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Although EVT has slowly evolved into a versatile and powerful tool for publishing historical sources and literary texts on the basis of the XML/TEI format, none of the modifications - and periodic rewrites - of its code base has significantly changed the way in which edition data is handled. Even today, in fact, the main goal is to visualise and navigate such data, no doubt in a sophisticated way (support for multiple edition levels, support for named entities management, text-image linking), but in any case limited to what we might call “core functionalities” of a DSE. Texts encoded in XML/TEI, on the other hand, are a potential treasure trove of information just waiting to be interrogated and made available to the user. In this article I identify three use cases – the processing of special characters encoded by means of the and elements; the management of named entities, realia and other interesting elements of the text; the use of ontologies within an XML/TEI document – related to literary texts in Old English in order to propose a TEI encoding and a subsequent processing able to put the user in a position to receive answers to complex, transversal queries involving cross-links between different types of elements.

The essay examines the themes, poetic diction, metaphors, and rhetorical devices of the Exeter Book riddles 12, 52, and 72, selected because they associate Welsh servitude to oxen and because they include images of captivity and bondage, showing a connection between slavery, ethnicity, and conduct through the multifaceted term wealh, which relates to slavery, Celtic origin and transgressive behaviour. The noun came to signify both racial and social difference; the analysis reveals that it conveyed moral otherness as well. The cultural equivalence of ‘slave’ and ‘beast’ gives Celtic slaves a status as ethnic, social, and moral ‘other’, so that the figures of the riddles embody the cultural distance between labourers and aristocratic elite, illuminating the opposition between ‘self/other’, ‘English/Welsh’, ‘free/bound’. The subjugated condition of the Welsh is exploited with the didactic aim to convey monastic concerns such as the transience of wordly joys and the loathing of earthly life.

Proverbs in the medieval Frisian laws have been studied ever since Jacob Grimm called them to his readers’ attention in 1816. Most energy was thereupon placed in spotting and collecting them for inclusion in large collections of German proverbs which were fashionable in the nineteenth century. Also in the twentieth century, scholarly activity focused on signalling their stylistic ‘Germanic’ beauty or lifting them out of their context and placing them in lists and anthologies. In this contribution, the proverbs in the Old Frisian law texts are analysed in the light of recent paremiology with an eye to both their form and the function they have in their immediate context.

The generic tone in which practical instructions and moral advice are formulated in medieval didactic texts is one of the features which guaranteed them success and broad diffusion as it permitted their use in different contexts. This assumption applies also to the Leken Spieghel, a didactic treatise written by Jan van Boendale in the second decade of the fourteenth century. This essay presents the sections connected to the urban sphere and, in more general terms, to the Duchy of Brabant, by comparing the information contained in the Leken Spieghel with the author’s other texts and by taking into account also some historical events. The aim is to provide a better understanding of the Leken Spieghel teachings and of the possible reason for their inclusion in this text.

Gnomic tradition in medieval Germanic texts can be studied from different points of view. Maxims, proverbs, wise sayings, and various rules of life and behaviour pertain both to phraseology and paremiology, since they can display particular syntactic features as well as a reflection of the social and cultural environment in which they were transmitted. The analysis of these phrases and of their context leads to interesting results enriching our knowledge of past traditions, archaic words and constructions, and it allows to observe the development of meaning and form of ancient idioms still in use. The present contribution aims to focus on this particular branch of historical linguistics, which brings philology closer to other disciplines ranging from language history to pragmatics.

As it is now widely recognised, The Wife’s Lament, one of the most intriguing and enigmatic Old English poems, is based on a female speaker uttering her grief for the absence of her loved one. Partly due to its grammatical ambiguities and the unclear chronology of events, many passages of the poem remain obscure and defy a shared understanding. The interpretation of the final lines (42-53) has frequently been a matter of passionate debate: some scholars believe they contain a curse against the man who deserted the woman; but they should rather be considered as a series of gnomic reflections on the need to endure distress and unhappiness with stoic resignation. The essay examines the structural and lexical features of the concluding lines of the poem, comparing them with analogues from other Old English texts; the final considerations show the coherence of those lines in relation to the poem as a whole.

In his poem about Robert Bruce’s life and enterprises, John Barbour (1319-95) uses the gnomic element in a variety of ways. Proverbs, maxims, and occasional gnomic utterances or verses are employed to shape the text, as commentary, prolexis, summary, example, and comparison, in order to give an insight into the personality of important characters (especially the protagonist), and highlight propagandistic and ideological themes that are an essential part of the poem’s complex frame.

The present essay raises the question whether the so-called ‘mystical saying’ (Mystikerspruch), a widespread phenomenon in spiritual German literature and flourishing in the fourteenth century, is the minimum unit of the treatise and the sermon from a purely formal aspect – i.e., a quotation attributed to various authorities who reportedly pronounced it – or if the saying corresponds, for its content, to the literary genre of the dictum (Spruch) and therefore deserves, with good reason, to be considered part of gnomic literature together with sentences and proverbs. The essay first challenges the category of the ‘saying’ in modern scientific literature, then examines the use of the quotation in medieval manuscripts, and finally traces the presence of sayings in Eckhart’s German sermons and in texts by Tauler and Seuse. It ends with the analysis of two sayings attributed to Meister Eckhart.

l volume raccoglie saggi dedicati alla tradizione gnomica nelle letterature germaniche medievali. Dopo un primo contributo che illustra i principali filoni della ricerca fraseologica e paremiologica, le trattazioni approfondiscono l’elemento didascalico affrontando questioni linguistiche, letterarie e socio-culturali in diversi generi testuali, alcuni orientati a contenuti gnomici, come indovinelli, codici giuridici, raccolte di massime e proverbi, altri di carattere epico, elegiaco o mistico. Gli studi toccano le aree di lingua inglese, tedesca, nederlandese e frisone, nei periodi antico e medio, con contatti e riferimenti anche all’area nordica. I numerosi microtesti gnomici mostrano una grande capacità di diffusione e penetrazione in diversi ambiti culturali, sia circolando singolarmente che inseriti in testi più ampi. Stilemi e contenuti ricorrono in tutte le aree linguistiche europee, evidenziando lo stretto legame fra il mondo germanico e la tradizione sapienziale classica e biblico-cristiana.

L'articolo delinea gli obiettivi del progetto di edizione digitale del manoscritto Napoli, Biblioteca Nazionale, MS XIII.B.29. Il codice, preziosissimo in quanto unico esempio di letteratura inglese tardomedievale conservato in Italia, contiene romanzi cavallereschi e un poema agiografico che conobbero ampia circolazione nell’Inghilterra del quattordicesimo e quindicesimo secolo, oltre a ricette mediche finora inedite. A parte la sua rilevanza filologica e letteraria (la maggior parte dei testimoni delle opere ivi contenuti si differenzia talvolta anche in modo marcato rispetto al resto delle rispettive tradizioni testuali), la presenza di note in italiano e, soprattutto, di un’illustrazione che testimonierebbe la sua appartenenza a Tommaso Campanella pone il codice in una posizione di sicuro interesse storico e contestualizza in modo peculiare la sua fruizione nell’ambiente culturale napoletano del sedicesimo e diciassettesimo secolo. L’obiettivo principale del progetto consiste, dunque, nel fornire uno strumento che permetta la più ampia fruizione di un manoscritto finora praticamente sconosciuto ma unico nel suo genere, al fine di preservarne l’integrità materiale. Oltre a dettagliare le modalità di marcatura dei testi e di codifica degli elementi paratestuali, si fornirà un piano preliminare di edizione, che verrà realizzato attraverso l'interfaccia open source EVT., Umanistica Digitale, No 2 (2018)

Il volume raccoglie saggi dedicati alla tradizione gnomica nelle letterature germaniche medievali. Dopo un primo contributo che illustra i principali filoni della ricerca fraseologica e paremiologica, le trattazioni approfondiscono l’elemento didascalico affrontando questioni linguistiche, letterarie e socio-culturali in diversi generi testuali, alcuni orientati a contenuti gnomici, come indovinelli, codici giuridici, raccolte di massime e proverbi, altri di carattere epico, elegiaco o mistico. Gli studi toccano le aree di lingua inglese, tedesca, nederlandese e frisone, nei periodi antico e medio, con contatti e riferimenti anche all’area nordica. I numerosi microtesti gnomici mostrano una grande capacita di diffusione e penetrazione in diversi ambiti culturali, sia circolando singolarmente che inseriti in testi piu ampi. Stilemi e contenuti ricorrono in tutte le aree linguistiche europee, evidenziando lo stretto legame fra il mondo germanico e la tradizione sapienziale classica e biblico-cristiana.Contributi di Davide Bertagnolli, Rolf H. Bremmer Jr, Elisabeth De Felip-Jaud, Valeria Di Clemente, Elena Di Venosa, Marusca Francini, Dagmar Gottschall, Concetta Sipione.

none 1 no open Davide Bertagnolli Davide Bertagnolli

Dopo aver tracciato un sintetico quadro dei termini centrali per 'gioco' in area germanica si passerà a un'analisi più dettagliata del campo semantico in area tedesca, incentrata sui lemmi spil e spilen e sulle co-occorrenze relative, con particolare attenzione alle collocazioni e alle strutture formulari. Dall’esame emergono problemi legati alle ricerche di linguistica storica, e cioè la dipendenza da fonti molto eterogenee, sia per quanto riguarda la distribuzione quantitativa nelle fasi temporali (qui p.es. le scarsissime attestazioni della fase theudiska rispetto alle numerose della fase successiva), sia relativamente ai generi testuali, nonché alla presenza non equilibrata nei repertori lessicografici.

Il contributo descrive le caratteristiche codicologiche, paleografiche e contenutistiche di un prezioso frammento palinsesto (inf. V-VI sec.; sup. VI-VII sec.) conservato a Bologna presso l'Archivio della Fabbriceria di S. Petronio, contenente come strato inferior un testo liturgico in lingua e scrittura gotica, di cui non si hanno al mondo altre attestazioni, e come strato superior parte dell'VIII libro del 'De civitate Dei' di S. Agostino. Il contributo intende inoltre dare conto anche dello stato degli studi sul frammento e delle più recenti ipotesi attributive, in particolare in relazione all'ipotesi che lo strato superiore latino possa essere stato prodotto presso lo 'scriptorium' della cattedrale di Verona, e infine della sua datazione.

Quadro della letteratura altotedesca dell'alto medioevo; pur partendo da una concezione ampia di ‘letteratura’, è stato dato particolare spazio a testi che soddisfano anche un criterio estetico. La sintesi ha cercato di fornire una panoramica della notevole varietà di generi letterari in versi e delle loro diverse realizzazioni, con particolare attenzione alle diverse strutture metriche via via adoperate, dalla fedeltà alla tradizione germanica, alle sperimentazioni con le nuove possibilità offerte dalla rima finale. Per quanto più arduo, è stato anche tracciato un breve profilo dello sviluppo letterario della prosa.

La storia di ted. Ball, dalle più antiche glosse fino ai resoconti sportivi dei nostri giorni suggerisce due ordini di considerazioni. Da un lato il sostantivo mantiene immodificato il suo referente, tanto l’antico alto tedesco bal quanto il tedesco contemporaneo Ball designano un oggetto di forma sferica, la palla appunto. Potremmo quindi concludere che il lemma non ha subito trasformazioni semantiche. Tuttavia, e questa è la seconda considerazione, se il focus si allarga e sono considerate le collocazioni del termine, si osserva che le associazioni legate a quest’oggetto così come si sono sedimentate in espressioni idiomatiche sono cambiate. Nella fase media predominavano infatti gli accostamenti con la fortuna/Fortuna (considerata cioè sia come ‘caso’, sia come entità personalizzata), così che i collegamenti con ‘movimento’ mettono per lo più in rilievo, tramite la relazione con bal, l’assenza di agentività dell’umano che è oggetto/paziente della predicazione. Il legame di ball con ‘fortuna’ continua nella fase protomoderna e anche in quella successiva, con particolare intensità nella letteratura barocca; in entrambi i casi però al posto delle associazioni con il tratto della sfericità ne subentrano altre con una traiettoria parabolica, con accento sul moto imprevedibile e mutevole. Solo a partire dal XVII sec. si rilevano cooccorenze significative tra Ball e il verbo spielen, tuttavia le prime attestazioni, fino all’inizio del XX sec., denotano azioni incoscienti e incuranti di eventuali conseguenze negative, tratti spesso intensificati mediante ulteriori collegamenti a ‘giochi di bambini’. Parallelamente alla diffusione dello sport, e in particolare del calcio, come fenomeno sociale, cioè nel XX sec., si intensificano notevolmente coocorrenze associabili allo sport e in particolare al calcio, tutte con connotazioni positive, soprattutto legate a ‘gioco di squadra’, che spesso si manifesta nell’ambito della comunicazione.

Der Beitrag untersucht anhand der Handschriften aus dem Nürnberger Dominikanerinnenkloster St. Katharinen den Umgang mit den Schriften Eckharts und ihm zugeschriebenen Texten in diesem Konvent nach der Reform von 1428. Dabei zeigt sich, dass trotz der negativen Bewertung mystischer und intellektueller Lektüre seitens der Reformtheologen in St. Katharinen die Tradition einer Eckhart-Rezeption, wie sie aus dem 14. Jh. bekannt war, weiter gepflegt wurde.

[EN] Our work forming part of the Project Glossarium Mediae Latinitatis Cataloniae (GMLC), shared by the University of Barcelona and the Higher Council for Scientific Research, consists in carrying out an etymological study on the lexicon of Germanic origin that appears in Medieval Latin of Catalonia. In particular, we have studied the terms of Germanic origin (Gothic and Franconian) that penetrated as a substrate into the early Medieval Latin of Catalonia from Late Antiquity till the end of the twelfth century. The above mentioned German terms which are included in diplomatic texts have been identified and extracted from the documentary corpus of GMLC, then fixed and distributed into lemmata, each of which has been assigned a meaning. In turn, the lemmata have been grouped in lexical families and in articles headed due to methodological reasons by a common Proto-Germanic root. The articles presented in our work have the following structure: first, we offer the documentary evidence (the oldest example of every form and variety) of each lemma, while attributing it a specific meaning; second, we indicate the closest Romanic forms related with the studied Latin lemma or lemmata; third, we carry out an etymological study of the respective lemma or lemmata analysing primarily phonetic and morphological changes suffered by Germanic etymons before becoming the forms encountered in the documentation (Latin or directly Romanic); moreover, we make a brief reference to the Germanic Etymon in Proto-Germanic context and, in turn, to the Proto-Germanic Etymon in Indo-European context; finally, we include, on one hand, general bibliographical references and, on the other hand, precise bibliographical references in regard to the alphabetical notes. Likewise, the linguistic study on the lexicon of Germanic origin in addition to revealing the first appearance of some words of the preliterate Romance, which was already spoken throughout the current territory of Catalonia, also enables us to learn and understand social and cultural characteristics of that period., [ES] El nostre treball, que està inserit dins del projecte del Glossarium Mediae Latinitatis Cataloniae (GMLC), compartit per la Universitat de Barcelona i el Consell Superior d'Investigacions Científiques, ha consistit a elaborar un estudi etimològic del lèxic d'origen germànic que apareix en el llatí medieval de Catalunya. Concretament, s'han estudiat els termes d'origen germànic (gòtic i fràncic) que van penetrar com a substrat en el llatí altmedieval de Catalunya, des de l'antiguitat tardana fins al tombant del segle XII. Els termes germànics suara esmentats, que es troben inclosos en textos diplomàtics, han estat identificats i extrets del corpus documental del GMLC i, després, han estat fixats i distribuïts per lemes, als quals se'ls ha assignat un significat. Al seu torn, els lemes han estat agrupats per famílies lèxiques, en articles encapçalats, per raons metodològiques, per una arrel comuna protogermànica. Els articles que constitueixen el nostre treball presenten l'estructura següent: en primer lloc, s'ofereixen els testimonis documentals (l'exemple més antic de cada forma i variant) de cada lema, tot adjudicant-li un significat; en segon lloc, es consignen les formes romàniques més properes, amb les quals es troben emparentats el lema o lemes llatins estudiats; en tercer lloc, es fa l'estudi etimològic del lema o lemes en qüestió, analitzant fonamentalment els canvis fonètics i morfològics que els ètims germànics patiren per convertir-se en les formes que trobem documentades (llatines o ja directament romàniques); així mateix, es fa una referència succinta a l'ètim germànic en el seu context protogermànic i, al seu torn, a l'ètim protogermànic en el seu context indoeuropeu. Finalment, es recullen, d'una banda, les referències bibliogràfiques generals i, d'una altra banda, les referències bibliogràfiques concretes, corresponents a les notes alfabètiques. Així mateix, l'estudi lingüístic d'aquest lèxic d'origen germànic, que, a més a més, mostra sovint la primera aparició dels mots del romanç preliterari ja parlat en el territori de la Catalunya actual, també ens permet conèixer i comprendre les característiques socials i culturals de l'època., Universidad de Barcelona

Il saggio si inserisce insieme ad altri contributi quale ampia introduzione e contestualizzazione della nuova edizione critica della Vita Karoli di Eginardo, pubblicata in occasione del 1200° anniversario della morte di Carlo Magno. Il volume si colloca nella più prestigiosa collana di studi mediolatini italiani e sicuramente il SISMEL - Edizioni del Galluzzo è fra le sedi più importanti per le pubblicazioni letterarie alto-medievali anche a livello internazionale. L'articolo analizza la figura di Carlo Magno così come traspare dalla voce del suo biografo Eginardo mettendo in luce gli aspetti più propriamente germanici della vita e personalità dell'imperatore, confrontando i passi della Vita Karoli con la produzione letteraria in lingue germaniche, in special modo il Beowulf anglosassone. La comparazione permette di mettere in luce gli aspetti culturali germanici che emergono dalla Vita Karoli che non risulterebbero evidenti senza un confronto con il panorama culturale più propriamente barbarico.

Il saggio traccia il profilo scientifico di Renato Gendre e commenta le sue principali pubblicazione, collocandole all'interno del panorama della filologia germanica italiana

i nomi di spada come 'categoria onomastica' nelle attestazioni dell'epica medievale tedesca.

Il saggio descrive e segue il processo di tematizzazione della figura di Carlo Magno, assunto nella letteratura frisone medioevale al ruolo di largitore della libertà e garante di essa.

Between the end of the eighth century and the first three decades of the ninth century, in a northern Frankish scriptorium – probably Saint-Denis – different gatherings were copied and/or collected in a single manuscript, now codex lat. 528 in Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France. The manuscript is actually composed by 181 leaves shared in twenty-two gatherings containing more than fifty texts and extended annotations on the top and bottom margins of the folios. At first sight, the miscellaneous structure of the manuscript seems to be ungovernable, but the codex can be divided in three main sections. The first section (gatherings 1-7) contains commentaries on the Pentateuch: Alcuinus, Quaestiones in Genesim, Exodum, Leviticum, Deuter., (P.L., 100); Eucherius, Instructiones. De Genesi (CSEL 31); Eugyppius, De singulis quaestionibus Augustini, (ed. Knoell, 1885). The second section (gatherings 8-17) collects a group of works all concerning grammatical and rhetoric matters, many by Bede De Schematibus Scripturae (P.L., 90), De arte metrica (P.L., 90), De divisione temporum (P.L. 90), Quaestiones in libros Regum (P.L., 91); a large series of lyrics by Paul the Deacon, a Greek grammar and some letters. Finally, the third section (gatherings 18-22) contains hagiographic texts circulating in monastic milieus: Vita Audoini (M.G.H., SS. RR. Merov., V), Breviarium Apostolorum cum Martyrologio hierolomit. (AA.SS. nov. II, I, II), Fulgentius, De Fide (P.L., 55), Augustinus Hipp., Excerpta. Before discussing the contents of the manuscript more precisely , it is important to give some information about dating and scriptorium. The manuscript, with the exception of three gatherings (11, 15 and 18) was probably copied in the scriptorium of Saint-Denis. Some specific calligraphic uses, which can be observed in the ms. BnF lat. 17371 (certainly a Saint-Denis product), are also identifiable in BnF lat. 528. Consequently, comparing the two mss., the copying of BnF 528 can be dated to the period in which Caroline minuscule writing was already in use but still in strict connection with the pre-Carolingian period. A more precise dating can be offered by some texts contained in the manuscript. Firm evidence is found in the lyrics by Paul the Deacon, which were composed in Aachen between the years 782-786. The Cyclus Decemnovennali (gathering 11) can safely be taken into consideration as terminus ante quem,. The gathering containing the text was bound later to the volume and reports the date 826. Therefore, the manuscript was for the grater part copied during Fardulfus’s abbacy (793-806) or immediately later. Considering the manuscript as a whole, the specific interest for rhetoric and grammatical topics is stricking. In particular, the presence of a letter of Charlemagne’s in which the Emperor exhorts clergy to literary studies is noteworthy (M.G.H., Epp. IV, Ep. Kar. Aevi, II, XXII, p. 532) and also the inclusion of the famous epistole of Jerome to Paula in which he explains the meanings of the Hebrew letters (Jerome, Ep. XXX). Other texts, for instance De arte metrica or De figuris in scriptura sacra, are devoted to rhetorical speculations, and also the Quaestiones in Genesim are copied here for their grammatical and rhetorical use rather than for edification purposes. It is namely a matter of fact that the first gatherings - containing biblical commentaries - show an anthological choice in which the passages are more connected to language and grammar than to religious edification. Finally, the same consideration can be made for Paul the Deacon’s lyrics, which were copied in that period in connection with grammatical works. If the texts are then analysed together with the marginal annotations, the apparently chaotic arrangement of the codex reveals its coherent structure. The annotations all over the codex are effectively, in a large amount of cases, strictly connected to the texts and unveil the presumable educational use of the manuscript. Four annotators' hands can be recognized. Some of them were particularly interested in rhetorical and grammatical aspects and this use probably was the original one for which the codex was conceived. The annotations concerning rhetorical subjects are inserted in the largest amount of cases as marginal glosses, and as single words. In a minor group of occurrences, the rhetorical glosses are more extended. the glosses concerning astronomical computing and alphabetical series are very different. In the first case, the glosses usually start on the verso side of the leaf and continue on the recto of the following one; it is therefore evident that the glossator wrote them when the manuscript was already bound. Anyway, it must be noticed that the copyist of astronomical glosses inserted the large part of them in coincidence with texts concerning astronomic computing, as in the 11th gathering. As far as the alphabetical series are concerned, a particular interest in alphabetical series and languages different from Latin must be pointed out. Glossators inserted different alphabets. A particular attention to Greek language and litterae is revealed by texts (grammar tì estìn doctus type) and by repeated Greek alphabets which were copied in the manuscript. Probably, this is due to the particular interest the scriptorium of Saint-Denis had for Greek, but it must be also remembered that the glossators filled margins of the codex with other alphabetical series: the Hebrew series, which is copied three times (ff. 78v-79r; 82v-83r) and other ones, for instance the Caldaic, Egyptian alphabets and the so-called Aethicus Ister alphabets (83v-86r). Moreover, two different glossators inserted Gothic letters and personal names in leaf 71v. In order to give a sense to our Paris miscellaneous codex, this proliferation of alphabetical series needs a particular attention. The presence of exotic alphabets was spreading in those years in the north-eastern part of France, and this codex is not an exception. Nevertheless, the specific grammatical and rhetorical characterization of the manuscript allows us to infer that the alphabets were copied there in order to complete the information imparted in the principal texts that were previously transcribed. The presence of marginal glosses, the alphabetical series, the average of margins covered by the computing of lunar phases, can reveal the compiler(s)’s intentions: to create a manuscript that could be used for educational purposes, in particular in the study of rhetoric, Greek, and astronomical computing. Probably, the compiler of the codex wanted to produce a manuscript that could presumably be used in a Carolingian schola monachorum, at an advanced stage of education, and therefore he condensed gatherings of different provenance or newly copied for the occasion in a single codex . The result was a new instrument to be used for learning activities. The third part of the manuscript, containing the vita Audoini and the Martyrologium, gives us supplementary information about the destination of the codex. Audoin was a saint particularly worshipped in Saint-Denis territories while the Martyrologium reveals that the manuscript, in the middle of ninth century, was probably used in the scriptorium of the abbey of Massay (department Cher, central France), which was re-founded some years earlier by the Visigoth Benedict of Aniane, to whom a specific interest in languages other from Latin can also be ascribed. Benedict of Aniane was also embarked on a monastic reform, which can easily explain why a educational manuscript created in a famous cultural centre like Saint-Denis was then used in a re-organizing monastery such as Massay.

The essay is introduced by a paragraph in which Restitution is shortly summarized. In order to define whether Restitution can be merely considered an antiquarian essay on Teutonic past, paragraph 3 investigates the main antiquarians’ theories about the origin of British population and the consequent implications for the ancient roots of Tudor’s dynasty. That analysis shows how every consideration on British past took into account the belonging of every authors to Protestant or Catholic party. Refusing the mainstream idea that Restitution is simply an antiquarian essay, in the fourth paragraph Vestegan’s essay slots into the Catholic thought of his times. It is finally concluded with the fifth paragraph in which the cultural and political relationship between Verstegan and other recusants in the years immediately preceding the composition of Restitution emerges. Those contacts connecting recusants in England and Flanders demonstrate how Restitution was conceived as a political pamphlet through which Verstegan wanted to assert the premiership of Catholicism in constituting both British and Saxon past of England.

Following Even-Zohar’s (1979ff.) theoretical framework, particularly as regards his theory of ‘transfer’ (i.e. a text which was created in a cultural system A is re-created in a cultural system B), this essay analyses some modern cinematic and theatrical adaptations of the Old English epic poem Beowulf. Even-Zohar’s theory of transfer has been seldom used in previous research dealing with intersemiotic translation, some notable exceptions being Cattrysse (1992), Remael (2000), and Weissbrod (2004), (2006). After discussing the peculiarities of the processes of transfer applied to medieval works, the reasons why Beowulf can still nowadays play the role of an imported good and, through its rewrites, is integrated into the home repertoire of a contemporary cultural polysystem will be discussed, along with the consequences generated by this integration. Furthermore, the network of relations between the state of the home system, the nature of the transference activity, and the relations between power and market with respect to the ideological component of the process of tranfer will be taken into consideration. To this end, the notions of ‘capital’ elaborated by Bourdieu (1980), as well as that of ‘norm’ put forth by Toury ([1978] 1995) will be used. The results achieved in this study are in line with the claim that peculiar processes affecting specific form of intersemiotic translation can be detected only within the framework of a general theory of transfer., Altre Modernità, 2012: Traduzione e riscrittura

The Nederlantsche Antiquiteyten (“Netherlandish Antiquities with the conversion of part of the same lands to the Christian faith, by St Willibrord, apostle of Holland, [...] and Flanders”), published in 1613, were evidently conceived of for a Netherlandish-speaking public. As the title itself explicitly declares, the 112 pages of this booklet mainly focus on an area roughly corresponding with that part of the coast of France which faces the Channel and with today’s Belgium and Netherlands the Low Countries, in the period between the fifth and the eighth centuries. The work, as Verstegan himself admits in his dedicatory preface , is a Netherlandish adaptation of some parts and certain themes of the Restitution of Decayed Intelligence, which had been published eight years before. The aim of the article is to illustrate the contents of the Antiquiteyten – with special attention given to the field of Germanic studies – in order to better identify their place within Verstegan’s corpus of linguistic/polemical writings.