(FREE PDF Sample) Ancient and Medieval Thought On Greek Enclitics Stephanie Roussou Ebooks

Download as pdf or txt
Download as pdf or txt
You are on page 1of 54

Full download ebook at ebookmass.

com

Ancient and Medieval Thought on Greek Enclitics


Stephanie Roussou

For dowload this book click link below


https://ebookmass.com/product/ancient-and-
medieval-thought-on-greek-enclitics-stephanie-
roussou-2/

OR CLICK BUTTON

DOWLOAD EBOOK

Download more ebook from https://ebookmass.com


More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...

Ancient and Medieval Thought on Greek Enclitics


Stephanie Roussou

https://ebookmass.com/product/ancient-and-medieval-thought-on-
greek-enclitics-stephanie-roussou-2/

Biopolitics and Ancient Thought Jussi Backman

https://ebookmass.com/product/biopolitics-and-ancient-thought-
jussi-backman/

Eliminativism in Ancient Philosophy - Greek and


Buddhist Philosophers on Material Objects Ugo Zilioli

https://ebookmass.com/product/eliminativism-in-ancient-
philosophy-greek-and-buddhist-philosophers-on-material-objects-
ugo-zilioli/

Latin Grammarians on the Latin Accent: The


Transformation of Greek Grammatical Thought Philomen
Probert

https://ebookmass.com/product/latin-grammarians-on-the-latin-
accent-the-transformation-of-greek-grammatical-thought-philomen-
probert/
The Ancient Greek Hero in 24 Hours: Sourcebook

https://ebookmass.com/product/the-ancient-greek-hero-in-24-hours-
sourcebook/

Ancient Greek and Roman Science: A Very Short


Introduction Liba Taub

https://ebookmass.com/product/ancient-greek-and-roman-science-a-
very-short-introduction-liba-taub/

Latin Poetry in the Ancient Greek Novels Daniel


Jolowicz

https://ebookmass.com/product/latin-poetry-in-the-ancient-greek-
novels-daniel-jolowicz/

Overcoming Uncertainty in Ancient Greek Political


Philosophy J. Noel Hubler

https://ebookmass.com/product/overcoming-uncertainty-in-ancient-
greek-political-philosophy-j-noel-hubler/

Trinitarian Theology in Medieval and Reformation


Thought 1st ed. Edition John T. Slotemaker

https://ebookmass.com/product/trinitarian-theology-in-medieval-
and-reformation-thought-1st-ed-edition-john-t-slotemaker/
Ancient and Medieval Thought on Greek Enclitics
Ancient and Medieval Thought on Greek
Enclitics

STEPHANIE ROUSSOU
PHILOMEN PROBERT
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of
excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade
mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries
© Stephanie Roussou and Philomen Probert 2023
The moral rights of the authors have been asserted
First Edition published in 2023
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University
Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate
reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should
be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above
You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any
acquirer
Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press
198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available
Library of Congress Control Number: 2022944289
ISBN 978–0–19–287167–1
ebook ISBN 978–0–19–269959–6
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192871671.001.0001
Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY
Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only. Oxford disclaims
any responsibility for the materials contained in any third party website referenced in this work.
For our teachers
Preface

This book has its origins in a discussion between the two authors about a
passage of Greek, which took us on a remarkable journey through ancient and
medieval texts on Greek enclitics via accent marks on papyri and in medieval
manuscripts. The textual problem we originally set out to solve turned out to
have an answer known already to Aldus Manutius, but in the meantime
apparently disparate sources of information on enclitic accents had started
coming together in a surprising way. We found further exploration irresistible,
and this book is the result.
A compelling intellectual quest does not write a book by itself, however, and
we have numerous individuals and institutions to thank for much help,
encouragement, and support. Stephanie Roussou was able to work intensively
on her side of this project in 2017, thanks to funding from the John Fell OUP
Research Fund, the Lorne Thyssen Research Fund for Ancient World Topics at
Wolfson College, and the A. G. Leventis Foundation, as well as a three-week
Research Scholarship from the Fondation Hardt. Philomen Probert was able to
work intensively on her side during two periods of sabbatical leave, generously
granted by the Faculties of Classics and Linguistics at the University of Oxford in
2015 and 2019. She was fortunate in being able to spend both periods of leave
at the University of Leiden, as an academic visitor in 2015 and as a Spinoza
Visiting Scholar in 2019. She would like to thank Ineke Sluiter, everyone in the
Classics Department, and the University Library for providing ideal conditions
and wonderful discussions. Both authors have benefitted from a Fellowship
granted to Stephanie by Harvard University’s Center for Hellenic Studies, which
enabled us both to spend two productive weeks at the Center in 2017.
We have benefitted from numerous opportunities to present and discuss
aspects of our work on enclitics. In this connection Philomen gave talks to the
panel on Greek and Latin Linguistics at the Annual Meeting of the Society for
Classical Studies (San Francisco, 2016), the Workshop on Ancient Grammar held
at the University of Cologne (2017), and the Philological Society (2019).
Stephanie spoke at the event ‘From Homer to Modern Greek: diachronic
approaches to Greek language’ hosted by the Society for the Promotion of
Education and Learning and the Center for Hellenic Studies (Athens, 2017). We
gave joint talks in Oxford to the Comparative Philology Seminar and to the
Ancient World Cluster at Wolfson College (2017). We would like to thank the
organizers and participants in all these events for their insights and useful
discussion.
The new editions of the texts presented in Chapter 2, prepared primarily by
Stephanie, could not have been produced without digital images supplied to us
by the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, the Biblioteca Casanatense, the Biblioteca
Comunale Augusta, the Biblioteca Comunale di Palermo, the Biblioteca Medicea
Laurenziana, the Biblioteca Nacional de España, the Bibliothèque Nationale de
France, the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, the Biblioteca Nazionale di Napoli, the
Biblioteca Nazionale Universitaria di Torino, the Biblioteca Riccardiana di Firenze,
the Biblioteca Statale di Cremona, Cambridge University Library, the Kongelige
Bibliotek København, the Real Biblioteca del Monasterio de San Lorenzo de El
Escorial, the State Historical Museum of Russia, the Vědecká knihovna v
Olomouci, and the Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana. We are further grateful to
several of these and more libraries for digital images which we did not need to
request, because the libraries had already made them available to everybody.
And we are grateful for permission for Philomen to examine manuscripts in
person at the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana and the Σπουδαστήριον Βυζαντινής
και Νεοελληνικής Φιλολογίας, and for Stephanie to examine manuscripts in
person at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. The librarians of the
Σπουδαστήριον Βυζαντινής και Νεοελληνικής Φιλολογίας were kind enough also
to put us in touch with Gina Zavakou, whom we would like to thank for
informative discussion of codex Atheniensis 25. At a workshop on Herodian, held
in Oxford in June 2010, Nigel Wilson drew our attention to the text on enclitics in
codex Laurentianus Plut. 58.24 and generously suggested that Stephanie might
work on it further; this significant discovery (subsequently made independently
by Chiara Telesca: see section 2.1.1) provides a particularly early witness to the
treatise that we present in section 2.1. On top of this, Nigel has read the critical
editions and given us the benefit of expert advice. Stephanie would further like
to thank her co-author for inspiring her to persevere in the face of a seemingly
impossible web of textual traditions.
Chapter 3 of this book, on the accent of ἐστί(ν) or ἔστι(ν), originated as an
independent project of Philomen’s; it was inspired by those scholars who had
written to her asking where they should print the accent on particular instances
of ἘΣΤΙ(Ν), and not least by Graham Shipley. Lesley Brown provided further
inspiration for work on this topic, by initiating valuable discussion of the
semantics of verbs ‘to be’ at an ideal moment. Also in this connection, Sandra
Paoli responded with characteristic kindness and helpfulness to questions on the
typology of extra-clausal elements, as did Paul Elbourne and Marta Abrusán to
questions on the semantics of existential sentences; Nigel Wilson pointed
Philomen in the direction of Serbian; and Ana Kotarcic gave her generous help
with Serbian questions. The participants in the 2010 workshop on Herodian
provided valuable feedback on a talk resulting from an early stage of this work.
But the questions attached to the accent of ἘΣΤΙ(Ν) behaved like the heads of
the Hydra, and by the time we started to collaborate Philomen had all but
despaired of answering them. She would like to thank her co-author for
providing renewed inspiration and the perfect context to grapple with all this
again, and for improving the textual foundations for this work.
Chapter 4, on sequences of enclitics, is the result of extensive brainstorming
between both authors. In its final form the chapter is due mainly to Philomen,
but Stephanie collected most of the papyrological data discussed in section 4.3.
Eleanor Dickey, Maria Giovanna Sandri, Jesse Lundquist, Dieter Gunkel, Jan
Kwapisz, Helena Teleżyńska, and two anonymous readers have read the whole
book and been generous with encouragement and advice. We owe special
thanks to Eleanor for lengthy discussions and keen observations on the
manuscript traditions of texts on enclitics, at an early stage of our work, and to
Maria Giovanna for keen observations at a later stage and for alerting us to at
least eleven manuscripts that we would otherwise have missed. Maria Giovanna
has also been kind enough to share work of hers with us in advance of
publication.
It was hardly to be taken for granted that a publisher would share our
enthusiasm for ancient and medieval thought on Greek enclitics. We would like
to thank Charlotte Loveridge, Vicki Sunter, Clare Jones, and the Delegates of
Oxford University Press for their warm encouragement and support of this
project, Louise Larchbourne for her meticulous copy-editing of such a complex
manuscript, and Tim Beck for expert proof-reading.
We would like to thank our families, friends, and colleagues for their friendship
and support. This book is dedicated to all our teachers, with gratitude and in
hopes that some of what follows might meet with their approval. For the rest,
the responsibility lies with us alone.

S.R.
P.P.

Thessaloniki and Oxford


May 2022
Contents

General abbreviations
Abbreviations used in the critical apparatus
Symbols used in presenting Greek texts and translations
Ancient authors and works, with editions used
1 Introduction
2 Ancient and medieval sources
2.1 On enclitics 1
2.1.1 Sources and stemma
2.1.1.1 Evidence for family ψ
2.1.1.2 Evidence for family j
2.1.1.3 Evidence for family δ
2.1.1.4 Evidence for sub-family σ (with further
subgroup t)
2.1.1.5 Evidence for sub-family ϕ (with further
subgroups υ and τ)
2.1.1.6 Evidence for sub-family ξ
2.1.1.7 Possible evidence that Ra is contaminated
with sub-family ξ
2.1.2 Previous editions
2.1.3 On enclitics 1: text and translation
2.2 On enclitics 2
2.2.1 Sources and stemma
2.2.1.1 Evidence for families μ and q
2.2.1.2 Evidence for sub-families η and ε
2.2.1.3 Evidence that Σ is contaminated with Ald.
2.2.2 Previous editions
2.2.3 On enclitics 2: text and translation
2.3 On enclitics 3
2.3.1 Sources and stemma
2.3.1.1 Evidence for family d
2.3.1.2 Evidence for family b (with sub-families σ and
ϕ)
2.3.1.3 Evidence for family ξ
2.3.2 Previous editions
2.3.3 On enclitics 3: text and translation
2.4 Charax
2.4.1 Sources and stemma
2.4.1.1 Evidence for family w1 (with sub-family x)
2.4.1.2 Evidence for family w2 (with sub-families y2
and y1)
2.4.1.3 Evidence for family s (with sub-families a and
ρ)
2.4.1.4 Evidence that V and c are contaminated with
N
2.4.2 Previous editions
2.4.3 Charax: text and translation
2.5 About ἘΣΤΙΝ
2.5.1 Sources and stemma
2.5.1.1 Evidence for families α, ϕ, ξ, and m
2.5.2 Previous editions
2.5.3 About ἘΣΤΙΝ: text and translation
2.6 On enclitics 4
2.6.1 Sources and stemma
2.6.1.1 Evidence for families β and i
2.6.2 Previous editions
2.6.3 On enclitics 4: text and translation
2.7 Ideas reflected in the Byzantine treatises
2.7.1 Ancient terminology and thought on Greek accents
2.7.2 The natural accent of an enclitic
2.7.3 Accenting a word followed by an enclitic: the main doctrines
2.7.4 Metaphors for enclitic behaviour
2.7.5 Differences of opinion on sequences of the type ἘΝΘΑ ΜΟΙ
2.8 Earlier stages of the tradition
2.8.1 Ancient thought on Greek accents: general features and the
‘lulling rule’
2.8.2 The natural accent of an enclitic
2.8.3 Accenting a word followed by an enclitic: the main doctrines
2.8.4 Metaphors
2.9 Conclusions
3 The accent of ἘΣΤΙ
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Ancient support for the ‘initial and quasi-initial’ view
3.3 Ancient support for the ‘existential’ view
3.4 Preliminary conclusions
3.5 The linguistic plausibility of both ancient traditions being
partly right
3.5.1 The linguistic plausibility of ἔστι in initial and quasi-initial position
3.5.2 The linguistic plausibility of ἔστι as existential, contrastive, and
emphatic
3.5.3 Serbian again: the linguistic plausibility of ἔστι in initial and quasi-
initial position and when existential, contrastive, or emphatic
3.6 Conclusion
4 εἴ πέρ τίς σέ μοι ϕησίν ποτε: Accenting sequences of enclitics
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Grammatical texts
4.2.1 The traditional view
4.2.2 The traditional view with an exception for ΠΟΥ, ΠΗ(Ι), ΠΩΣ, ΠΩ,
and perhaps others
4.2.3 The traditional rule with an exception for pyrrhic and iambic
sequences
4.2.4 The three ancient systems: incompatible and yet compatible
4.2.5 Homeric scholia on sequences of enclitics
4.2.6 The grammatical tradition: conclusion and a remaining puzzle
4.3 Accented papyri
4.4 Venetus A
4.5 Conclusions and some further questions
5 Conclusions

Appendix A: Sequences of enclitics in Venetus A


Appendix B: Sequences of enclitics in Venetus B

References
Concordances
Index locorum
Index verborum
Subject index
Machine-readable versions of Tables 4.2, Ap.1, Ap.2, and Ap.3 are available at
https://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7534838, https://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7535149,
https://dx.3doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7535718, and https://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7535843 respectively.
General abbreviations

For abbreviations of ancient authors’ names, collections of texts, and titles of


series of texts, see Ancient authors and works, with editions used (p. xviii).

LSJ H. G. Liddell, R. Scott, H. S. Jones, R. McKenzie, P. G. W.


Glare, and A. A. Thompson, A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th edn
with revised supplement (Oxford 1996).
Martini-Bassi E. Martini and D. Bassi, Catalogus codicum
graecorum Bibliothecae Ambrosianae (Milan 1906).
Patrologia Graeca J.-P. Migne (ed.), Patrologiae cursus completus,
series graeca (Paris 1857–66).
P.Flor. G. Vitelli and D. Comparetti, Papiri greco-egizii pubblicati
dalla R. Accademia dei Lincei, i: Papiri Fiorentini (Milan 1906–15).
P.Giss. i O. Eger, E. Kornemann, and P. M. Meyer, Griechische
Papyri im Museum des oberhessischen Geschichtsvereins zu
Giessen (Leipzig 1910–12).
P.Lond.Lit. H. J. M. Milne, Catalogue of the Literary Papyri in the
British Museum (London 1927).
P.Oxy. B. P. Grenfell, A. S. Hunt, et al., The Oxyrhynchus Papyri
(London 1898– ).
P.Paris A.-J. Letronne, W. Brunet de Presle, and E. Egger, Notices
et textes des papyrus du Musée du Louvre et de la Bibliothèque
Impériale (Notices et Extraits de manuscrits de la Bibliothèque
Impériale et autres bibliothèques, 18.2) (Paris 1865).
P.Schub. W. Schubart (ed.), Griechische literarische Papyri (Berlin
1950).
Rev. Ég. Revue d’Égyptologie (Paris 1933– ).
TLG Thesaurus Linguae Graecae <www.tlg.uci.edu>.
UPZ U. Wilcken, Urkunden der Ptolemäerzeit (ältere Funde)
(Berlin 1927–57).
Abbreviations used in the critical apparatus

add. addidit (has added)


coll. collato, collatis (by comparison with)
fr. fragmentum (fragment)
i.l. in linea (on the line)
i.m. in margine (in the margin)
i.t. in textu (in the text)
n.l. non liquet (it is not clear)
om. omisit, omiserunt (has/have omitted)
s.l. supra lineam (above the line)
Symbols used in presenting Greek texts and translations

{ } Used in presenting Greek texts, to indicate portions of text considered spurious.

⟨ ⟩ Used in presenting Greek texts, to indicate editorial additions.

( ) Used in presenting Greek texts, and in translations of those texts, to indicate a parenthetical
remark belonging to the text itself.

[ ] Used in translations of texts, to indicate clarifications not present in the original. On the rarer
occasions where square brackets are used in the quotation of a text preserved on papyrus, they
indicate lost letters.

ΤΙΣ Upper-case letters are used to quote Greek words and phrases in a way that is neutral as
regards their accentuation.
Ancient authors and works, with editions used

Series are indicated as follows: B = Collection des universités de France publiée


sous la patronage de l’Association Guillaume Budé; CCSG = Corpus
Christianorum, Series Graeca; GG = Grammatici Graeci; L = Loeb Classical
Library; OCT = Scriptorum Classicorum Bibliotheca Oxoniensis; T = Bibliotheca
Scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana. Spurious works and works
of uncertain authorship are alphabetized under the name of the author to whom
they are traditionally attributed. Well-known authors and works are not generally
listed here if they are mentioned in the book only to identify a quotation in a
grammatical text, or an example from a cited papyrus or printed edition.

Ap. Dysc., Adv. L. Dumarty, Apollonius Dyscole: Traité des Adverbes. Paris 2021.
Ap. Dysc., Conj. C. Dalimier, Apollonius Dyscole: Traité des conjonctions. Paris 2001.
Ap. Dysc., Constr. J. Lallot, Apollonius Dyscole, De la construction (syntaxe). Paris 1997.
Ap. Dysc., Pron. P. Brandenburg, Apollonios Dyskolos: Über das Pronomen. Munich 2005.
Pseudo-Arcadius S. Roussou, Pseudo-Arcadius’ Epitome of Herodian’s De prosodia
catholica. Oxford 2018.
Aristarchus, F. Schironi, I frammenti di Aristarco di Samotracia negli etimologici
fr.…Schironi bizantini. Göttingen 2004.
Aristophanes N. G. Wilson (OCT) 2007.
Bacchylides H. Maehler, Bacchylides: carmina cum fragmentis, 11th edn. Munich
2003.
Callimachus, Aetia A. Harder, Callimachus: Aetia. Oxford 2012.
Callimachus, R. Pfeiffer, Callimachus. Oxford 1949–53.
fr.…Pfeiffer
Choeroboscus, Th. A. Hilgard, Theodosii Alexandrini canones : Georgi Choerobosci scholia :
Sophronii Patriarchae Alexandrini excerpta (GG IV.i–ii). Leipzig 1889–94,
vol. i, p. 103–vol. ii, p. 371.
Demosthenes M. R. Dilts (OCT) 2002–9.
Dio Chrysostom J. von Arnim, Dionis Prusaensis quem vocant Chrysostomum quae
exstant omnia. Berlin 1893–6.
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, G. Aujac and M. Lebel (B) 1981.
De compositione uerborum
(Ps.)-Dionysius Thrax, G. Uhlig, Dionysii Thracis Ars Grammatica (GG I.i). Leipzig 1883, pp.
Supplement Περὶ προσῳδιῶν 105–14.
Et. Gud.…Sturz F. W. Sturz, Etymologicum Graecae linguae Gudianum. Leipzig 1818.
Et. Gud.…de Stefani E. L. de Stefani, Etymologicum Gudianum quod vocatur. Leipzig 1909–
20.
Ep. Hom. alph. A. R. Dyck, Epimerismi Homerici qui ordine alphabetico traditi sunt, in A.
R. Dyck, Epimerismi Homerici, ii, pp. 1–822. Berlin 1995.
Etymologicum Magnum T. Gaisford, Etymologicum Magnum. Oxford 1848.
Etymologicum Parvum R. Pintaudi, Etymologicum Parvum quod vocatur. Milan 1973.
Etymologicum Symeonis For lemmata beginning with Γ–Ε:
D. Baldi, Etymologicum Symeonis (Γ–Ε) (CCSG, 79). Turnhout 2013.
Eustathius, In Iliadem M. van der Valk, Eustathii archiepiscopi thessalonicensis commentarii ad
Homeri Iliadem pertinentes. Leiden 1971–87.
Eustathius, In Odysseam G. Stallbaum, Eustathii archiepiscopi thessalonicensis commentarii ad
Homeri Odysseam, ad fidem exempli Romani editi. Leipzig 1825–6.
Gregory of Corinth, Περὶ D. Donnet, Le traité Περὶ συντάξεως λόγου de Grégoire de Corinthe.
συντάξεως λόγου Brussels 1967.
Gregory Nazianzen, Carmina A. Tuilier, G. Bady, and J. Bernardi (B) 2004–.
Hermas, Pastor See Pastor Hermae
Hesiod F. Solmsen, R. Merkelbach, and M. L. West (OCT) 1990.
Hesychius K. Latte, P. A. Hansen, and I. C. Cunningham, Hesychii Alexandrini
Lexicon, volumes i (2nd edn), ii (2nd edn), iii, iv. Berlin 2005–20.
Homer See Il. and Od.
Il. Iliad, M. L. West (T) 1998–2000.
John Philoponus, Praecepta G. A. Xenis, Iohannes Alexandrinus: Praecepta Tonica. Berlin 2015.
Tonica
Lexicon Αἱμωδεῖν A. R. Dyck, Lexicon ΑΙΜΩΔΕΙΝ quod vocatur seu verius ΕΤΥΜΟΛΟΓΙΑΙ
ΔΙΑΦΟΡΟΙ, in A. R. Dyck, Epimerismi Homerici, ii, pp. 825–1034. Berlin
1995.
[Longinus], De sublimitate D. A. Russell (OCT) 1968.
Menander F. H. Sandbach (OCT) 1990.
New Testament E. Nestle, E. Nestle, B. Aland, K. Aland, J. Karavidopoulos, C. M. Martini,
and B. M. Metzger, Novum Testamentum Graece, 28th revised edn, 5th
corrected printing. Stuttgart 2016.
Od. Odyssey, M. L. West (T) 2017.
Pastor Hermae M. Whittaker, Die apostolischen Väter, i: Der Hirt des Hermas, 2nd edn.
Berlin 1967.
Photius, Lexicon C. Theodoridis, Photii Patriarchae Lexicon. Berlin 1982–.
Plato, Phaedo E. A. Duke et al. (OCT), vol. i, 1995.
Plato, Republic S. R. Slings (OCT) 2003.
Quintilian, Inst. For Inst. 1.4–8 (the only portion cited in this book):
W. Ax, Quintilians Grammatik (Inst. orat. 1,4–8). Berlin 2011.
Sch. D. Thr. A. Hilgard, Scholia in Dionysii Thracis Artem grammaticam (GG I.iii).
Leipzig 1901.
Sch. Il. H. Erbse, Scholia graeca in Homeri Iliadem (Scholia Vetera). Berlin 1969–
88.
Sch. Od. For Books 1–10:
F. Pontani, Scholia graeca in Odysseam. Rome 2007–.
For Books 11–24:
W. Dindorf, Scholia graeca in Homeri Odysseam. Oxford 1855.
Scholia vetera in Eur. E. Schwartz, Scholia in Euripidem. Berlin 1887–91.
Sophocles, S. Radt, Tragicorum Graecorum fragmenta, iv, corrected and expanded
fr.…Radt edn. Göttingen 1999.
Sophronius, Excerpta e A. Hilgard, Theodosii Alexandrini canones : Georgi Choerobosci scholia :
Charace Sophronii Patriarchae Alexandrini excerpta, ii (GG IV.ii), pp. 373–434.
Leipzig 1894.
Thucydides H. S. Jones (OCT) 1942.
Vergil R. A. B. Mynors (OCT) 1969.
Συναγωγὴ λέξεων χρησίμων I. C. Cunningham, Synagoge: Συναγωγὴ λέξεων χρησίμων. Berlin 2003.
1
Introduction

Generations of classicists have learned that an enclitic is a special word with no


accent of its own, or alternatively a special word with a propensity to throw its
accent back onto the preceding word. Either way, there is a list of enclitics to
learn, and a set of principles governing the ways in which an enclitic affects the
accent of the preceding word. A basic lesson on enclitics might look something
like this:1

A basic lesson on enclitics


1. The following words are enclitics:
• The indefinite τις, with its inflected forms τινά, τι, τινός/του, τινί/
τῳ; τινέ, τινοῖν; τινές, τινάς, τινά, τινῶν, τισί.
• The indefinite adverbs πω ‘up to this time’, πῃ ‘somehow’, που
‘somewhere’, ποι ‘to somewhere’, πως ‘somehow’, ποτέ ‘at some
time’, ποθέν ‘from somewhere’, and ποθί ‘somewhere’.
• The unemphatic oblique personal pronoun forms με, μου, μοι; σε,
σου, σοι; ἑ, οὑ, οἱ; μιν, νιν, σϕε/σϕεάς/σϕας/σϕᾱς, σϕεά, σϕεων,
σϕι(ν), σϕισί(ν), σϕωέ, and σϕωΐν.
• The present indicative forms of εἰμί ‘I am’ and ϕημί ‘I say’, except
for the second persons singular εἶ and ϕῄς.
• The particles γε, τε, νυν, νυ, κε(ν), τοι, ῥα, περ, ταρ, θην.
2. How to accent an ordinary word followed by an enclitic:
• If the ordinary word is oxytone (i.e. has an acute on its final
syllable), it keeps the acute on its final syllable. The enclitic has no
accent: πατήρ τις, πατήρ που, πατρί τινι, πατήρ ϕησιν.
• If the ordinary word is perispomenon (i.e. has a circumflex on its
final syllable), it keeps the circumflex on its final syllable. The
enclitic again has no accent: πῦρ τι, ϕιλῶ σε, καλῶς πως, καλοῦ
τινος, καλῶς ἐστιν, καλῶν τινων.
• If the ordinary word is proparoxytone (i.e. has an acute on its
antepenultimate syllable) or properispomenon (i.e. has a circumflex
on its penultimate syllable), it keeps its usual accent and acquires
an additional acute accent on its final syllable. The enclitic again
has no accent: ἔλαβέ τις, ἄνθρωπός τις, ἄνθρωποί τινες, οἶκός τις,
οἶκοί τινων.
• If the ordinary word is paroxytone (i.e. has an acute on its
penultimate syllable), it simply keeps its usual accent before the
enclitic. If the enclitic is monosyllabic, it again has no accent. If the
enclitic is disyllabic, it will have an acute on its final syllable (which
may turn into a grave in connected speech), or a circumflex in the
case of τινῶν or τινοῖν: λέγε τι, λέγω τι, σῴζω πως, μεγάλοι τινές,
μεγάλα τινά, μεγάλοι εἰσί, παίδοιν τινοῖν.

So far so good, but it becomes clear sooner or later that our lesson does not
cover all the finer points. For example, what happens if an enclitic is elided, or if
the word before the enclitic is elided? Or if more than one enclitic occurs in a
sequence? Some words are enclitic only some of the time, like σε (or σέ), σου
(or σοῦ), and ἐστί (or ἔστι): when was the enclitic form used, and when was it
the non-enclitic or ‘orthotonic’ form? Some editors print ἔνθά τε rather than ἔνθα
τε,2 or ἄρά σϕιν rather than ἄρα σϕιν,3 or κῆρυξ τις rather than κῆρύξ τις:4
what’s all that about?
To see where all these modern practices come from, we need to delve into the
surviving ancient and medieval discussions of Greek enclitics. This book is a
study of those discussions, and has two complementary aims. The first is to
improve our grasp of the ideas that ancient and medieval scholars pass down to
us on Greek enclitics. The second is to show how a close look at these ancient
and medieval sources yields new answers to two questions concerning the facts
of the ancient Greek language itself: (i) When is the enclitic ἐστί used and when
do we have non-enclitic ἔστι? (ii) What accentuation rule applied when two or
more enclitics followed one another?
Chapter 2 firstly provides new editions and translations of the most extensive
ancient and medieval texts on Greek enclitics that survive. Secondly, this chapter
draws out the main doctrines and the conceptual apparatus and metaphors
which were used to think and talk about enclitic accents, and considers the
antiquity of these ideas within the Greek grammatical tradition. Chapter 3 turns
to the question of ἐστί(ν) versus ἔστι(ν), and Chapter 4 to sequences of
consecutive enclitics. A brief concluding chapter draws together the most
important themes to emerge from the book.
Before we proceed, a word about the scope of the term ‘enclitic’ is in order.
Recent linguistic work on ancient Greek enclitics tends to explore their syntactic
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
out that agriculture would naturally develop when the
migratory hordes from the steppes reached the great
forests of central Europe. For this there would be two
reasons, the greater fertility of the soil and the narrowed
space for pasturage. On the other hand, V. Hehn,
Culturpflanzen und Haustiere, and Mommsen, Hist. of
Rome, i. 16, find the traces of agriculture amongst the
undivided Indo-Europeans very slight; the word yáva-ζέα,
which is common to the tongues, need mean nothing more
than a wild cereal.
[361] Jevons, 240, 255; Pearson, ii. 42; O. T. Mason, Woman’s
Share in Primitive Culture, 14.
[362] Burne-Jackson, 352, 362; Rhys, C. F. i. 312; F. L. v. 339;
Dyer, 133; Ditchfield, 70; cf. ch. vi. One of the hills so
visited is the artificial one of Silbury, and perhaps the
custom points to the object with which this and the similar
‘mound’ at Marlborough were piled up.
[363] Frazer, ii. 261, deals very fully with the theriomorphic
corn-spirits of folk belief.
[364] On these triads and others in which three male or three
female figures appear, cf. Bertrand, 341; A. Maury,
Croyances et Légendes du Moyen Âge (1896), 6;
Matronen-Kultus in Zeitschrift d. Vereins f. Volkskultur, ii.
24. I have not yet seen L. L. Paine, The Ethnic Trinities and
their Relation to the Christian Trinity (1901).
[365] Mogk, iii. 333; Golther, 298; Grimm, iv. 1709; Kemble, i.
335; Rhys, C. H. 282; H. M. Chadwick, Cult of Othin
(1899).
[366] Mogk, iii. 366; Golther, 428.
[367] Mogk, iii. 374; Golther, 488; Tille, Y. and C. 144; Bede,
de temp. ratione, c. 15 (Opera, ed. Giles, vi. 179) ‘Eostur-
monath qui nunc paschalis mensis interpretatur, quondam
a dea illorum, quae Eostre vocabatur, et cui in illo festa
celebrabant, nomen habuit; a cuius nomine nunc paschale
tempus cognominant, consueto antiquae observationis
vocabulo gaudia novae solemnitatis vocantes.’ There seems
no reason for thinking with Golther and Tille, that Bede
made a mistake. Charlemagne took the name Ôstarmánoth
for April, perhaps only out of compliment to the English,
such as Alcuin, at his court.
[368] A Charm for unfruitful or bewitched land (O. Cockayne,
Leechdoms of Early England, R. S. i. 399); cf. Grimm, i.
253; Golther, 455; Kögel, i. 1. 39. The ceremony has taken
on a Christian colouring, but retains many primitive
features. Strips of turf are removed, and masses said over
them. They are replaced after oil, honey, barm, milk of
every kind of cattle, twigs of every tree, and holy water
have been put on the spot. Seed is bought at a double
price from almsmen and poured into a hole in the plough
with salt and herbs. Various invocations are used, including
one which calls on ‘Erce, Erce, Erce, Eorthan modor,’ and
implores the Almighty to grant her fertility. Then the plough
is driven, and a loaf, made of every kind of corn with milk
and holy water, laid under the first furrow. Kögel considers
Erce to be derived from ero, ‘earth.’ Brooke, i. 217, states
on the authority of Montanus that a version of the prayer
preserved in a convent at Corvei begins ‘Eostar, Eostar,
Eordhan modor.’ He adds: ‘nothing seems to follow from
this clerical error.’ But why an error? The equation Erce-
Eostre is consistent with the fundamental identity of the
light-goddess and the earth-goddess.
[369] Tacitus, Ann. i. 51; Mogk, iii. 373; Golther, 458; cf. ch.
xii.
[370] Gomme, Village Community, 157; B. C. A. Windle, Life in
Early Britain, 200; F. W. Maitland, Domesday Book and
Beyond, 142, 337, 346.
[371] I have followed in many points the views on Teutonic
chronology of Tille, Deutsches Weihnacht (1893) and Yule
and Christmas (1899), which are accepted in the main by
O. Schräder, Reallexicon der indogermanischen
Altertumskunde, s.vv. Jahr, Jahreszeiten, and partly correct
those of Weinhold, Ueber die deutsche Jahrtheilung
(1862), and Grotefend, Die Zeitrechnung des deutschen
Mittelalters (1891).
[372] In Scandinavia the winter naturally began earlier and
ended later. Throughout, Scandinavian seasons diverged
from those of Germany and the British Isles. In particular
the high summer feast and the consequent tripartition of
the year do not seem to have established themselves (C. P.
B. i. 430). Further south the period of stall-feeding was
extended when a better supply of fodder made it possible
(Tille, Y. and C. 56, 62; Burne-Jackson, 380).
[373] Cf. ch. xi, where the winter feasts are discussed in more
detail.
[374] Grimm, ii. 675, 693, 762, notes the heralds of summer.
[375] Jahn, 34; Mogk, iii. 387; Golther, 572; Schräder-Jevons,
303. The Germans still knew three seasons only when they
came into contact with the Romans; cf. Tacitus, Germ. 26
‘annum quoque ipsum non in totidem digerunt species:
hiems et ver et aestas intellectum ac vocabula habent,
autumni perinde nomen ac bona ignorantur.’ I do not agree
with Tille, Y. and C. 6, that the tripartition of the year, in
this pre-calendar form, was ‘of foreign extraction.’ Schräder
shows that it is common to the Aryan languages. The Keltic
seasons, in particular, seem to be closely parallel to the
Teutonic. Of the three great Keltic feasts described by
Rhys, C. H. 409, 513, 676; C. F. i. 308, the Lugnassad was
probably the harvest feast, the Samhain the old beginning
of winter feast, and the Beltain the high summer feast. The
meaning of ‘Beltain’ (cf. N. E. D. s.v. Beltane) seems quite
uncertain. A connexion is possible but certainly unproved
with the Abelio of the Pyrenean inscriptions, the Belenus-
Apollo of those of the eastern Alps, and, more rarely,
Provence (Röscher, Lexicon, s.v. Belenus; Holder, Alt-
celtischer Sprachschatz, s.vv. Belenus, Abelio; Ausonius,
Professores, iv. 7), or the Bel of Bohemia mentioned by
Allso (ch. xii). The Semitic Baal, although a cult of Belus,
found its way into the Roman world (cf. Appendix N, No.
xxxii, and Wissowa, 302), is naturally even a less plausible
relation. But it is dear to the folk-etymologist; cf. e.g. S. M.
Mayhew, Baalism in Trans. of St. Paul’s Ecclesiological
Society, i. 83.
[376] Tille, Y. and C. 7, 148, suggests an Egyptian or
Babylonian origin, but the equation of the Gothic Jiuleis
and the Cypriote ἰλαῖος, ἰουλαῖος, ἰουλίηος, ἰούλιος as
names for winter periods makes a Mediterranean
connexion seem possible.
[377] Cf. ch. xi.
[378] Grimm, ii. 615, notes that Easter fires are normal in the
north, Midsummer fires in the south of Germany. The
Beltane fires both of Scotland and Ireland are usually on
May 1, but some of the Irish examples collected by J.
Jamieson, Etym. Dict. of the Scottish Language, s. v., are
at midsummer.
[379] Tille, Y. and C. 71; Rhys, C. H. 419. The primitive year
was thermometric, not astronomic, its critical moments,
not the solstices, a knowledge of which means science, but
the sensible increase and diminution of heat in spring and
autumn. The solstices came through Rome. The Sermo
Eligii (Grimm, iv. 1737) has ‘nullus in festivitate S. Ioannis
vel quibuslibet sanctorum solemnitatibus
solstitia ... exerceat,’ but Eligius was a seventh-century
bishop, and this Sermo may have been interpolated in the
eighth century (O. Reich, Über Audoen’s
Lebensbeschreibung des heiligen Eligius (1872), cited in
Rev. celtique, ix. 433). It is not clear that the un-
Romanized Teuton or Kelt made a god of the sun, as
distinct from the heaven-god, who of course has solar
attributes and emblems. In the same Sermo Eligius says
‘nullus dominos solem aut lunam vocet, neque per eos
iuret.’ But the notion of ‘domini’ may be post-Roman, and
the oath is by the permanent, rather than the divine; cf. A.
de Jubainville, Intr. à l’Étude de la Litt. celt. 181. It is
noticeable that German names for the sun are originally
feminine and for the moon masculine.
[380] Mogk, iii. 393; Golther, 584; Jahn, 84; Caspari, 35;
Saupe, 7; Hauck, ii. 357; Michels, 93. The ploughing feast
is probably the spurcalia of the Indiculus and of Eadhelm,
de laudibus virginitatis, c. 25, and the dies spurci of the
Hom. de Sacrilegiis. This term appears in the later German
name for February, Sporkele. It seems to be founded on
Roman analogy from spurcus, ‘unclean.’ Pearson, ii. 159,
would, however, trace it to an Aryan root spherag, ‘swell,’
‘burst,’ ‘shoot.’ Bede, de temp. rat. c. 15, calls February Sol-
monath, which he explains as ‘mensis placentarum.’
September, the month of the harvest-festival, is Haleg-
monath, or ‘mensis sacrorum.’
[381] Pfannenschmidt, 244; Brand, ii. 1; Ditchfield, 130;
Burne-Jackson, 439; Burton, Rushbearing, 147; Schaff, vi.
544; Duchesne, 385. The dedication of churches was
solemnly carried out from the fourth century, and the
anniversary observed. Gregory the Great ordered
‘solemnitates ecclesiarum dedicationum per singulos annos
sunt celebrandae.’ The A.-S. Canons of Edgar (960), c. 28
(Wilkins, i. 227), require them to be kept with sobriety.
Originally the anniversary, as well as the actual dedication
day, was observed with an all night watch, whence the
name vigilia, wakes. Belethus, de rat. offic. (P. L. ccii. 141),
c. 137, says that the custom was abolished owing to the
immorality to which it led. But the ‘eve’ of these and other
feasts continued to share in the sanctity of the ‘day,’ a
practice in harmony with the European sense of the
precedence of night over day (cf. Schräder-Jevons, 311;
Bertrand, 267, 354, 413). An Act of Convocation in 1536
(Wilkins, iii. 823) required all wakes to be held on the first
Sunday in October, but it does not appear to have been
very effectual.
[382] S. O. Addy, in F. L. xii. 394, has a full account of ‘Garland
day’ at Castleton, Derbyshire, on May 29; cf. F. L. xii. 76
(Wishford, Wilts); Burne-Jackson, 365.
[383] The classification of agricultural feasts in U. Jahn, Die
deutschen Opfergebräuche, seems throughout to be based
less on the facts of primitive communal agriculture, than on
those of the more elaborate methods of the later farms
with their variety of crops.
[384] Frazer, i. 193; ii. 96; Brand, i. 125; Dyer, 223; Ditchfield,
95; Philpot, 144; Grimm, ii. 762; &c., &c. A single example
of the custom is minutely studied by S. O. Addy, Garland
Day at Castleton, in F. L. xii. 394.
[385] A. B. Gomme, ii. 507; Hartland, Perseus, ii. 187; Grimm,
iv. 1738, 1747; Gaidoz, Un vieux rite médical (1893).
[386] Tacitus, Germania, 40.
[387] Vigfusson and Ungar, Flateyjarbok, i. 337; Grimm, i.
107; Gummere, G. O. 433; Mogk, iii. 321; Golther, 228.
[388] Sozomenes, Hist. Eccles. vi. 37. Cf. also Indiculus (ed.
Saupe, 32) ‘de simulacro, quod per campos portant,’ the
fifth-century Vita S. Martini, c. 12, by Sulpicius Severus
(Opera, ed. Halm, in Corp. Script. Eccl. Hist. i. 122) ‘quia
esset haec Gallorum rusticis consuetudo, simulacra
daemonum, candido tecta velamine, misera per agros suos
circumferre dementia,’ and Alsso’s account of the fifteenth-
century calendisationes in Bohemia (ch. xii).
[389] Cf. ch. x.
[390] Cf. Representations (Chester, London, York). There were
similar watches at Nottingham (Deering, Hist. of Nott.
123), Worcester (Smith, English Gilds, 408), Lydd and
Bristol (Green, Town Life in the Fifteenth Century, i. 148),
and on St. Thomas’s day (July 7) at Canterbury (Arch.
Cant. xii. 34; Hist. MSS. ix. 1. 148).
[391] Harris, 7; Hartland, Fairy Tales, 71.
[392] Dyer, 205.
[393] Cf. ch. viii.
[394] Dyer, 275; Ditchfield, III; cf. the phrase ‘in and out the
windows’ of the singing game Round and Round the Village
(A. B. Gomme, s. v.).
[395] M. Deloche, Le Tour de la Lunade, in Rev. celtique, ix.
425; Bérenger-Féraud, i. 423; iii. 167.
[396] Bower, 13.
[397] Duchesne, 276; Usener, i. 293; Tille, Y. and C. 51; W. W.
Fowler, 124; Boissier, La Religion romaine, i. 323. The
Rogations or litaniae minores represent in Italy the
Ambarvalia on May 29. But they are of Gallican origin, were
begun by Mamertus, bishop of Vienne (†470), adapted by
the Council of Orleans (511), c. 27 (Mansi, viii. 355), and
required by the English Council of Clovesho (747), c. 16
(Haddan-Stubbs, iii. 368), to be held ‘non admixtis
vanitatibus, uti mos est plurimis, vel negligentibus, vel
imperitis, id est in ludis et equorum cursibus, et epulis
maioribus.’ Jahn, 147, quotes the German abbess Marcsuith
(940), who describes them as ‘pro gentilicio Ambarvali,’ and
adds, ‘confido autem de Patroni huius misericordia, quod
sic ab eo gyrade terrae semina uberius provenient, et
variae aeris inclementiae cessent.’ Mediaeval Rogation
litanies are in Sarum Processional, 103, and York
Processional (York Manual, 182). The more strictly Roman
litania major on St. Mark’s day (March 25) takes the place
of the Robigalia, but is not of great importance in English
folk-custom.
[398] Injunctions, ch. xix, of 1559 (Gee-Hardy, Docts.
illustrative of English Church History, 426). Thanks are to
be given to God ‘for the increase and abundance of his
fruits upon the face of the earth.’ The Book of Homilies
contains an exhortation to be used on the occasion. The
episcopal injunctions and interrogatories in Ritual
Commission, 404, 409, 416, &c., endeavour to preserve the
Rogations, and to eliminate ‘superstition’ from them; for
the development of the notion of ‘beating of bounds,’ cf.
the eighteenth-century notices in Dyer, Old English Social
Life, 196.
[399] The image is represented by the doll of the May-
garland, which has sometimes, according to Ditchfield,
102, become the Virgin Mary, with a child doll in its arms,
and at other times (e. g. Castleton, F. L. xii. 469) has
disappeared, leaving the name of ‘queen’ to a particular
bunch of flowers; also by the ‘giant’ of the midsummer
watch. The Salisbury giant, St. Christopher, with his hobby-
horse, Hob-nob, is described in Rev. d. T. P. iv. 601.
[400] Grimm, i. 257; Golther, 463; Mogk, iii. 374; Hahn,
Demeter und Baubo, 38; Usener, Die Sintfluthsagen, 115.
There are parallels in south European custom, both
classical and modern, and Usener even derives the term
‘carnival,’ not from carnem levare, but from the currus
navalis used by Roman women. A modern survival at
Fréjus is described in F. L. xii. 307.
[401] Ditchfield, 103; Transactions of Devonshire Association,
xv. 104; cf. the Noah’s ship procession at Hull
(Representations, s. v.).
[402] Brand, ii. 223; Grimm, ii. 584; Elton, 284; Gomme,
Ethnology, 73; Hartland, Perseus, ii. 175; Haddon, 362;
Vaux, 269; Wood-Martin, ii. 46; Bérenger-Féraud, iii. 291;
R. C. Hope, Holy Wells; M.-L. Quiller-Couch, Ancient and
Holy Wells of Cornwall (1894); J. Rhys, C. F. i. 332, 354,
and in F. L. iii. 74, iv. 55; A. W. Moore, in F. L. v. 212; H. C.
March, in F. L. x. 479 (Dorset).
[403] A. B. Gomme, s. v.; Haddon, 362.
[404] Schaff, iii. 247; Duchesne, 281, 385; Rock, iii. 2. 101,
180; Maskell, i. cccxi; Feasey, 235; Wordsworth, 24;
Pfannenschmidt, Das Weihwasser im heidnischen und
christlichen Cultus (1869). The Benedictio Fontium took
place on Easter Saturday, in preparation for the baptism
which in the earliest times was a characteristic Easter rite.
The formulae are in York Missal, i. 121; Sarum Missal, 350;
Maskell, i. 13.
[405] Frazer, iii. 237; Gomme, in Brit. Ass. Rep. (1896), 626;
Simpson, 195; Grenier, 380; Gaidoz, 16; Bertrand, 98;
Gummere, G. O. 400; Grimm, ii. 601; Jahn, 25; Brand, i.
127, 166; Dyer, 269, 311, 332; Ditchfield, 141; Cortet, 211.
[406] To this custom may possibly be traced the black-a-vised
figures who are persistent in the folk ludi, and also the
curious tradition which makes May-day especially the
chimney-sweeps’ holiday.
[407] The reasons given are various, ‘to keep off hail’ (whence
the term Hagelfeuer mentioned by Pfannenschmidt, 67),
‘vermin,’ ‘caterpillars,’ ‘blight,’ ‘to make the fields fertile.’ In
Bavaria torches are carried round the fields ‘to drive away
the wicked sower’ (of tares?). In Northumberland raids are
made on the ashes of neighbouring villages (Dyer, 332).
[408] Cf. p. 113.
[409] I know of no English Easter folk-fires, but St. Patrick is
said to have lit one on the hill of Slane, opposite Tara, on
Easter Eve, 433 (Feasey, 180).
[410] Schaff, v. 403; Duchesne, 240; Rock, iii. 2. 71, 94, 98,
107, 244; Feasey, 184; Wordsworth, 204; Frazer, iii. 245;
Jahn, 129; Grimm, ii. 616; Simpson, 198. The formulae of
the benedictio ignis and benedictio cereorum at
Candlemas, and the benedictio ignis, benedictio incensi,
and benedictio cerei on Easter Eve, are in Sarum Missal,
334, 697; York Missal, i. 109; ii. 17. One York MS. has
‘Paschae ignis de berillo vel de silice
exceptus ... accenditur.’ The correspondence between Pope
Zacharias and St. Boniface shows that the lighting of the
ignis by a crystal instead of from a lamp kept secretly
burning distinguished Gallican from Roman ceremonial in
the eighth century (Jaffé, 2291). All the lights in the church
are previously put out, and this itself has become a
ceremony in the Tenebrae. Ecclesiastical symbolism
explained the extinction and rekindling of lights as typifying
the Resurrection. Sometimes the ignis provides a light for
the folk-fire outside.
[411] Belethus (†1162), de Div. Offic. c. 137 (P. L. ccii. 141),
gives three customs of St. John’s Eve. Bones are burnt,
because (1) there are dragons in air, earth, and water, and
when these ‘in aere ad libidinem concitantur, quod fere fit,
saepe ipsum sperma vel in puteos vel in aquas fluviales
eiiciunt, ex quo lethalis sequitur annus,’ but the smoke of
the bonfires drives them away; and (2) because St. John’s
bones were burnt in Sebasta. Torches are carried, because
St. John was a shining light. A wheel is rolled, because of
the solstice, which is made appropriate to St. John by St.
John iii. 30. The account of Belethus is amplified by
Durandus, Rationale Div. Offic. (ed. corr. Antwerp, 1614)
vii. 14, and taken in turn from Durandus by a fifteenth-
century monk of Winchelscombe in a sermon preserved in
Harl. MS. 2345, f. 49 (b).
[412] Gaidoz, 24, 109; Bertrand, 122; Dyer, 323; Stubbes, i.
339, from Naogeorgos; Usener, ii. 81; and the mediaeval
calendar in Brand, i. 179.
[413] Gomme, in Brit. Ass. Rep. (1896), 636 (Moray, Mull); F.
L. ix. 280 (Caithness, with illustration of wood used);
Kemble, i. 360 (Perthshire in 1826, Devonshire).
[414] Grimm, ii. 603; Kemble, i. 359; Elton, 293; Frazer, iii.
301; Gaidoz, 22; Jahn, 26; Simpson, 196; Bertrand, 107;
Golther, 570. The English term is need-fire, Scotch
neidfyre, German Nothfeuer. It is variously derived from
nôt ‘need,’ niuwan ‘rub,’ or hniotan ‘press.’ If the last is
right, the English form should perhaps be knead-fire
(Grimm, ii. 607, 609; Golther, 570). Another German term
is Wildfeuer. The Gaelic tin-egin is from tin ‘fire,’ and egin
‘violence’ (Grimm, ii. 609). For ecclesiastical prohibitions cf.
Indiculus (Saupe, 20) ‘de igne fricato de ligno, i. e. nodfyr’;
Capit. Karlmanni (742), c. 5 (Grimm, ii. 604) ‘illos
sacrilegos ignes quos niedfyr vocant.’
[415] Gaidoz, 1; Bertrand, 109, 140; Simpson, 109, 240; Rhys,
C. H. 54. The commonest form of the symbol is the
swastika, but others appear to be found in the ‘hammer’ of
Thor, and on the altars and statues of a Gaulish deity
equated in the interpretatio Romana with Jupiter. There is
a wheel decoration on the barelle or cars of the Gubbio ceri
(Bower, 4).
[416] Brand, i. 97; Dyer, 159; Ditchfield, 78. Eggs are used
ceremonially at the Scotch Beltane fires (Frazer, iii. 261;
Simpson, 285). Strings of birds’ eggs are hung on the Lynn
May garland (F. L. x. 443). In Dauphiné an omelette is
made when the sun rises on St. John’s day (Cortet, 217).
In Germany children are sent to look for the Easter eggs in
the nest of a hare, a very divine animal. Among the
miscellaneous Benedictions in the Sarum Manual, with the
Ben. Seminis and the Ben. Pomorum in die Sti Iacobi are a
Ben. Carnis Casei Butyri Ovorum sive Pastillarum in Pascha
and a Ben. Agni Paschalis, Ovorum et Herbarum in die
Paschae. These Benedictions are little more than graces.
The Durham Accounts, i. 71-174, contain entries of
fifteenth-and sixteenth-century payments ‘fratribus et
sororibus de Wytton pro eorum Egsilver erga festum
pasche.’
[417] Tw. N. i. 3. 42 ‘He’s a coward and a coystrill, that will
not drink to my niece till his brains turn o’ the toe like a
parish-top.’ Steevens says ‘a large top was formerly kept in
every village, to be whipt in frosty weather, that the
peasants might be kept warm by exercise and out of
mischief while they could not work.’ This is evidently a
‘fake’ of the ‘Puck of commentators.’ Hone, E. D. B. i. 199,
says ‘According to a story (whether true or false), in one of
the churches of Paris, a choir boy used to whip a top
marked with Alleluia, written in gold letters, from one end
of the choir to the other.’ The ‘burial of Alleluia’ is shown
later on to be a mediaeval perversion of an agricultural rite.
On the whole question of tops, see Haddon, 255; A. B.
Gomme, s. v.
[418] Leber, ix. 391; Barthélemy, iv. 447; Du Tilliot, 30;
Grenier, 385; Bérenger-Féraud, iii. 427; Belethus, c. 120
‘Sunt nonnullae ecclesiae in quibus usitatum est, ut vel
etiam episcopi et archiepiscopi in coenobiis cum suis ludant
subditis, ita ut etiam se ad lusum pilae demittant. atque
haec quidem libertas ideo dicta est
decembrica ... quamquam vero magnae ecclesiae, ut est
Remensis, hanc ludendi consuetudinem observent, videtur
tamen laudabilius esse non ludere’; Durandus, vi. 86 ‘In
quibusdam locis hac die, in aliis in Natali, praelati cum suis
clericis ludunt, vel in claustris, vel in domibus
episcopalibus; ita ut etiam descendant ad ludum pilae, vel
etiam ad choreas et cantus, &c.’ Often the ball play was
outside the church, but the canons of Evreux on their
return from the procession noire of May 1, played ‘ad
quillas super voltas ecclesiae’; and the Easter pilota of
Auxerre which lasted to 1538, took place in the nave
before vespers. Full accounts of this ceremony have been
preserved. The dean and canons danced and tossed the
ball, singing the Victimae paschali. For examples of Easter
hand-ball or marbles in English folk-custom, cf. Brand, i.
103; Vaux, 240; F. L. xii. 75; Mrs. Gomme, s. v. Handball.
[419] Brand, i. 93; Burne-Jackson, 335. A Norfolk version (F. L.
vii. 90) has ‘dances as if in agony.’ On the Mendips (F. L. v.
339) what is expected is ‘a lamb in the sun.’ The moon,
and perhaps the sun also, is sometimes ‘wobbly,’ ‘jumping’
or ‘skipping,’ owing to the presence of strata of air differing
in humidity or temperature, and so changing the index of
refraction (Nicholson, Golspie, 186). At Pontesford Hill in
Shropshire (Burne-Jackson, 330) the pilgrimage was on
Palm Sunday, actually to pluck a sprig from a haunted yew,
traditionally ‘to look for the golden arrow,’ which must be
solar. In the Isle of Man hills, on which are sacred wells,
are visited on the Lugnassad, to gather ling-berries. Others
say that it is because of Jephthah’s daughter, who went up
and down on the mountains and bewailed her virginity. And
the old folk now stop at home and read Judges xi (Rhys, C.
F. i. 312). On the place of hill-tops in agricultural religion cf.
p. 106, and for the use of elevated spots for sun-worship at
Rome, ch. xi.
[420] Simpson, passim; cf. F. L. vi. 168; xi. 220. Deasil is from
Gaelic deas, ‘right,’ ‘south.’ Mediaeval ecclesiastical
processions went ‘contra solis cursum et morem
ecclesiasticum’ only in seasons of woe or sadness (Rock, iii.
2. 182).
[421] Dr. Murray kindly informs me that the etymology of
withershins (A.-S. wiþersynes) is uncertain. It is from
wiþer, ‘against,’ and either some lost noun, or one derived
from séon, ‘to see,’ or sinþ, ‘course.’ The original sense is
simply ‘backwards,’ and the equivalence with deasil not
earlier than the seventeenth century. A folk-etymology
from shine may account for the aspirate.
[422] Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites, 196; Jevons,
130; Frazer, ii. 352; Grant Allen, 318; Hartland, ii. 236;
Turnbull, The Blood Covenant. Perhaps, as a third type of
sacrifice, should be distinguished the ‘alimentary’ sacrifice
of food and other things made to the dead. This rests on
the belief in the continuance of the mortal life with its
needs and desires after death.
[423] Grimm, i. 47; Golther, 565; Gummere, G. O. 40, 457.
Gregory III wrote ( † 731) to Boniface (P. L. lxxxix. 577)
‘inter cetera agrestem caballum aliquantos comedere
adiunxisti plerosque et domesticum. hoc nequaquam fieri
deinceps sinas,’ cf. Councils of Cealcythe and Pincanhale
(787), c. 19 (Haddan-Stubbs, iii. 458) ‘equos etiam plerique
in vobis comedunt, quod nullus Christianorum in
Orientalibus facit.’ The decking of horses is a familiar
feature of May-day in London and elsewhere.
[424] C. J. Billson, The Easter Hare, in F. L. iii. 441.
[425] N. W. Thomas in F. L. xi. 227.
[426] Grimm, i. 55; Golther, 559, 575; Gummere, G. O. 456.
The universal Teutonic term for sacrificing is blôtan.
[427] Frazer, Pausanias, iii. 20; Jevons, 130, 191. Does the
modern huntsman know why he ‘bloods’ a novice?
[428] Grimm, i. 47, 57, 77; Jahn, 24; Gummere, G. O. 459.
Hence the theriomorphic ‘image.’
[429] Robertson Smith, 414, 448; Jevons, 102, 285; Frazer, ii.
448; Lang, M. R. R.1 ii. 73, 80, 106, 214, 226; Grant Allen,
335; Du Méril, Com. i. 75. Hence the theriomorphic larva or
mask (Frazer, Pausanias, iv. 239).
[430] Grimm, i. 46, 57; Golther, 576; Frazer, ii. 318, 353;
Jevons, 144; Grant Allen, 325. Savages believe that by
eating an animal they will acquire its bodily and mental
qualities.
[431] Jahn, 14, and for classical parallels Frazer, ii. 315;
Pausanias, iii. 288; Jevons, Plutarch, lxix. 143. Grant Allen,
292, was told as a boy in Normandy that at certain
lustrations ‘a portion of the Host (stolen or concealed, I
imagine) was sometimes buried in each field.’
[432] Frazer, ii. 318; Grant Allen, 337; Jevons, 206.
[433] F. L. vi. 1.
[434] Frazer, ii. 319; Jevons, 214; cf. the πάνσπερμα at the
Athenian Pyanepsia.
[435] In the Beltane rite (F. L. vi. 2) a bit of the bannock is
reserved for the ‘cuack’ or cuckoo, here doubtless the
inheritor of the gods.
[436] Grimm, iii. 1240.
[437] Elton, 428.
[438] Grimm, i. 59; Gummere, G. O. 455.
[439] V. Hehn, Culturpflanzen, 438.
[440] Grimm, i. 44, 48, 53; Golther, 561; Gummere, G. O. 459;
Schräder, 422; Mogk, iii. 388; Meyer, 199, and for Keltic
evidence Elton, 270. Many of these examples belong rather
to the war than to the agricultural cult. The latest in the
west are Capit. de partib. Saxon. 9 ‘Si quis hominem
diabolo sacrificaverit et in hostiam, more paganorum,
daemonibus obtulerit’; Lex Frisionum, additio sup. tit. 42
‘qui fanum effregerit ... immolatur diis, quorum templa
violavit’; Epist. Greg. III, 1 (P. L. lxxxix, 578) ‘hoc quoque
inter alia crimina agi in partibus illis dixisti, quod quidam ex
fidelibus ad immolandum paganis sua venundent mancipia.’
[441] Frazer, ii. 1; Jevons, 279.
[442] Frazer, ii. 5, 59.
[443] Strabo, iv. 5. 4; Bastian, Oestl. Asien, v. 272. The
Mexican evidence given by Frazer, iii. 134, does not
necessarily represent a primitive notion of the nature of the
rite.
[444] Jevons, 291; Plutarch, lxx. For traces of the blood-
guiltiness incurred by sacrifice, cf. the βουφόνια at Athens
and the regifugium at Rome (Frazer, ii. 294; Robertson
Smith, i. 286).
[445] Frazer, ii. 15, 55, 232; Jevons, 280; Grant Allen, 242,
296, 329.
[446] In three successive years of famine the Swedes
sacrificed first oxen, then men, finally their king Dômaldi
himself (Ynglingasaga, c. 18).
[447] Frazer, ii. 24; Jevons, 280; Grant Allen, 296.
[448] The British rule in India forbids human sacrifice, and the
Khonds, a Dravidian race of Bengal, have substituted
animal for human victims within the memory of man
(Frazer, ii. 245).
[449] Hartland, iii. 1; Frazer, Pausanias, iv. 197; v. 44, 143;
Bérenger-Féraud, i. 207. Mr. Frazer enumerates forty-one
versions of the legend.
[450] Hartland, iii. 81; Grimm, ii. 494; Gummere, G. O. 396.
The slaves of Nerthus were drowned in the same lake in
which the goddess was dipped.
[451] F. L. vi. i.
[452] Frazer, iii. 319; Gaidoz, 27; Cortet, 213; Simpson, 221;
Bertrand, 68; F. L. xii. 315. The work of Posidonius does
not exist, but was possibly used by Caesar, B. G. vi. 15;
Strabo, iv. 4. 5; Diodorus, v. 32. Wicker ‘giants’ are still
burnt in some French festival-fires. But elsewhere, as in the
midsummer shows, such ‘giants’ seem to be images of the
agricultural divinities, and it is not clear by what process
they came to be burnt and so destroyed. Perhaps they
were originally only smoked, just as they were dipped.
[453] Gomme, Ethnology, 137; F. L. ii. 300; x. 101; xii. 217;
Vaux, 287; Rhys, C. F. i. 306.
[454] F. L. ii. 302; Rhys, C. F. i. 307. In 1656, bulls were
sacrificed near Dingwall (F. L. x. 353). A few additional
examples, beyond those here given, are mentioned by N.
W. Thomas, in F. L. xi. 247.
[455] 1 N. Q. vii. 353; Gomme, Ethnology, 32; Village
Community, 113; Grant Allen, 290. The custom was extinct
when it was first described in 1853, and some doubt has
recently been thrown upon the ‘altar,’ the ‘struggle’ and
other details; cf. Trans. of Devonshire Assn. xxviii. 99; F. L.
viii. 287.
[456] 1 N. Q. vii. 353; Gomme, Ethnology, 30; Vaux, 285.
[457] Blount, Jocular Tenures (ed. Beckwith), 281; Dyer, 297.
[458] Dunkin, Hist. of Bicester (1816), 268; P. Manning, in F.
L. viii. 313.
[459] P. Manning, in F. L. viii. 310; Dyer, 282.
[460] N. W. Thomas, in F. L. xi. 227; Dyer, 285, 438, 470;
Ditchfield, 85, 131.
[461] Certain lands were held of the chapter for which a fat
buck was paid on the Conversion of St. Paul (January 25),
and a fat doe on the Commemoration of St. Paul (June 30).
They were offered, according to one writer, alive, at the
high altar; the flesh was baked, the head and horns carried
in festal procession. The custom dated from at least 1274
(Dyer, 49; W. Sparrow Simpson, St. Paul’s Cath. and Old
City Life, 234).
[462] F. L. iv. 9; x. 355. White bulls are said to have been led
to the shrine by women desirous of children. F. C.
Conybeare, in R. de l’Hist. des Religions, xliv. 108,
describes some survivals of sacrificial rites in the Armenian
church which existed primitively in other Greek churches
also.
[463] F. L. vii. 346. Bull-baiting often took place on festivals,
and in several cases, as at Tutbury, the bull was driven into
or over a river. Bear-baiting is possibly a later variant of the
sport.
[464] Burton, 165; Suffolk F. L. 71; Ditchfield, 227; Dyer, 387;
Pfannenschmidt, 279; cf. the Abbots Bromley Horn-dance
(ch. viii).
[465] F. L. iv. 5. The custom of sacrifice at the foundation of a
new building has also left traces: cf. Grant Allen, 248; F. L.
xi. 322, 437; Speth, Builders’ Rites and Ceremonies.
[466] Douce, 598, gives a cut of a hobby-horse, i. e. a man
riding a pasteboard or wicker horse with his legs concealed
beneath a foot-cloth. According to Du Méril, Com. i. 79,
421, the device is known throughout Europe. In France it is
the chevalet, cheval-mallet, cheval-fol, &c.; in Germany the
Schimmel.
[467] Dyer, 182, 266, 271; Ditchfield, 97; Burton, 40; F. L. viii.
309, 313, 317; cf. ch. ix on the ‘fool’ or ‘squire’ in the
sword and morris dances, and ch. xvi on his court and
literary congener. The folk-fool wears a cow’s tail or fox’s
brush, or carries a stick with a tail at one end and a
bladder and peas at the other. He often wears a mask or
has his face blacked. In Lancashire he is sometimes
merged with the ‘woman’ grotesque of the folk-festivals,
and called ‘owd Bet.’
[468] W. Gregor, F. L. of N. E. Scotland, 181, says that bread
and cheese were actually laid in the field, and in the
plough when it was ‘strykit.’
[469] Dyer, 20, 207, 447; Ditchfield, 46; F. L. vi. 93. Pirminius
v. Reichenau, Dicta (†753), c. 22, forbids ‘effundere super
truncum frugem et vinum.’
[470] F. L. Congress, 449, gives a list of about fifty ‘feasten’
cakes. Some are quite local; others, from the Shrove
Tuesday pancake to the Good Friday hot cross bun,
widespread.
[471] Grimm, i. 57; Frazer, ii. 344; Grant Allen, 339; Jevons,
215; Dyer, 165; Ditchfield, 81.
[472] F. L. vi. 57; viii. 354; ix. 362; x. 111.
[473] F. L. vi. 1.
[474] Ditchfield, 116, 227; Suffolk F. L. 108; Dyer, Old English
Social Life, 197. The boys are now said to be whipped in
order that they may remember the boundaries; but the
custom, which sometimes includes burying them, closely
resembles the symbolical sacrifices of the harvest field (p.
158). Grant Allen, 270, suggests that the tears shed are a
rain-charm. I hope he is joking.
[475] Brand, ii. 13; Suffolk F. L. 69, 71; Leicester F. L. 121. A
‘harvest-lord’ is probably meant by the ‘Rex Autumnalis’
mentioned in the Accounts of St. Michael’s, Bath (ed.
Somerset Arch. Soc. 88), in 1487, 1490, and 1492. A
corona was hired by him from the parish. Often the reaper
who cuts the last sheaf (i.e. slays the divinity) becomes
harvest-lord.
[476] Gomme, Village Community, 107; Dyer, 339; Northall,
202; Gloucester F. L. 33.
[477] Frazer, i. 216; E. Pabst, Die Volksfeste des Maigrafen
(1865).
[478] Frazer, i. 219; Cortet, 160; Brand, i. 126; Dyer, 266;
Ditchfield, 98.
[479] Tacitus, Germ. c. 43 ‘apud Nahanarvalos antiquae
religionis lucus ostenditur. praesidet sacerdos muliebri
ornatu.’
[480] Conc. of Trullo (692), c. 62 (Mansi, xi. 671) ‘Nullus vir
deinceps muliebri veste induatur, vel mulier veste viro
conveniente’; Conc. of Braga (of doubtful date), c. 80
(Mansi, ix. 844) ‘Si quis ballationes ante ecclesias
sanctorum fecerit, seu quis faciem suam transformaverit in
habitu muliebri et mulier in habitu viri emendatione pollicita
tres annos poeniteat.’ The exchange of head-gear between
men and women remains a familiar feature of the modern
bank-holiday. Some Greek parallels are collected by Frazer,
Pausanias, iii. 197. E. Crawley, The Mystic Rose (1902), viii.
371, suggests another explanation, which would connect
the custom with the amorous side of the primitive festivals.
[481] Frazer, ii. 93, 109.
[482] Ibid. i. 220; Brand, i. 157; Dyer, 217; Ditchfield, 97;
Kelly, 62: cf. ch. viii.
[483] Pearson, ii. 24, 407. Cf. the evidence for a primitive
human pairing-season in Westermarck, 25.
[484] Purity of life is sometimes required of those who are to
kindle the new fire (Frazer, iii. 260, 302).
[485] H. Spencer, Principles of Psychology, ii. 629; K. Groos,
Play of Man, 361; Hirn, 25.
[486] Gummere, G. O. 331.
[487] Frazer, i. 217; iii. 258.
[488] Chaucer says of the Miller (C. T. prol. 548):

‘At wrastlynge he wolde have alwey the ram’;

and of Sir Thopas (C. T. 13670):

‘Of wrastlynge was ther noon his peer,


Ther any ram shal stonde.’
Strutt, 82, figures a wrestling from Royal MS. 2, B. viii, with a
cock set on a pole as the prize.
[489] Cf. Appendix I., and Frazer, ii. 316; Jevons, Plutarch,
lxix. 143, on the struggle between two wards—the Sacred
Way and the Subura—for the head of the October Horse at
Rome.
[490] Haddon, 270. The tug-of-war reappears in Korea and
Japan as a ceremony intended to secure a good harvest.
[491] Mrs. Gomme, s. vv. Bandyball, Camp, Football, Hockey,
Hood, Hurling, Shinty. These games, in which the ball is
fought for, are distinct from those already mentioned as
having a ceremonial use, in which it is amicably tossed
from player to player (cf. p. 128). If Golf belongs to the
present category, it is a case in which the endeavour
seems to be actually to bury the ball. It is tempting to
compare the name Hockey with the Hock-cart of the
harvest festival, and with Hock-tide; but it does not really
seem to be anything but Hookey. The original of both the
hockey-stick and the golf-club was probably the shepherd’s
crook. Mr. Pepys tried to cast stones with a shepherd’s
crook on those very Epsom downs where the stockbroker
now foozles his tee shot.
[492] F. L. vii. 345; M. Shearman, Athletics and Football, 246;
Haddon, 271; Gomme, Vill. Comm. 240; Ditchfield, 57, 64;
W. Fitzstephen, Vita S. Thomae (†1170-82) in Mat. for Hist.
of Becket (R. S.), iii. 9, speaks of the ‘lusum pilae celebrem’
in London ‘die quae dicitur Carnilevaria.’ Riley, 571, has a
London proclamation of 1409 forbidding the levy of money
for ‘foteballe’ and cok-thresshyng.’ At Chester the annual
Shrove Tuesday football on the Roodee was commuted for
races in 1540 (Hist. MSS. viii. 1. 362). At Dublin there was,
in 1569, a Shrove Tuesday ‘riding’ of the ‘occupacions’ each
‘bearing balles’ (Gilbert, ii. 54).
[493] Haddon, loc. cit.; Gomme, loc. cit.; Gloucester F. L. 38.
Cf. the conflictus described in ch. ix, and the classical
parallels in Frazer, Pausanias, iii. 267.
[494] F. L. iii. 441; Ditchfield, 85.
[495] F. L. vii. 330 (a very full account); viii. 72, 173;
Ditchfield, 50. There is a local aetiological myth about a
lady who lost her hood on a windy day, and instituted the
contest in memory of the event.
[496] Mrs. Gomme, s. v. Oranges and Lemons.
[497] Mrs. Gomme, s. vv.
[498] Dyer, 6, 481. ‘Stang’ is a word, of Scandinavian origin,
for ‘pole’ or ‘stake.’ The Scandinavian nið-stöng (scorn-
stake) was a horse’s head on a pole, with a written curse
and a likeness of the man to be ill-wished (Vigfusson, Icel.
Dict. s. v. níð).
[499] Cf. with Mr. Barrett’s account, Northall, 253; Ditchfield,
178; Northern F. L. 29; Julleville, Les Com. 205; also
Thomas Hardy’s Mayor of Casterbridge, and his The Fire at
Tranter Sweatley’s (Wessex Poems, 201). The penalty is
used by schoolboys (Northern F. L. 29) as well as villagers.
[500] Grenier, 375; Ducange, s. v. Charivarium, which he
defines as ‘ludus turpis tinnitibus et clamoribus variis,
quibus illudunt iis, qui ad secundas convolant nuptias.’ He
refers to the statutes of Melun cathedral (1365) in
Instrumenta Hist. Eccl. Melud. ii. 503. Cf. Conc. of Langres
(1404) ‘ludo quod dicitur Chareuari, in quo utuntur larvis in
figura daemonum, et horrenda ibidem committuntur’;
Conc. of Angers (1448), c. 12 (Labbé, xiii. 1358)
‘pulsatione patellarum, pelvium et campanarum, eorum oris
et manibus sibilatione, instrumento aeruginariorum, sive
fabricantium, et aliarum rerum sonorosarum,
vociferationibus tumultuosis et aliis ludibriis et irrisionibus,
in illo damnabili actu (qui cariuarium, vulgariter charivari,
nuncupatur) circa domos nubentium, et in ipsorum
detestationem et opprobrium post eorum secundas nuptias
fieri consuetum, &c.’
[501] Cf. ch. xvi, and Leber, ix. 148, 169; Julleville, Les Com.
205, 243. In 1579 a regular jeu was made by the Dijon
Mère-Folle of the chevauchée of one M. Du Tillet. The text
is preserved in Bibl. Nat. MS. 24039 and analysed by M.
Petit de Julleville.
[502] In Berks a draped horse’s head is carried, and the
proceeding known as a Hooset Hunt (Ditchfield, 178).
[503] Ducange, s. v. Asini caudam in manu tenens.
[504] Julleville, Les Com. 207.
[505] So on Ilchester Meads, where the proceeding is known
as Mommets or Mommicks (Barrett, 65).
[506] On Hock-tide and the Hock-play generally see Brand-
Ellis, i. 107; Strutt, 349; Sharpe, 125; Dyer, 188; S. Denne,
Memoir on Hokeday in Archaeologia, vii. 244.
[507] Cf. Appendix H. An allusion to the play by Sir R.
Morrison (†1542) is quoted in chap. xxv.
[508] Laneham, or his informant, actually said, in error, 1012.
On the historical event see Ramsay, i. 353.
[509] There were performers both on horse and on foot.
Probably hobby-horses were used, for Jonson brings in
Captain Cox ‘in his Hobby-horse,’ which was ‘foaled in
Queen Elizabeth’s time’ in the Masque of Owls (ed.
Cunningham, iii. 188).
[510] Cf. Representations, s. v. Coventry.
[511] Rossius, Hist. Regum Angliae (ed. Hearne, 1716), 105 ‘in
cuius signum usque hodie illa die vulgariter dicta Hox
Tuisday ludunt in villis trahendo cordas partialiter cum aliis
iocis.’ Rous, who died 1491, is speaking of the death of
Hardicanute. On the event see Ramsay, i. 434. Possibly
both events were celebrated in the sixteenth century at
Coventry. Two of the three plays proposed for municipal
performance in 1591 were the ‘Conquest of the Danes’ and
the ‘History of Edward the Confessor.’ These were to be
upon the ‘pagens,’ and probably they were more regular
dramas than the performance witnessed by Elizabeth in
1575 (Representations, s. v. Coventry).
[512] Leland, Collectanea (ed. Hearne), v. 298 ‘uno certo die
heu usitato (forsan Hoc vocitato) hoc solempni festo
paschatis transacto, mulieres homines, alioque die homines
mulieres ligare, ac cetera media utinam non inhonesta vel
deteriora facere moliantur et exercere, lucrum ecclesiae
fingentes, set dampnum animae sub fucato colore
lucrantes, &c.’ Riley, 561, 571, gives London proclamations
against ‘hokkyng’ of 1405 and 1409.
[513] Brand-Ellis, i. 113; Lysons, Environs of London, i. 229; C.
Kerry, Accts. of St. Lawrence, Reading; Hobhouse, 232; N.
E. D. s. vv. Hock, &c.
[514] Owen and Blakeway, Hist. of Shrewsbury, i. 559.
[515] Dyer, 191; Ditchfield, 90.
[516] N. E. D. s. v. Hock-day.
[517] Brand-Ellis, i. 106.
[518] Ibid. i. 109.
[519] Ducange, s. v. Prisio; Barthélemy, iv. 463. On Innocents’
Day, the customs of taking in bed and whipping were
united (cf. ch. xii).
[520] Northern F. L. 84; Brand-Ellis, i. 94, 96; Vaux, 242;
Ditchfield, 80; Dyer, 133.
[521] Brand-Ellis, i. 106; Owen and Blakeway, i. 559; Dyer,
173; Ditchfield, 90; Burne-Jackson, 336; Northern F. L. 84;
Vaux, 242. A dignified H. M. I. is said to have made his first
official visit to Warrington on Easter Monday, and to have
suffered accordingly. Miss Burne describes sprinkling as an
element in Shropshire heaving.
[522] Belethus, c. 120 ‘notandum quoque est in plerisque
regionibus secundo die post Pascha mulieres maritos suos
verberare ac vicissim viros eas tertio die.’ The spiritually
minded Belethus explains the custom as a warning to keep
from carnal intercourse.
[523] Dyer, 79; Ditchfield, 83.
[524] Brand-Ellis, i. 114; Ditchfield, 252. Mr. W. Crooke has
just studied this and analogous customs in The Lifting of
the Bride (F. L. xiii. 226).
[525] Suffolk F. L. 69; F. L. v. 167. The use of largess, a
Norman-French word (largitio), is curious. It is also used
for the subscriptions to Lancashire gyst-ales (Dyer, 182).
[526] Ditchfield, 155.
[527] Frazer, ii. 233; Pfannenschmidt, 93.
[528] Haddon, 335; Grosse, 167; Herbert Spencer in Contemp.
Review (1895), 114; Groos, Play of Man, 88, 354. Evidence
for the wide use of the dance at savage festivals is given
by Wallaschek, 163, 187.
[529] Grimm, i. 39; Pearson, ii. 133; Müllenhoff, Germania, ch.
24, and de antiq. Germ. poesi chorica, 4; Kögel, i. 1. 8. The
primitive word form should have been laikaz, whence
Gothic laiks, O. N. leikr, O. H. G. leih, A.-S. lâc. The word
has, says Müllenhoff, all the senses ‘Spiel, Tanz, Gesang,
Opfer, Aufzug.’ From the same root come probably ludus,
and possibly, through the Celtic, the O. F. lai. The A.-S. lâc
is glossed ludus, sacrificium, victima, munus. It occurs in
the compounds ecga-gelâc and sveorða-gelâc, both
meaning ‘sword-dance,’ sige-lâc, ‘victory-dance,’ as-lâc,
‘god-dance,’ wine-lâc, ‘love-dance’ (cf. p. 170), &c. An A.-S.
synonym for lâc is plega, ‘play,’ which gives sweord-plega
and ecg-plega. Spil is not A.-S. and spilian is a loan-word
from O. H. G.
[530] Gummere, B. P. 328; Kögel, i. 1. 6.
[531] S. Ambrose, de Elia et Ieiunio, c. 18 (P. L. xiv. 720), de
Poenitentia, ii. 6 (P. L. xvi. 508); S. Augustine, contra
Parmenianum, iii. 6 (P. L. xliii. 107); S. Chrysostom, Hom.
47 in Iulian. mart. p. 613; Hom. 23 de Novilun. p. 264; C.
of Laodicea (†366), c. 53 (Mansi, ii. 571). Cf. D. C. A. s. v.
Dancing, and ch. i. Barthélemy, ii. 438, and other writers
have some rather doubtful theories as to liturgical dancing
in early Christian worship; cf. Julian. Dict. of Hymn. 206.
[532] Du Méril, Com. 67; Pearson, ii. 17, 281; Gröber, ii. 1.
444; Kögel, i. 1. 25; Indiculus Superstitionum (ed. Saupe),
10 ‘de sacrilegiis per ecclesias.’ Amongst the prohibitions
are Caesarius of Arles (†542), Sermo xiii. (P. L. xxxix. 2325)
‘quam multi rustici et quam multae mulieres rusticanae
cantica diabolica, amatoria et turpia memoriter retinent et
ore decantant’; Const. Childeberti (c. 554) de abol. relig.
idololatriae (Mansi, ix. 738) ‘noctes pervigiles cum
ebrietate, scurrilitate, vel canticis, etiam in ipsis sacris
diebus, pascha, natale Domini, et reliquis festivitatibus, vel
adveniente die Dominico dansatrices per villas
ambulare ... nullatenus fieri permittimus’; C. of Auxerre
(573-603), c. 9 (Maassen, i. 180) ‘non licet in ecclesia
choros secularium vel puellarum cantica exercere nec
convivia in ecclesia praeparare’; C. of Chalons (639-54), c.
19 (Maassen, i. 212) ‘Valde omnibus noscetur esse
decretum, ne per dedicationes basilicarum aut festivitates
martyrum ad ipsa solemnia confluentes obscoena et turpia
cantica, dum orare debent aut clericos psallentes audire,
cum choris foemineis, turpia quidem decantare videantur.
unde convenit, ut sacerdotes loci illos a septa basilicarum
vel porticus ipsarum basilicarum etiam et ab ipsis atriis
vetare debeant et arcere.’ Sermo Eligii (Grimm, iv. 1737)
‘nullus in festivitate S. Ioannis vel quibuslibet sanctorum
solemnitatibus solstitia aut vallationes vel saltationes aut
caraulas aut cantica diabolica exerceat’; Iudicium Clementis
( † 693), c. 20 (Haddan-Stubbs, iii. 226) ‘si quis in
quacunque festivitate ad ecclesiam veniens pallat foris, aut
saltat, aut cantat orationes amatorias ... excommunicetur’
(apparently a fragment of a penitential composed by
Clement or Willibrord, an A.-S. missionary to Frisia, on
whom see Bede, H. E. v. 9, and the only dance prohibition
of possible A.-S. provenance of which I know); Statuta
Salisburensia (Salzburg: † 800; Boretius, i. 229) ‘Ut omnis
populus ... absque inlecebroso canticu et lusu saeculari
cum laetaniis procedant’; C. of Mainz (813), c. 48 (Mansi,
xiv. 74) ‘canticum turpe atque luxuriosum circa ecclesias
agere omnino contradicimus’; C. of Rome (826), c. 35
(Mansi, xiv. 1008) ‘sunt quidam, et maxime mulieres, qui
festis ac sacris diebus atque sanctorum natalitiis non pro
eorum quibus debent delectantur desideriis advenire, sed
ballando, verba turpia decantando, choros tenendo ac
ducendo, similitudinem paganorum peragendo, advenire
procurant’; cf. Dicta abbatis Pirminii (Caspari,
Kirchenhistorische Anecdota, 188); Penitentiale pseudo-
Theodorianum (Wasserschleben, 607); Leonis IV Homilia
(847, Mansi, xiv. 895); Benedictus Levita, Capitularia
(†850), vi. 96 (M. G. H. Script. iv. 2); and for Spain, C. of
Toledo (589), c. 23 (Mansi, ix. 999), and the undated C. of
Braga, c. 80 (quoted on p. 144). Cf. also the denunciations
of the Kalends (ch. xi and Appendix N). Nearly four
centuries after the C. of Rome we find the C. of Avignon
(1209), c. 17 (Mansi, xxii. 791) ‘statuimus, ut in sanctorum
vigiliis in ecclesiis historicae saltationes, obscoeni motus,
seu choreae non fiant, nec dicantur amatoria carmina, vel
cantilenae ibidem....’ Still later the C. of Bayeux (1300), c.
31 (Mansi, xxv. 66) ‘ut dicit Augustinus, melius est festivis
diebus fodere vel arare, quam choreas ducere’; and so on
ad infinitum. The pseudo-Augustine Sermo, 265, de
Christiano nomine cum operibus non Christianis (P. L.
xxxix. 2237), which is possibly by Caesarius of Arles,
asserts explicitly the pagan character of the custom: ‘isti
enim infelices et miseri homines, qui balationes et
saltationes ante ipsas basilicas sanctorum exercere non
metuunt nec erubescunt, etsi Christiani ad ecclesiam
venerint, pagani de ecclesia revertuntur; quia ista
consuetudo balandi de paganorum observatione remansit.’
A mediaeval preacher (quoted by A. Lecoy de la Marche,
Chaire française au Moyen Âge, 447, from B. N. Lat. MS.
17509, f. 146) declares, ‘chorea enim circulus est cuius
centrum est diabolus, et omnes vergunt ad sinistrum.’
[533] Tille, D. W. 301; G. Raynaud, in Études dédiées à Gaston
Paris, 53; E. Schröder, Die Tänzer von Kölbigk, in Z. f.
Kirchengeschichte, xvii. 94; G. Paris, in Journal des Savants
(1899), 733.
[534] H. E. Reynolds, Wells Cathedral, 85 ‘cum ex choreis ludis
et spectaculis et lapidum proiectionibus in praefata ecclesia
et eius cemeteriis ac claustro dissentiones sanguinis
effusiones et violentiae saepius oriantur et in hiis dicta
Wellensis ecclesia multa dispendia patiatur.’
[535] Menestrier, Des Ballets anciens et modernes (1863), 4;
on other French church dances, cf. Du Tilliot, 21;
Barthélemy, iv. 447; Leber, ix. 420. The most famous are
the pilota of Auxerre, which was accompanied with ball-
play (cf. ch. vi) and the bergeretta of Besançon. Julian,
Dict. of Hymn. 206, gives some English examples.
[536] Grove, 106. A full account of the ceremony at the feast
of the Conception in 1901 is given in the Church Times for
Jan. 17, 1902.
[537] Grove, 103; Bérenger-Féraud, iii. 430; Mélusine (1879),
39; N. and Q. for May 17, 1890. The dance is headed by
the clergy, and proceeds to a traditional tune from the
banks of the Sûre to the church, up sixty-two steps, along
the north aisle, round the altar deasil, and down the south
aisle. It is curious that until the seventeenth century only
men took part in it. St. Willibrord is famous for curing
nervous diseases, and the pilgrimage is done by way of
vow for such cures. The local legend asserts that the
ceremony had its origin in an eighth-century cattle-plague,
which ceased through an invocation of St. Willibrord: it is a
little hard on the saint, whose prohibition of dances at the
church-door has just been quoted.
[538] Bérenger-Féraud, iii. 409. A similarly named saint, St.
Martial, was formerly honoured in the same way. Every
psalm on his day ended, not with the Gloria Patri, but with
a dance, and the chant, ‘Saint-Marceau, pregas per nous,
et nous epingaren per vous’ (Du Méril, La Com. 68).
[539] Cf. p. 26. There were ‘madinnis that dansit’ before
James IV of Scotland at Forres, Elgin and Dernway in 1504,
but nothing is said of songs (L. H. T. Accounts, ii. 463).
[540] Carm. Bur. 191:

‘ludunt super gramina virgines decorae


quarum nova carmina dulci sonant ore.’

Ibid. 195:

‘ecce florescunt lilia,


et virginum dant agmina
summo deorum carmina.’

[541] W. Fitzstephen, Descriptio Londin. (Mat. for Hist. of


Becket, R. S. iii. 11) ‘puellarum Cytherea ducit choros
usque imminente luna, et pede libero pulsatur tellus.’
[542] Jeanroy, 102, 387; Guy, 504; Paris, Journal des Savants
(1892), 407. M. Paris points out that dances, other than
professional, first appear in the West after the fall of the
Empire. The French terms for dancing—baller, danser,
treschier, caroler—are not Latin. Caroler, however, he
thinks to be the Greek χοραυλεῖν, ‘to accompany a dance
with a flute.’ But the French carole was always
accompanied, not with a flute, but with a sung chanson.
[543] Paris, loc. cit. 410; Jeanroy, 391. In Wace’s description
of Arthur’s wedding, the women carolent and the men
behourdent. Cf. Bartsch, Romanzen und Pastourellen, i. 13:

‘Cez damoiseles i vont por caroler,


cil escuier i vont por behorder,
cil chevalier i vont por esgarder.’

[544] On the return of Edward II and Isabella of France in


1308, the mayor and other dignitaries of London went
‘coram rege et regina karolantes’ (Chronicles of Edward I
and Edward II, R. S. i. 152). On the birth of Prince Edward
in 1312, they ‘menerent la karole’ in church and street
(Riley, 107).
[545] Kögel, i. 1. 6.
[546] Mrs. Gomme, ii. 228; Haddon, 345.
[547] Cf. ch. vi on the motion deasil round the sacred object.
It is curious that the modern round dances go withershins
round a room. Grimm, i. 52, quotes Gregory the Great,
Dial. iii. 28 on a Lombard sacrifice, ‘caput caprae, hoc ei,
per circuitum currentes, carmine nefando dedicantes.’
[548] At Bradford-on-Avon, Wilts (which preserves its Anglo-
Saxon church), and at South Petherton, Somerset, in both
cases on Shrove Tuesday (Mrs. Gomme, ii. 230); cf. Vaux,
18. The church at Painswick, Gloucester, is danced round
on wake-day (F. L. viii. 392). There is a group of games, in
which the players wind and unwind in spirals round a
centre. Such are Eller Tree, Wind up the Bush Faggot, and
Bulliheisle. These Mrs. Gomme regards as survivals of the
ritual dance round a sacred tree. Some obscure references
in the rhymes used to ‘dumplings’ and ‘a bundle of rags’
perhaps connect themselves with the cereal cake and the
rags hung on the tree for luck. In Cornwall such a game is
played under the name of ‘Snail’s Creep’ at certain village
feasts in June, and directed by young men with leafy
branches.
[549] Du Méril, La Com. 72; Haddon, 346; Grove, 50, 81;
Haigh, 14; N. W. Thomas, La Danse totémique en Europe,
in Actes d. Cong. intern. d. Trad. pop. (1900).
[550] Plot, Hist. of Staffs. (1686); F. L. iv. 172; vii. 382 (with
cuts of properties); Ditchfield, 139.
[551] The O. H. G. hîleih, originally meaning ‘sex-dance,’
comes to be ‘wedding.’ The root hi, like wini (cf. p. 170),
has a sexual connotation (Pearson, ii. 132; Kögel, i. 1. 10).
[552] Coussemaker, Chants populaires des Flamands de
France, 100:

‘In den hemel is eenen dans:


Alleluia.
Daer dansen all’ de maegdekens:
Benedicamus Domino,
Alleluia, Alleluia.
‘t is voor Amelia:
Alleluia.
Wy dansen naer de maegdekens:
Benedicamus, etc.’
[553] Frazer, i. 35; Dyer, 7; Northall, 233. A Lancashire song is
sung ‘to draw you these cold winters away,’ and wishes
‘peace and plenty’ to the household. A favourite French
May chanson is

‘Étrennez notre épousée,


Voici le mois,
Le joli mois de Mai,
Étrennez notre épousée
En bonne étrenne.
Voici le mois,
Le joli mois de Mai,
Qu’on vous amène.’

If the quêteurs come on a churl, they have an ill-wishing


variant. The following is characteristic of the French
peasantry:

‘J’vous souhaitons autant d’enfants,


Qu’y a des pierrettes dans les champs.’

Often more practical tokens of revenge are shown. The Plough


Monday ‘bullocks’ in some places consider themselves
licensed to plough up the ground before a house where
they have been rebuffed.’
[554] Mrs. Gomme, ii. 1, 399; Haddon, 343; Du Méril, La Com.
81. Amongst the jeux of the young Gargantua (Rabelais, i.
22) was one ‘à semer l’avoyne et au laboureur.’ This
probably resembled the games of Oats and Beans and
Barley, and Would you know how doth the Peasant? which
exist in English, French, Catalonian, and Italian versions.
On the mimetic character of these games, cf. ch. viii.
[555] Text from Harl. MS. 978 in H. E. Wooldridge, Oxford
Hist. of Music, i. 326, with full account. The music, to
which religious as well as the secular words are attached,
is technically known as a rota or rondel. It is of the nature
of polyphonic part-song, and of course more advanced
than the typical mediaeval rondet can have been.
[556] On these songs in general, see Northall, 233;
Martinengo-Cesaresco, 249; Cortet, 153; Tiersot, 191;
Jeanroy, 88; Paris, J. des Savants (1891), 685, (1892), 155,
407.
[557] H. A. Wilson, Hist. of Magd. Coll. (1899), 50. Mr. Wilson
discredits the tradition that the performance began as a
mass for the obit of Henry VII. The hymn is printed in
Dyer, 259; Ditchfield, 96. It has no relation to the summer
festival, having been written in the seventeenth century by
Thomas Smith and set by Benjamin Rogers as a grace. In
other cases hymns have been attached to the village
festivals. At Tissington the well-dressing,’ on Ascension Day
includes a clerical procession in which ‘Rock of Ages’ and ‘A
Living Stream’ are sung (Ditchfield, 187). A special
‘Rushbearers’ Hymn’ was written for the Grasmere
Rushbearing in 1835, and a hymn for St. Oswald has been
recently added (E. G. Fletcher, The Rushbearing, 13, 74).
[558] Dyer, 240, from Hertfordshire. There are many other
versions; cf. Northall, 240.
[559] Kögel, i. 1. 32.
[560] Pertz, Leges, i. 68 ‘nullatenus ibi uuinileodos scribere vel
mittere praesumat.’ Kögel, i. 1. 61: Goedeke, i. 11, quote
other uses of the term from eighth-century glosses, e.g.
‘uuiniliod, cantilenas saeculares, psalmos vulgares,
seculares, plebeios psalmos, cantica rustica et inepta.’
Winiliod is literally ‘love-song,’ from root wini (conn. with
Venus). Kögel traces an earlier term O. H. G. winileih, A.-S.
winelâc = hîleih. On the erotic motive in savage dances, cf.
Grosse, 165, 172; Hirn, 229.
[561] Romania, vii. 61; Trad. Pop. i. 98. Mr. Swinburne has
adapted the idea of this poem in A Match (Poems and
Ballads, 1st Series, 116).
[562] Romania, ix. 568.
[563] K. Bartsch, Chrest. Prov. 111. A similar chanson is in G.
Raynaud, Motets, i. 151, and another is described in the
roman of Flamenca (ed. P. Meyer), 3244. It ends

‘E, si parla, qu’il li responda:


Nom sones mot, faitz vos en lai,
Qu’entre mos bracs mos amics j’ai.
Kalenda maia. E vai s’ en.’
[564] Trimousette, from trî mâ câ, an unexplained burden in
some of the French maierolles.
[565] Guy, 503.
[566] Tiersot, Robin et Marion; Guy, 506. See the refrain in
Bartsch, 197, 295; Raynaud, Rec. de Motets, i. 227.
[567] Langlois, Robin et Marion: Romania, xxiv. 437; H. Guy,
Adan de la Hale, 177; J. Tiersot, Sur le Jeu de Robin et
Marion (1897); Petit de Julleville, La Comédie, 27; Rep.
Com. 21, 324. A jeu of Robin et Marion is recorded also as
played at Angers in 1392, but there is no proof that this
was Adan de la Hale’s play, or a drama at all. There were
folk going ‘desguiziez, à un jeu que l’en dit Robin et
Marion, ainsi qu’il est accoutumé de fere, chacun an, en les
foiries de Penthecouste’ (Guy, 197). The best editions of
Robin et Marion are those by E. Langlois (1896), and by
Bartsch in La Langue et la Littérature françaises (1887),
col. 523. E. de Coussemaker, Œuvres de Adam de la Halle
(1872), 347, gives the music, and A. Rambeau, Die dem
Trouvère Adam de la Halle zugeschriebenen Dramen
(1886), facsimiles the text. On Adan de la Hale’s earlier
sottie of La Feuillée, see ch. xvi.
[568] Thomas Wright, Lyrical Poems of the Reign of Edward I
(Percy Soc.).
[569] Cf. ch. xvii.
[570] The May-game is probably intended by the ‘Whitsun
pastorals’ of Winter’s Tale, iv. 4. 134, and the ‘pageants of
delight’ at Pentecost, where a boy ‘trimmed in Madam
Julias gown’ played ‘the woman’s part’ (i. e. Maid Marian)
of Two Gentlemen of Verona, iv. 4. 163. Cf. also W. Warner,
Albion’s England, v. 25:

‘At Paske began our Morrise, and ere Penticost our May.’

[571] Flores Historiarum (R. S.), iii. 130 ‘aestimo quod rex
aestivalis sis; forsitan hyemalis non eris.’
[572] Cf. Appendix E.
[573] ‘King-play’ at Reading (Reading St. Giles Accounts in
Brand-Hazlitt, i. 157; Kerry, Hist. of St. Lawrence, Reading,
226).

You might also like