Re: Classical antiquity to the Middle Ages: Continuity or Discontinuity?

roger.pearse@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
On 27 Mar, 22:16, Larry Swain <gi...@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

roger.pea...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

We're discussing the Latin west, where the culture collapsed,

I wouldn't say "collapsed". Transformed, yes, changed because a new
culture was being added in, and we have a period where the syntheses of
German, ROman, and Christian is being worked out. But we continue to
have production of literature, the construction of buildings, etc.


I'm very sorry, but I don't agree with this idea at all.

Your agreement or disagreement doesn't affect its veracity. Some evidence rather than the fallacy of false analogy that follows below would be more welcome.

Consider: if
you or I went from living in our current mansions to living in mud
huts, in fear of our lives, then would we describe that as a
transformation?

Well, first, we aren't those living through it, but those assessing it
afterward. Shakespeare notwithstanding, those in the War of the Roses
didn't go about claiming how this was going to affect posterity, those
who endured the blitz of WWII didn't run for air raid shelters thinking
how this was going to go down in history or be assessed, etc.

More importantly, who went from living in mansions to living in mud
huts? Name someone. IN point of fact, most Gallo-Roman aristocrats,
those who dwelt in mansions, cooperated and welcomed the "barbarians" as
able to provide more security for them than the Roman administration had
been able to do for some time. As such they kept their homes, their
wealth, and most of their lands and had a more direct path to power and
access to the king than they had ever had to the emperor. Even
Sidonius, who at first resisted, ended up supporting the Germanic regime
and being both a bishop and king's administrator!

It was a collapse, in my humble opinion.

Yes, perhaps in your opinion, but not in the opinion of the scholars of
Late Antiquity. And parts did "collapse": the structure of empire
collapsed, what remained and continued operating until the modern period
in Gaul was local and provincial administration. This was changed in
Hispania with the coming of the Muslims, in Africa with the Vandals, in
Italy depending on what area spoken of, and in Britain at least into the
sixth century. But did the whole collapse? No. There were changes,
change is painful, but this supposed collapse, no...didn't happen.


I note that none of those who disagree with me choose to experience
this process, in the contemporary world, in modern Rhodesia
(appropriately renamed Zimbabwe). I wonder if the Rhodesians refer to
starvation as 'transformation'?

False analogy. The modern situation in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe is not the
same situation as Western Europe in the fourth and fifth centuries.

The people who were starving were the Germanic tribes, that's one of the
reasons they wanted to come into the empire, whether by permission as
the Visiogoths did originally or by fighting their way in. The literary
evidence as well as the archaeological evidence indicate the
continuation virtually uninterrupted of food production and
export/import. Where we do find food in short supply, such as Italy,
the reasons have to do with Roman choices and Roman policies of long
standing, and the stupidity of figures like Honorius, rather than
anything of the Germanic invasions. The ONLY Germanic invasion that
impacted food resources in Europe was the Vandal take over of North
Africa, from which Italy's supply of grain came from, but within the
Vandal kingdom food remained in production.

(Not having a go at *you*, you understand, but revisionism to airbrush
away a disaster like the Roman collapse is a bit awful).

Revisionism to airbrush a greater disaster not based in anything like
historical fact is worse.


The importance of Charlemagne can hardly be over-
estimated, in that the recovery began under him.

Not really. As I've pointed out in a previous post, great learning was
already happening in Ireland, England, Hispania, Italy, and even in
Frankia (on a more limited basis there) before Charlemagne.


Again, while I am aware of the outposts of education, and the work of
Columbanus etc, none of it really mattered a damn.

Quite disagree! The evidence just doesn't support this in any way.
Let's take your example of Columbanus: even within his lifetime and
throughout the 7th and 8th centuries St. Gall, founded by Columbanus'
disciple Gall, and Bobbio were important centers--i. e. long before the
Charlemagne. There is little specific that Charlemagne did for these 2
foundations, other than the general benefit they derived from the tenor
of the times (and Bobbio not until after Chuck too over the Lombard
kingdom). After Charlemagne and the demise of the Carolingians
throughout the 9th century, these two centers maintained their level of
importance and education, and after the Carolingians in the 10 and
11th....didn't matter? Please...it mattered a great deal, both before
Charlemagne came, and after the Carolingians had left the map. I think
it up to you to provide some solid evidence that the Carolingians were
so important to these two sample foundations that without them, or more
specifically without Charlemagne, that all their efforts and all their
learning was as nothing.

Jarrow was> burned.

Eventually, not seriously damaged until 860, disbanded apparently after
teh Danelaw created, and moved most of their materials to Glastonbury.
So, post-Charlemagne, and there is no question of the importance of
Jarrow before Charlemagne! And lets not forget that the calendar you
use so casually every day would be very different were it not for that
little burned monastery that didn't matter.




Things kept getting worse. How many insular manuscripts do
we have? Compared to Carolingian?

Never really counted. There are over 1000 Anglo-Saxon manuscripts
alone, not including charters and such. But more importantly it depends
on whether you count Carolingian manuscripts produced by Insular hands
or in Insular foundations, like Fulda, Tours, Corbie, St. Gall etc, as
Insular or Carolingian.


The change of direction towards things getting better happens under
Charlemagne.

Not really. The movements that Charlemagne champined were already well
under way, and were not sustained in any of Charlemagne's central
holdings by the political heirs after Charles the Bald, and even before
him, his uncles weren't the most successful either. The Carolingian
experiment dissipated about a century after Chuck took the throne=--and
we again look at a) who was carrying on that work under royal
sponsorship were scholars not from Gaul but from other places like
England, Italy, Spain, Saxony, etc, and b) we look to those same places
and find that they continue to carry on where their predecessors had.
The Carolingian importance again was that they took the various lights
of the day, put them in the same place, and gave them royal
sponsorship....6 lamps in 1 room are necessarily brighter for that one
room than 6 lamps in 6 rooms. Had Charlemagne and his successors not
done that, however, those 6 rooms would have done as they had always
done: carried on learning and passing that on to the next generation.
The lights were there, the lights were on, the lights continued to be
on. Knowledge increased, but it did increase.

The rulers that follow him now have something achievable
to aspire to -- and learning is part of that vision.

For some, it had already been such before Charlemagne came along, less
so in Merovingian Gaul than in other places, but nonetheless there.

Hence the way in
which the push to the east by succeeding rulers involves the
foundation of rich monasteries such as Lorsch, running along the
Danuble east in Austria.

Uh, dude, Lorsch was founded before Charlemagne took the throne, in 764,
and isn't all that east. The royal founding of monasteries had as much
to do with the religous tenor of the times than anything specifically
related to learning....the latter being a significant part of the former.


Charlemagne's great importance was in part because he gathered scholars
from those other centers and bringing them all together under one roof
and giving them the money and legal means to do what they do best.


In part, I agree. But in isolation it would have mattered nothing;

Evidence? There's plenty of contrary evidence.....such as say, Codex
Amiatinus, for one example, all the works of Bede that continue to
influence us to name two examples of many from just one little monastery.

it
was because of the vision that he created in the minds of his
contemporaries that meant that this laid solid foundations for the
recovery of learning and culture and all the things that we think of
as civilisation.

The things Charlemagne did were already thought of and implemented by
others. What makes Charlemagne stand out is that he conquerored more
territory than anyone in some centuries, but that began to fall apart on
his death already. Who's really to credit? All those monks in those
monasteries who conceived of and guided a Christianized "holy kingship"
in Ireland and England pre-Charlemagne and took what had already worked
in the islands to the continent and shaped Charlemagne's reign.
Regrettably, Charlemagne had his own mind and didn't listen to his
advisors to the degree that they wanted him to.


But the recovery was still very weak, throughout the Dark Ages.

How do you measure that? Surely you're not going to say that a writer
like Isidore or Bede or Aldhelm or Alcuin or Rabanus or Strabo etc are
witness of a "weak" culture? Much less the vernacular literatures.....


You know this list of names seems a bit odd. For instance, why are we
talking about the last patristic writer, Isidore, in the context of
events 150 years later?

Why is Isidore the last patristic writer? To answer the question, you
seem to have forgotten that ol' Isidore is writing from Spain, under
Germanic (barbarian) kings for 2 centuries by that point. He is but
one, a more well known one, example disproving that whole "barbarians
ruined Roman culture" bullshit. He fits very well into the "Dark Ages"
that you said "the recovery was still very weak".

Hrabanus Maurus is contemporary, of course;> also Alcuin.

Maurus was after Chuck, Alcuin received his training in YOrk and if
you've read his poem on the library at York you'd drop your jaw and
request forgiveness for spreading this "Dark Ages were weak" "Chuck
saved the day" nonsense that makes good rhetoric but has no place in a
modern historian's repetoire.

They're all important (who is 'Strabo'?) but they can't
be compared to the rich culture of late antiquity or of the high
middle ages.


I'd have to say then that you haven't done enough reading in Late
Antiquity, the Early Middle Ages, or the "High Middle Ages".

Bede's History is of a ruined land.

Wrong again. You obviously have not read it carefully and certainly
haven't been under my tutelage.


The idea of comparing these people and their culture with what
Augustine lived in ca. 400 AD seems a bit odd to me.

So? I'm not concerned with what seems odd to you. I'm concerned with
history and literature and art and culture. Perhaps you should examine
more of the culture Augustine lived in c. 400 much less the later
comparisons before you start rejecting things.


Things have to wait until wealth and population have recovered
enough that there can be people interested in belles lettres. This did not occur until the 12-13th centuries, when the
Gothic movement (the reinvention of the bookhand)

Oh my....no. Have you heard of Carolingian minuscule? Insular
minuscule? Did you know that it was during those "dark ages" you're
busy overlooking that such things as a regular system of abbreviations
was developed, word separation, lined parchment for writing, and
punctuation were developed? Gothic script developed out of that, it
certainly wasn't a reinvention.


Actually you're talking to a manuscripts enthusiast,

And you're talking to a specialist.

so I'm familiar
with all this.

Apparently not. From your original comments and those that follow, if
you are familiar with all this then you are no better than Pete Brown
and his ilk who are too willing to dismiss with the wave of a hand
evidence contrary to their positions. I'd prefer to ascribe to you
ignorance than willful calumny.

Not sure why you suppose that abbreviations belong
specially to that period --

I didn't. I said "a regular system of abbreviations".

hey, they're using Tironian notae! --

A few, yes, but Tironian notae aren't abbreviations proper, but
shorthand. Further, it was during the "Dark Ages" that the 13000+
Tironian notae were revised, reorganized for easier learning, and
regularized.

except insofar as the shortage of parchment made them especially
necessary. Cappelli's volume indicates a continuous process running
into the era of print, you know.

Quite so, and guess when they began, you know, to be more than an
organic jumble? Yes, the so-called dark ages you're busy overlooking.

Lined parchment: do you mean hard> point ruling?

No, this was actually used in antiquity.

This is present in late antique mss, you know (e.g. in
the Bodleian 5th century Jerome ms). If you mean soft point, surely
this is medieval?

Indeed, "dark ages", which from your above comments about how all this
was wonderfully revised by the Gothic bookhand and the 12th century,
actually starts happening in those backward places as early as the 8th
century for guides for illustrations, the 10th for lines to guide writing.

I think that perhaps I didn't make my point clear. Prior to the
Gothic period we have all sorts of book hands, all of which arise more
or less naturally.

Yes, your point was quite clear, and just as clearly WRONG. Carolingian
minuscule, Corbie AB, Anglo-Saxon square minuscule, Insular half-uncial,
diplomatic minuscule etc are not scripts that arose "naturally" but were
deliberately developed, and used for different purposes: Latin was
usually in a different script than the vernacular for example, esp. in
manuscripts where both occur together.

The point about the system of book hands which
arrive in the 13th century is that someone has gone out and *invented*
a whole system, mainly because the books look better like that (even
if they are less readable).

Poppycock. Absolute, complete, and utter crap. Gothic script involves
neither more nor less deliberate choice and natural development than any
previous or subsequent set of scripts. Gothic developed out of late
Caroline minuscule, sometimes called early Gothic, In the tenth and
especially in the 11th century the Caroline forms became more angular
and compressed and often the minims are finished with spatulate termini.
In the 11th century in Norman and Angevin ruled areas such as St.
Peter's in Ghent minims are already being "broken"--a feature by the way
that had been part of the Insular scripts. Natural development. The
features that make it a full Gothic, such as all letters beginning on
the bottom line etc, were deliberate choices at some point. I. E. like
most scripts, part natural development, part deliberate choice and
application.

As for the claim that manuscripts written in Gothic look better, that's
in the eye of the beholder. I'm afraid I need to be convinced that the
Lorsch Codex,
http://www.denkmalpflege-hessen.de/LFDH4_UNESCO/Lorsch/Lorscher_Evangeliar/lorscher_evangeliar.html,


the Lindisfarne Gospels,
http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/ttp/ttpbooks.html, the Moore Bede,
http://www.courses.rochester.edu/hahn/eng150/bemoore.htm or the
Leningrad Bede
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Beda_Petersburgiensis_f3v.jpg, or
the Exeter Book http://research.uvsc.edu/mcdonald/wanderweb/m-1a-big.htm
are less "good to look at" than say the Aberdeen Bestiary
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:AberdeenBestiaryFol56rPhoenix.jpg
the Vidal Mayor
http://www.library.arizona.edu/exhibits/illuman/images/full_resolution/13_05.jpg,


the Paris Apocalypse,
http://www.library.arizona.edu/exhibits/illuman/13_07.html

Note I didn't say it looked worse, but that it looks "better"? Hmmmm, I
have my doubts.

That is the sort of thing that indicates that we are no longer
dragging along at subsistence level.

Except that such indicators occur more than half a millenium earlier
than you say they do.

It indicates that people have
time for stuff other than the basics; it indicates the existence of
*luxury*.

Wait, wait: Sutton Hoo isn't evidence of luxury? Deluxe manuscripts
written in gold and silver lettering on purple dyed vellum aren't signs
of luxury? Bejewled book covers and reliquaries are not signs of
"luxury"? Rich and complex textiles aren't signs of luxury? Deliberate
Development of scripts isn't sign of luxury? Frescos aren't signs of
luxury? Ivory diptychs and altar fronts and such aren't signs of
luxury? Building large buildings like cathedrals and palaces out of
stone and imported materials isn't a sign of luxury? Decorated columns
in those buildings isn't signs of luxury? Gold and silver drinking cups
aren't signs of luxury? My God man! What do you think kept attracting
those Vikings year after year after year? Sport of killing helpless monks and capturing hapless wenches? How about LUXURIES, VALUEABLE LUXURIES!


From the 6th century there is an impetus to preservation caused by the
Benedictine monks, who had to have books, and therefore preserved
much. Even so, things are still getting worse in this period.

Et tu, Roger? Again, not the way I would characterize the period. This
description might apply to certain areas in the fifth century, or at the
height of the Viking incursions, but certainly not of the period as a whole.


Well, I disagree. Things got so bad in the 7th century that some of
the mss are drawn, not written, because the 'scribes' are illiterate
and can only copy them thus.

Evidence? What specifically are you thinking of?

Even giving you the benefit of a doubt here, I think you are misreading
the evidence. This is evidence of how good it is, and certainly and
definitively disproves Christopher's originating proposition: there was
no interest in classical antiquity until the High Middle Ages. Further
I'd point out that it bears witness not to a low point, but rather that
there is an awareness by people for whom Latin is a second or even third
language and for whom writing has not been traditionally part of their
culture, that there was need to learn Latin and need to preserve texts
written in Latin....and that, my dear Roger, is a very, very good thing
for us and not at all a "low point". Your contention rests solely on
the belief that reading and writing Latin is the apex and end all of
learning....it isn't. And this moment is witness to an interest in
learning more.

Let's compare the ROmans: how many Roman era Celtic manuscripts are
there? How many Hebrew manuscripts written by a non-Jew? Syriac? My
point is that the Merovingians in the 7th century you disparage are
doing more than the Romans ever did: try and learn a second language not
related to them culturally and preserve documents written in that
language. The Romans IGNORED and in fact tried to destroy through a
very clever method of cultural absorption indigenous literatures,
necessary for running a large empire. Nonetheless, we don't find Romans
writing P-Celtic or Hebrew or Punic or any of the other conquerored
languges (save Greek, but they were doing that actually before Greek was
taken over). Yet you praise them, and disparage the Merovingians for
actually doing more than the Romans did. Interesting viewpoint there.

Finally, I'll just say that for whatever examples you may try and trot
out to prove your point, for every one of those examples, I can trot out
a very well executed 7th century Merovingian manuscript. So let's get
down to it.


If we go to the Carolingian revival, we find scholars like Lupus of
Ferrieres who are hunting for copies of manuscripts, and comparing
texts.

Yes, and if we look at the Roman book trade, one would find the same
thing quite often.


In letter 1 Lupus tells us of influential nobles who were
illiterate and sneered at learning -- the base level was low, but the
influence of the great emperor threw this back.

And at the same time we find examples of nobles reading texts, writing
texts, supporting texts being copied and written.


Interesting. Who?

Well, let's start with those clergy....esp. in the Merovingian period for Gaul, church officials were all noble, and entered on church life as NOBLES, and usually quite late in life. They were also often married and had children! What made them valueable is that they had the administrative skills, including literacy and Latin literacy, to carry on the administration of BOTH kingdom and church.

Let us also remind ourselves that again particularly in Gaul, those who joined the monasteries, as adults, were largely noble (see Columbanus' letters), and from the evidence available seem to have already known Latin and how to read it. Part of that evidence are the fine decorations in early Merovingian manuscripts of classical authors, imitating Mediterranean decoration: i. e. they had manuscripts, were reading them, were copying them, and imitating what they read from the foundation of the monasteries.

As for other, non-clergy:
Radegund, Baudonivia, Cuthbert, Benedict Biscop, John Scotus, Cancor, Nunnio, Dado and Faro, both educated and who educated their own children, and even Dhouda, who though she was born in 804, nonetheless I think demonstrates that education, even education of women, was not a new thing with Charlemagne in 793. (Let us remember that Charlemagne's efforts at education and legislating it were aimed directly at the lower level clergy, not at the laity, not his nobles, etc). Merovingian nobles sent their sons to court, where they were assigned to a teacher, usually the MAYOR OF THE PALACE (you know, the position held by Charles Martel and Pepin the Short later) to educate them. Other families hired tutors and had their children trained at home, Arnulf and Wandregisil as examples. Namatius, later a bishop, and his wife, who would read Bible passages to the workmen building her husband's cathedral to give them inspiration!

Even lower level people could go to school: Patroclus and his brother Antonius are examples.

Gregory of Tours mentions several whom he celebrates for their learning (that is lay people, not church men), and that Venantius Fortunatus not only had public hearings demonstrating a taste for Latin poetry, but expected his poems sent to various laypeople to be read witnesses to this also.

Rosamund McKitterick in "Carolingians and the Written Word" comments on pg. 213 "It is becoming increasingly clear that the essential foundation of Carolingian literacy was Merovingian literacy and that there was no dramatic break between the Merovingian and Carolingian periods. Nor was there a decline in lay culture in the eighth century.

That should be sufficient.

Apart from the library of Charlemagne, all the libraries that I can
think of at that period are monastic. (Although this may be skewed by
the fact that my knowledge comes from surviving catalogues of
monastery libraries)

Think about it, Roger. How many noble libraries survive from 200 years ago? 300? 500? Very few! Cotton is exceptional, not the rule! Gregory of Tours, for example, does talk about the book trade in Merovingian Gaul and there is evidence that not all the books the MANY scriptoria were producing remained there. We have references to such non-monastic libraries, few though they are, but what happened to them is the same that happens to personal libraries now: they get bequeathed to descendants or to foundations, given away. Few personal libraries survive much beyond the death of the collector. On the other hand, what were all those people reading mentioned above?


This tendency -- that power was in the hands of the barbarians -- must
have tended to destroy Roman culture.

Except that those "barbarians" wanted to PRESERVE Roman
culture...


It matters not what they wanted, tho ; what would the effect be?

The effect of their policies was to preserve Roman administration at the local and provincial level, and to continue to emulate Roman culture by having public readings of Latin poetry, imitating Late Antique manuscripts, build Roman style buildings etc. I. E. Their desire to preserve Romen culture resulted in the preservation of a great deal of Roman culture, so much so that you can enjoy a great deal of Roman culture.

After all, if you were a learned Roman landowner, who had to defer
to a savage, your son would be liable to despise your learning in
favour of the man on the horse whom *you* had to kowtow to!

Except this isn't the image we get!


Well, it is the image that I get, from Sidonius Apollinaris,

Oh please, Sidonius complains that he can't very well be expected to write hexameter verse with Goths who stink of rancid butter stand about him while he was writing hexameter verse! "I'm writing this to tell you that I can't write today."

and Lupus> of Ferrieres.

You need to extend your reading a bit further.

Europe goes from being civilised to being illiterate.

Wrong. Read more.


Christianity. At best, the Middle Ages are regarded as an innovative
and energetic recreation of classical culture

This seems to involve category mistakes. Classical culture wasn't on
the agenda. That is what the renaissance was about.

Oi. Both wrong. The Middle Ages as a whole, starting really in the late
sixth century, was very much concerned with "classical culture" ...


Nope. This is simply wrong. The Dark Ages were primarily concerned
with getting through next week.

Roger, this is getting very very very very very very very tiresome. It is false, as anyone who has just looked at the evidence can tell. The only place that this MIGHT be true of is early Anglo-Saxon England for which we have very little evidence either way: but we do have vernacular rune inscriptions and the first thing produced in England after 597 seems to be a set of Old English laws rather suggests that what is missing is literacy in LATIN, rather than literacy. But for Visiogothic Spain, Merovingian Gaul, Italy, Ireland, the claim that there was no concern with "classical culture" is just so wrong and wrong-headed. There are projects: Sources of Anglo-Saxon Literary Culture and FONTES for example whose purpose is to reconstruct as much as possible what it was those Old English writers were reading: and they were reading a great deal of classical literature. Similarly in Gaul where we have the first Latin hagiography, and imitations and quotations of classical and late antique literature. Spain produces authors who are citing Boethius about 75 years after his death in Italy, and not just the Consolation but his less well known theological works. And let's mention writers like Vergil widely read and interpreted already as a Christian text and a Christian prophet and loved in the "Dark Ages". Whole books have been written on this very subject alone!

It does no good whatever to look a
little puddles of culture, where a scholar can ignore what is going on
outside, and ignore the whole picture.

Or just be looking at a picture constructed out of misperception rather than the evidence. Always easier to keep our ignorance than to learn.


The knowledge of Greek in the West died out with shocking sudden-
ness; Augustine had only a rudimentary knowledge of the Greek
language, and translators such as Jerome and Rufinus were scarce.
The few Greek studies were undertaken for the sake of theology or
philosophy, and the translation of secular authors was rare;
Calcidius' fourth-century version of the Timaeus was for eight centuries the
only Latin translation of a Platonic dialogue.

True.

False, but I dealt with this in more detail in a response already.


Worth bearing in mind that Greek was known at the court of
Charlemagne.

And seventh century Canterbury....and the court of Charles the
Bald....and in Ravenna and Italy....


You know, I'm sure, why Greek was known at Ravenna in the early Dark
Ages; because the damn place was under Greek rule. Ditto for Magna
Graecia. How is this an index of the general knowledge of Greek in
the period? You say that Greek was known in seventh century
Canterbury. What you mean, I'm sure, is that a Greek was appointed
archbishop in that period, and did a bit of teaching. It is horrible,
horrible, to write as if this was equivalent to the knowledge of Greek
in antiquity.

What Greek in antiquity? In Greece? What evidence is there of Greek in England in "antiquity", for Gaul in the south we have evidence of some transplanted communities from the East in southern Gaul, but no evidence I know of in northern Gaul, and once we enter the fourth century I know of no Greek examples even in the south. Similar situation pertains to Hispania, though Greek enclaves in southern port cities seem to have continued through the Visiogothic period. IN short, in Western Europe other than Italy we have very little Greek, esp. from the fourth century onwards, and so it is remarkable that we have evidence of Greek being taught and learned in Western Europe in the 6th, 7th. 8th centuries.

Re: Ravenna Ravenna was the capital of the Western Empire from 396 on, Theodoric's capital until 525, captured by Byzantium in 540 until 751, when it became Lombard for a time, and with the defeat of the Lombards by Charlemagne, a part of the papal states. To ascribe evidence of Grekk in the fifth century or in the tenth to the Byzantine period seems rather like special pleading to me.

Re: 7th century Canterbury, no I do not mean simply that a "Greek" was appointed archbishop. We have multiple reports of the school of Theodore and Hadrian, that Greek was taught there, and the writings of the students, such as Aldhelm, are full of Greek phrases, Greek words taken into Latin etc.

It is horrible, irresponsible, and a shame, truly shameful, to try and skew the evidence and try and pretend that the Western Empire was as steeped in Greek language as the East and then dare to compare the early medieval period to the East and find it wanting. Shameful.

There are Greek books listed in medieval catalogues with "old and
useless" "it cannot be read" against them.

Indeed, and there are bilingual manuscripts like Codex Bezae and the Bedan Acts, and authors like Aldhelm, Bede, John Scotus, Vergil the Grammarian, etc who knew Greek, and glossing traditions in manuscripts such as Boethius and the Bible that kept a modicum of Greek alive. There are also liturgical manuscripts that transliterate Greek into Latin letters, but do not translate the Greek....including some Merovingian ones, one assumes that those chanting the Lord's Prayer in Greek understood it to some degree given the degree of literate culture. In fact, according to the principle study of the question, there was actually as much Greek knowledge in the early period as there was in the late (from which those catalogues come from.)

The way in which bits of
Greek text in manuscripts of classical Latin texts is transmitted in
the West indicates that the scribes didn't know it.

Depends on the manuscript and the scribe.

We're dealing
with dynasts who sometimes had a Greek scribe for foreign affairs.
It's no more than that.

Depends on the specific situation, but there's enough evidence to suggest that this generalization can not be maintained as a generalization.

The period during which the Merovingian dynasty was in power was a
veritable dark age for learning

Agreed. Even the bookhand looks like a spider being sick.

Oi. Since when is penmanship a measure of learning? I think you may be
referring here to Merovingian Chancery script, which um, I hate to break
to you was derived directly from New Roman Cursive script--the script of
administrators in the Late Empire.....Merovingian Uncial is quite nice
and fairly easy to read, as is B minuscule, a script close to Corbie AB,
the ancestor of Caroline Minuscule (on which Times New Roman is based
btw).


This again is odd. Uncial is uncial,

No, uncial isn't "uncial". As with minuscule there are different types of uncials. What is usually called "Uncial" as a script was the major book hand of Late Antiquity, and it continued to be used in the medieval period, but there were also adaptations of it in the various locals so that one can distinguish a Merovingian Uncial from a deliberatly classicizing of Anglo-Saxon Uncial etc. And of course interesting experiments are done and hybrid scripts are developed such as Insular half-uncial.


and saying that it was written
in the Merovingian period is weird.

Reporting historical and verifiable fact is weird? Huh. I thought you said you knew this stuff.

The Merovingian minuscule is as I> have described it.

No, I'm afraid not. Your description fits Merovingian chancery (as it does Old and New Roman cursives which gave rise to the chancery scripts in Italy and Gaul, so the so-called Ravenna chancery fits your description as well.) But the so-called Merovingian minuscule scripts, Corbe AB, B minuscule, Luxeuil, can not be described as a "spider looking sick", not by anyone who has actually seen the scripts in question anyway.

All the minuscules have the same parentage; it's
interesting how horrible the Merovingian is. And, of course HOW FEW
EXAMPLES OF CLASSICAL TEXTS WRITTEN IN IT AT THAT PERIOD WE HAVE!!!

Ignorance is bliss, Roger, ignorance is bliss! But let's look at his, shall we? First, we have references in Merovingian authors to classical texts: aallusions, quotations, mentions of authors. So though the manuscipts do not surive, they apparently read classical works, and I doubt one could sustain a claim that they were reading 200 year old manuscripts all the time! We also have the rather interesting letter to Radegund from Caesaria, an abbess, requesting that a certain nun who had NOT studied the classical liberal arts LIKE THE OTHER NUNS HAD, still be allowed to enter the nunnery at Arles. Huh, nuns not allowed to become nuns because they didn't have a classical education....kind of indicative don't you think?

I wouldn't be too exercised about what doesn't surive. After all the first complete Vergil is c. 400, and I certainly wouldn't conclude from that that there was no interest in reading Vergil for 400 years after his death. Would you? Then why, if there is something of a gap in survival would you assume it for the Merovingians? Boggles the mind. There are copies of the Bible, liturgical texts, patristic writings if those are to be a separate category from "classical". But there are citations of Ovid, Vergil and Juvencus, copies of Donatus' grammar, among others.

You may associate learning with books that look horrible. I don't.
People who love learning love books.

I'm sorry, but at this point I have to wonder if you are taking the
piss. If so, I have other things to do.

Well, Roger, you're later apology aside, I've better things than to argue with a wall. I thought better of you considering your very good work in patristics on your site. But after this post full of just absolute ignorance trumped up as fact, I fear that I too have better and other things to do. If you'd like to discuss this further or would care for a bibliography I can do that. But a mere repetition of how "dark" the "dark ages" were, well, frankly I've not the time, though correcting this erroneous viewpoint is something that I as an late antiquity/early medievalist can not let go by lightly.
.

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