The Lindisfarne and Rushworth Glosses

As with the psalter glosses discussed in Chapter One, both the Lindisfarne and Rushworth glosses were designed to serve as guides to the Latin text which they accompany rather than as a substitute. For the most part, the glosses therefore closely follow the syntax of the Latin source-text above which they sit. While interlinear glosses of this nature were often used as teaching aids, it seems highly unlikely that such valuable codices would be used in the schoolroom to teach novices Latin. Nevertheless, the importance of making the meaning of the Gospels as clear as possible evidently exceeded any considerations about the integrity of the manuscript page for these tenth-century glossators and their respective monastic communities. The function of these gospel glosses as linguistic cribs is made clear by the frequent provision of alternative translations indicated by the abbreviation ꝉ for Old English oððe/Latin vel (‘or’), which appears whenever the scribe was either unsure of the meaning of a Latin term or wished to provide a range of vernacular options.

To illustrate the painstaking, scholarly approach of these glossators, I present below the Vulgate text of the opening of the Gospel of Matthew with the Douay-Rheims translation underneath, followed by a semi-diplomatic transcription of the Latin and Old English text as it appears in the Lindisfarne Gospels (Mt. 1.18–19), Cotton MS Nero D. IV, fols 29r–29v. Fig. 5 shows fol. 29r which contains the opening of Mat. 1.18 up to the word Iospeh:4 Text cited from Skeat, ed., Holy Gospels, pp. 27–9.

In addition to weighing up the various possible translations of each Latin word, Aldred pays careful attention to the grammar of his source-text: for example, the genitive inflection of the opening Latin word Christ-i is mirrored in the Old English gloss christ-es. Personal names are often left untranslated (e.g. Maria, Ioseph) when the meaning is obvious to Aldred’s tenth-century readers, though Ioseph is supplied once in the gloss at the beginning of verse 19 to clarify the referent of the sentence. Inflected Latin verbs are sometimes expanded to form an Old English verb phrase, the process known in linguistics as ‘periphrasis’, as in the supplement gloss of uoluit as ah he walde. Despite these small concessions to vernacular idiom, for the most part the Lindisfarne gloss closely adheres to the syntax of the Latin source text that it sits above: for instance, Latin NOUN + GENITIVE DETERMINER constructions are replicated in the vernacular (e.g. mater eius > moder his), a feature which we also observed in the glossed psalters.13 See p. 46. There is only one exception in this extract to this general practice of syntactical mirroring, where Latin de spiritu sancto is rendered as on halig gaast, with the placement of the adjective halig before the noun reflecting standard Old English word order.14 This reversal of word-order is noted by Ruta Nagucka, ‘Glossal Translation in the Lindisfarne Gospel according to Saint Matthew’, Studia Anglica Posnaniensia 31 (1997), 179–201, at 181. See further Giuseppe Pagliarulo, ‘Word Order in the Lindisfarne Glosses?’, Neophilologus 94 (2010), 625–35.

These features of the Lindisfarne gloss point to its primary purpose as a guide to the Latin, facilitating close study of the meaning of each individual Latin word at the level of grammar and sense. Whenever more information is required to aid understanding, the reader’s eye moves upward from the Latin majuscule of the main text to the Old English minuscule of the gloss. The production of the gloss itself might be viewed as an act of prayerful study in which we witness Aldred himself meditating on the vocabulary, grammar and syntax of his scriptural source before weighing up its various possible meanings.15 On monastic reading in this period, see Malcolm Parkes, ‘Rædan, areccan, smeagan: How the Anglo-Saxons read’, ASE 26 (1997), 1–22. Aldred’s provision of multiple glosses for certain Latin words in turn invites his fellow monastics to ruminate on the full meaning of the scriptural text. As well as assisting in the acquisition of Latin vocabulary essential for a novice, Aldred’s rich and variegated gloss could thus also prove useful in the practice of lectio divina, the constant prayerful reading of sacred books that lay at the heart of the monastic opus dei.16 On lectio divina, see Jean Leclerq, The Love of Learning and the Desire for God, trans. Catherine Misrahi (New York: Fordham University Press, 1961).

The subsidiary nature of Farman’s gloss on the opening section of Matthew in the Rushworth Gospels is evident in his placement of the first word, kristes, to the right of the large, illuminated capitals CRI (CHI-RO-IOTA, an abbreviation for CRISTI) and partially above the next word autem (fig. 6). Again, the Old English gloss is written in Anglo-Saxon square minuscule above the insular majuscule of the Latin:17 Text cited from Kotake, ed., Rushworth One, p. 90. The Latin text of the Rushworth Gospels is broadly similar to the Vulgate but contains some readings which are closer to Old Latin, and has therefore been classed as belonging to an ‘Insular Vulgate’ group: see Tamoto, The MacRegol Gospels or The Rushworth Gospels, pp. xlii–xlvii.

However, where Farman differs from Aldred is in his provision of far fewer alternative translations, with the result that his gloss comprises a steady flow of vernacular phrases which at times begins to approach the rhythm of Old English prose. Hence, for example, where Aldred provides two translations of generatio (cynnreccenisse ꝉ cneuresuu), Farman offers only a single Old English term (kennisse).19 DOE s.v. cennes (1. birth […], 2. childbirth’) records 10 occurrences, mostly in prose. Moreover, while Aldred follows the syntax of Latin genitive phrases mater eius (> moder his) and uir eius (> uer hire), Farman opts for more idiomatic English word order (his moder; hire wer).20 On the relative independence of Farman’s syntax compared to other interlinear glosses of the period, see Kotake, ed. Rushworth One, pp. 69–75. Farman’s concerted efforts to produce a gloss that is readable on its own can also be seen in his decision to translate even those personal names which Aldred omits (verse 18: maria, iosefae). This move towards a more natural prose style is also evident in Farman’s expansion of the Latin verb conuenirent (translated by Aldred as hia gegeadradon ꝉ gecuomun, ‘they gathered or came’) to the phrase hiae tosomne cwoman (‘they came together’); the insertion of the adverb tosomne helps clarify the two senses implied by Aldred’s gloss into a single, fluent clause. Similarly, where Aldred follows the Latin closely in translating in utero as in hrif (‘in womb’) and esset as simply wæss, Farman inserts personal pronouns to aid his readers: in hire innoþe (‘in her womb’), he wæs (‘he was’). Farman also adds the dative pronoun þæ(m) in rendering the Latin de, to further clarify the grammar. Indeed, only one Latin word, the infinitive verb traducere (‘to expose’), is not glossed by Farman. Kotake suggests that Farman may have skipped this word because he took the personal pronoun hie, which appears as part of the phrase written above the preceding words, nolem eam (> ne walde hie), as the accusative object of ne walde (‘and he did not desire her’).21 Kotake, ed., Rushworth One, p. 200. Overall, Farman supplies supplement glosses more frequently than his predecessor Aldred had done, expanding on the source text whenever it was deemed necessary for the sake of clarity.

Printed in isolation from the Latin source text, Farman’s gloss certainly appears a step closer to the smooth, idiomatic vernacular prose style of the Wessex Gospels discussed below:

The Lindisfarne and Rushworth (MacRegol) glosses provide a window onto the painstaking and intensive study of the Gospels undertaken by tenth-century English monks. In Steiner’s terminology, Aldred and Farman (and his co-glossator Owun) affirmed the value of the Gospels themselves by making the initial decision to translate them from Latin into English.24 On Steiner’s translation theory, see above, p. xiii. As we have observed, in both cases, the priority of understanding the Latin source outweighed concerns about preserving the integrity of the magnificent codices that contained the Vulgate text. In the case of the Lindisfarne Gospels in particular, practical considerations may have also been a factor in the production of the gloss, notably Aldred’s desire to establish himself in the monastic community at Chester-le-Street. The addition of these glosses might even be said to enhance the pages of these Latin gospel books with words from the by-now prestigious written Old English of the Kingdom of England. Once the decision had been made to provide an interlinear translation to these Latin gospel books, the glossators ‘plundered’ each individual lexical item of the Vulgate text, reflecting on various possible meanings before supplying readers with either single or multiple equivalents in the target language. With a few small exceptions, such as personal names where the meaning is obvious in the Latin, the entire text of the Gospels was incorporated into the target language, allowing monastic readers to match up the Latin words with their vernacular equivalents when studying the scriptural text. Finally, while Aldred made little effort to provide compensatory measures, cleaving closely to the word order of the Latin source and supplying mostly substitution glosses, Farman often provided supplement glosses which when read together begin to approximate Old English prose. Both these splendid Latin gospel books were furnished with Old English glosses for the same principal purpose: to facilitate the constant meditation on the words of Scripture (lectio divina) that lay at the heart of monastic life. Although it seems highly unlikely that such prestigious manuscripts were ever used in the classroom, these glosses would nevertheless provide any monk or nun looking at these beautiful codices with the opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of the Latin gospel text’s literal and spiritual meaning. The Old English gospel glosses were thus produced within an enclosed space for highly specialised use by members of monastic communities. For a tenth-century translation of the Gospels into Old English prose intended for readers outside the cloister, we must turn now to the Wessex Gospels.