Sir Roger Aubrey Baskerville Mynors (28 July 190317 October 1989) was an English
classicist
Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Cla ...
and
medievalist
The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , ''asteriskos'', "little star", is a typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a heraldic star.
Computer scientists and mathematicians often v ...
who held the senior chairs of
Latin at the universities of
Oxford and
Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge becam ...
. A
textual critic
Textual criticism is a branch of textual scholarship, philology, and of literary criticism that is concerned with the identification of textual variants, or different versions, of either manuscripts or of printed books. Such texts may range in da ...
, he was an expert in the study of
manuscripts and their role in the reconstruction of classical texts.
Mynors's career spanned most of the 20th century and straddled two of England's leading universities, Oxford and Cambridge. Educated at
Eton College, he read
Literae Humaniores at
Balliol College, Oxford
Balliol College () is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. One of Oxford's oldest colleges, it was founded around 1263 by John I de Balliol, a landowner from Barnard Castle in County Durham, who provided the f ...
, and spent the early years of his career as a Fellow of that college. He was
Kennedy Professor of Latin
The Kennedy Professorship of Latin is the senior professorship of Latin at the University of Cambridge.
In 1865, when Benjamin Hall Kennedy retired as headmaster of Shrewsbury School, his friends and former pupils created a fund with the intentio ...
at Cambridge from 1944 to 1953 and
Corpus Christi Professor of Latin
The Corpus Christi Professorship of the Latin Language and Literature, also known simply as the Corpus Christi Professorship of Latin and previously as the Corpus Professorship of Latin, is a chair in Latin literature at Corpus Christi College, Un ...
at Oxford from 1953 until his retirement in 1970. He died in a
car accident in 1989, aged 86, while travelling to his country residence,
Treago Castle
Treago Castle is a fortified manor house in the parish of St Weonards, Herefordshire, England (). Built c. 1500, it was recorded as a Grade I listed building on 30 April 1986—based on its extant medieval architecture, quadrangle courtyard la ...
in
Herefordshire
Herefordshire () is a county in the West Midlands of England, governed by Herefordshire Council. It is bordered by Shropshire to the north, Worcestershire to the east, Gloucestershire to the south-east, and the Welsh counties of Monmouthsh ...
.
Mynors's reputation is that of one of Britain's foremost classicists.
He was an expert on
palaeography, and has been credited with unravelling a number of highly complex manuscript relationships in his catalogues of the Balliol and
Durham Cathedral
The Cathedral Church of Christ, Blessed Mary the Virgin and St Cuthbert of Durham, commonly known as Durham Cathedral and home of the Shrine of St Cuthbert, is a cathedral in the city of Durham, England, Durham, County Durham (district), C ...
libraries. His publications on classical subjects include critical editions of
Vergil,
Catullus
Gaius Valerius Catullus (; 84 - 54 BCE), often referred to simply as Catullus (, ), was a Latin poet of the late Roman Republic who wrote chiefly in the neoteric style of poetry, focusing on personal life rather than classical heroes. His s ...
, and
Pliny the Younger. The final achievement of his scholarly career, a comprehensive commentary on Vergil's ''
Georgics'', was published posthumously. In addition to honorary degrees and fellowships from various institutions, Mynors was created
Knight Bachelor in 1963.
Early life and secondary education
Roger Aubrey Baskerville Mynors was born in
Langley Burrell
Langley Burrell is a village just north of Chippenham, Wiltshire, England. It is the largest settlement in the civil parish of Langley Burrell Without which includes the hamlets of Peckingell (south of the village) and Kellaways (to the east on ...
,
Wiltshire, into a family of
Herefordshire
Herefordshire () is a county in the West Midlands of England, governed by Herefordshire Council. It is bordered by Shropshire to the north, Worcestershire to the east, Gloucestershire to the south-east, and the Welsh counties of Monmouthsh ...
gentry. The Mynors family had owned the estate of
Treago Castle
Treago Castle is a fortified manor house in the parish of St Weonards, Herefordshire, England (). Built c. 1500, it was recorded as a Grade I listed building on 30 April 1986—based on its extant medieval architecture, quadrangle courtyard la ...
since the 15th century, and he resided there in later life. His mother was Margery Musgrave, and his father, Aubrey Baskerville Mynors, was an
Anglican
Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of the ...
clergyman and
rector
Rector (Latin for the member of a vessel's crew who steers) may refer to:
Style or title
*Rector (ecclesiastical), a cleric who functions as an administrative leader in some Christian denominations
*Rector (academia), a senior official in an edu ...
of Langley Burrell, who had been secretary to the
Pan-Anglican Congress, held in London in 1908. Among his four siblings was his identical twin brother
Humphrey Mynors, who went on to become
Deputy Governor of the Bank of England A Deputy Governor of the Bank of England is the holder of one of a small number of senior positions at the Bank of England, reporting directly to the Governor.
According to the original charter of 27 July 1694 the Bank's affairs would be supervise ...
. The brothers shared a close friendship and lived together in their ancestral home after Roger's retirement.
Mynors attended
Summer Fields School
Summer Fields is a fee-paying boys' independent day and boarding preparatory school in Summertown, Oxford. It was originally called Summerfield and used to have a subsidiary school, Summerfields, St Leonards-on-Sea (known as "Summers mi").
...
in
Oxford, and in 1916 entered
Eton College as a
King's Scholar
A King's Scholar is a foundation scholar (elected on the basis of good academic performance and usually qualifying for reduced fees) of one of certain public schools. These include Eton College; The King's School, Canterbury; The King's Schoo ...
. At Eton, he was part of a generation of pupils that included the historian
Steven Runciman and the author
George Orwell. His precocious interest in
Latin literature
Latin literature includes the essays, histories, poems, plays, and other writings written in the Latin language. The beginning of formal Latin literature dates to 240 BC, when the first stage play in Latin was performed in Rome. Latin literature ...
and its transmission was fostered by the encouragement of two of his teachers,
Cyril Alington
Cyril Argentine Alington (22 October 1872 – 16 May 1955) was an English educationalist, scholar, cleric, and author. He was successively the headmaster of Shrewsbury School and Eton College. He also served as chaplain to King George V and as De ...
and
M. R. James
Montague Rhodes James (1 August 1862 – 12 June 1936) was an English author, medievalist scholar and provost of King's College, Cambridge (1905–1918), and of Eton College (1918–1936). He was Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridg ...
. Alington became an influential mentor and friend since he, like Mynors, was fascinated with the manuscript traditions of
medieval Europe.
Academic career
Balliol College, Oxford
In 1922, Mynors won the Domus
exhibition, a scholarship to study
Classics
Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classi ...
at
Balliol College, Oxford
Balliol College () is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. One of Oxford's oldest colleges, it was founded around 1263 by John I de Balliol, a landowner from Barnard Castle in County Durham, who provided the f ...
. Attending the college at the same time as the literary critic
Cyril Connolly
Cyril Vernon Connolly CBE (10 September 1903 – 26 November 1974) was an English literary critic and writer. He was the editor of the influential literary magazine ''Horizon'' (1940–49) and wrote ''Enemies of Promise'' (1938), which combine ...
, the musicologist
Jack Westrup
Sir Jack Westrup (26 July 190421 April 1975) was an English musicologist, writer, teacher and occasional conductor and composer.
Biography
Jack Allan Westrup was the second of the three sons of George Westrup, insurance clerk, of Dulwich, and his ...
, the future
Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford
The Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford is the chief executive and leader of the University of Oxford. The following people have been vice-chancellors of the University of Oxford (formally known as The Right Worshipful the Vice-Chan ...
,
Walter Fraser Oakeshott
Sir Walter Fraser Oakeshott (11 November 1903 – 13 October 1987) was a schoolmaster and academic, who was Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford. He is best known for discovering the Winchester Manuscript of Sir Thomas Malory's ''Le Mo ...
, and the historian
Richard Pares
Richard Pares (25 August 1902 – 3 May 1958) was a British historian. He "was considered to be among the outstanding British historians of his time."
Family life and education
The eldest son of the five children of the historian Bernard Pares ...
, he was highly successful in his academic studies. Graduating with a
Bachelor of Arts in 1926, he won the Hertford (1924), Craven (1924), and Derby (1926) scholarships. He was elected to a
fellowship at Balliol and became a tutor in Classics. In 1935 he was elevated to a
University Lecturership. At the time of his appointment, much of Mynors's teaching focused on the poet
Vergil, whose complete works he edited in the following decades.
His tenure at
Oxford University saw the beginning of his comprehensive work on medieval manuscripts. From the late 1920s onwards, Mynors was drawn more to matters of
codicology
Codicology (; from French ''codicologie;'' from Latin , genitive , "notebook, book" and Greek , ''-logia'') is the study of codices or manuscript books. It is often referred to as "the archaeology of the book," a term coined by François Masai. ...
than to purely classical questions. He prepared an edition of the 6th-century scholar
Cassiodorus
Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator (c. 485 – c. 585), commonly known as Cassiodorus (), was a Roman statesman, renowned scholar of antiquity, and writer serving in the administration of Theodoric the Great, king of the Ostrogoths. ''Senator'' w ...
,
for which he travelled extensively in continental Europe; a critical edition was published in 1937. In 1929, he was appointed
librarian of Balliol College. This position gave impetus to create a catalogue of the college's medieval manuscripts. A similar project, a catalogue of the manuscripts housed at
Durham Cathedral
The Cathedral Church of Christ, Blessed Mary the Virgin and St Cuthbert of Durham, commonly known as Durham Cathedral and home of the Shrine of St Cuthbert, is a cathedral in the city of Durham, England, Durham, County Durham (district), C ...
, was compiled in the 1930s. Mynors's interest in codicology gave rise to a close co-operation with the medievalists
Richard William Hunt and
Neil Ripley Ker
Neil Ripley Ker (; 1908–1982) was a scholar of Anglo-Saxon literature. He was Reader in Palaeography at the University of Oxford and a fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford until he retired in 1968. He is known especially for his ''Catalogue of Ma ...
.
In 1936, towards the end of his tenure at Balliol, Mynors met
Eduard Fraenkel, then holder of a chair in Latin at Oxford. Having relocated to England because of the increasing
discrimination against German Jews, Fraenkel was a leading exponent of Germany's scholarly tradition. His mentorship contributed to Mynors's transformation from amateur scholar to a professional critic of Latin texts. They maintained a close friendship, which exposed Mynors to other German philologists, including
Rudolf Pfeiffer
Rudolf Carl Franz Otto Pfeiffer (20 September 1889 – 5 May 1979) was a German classical philologist. He is known today primarily for his landmark, two-volume edition of Callimachus and the two volumes of his ''History of Classical Scholars ...
and
Otto Skutsch.
Mynors spent the winter of 1938 as a visiting scholar at
Harvard University. In 1940, after a brief return to Balliol, British involvement in the Second World War led to his being employed at the Exchange Control Department of
Her Majesty's Treasury responsible for the administration of foreign currency transactions. At Balliol, Mynors taught from 1926 until 1944, a time during which he mentored a number of future scholars, including the
Wittgenstein
Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein ( ; ; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian-British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He is consider ...
expert
David Pears and the classicist
Donald Russell.
Pembroke College, Cambridge
In 1944, encouraged by Fraenkel, Mynors took up an offer to assume the
Kennedy Professorship of Latin at the
University of Cambridge. He also became a fellow of
Pembroke College. In 1945, shortly after moving to Cambridge, he married Lavinia Alington, a medical researcher and daughter of his former teacher and Eton headmaster, Cyril Alington. The couple had no children.
The move to Cambridge meant an advancement of his academic career, but he soon came to contemplate a return to Oxford. He applied unsuccessfully to become master of Balliol College after the position had been vacated by
Sandie Lindsay in 1949. The historian
David Keir
David Keir (1884–1971) was a British film actor
An actor or actress is a person who portrays a character in a performance. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, ...
was elected in his stead.
His post at Cambridge caused changes to Mynors's profile as an academic. His duties at Balliol had centred on the supervision of undergraduates, while he was free to focus on
palaeographical topics in his research. At Cambridge, Mynors was required to lecture extensively on Latin literature and to supervise research students, a task of which he had little experience. The duties of his university post left little time to get involved in the activities of the college, which led Mynors to regret his departure from Oxford, going so far as to describe the decision as a "fundamental error" in a personal letter.
Although his post was chiefly that of a Latinist, his involvement in the publication of medieval texts intensified during the 1940s. After he was approached by
V. H. Galbraith, a historian of the Middle Ages, Mynors became an editor on Nelson's ''Medieval Texts'' series in 1946. Working on the series first as a joint editor, and from 1962 as an advisory editor, he edited the Latin text for a number of volumes. He was the principal author of editions of
Walter Map's ''
De nugis curialium
''De nugis curialium'' (Medieval Latin for ''"Of the trifles of courtiers"'' or loosely ''"Trinkets for the Court"'') is the major surviving work of the 12th century Latin author Walter Map. He was an English courtier of Welsh descent. Map claime ...
'' and of
Bede
Bede ( ; ang, Bǣda , ; 672/326 May 735), also known as Saint Bede, The Venerable Bede, and Bede the Venerable ( la, Beda Venerabilis), was an English monk at the monastery of St Peter and its companion monastery of St Paul in the Kingdom o ...
's ''
Ecclesiastical History
__NOTOC__
Church history or ecclesiastical history as an academic discipline studies the history of Christianity and the way the Christian Church has developed since its inception.
Henry Melvill Gwatkin defined church history as "the spiritual ...
''. In 1947, he collaborated with the Oxford historian
Alfred Brotherston Emden, who consulted Mynors for his own work on the history of the University of Oxford while assisting, in turn, with the Balliol catalogue.
Corpus Christi College, Oxford
In 1953, Mynors was appointed
Corpus Christi Professor of Latin
The Corpus Christi Professorship of the Latin Language and Literature, also known simply as the Corpus Christi Professorship of Latin and previously as the Corpus Professorship of Latin, is a chair in Latin literature at Corpus Christi College, Un ...
and could thus return to Oxford to succeed Eduard Fraenkel. At the time, there was no precedent for such a move between senior chairs at Oxford and Cambridge.
Most of his work as an editor of Latin texts took place during this second period at Oxford. Working for the ''
Oxford Classical Texts
Oxford Classical Texts (OCT), or Scriptorum Classicorum Bibliotheca Oxoniensis, is a series of books published by Oxford University Press. It contains texts of ancient Greek and Latin literature, such as Homer's ''Odyssey'' and Virgil's ''Aeneid'' ...
'' series, he produced critical editions of the complete works of
Catullus
Gaius Valerius Catullus (; 84 - 54 BCE), often referred to simply as Catullus (, ), was a Latin poet of the late Roman Republic who wrote chiefly in the neoteric style of poetry, focusing on personal life rather than classical heroes. His s ...
(1958) and Vergil (1969), and of
Pliny the Younger's ''
Epistulae'' (1963). Though focusing on classical subjects, he continued to work on manuscripts as a curator at the
Bodleian Library
The Bodleian Library () is the main research library of the University of Oxford, and is one of the oldest libraries in Europe. It derives its name from its founder, Sir Thomas Bodley. With over 13 million printed items, it is the second ...
. In the 17 years he spent at the college, Mynors sought to maintain its position as a centre of excellence in the Classics and fostered contacts with a new generation of Latinists, including
E. J. Kenney,
Wendell Clausen,
Leighton Durham Reynolds,
R. J. Tarrant
Richard John Tarrant, is an American classicist and Emeritus Pope Professor of Latin at Harvard University. He is an expert on the textual criticism and the transmission of Latin poetry.
Career
A native of Brooklyn, Tarrant was educated at Fo ...
and
Michael Winterbottom.
Retirement and death
In 1970, Mynors retired from his teaching duties and relocated to his estate at Treago Castle. In addition to an intense dedication to
arboriculture
Arboriculture () is the cultivation, management, and study of individual trees, shrubs, vines, and other perennial woody plants. The science of arboriculture studies how these plants grow and respond to cultural practices and to their environmen ...
, his retirement saw work on a commentary on Vergil's ''
Georgics'', which was published posthumously in 1990. He translated the correspondence of the
humanist Desiderius Erasmus for the
University of Toronto Press
The University of Toronto Press is a Canadian university press founded in 1901. Although it was founded in 1901, the press did not actually publish any books until 1911.
The press originally printed only examination books and the university cale ...
, and maintained an interest in the nearby
Hereford Cathedral
Hereford Cathedral is the cathedral church of the Anglican Diocese of Hereford in Hereford, England.
A place of worship has existed on the site of the present building since the 8th century or earlier. The present building was begun in 1079. S ...
, serving as the chairman of the Friends of the Cathedral from 1979 to 1984. In 1980, the cathedral's parish set up a fund in Mynors's name to acquire a collection of rare books.
On 17 October 1989, Mynors was killed in a road accident outside
Hereford on his way back from a day working on the cathedral's manuscripts. He was buried at
St Weonards
St Weonards (correctly pronounced 'wonnards') is a village and civil parish in Herefordshire, England, located south of Hereford, west of Ross-on-Wye and north of Monmouth, on the A466 road. Within the parish and also on the A466 is the hamle ...
. Meryl Jancey, the cathedral's Honorary Archivist, later revealed that Mynors had on the same day expressed his delight about his own scholarly work on the death of Bede: "He told me he was glad that he had translated for the ''Oxford Medieval Texts'' the account of Bede's death, and that Bede had not ceased in what he saw as his work for God until the very end."
Contributions to scholarship
Cataloguing manuscripts
Mynors's chief interest lay in palaeography, the study of pre-modern manuscripts. He is credited with unravelling a number of complex manuscript relationships in his catalogues of the Balliol and Durham Cathedral libraries.
He had particular interest in the physical state of manuscripts, including examining blots and rulings. For the Balliol archivist Bethany Hamblen, this interest typifies the importance Mynors gave to formal features when evaluating hand-written books.
Critical editions
A series of critical editions on Latin authors constitutes the entirety of Mynors's purely classical scholarship. Because of his reluctance to
emend
Aprepitant, sold under the brand name Emend among others, is a medication used to prevent chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting (CINV) and to prevent postoperative nausea and vomiting (PONV). It may be used together with ondansetron and dex ...
beyond the transmitted readings, Mynors has been described as a conservative textual critic.
This approach is thought to have originated in his tendency to ascribe great historical value to manuscripts and their
scribes.
The first of his critical editions is of the ''Institutiones'' of Cassiodorus, the first produced since 1679. In the introduction, Mynors offered new insights into the complex manuscript tradition without resolving the fundamental question of how the original text was expanded in later copies. The edition was praised by the reviewer
Stephen Gaselee in ''
The Classical Review
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the ...
'', who said that it would provide solid foundations for a commentary; writing for the ''
Journal of Theological Studies
''The Journal of Theological Studies'' is an academic journal established in 1899 and now published by Oxford University Press in April and October each year. It publishes theological research, scholarship, and interpretation, and hitherto unpubli ...
'',
Alexander Souter
Alexander Souter (14 August 1873 – 17 January 1949) was a Scottish biblical scholar and university professor
Biography
Souter was born in Perth, and studied at the University of Aberdeen and the University of Cambridge. He subsequently became ...
described it as a "definitive edition" and praised Mynors's classification of the manuscripts.
In 1958, Mynors published an edition of the poems of Catullus. His text followed two recent editions by Moritz Schuster (1949) and Ignazio Cazzaniga (1956), with which he had to compete. Taking a conservative stance on the problems posed by Catullus's text, Mynors did not print any modern
emendations unless they corrected obvious scribal errors. Contrary to his conservative instincts, he rejected the traditional
archaising orthography of the manuscripts in favour of normalised Latin spelling. This intervention was termed by the philologist
Revilo Oliver as "the victory of common sense" in Catullan criticism. For the reviewer Philip Levine, Mynors's edition sets itself apart from previous texts by its scrutiny of a "large bulk" of unexamined manuscripts. Writing in 2000, the Latinist
Stephen Harrison criticised Mynors's text for the "omission of many important conjectures from the text", while lauding it for its handling of the manuscript tradition.
His edition of Pliny's ''Epistulae'' employed a similar method but aimed to be an intermediate step rather than an overhaul of the text. Mynors's edition of the complete works of Vergil revamped the text constructed by
F. A. Hirtzel in 1900 which had become outdated. He enlarged the manuscript base by drawing on 13 minor
witnesses
In law, a witness is someone who has knowledge about a matter, whether they have sensed it or are testifying on another witnesses' behalf. In law a witness is someone who, either voluntarily or under compulsion, provides testimonial evidence, e ...
from the ninth century and added an index of personal names. Its judgement of these minor manuscripts, in particular, is described by the Latinist
W. S. Maguinness as the edition's strength. Given the incomplete state of the ''
Aeneid
The ''Aeneid'' ( ; la, Aenē̆is or ) is a Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who fled the fall of Troy and travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the ...
'', Vergil's epic poem on the wanderings of
Aeneas
In Greco-Roman mythology, Aeneas (, ; from ) was a Trojan hero, the son of the Trojan prince Anchises and the Greek goddess Aphrodite (equivalent to the Roman Venus). His father was a first cousin of King Priam of Troy (both being grandsons o ...
, Mynors departed from his cautious editorial stance by printing a small number of modern conjectures.
Mynors established a new text of Bede's ''Ecclesiastical History'' for the edition he published together with the historian
Bertram Colgrave
Bertram Colgrave, D. Litt. (born 1889, Derry, Ireland – died 13 January 1968, Cambridge, England) was a medieval historian, antiquarian and archaeologist, specializing on the lives of the early saints in Anglo-Saxon England.
Life
Colgrave att ...
. His edition of this text followed that of
Charles Plummer
Charles Plummer, FBA (1851–1927) was an English historian and cleric, best known as the editor of Sir John Fortescue's ''The Governance of England'', and for coining the term "bastard feudalism". He was the fifth son of Matthew Plummer of St ...
published in 1896.
Collation
Collation is the assembly of written information into a standard order. Many systems of collation are based on numerical order or alphabetical order, or extensions and combinations thereof. Collation is a fundamental element of most office fil ...
of the
Saint Petersburg Bede
The Saint Petersburg Bede (Saint Petersburg, National Library of Russia, lat. Q. v. I. 18), formerly known as the Leningrad Bede, is an Anglo-Saxon illuminated manuscript, a near-contemporary version of Bede's 8th century history, the ''Historia ...
, an 8th-century manuscript unknown to Plummer, allowed Mynors to construct a new version of the
M tradition. Although he did not append a detailed
critical apparatus
A critical apparatus ( la, apparatus criticus) in textual criticism of primary source material, is an organized system of notations to represent, in a single text, the complex history of that text in a concise form useful to diligent readers and ...
and exegetical notes, his analysis of the textual history was praised by the Church historian
Gerald Bonner as "lucid" and "excellently done". Mynors himself considered the edition superficial and felt that its publication had been premature. Winterbottom voices a similar opinion, writing that the text "hardly differ
dfrom Plummer's".
Commentary on the ''Georgics''
His scholarly legacy was enhanced by his posthumously published commentary on Vergil's ''Georgics''. A comprehensive guide to Vergil's
didactic poem on
agriculture
Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to ...
, the commentary has been lauded for its meticulous attention to technical detail and for Mynors's profound knowledge of agricultural practice. In spite of its accomplishments, the classicist Patricia Johnston has noted that the commentary fails to engage seriously with contemporary scholarship on the text, such as the tension between optimistic and pessimistic readings. In this regard, Mynors's last work reflects his lifelong scepticism towards literary criticism of any persuasion.
Legacy
During his career, Mynors gained a reputation as "one of the leading classical scholars of his generation".
He drew praise from the scholarly community for his textual work. The Latinist Harold Gotoff states that he was an "extraordinary scholar", while Winterbottom describes his critical editions as "distinguished". His Oxford editions of the poets Catullus and Vergil in particular are singled out by Gotoff as "excellent"; they still serve as the standard editions of their texts in the early 21st century.
Honours
Mynors was elected a
Fellow of the British Academy in 1944 and made a
Knight Bachelor in 1963. He was granted honorary fellowships by Balliol College, Oxford (1963), Pembroke College, Cambridge (1965), and Corpus Christi College, Oxford (1970). The
Warburg Institute honoured him in the same way. Mynors was also an honorary member of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...
, the
American Philosophical Society
The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...
, and the
Istituto Nazionale di Studi Romani (
it). He held honorary degrees from the universities of Cambridge,
Durham Durham most commonly refers to:
*Durham, England, a cathedral city and the county town of County Durham
* County Durham, an English county
*Durham County, North Carolina, a county in North Carolina, United States
*Durham, North Carolina, a city in N ...
,
Edinburgh,
Sheffield, and
Toronto.
In 1983, on his 80th birthday, Mynors's service to the study of Latin texts was honoured by the publication of ''Texts and Transmission: A Survey of the Latin Classics'', edited by the Oxford Latinist L. D. Reynolds.
In 2020, an exhibition was held at Balliol to commemorate his scholarship on the college library.
Publications
The following books were authored by Mynors:
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Notes
References
Bibliography
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Mynors, Roger
1903 births
1989 deaths
British identical twins
People educated at Eton College
People educated at Summer Fields School
Alumni of Balliol College, Oxford
Members of the University of Cambridge faculty of classics
Fellows of Balliol College, Oxford
Knights Bachelor
British classical scholars
Anglo-Saxon studies scholars
Road incident deaths in England
Corpus Christi Professors of Latin
Scholars of Latin literature
Fellows of the British Academy
Codicologists
English twins
British medievalists
English palaeographers
Burials in Herefordshire
Latin–English translators
Kennedy Professors of Latin
Presidents of the Classical Association