(no subject)
It's "you know you're a grad student when..." fill-in-the-blank time!
You know you're a grad student when you've fled your family on Boxing Day in order to install yourself in a coffee shop and plan how you're going to expand two conference papers into an article in the next five days.
The double americano may have been a little much, though.
Anyway, I live, I made it back to Vernon, Vernon lives, I had a reasonably nice Christmas, and persee.fr is my best friend in the absence of a university library. From five days out and through the rose-tinted lens of the double americano, my revisions seem pretty promising. The ridiculous versiculi de eversione monasterii sancti florentii (little verses on the destruction of the abbey of Saint-Florent) seem to have inspired like, all the monastery's mid-eleventh century historical works, but no one has ever really examined that in any detail. You'd think someone before me would have felt compelled to look at why the anachronistic and anomalous comedy gold of this song in this cartulary seems to have been taken so seriously at eleventh-century Saint-Florent, but as far as I can tell, you'd be wrong.
Oh well, more fun for me!
In the spirit of sharing some of the fun with you, have the first part of my translation of the eleventh-century historia eversionis monasterii s. florentii veteris a brittonibus et normannis (history of the destruction of the monastery of Saint-Florent-le-vieil by the Bretons and Nomans). I've italicized the parts that summarize the versiculi, and underlined the bits where the wording was ripped straight from it, as far as I can tell.
In the year of the incarnation of the lord 1061, the fourteenth indiction, the twenty-sixth epaction, the passing of seven cycles of the moon, the fourteenth day after Easter, the fourteenth of the kalends of May, the month of June, the eighteenth of the kalends of July, the monastery of the lord Saint Florent was consecrated by the lord Eusebius, Bishop of Angers, in honor of the holy savior and of Saint Florent the confessor, that is, on the same day of the ancient consecration of the same monastery. The reason for this consecration was, that the same monastery that had once been built by Charlemagne, and that had been very nobly raised up by other kings, was afterward very savagely burned by Nominoë, a Breton hateful to God. For although up to that time the Bretons had been anxious to serve the king of France, that chief descended not from any kings whatsoever, nor from a royal family, but from an ignoble one, raised himself up against Charles the Bald, and disdaining to serve him, united the people of Rennes with the people of Nantes, and in this way he attacked the monastery founded and made famous by [Charles’] father, Louis, and by [his] grandfather, Charlemagne, and burned and ravaged it; but he was invisibly stricken by the saint to whom the same place had once been granted by heaven, [and] having given no small amount of money, he made amends, as much as he was able, for the damage that he had brought against him [the saint]. But nevertheless, he always bore the sign of his [the saint’s] smiting: for as long as he lived, he remained lame.
Edited in Martène & Durand, Thesaurus novus anecdotorum, tomus tertius &c (1717), google books is my best friend too, my translation.
This entry was originally posted at http://monksandbones.dreamwidth.org/701510.html. Talk to me here or there, whichever you prefer.
You know you're a grad student when you've fled your family on Boxing Day in order to install yourself in a coffee shop and plan how you're going to expand two conference papers into an article in the next five days.
The double americano may have been a little much, though.
Anyway, I live, I made it back to Vernon, Vernon lives, I had a reasonably nice Christmas, and persee.fr is my best friend in the absence of a university library. From five days out and through the rose-tinted lens of the double americano, my revisions seem pretty promising. The ridiculous versiculi de eversione monasterii sancti florentii (little verses on the destruction of the abbey of Saint-Florent) seem to have inspired like, all the monastery's mid-eleventh century historical works, but no one has ever really examined that in any detail. You'd think someone before me would have felt compelled to look at why the anachronistic and anomalous comedy gold of this song in this cartulary seems to have been taken so seriously at eleventh-century Saint-Florent, but as far as I can tell, you'd be wrong.
Oh well, more fun for me!
In the spirit of sharing some of the fun with you, have the first part of my translation of the eleventh-century historia eversionis monasterii s. florentii veteris a brittonibus et normannis (history of the destruction of the monastery of Saint-Florent-le-vieil by the Bretons and Nomans). I've italicized the parts that summarize the versiculi, and underlined the bits where the wording was ripped straight from it, as far as I can tell.
In the year of the incarnation of the lord 1061, the fourteenth indiction, the twenty-sixth epaction, the passing of seven cycles of the moon, the fourteenth day after Easter, the fourteenth of the kalends of May, the month of June, the eighteenth of the kalends of July, the monastery of the lord Saint Florent was consecrated by the lord Eusebius, Bishop of Angers, in honor of the holy savior and of Saint Florent the confessor, that is, on the same day of the ancient consecration of the same monastery. The reason for this consecration was, that the same monastery that had once been built by Charlemagne, and that had been very nobly raised up by other kings, was afterward very savagely burned by Nominoë, a Breton hateful to God. For although up to that time the Bretons had been anxious to serve the king of France, that chief descended not from any kings whatsoever, nor from a royal family, but from an ignoble one, raised himself up against Charles the Bald, and disdaining to serve him, united the people of Rennes with the people of Nantes, and in this way he attacked the monastery founded and made famous by [Charles’] father, Louis, and by [his] grandfather, Charlemagne, and burned and ravaged it; but he was invisibly stricken by the saint to whom the same place had once been granted by heaven, [and] having given no small amount of money, he made amends, as much as he was able, for the damage that he had brought against him [the saint]. But nevertheless, he always bore the sign of his [the saint’s] smiting: for as long as he lived, he remained lame.
Edited in Martène & Durand, Thesaurus novus anecdotorum, tomus tertius &c (1717), google books is my best friend too, my translation.
This entry was originally posted at http://monksandbones.dreamwidth.org/701510.html. Talk to me here or there, whichever you prefer.