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Establishing the Authentic Corpus of the Latin Verse of Paul the Deacon: a Philological, Textual and Statistical Study

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Establishing the authentic corpus of the Latin verse of Paul the Deacon: a philological, textual and statistical study Sidney David Ross B.A. (Open), LL.B, M.Sc, Ph.D (London) Ph.D University of York History February 2020 Abstract The thesis is a study, in eight chapters, of the poetic corpus attributed to the Lombard cleric Paul the Deacon (ca. 725-799) and its object is to determine the likelihood of his authorship of each of sixty-eight poems. Chapter 1 describes the state of literary culture in the period of Paul’s writings, summarises the two major biographical studies of him and some shorter, but important studies, and discusses the content of the two major editions of his poems and the extent to which their editors agree and disagree. Chapter 2 reviews nine studies of the works of Paul’s recent predecessors and contemporaries, commenting on the types of evidence employed to establish authorship and the extent to which such evidence has yielded reliable conclusions. Chapters 3-7 are an original contribution to the investigation of Paul’s authorship. Chapter 3 provides the first systematic study of the difficulties specific to studying the poetic corpus of Paul. Chapters 4 and 5 (the latter devoted entirely to the hymns) give a detailed account of the philological, textual and historical evidence for and against his authorship of the works studied, and an estimate of the likelihood of his authorship. Chapter 6 describes the relevant principles of statistical testing, while Chapter 7 describes its employment in this study, including the particular test devised for investigating metrical patterns in poems composed in dactylic metres. The test is illustrated, and its reliability is evaluated by ascertaining whether it has any propensity to throw up false positives or negatives, before applying it to poems of doubtful authorship. Finally, Chapter 8 summarises the conclusions, proposing the addition of four poems, including one which has never before been unequivocally attributed to him, to the provisional canon consisting of the twenty- eight which Dümmler and Neff agree are the work of Paul. 2 List of Contents Abstract 2 Table of contents 3 List of Tables 8 Preface 13 Acknowledgments 14 Author’s declaration 14 Main text 15 Introduction 15 Who was Paul the Deacon ? 15 What verse is Paul said to have composed ? 17 Establishing the content of the authentic corpus 20 Outline of the thesis 21 Chapter 1: Paul’s life and times, and the poetic corpus considered in this study 23 1.1 : Brief background to Paul 23 1.2 : Biography and writings 26 1.2.1 : Introduction 26 1.2.2 : Benevento and before 27 1.2.3 : The interim period 31 1.2.4 : Francia 33 1.2.5 : Monte Cassino 36 1.2.6 : Summary 38 1.3 : Editions of poems 40 1.3.1 : Introduction 40 1.3.2 : Dümmler’s edition (1881) 40 1.3.3 : Neff’s edition (1908) 41 1.3.4 : Citelli’s edition (2014) 41 1.3.5 : Comparison of the editions 42 1.4 : Prior studies of Paul’s life and works 42 1.4.1 : Introduction 42 1.4.2 : Bethmann’s study and discussion of the verse compositions 43 1.4.3: Dahn’s study and discussion of the verse compositions 44 1.4.4 : The conclusions reached by Bethmann and Dahn 45 1.4.5 : The account by Manitius 45 3 1.4.6 : Brunhölzl and the Verfasserlexikon 46 1.4.7. The manuscript study by Francesco Stella 51 1.4.8: Summary 60 Chapter 2: Early mediaeval Latin literature: nine studies of authorship 61 Part 1: The selected studies and the methods employed in them 61 2.1 : Introduction 61 2.2 : The identification of style and the process of attribution 61 2.3 : The selected studies 64 2.3.1 : Study 1.1, Lapidge on Aldhelm 66 2.3.2 : Study 1.2, Orchard on Aldhelm 68 2.3.3 : Study 2.1, Lapidge on Bede 73 2.3.4 : Study 3.1, Schaller on Theodulf 77 2.3.5 : Study 3.2, Burghardt on Alcuin 83 2.3.6 : Study 4.1, Freeman on the Libri Carolini 89 2.3.7 : Study 5.1, Lapidge on Columbanus 92 (a) Ad Fidolium and other metrical poems 92 (b) Epilogue-Did Columbanus compose metrical verse ? 96 2.3.8 : Study 5.2, Herren on Columbanus 98 2.3.9 : Summary of the competing views on Columbanus 100 Part 2: The scope for the use of various types of evidence in an attribution study of the poetic corpus of Paul 102 2.4 : Introduction 102 2.5 : Statements of authorship 104 2.6 : Contextual and biographical evidence 107 2.7 : Metrical, lexical and other stylistic evidence 109 2:8 Conclusion 110 Chapter 3: The problems specific to a study of the poetic corpus attributed to Paul 111 3.1: Introduction 111 3.2. The lack of a collection issued by the author 112 3.2.1 : The nature of an attribution study 112 3.2.2 : The application of the Heidelberg method to this study 113 3.2.3 : The limitations of the Heidelberg method in establishing the content of the poetic corpus securely attributable to Paul 116 3.3 : The nature of the evidence 118 4 3.4 : The substantial number of dubia 123 3.5 : The value of internal self-ascription and manuscript ascriptions in manuscripts when the candidate author has a common name 127 3.6 : The lack of a firmly established historical context 129 3.7 : Summary 131 Chapter 4: The evidence for and against Paul’s authorship 133 4.1 : Introduction 133 4.2 : The historical context 133 4.2.1 : Nature of the evidence 133 4.2.2 : Commissioning and patronage 134 4.2.3 : Personal associations and the general historical context 137 4.3 : Internal self-ascription 140 4.4 : Inclusion in an authentic work of Paul 143 4.5 : Manuscript associations and transmission history 144 4.6 : Verse forms, metrical and other stylistic features 152 4.6.1 : Verse forms in poems associated with Paul 152 4.6.2 : The occurrence of hiatus and elision 155 4.6.3 : Metrical patterns in the poems composed in dactylic metres 156 4.6.4 : Other stylistic features 156 4.7 : Authorship of the dubia 157 4.7.1 : Introduction 157 4 7.2: The more likely candidates for inclusion in the authentic corpus 157 4.7.3 : The less likely candidates for inclusion in the authentic corpus 160 4.7.4 : Poems highly unlikely to be the work of Paul 164 4.7.5 : Poems which may be eliminated from consideration as Paul’s work 166 4.7.6 : Summary 172 Chapter 5: Paul as hymnographer 173 5.1 : Introduction 173 5.2 : Fratres alacri pectore (ML 26) 173 5.3 : Christe, deus (or decus) mundi (ML 16) 174 5.4 : Quis possit amplo famine praepotens (ML 55) 174 5.5 : The S. Mercurius hymns: Martir Mercuri (ML 41), salve, miles egregie (ML 57) 177 5 5.5.1 : The initial attribution to Paul 177 5.5.2 : The historical and contextual evidence of authorship 178 5.5.3. The stylistic evidence about authorship 179 5.5.4: Summary 181 5.6 : Ut queant laxis 181 5.6.1 : Description of the hymn 181 5.6.2 : The hymn in context 183 5.6.3 : The initial attribution and the four major studies of Paul 183 5.6.4 : Later studies of and views on the authorship of the hymn 185 5.6.5 : Manuscript evidence 186 5.6.6 : Paul’s ability to compose in sapphics 189 5.6.7 : Can ut queant laxis properly be attributed to Paul ? 191 5.7 : Conclusion: the authorship of the hymns discussed in this chapter 193 Chapter 6: Principles of statistical analysis and its use in attribution studies 195 6.1 : Introduction 195 6.1.1 : Authenticity criteria and the identification of style 195 6.1.2 : Stylistics, stylometry and statistical analysis; an overview 198 6.1.3 : The body of work and the metrical data to be analysed in this study 203 6.2 : The statistical method employed in this study 206 6.2.1 : Introduction 206 6.2.2 : The χ2 (chi-squared) test 208 6.2.3 : The choice of metrical data 210 6 2.4: An illustration of the use of the χ2 test as an aid to attribution 211 6.3 : Using the χ2 test in attribution studies 217 6.3.1 : Selection and categorisation of data 217 6.3.2. Hypothesis testing: Type I and Type II errors 220 6.3.3: The applicability of NHST based on metrical data in an attribution study 223 6.4. Conclusions 228 Chapter 7: A statistical study of the probability of Paul’s authorship of some poems composed in dactylic metres 229 7.1 : Introduction 229 7.2 : Testing for error using syllable count data 230 7.2.1 : Testing for false positives 231 7.2.2 : Testing for false negatives 233 6 7.3 : Study of selected dubia using syllable count data 235 7 3.1: The objectives of the study and selection of the poems studied 235 7.3.2 : Conditions governing the selection of the poems studied 236 7.3.3 : Test results and discussion 238 7.3.4 : Summary 245 7.4 : Metrical patterning in the hexameter poems of Paul and of three other poems of the early Carolingian period 246 7.5 : Comparison of the metrical characteristics of the hexameter poems of Paul and Alcuin 250 7.6 : Conclusions 251 Chapter 8: Conclusions 254 8.1: Introduction 254 8.2.
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