Medieval Textual Cultures

Agents of Transmission, Translation and Transformation

Faith Wallis, Robert Wisnovsky

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9783110601381
• eBook ISBN: 9783110465709
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern Literary

Understanding how medieval textual cultures engaged with the heritage of antiquity (transmission and translation) depends on recognizing that reception is a creative cultural act (transformation). These essays focus on the people, societies and institutions who were doing the transmitting, translating, and transforming -- the "agents". The subject matter ranges from medicine to astronomy, literature to magic, while the cultural context encompasses Islamic and Jewish societies, as well as Byzantium and the Latin West. What unites these studies is their attention to the methodological and conceptual challenges of thinking about agency. Not every agent acted with an agenda, and agenda were sometimes driven by immediate needs or religious considerations that while compelling to the actors, are more opaque to us. What does it mean to say that a text becomes "available" for transmission or translation? And why do some texts, once transmitted, fail to thrive in their new milieu? This collection thus points toward a more sophisticated "ecology" of transmission, where not only individuals and teams of individuals, but also social spaces and local cultures, act as the agents of cultural creativity.

Endnotes

1	These ancient civilizations, moreover, were themselves already intertwined as recent scholarship on the dependence of Greco-Roman cultural forms on Near Eastern antecedents has shown: see in particular William W. Hallo, Origins: the Ancient Near East Background of Some Modern Western Institutions (Leiden: Brill, 1996), and Walter Burkert, Babylon, Memphis, Persepolis: Eastern Contexts of Greek Culture (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2004).
2	The proceedings of this workshop appeared as Vehicles of Transmission, Translation and Transformation in Medieval Culture, ed. Robert Wisnovsky, Faith Wallis, Jamie Fumo and Carlos Fraenkel (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011).
3	For an overview, see Touwaide, Transfer of Knowledge, pp. 1368–99.
4	For an example of such a “reverse” process of translation, see Fisher, Greek Translations of Latin Literature, pp. 173–216.
5	For a general presentation on each of these topics, see the following (by topic, in chronological order of publication): Touwaide, Pharmakologie, cols. 215–222. On Antiquity: idem, Healers and Physicians, pp. 155–73. On Antiquity and Byzantium: idem, Strategie terapeutiche, pp. 353–73. On the Arabic World: idem, Transcultural Tradition, pp. 175–78; Persistance de l’hellénisme, pp. 49–74; Theoretical Concepts, pp. 21–39; Traduction arabe du Traité de matière médicale, pp. 16–41; Tradition and innovation, pp. 203–13; Paradigme culturel et épistémologique, pp. 247–73; and Intégration de la pharmacologie grecque, pp. 259–89. On Antiquity, Byzantium and the West: idem, Legacy of Classical Antiquity, pp. 15–28. On the West: idem, Fuentes de la terapia medieval, pp. 29–41; Enfermedad y curación, pp. 155–66; Pharmacology, pp. 394–97; Pharmacy and materia medica, pp. 397–99; and Pharmacology, Pharmacy, pp. 1056–1090. On the Renaissance: idem, Botany and Humanism, pp. 33–61; Ancient Botany; and Loquantur ipsi ut velint, pp. 151–73.
6	On translators’ methods, see, for instance, the essays in Hamesse, ed., Les traducteurs au travail.
7	On Ibn al-Jazzār, see Ullmann, Die Medizin im Islam, pp. 147–49; and Sezgin, Geschichte, 3: 304–7. See also Micheau, Connaissance d’ibn al-Jazzâr, pp. 385–405; and Ammar, Ibn Al Jazzar & the Medical School of Kairouan. For an edition of Book 6, see Bos (transl.), Ibn al-Jazzār on sexual diseases.
8	For a brief note about this work, see Hunger, Hochsprachliche profane Literatur, pp. 306–307.
9	Johannes Stephanues Bernard, Synesius de febribus, Quem nunc primum ex codice MS. Bibliothecae Lugduno Batavae edidit, vertit, notisque illustravit.Accedit Viaticum Constantino Africano interprete lib. VII. Pars. Amstelaedami: Apud Gerard de Groot, et Lugduni Batavorum: Apud Philippum Bonk, 1749.
10	On Constantine the African, see, most recently, Green, Constantine, pp. 145–47, where the author suggests that Constantine was not from Carthage as usually stated, but from Cairouan.
11	On Synesius, see Baldwin, Synesius of Cyrene, p. 1993.
12	This manuscript was Leiden, Bibliotheek der Rijksuniversiteit, Vossianus graecus F 65,which was already in Leiden in Bernard’s time.
13	Daremberg, Notices et extraits. See, particularly, pp. 63–100 of the 1854 edition, the section entitled “Recherches sur un ouvrage qui a pour titre Zad el-Mouçafir, en arabe, Ephode, en grec, Viatique, en latin, et qui est attribué, dans les textes arabes et grecs, à Abou Djafar, et, dans le texte latin, à Constantin.”
14	Mercati, Filippo Xeros reggino, pp. 9–17.
15	Gabrieli, Zâd al Musâfir, pp. 205–20.
16	See Duffy (ed. and transl.), Ioannis Alexandrini, p. 20, n. 1.
17	Kouzis, Quelques considérations, pp. 205–20. On Meliteniôtês see Hunger, Hochsprachliche profane Literatur, pp. 313–34, n. 6; Eftychiadou, Eisagôgê, p. 310.
18	Mogenet, Une scolie inédite, pp. 198–221; and subsequently: idem, L’influence de l’astronomie arabe, pp. 44–55.
19	See Tihon, Tables islamiques, pp. 401–25; and eadem, Les tables astronomiques persanes, pp. 603–24. More recently, see eadem, Les textes astronomiques arabes, pp. 313–24.
20	See, for example, Harig, Von den arabischen Quellen, pp. 248–268; Congourdeau, Le monde byzantin, pp. 271–73; eadem, A propos d’un chapitre, pp. 261–77; or Mavroudi, Exchanges, pp. 62–75.
21	Touwaide, Les deux traités de toxicologie attribués à Dioscoride.
22	Touwaide, Un manuscrit athonite, pp. 122–27.
23	I took as a start...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Acknowledgements
• Contents
• Introduction: Agents of Transmission, Translation and Transformation
• Agents and Agencies? The Many Facets of Translation in Byzantine Medicine
• Galenism at the ʿAbbāsid Court
• A New Catalogue of Medieval Translations into Latin of Texts on Astronomy and Astrology
• Bernat Metge and Hasdai Crescas: A Conversation
• Transmitting the Astrolabe: Chaucer, Islamic Astronomy, and the Astrolabic Text
• Literary criticism in the Vulgate Commentary on Ovid’s Metamorphoses
• On the Individuality of the Medieval Translator
• Charles I of Anjou as Initiator of the Liber Continens Translation: Patronage Between Foreign Affairs and Medical Interest
• The Transmission of Azarquiel’s Magic Squares in Latin Europe
• On the Integration of Islamic and Jewish Thought: An Unknown Project Proposal by Shlomo Pines
• Index
• Endnotes