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Interdisciplinary study of the medieval commentary tradition, covering a range of sources from the Wycliffite Bible and French Marian Lyric to John Lydgate and Anselm of Canterbury.
Textual and material survivals from across medieval Europe testify to a pervasive commentary culture on Scripture. The biblical text becomes a central object of explication and comment, generating a variety of interpretive texts and genres. But precisely because it is so ubiquitous, medieval commentary can also prove elusive, requiring perspectives from different disciplines. How can we define commentary, and how does it develop and function in different linguistic and geographical areas? What role do commentaries play in the formation and reformulation of personal and national identities across the period? How can contemporary scholars best approach this fundamental genre of the medieval world?
Exploring these among many other questions, this volume revises and refines our current understanding of the intellectual, cultural, and literary dynamics of the medieval commentary tradition. Contributors consider matters such asauthority, patronage, readership, textual genesis, and material contexts of commentary, as well as the absences and lacunae in our knowledge, and how we might take these into account from today's perspective. Expansive in their chronological, methodological, and disciplinary scope, the chapters here illuminate the origins and forms of commentary from Late Antiquity to the late medieval period in Western Europe, extending across Hebrew, Latin and vernacular texts, and examine a wide range of literary and cultural artefacts, from single-authored works to manuscript compilations.
Textual and material survivals from across medieval Europe testify to a pervasive commentary culture on Scripture. The biblical text becomes a central object of explication and comment, generating a variety of interpretive texts and genres. But precisely because it is so ubiquitous, medieval commentary can also prove elusive, requiring perspectives from different disciplines. How can we define commentary, and how does it develop and function in different linguistic and geographical areas? What role do commentaries play in the formation and reformulation of personal and national identities across the period? How can contemporary scholars best approach this fundamental genre of the medieval world?
Exploring these among many other questions, this volume revises and refines our current understanding of the intellectual, cultural, and literary dynamics of the medieval commentary tradition. Contributors consider matters such asauthority, patronage, readership, textual genesis, and material contexts of commentary, as well as the absences and lacunae in our knowledge, and how we might take these into account from today's perspective. Expansive in their chronological, methodological, and disciplinary scope, the chapters here illuminate the origins and forms of commentary from Late Antiquity to the late medieval period in Western Europe, extending across Hebrew, Latin and vernacular texts, and examine a wide range of literary and cultural artefacts, from single-authored works to manuscript compilations.
Price: $130.00
Pages: 324
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Inc.
Imprint: D.S.Brewer
Publication Date:
24 February 2026
Trim Size: 9.21 X 6.14 in
ISBN: 9781843847670
Format: Hardcover
BISACs:
RELIGION / Christian Theology / History, Literary studies: ancient, classical and medieval, LITERARY CRITICISM / Medieval, HISTORY / Europe / Medieval, European history: medieval period, middle ages, Theology, History of religion
INTRODUCTION
Why Commentary?
Lesley Smith
PART I: GENRES AND FORMS
1 Iohannes Apostolus and Anselm of Laon: Foundations of the Glossa Ordinaria and Twelfth-Century Biblical Commentary Practices
Simon Whedbee
2 Parables, Beatitudes, and History: Early Medieval Exegesis of Matthew 13 in an Augustinian Mode
David J. Elliott
3 The Children from Stones: Michael Suchenschatz on Metaphors and Magic from the Gospels
Edit Anna Lukács
4 Translation as Commentary? Literal and Expository Modes in the Wycliffite Bible
Elizabeth Solopova
PART II: IDENTITIES
5 Conversing with the Sage King Solomon: Hellenistic Jewish Sages' Commentary on Wisdom of Solomon and Sirach
Jiani Sun
6 The Association of Punic and Hebrew in North African Exegesis and Ecclesial Identity
Joshua Caminiti
7 Biblical Commentary and Royal Patronage in Carolingian Europe
Zachary Guiliano
8 Anselm of Canterbury as Biblical Commentator?
Rachel Cresswell
PART III: TRANSFORMATIONS
9 'This law did not apply to her': Marian Lyric as Commentary on Esther
Anna Wilmore
10 The Chess of Love, Text and Gloss: From Évrart de Conty to John Lydgate
Alastair Minnis
11 Reading Eleanor Hull's Commentary on the Penitential Psalms through St Thomas Aquinas's Treatise on Human Nature
Eduardo de Oliveira Correia
12 Authority in the Margins: The Apparatus of Biblical Commentary in a Fifteenth-Century Middle English Devotional Compilation
Alexandra Barnes
13 Editing Middle English Biblical Glosses in Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Bodley 554
Michael P. Kuczynski
AFTERWORD
William Marx
Index of Manuscripts
Why Commentary?
Lesley Smith
PART I: GENRES AND FORMS
1 Iohannes Apostolus and Anselm of Laon: Foundations of the Glossa Ordinaria and Twelfth-Century Biblical Commentary Practices
Simon Whedbee
2 Parables, Beatitudes, and History: Early Medieval Exegesis of Matthew 13 in an Augustinian Mode
David J. Elliott
3 The Children from Stones: Michael Suchenschatz on Metaphors and Magic from the Gospels
Edit Anna Lukács
4 Translation as Commentary? Literal and Expository Modes in the Wycliffite Bible
Elizabeth Solopova
PART II: IDENTITIES
5 Conversing with the Sage King Solomon: Hellenistic Jewish Sages' Commentary on Wisdom of Solomon and Sirach
Jiani Sun
6 The Association of Punic and Hebrew in North African Exegesis and Ecclesial Identity
Joshua Caminiti
7 Biblical Commentary and Royal Patronage in Carolingian Europe
Zachary Guiliano
8 Anselm of Canterbury as Biblical Commentator?
Rachel Cresswell
PART III: TRANSFORMATIONS
9 'This law did not apply to her': Marian Lyric as Commentary on Esther
Anna Wilmore
10 The Chess of Love, Text and Gloss: From Évrart de Conty to John Lydgate
Alastair Minnis
11 Reading Eleanor Hull's Commentary on the Penitential Psalms through St Thomas Aquinas's Treatise on Human Nature
Eduardo de Oliveira Correia
12 Authority in the Margins: The Apparatus of Biblical Commentary in a Fifteenth-Century Middle English Devotional Compilation
Alexandra Barnes
13 Editing Middle English Biblical Glosses in Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Bodley 554
Michael P. Kuczynski
AFTERWORD
William Marx
Index of Manuscripts