Unde versus
Before the invention of printing and of easy multiplication of copies of a text, memory inevitably played a greater part in education, and basic textbooks were often expressed in verse in order to aid the memory. Of such works a number by named and known authors has come to us entire: in the field o...
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | German |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Cambridge University Press
1955
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| In: |
Traditio
Year: 1955, Volume: 11, Pages: 163-193 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (JSTOR) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | Before the invention of printing and of easy multiplication of copies of a text, memory inevitably played a greater part in education, and basic textbooks were often expressed in verse in order to aid the memory. Of such works a number by named and known authors has come to us entire: in the field of elementary Latin grammar, the Doctrinale of Alexander of Villa Dei, written in 1199; in arithmetic, the Carmen de algorismo in 284 hexameters by the same author, who further wrote on computus; in botany and materia medica, the post-Carolingian poem of ‘Macer,’ consisting of 2269 lines on 77 herbs; on gems, the eleventh-century Liber lapidum of Marbod, in which sixty stones are described in 734 hexameters. Some of these texts were added to by succeeding generations, as in the case of the Regimen sanitatis ascribed to the medical school of Salerno. For the most part this last is in rhymed hexameters: Hec bona sunt ova — longa, parva, quoque nova; Et gallinarum tibi sint et non aliarum. Boni sunt pisces, si cum vino bene misces; Quod si non misces, forsan damnum adipisceris. Salvia cum ruta faciunt tibi pocula tuta; Adde rosam florem, minuit potenter amorem. But sometimes not, as when a pick-me-up is advised for the morning after: Si nocturna tibi noceat potatio vini, Hoc tu mane bibas iterum et fuerit medicina. Sometimes the practice of versification was extended to indicating the author of the text. A copy of the exposition of the Microtegni of Galen which Urso of Todi delivered at Avignon in 1198 says at the start: … Quare Ursus vocetur indicat versus, Laudensis medicus medicisque fidelis amicus, Quos super hanc partem Avenione duxit in artem. |
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| ISSN: | 2166-5508 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Traditio
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1017/S0362152900006346 |