The following essay is concerned with the significance of the references to the realm of heroic myth in Euripides' Orestes. It will deal with the way in which Euripides constructs the context of myth in which the action of the play is set and the importance of this perspective for interpretation of the drama. My object is to show that this dimension of the drama is both more explicit and significant than has been commonly recognized. I believe that an examination of the references to the traditional tales about the house of Atreus will reveal that they are not just a bow to either the conventions of the Attic stage or the sensibilities of the audience, but rather that they form an important component of Euripides' drama. In most studies of the play the significance of these references has been neglected; few critics or commentators have expended much interest or enthusiasm on this facet of the drama, and the references to this dimension of the drama's experience have tended to be regarded with little more than antiquarian interest. Consequently, before I turn to the examination of the mythical references in the Orestes, I would like to comment briefly upon two interrelated areas of inquiry which have tended to support this general attitude toward the play; these are the problems of interpretation posed by the play as a whole and then the very problematic question of Euripides' attitude to myth.

In the first book of De doctrina Christiana, Augustine of Hippo famously teaches that only the Trinity is to be enjoyed; all other things and even people are to be used toward this singular end. The brevity of Augustine's passing remarks on the Trinity gives no hint that he will later devote many pages to the topic. He writes:

The so-called Barnwell chronicle contains “the best, the fullest and most sophisticated annals” written in England for the years 1202–25. Bishop Stubbs made its reputation, declaring it to be “one of the most valuable contributions in existence to the history of that eventful period,” and those who have used it since agree; J. C. Holt, for instance, thinks it is the “most perceptive” narrative source. Because the text has never been printed from the “Barnwell” manuscript, the chronicle is better known from the Memoriale fratris Walteri de Coventria, which reproduces these annals almost verbatim. But their origin remains shrouded in mystery. Although many questions have been raised about them, the essential one is: Where were they written? To answer that question, one must first determine the interrelationship of the existing manuscripts that contain the text; then one can try to establish the provenance of the oldest manuscript and hence of the chronicle itself. Stubbs, of course, attempted to do just that, but with insufficient evidence and little concern for the canons of textual criticism. The present study will demonstrate that the “Barnwell” manuscript is in fact not the earliest; instead, it derives from British Library MS Add. 35,168, which was written at Crowland Abbey and which was probably copied from a lost original that was both composed and written at Peterborough.

The only instance in which the present-day Roman liturgy refers to Moses as a saint is the beginning of the entry for September 4th in the Martyrologium, which says: ‘In Monte Nebo terrae Moab sancti Moysis legislatoris et prophetae.’ This entry is found in Baronius' edition of 1586. In the annotated edition, Baronius commented on this entry: ‘Agunt de eodem hoc die non tantum Latini omnes, sed et Graeci in Menologio.’

Some years ago I called attention to these words of the early thirteenth-century decretalist, Vincentius Hispanus, on the powers of the pope and of the prince: ‘… sit voluntas pro ratione.’ What is the meaning? Did Vincentius hold that the supreme authority was arbitrarily absolute, that the voluntas of the monarch must in all circumstances be accepted as reason itself? Must we believe that he advanced a doctrine of unlimited absolutism — of the pope in the Church and of the emperor in the Empire? And that he anticipated a theory of sovereignty as the authority and powers of the ruler subject neither to the law nor to the laws?

The Maitland Memorial Lectures for 1948, delivered at Cambridge University by Dr. Walter Ullmann, were published in 1949, somewhat enlarged, under the title, Medieval Papalism: The Political Theories of the Medieval Canonists (London, Methuen & Co., 1949; pp. xiv, 230). In six chapters the author sets forth his views on certain fundamental problems of medieval political history which were given their doctrinal development and practical realization by the canonists jointly with the popes, that is to say, by the legislative authority and the jurisprudence of the medieval Church.

In many medieval calendars the calendar proper for each month is preceded or followed by a verse (or several verses) treating of one (or one each) of the following subjects:

1. (a) the zodiacal sign

2. (b) the number of solar days

3. (c) the number of lunar days

4. (d) the position of the nones

5. (e) the Greek, Hebrew, and Egyptian names

6. (f) the Roman traditions of the name and significance of the month

7. (g) the climatic conditions (aeris qualitates)

8. (h) the evil days (dies Aegyptiaci).

The study of medieval calendars has been so much preoccupied with their chronological and heortological aspects that, to my knowledge, these verses have never been the subject of a comprehensive investigation. In many editions they have been omitted as extraneous matter.

The use of moral stories or cautionary tales in sermons to illustrate and reinforce homiletic doctrine was widely accepted by medieval preachers. While diffusion of suitable narratives for this purpose was sometimes accomplished by oral means, such tales were more commonly transmitted by compendia or encyclopedias of didactic stories. These compilations were circulated throughout medieval Christendom for use as reference books by the homilist composing a sermon or series of sermons to be read by his colleagues or delivered from his pulpit.

When, on election to the papacy in 1088, Odo of Ostia selected the name Urban II, he did so in acknowlegment of the clerical reforms then attributed to the obscure Urban I (†. 230). A careful investigation would clearly indicate the association — albeit on spurious grounds — of the memory of this ancient pope with clerical reform and the canons regular during the eleventh century. And the vigorous role of Odo-Urban as patron and reformer of the canons regular is readily documented. However, while they probably are apparent to certain specialists, no historian seems to have indicated the implications of Urban II's name in a detailed and explicit fashion.

Gratian, the “Father of the Science of Canon Law,” had at least a passing familiarity with the scholastic theology of the early twelfth century. His Concordia discordantium canonum or Decretum displays a knowledge of many doctrines debated and discussed in the schools of northern France and also employs the dialectical method for reconciling contradictory authorities pioneered by the scholastics. How did Gratian become acquainted with these methods, doctrines, and ideas? What written sources, if any, introduced him to early scholastic theology?

The origins of Irish Christianity are unknown. Even the history of the Irish Church during the fifth and sixth centuries is somewhat shrouded in obscurity, and leaves a wide scope for speculation. This is particularly true with regard to the careers of the earliest missionaries of Ireland known to us by name—Palladius and Patrick. Contemporary evidence is extremely meagre in the case of Palladius and conflicting in the case of Patrick; and the more eloquent witnesses of later times often contradict either each other or our primary sources. It is not, then, surprising that the relation between these two missionaries and their respective missions was fervently discussed by scholars during the last one hundred and fifty years. Looking back at the vast amount of diligent labour and learned argument devoted to this problem, one is surprised to find the status quaestionis almost the same at the end as at the beginning. Only in recent years has a way been opened which gives hope to attain reasonable certainty on some at least of the disputed points. With Professor T. F. O'Rahilly's pamphlet The Two Patricks (Dublin 1942) the problem has entered its critical phase. By his lucid statement of the principal issue and its implications, based on a firsthand knowledge of the complete evidence, Professor O'Rahilly has put under a lasting obligation even those who, like the present writer, find it impossible to accept his main thesis. If I offer a different solution of the vexed problem, I do so in a spirit of gratitude to the pioneer whose work alone has made the present study possible.

These Notes are the result of a protracted study in the course of which the Byzantine synapte has been examined in more than fifty manuscripts, each of which has again and again for this and other purposes been closely scrutinized. The text which precedes the Notes includes a distinctive —and, as far as I know, entirely new — feature, viz., a twofold recension of the synapte which is explained and justified in the Concluding Remarks following Note II. Immediately after the text itself and the brief comments which have appeared desirable or necessary, there is an Excursus on saints' names in the Τῆς παναγίας bidding at the very end of the synapte. This subject is part of a much larger one, viz., lists of saints' names in liturgical prayers. One thinks first of all of the list which appears in the Communicantes of the Roman Canon and of parallel lists in the East. It is interesting to note, however, that whereas the lengthened medieval lists failed to establish themselves permanently within the framework of the Anaphora in the East or of the Canon in the West, they did succeed in maintaining themselves in the East in certain prayers still found in the Euchology and Horologion.

The recovery of the work of an author previously known only through citations and references in other manuscripts is always an exciting event. Although rare in any area of medieval studies, such finds broaden our knowledge of the intellectual development and open up new aspects for study. It was through a fortuitous paralleling of citations in Gregory of Rimini with an anonymous Sentences-commentary at the Franciscan convent in Fribourg that Damasus Trapp, a ground-breaker in fourteenth-century scholastic studies, discovered the Sentences-commentary of an English Benedictine still known only as Monachus Niger. More recently Jan Pinborg has connected the fourteenth-century citations to the Magister Abstractionum with a work otherwise known as the Sophismata of Richardus Sophista. The following discovery, although not at present of the same importance to the field, shares one thing in common with Trapp's discovery. It provides us with yet another text from the same period of Oxford thought and may in fact also be by a Benedictine, a group that was numerically strong at Oxford but from which we have had almost no extant work to study.

The Poenitentiale or Liber Poenitentialis of Robert of Flamborough, canon penitentiary of the Abbey of St. Victor at Paris, is a practical manual which made available to the ordinary confessor of the early thirteenth century the fruit of the speculation of canonists and theologians as well as the jurisprudence of popes — all of which had been accumulating during the latter half of the twelfth century. It applied the canon law of the time to such matters as marriage, ordination, simony, usury and feudal contracts. Such a work is of obvious interest to the scholar, and two recent articles, one by Stephan Kuttner in Traditio in 1944 and the other by Pierre Michaud-Quantin in Recherches de Théologie ancienne et médiévale in 1959, have dealt with it at some length. Some features have come to my attention which apparently had escaped the notice of others.

On 28 April 1192 Conrad, marquis of Montferrat and lord of Tyre, husband of the last royal princess of Jerusalem and newly-elected king of that embattled state, was assassinated. The persons immediately responsible for that deed were captured and summarily executed, but there was and remains some doubt about who was to blame ultimately for the crime. A new analysis of the evidence may shed some light on that unidentified culprit.

The letters of Francesco Bruni, secretary to three popes, which are printed in the appendix to this article, belong to a largely unexplored collection in the State Archives of Florence, the Carte Del Bene. This important family archive contains business records and private papers of the Del Bene family, a small but prominent mercantile house in Trecento Florence. While the account books are of primary interest to the economic historian, the letters contain valuable information on political and social problems and, in the case of these letters, on aspects of ecclesiastical history. Francesco Bruni was a close friend of the Del Bene, and to this connection we owe the fortunate survival of six of his letters from the papal curia. The sources on the Avignonese papacy are many and varied, but this epistolary collection throws light upon certain features of the curial administration and its personalities which are not well documented by other types of evidence.

Among the many personal faults with which Petrarch, in his dialogue entitled The Secret or The Soul's Conflict with Passion, let himself be charged by St. Augustine, there was one which he found harder to renounce than any other. In reply to Augustine's reproach: ‘You are seeking fame among men and the immortality of your name more than is right,' Petrarch could only say: ‘This I admit freely and cannot find any remedy to restrain that desire.' In fact, throughout his life Petrarch was well aware that ‘to the whole people I have been a favola,' as he declared in the introductory sonnet of his Rime Sparse, and he showed himself constantly determined to perpetuate his fame beyond death, as his Epistle to Posterity and numerous other autobiographical documents demonstrate. His effort bore fruit, for the life of no other literary figure of the fourteenth century, not even that of Dante, was told more frequently and fully by the writers of the Renaissance than that of Petrarch. Among his biographers we find some of the greatest Italian humanists, including Giovanni Boccaccio, Filippo Villani, Leonardo Bruni Aretino, Pietro Paolo Vergerio and Gianozzo Manetti. But, interestingly enough, for the period of the first century after Petrarch's death in 1374, there exists not a single biography which was composed by a non-Italian writer. This fact is the more notable when we remember the tremendous reputation which Petrarch enjoyed, during his own era and afterwards, in France and Germany, and even in remote England, where Chaucer, in The Clerk's Prologue, sang the praise of ‘this clerk whose rethoryke so sweete enlumed al Itaille of poetrye.' The anonymous Bohemian scholar who, at the beginning of the fifteenth century, brought together an anthology of Petrarch's works, did not himself write a biography but simply used the one written by Vergerio. Interest in the personalities and achievements of the great poets and artists arose first in Italy, and it was there that the traditional literary form of ‘the lives of the illustrious men' was filled with a new spirit and content. From this point of view it appears characteristic that the first biography of Petrarch by a non-Italian was composed only after the passage of a hundred years following his death and that it was written by a man like Rudolph Agricola who was more than any of his northern fellow humanists influenced by Italian traditions and who, at the same time, was to become ‘the founder of the new intellectual life in Germany.’

My aim in this paper is to study the relationship between love and pleasure as understood by the Franciscan masters Peter Aureol, William of Ockham, Walter Chatton, and Adam Wodeham. These masters have treated this relationship in their commentaries on Peter Lombard's Sentences, book 1, distinction 1. The standard subject matter of the first distinction of scholastic Sentences commentaries was the nature of beatific enjoyment (fruitio beatifica). The comparative study of these texts is important, because it sheds some light on the history of fourteenth-century scholastic philosophy of human psychology in general, and on the contribution of Franciscan writers to the philosophical and theological analysis of volition and emotions in particular.

The Middle English verse “Life of St. Egwine” is one of the many hagiographic poems affiliated with the so-called South English Legendary or Legendaries (SEL), a widely copied collection of vernacular devotional texts whose earliest compilation has been dated to the thirteenth century, and whose latest manuscripts date to the first half of the fifteenth. A minor saint, Ecgwine was the third bishop of Worcester and the founder of the monastic community at Evesham Abbey. One of the most striking features of his early hagiography is that the earliest version of his vita contains the only surviving account of a dispute between a monastery and a tenant to be dated to the Anglo-Saxon period. This is indicative of his cult's close association with the endowed properties of Evesham, an aspect of his hagiographic tradition that is also discernible in the SEL legend.