A Garland of Satire, Wisdom, and History: Latin Verse from Twelfth-Century France (Carmina Houghtoniensia)

Abstract

This book brings into print editions, translations, and commentaries for more than two dozen unique poems (in Latin) from the late eleventh and early twelfth century, preserved in Houghton Library’s anthology known as MS Lat 300. This book offers unparalleled access to the anthology, previously unavailable in English.

From a literary point of view, those interested in lyric poetry composed in Old French and Old Provençal have paid increasing attention to Latin poetry that circulated in France, and of course those wishing to trace the background of the Carmina Burana have reason to study this kind of collection, but many poems remain unedited and even more cry out for translation and contextualization. With the publication of the accompanying facsimiles, palaeographers may now be able to solve the puzzle of where the manuscript originated—its story between the Napoleonic wars and 1965, when it was purchased by Harvard. All told, this volume opens the way to advances in medieval studies.