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Language and Historical Thought in the Middle Ages
Instructor: Julia Verkholantsev (University of Pennsylvania), juliaver@sas.upenn.edu
Description of Course Objectives and Learning Outcomes
The course deals with the religious, cultural, and social history of language use in the European
Middle Ages. Arising from the classical thought and validated by the biblical story of the Tower
of Babel, the notion that language is inherently connected with human history pervades medieval
thought and practice. Language and writing are being approached not merely as mechanisms of
memory preservation and recovery of the past but as a corpus of tangible signs that have mystical
links to observable and unobservable worlds. In practical application, such as government,
administration, education, or ministering, the choice of a specific language or script often plays a
defining role, from community-building to wielding power and authority.
The course aims to provide students with an advanced understanding of how language was
imagined and used in medieval Christian communities with a special focus on central, eastern,
and southern European lands. The goal of the course is to help students build sensitivity to the
linguistic aspect of primary sources that they study for their own research projects and help them
place these sources in a context of linguistic and historiographic theories.
No prior knowledge of linguistics or medieval languages is required to participate. Sessions
consist of lectures and discussions of assigned primary and secondary sources, partly led by
students. Material is presented both in a survey-like manner and through specific case studies.
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Class Topics and Readings
Session 1 (90 min)
Introduction: Main Concepts, Sources, and Methods
Today we live in a world of prescriptive standardized literary languages and nation-states that
speak one language. Medieval societies functioned very differently. In our introductory session
we will talk about written and spoken languages of medieval Europe, and their scripts focusing
on Slavonic and Latinate traditions. Come prepared to talk about the languages and writing
systems that you are studying and/or using in your own research project.
Read BEFORE the first class:
--- Tore Janson, “Greek – Conquest and Culture,” and “Latin – Conquest and Order,” in The
History of Languages. An Introduction (Oxford, 2011), 77–102.
--- Julia Verkholantsev, “Origins: Enigmatic Apostolate,” in The Slavic Letters of St. Jerome:
The History of the Legend and Its Legacy, or, How the Translator of the Vulgate Became an
Apostle to the Slavs (NIUP, 2014), 11–32, +notes.
--- Henrik Birnbaum, “The Vernacular Languages of East Central Europe in the Medieval
Period,” in …The Man of Many Devices, Who Wandered Full Many Ways… Festschrift in Honor
of János M. Bak, ed. by Balázs Nagy and Marcell Sebők (Budapest, 1999), 384–396.
Session 2 (180 min)
Language and Writing: Letters, Signs, Grammar
Linguists like to emphasize that language is an oral affair. In this session we examine the
interplay between language and writing. We will talk about the medieval semiotic culture of
writing, the introduction of literacy during Christian conversions, and the politics of alphabets.
As a case study, we focus on the development of writing among the Slavs: from the creation of
the Old Church Slavonic language and the origins of the Cyrillic and Glagolitic alphabets to the
adoption of the Roman alphabet by the Latinate Slavs. One of the interesting aspects in the
Slavic case is the existence of multiple myths and legends about letters and writing.
In the second half of this session we examine attitudes to language among the learned.
We will talk about two ecclesiastical languages that were in use in central, southern, and eastern
European lands: Church Slavonic and Latin. Almost none of the humanistic disciplines that are
part of modern academic curricula existed in medieval scholarship. In the Latinate West
(including east central European lands), literature, linguistics, philosophy, and history lived
under the umbrella of the so-called trivium, the “language arts” inherited from the classical
tradition: grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic. In the Slavic Orthodox East, writing itself had
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spiritual meaning and scholars focused on orthographic traditions and practices of translation. As
case studies, we examine a primary source from each tradition.
Read for class:
Slavic
--- The Life of St. Constantine the Philosopher in Marvin Kantor, Medieval Slavic Lives of Saints
and Princes (Ann Arbor, 1983), 25–96, especially chapters 1-4, 7-8, 13-18.
--- Roman Jakobson, “St. Constantine’s Prologue to the Gospels,” in Selected Writings. Vol. 6.
Part 1. Early Slavic Paths and Crossroads. New York: Mouton De Gruyter, 1985. 191–206.
--- “The Monk Hrabur’s Treatise on Letters,” in Monumenta Bulgarica. A Bilingual Anthology of
Bulgarian Texts from the 9th
to the 19th
Centuries, ed. by Thomas Butler (Ann Arbor, 1996),
143–153.
Latin
--- “Aelius Donatus, Ars Mino, Ars Maior,” in Medieval Grammar and Rhetoric. Language Arts
and Literary Theory, AD 300–1475, ed. by Rita Copeland and Ineke Sluiter (Oxford, 2009), 82–
99.
--- Augustine, De doctrina Christiana, in St. Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, transl. by D. W.
Robertson (Indianopolis, 1958), 1.1.1–1.4.4, pp. 7–10 (on the theory of sacred signs and spiritual
realia of Scripture); 2.1.1–2.4.5, pp. 34–37 (on language as a system of conventional signs);
2.16.23–25, pp. 50–52 (on figurative signs); 2.28.42–2.29.46, pp. 63–66 (on history).
Also see a synoptic outline of the whole work in Richard Leo Enos et al. (eds). The Rhetoric of
Saint Augustine of Hippo.
--- “Isidore of Seville, Etymologiae, ca. 625. From Book 1: Grammar,” in Medieval Grammar
and Rhetoric. Language Arts and Literary Theory, AD 300–1475, ed. by Rita Copeland and
Ineke Sluiter (Oxford, 2009), 232–41.
or
see complete text of Book 1, “Grammar,” in Stephen A. Barney, W. J . Lewis , J . A. Beach,
Oliver Berghof, eds. The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville, Cambridge, 2006, 39-67.
Session 3 (180 min)
History, Myth, and Etymology
History as we know it is a modern discipline. In the Middle Ages, scholars writing about the past
envisioned the trajectories of their nations in the framework of Christian discourse and the story
of Salvation. In this session, we focus on the legendary section of histories and talk about how
language is brought into play when authors confront mythical and legendary stories. We discuss
approaches to language both as a vehicle of narration and as an object of study in its own right.
Our focus will be on the myths of origin and the practice of etymology in historical discourse.
While examining primary sources we contemplate the relationship between language, myth, and
history.
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Read for class:
Historical and Linguistic Thought:
--- “Etymology Dossier, Introduction” and “Augustine, De dialectica,” in Medieval Grammar
and Rhetoric. Language Arts and Literary Theory, AD 300–1475, ed. by Rita Copeland and
Ineke Sluiter (Oxford, 2009), 339–49.
--- Stephen A. Barney, W. J . Lewis , J . A. Beach, Oliver Berghof, eds. The Etymologies of
Isidore of Seville, Cambridge, 2006. “Book 1 Grammar,” 1.xl-xliv (“Etymology, Tropes, Fable.
History”: 54-55, 60-64, 66-67), “Book 7, God, Angels, and Saints,” 7.i-ix (150–169), and “Book
9. Languages, nations, reigns, etc.” (191–203).
Historical Narratives (fragments):
--- Cosmas, Chronica Bohemorum,
--- Anonymous, Gesta Hungarorum
--- Simon of Kéza, Chronica Hungarorum
--- The Primary Chronicle
Session 4 (90 min)
The Search for the Perfect and Universal Language
In this session we will talk about the historical trajectory, from antiquity to the present day, of
the idea that there once was, and again could be, a universal and perfect language among the
human race. If recovered, this language can explain the origins and meaning of human
experience, and can enable universal understanding and world peace. The tantalizing question of
the possibility of a universal language has been vital and thought-provoking throughout the
history of humanity. The idea that the language spoken by Adam and Eve was a language which
perfectly expressed the nature of all earthly objects and concepts has occupied the minds of
intellectuals for almost two millennia. In defiance of the Christian biblical myth of the confusion
of languages and nations at the Tower of Babel, they have over and over tried to overcome
divine punishment and discover the path back to harmonious existence. We will focus on the
biblical narratives and Dante’s De vulgari eloquentia.
Read for class:
--- Language in the Bible (fragments)
--- Umberto Eco, “Chapter 1. From Adam to Confusio Linguarum,” (7–24) and “Chapter 3. The
Perfect Language of Dante,” (34–52) in The Search for the Perfect Language (Oxford, 1997).
--- Dante, De vulgari eloquentia, ed. by Steven Botterill (Cambridge, 2005), “Introduction” and
Book I.