Vocabulary and Syntax of the Old English Version in the Paris Psalter: A Critical Commentary

93 Pages·1971·8.077 MB·English

by  John Douglas Tinkler

JANUA LINGUARUM
STUDIA MEMORIAE
NICOLAI VAN WIJK DEDICATA
edenda curai
C. H. VAN SCHOONEVELD
Indiana University
Series Practica, 67

VOCABULARY AND SYNTAX
OF THE
OLD ENGLISH VERSION
IN THE PARIS PSALTER
A CRITICAL COMMENTARY
by
JOHN DOUGLAS TINKLER
UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE
AT CHATTANOOGA
1971
MOUTON
THE HAGUE • PARIS
© Copyright 1971 in The Netherlands.
Mouton & Co. N.V., Publishers, The Hague.
No part of this book may be translated or reproduced in any form by print, photoprint,
microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publishers.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 68-29624
Printed in The Netherlands by Mouton & Co., Printers, The Hague.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
List of Abbreviations 7
I. Introduction 9
II. The Vocabulary of The Paris Psalter 13
A. Loan Translations 15
B. Latin Words 21
C. Words Arising from Mistakes of Various Kinds 22
D. Words Illuminated by Medieval Psalter Commentary 33
E. Alliterative Anomalies 48
F. Other Paris Psalter Words Worthy of Special Attention . . .. 58
G. Word List 62
III. Syntactical Problems of The Paris Psalter 70
A. Set Phrases 71
B. Expansions Based on Psalter Commentary 80
C. Apo Koinu Constructions 85
IV. Conclusion 88
Bibliography 91

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
BTD An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, edited Joseph Bosworth and T. N. Toller (Oxford,
1882-1898).
BTS An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary Supplement, edited T. N. Toller (Oxford, 1908-1921).
CGL Corpus Glossariorum Latinorum, seven volumes, edited G. Goetz (Leipzig, 1888-
1923).
Etymologies Isidori Hispalensis Episcopi Etymologiarium sive Originum Libri XX, edited
W. Lindsay (Oxford, 1911).
GKS Sprachschatz der Angelsächsischen Dichter, edited C. Grein and J. Köhler
(Heidelberg, 1912).
HD A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Fourth Edition with Supplement, edited
J. R. C. Hall and H. D. Meritt (Cambridge, 1960).
HEW Altenglisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, edited Ferdinand Holthausen (Heidel-
berg, 1934).
Krapp The Paris Psalter and the Meters of Boethius, edited George P. Krapp (New
York, 1932).
OEG Old English Glosses, Chiefly Unpublished, edited Arthur S. Napier (Oxford,
1900).
Pat. Lat. Patrologia Latina, edited J. Migne (Paris, 1844-1903).
Thorpe Libri Psalmorum Versio Antiqua Latina cum Paraphrasi Anglo-Saxonica .. .,
edited Benjamin Thorpe (Oxford, 1935).
WW Anglo-Saxon and Old English Vocabularies, by T. Wright, second edition, edited
and collated by R. Wülcker (London, 1884).
* A superscript asterisk before a word indicates a ghost word.

I. INTRODUCTION
A. THE MANUSCRIPT, EDITIONS, AND IMPORTANT SCHOLARSHIP
The Paris Psalter, located in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, catalogue number
Fonds Latin 8824, is a small, handsome manuscript containing the most extensive
of all collections of Old English metrical psalm translations as well as an Old Eng-
lish prose translation of the first fifty psalms.1 The manuscript is written in double
columns with a Latin version on the left side of each page and the Old English
version on the right. The first fifty Old English psalms, written in a fairly straight-
forward prose, are reasonable renderings of the Latin psalms,2 with a considerable
amount of added material, much of which has its source in patristic commentary on
the psalter. The final one hundred psalms are rendered in a rather loose alliterative
verse. In the metrical psalms, too, there is marked deviation from any known Latin
text. Here also the influence of commentary may be seen; moreover, the versifier
sometimes warps the sense of the Latin to fit the alliteration.
In 1835 Benjamin Thorpe published a complete edition of the Paris Psalter with
both Latin and Old English texts.3 The Old English is a fairly close transcription
of the Old English of the manuscript, but the Latin is not so scrupulously treated.
Thorpe appears to have made up his mind about the Old English text, then to have
printed the Latin version of the psalms which was closest to the Old English whether
or not the Latin printed was in the manuscript. Sisam contends that Thorpe, al-
though he recognized that the Old English text was probably closer to the Roman
psalter than to the Gallican, collated the Latin text against a printed copy of the
Vulgate and came out with some confused readings.4 In 1884 Gustav Tanger
1 There are some eleven Old English interlinear glosses to the psalms, but the Paris Psalter is
the only collection which can be truly called a translation. This and other information con-
cerning the MS and its contents is derived from the introductions to the facsimile reproduction
of the MS. The Paris Psalter, general editor Bertram Colgrave (Copenhagen, 1958).
2 James Douglas Bruce has shown that the Old English of the prose psalms is not a transla-
tion of the Latin text which accompanies it in the Paris Psalter. The Anglo-Saxon Version of
the Book of Psalms Commonly known as the Paris Psalter (Baltimore, 1894), pp. 123-126.
3 Benjamin Thorpe, Libri Psalmorum Versio Antigua Latina; cum Paraphrasi Anglo-Saxonica,
partim soluta oratione, partim metrice composita . .. (Oxford, 1835).
4 Kenneth Sisam, "The Latin Text", preface to The Paris Psalter, ed. Colgrave, p. 15.