Monasteriales Indicia: The Anglo-Saxon Monastic Sign LanguageDebby Banham The Monasteriales Indicia is one of very few texts which let us see how life was really lived in monasteries in the early Middle Ages. Written in Old English and preserved in a manuscript of the mid-eleventh century, it consists of 127 signs used by Anglo-Saxon monks during the times when the Benedictine Rule forbade them to speak. These indicate the foods the monks ate, the clothes they wore, and the books they used in church and chapter, as well as the tools they used in their daily life, and persons they might meet both in the monastery and outside. Thus the text gives a fascinating insight into how monks dealt with the conditions of their life nearly a thousand years ago. The text is printed here with a parallel translation, to enable non-specialists to make their own informed assessment. The introduction gives a summary of the background, both historical and textual, as well as a brief look at the later evidence for monastic sign language in England. Extensive notes provide the reader with details of textual relationships, explore problems of interpretation and set out the historical implications of the text. |
Contents
Introduction | 7 |
Manuscript Text even pages from | 22 |
Explanatory Notes | 57 |
Copyright | |
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Common terms and phrases
abbot adune andlang Anglo-Saxon England Anglo-Saxon monastic Bury lists Bury lists Jarecki Christ Church Cluny list Cluny sign continental lists David Sherlock different sign Donne þu drink edited English sign fingrum fist Gneuss Gyf þu habban wille ponne habban wylle Hirsau's sign hwæt index finger Indicia sign later English lists left hand little finger manu manuscript mid þinre mid þinum scyte mimes Monasteriales Indicia monastery Monastic Sign Language monasticism monks ofer þine Old English one's pine pinne pinre pinum ponne sete ponne wege þu presumably rær up þinne reform Regularis Concordia right hand sete þu Sherlock and Zajac sign lists simula St Benedict stroke swilce pu swylce Syon list tacen is þæt tacne tæcan three fingers thumb Tiberius A.III twam wearde wege þu þine William of Hirsau wine wylle ponne wynstran hand þam þine wynstran þinne scyte finger þinum scyte fingre þonne þu mid þinum