Doc says Rawr!

Good god, I’ve made it to #10?  I think I’m shocked.

Today’s Latin phrase is from the medieval Prophecy of the Bull, which dates to around 1327 — right around the beginning of Edward III’s reign as King of England.

Ad bona non tardus, audax veluti leopardus

ad – to, toward, until, almost

bona – good, honest, brave, noble, kind, pleasant, right, useful, valid/correct, healthy

non – no, not, [negative]

tardus – adj.; slow, limping, deliberate, late

audax – adj.; bold, daring, courageous, reckless, rash, audacious, presumptuous, desperate

veluti - adv.; just as, as if

leopardus – noun; leopard

[He] is never slow to [do] good, just as the courageous leopard

Yay for medieval Latin prophecies containing animal imagery!  And poetry.  Yikes.

In researching my graduate thesis on the uses of the Arthurian legend by Edward I and Edward III (I can’t rightfully say it’s about Edward II’s use of the legend because he failed to do so), I’m doing some research regarding heraldry, since it’s so intimately linked to symbolism, chivalry, and medieval noble identity.  There was a problem tugging at the back of my brain for several weeks now, regarding leopard symbolism in the case of both men.

Now, my research had shown that when Edward I was referred to as the leopard when he was young and a pain in everyone’s ass (often especially in his father’s ass), it was a bad thing.  And yet much later, when his grandson Edward III was called the leopard, it was a good thing.  So why the dichotomy?  How did the image of the leopard shift?  Turns out that there’s a pretty simple answer.

The following is from my scribbles for my thesis:

The heraldric device of the leopard was an accepted symbol of the English crown by the age of Edward III.  The heraldric leopard, however, should not be confused with the actual animal: a heraldric leopard was a lion.  The “leopard” device, a lion passant or lion passant guardant, is in fact a form of lion, shortened to leopard from leo pardes and is referred to by the French as a leopard.  The image of the leoprard is thus a sticky problem.  Beastiaries painted the leopard in a negative light–thus it was a grave invictive when Edward I was called the leopard in his youth–but with the rise fo chivalry and the increase in the importance of heraldry, the image of the leopard, in these cases a reference to the lion passant guardant, began to shift and take on a mmore positive connotation.  The English “leopard” is thus a lion, a strong symbol of royal authority as the king of beasts.

So, if sources such as Caroline Shenton’s article in Heraldry, Pageantry and Social Display in Medieval England (eds. Peter Coss and Maurice Keen) are to be believed…heraldry played a large part in forming positive images of monarchs, at least in the minds of their own people.  It’s an interesting thing to note, however, that the very people that the English were fighting throughout the reign of Edward III are the ones that insist that the lion passant guardant is in fact a leopard, not a lion.

Interesting indeed…considering that the leopard was a symbol of the Antichrist.[1]  Who would have thought that, huh?  Very interesting indeed….

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1. Caroline Shenton, “Edward III and the Symbol of the Leopard” in Heraldry, Pageantry and Social Display in Medieval England, Peter Coss and Maurice Keen, eds. (Woodbridge, Suffolk: The Boydell Press, 2002), p. 73.

Another heading today, this one from the Chronicon Anoymi Cantuariensis.  You know what that means…more medieval Latin.

Bulla Papae missa Principi Walliae

Bulla – noun; [Papal] Bull

Papae - noun; Pope

missa (mitto, mittere, misi, missus) – verb; send, throw, hurl, cast, let out, release, dismiss, disregard

Principi – noun; leader, chief

Walliae - proper noun; Wales

A papal bull had been released by the pope about the leader of Wales.

Very simple, not too taxing…which means I probably got it wrong.  Which would be me all over.

Today’s phrase is actually an inscription on an image from the Luttrel Psalter (British Library Add. MS 42130, folio 202v), a manuscript from the British Library.  I came across it in Peter Coss and Maurice Keen’s collection of essays, Heraldry, Pageantry and Social Display in Medieval England.  So, again, what we’re looking at is some medieval Latin.

Gloria patri Dominus Galfridus louterell me fieri fecit.

Gloria – noun; glory, fame, ambition, renown, vainglory, boasting

patri – noun; father

Gloria patri – Glory to the father

Dominus Galfridus louterell – Lord Geoffrey Luttrel

me – I, me, myself

fieri (fio, feri, factus sum) – verb; to be made, come into existence, to come about ~ this is a passive participle

fecit (facio, facere, feci, factus) – verb; make/build/construct/create/cause/do, have built/made, fashion, work (metal), act/take action/be active; act/work (things), function, be efective, produce, produce by growth, bring forth (young), create, bring into existence, compose/write, classify, provide, do/perfom, commit crime, suppose/imagine

fieri fecit – caused to be made/born/ect ect

Glory to the father who caused Sir Geoffrey Luttrel, myself, to be born.

And now it is time to deadhead the roses before I can get back to work.

Today’s selection is from Robert of Avesbury’s De Gestis Edwardi Tertii (The Wars of Edward the Third).

Item, dominus Edwardus tertius a conquaestu, apud Tourneye, ut praemittitur, treugis captis, in Flandrian est reversus.

Item – adv; likewise, besides, also, similarly

dominus – noun; lord

Edwardus tertius – Edward the third

a (a, ab) – ablative prep.; by, from, after

conquaestu - forcibly/violently gain

a conquaestu – gained by force; by conquest

apud – acc. prep.; at, by, near, among, at the house of, before, in the presence/writings/view of

Tourneye – Tournai

apud Tourneye – near Tournai

ut – conj.; to (when with the subjunctive), in order that/to, how, as, when, while, even if

praemittitur (praemitto, praemittere, praemisi, praemissus) – verb, prsent passive indicative; sent ahead or forward
 - he/it was sending ahead

treugis – pledge?, surrendered/under armistice

captis – adj.; captive

treugis captis - captive under armistice?

in – prep.; Ablative: in, on, at (space), in accordance with/regard to/the case of, within (time); Accusative: into, about, in the midst of, according to, after (manner), for, to, among

Flandrian - Flanders

est – he/she/it is

reversus - verb; turn around, return

reversus est (revertor, reverti, reversus sum) – verb, pluperfect tense; he returned, he turned back, he went back
treugis is the word that did not want to be translated this morning.  It took me almost 45 minutes to find the term anywhere, and in the end I found it in a French lexicon of Latin words.  Go figure.

Likewise, while the lord Edward III was sending ahead the captives under armistice gained by force near Tournai, he returned to Flanders.

Now, this translation is probably very bad and very wrong…but I had to attempt it and I had to throw it up here.

So, I missed yesterday for various reasons (including a popped bike tire on the way to work and then staying an extra 45 minutes at work) but it’s time to get back on track.  Today’s phrase is from the Vindolanda tablets.  For those that aren’t aware, the Vindolanda tablets were found near Hadrian’s Wall in northern Britain.  They are the records, it seems, of a Roman outpost there, at the edge of the empire, dating to roughly 100AD.

habeas cui des commeatum Córis Messicus rógo domine

Let’s break it down.

habeas (habeo, habere, habui, habitus) – verb; have, hold, consider, think, reason, manage, keep, spend/pass (time)

cui – pronoun; who, that, what, of which kind/degree, person/thing/time/point that, who/whatever, everyone who, all that, anything that, any, anyone/anything, any such, unspecified some

des (do, dare, dedi, datus) – verb; give, dedicate, sell, pay, grant/bestow/impart/offer/lend, allow, make, surrender/give over, send to die, ascribe/attribute, give birth/produce, utter

commeatum – noun (acc.); supplies/provisions, goods, voyage, passage, convoy/caravan, furlough/leave

Córis – proper noun

Messicus – proper noun

rógo (rogo, rogare, rogavi, rogatus) – verb; ask, ask for, invite, introduce

domine – owner, lord, the Lord, also a title

My lord I ask you to consider giving to this one Messicus furlough to Córis.

The official translation I have seen for this same section is a bit more…flowery, I guess, than mine (and probably better to be honest, since I’m still so bad at this).

I, Messicus, ask my lord that you consider me a worthy person to whom to grant leave at Coria.

This is probably due to my failure at the subjunctive, which always made me want to hurt myself a lot.  Stupid subjunctive.

Translation (and the tablet fragment) is from Life and Letters on the Roman Frontier by Alan K. Bowman.

Today’s quotation is drawn from Classical Latin repeated in a medieval source.  It is from Virgil, as quoted in Gerald of Wales’ Description of Wales.

Tales casus Cassandra canebat.

Tales – adj.; such, so great, so excellent, of such kind

casus – noun, accusitive case (direct object); fall, overthrow, chance/fortune, accident, emergency, calamity, plight, fate

Cassandra - the tragic Seer and former lover of Apollo, Cassandra, who was of Troy

canebat (cano, canere, cani, canitus) – verb; sing, celebrate, chant, crow, recite, play music, sound horn/instrument, foretell

Cassandra was singing of the great calamity.

Clearly, this refers to Virgil’s Aeneaid; it’s from the section on the fall of Troy.