Classical Tradition and Medieval Literature

Thus, the task of translating was paramount because it enabled the transferring of concepts, ideas, lexicon or syntactic structures from a language to another⁵. Leaving aside the role played in this process by languages such as Arabic, Hebrew or Greek, the point of departure and of reference in Western Europe was always Latin. That is what happened in the French geographic area, where it had a cultural supremacy among the other Romance vernacular languages in the Middle Ages:

Il existe une primauté absolue du latin quant à la langue source des traductions. Très peu de circulation de la langue d’oïl vers la langue d’oc ou l’inverse, peu de circulation d’une langue romane, italien, catalan, espagnol vers la langue d’oïl, quelques traductions du catalan vers l’oc. La traduction au Moyen Âge est « verticale », du latin au français et non « horizontale », d’une variété du français à une autre ou d’une langue romane à une autre (Cerquiglini-Toulet 2011: 53).

[Latin has absolute primacy as the source language for translations. There was very little circulation from the langue d’oïl to the langue d’oc or vice versa, very little circulation from a Romance language (Italian, Catalan, Spanish) to the langue d’oïl, and a few translations from Catalan to the langue d’oc. Translation in the Middle Ages was ‘vertical’, from Latin to French, and not ‘horizontal’, from one variety of French to another or from one Romance language to another.]

Something similar also happened in the Italian Peninsula, where most translations were done from Latin, although some were done from French and, starting in the 15th century, from Greek—in this case using Latin as an intermediary most of the time (Vaccaro 2020). The same also applies to the Iberian Peninsula, with the peculiarity that translations from Arabic to Latin and from French and Italian to the Iberian languages became very important⁶. In Europe, outside the domain of the Romance languages—and allowing for regional particularities—the situation was the same. In Germanic territories, as is well known, the relevance of Latin was associated with the cultural program of Charlemagne (8th–9th centuries), which was crucial for the survival of classical knowledge in the Middle Ages. The first translation into Germanic languages arose from the need to access classical and Christian works⁷. The first major cultural enterprise in the British Isles, carried out by Alfred the Great (9th ca.), was about supporting the knowledge of Latin in his kingdom or the translation of classical works for the laity. His literary circle translated St Gregory’s Pastoral Care, the Venerable Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, Orosius’s History Against the Pagans, and the philosophical works Soliloquia by St Augustin and The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius⁸ (Galván 2020: 67–75). In the Scandinavian region the context was similar, and as the first translations were related to evangelizing and colonizing endeavours (as in Iceland), the first translated Latin texts were of a technical or religious nature, starting with the Vulgate. These were followed by other historical texts and the Alexanders Saga derived from Gautier de Châtillon’s Alexandreis (Bernárdez 2020).

Thus, the study of translation in the Middle Ages offers a research perspective for medievalists as valid as any other, however, any line of research in this field must end always in Latin letters. It is true that the classics of Roman literature had to make room for the new referents of medieval Latin literature, and that sometimes the latter were more translated than the former. Nevertheless, this should not distort the picture because if fewer classical texts were translated, it was due to the fact that a litteratus was someone who knew Latin, and whoever was able to read the original did not need translations. As it is to be expected, translations were intended for the new readership who became interested in letters, mostly noblemen and the bourgeoisie from an emerging urban world that required reading and writing as tools with which to exert power or perform a specialized profession.

Therefore, the study of literature in the Middle Ages hits constantly upon the wall of Latin culture as the waves break against the cliff, and the data is clear about this. Thus, during the late Middle Ages, when a youngster had learned to read and pronounce Latin, he began to study the disciplines of the trivium. This meant learning about the life of the author to be studied (the accessus ad auctorem) and reading the selected work, to which a textual commentary was added. The first authors to be studied were Cicero, Horace, Sallust and Vergil, Martianus Capella and Boethius, and then others like Lucan, Juvenal, Persius and Statius. To this list were added Christian poets such as Prudentius, Avitus of Vienne, Juvencus, Sedulius or Arator. As the student progressed, new materials were added (History, Geography, more Grammar), the same authors were studied more thoroughly or new ones were read, such as Isidorus, Eusebius of Cesarea, Orosius, Gregory of Tours or the Venerable Bede (Riché 1999: 245–266). That is how the fundamentals of Grammar, Rhetoric and Dialectics were learned. There were also other important authors outside this list. The reading text par excellence was the Bible, while a special place was occupied by the Church Fathers. Among pagans, in addition to those already mentioned, Seneca was held in particular esteem: Othlon of Sankt Emmeram, a Benedictine monk from the 11th century, began his Liber prouerbiorum by marvelling at the knowledge enclosed in the proverbs attributed to Seneca he had read⁹.

Conrad of Hirsau (first half 12th century) mentioned a list of 21 authors that should be part of the school canon (Curtius 2013: 49), listing them in the following order: the grammarian Donatus, Disticha Catonis, Aesop, Avianus, Sedulius, Juvencus, Prosper of Aquitaine, Theodulus, Arator, Prudentius, Cicero, Sallust, Boethius, Lucan, Horace, Ovid, Juvenal, Homer, Persius, Statius, Vergil.

Alexander Neckam (12th–13rd centuries) recommended the study of Horace, Ovid, Cicero, Symmachus, Solinus, Martial, Petronius, Sidonius Apollinaris, Suetonius, Seneca, Livy, Quintilian and Boethius, among others (Copeland & Sluiter 2009: 531–541).

Hugh of Trimberg (13th–14th centuries) followed for the most part the canon of Conrad of Hirsau (Copeland & Sluiter 2009: 657–669). His opuscule entitled Registrum multorum auctorum established an academic syllabus based on auctores maiores and auctores minores, thus creating a hierarchy of the order in which they should be read; in addition, he was particularly interested in authors who wrote in verse. Among the obligatory readings, there appeared in the following order: Vergil, Horace, Ovid, Juvenal, Persius, Seneca, Lucan, Statius and the Ilias Latina; among the grammarians, Priscianus, Eberhard of Béthune, Alexandre of Villedieu; and then Boethius and Claudian, Sallust, Cicero and Terence. Hugh of Trimberg also recommended reading many other classical and medieval authors (for instance Prosper, Arator or Prudentius, or Matthew of Vendôme and Gautier de Châtillon, as well as the two Facetus—Alvar & Alvar Nuño 2020).

The same names appear in the case of Italy, as proven by Black (2001: 173–274), who also pointed out that the lists were not closed, for many other classical and medieval authors were read, or unchangeable, for there were fashions in every period. That was the case with Aristotle, the most influential author in Western culture since the 12th century onwards¹⁰. The main idea remains clear: in order to understand medieval man’s intellectual preparation, it is important to know what he studied and why. In addition, the list of auctoritates was relatively stable through the medieval period and throughout all Europe.

A solely quantitative data analysis helps us understand the importance of the classics during the Middle Ages. The participants in this volume remind us that, for instance, there were some 400 manuscripts of Cicero’s Cato Maior, de Senectute, 800 of his De Officiis and some 400 of De Inventione, alongside 600 manuscripts of Rhetorica ad Herennium, attributed to Cicero during the Middle Ages. In addition, there were some 800 copies of Valerius Maximus’s Dicta et Facta Memorabilia; the same number of the Consolatio Philosophiae; over one thousand of the Etymologiae and some 2,000 of the Aristoteles Latinus (Kretzmann, Kenny & Pinborg 1997: 45). In contrast, the low numbers for the first vernacular literary monuments come as a surprise: the Chanson de Roland is preserved in nine manuscripts, the Conte du Graal in 15 complete ones and some fragments, the Cantar de Mío Cid in just one, the Libro de buen amor in three¹¹. The complete cycle of the Prose Lancelot, composed of five works distributed throughout some 200 manuscripts or extensive fragments between the 13th and beginning of the 16th century (Middelton 2003: 219–220), is among the most successful works of medieval Romance literature. Undoubtedly a best-seller, its numbers pale in comparison with those for Latin works. It was only due to Dante’s genius that medieval vernacular literature came to rival the most appreciated works by Cicero or St Isidore: there are some 800 testimonies of his Divina Commedia¹².

Nothing is further from our intention than to minimize the relevance of vernacular literatures. As has been mentioned, vernacular languages developed in a slow and tentative process that extended over time. They only produced literary works since the 12th–13th centuries onwards. Latin never ceased to be used in writing, and medieval copies of texts in this language circulated in greater numbers between the 9th century and the Renaissance. On the other hand, Latin was everybody’s language, while the vernaculars had a local character, as pointed out by Alfonso Fernández de Madrigal in 1450: “He who writes in Latin is writing for everybody, but whoever does it in vernacular, is as if he wrote for he alone” [qui Latine scribit, omnibus scribit; qui uero uulgariter, quasi sibi solo scribit]¹³. In the Middle Ages, Latin had the advantage of the vernacular languages regarding the time it had to disseminate and the space in which this took place. Therein lies, precisely, its importance.