Provisional Drogereit pdf

Scribe Aethelstan A (p. 361)
Charters 92 :
C. S. 677 0 ; 674; 689; 691; 692; Flebilia fortiter-Proem. C. S. 702 0 ; 704; 745;
Fortuna fallentis-Proem.
The style of our scribe is completely individual. He has a style that is rich in words
and idiom and adorned with imagery. At times he can hardly be translated 93 . Even
later we find genitive attributes and rarely used words, mostly of Greek origin, but it
is to such an extent that every sentence of the Proem is adorned with embellishments,
with extensive use of the genitive. Pleonasm characterise him as well as the position
of the words in the article: adjective a – adjective b: noun B – noun A. The Anglo-
Saxon noun style is now more pronounced than anywhere else 94 . In the Proem C. S.
677, for example, we have only two modified verb forms in 84 words, yet on the other
hand there are frequently inflected participles, gerundives and gerunds. Ae. A adorns
the splendid but dark language with the cursus (i.e. prose rhythm), which, however, is
not always well done. As a further embellishment he used the internal rhyme, which
usually joins the most significant words in the sentence. At the beginning he uses the
stock rhyme: “Flebilia fortiter” and “Fortuna fallentis”. “These two embellishments of
beautiful speech, rhyme and alliteration, much loved by the Irish, also play a major
role in the Latin poetry of the Anglo-Saxons” 95 . The fullness of the pictures, the visual
effect, the avoidance of the simple thought are also in keeping with the language. The
style has a poetic quality.
Examples of:
Rare words: totillo (titillo); latratus; foetidus; nausea; peripsema; quisquiliae;
omnipatrans; stridulus; salpinx; soma; ima; tanaliter 96 (meaning?); organum etc.
Pleonasm: C. S. 677: peripsema quisquiliarum; infinite letitiae iucunditatem; C. S.
702: lacteo candore; fellita amaritudine.
92 In the comparison of diplomatic all non-suspect charters that we can assign to Ae. A are also
included. The originals are distinguishable by a small superscript o (e.g. 677 0 ).
93 Napier and Stevenson, Crawford Charters (for one charter assigned to him at a later date), p. 65:
“The turgid proem…” or “The phraseology of the present charter is so inflated, that frequently the
sense can only be made out with difficulty.”
94 In his published paper (Göttingen 1932) on the characteristics of Anglo-Saxon grammar, Dr. G.
Weber indicated this heavy use of the nouns and participles contrasted with the omission of verbs and
adjectives.
95 W. Meyer from Speyer, Die Verskunst der Iren in rhytmischen lateinischen Gedichten, in
Nachrichten der Königlichen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften, Göttingen, Phil.-hist. Klasse 1916, p.
635 (The art of verse of the Irish in rhythmic Latin poems, in news of the Royal Society of Scientists).
It also included the following on style (p. 630): “Der hochtrabenden……sehr angemessen.” (“Multisyllabled
words are very appropriate to the high-faluting and long-winded Anglo-Saxon method of
expression.”
96 This word “tanaliter” normally appears only in hymno q. d. Bethmanni (see R. Ehwald, Aldhelmi
Opera, in M. G. H. Auctores Antiquissimi XV. p. 509 [2]).
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