Cultural Contexts of the Priscian Glosses

Pádraic Moran is continuing the work of a two-year postdoctoral project (2009–2011), funded by the IRCHSS, to explore the cultural background of the glosses on St Gall, Stiftsbibliothek, MS 904. The manuscript is a copy, written in 850–1, of Priscian’s Institutiones Grammaticae ( Foundations of Grammar), a monumental treatise on Latin grammar completed c. 526/7, in which the author aimed to synthesize much of the Greek and Latin grammatical traditions. It was written in Irish script, probably in Ireland, and contains over 9,400 interlinear and marginal glosses, in addition to c. 4,000 construe marks (symbols to aid reading). More than one-third of these glosses were written in Old Irish (the remainder in Latin), and as such constitute one of our most important corpora for that phase of the Irish language.

The project has already launched a new digital edition, based on the transcription of Rijcklof Hofman, which makes all of the glosses available for the first time, presented alongside the text of Priscian, with links to manuscript images and other resources. The digital edition is available at:
www.stgallpriscian.ie

The project is also concerned with the cultural contexts of the glosses, exploring the glossators' knowledge of Greek, their use of Classical and Late Antique sources, the relationship of the Irish gloss tradition to that of other Priscian manuscripts, and pedagogical strategies for teaching Latin in the early Middle Ages.

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