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Expositio Notarum

Expositio Notarum

Expositio Notarum

A. C. Dionisotti, King's College London
September 2022
Available
Hardback
9781316514795
£110.00
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Hardback
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    This is the first edition of a Latin text unlike any other surviving one : at first sight an extensive, jumbled list of words with explanations, on closer inspection a window on the teaching of Latin shorthand in North Africa c. AD 400, when we find notarii, those trained in shorthand, prominently employed everywhere in state and church. The text reveals in detail how that training could relate to literary Latin and the classical Roman past. The single manuscript of it in our possession descends from a copy that must have been in Anglo-Saxon England by AD 700, and we can see how it was used for the earliest Latin glossary from that context. The edition seeks to make this story accessible both in general and in detail, with copious indices for those who may wish to consult it from various viewpoints: classical and later Latin, linguistic and historical.

    • Unique, previously unpublished text, unlike anything else surviving from antiquity
    • Juxtaposes keywords from the zenith of the pagan Roman empire with explanations from the time of St Augustine
    • Includes a full introduction, appendices and indices, making the volume accessible to scholars of both classical and later Latinity

    Reviews & endorsements

    '[Dionisotti's] superb exploration of EN reveals the history of a text and a mode of thinking about language that provide significant contexts for our reading of more familiar and more appealing works; so too, her scholarship has a depth, honesty, and generosity that deserve our attention and respect.' James E. G. Zetzel, Bryn Mawr Classical Review

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    Product details

    September 2022
    Hardback
    9781316514795
    642 pages
    223 × 145 × 40 mm
    0.9kg
    10 b/w illus. 10 tables
    Available

    Table of Contents

    • Preface
    • Abbreviations
    • Introduction
    • Text of the Expositio Notarum with notes
    • Appendix I. Possible additional items
    • Appendix II. Linguistic overview
    • Appendix III. Concordance with Anglo-Saxon glossaries
    • Appendix IV. Concordance with Notae Tironianae
    • Appendix V. Placidus
    • Appendix VI. Festus General index (includes Special indices 1-4)
    • Special indices:
    • 1. Proper names
    • 2. Words condemned as not Latin
    • 3. Words only otherwise in CNT or glossaries, if at all
    • 4. Greek in the Expositio
    • 5. Antiquities.
      Editor (Introduction and Notes)
    • A. C. Dionisotti , King's College London

      A. C. Dionisotti was until retirement a Lecturer in the Department of Classics at King's College London. She has long been interested in texts that enabled the continuity of Latin (and sometimes Greek) in Western Europe to beyond the period of Roman rule. The Expositio Notarum is such a text, revealing a different aspect of ancient education, with unexpected influence on the glossaries transmitting Latin in the early medieval, and especially the Anglo-Saxon, world.