An Introduction to the Study of Medieval Latin Versification

$Q,QWURGXFWLRQWRWKH6WXG\RI0HGLHYDO/DWLQ9HUVLILFDWLRQ 'DJ1RUEHUJ*UDQW&5RWL-DFTXHOLQHGH/D&KDSSHOOH6NXOE\-DQ=LRONRZVNL 'DJ/XGYLJ1RUEHUJ 3XEOLVKHGE\7KH&DWKROLF8QLYHUVLW\RI$PHULFD3UHVV 'DJ1RUEHUJDQG*UDQW&5RWLDQG-DFTXHOLQHGH/D&KDSSHOOH6NXOE\DQG-DQ=LRONRZVNLDQG'DJ/XGYLJ1RUEHUJ $Q,QWURGXFWLRQWRWKH6WXG\RI0HGLHYDO/DWLQ9HUVLILFDWLRQ :DVKLQJWRQ7KH&DWKROLF8QLYHUVLW\RI$PHULFD3UHVV KWWSPXVHMKXHGX 3URMHFW086( :HE)HE For additional information about this book http://muse.jhu.edu/books/9780813216348 Access provided by Harvard University (9 Feb 2015 22:59 GMT) a AN INTRODUCTION TO DAG NORBERG’S INTRODUCTION For nearly forty years, English-speakers who have wished to study classical meter have relied upon such fine staples as Latin Metre: An Introduction by D. S. Raven and The Meters of Greek and Latin Poetry by James W. Halporn, Martin Ostwald, and Thomas G. Rosenmeyer.1 Of approximately the same vintage, Dag Norberg’s Introduction à l’étude de la versification latine médiévale (An Introduction to the Study of Medieval Latin Versification) has also stood the test of time exceptionally well in the more than four decades since . It remains the fundamental starting point for anyone who has questions or seeks information about Medieval Latin metrics. Furthermore, in contrast to the two volumes just mentioned, the Introduction has no real competition in any other language. Amazingly, the book has never before been translated from French into another language and indeed has not been reprinted since its first publication in Stockholm. With the appearance of this translation into English, Norberg’s Introduction will be given an extended lease on life and will be made accessible to an expanded readership. Every library with a reference collection on medieval studies will want to have a copy of this translation, as will most students and scholars who work with Medieval Latin literature, others who delve into medieval music, and many who have an interest in poetry in Romance languages of the Middle Ages. It holds major significance for both Latinists and Romance philologists who hope to gain an understanding of Latin metrics in . The original publishing data for Raven’s book was London: Faber & Faber, ; for the reprint, London: Bristol Classical Press, an imprint of Gerald Duckworth & Co., Ltd, ; for Halporn, Ostwald, and Rosenmeyer’s book, Indianapolis and New York: Bobbs Merrill, ; for the revised edition, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, , and for the most recent reprint: Indianapolis: Hackett, . ix x / Introduction the post-classical period. Linguists, aspiring editors, and lovers of medieval literature will find it indispensable for the data and insights it provides about the history, pronunciation, and accentuation of post-classical Latin. It continues to have particular relevance to the debates that have taken place over the past two decades about the relationship between the early Romance languages and Latin, and about the question of pinpointing the time when Medieval Latin became distinct from the spoken languages that grew out of Vulgar Latin.2 Finally, anyone—and by no means only musicologists—who desires to explore the intricate interactions between text and music in the Middle Ages would be well advised to consult it. The reasons for the longevity of Norberg’s Introduction are not hard to see. It offers clear guidance and many well-chosen examples, drawn from a wide range of texts from late antiquity and the Middle Ages, in a very readable style. A book for both novices and specialists, it can be perused easily from cover to cover, but it can also serve as a reference work. The central theme of the book is the transition from quantitative to accentual Latin poetry. Although such a topic could seem dry and restricted, Norberg’s Introduction is lively, fascinating, and broad in implications. Furthermore, its terminology and symbolic system, although they have not gone uncontested, have become by far the most common for describing Medieval Latin rhythmic poetry.3 Although metrics can seem very abstract, the work of Dag Norberg was not at all detached from the rest of his life’s work as a scholar and exercised a catalytic influence upon many students and colleagues. Norberg lived from  July  to  October .4 From  to  he first studied and then . See Roger Wright, Late Latin and Early Romance in Spain and Carolingian France, ARCA  (Liverpool: Francis Cairns, ), – (“The Evidence of ‘Rhythmic’ Poetry”) and – (“Popular Verse?”). Information on Wright’s subsequent work in this area can be found in the text and bibliography of his most recent book, A Sociophilological Study of Late Latin, Utrecht Studies in Medieval Literacy  (Turnhout: Brepols, ). . For an overview of the different symbolic systems that have been devised, see Edoardo D’Angelo, “Sui sistemi di descrizione strutturale della versificazione ritmica mediolatina,” in Satura. Collectanea philologica Italo Gallo ab amicis discipulisque dicata, ed. Giancarlo Abbamonte, Andrea Rescigno, Angelo [Rossi], and Ruggero Rossi ([Naples]: Arte Tipografica, ), –. The most elaborate alternative to Norberg’s system was the one proposed by Dieter Schaller, “Bauformeln für akzentrhythmische Verse und Strophen,” Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch  (): –. . For information on Norberg’s life, see the necrologies by Ritva Maria Jacobsson, “Dag Norberg  July – October ,” Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch  (): –, and Pierre Pettitmengin, “In Memoriam Dag Norberg (–),” Bulletin du Cange. Archivum latinitatis medii aevi  (): –. Jan Ziolkowski / xi taught at the University of Uppsala. From  to  he was a professor at the University of Stockholm. At regular intervals throughout his career, Norberg produced significant contributions to the study of Late Latin and Medieval Latin literature. His earliest large-scale endeavor during the Uppsala years was two substantial volumes on the Registrum of Gregory the Great.5 Afterward he focused his investigations on syntax in Late Latin and early Medieval Latin, demonstrating in two books (in  and ) that many Latin texts had undergone unwarranted emendation by editors who had forced them to conform to a Procrustean bed determined by classical language and style.6 Although Norberg never abandoned his researches on Late Latin prose, he directed much of his attention during his Stockholm years to studies on versification. In  he published his first monograph on Medieval Latin poetry of the Merovingian and Carolingian periods, La Poésie latine rythmique du haut Moyen Âge (The Latin Rhythmic Poetry of the Early Middle Ages).7 Less than five years later he came out with the present book, a companion piece of considerable breadth. Not even a decade afterward ()—during his long service as rector of the University of Stockholm—he wrote the Manuel pratique de latin médiéval (A Practical Manual of Medieval Latin) which has achieved classic status in France and Italy as an initiation into the reading of Medieval Latin texts.8 In the later stages of his scholarly life, his scrutiny of both the prose and verse of Late Latin and early Medieval Latin culminated in complete critical editions of Gregory the Great’s Registrum and Paulinus of Aquileia’s poetic oeuvre. With the two massive tomes of the Registrum and the two others of . In registrum Gregorii Magni studia critica, Uppsala universitets årsskrift  (Uppsala, ) and  (Uppsala, ). . Syntaktische Forschungen auf dem Gebiete des Spätlateins und des frühen Mittellateins, Uppsala universitets årsskrift  (Uppsala, ) and Beiträge zur spätlateinischen Syntax, Arbeten utg. med understöd av Vilhelm Ekmans universitetsfond  (Uppsala, ). . Studia latina holmiensia  (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, ). . Manuel pratique de latin médiéval (Paris: A. & J. Picard, ). The French text was reprinted in . The Italian translation (first edition, Florence: La Nuova Italia, ) was reprinted recently, with a preface by Massimo Oldoni (–) and bibliographic updating by Paolo Garbini (–), under the title Manuale di latino medievale, Schola Salernitana: Studi e testi  (Cava dei Tirreni: Avagliano, ). A partial translation into English (corresponding to – of the French edition) by R. H. Johnson is available online (www.orbilat.com/ Latin/Medieval_Latin/Dag_Norberg) with the disclaimer “reproduced on Orbis Latinus with no commercial purpose.” xii / Introduction Paulinus, Norberg brought his work full circle to the texts that had captivated him recurrently since the s.9 The bibliography of his works that was published posthumously in  reaches a tally just shy of  publications. All the shorter articles he wrote between  and  were reprinted in the volume that includes the bibliography.10 An earlier book, printed in , contains a florilegium of the notes and essays he had published between  and .11 Although much of Norberg’s scholarship remains valuable and continues to be cited, the characterization of the Introduction as “without doubt the most significant work” in Norberg’s research continues to hold true.12 In  Norberg ceased writing scholarship in German on a regular basis and began to compose his writings predominantly in French. Norberg’s choice of language in which to offer his Introduction was greeted with admiration and gratitude by Francophone reviewers, who were well aware that he had written earlier studies in Latin and German. The medium of French enabled him to reach a wider scholarly public in Romania—as can be designated the expanse of Romance-speaking countries in Europe—than would have been the case if he had continued to write in German. Yet the very virtue that has facilitated his reception among Italians and Spaniards, to say nothing of Frenchmen, has restricted access to the book in other quarters, as a comfortable reading knowledge of French has become less and less a given for those ever more numerous Anglophone readers who might be drawn to Medieval . S. Gregorii Magni registrum epistularum libri I–VII and S. Gregorii Magni registrum epistularum libri VIII–XIV, Corpus Christianorum Series Latina –A (Turnhout: Brepols, ); L’oeuvre poétique de Paulin d’Aquilée: Édition critique avec introduction et commentaire, Kungl. Vitterhets Historie och Antikvitetsakademien, Filologisk-filosofiska serien  (Stockholm, ); and Contra Felicem libri tres. Paulini Aquileiensis opera omnia, pars , Corpus Christianorum Continuatio mediaevalis  (Turnhout: Brepols, ). . Dag Norberg, Au seuil du Moyen Âge. II: Études linguistiques, métriques et littéraires –, ed. Ritva Jacobsson and Folke Sandgren, Kungl. Vitterhets Historie och Antikvitets Akademien, Filologiskt Arkiv  (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, ). The bibliography, compiled by Axel Norberg and Folke Sandgren, runs from pp. –. Many of these studies pertain to metrics, of which special note should be made of “Mètre et rythme entre le BasEmpire et le Haut Moyen Âge,” –; “Carmen oder Rhythmus?” –; and “La versification de Commodien,” –. . Dag Norberg, Au seuil du Moyen Âge: Études linguistiques, métriques et littéraires publiées par ses collègues et élèves à l’occasion de son e anniversaire, Medioevo e umanesimo  (Padua: Editrice antenore, ). Particularly relevant are the studies entitled “L’Origine de la versification latine rythmique,” –; “Le vers accentuel en bas-latin,” –; and “La récitation du vers latin,” –. . “L’ouvrage le plus significatif est sans doute l’Introduction”: in the anonymous “Présentation” that introduces Au seuil du Moyen Âge (), p. IX. Jan Ziolkowski / xiii Latin, even when such prospective readers could aspire to lay their hands upon a book that was printed only once more than forty years ago in a specialized monograph series in Sweden. Despite a modest title, the book offers brilliant reflections on the evolution of Latin verse technique in the Middle Ages. An introduction in the best sense of the word, it offers balanced attention to both the enduring influence of the classics as purveyed through the schools and the impact of vernacular languages and cultures. Although it claims to be a summary of sorts, it in fact presents an overview of Latin versification from the beginning to the end of the Middle Ages. Of all scholarship on Medieval Latin metrics that was brought into print in the twentieth century, it has been at once the most comprehensive and most enduring. The term magisterial has been applied to it more than once.13 This compliment is deserved, especially when one considers the difficulty, abundance, and variety of the materials with which Norberg had to grapple in order to make any of his broad conclusions hold true. The opening chapters on quantitative verse (pp. – of this translation) are restricted to the length necessary to compare the norms of classical quantitative composition with those of Medieval Latin. The chapters deal with prosody and word accent; synaeresis, diaeresis, syncope, prosthesis, elision, and hiatus; assonance, rhyme, and alliteration; acrostics, carmina figurata, and other such artifices; and metrical versification. All these termini technici could make reading these chapters a daunting experience, but Norberg wears his learning as lightly as he can in contending with such topics. Without being too informal, his own prose style gives the impression of a lucid individual who is conversing, rather than lecturing. The first chapter is particularly helpful as it explains why the accentuation and syllable length of many words in Medieval Latin diverge from the norms of Classical Latin— and why the divergences vary considerably across time and space. Norberg returned to this topic, with a particular focus, in a much later monograph entitled L’Accentuation des mots dans le vers du latin du Moyen Âge (The Accentuation of Words in Latin Verse of the Middle Ages).14 The third chapter . When the book first appeared, it was widely reviewed by prominent scholars. For identification of twenty reviews, see Fabio Cupaiuolo, Bibliografia della metrica latina, Studi latini  (Naples: Loffredo, ), . The term magisterial (or related words) appears in the reviews by R. B. C. Huygens, Louis Nougaret, and Hubert Silvestre which are included in the list just mentioned. . Kungl. Vitterhets Historie och Antikvitets Akademien, Filologiskt Arkiv  (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, ). xiv / Introduction provides a succinct treatment of assonance and rhyme, features that became ever more favored in Latin poetry from the tenth century onward. The chapter on quantitative versification shows what a variety of meters was attested in the Middle Ages, many of them the same as meters found in classical antiquity, but some of them new and others old meters altered through the incorporation of substantially new structures, such as rhyme. The main thrust in the second half of the book (pp. –) comes as Norberg unfolds his views on the origins and developments of the many different forms of rhythmic poetry. The relationship between Latin quantitative and rhythmic or accentual poetry has long been much controverted.15 Sweeping aside the generalizations of preceding theories (and the sometimes unfortunate consequences they have had on editorial practices of those who have grappled with Medieval Latin texts), he holds fast to facts as he develops the case—not claiming it as an explanation for all forms of rhythmic poetry—that, partly under the influence of the music, medieval poets often created rhythmic verse by reading ancient meters as prose, without maintaining the lengths of syllables or ictus demanded by classical prosody, but while retaining the number of syllables, placement of caesuras, and cadences before the caesuras and line endings. In making his case, Norberg avoids espousing any single theory to account for the origins of all rhythmic poetry, as had earlier scholars who—like adventurers in quest of the source of the Nile—had sought to localize the start of rhythmic poetry or of the taste for rhyme in various vernacular languages or in the practices of specific geographical areas, such as Africa or the Orient. In particular he refutes the thesis of Wilhelm Meyer of Speyer (–), . A. Etchegaray Cruz, “El tránsito de la poesía latina métrica a la rítmica y algunos problemas conexos,” in Semanas de estudios romanos III–IV : Homenaje a Carlos A. Disandro (Valparaíso: Universidad Católica, Instituto de Historia, ), –; Paul Klopsch, “Der Übergang von quantitierender zu akzentuierender lateinischer Dichtung,” in Hildegard L. C. Tristram, ed., Metrik und Medienwechsel: Metrics and Media (Tübingen, ), –, and, above all, D’Arco Silvio Avalle, “Dalla metrica alla ritmica,” in Lo Spazio letterario del Medioevo. Medioevo, part , “Il Medioevo latino,” ed. Guglielmo Cavallo, Claudio Leonardi, and Enrico Menestò, vol. , “La Produzione del testo,” part  (Rome: Salerno editrice, ), –. Avalle’s contribution is complemented nicely by Mauro Donnini, “Versificazione: le tecniche,” in Lo Spazio letterario del Medioevo. Medioevo , ed. Guglielmo Cavallo, Claudio Leonardi, and Enrico Menestò, vol. , “La Ricezione del testo” (Rome: Salerno editrice, ), –. However, even when put together as a diptych, these two essays do not form a unity that comes close to replacing Norberg’s Introduction. (All references to Norberg’s Introduction will be to this translation.) Jan Ziolkowski / xv who had been the most influential scholar of Medieval Latin meter before him, that held Latin rhythmic poetry to be essentially prose with a set final cadence. (Meyer’s three-volume Gesammelte Abhandlungen zur mittellateinischen Rhythmik (Collected Writings on Medieval Latin Rhythmic Poetry) [Berlin: Weidmann, –; reprinted Hildesheim: George Olms, ] provided much of the foundation for the work of other twentieth-century scholars.)16 At the same time Norberg introduced a new system of signs to indicate accented and unaccented syllables, in place of the symbols taken from classical metrics that Meyer had employed. Equally important, Norberg demonstrates the falsehood of viewing rhythmic poems as having no rules: on the contrary, they operate according to principles, but ones that differ from the norms of quantitative poetry. He points out mistakes in editions by both Meyer and Karl Strecker, another revered founder of Medieval Latin philology. The chapters on rhythmic poetry conclude with a brief chapter (pp. – ) on sequences, tropes, motets, and rondeaux, in which Norberg shows himself alive to the complex relationship between text and music. Frequently the attraction of a preexisting melody caused poets to imitate the number of syllables or accents in a quantitative text as they devised texts in new rhythmic forms to accompany it. To cap the book, there are a conclusion (pp. –), a detailed bibliography (–), and six excellent indices (–). Scholarship on Medieval Latin metrics has not ceased to accumulate and even to advance since the publication of Norberg’s Introduction, as can be verified by consulting any of various bibliographies.17 But no book has been brought into print that in any way supersedes it. To all appearances, it remains fundamental and not only unsupplanted but even unsupplantable. Paul Klop. For an account of Meyer’s activities as a philologist, see Fidel Rädle, “Wilhelm Meyer, Professor der Klassischen Philologie –,” in Die Klassische Altertumswissenschaft an der Georg-August-Universität Göttingen. Eine Ringvorlesung zu ihrer Geschichte, ed. Carl Joachim Classen, Göttinger Universitätsschriften, Serie A: Schriften  (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, ), –. For a quick overview of the scholarship on rhythmical verse that preceded Norberg, see Francesco Stella, “Le raccolte dei ritmi precarolingi e la tradizione manoscritta di Paolino d’Aquileia: nuclei testuali e rapporti di trasmissione,” Studi Medievali, rd series  (): – (esp. –). . Fabio Cupaiuolo, Bibliografia della metrica latina; Jürgen L. Leonhardt, “Dimensio syllabarum”: Studien zur lateinischen Prosodie- und Verslehre von der Spätantike bis zur Renaissance, mit einem ausführlichen Quellenverzeichnis bis zum Jahr , Hypomnemata: Untersuchungen zur Antike und zu ihrem Nachleben  (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, ); and the section on metrics in the annual bibliography, Medioevo Latino. xvi / Introduction sch’s slim volume in German, which appeared fourteen years later, seems to have been envisaged as a shorter textbook for university students and scholars.18 Yet, studded with many parenthetic notes and statistical tables, it is not what could be termed colloquially “an easy read.” Although it cannot compete in clarity, detail, or sweep with Norberg’s Introduction, it constitutes an important source of information on quantitative meters, especially dactylic meters.19 For English-speakers the most useful treatment may be the appendix titled “Metre” in A. G. Rigg’s A History of Anglo-Latin Literature; but these sixteen pages, despite the wealth of information they record, are limited to AngloLatin verse of the later Middle Ages and make no claim to be more than a checklist.20 Indeed, they acknowledge unambiguously Norberg’s Introduction as the standard on the subject. Such acknowledgment has been a feature of virtually every discussion of Medieval Latin metrics in the past forty odd years. Much effort since Norberg has centered upon developments in particular metrical forms, sometimes as they took place in specific geographical regions. For example, Dieter Schaller has written valuable articles on heptasyllabic and hendecasyllabic verse in the early Middle Ages;21 Michael W. Herren on heptasyllabic, octosyllabic, and hendecasyllabic verse in Hiberno-Latin and Insular Latin;22 and Michael Lapidge on Anglo-Latin Adonics and octosyllabic verse.23 Jesús Luque Moreno studied the trochaic septe. Paul Klopsch, Einführung in die mittellateinische Verslehre (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, ). . For a close critique of Klopsch’s book in comparison with Norberg’s, see Dieter Schaller’s review in Gnomon  (): –. . See A. G. Rigg, “Metre,” in A. G. Rigg. A History of Anglo-Latin Literature, – (), –. . Dieter Schaller, “Der alkäische Hendekasyllabus im frühen Mittelalter,” in Studien zur lateinischen Dichtung des Frühmittelalters, Quellen und Untersuchungen zur lateinischen Philologie des Mittelalters  (Stuttgart: Anton Hiersemann, ), – (original pagination in Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch  []: –), with supplementary notes on –, and “Die Siebensilberstrophen ‘de mundi transitu’—eine Dichtung Columbans?” in Studien zur lateinischen Dichtung, – (– supplement Norberg, Introduction, –, ). . See Michael W. Herren, “Hibernolateinische und irische Verskunst mit besonderer Berücksichtigung des Siebensilbers,” in Hildegard L. C. Tristram, ed., Metrik und Medienwechsel—Metrics and Media (Tübingen, ), –; “The Stress System of the HibernoLatin Hendecasyllable,” Celtica  (): –; and “The Stress Systems in Insular Latin Octosyllabic Verse,” Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies  (): –. All three of these studies have been reprinted in Michael W. Herren, Latin Letters in Early Christian Ireland (Aldershot, Hampshire: Variorum, ). . Michael Lapidge, “The Authorship of the Adonic Verses ‘Ad Fidolium’ attributed to Jan Ziolkowski / xvii nary.24 Scevola Mariotti, Manlio Pastore Stocchi, and, above all, Peter Stotz have plumbed the challenging depths of Medieval Latin sapphics and related forms.25 Norberg himself published a substantial study of Latin iambic and trochaic verses, both quantitative and rhythmic, and another smaller one of Terentianean verses.26 Of the many scholars who have written on hexameters, Paul Klopsch, Janet Martin, Franco Munari, Giovanni Orlandi, and Neil Wright deserve special mention.27 Other fine work on meters has resulted from the close study of individual authors.28 Some forms that Norberg treated in a matter of a few pages have become Columbanus,” Studi Medievali, rd series  (): – (especially –), and Michael Lapidge, “Theodore and Anglo-Latin Octosyllabic Verse,” in Archbishop Theodore: Commemorative Studies on his Life and Influence, ed. Michael Lapidge, Cambridge Studies in AngloSaxon England  (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ), –, rept. in Michael Lapidge, Anglo-Latin Literature – (London and Rio Grande: Hambledon Press, ), – (to connect with Norberg, Introduction, –). . Jesús Luque Moreno, “El versus quadratus en los tratados de métrica antiguos y medievales,” Florentia Illiberritana. Revista de estudios de Antigüedad clásica (Granada)  (): –, and “Metricólogos tardíos y medievales ante un verso ‘vulgar’” in Latin vulgaire— latin tardif, vol. , –. . Scevola Mariotti, “Strofe saffiche e pseudosaffiche ritmico-quantitative,” in Scritti medievali e umanistici, ed. Silvia Rizzo, nd ed., Storia e letteratura  (Rome: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, ), –; Manlio Pastore Stocchi, “Su una saffica ‘barbara’ mediolatina,” Metrica  (): –; and Peter Stotz, Sonderformen der sapphischen Dichtung. Ein Beitrag zur Erforschung der sapphischen Dichtung des lateinischen Mittelalters, Medium Aevum  (Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, ). All three of these studies amplify Norberg, Introduction, –, –, and . Stocchi questions Norberg’s interpretation of rhythmic verse as imitating the structure of quantitative poetry. . Dag Norberg, Les vers latins iambiques et trochaïques au Moyen Âge et leurs répliques rythmiques, Kungl. Vitterhets Historie och Antikvitets Akademien, Filologiskt Arkiv  (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, ), and “Le vers térentianéan,” in La critica del testo mediolatino. Atti del Convegno (Firenze – dicembre ), ed. Claudio Leonardi, Biblioteca di Medioevo Latino  (Spoleto: Centro italiano di studi sull’Alto Medioevo, ), –, reprinted in Dag Norberg, Au seuil du Moyen Âge. II, –. . Janet Martin, “Classicism and Style in Latin Literature,” in Renaissance and Renewal in the Twelfth Century, ed. Robert L. Benson and Giles Constable, with Carol D. Lanham (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, ), – (esp. –); Franco Munari, ed. Marco Valerio: Bucoliche, nd ed. (Florence: Felice Le Monnier, ), LXIV–LXXVIII; Giovanni Orlandi, “Caratteri della versificazione dattilica,” in Retorica e poetica tra i secoli XII e XIV, Atti del secondo Convegno internazionale di studi dell’Associazione per il Medioevo e l’Umanesimo Latini in onore e memoria di Ezio Franceschini, Trento-Rovereto, – ottobre  (Perugia and Florence: Regione dell’Umbria-La Nuova Italia Editrice, ), –; and Neil Wright, “The Anglo-Latin Hexameter: Theory and Practice c. –c. ,” Ph.D. diss. (Cambridge University, ). . Andy Orchard, The Poetic Art of Aldhelm, Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England xviii / Introduction the topic of entire books and monographs. Such is particularly the case with forms that Norberg touched upon briefly at the end of the book, such as the sequence and the trope; the latter form became the focus of an entire research team that Norberg promoted.29 Likewise, forms that he covered in succinct chapters early in the Introduction have been explored considerably further; for instances, a number of valuable articles have been written on the history of pattern poetry and acrostics.30 In one instance, the conductus, a form that Norberg mentioned only once near the end of the Introduction, has become the topic of entire books by Christopher Page and Joseph Szövérffy.31 The most extensive results are likely to come in connection with the Corpus of Latin Rhythmical Texts (th–th Century), under the direction of Francesco Stella and others.32  (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ); and Jean Soubiran, “Prosodie et métrique des Bella Parisiacae urbis d’Abbon,” Journal des Savants (): –. . Books that warrant mentioning are Richard L. Crocker, The Early Medieval Sequence (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, ); F. Liberatore Fiorani, Lirica mediolatina: sequenza e tropo (Rome: Edizioni dell’Ateneo & Bizzarri, ); and La tradizione dei tropi liturgici, Atti dei convegni sui tropi liturgici, Parigi (– ottobre )Perugia (– settembre ) (Spoleto: Centro italiano di studi sull’Alto Medioevo, ). For guidance about more recent developments, see Gunilla Björkvall and Andreas Haug, “Sequence and Versus: On the History of Rhythmical Poetry in the Eleventh Century,” in Latin Culture in the Eleventh Century: Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Medieval Latin Studies, Cambridge, September – ,  vols., ed. Michael W. Herren, C. J. McDonough, and Ross G. Arthur, Publications of the Journal of Medieval Latin / – (Turnhout: Brepols, []), vol. , –. In numerous other publications Björkvall and Haug have offered prolegomena toward what will be a major musical response to Norberg’s work and approach. . For instance, see Ulrich Ernst, Carmen figuratum: Geschichte des Figurengedichts von den antiken Ursprüngen bis zum Ausgang des Mittelalters, Pictura et poesis  (Cologne: Böhlau, ), and Margaret Graver, “Quaelibet Audendi: Fortunatus and the Acrostic,” Transactions of the American Philological Association  (): –. . Christopher Page, Latin Poetry and Conductus Rhythm in Medieval France (London: Royal Musical Association, ), and Joseph Szövérffy, Lateinische Conductus-Texte des Mittelalters (Medieval Latin Conductus Texts), Wissenschaftliche Abhandlungen / Musicological Studies  (Ottawa: Institute of Mediæval Music, ). . On the ongoing project, see especially Poesia dell’Alto Medioevo europeo: manoscritti, lingua e musica dei ritmi latini. Poetry of Early Medieval Europe: Manuscripts, Language and Music of the Latin Rhythmical Texts. Atti delle Euroconferenze per il Corpus dei ritmi latini (IV–IX sec.), Arezzo, – novembre  e Ravello, – settembre , ed. Francesco Stella, Millennio Medievale , Atti di Convegni  (Florence: SISMEL-Edizioni del Galluzzo, ), and Poetry of the Early Medieval Europe: Manuscripts, Language and Music of the Rhythmical Latin Texts. III Euroconference for the Digital Edition of the “Corpus of Latin Rhythmical Texts th–th Century,” ed. Edoardo D’Angelo and Francesco Stella, Millennio Medievale , Atti Jan Ziolkowski / xix Medieval Latin philology took root in Germany in the decades around , with the appointment of Ludwig Traube (–) to a chair in Munich in  and with the activities of scholars such as Wilhelm Meyer and Paul von Winterfeld (–). But the field has spread to many other countries, first elsewhere in Europe, later as a transplant in North America, and now also in Asia. The achievement of Norberg may be seen in a national context, in that his work belongs to a tradition of Latin philology that began in Sweden at the latest with the publication by Einar Löfstedt of his Beiträge zur Kenntnis der späteren Latinität (Contributions to the Knowledge of Later Latin) (Uppsala, ) and that has continued through the activities of the Corpus Troporum under the direction of Ritva Jacobsson (one of Norberg’s first doctoral students) into the most recent initiatives of Gunilla Björkvall, Gunilla Iversen, and others. To name all the eruditi who have participated in this heritage would require a paragraph-long roll call—and even that would not be adequate, since the tradition of a Latin philology fiercely attentive to the post-classical and also the non-classical can be seen more broadly as Scandinavian, with the inclusion not only of Danish and Norwegian but also of Finnish scholars alongside the many Swedes whose researches were shaped by their exposure to Dag Norberg’s teaching. If Norberg were now assessing the grounding and growth of his own scholarship, he would be alert to the local characteristics that colored it, but he would recognize in all the books and articles (whether in Latin, German, French, or Swedish) a unifying devotion to the Latin language that transcended any national boundaries. His lifetime was devoted to a language that knew few borders in the Europe of late antiquity and the early Middle Ages. Although no longer the lingua franca it was once upon a time, Latin still has a role to play in binding together a Europe that now shares a common currency for the first time—just as it served discreetly as a rallying point for those like Dag Norberg, Ernst Robert Curtius, and Erich Auerbach in the decades of the Second World War and its immediate aftermath.33 On a humbler scale, Late Latin and Medieval Latin may serve a noble di Convegni , Corpus dei ritmi latini (secoli IV–IX)  (Florence: SISMEL-Edizioni del Galluzzo, ). . On Ernst Robert Curtius, see Jan Ziolkowski, “Ernst Robert Curtius (–) and Medieval Latin Studies,” The Journal of Medieval Latin  (): –. On Erich Auerbach, see Jan Ziolkowski, “Foreword,” in Erich Auerbach, Literary Language and Its Public in Late Latin Antiquity and in the Middle Ages, Bollingen Series  (Rept. Princeton: Princeton University Press, ), ix–xxxix. xx / Introduction purpose even now in drawing together a small but influential set of students and scholars from throughout the world to investigate a language, a literature, and a tradition that have been in continuous use for roughly two and a half millennia. For the sense it brought to the operations of poetry within one millennium of that continuum, Dag Norberg’s Introduction deserves hearty applause and renewed attention. Jan Ziolkowski Harvard University