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See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236819846 Source of Wisdom: Old English and Early Medieval Latin Studies in Honour of Thomas D. Hill (review) Article in JEGP Journal of English and Germanic Philology · January 2010 DOI: 10.1353/egp.0.0162 CITATIONS READS 0 78 1 author: Rolf Bremmer Leiden University 74 PUBLICATIONS 231 CITATIONS SEE PROFILE Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects: One Hundred Years of Neophilologus View project Frisian Studies View project All content following this page was uploaded by Rolf Bremmer on 08 March 2018. The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file. Source of Wisdom: Old English and Early Medieval Latin Studies in Honour of Thomas D. Hill Rolf H. Bremmer Jr. JEGP, Journal of English and Germanic Philology, Volume 109, Number 3, July 2010, pp. 383-385 (Review) Published by University of Illinois Press DOI: 10.1353/egp.0.0162 For additional information about this article http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/egp/summary/v109/109.3.bremmer.html Access Provided by Leiden University at 09/02/11 10:29PM GMT Book Reviews 383 from Passion on pages 458Ð72, and then Þnd the woodcuts in question in order to study the relations of text and image. If one has a computer at oneÕs desk, as most of us now do, this last difÞculty is much ameliorated because Professor Keller and her associates have made two excellent CDs part of their project. The Þrst, with volume one, is a set of audio recordings of written material relevant to RufÕs biography and works. As Professor Keller points out, the orthography of administrative German during RufÕs day in Zurich was inconsistent and the syntax difÞcult, so that careful oral presentation of the passages may make them more readily comprehensible (1:19)Ñthe ear may work with the eye. The second CD is devoted primarily to color reproductions of all the images in RufÕs work, i.e., the contents of volume Þve, pp. 347Ð629, but in the CD series the pictures are paired with the pages from the edition on which they are located, so that with a mouse-click one can move from picture to textual context and back again. For a panorama of the art in RufÕs works, take volume Þve to hand; but for closer examination of the linkage between art and text, use the CD (or open the relevant text volume together with volume Þve side by side). The CD graphics are of high quality and withstand the closest zoom. Jakob Ruf, in both conception and execution, is an outstanding achievement in Early Modern European studies. Its broad vision, imaginative formulations of problems, extraordinary range, and lavish wealth of graphic informationÑ including even the bright red pages that set off the individual sections of volume oneÑcome as close to transporting the user into the world of sixteenth-century Zurich as any publication not from that very world is likely to accomplish. Zurich around 1550 was a wealthy, intellectually rich, and accordingly inßuential central European city, so that many people will proÞt from familiarity with this work who have never heard of the author at its center (ÒÔJakob Ruf? Nie gehrt!,Õ mag ein Kenner der Materie sagen . .,Ó writes Professor Keller, meeting the Þrst objec- tion head-on [1:15]). Whether oneÕs interest lies in the Czech redaction of RufÕs treatise for midwives (4:744Ð77), or in visions of costumes and masks for the devils in his parable play (5:357Ð61), this interest will be addressed and largely satisÞed. Professor Keller and her colleagues, but also the city of Zurich and the many other benefactors of this complex saga of research project, municipal exhibition, and Þnally major publication, deserve our admiration and thanks. Stephen L. Wailes Indiana University, Bloomington Source of Wisdom: Old English and Early Medieval Latin Studies in Hon- our of Thomas D. Hill. Edited by Charles D. Wright, Frederick M. Biggs, and Thomas N. Hall. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007. Pp. xxiv + 420; 1 portrait, 3 illustrations. $80. Notwithstanding a long and stable career of about forty years as a scholar and teacher of, especially, medieval English literature at Cornell University, Thomas D. HillÕs sphere of inßuence has expanded far beyond the green lawns surround- ing Goldwin Smith Hall and Olin Library, two of his most frequented haunts on campus. Appendix 2 lists Þfteen scions whose Doktorvater he is; seven of these have contributed to this nineteen-essay Festschrift. Quite a few of these Þfteen doctores have in their turn begotten scholarly offspringÑso far for the ßesh. As for the spirit, Appendix 1 impresses by featuring no fewer than 180 published 384 Journal of English and Germanic Philology, July 2010 brain-children, which, it should be noted, include thirty-two incisive yet humane reviews in major journals like the present one. Charles D. WrightÕs detailed and sympathetic laudatio effectively brings out the depth and breadth of HillÕs scholarly scope, which ranges from Old and Middle English, to medieval French, Italian, Old Norse, and the continental Germanic literatures, including even that of Old Frisian. This festive volume therefore only partly reßects HillÕs own scholarly ÞeldÑthe reader will look in vain for contribu- tions to our understanding of Jean de MeungÕs Roman de la Rose, DanteÕs Divina Commedia, or, for a Northern example, the anonymous LaxdÏla Saga. The focus of HillÕs scholarly enterprise has always been directed toward disclosing sources that underlie passages in vernacular literature, more often than not hitherto unexpected. But, as Wright rightly points out in his preface, Hill is not satisÞed by merely identifying a source, for he takes our understanding of a particular passage a step further by demonstrating the implications of the authorÕs use of particularly that source. Source of WisdomÑa title that applies to Hill as much as to the Festschrift itselfÑ concentrates on an important aspect of HillÕs teaching, viz. Old English literature. The Þrst three contributions deal with Beowulf, the poem to which Hill devoted eight articles himself, most recently (2007) one in this journal. Joseph Harris takes us to the continent and Scandinavia in search of the theme of the ÒBeasts of BattleÓ to show that the roots thereof reach back to before the adventus Saxonum. James H. Morey argues that being eligible to a throne in Beowulf usually triggers off violence. Frederick M. BiggsÕs inspection and study of fol. 129 of Vitellius A. xv leads him to reject Kevin KiernanÕs claim that this folio is a palimpsest. The next batch focuses on Old English religious and sapiential poetry. James W. Earl discusses aspects of the dogma of the Trinity in The Dream of the Rood and in certain homilies of ®lfric. James W. Marchand takes up one of HillÕs concerns in ÒThe Leaps of Christ and The Dream of the Rood.Ó Johanna Kramer eruditely dis- cusses how Christ being called the cornerstone in the New Testament is reßected in the Old English poem Christ I and, quite unexpectedly, in an illustration depicting the Temptation of Christ in the desert in the Book of Kells. Time and temporal- ity are concepts that merit attention when reading The Wife’s Lament, thus Sachi Shimomura. Alice Sheppard takes up Tom ShippeyÕs seminal discussion of The Wanderer as an example of wisdom poetry and brings out how this poem bridges the gap between Christian poems in the Exeter Book and Òthose that ponder the mundanities of human existenceÓ (p. 141). Old English prose is tackled by six contributors. Both Paul E. Szarmach and Joseph Wittig address the OE Boethius, Szarmach discussing the role of Nero, and Wittig, after twenty-Þve years, returning to the ÒRemigianÓ glosses. David F. Johnson cogently pleads for a revaluation of the OE version of GregoryÕs Dialogues, under- rated as it is as a mode of hagiography and a model of exemplary. ®lfricÕs military men (the Maccabees and various saints) are scrutinized by E. Gordon Whatley to assess ®lfricÕs position vis--vis violence. Charles D. Wright has discovered that both Fadda I and Blickling I used the same pseudo-Augustinian sermon to make clear why a virgin had to give birth to Christ, but both homilies differ in the way they present the explanation in accordance with the intended audience. Thomas N. Hall has found a source that Tom Hill had been unable to, viz. whence the OE Adrian and Ritheus got the idea that Christ was born through MaryÕs right breast. Two smaller sections conclude this collection. Early Middle English is taken care of by Andrew Galloway who contends that Anglo-Norman tenir curt and Latin Book Reviews 385 curiam tenere Ôto hold courtÕ are based on early ME healdan curt and healdan hired, Þrst recorded in the Peterborough Chronicle, rather than vice versa. One wonders then where, for example, MDu hof houden or MHG hof halten, Ôhold courtÕ, have come from if not from Continental French. Susan E. Deskis reduces a sampling of ME alliterative proverbs back to familiar OE alliterative formulas. Finally, me- dieval Latin literature receives attention in three contributions. Danuta Shanzer makes a good case for RuÞnusÕs version of EusebiusÕs Historia ecclesiastica as the model for BedeÕs prose style and historiographic technique. Michael W. Herren gives Tom Hill a foretaste of editorial solutions for a number of cruces in his forthcoming edition of Aethicus IsterÕs Cosmographia. Michael W. Twomey sheds interesting light on the reception of Pseudo-MethodiusÕs anti-Islamic Revelationes in eleventh-century England. All in all, the editors are to be congratulated on a double success: one in offer- ing a meticulously produced tribute to their teacher, and another in serving the community of Anglo-Saxonists with a Þne collection of essays.

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