, p. 128.
. Cf. Eth. Nic. 1094b, cap. 3.
. III Pros. XII, p. 292.
. V Pros. IV, p. 328.
. II Pros. IV, p. 194.
. V Pros. III, p. 380.
. III Pros. XII, p. 290.
. II Pros. V, 200.
. III Met. VI, p. 249.
. III Pros. XII, p. 288.
. III Met. IX, p. 264.
. I Pros. I, p. 130.
. I Pros. III, p. 140.
. I Pros. IV, p. 150.
. Cf. Vox Clamantis, V, 17.
. Boethius, I Met. V, pp. 154 sq.
. Luke xiii. 4; John ix. 13.
. II Pros. IV, p. 188.
. II Pros. IV, p. 192.
. II Pros. V, pp. 198–200.
. II Met. V.
. II Pros. VII, p. 212.
. Ibid. p. 214.
. II Met. VII, p. 218.
. II Pros. VIII, p. 220.
. III Pros. II, p. 230.
. III Pros. VI, p. 248.
. III Pros. X, p. 268.
. See Lucretius, V.
. See above, .
. III Pros. XII, p. 292.
. III Met. XII, p. 296 (One backward glance sufficed to see, To lose, to kill, Eurydice).
. IV Pros. IV, pp. 322, 324.
. IV Pros. V and Met. V, pp. 334–8.
. IV Pros. VI, p. 380.
. IV Pros. VII, p. 360.
. J. Seznec, The Survival of the Pagan Gods, trans. B. F. Sessions (1953), p. 80.
. V. Met. II, p. 372.
. V Pros. V, p. 394.
. Ibid.
. V Pros. VI, p. 400.
. Ibid. pp. 402–10.
. Ed. W. M. Lindsay, 2 vols. (1910).
CHAPTER 5: THE HEAVENS
. Cf. Dante, Par. I, 109 sq.
. Everyman edn., p. 156.
. Gregory, Moralia, VI, 16; Gower, Confessio, Prol. 945 sq.
. The passage in Chaucer’s Troilus, IV, 302, is not, in the simplest sense, the ‘source’ of this. Chaucer had twisted the idea into an erotic conceit, but King James untwists Chaucer back into complete seriousness. Both poets knew clearly what they were doing.
. See below, .
. De Caelo, 279a.
. De Mundi Universitate, II Pros. VII, p. 48.
. J. B. S. Haldane, Possible Worlds (1930), p. 7.
. Lovejoy, op. cit. p. 100.
. Ed. C. d’Evelyn, A. J. Mill (E.E.T.S., 1956), vol. II, p. 418.
. See E. H. Gombrich, Art and Illusion (1960).
. See below, .
. By A. Pannecock, History of Astronomy (1961).
. Summa, Ia, CXV, Art. 4.
. Cf. Dante, Purg. XVII, 13–17.
. See J. Seznec, The Survival of the Pagan Gods, trans. B. F. Sessions (New York, 1953), p. 191.
. F.Q., versicle to II, vii.
. See Augustine, De Civitate, VII, xiv.
. De Nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii, ed. F. Eyssenhardt (Lipsiae, 1866).
. See above, . Cf. also Pliny, Nat. Hist. II, vii.
. See above, .
. Metaphysics, 1072b.
. I John iv. 10.
. The Extasie, 51.
. Summa de Creaturis Ia, Tract. III, Quaest. XVI, Art. 2.
. Ia, LXX, Art. 3.
. Parisiis, 1543.
. Cantici Primi, tom. III, cap. 8.
. Op. cit. II, Pros. VII, pp. 49–50.
. Hous of Fame II, 929.
. Ia, LXIV, i, et passim.
. Seznec, op. cit. p. 139.
. St Augustine, De Civitate, XX, xviii, xxiv. Aquinas, IIIa, Supplement, Q. LXXIV art. 4.
CHAPTER 6: THE LONGAEVI
. De Nuptiis Mercurii et Philologiae, ed. F. Eyssenhardt (Lipsiae, 1866), II, 167, p. 45.
. Op. cit. II Pros. VII, p. 50.
. M. W. Latham, The Elizabethan Fairies (Columbia, 1940), p. 16. I am much indebted to this throughout.
. Iter Extaticum Il qui et Mundi Subterranei Prodromos dicitur (Romae, Typis Mascardi, MDCLVII), II, i.
. Bogies.
. Discouerie of Witchcraft (1584), VII, xv.
. Pt. 1, 2, M. 1, subs. 2.
. See above, .
. Secret.
. One sees.
. South English Legendary, ed. cit. vol. II, p. 410.
. See L. Abercrombie, Romanticism (1926), p. 53.
. Descriptive Catalogue, IV.
. Orlando Innamorato, II, xxvi, 15.
. Ficino, Theologia Platonica de Immortalitate, IV, i.
. De Nymphis, etc., 1, 2, 3, 6.
. S. Runciman, History of the Crusades (1954), vol. II, p. 424.
. Vol. II, pp. 408–10.
. II, xiii; IV, viii.
. IV, 1245 sq.
. Latham, op. cit. p. 46.
. Pt. 1, s. 2; M. 1, subs. 2.
CHAPTER 7: EARTH AND HER INHABITANTS
. Inferno, VII, 73–96.
. Religio, I, xvii.
. Rise of Rationalism in Europe (1887), vol. I, pp. 268 sq.
. Speculum Naturale, VII, vii.
. See above, .
. See G. Cary, The Medieval Alexander (1956).
. Briefe Description of Afrike in Hakluyt.
. G. Ashe, Land to the West (1962).
. See G. P. Krapp, Exeter Book (1936), p. xxxv.
. Mundi Subterranei Prodromos, III, i.
. They are Lion, Eagle, Snake, Ant, Fox, Stag, Spider, Whale, Siren, Elephant, Turtle-dove, Panther.
. Advancement, I, Everyman, p. 70.
. Moralia, VI, 16.
. Migne, CCX, 222d.
. R. de la Rose, 19,043 sq.
. Prol. 945.
. On the whole question, see Aquinas 1a, XC, art. 2, 3.
. Timaeus, 41c sq.
. Donne, Litanie, 10–11.
. See Aquinas, loc. cit. art 4.
. Ia, XC, art. 4.
. Op. cit. II, Pros. iii, p. 37.
. Pt. I, i, M 2, subs. 7.
. Bright (see J. Winny, The Frame of Order, 1957, p. 57).
. See above, .
. Extasie, 61.
. Cf. Paradise Lost, V, 483 sq.
. Winny, op. cit. pp. 57–8.
. To Southey, 8 Aug. 1815.
. A 351.
. Brit. Mus. Add. 17,987.
. Enigmatically, to be sure. But they support the Melancholy atmosphere.
. F. Heer, The Medieval World, trans. J. Sandheimer (1961).
. The Dark Ages (1923), p. 41.
. Prose works (Bohn), vol. V, p. 168.
. Smectymnuus, Prose works (Bohn), vol. III, p. 127.
. The actual practice and history, of medieval education are a different matter. The relevant chapters of D. Knowles’ Evolution of Medieval Thought (1962) are a good introduction.
. Isidore, I, iv; Gower, IV, 2637.
. By them sits Boethius, lost in hesitation. Hearing upon either hand learn’d asseveration, Wondering which side to take in this disputation; So he durs’n’t bring the case to a termination.
. Ed. Faral, Les Arts Poétiques du XIIe et du XIIIe Siècles.
. II, 100 sq.
. III, A 220 sq.
. See Vinaver, Works of Malory, vol. I, pp. xlviii sq.
. The Mirror of Love (Lubbock, Texas, 1952).
. See Faral, op. cit.
. IV, xlix.
. See New Oxford History of Music, vols. II and III; G. Reese, Music in the Middle Ages (New York, 1940) and Music in the Renaissance (New York, 1954); C. Parrish, The Notation of Medieval Music (1957); F. L. Harrison, Music in Medieval Britain (1958).
CHAPTER 8: THE INFLUENCE OF THE MODEL
. European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, pp. 195 sq.
. See above, .
. Seznec, op. cit. fig. 21.
. Ibid. fig. 63.
. Ibid. fig. 22.
. Ibid. p. 73.
. Seznec, op. cit. p. 77.
. Ibid. p. 79.
. See E. Wind, Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance (1958).
. ‘Most of the first clocks were less chronometers than exhibitions of the pattern of the universe’ L. White, Jr, Medieval Technology and Social Change, Oxford, 1962, p. 122
. IV, 23.
. See also E. Auerbach, Mimesis (Berne, 1946), trans. W. Trask, Princeton, 1957.
. At first the reader may complain that the quality I am describing is simply the character of all good imaginative writing whatever. I believe not. In Racine there are no foreground facts at all, nothing for our senses. Virgil relies chiefly on atmosphere, sound, and association. In Paradise Lost (as its theme demands) the art lies less in making us imagine the concrete than in making us believe we have imagined the unimaginable. Homer, had they known him, could have helped the medievals. Two details—the baby’s fear of the plumed helmet and Andromache’s tearful smile (Iliad, VI, 466–84)—are very much in their manner. But in general his art is not very like theirs. The detailed descriptions of work—launching a ship, preparing a meal—by being formalised and constantly repeated produce a quite different effect. We feel not the seized moment but the changeless pattern of life. He brings his people before us almost entirely by making them talk. Even so, their language is distanced by the epic formula; song, not speech. Eurycleia, the moment she has recognised her old master, promises him a confidential report on the behaviour of the domestics during his absence (Odyssey, XIX, 495–8). The Old Family Servant is pin-pointed forever. We read her mind, but we do not actually hear her voice. Not as we hear Launcelot’s fumbling reiteration ‘And therefore, madam, I was but late in that quest’ (Malory, XVIII, 2), or Chaucer’s monosyllabic replies to the eagle (Hous of Fame, III, 864, 888, 913). Indeed it may be doubted whether the characteristic merits of the four great poets I have mentioned (Racine, Virgil, Milton, Homer) are even compatible with the medieval vividness. No one kind of work admits every excellence.
. See above, .
. A notable exception is the King who thought lygisogur skemtilagastar (lying sagas the most entertaining) (see Sturlunga Saga, ed. O. Brown, 1952, p. 19).
. De Vulg. Eloquentia, I, xvii; Purgatorio, XXI, 85.
. Aquinas Ia, I, Art. 9.
. See above, .
EPILOGUE
. See above, .
. See Lovejoy, op. cit. cap. ix.