A Companion to Boethius in the Middle Ages

Erscheinungsjahr 2012
ISBN: 978-90-04-18354-4
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 30, 662 Seiten, Format (B × H): 159 mm x 244 mm, Gewicht: 1175 g

Reihe: Brill's Companions to the Christian Tradition

The articles in this volume focus upon Boethius's extant works: his De arithmetica and a fragmentary De musica, his translations and commentaries on logic, his five theological texts, and, of course, his Consolation of Philosophy. They examine the effects that Boethian thought has exercised upon the learning of later generations of scholars--including, to a degree, scholars of the 21st century. The field of Boethian Studies has enjoyed a continuous history of works that treat either the entire Boethian tradition or major aspects of it. This volume offers a comprehensive study, and its construction is systematic, considering Boethius's works both as central to the disciplines that they represent and to the areas of scholarly interest that they influenced, and it is framed by articles on the historical contexts in which those works were produced.

Contributors include: Noel Harold Kaylor, Jr., Stephen McCluskey, Rosalind C. Love, Jean-Yves Guillaumin, Siobhan Nash-Marshall, John Casey, Paul E. Szarmach, Christine Hehle, Glynnis M. Cropp, Dario Bancato, Ian Johnson, Mark T. Rimple, Ann E. Moyer, Fabio Troncarelli, and Philip Edward Phillips.

Zielgruppe

All those interested in Boethius, his life, major works, reception, and influence from late antiquity through the early modern period.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Kaylor, Noel Harold

Phillips, Philip Edward

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Wissenschafts- und Universitätsgeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtswissenschaft Allgemein Historiographie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgments
Preface
Introduction: The Times, Life, and Work of Boethius
Noel Harold Kaylor, Jr.
Boethius’s Astronomy and Cosmology
Stephen C. McCluskey
The Latin Commentaries on Boethius’s De consolatione philosophiae from the 9th to the 11th Centuries
Rosalind C. Love
Boethius’s De institutione arithmetica and its Influence on Posterity
Jean-Yves Guillaumin
Boethius’s Influence on Theology and Metaphysics to c.1500
Siobhan Nash-Marshall
Boethius’s Works on Logic in the Middle Ages
John Patrick Casey
Boethius’s Influence in Anglo-Saxon England: The Vernacular and the De consolatione philosophiae
Paul E. Szarmach
Boethius’s Influence on German Literature to c.1500
Christine Hehle
Boethius in Medieval France: Translations of the De consolatione philosophiae and Literary Influence
Glynnis M. Cropp
Readers and Interpreters of the Consolatio in Italy, 1300–1500
Dario Brancato
Making the Consolatio in Middle English
Ian Johnson
The Enduring Legacy of Boethian Harmony
Mark T. Rimple
The Quadrivium and the Decline of Boethian Influence
Ann E. Moyer
Afterword: Boethius in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages
Fabio Troncarelli
Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius: A Chronology and Selected Annotated Bibliography
Philip Edward Phillips
List of Contributors
Index of Manuscripts Cited
Index

Leseproben

Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius was a scholar and political figure in Italy during the late 5th and early 6th centuries. It is of Boethius the scholar, of his scholarship, and primarily of the influence of Boethius’s scholarly work that the contributors to this volume have written. That influence, although extensive for a millennium, has declined during the last five centuries, and it is studied today primarily by historians of the period in which Boethius lived and in the disciplines he once defined by the books that comprise his intellectual legacy. His work of principal interest today, of course, is his final statement to the world, his De consolatione philosophiae. Among the “lost works,” a geometry (fragments of which seem to survive today) and an astronomy (now lost) are attested. We no longer possess these two translations, or Latin adaptations, if indeed they were produced and circulated for general audiences. We do, however, retain the Greek originals from which, we presume, Boethius worked: Euclid’s Elements, Ptolemy’s Almagest, and certain other resources he may have consulted. We possess Boethius’s De arithmetica and a fragmentary De musica, which represent for readers today his dedicated interest in the disciplines of the quadrivium––the four mathematical sciences of his time. We also possess his translations and commentaries on logic, which represent for readers today the focus of his systematic interest in the trivium––the three basic language-arts courses of study in the period. Apart from Boethius’s Latin textbooks on Greek knowledge, we possess five theological texts, which seem to have served a more limited audience. Then, most prominently, there is the Consolatio.

Speaking in the Consolatio to Lady Philosophy concerning the dismal environment of the prison cell of his confinement near the end of his life, Boethius asks, both ironically and sardonically:

Do you not recognize the library, which you once chose for yourself as a secure dwelling-place in my house––the very room in which you used often to sit with me discoursing on the knowledge of all things human and divine? Was this how I looked, was this my expression, when I used to seek out with you the secrets of Nature? When with your rod you drew for me the paths of the stars? When you shaped my character and the whole manner of my life according to celestial models?1 (1p4)
In these most unfortunate circumstances, Boethius recalls his earlier, more fortunate situation––sequestered in his library with his books.
Later, to Lady Philosophy’s question, “[.] what is a man?” Boethius-the-prisoner responds: “Are you asking me if I know that I am a mortal, rational animal? I do know that, and admit to being such” (1p6; emphasis added).2 Boethius, therefore, perceives the universe not only through sense data and images but also through reason3 (5p4 and 5p5). Nature for Boethius was neither the mystical and verdant realm, uncontaminated by civilization, sung about by the Romantics of the late 18th century, nor the physical realm of flora and fauna, seemingly timeless in ist origin, studied by the scientists of the 19th century. It was a mathematical realm to be apprehended abstractly, by reason, and understood through mathematical and musical proportions. Boethius was neither a naturalist nor a biologist. He inhabited his well-apportioned library, and he invited into that private space those compatible associates who shared his intellectual interests. He was a human (a mortal, rational) thinker who was aware of the epistemological chain from the mollusks to the quadrupeds below him, but who also could contemplate the divine understanding that he assumed to occupy an epistemological level above him.
The chapters in this volume do not dwell upon Boethius’s lost works, which––as evidenced by significant passages in the Consolatio––might reveal important dimensions of his mind and learning. Such a study would require specul

Über Autor(innen)

Kaylor, Noel Harold
Noel Harold Kaylor, Jr., Ph.D. (1985) in comparative literature, Vanderbilt University, is Professor of English at Troy University. He has published extensively on Boethius, including The Medieval Consolation of Philosophy (1992), John Bracegirdle’s Psychopharmacon (1999), New Directions in Boethian Studies (2007), and The Consolation of Queen Elizabeth I (2009). He is co-editor of Carmina Philosophiae and Executive Director of the International Boethius Society.

Phillips, Philip Edward
Philip Edward Phillips, Ph.D. (1996) in English, Vanderbilt University, is Interim Associate Dean of the University Honors College and Professor of English at Middle Tennessee State University. He is the author of John Milton’s Epic Invocations (2000) and the coeditor of New Directions in Boethian Studies (2007) and The Consolation of Queen Elizabeth I (2009). He is co-editor of Carmina Philosophiae and Secretary of the International Boethius Society.

Noel Harold Kaylor, Jr., Ph.D. (1985) in comparative literature, Vanderbilt University, is Professor of English at Troy University. He has published extensively on Boethius, including The Medieval Consolation of Philosophy (1992), John Bracegirdle’s Psychopharmacon (1999), New Directions in Boethian Studies (2007), and The Consolation of Queen Elizabeth I (2009). He is co-editor of Carmina Philosophiae and Executive Director of the International Boethius Society.

Philip Edward Phillips, Ph.D. (1996) in English, Vanderbilt University, is Interim Associate Dean of the University Honors College and Professor of English at Middle Tennessee State University. He is the author of John Milton’s Epic Invocations (2000) and the coeditor of New Directions in Boethian Studies (2007) and The Consolation of Queen Elizabeth I (2009). He is co-editor of Carmina Philosophiae and Secretary of the International Boethius Society.