(literally "Book of Sparks") is a late seventh or early eighth-century
florilegium
In medieval Latin, a ' (plural ') was a compilation of excerpts or sententia from other writings and is an offshoot of the commonplacing tradition. The word is from the Latin '' flos'' (flower) and '' legere'' (to gather): literally a gathering ...
of
biblical
The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) biblical languages ...
and
patristic sayings in
Latin
Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
. It was compiled by Defensor, a monk who in the preface identifies himself as a member of
St Martin's Abbey at
Ligugé
Ligugé () is a commune in the Vienne department in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region in western France.
It is located on the River Clain, south of Poitiers. It is known for its historic monastery, Ligugé Abbey.
Twin towns – sister cities
Li ...
, near Poitiers, and who wrote the work at the behest of his teacher
Ursinus, the abbot of St Martin's. Virtually nothing is known of the monk beyond what the preface offers us. The compilation was written sometime between 636, when the important source
Isidore of Seville
Isidore of Seville (; 4 April 636) was a Spania, Hispano-Roman scholar, theologian and Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Seville, archbishop of Seville. He is widely regarded, in the words of the 19th-century historian Charles Forbes René de Montal ...
died, and about 750, when the earliest extant manuscript appears to have been produced.
The "sparks" (''scintillae'') of the title refer to sayings (such as maxims and proverbs) of the Lord and his saints, which have been excerpted from the Bible and the Church Fathers, and rearranged into as many as 81 chapters. The headings of these chapters refer mainly to vices (e.g. avarice, fornication), virtues (patience, wisdom), devotional practices (confession, prayer) and common themes of human life (marriage, feasting).
In the early part of the eleventh century, a copy of the Latin text was accompanied by an
interlinear Old English
Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...
gloss, for which a little space between the lines was available. It is found in
British Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. Based in London, it is one of the largest libraries in the world, with an estimated collection of between 170 and 200 million items from multiple countries. As a legal deposit li ...
, Royal MS 7 C IV, together with ''De vitiis et peccatis'', again with an interlinear Old English gloss. It belonged to
Rochester Cathedral
Rochester Cathedral, formally the Cathedral Church of Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary, is in Rochester, Kent, England. The cathedral is the mother church of the Anglican Diocese of Rochester and seat (''cathedra'') of the Bishop of Rocheste ...
Priory and probably joined the
Old Royal Library as part of the spoils of the
Dissolution of the Monasteries, like the
Rochester Bestiary.
Editions
*
J.P. Migne, ''
Patrologia Latina
The ''Patrologia Latina'' (Latin for ''The Latin Patrology'') is an enormous collection of the writings of the Church Fathers and other ecclesiastical writers published by Jacques Paul Migne between 1841 and 1855, with indices published betwe ...
'' 88.
*Rochais, H.M. (ed.). . Corpus Christianorum, series Latina 117. Turnholt, 1957.
*Rhodes, E.W. (ed.). ''Defensor's with an interlinear Anglo-Saxon version made early in the eleventh century''.
EETS. London, 1889.
Studies
*Bremmer, Rolf H. Jr, 'The Reception of Defensor's {{lang, la, Liber Scintillarum in Anglo-Saxon England', in ''...un tuo serto di fiori in man recando. Scritti in onori di Maria Amalia D'Aronco'', vol. 2, ed. Patrizia Lendinara. Udine: Forum, 2008, pp. 75–89.
External links
Image from Royal MS 6 D V, f. 46v British Library.
British Library.
British Library.
Latin proverbs
Wisdom literature
Early medieval Latin literature
British Library Royal manuscripts