Medieval Academy of America

Medieval and Modern Greek by Robert BrowningReview by: Gordon M. MessingSpeculum, Vol. 46, No. 1 (Jan., 1971), pp. 129-131Published by: Medieval Academy of AmericaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2855096 .

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Reviews 129

what he does when (in chapter six) he comes to his interpretation of Pearl. What he does, once again, is to enumerate and classify pedantically, rather than to analyze coherently. He thus points out instances of personification, of "strands of metaphor," of aenigma, of what he calls "apocalyptic symbolism." There is little to object to in the examples cited, but Bishop fails to do anything with them, and so one's understanding of the poem is not really advanced a bit. In- stead we find once again assertions void of meaning. Bishop bothers to write: "One of the features of 'apocalyptic' symbolism is that it relies to a large extent upon conventions and traditions; another is that it does not insist on continual interpretation of detail" (p. 88). But what form of mediaeval symbolism does not depend on "conventions and traditions," and how many works of allegory or symbolism could Bishop cite which require "continual interpretation of detail"? The confusions evident in the section titled "The Function and Meaning of the Image of the Pearl" (pp. 92-98) bave already been alluded to in connection with Bishop's disagreement with Conley. Bishop is unable to put together two dis- tinct propositions: that Pearl throughout the poem signifies perfection, and that the jeweller's attitude towards his lost pearl at the beginning of the poem is repre- hensible. Instead, Bishop first argues that the dreamer's error comes much later when "he thinks the rank of queen is too good for her! Possessiveness leads to envy" (p. 95). As for the beginning of the poem, the dreamer's "complete sur- render of his heart to love for the infant prefigured the price that must be paid to purchase the unique heavenly peail, just as the child herself is a 'type' of what he must become spiritually in order to enjoy the sovereign happiness" (p. 97). Both of these observations are surely wildly wrong.

In the final part, "Sources for the Characterization of the Maiden," Bishop provides some useful if tenuous connections between the Pearl Maiden's de- scription and meaning and liturgical texts associated with the feast of the Holy Innocents and Baptism. One wishes that Bishop had carried out his investiga- tions here more rigorously.

CHARLES R. BLYTH Brandeis University

ROBERT BROWMNG, Medieval and Modern Greek. London: Hutchinson University Library; New York: Hillary House, 1969. Pp. 158, folded map. $5.25.

THE author of this highly condensed summary of Greek linguistic development from the Hellenistic to the modern period has envisaged a readership consisting mainly of persons familiar with ancient Greek, although he hopes also to attract a few others who have begun their studies at the modern end of the linguistic spectrum. His book, written for readers with little or no knowledge of the sub- ject, fills a real need, for there has hitherto been nothing available which covers this entire sector in readily assimilable format; for example, the article of S. G. Kapsomenos, "Die griechische Sprache zwischen Koine und Neugriechisch," which figures in Berichte zuin XI. Internationalen Byzantinisten-Kongress (Munich, 1958) is a specialist's analysis of research in this field.

Browning's book consists of seven chapters, an extensive bibliography, a

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130 Reviews

glossary of technical terms, and a skimpy index limited to the general topics treated in the book. There are notes, mostly with bibliographical references, at the end of each chapter, and at the end of the last chapter a map of Greece and the adjacent Greek-speaking areas in Italy, Asia Minor, and southern Russia. In an introductory chapter, the author gives a thumbnail sketch of the entire evolu- tion of Greek and points to the difficulties in tracing and dating the various phonetic, morphological, and syntactic changes: the purist tradition exerted a strong influence upon even vernacular literature, and the surviving mediaeval texts both conceal and distort these linguistic features. Browning admits (20) that "periodization of the history of the spoken language is therefore difficult, and inevitably only approximate" but assumes that "behind the curtain of tra- ditional linguistic uniformity, the modern Greek language had largely assumed its form by the tenth century."

After a chapter on Koine, there follow two chapters on mediaeval Greek, one covering the period from the sixth century to 1100, the other from 1100 to the capture of Constantinople in 1453. Next comes a chapter on Greek during the period of Turkish domination, then one on the development of the national language, and a final chapter on the modern Greek dialects. The author's account of the nineteenth-century katharevousa and the inevitable "Language Question" makes interesting reading, for he has chosen fresh illustrative examples and appended a table of so-called "diagnostic features" to differentiate katharevousa from demotic.

On the whole, this is an eminently useful book, scholarly and reliable but not particularly original, since Browning has necessarily drawn his materials from an array of more specialized and more detailed works.

Unfortunately, the usefulness of the book has been partly impaired by a surprising carelessness in proof-reading. The Glossary of technical terms is a disaster: two entries are misspelled (Dvandra for Dvandva and Polyseury for Polysemy) and two Greek examples, one under Imparisyllabic and one under Parisyllabic are incomprehensible (l7rairaL and vacrTE, presumably for 7rara&bs and va53res, nominative plural). The example, KEpPS, KEpaTOs (35) should clearly replace the first occurrence of KpkaS, KpeaTos. The word TrTXos (46) is "title," not "little," and {eXa/3a (63) is "took out," not "tooth out."

The bibliography also shows some signs of haste. The initial of Dimaras, Jlistoire de la litterature grecque moderne, 2 vols. (Paris, 1967) is C(onstantin), not D, and it might have been noted that this is the French version of Dimaras' well-known and standard history of modern Greek literature, written in Greek. A. Rosetti, Istoria limbii romine I, 92nd ed. (Bucharest, 1943) is an outdated reference, since Rosetti has constantly revised his history of Rumanian, now in its fourth edition (Bucharest, 1964), and has recently published (1968) all the sections of it in a single volume. Although Browning uses material from the Spiritual Meadow of John Moschos, the bibliography fails to list the edition of selected extracts (Morceaux choisis du Pre spirituel de Jean Moschos) by D. C. Hesseling (Paris, 1931). In his discussion of the fate of the infinitive (68), Brow- ning might have cited P. Burguiere, Histoire de l'infinitif en grec (Paris, 1960).

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Reviews 131

The paucity of special lexica for Greek mediaeval texts, which the author rightly deplores, may eventually be overcome by a dictionary of popular mediaeval Greek literature which Emmanuel Kriaras has begun to put out in Salonica (Vol. I, 1969).

It was not the author's intention to write a grammar of modern Greek nor even to offer practical hints to readers desirous of learning modern Greek. I might venture to suggest, however, that even a book of such restricted compass might have found room for a few bibliographical references to the best available grammars, dictionaries, and other pertinent works.

GORDON M. MESSING Cornell University

JAMES A. BRUNDAGE, Medieval Canon Law and the Crusader. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1969. Pp. xx, 244. frontispiece plate. $12.50.

SINCE the mediaeval crusade was uniquely an ecclesiastical institution, one might naturally expect that the investigation of canon law would greatly ad- vance our understanding of the mechanism of this important historical move- ment. Following this reasonable premise, Professor Brundage had devoted a diligent study to the crusader in mediaeval canon law. As he states in his pref- ace and repeats throughout his work, the canonical theories of the crusade comprised two central themes: the holy war and the pilgrimage. His attention, however, is limited almost exclusively to the second of these themes which was fundamentally based on the institution of the vow. With great care and detail the author traces the origin of the pilgrimage vow, the elaboration of its legal characteristics by the twelfth century Decretists, and the application of these features to the crusade by the Decretalists of the thirteenth century. From the vow he then turns to the juridical status of the crusader and his obligations to fulfill his commitments. Two final chapters treat the privileges enjoyed by crusaders, the one pertaining to their spiritual benefits, particularly that of indulgences, the other enumerating their material advantages, such as per- sonal immunity, protection of property, the right of essoin, and exemption from certain taxes. Professor Brundage's investigation of these varied problems relies primarily on papal decretals, supplemented by chronicle accounts and English and French secular legislation.

But what role was played by the mediaeval canon lawyers in constructing the ecclesiastical theories of the crusade? According to Professor Brundage their contributions were restricted to the crusading vow. In two chapters the author exposes with painstaking care the discussions of the Decretists and Decre- talists which formulated the juridical structure of the vow and applied it to the crusade. Since he publishes many canonistic glosses hitherto unedited and ana- lyzes them with the expertise of latest canonistic scholarship, these two chapters represent the core of Professor Brundage's study and his significant contribution to our understanding of the mechanism of the crusade. But even here the dis- cussions of the canonists are disappointing. The Decretists, for example, writing long after the crusades had begun, made no effort to relate their general theories

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