Late Latin : Medieval and Renaissance Latin Hexameter Poetry

The syllabus for Medieval Latin language and literature focuses on some of the cultural highpoints of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, giving the student insight into the main literary genres (e.g. history, hagiography, letters, satire, secular and religious lyric, epic and theology/philosophy) and into the works of some of the greatest and most influential writers of the period.  The division of the set texts into two sections will allow a broader range of texts to be studied without the amount of reading becoming too onerous for the student.  The texts have been chosen for their accessibility in libraries (e.g. the Bodleian or the Classics Lending Library) or in bookshops where possible, and for most of them translations are also available.  Copies of most of the set texts are available from the Classics Office, 37 Wellington Square. 

Another aim in selecting these texts has been to provide some coherence amid the bewildering number of works written in Latin throughout western Europe during the Middle Ages.  For example: Abelard's popular and provocative autobiographical letter, the HistoriaCalamitatum, includes an account of his controversial use of dialectic to explore faith with reason; in this he was following Anselm of Canterbury who in the Proslogion gives systematic form to the ontological argument: both men can be seen as forerunners of the scholastic theologians.  Abelard later clashed with the Cistercian Bernard of Clairvaux who, as a mystic rather than a scholar, stands at the opposite end of the theological spectrum.  The bitter argument between these two was finally mediated by Peter the Venerable, abbot of Cluny.  The collection of Peter's letters, of which one of his letters to Heloise, describing the end of Abelard's life, is included in the syllabus, is one of the great medieval letter collections, as are those of the humanists Fulbert of Chartres and John of Salisbury.  The latter, a student of Abelard at Paris for a time, mentions in this letter to his brother the plight of the exiled Thomas Becket, and it is to him, after his murder in Canterbury Cathedral, that Adam of St. Victor dedicates his hymn GaudeSion et laetare, while Adam's Ave virgosingularis is similar in form and imagery to the most famous of Walter of Châtillon's satires against corruption in the Roman church, PropterSion non tacebo.  Walter's other great work was his epic on Alexander the Great, of which one book is set, together with one book of the satirical "beast-fable" epic, Ysengrimus.  The Archpoet's lyrics are full of classical and biblical allusion, such as Aestuansintrinsecus, iravehementi, which was included among the CarminaBurana.  Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain includes the first coherent account of King Arthur, an account which was to be an inspiration to many writers from Chrétien de Troyes to Malory.  If you are interested in this option, do try, for example, Abelard's HistoriaCalamitatum (available in the Penguin Classics Letters of Abelard and Heloise) or Geoffrey of Monmouth (also in Penguin), and read C. H. Haskins' introduction to the period, The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century.