Cryptography and the alphabet in the “Book of Ádhamh Ó Cianáin”
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Deborah Hayden
Abstract
This chapter examines two small items of a grammatical nature in the compilation now catalogued in the National Library of Ireland as MSS G 2 and G 3, which contains some of the earliest extant Irish-language material from the post-Norman period. Much of this compilation was written in the fourteenth century by the Fermanagh scribe Ádhamh Ó Cianáin, seemingly for his own use. The items in question reflect engagement with doctrine on cryptography and the letters of the alphabet as transmitted in some versions of the tract known as the De inventione linguarum (or litterarum), a text which circulated in several Continental Latin manuscripts from as early as the ninth century. The evidence that these entries provide for the relationship between the G 2–G 3 compilation and texts preserved in later Irish manuscripts will be discussed, as well as their significance for our understanding of Ádhamh’s broader compilatory motives.
Abstract
This chapter examines two small items of a grammatical nature in the compilation now catalogued in the National Library of Ireland as MSS G 2 and G 3, which contains some of the earliest extant Irish-language material from the post-Norman period. Much of this compilation was written in the fourteenth century by the Fermanagh scribe Ádhamh Ó Cianáin, seemingly for his own use. The items in question reflect engagement with doctrine on cryptography and the letters of the alphabet as transmitted in some versions of the tract known as the De inventione linguarum (or litterarum), a text which circulated in several Continental Latin manuscripts from as early as the ninth century. The evidence that these entries provide for the relationship between the G 2–G 3 compilation and texts preserved in later Irish manuscripts will be discussed, as well as their significance for our understanding of Ádhamh’s broader compilatory motives.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Foreword & acknowledgements vii
- Abbreviations ix
- List of plates xiii
- Notes on contributors xv
- Editors’ introduction 1
- Allegory, the áes dána and the liberal arts in Medieval Irish literature 11
- Cryptography and the alphabet in the “Book of Ádhamh Ó Cianáin” 35
- Caide Máthair Bréithre “What is the Mother of a Word” 65
- The expression of “sense, meaning, signification” in the Old Irish glosses, and particularly in the Milan and Saint Gall glosses 85
- The verbal paradigms in Auraicept na nÉces 101
- The glossing of the Early Irish law tracts 113
- Teaching between the lines 133
- The Welsh bardic grammars on Litterae 149
- Poetry by numbers 161
- Gramadeg Gwysanau 181
- Master list of references 201
- Index of manuscripts 219
- Index of subjects 221
- Index of terms by language 225
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Foreword & acknowledgements vii
- Abbreviations ix
- List of plates xiii
- Notes on contributors xv
- Editors’ introduction 1
- Allegory, the áes dána and the liberal arts in Medieval Irish literature 11
- Cryptography and the alphabet in the “Book of Ádhamh Ó Cianáin” 35
- Caide Máthair Bréithre “What is the Mother of a Word” 65
- The expression of “sense, meaning, signification” in the Old Irish glosses, and particularly in the Milan and Saint Gall glosses 85
- The verbal paradigms in Auraicept na nÉces 101
- The glossing of the Early Irish law tracts 113
- Teaching between the lines 133
- The Welsh bardic grammars on Litterae 149
- Poetry by numbers 161
- Gramadeg Gwysanau 181
- Master list of references 201
- Index of manuscripts 219
- Index of subjects 221
- Index of terms by language 225
