The Age of Erasmus: Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and LondonAllen, P. S. (Percy Stafford)
History
The Age of Erasmus: Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London
Allen, P. S. (Percy Stafford)
Erasmus, Desiderius, -1536; Renaissance
Here the confusion of c with t begins the misleading; which is carried
further by the gloss, 'Genetheum: locus subterraneus vbi habitant
mulieres ad laborandum, et dicitur a geneth quod est mulier, et thesis
positio, quia ibi ponebantur mulieres ad laborandum'; or 'Genetheum:
absconsio subterranea mulierum'.
Estque decem gintos, dicas hinc esse viginti,
Vt pentecoste, coste valebit idem.
Pos quoque pes tibi sit, compos tibi comprobat illud,
Atque p[)e]dos puer est, hinc pedagogus erit.
Dic zoen animam, die ind[=e] z[=o][)e]c[)a]isychen.
This last word appears in eleven different forms in the manuscripts.
The gloss interprets it plainly as 'vita mea et anima mea'; but
without this aid it must have been unintelligible to most readers,
especially in such forms as zoychaysichen, zoycazyche, zoichasichen,
zoyasichem.
The 'breath of something better' which Hegius and Zinthius brought was
seen in the substitution of the _Doctrinale_ of Alexander of
Ville-Dieu, near Avranches (_fl._ 1200), as the school Latin grammar.
This also is a metrical composition; and it has the merit of being
both shorter and also more correct. It was first printed at Venice by
Wendelin of Spires (_c._ 1470), and after a moderate success in Italy,
twenty-three editions in fourteen years, it was taken up in the North
and quickly attained great popularity. By 1500 more than 160 editions
had been printed, of the whole or of various parts, and in the next
twenty years there were nearly another hundred, before it was
superseded by more modern compositions, such as Linacre's grammar,
which held the field throughout Europe for a great part of the
sixteenth century. The number of Deventer editions of the _Doctrinale_
is considerable, mostly containing the glosses of Hegius and Zinthius,
which overwhelm the text with commentary; a single distich often
receiving two pages of notes, so full of typographical abbreviations
and so closely packed together as to be almost illegible. This very
fullness, however, probably indicates a change in the method of
teaching, which by quickening it up must indeed have put new life into
it; for it would clearly have been impossible to dictate such lengthy
commentaries, or the boys would have made hardly any progress.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account