The Glossa Ordinaria, the medieval glossed Bible first printed in 1480/81, has been a rich source of biblical commentary for centuries. Circulated first in manuscript, the text is the Latin Vulgate Bible of St. Jerome with patristic commentary both in the margins and within the text itself.
The Glossa Ordinaria on the Bible was the ubiquitous text of the Middle Ages. Compiled in twelfth-century France, this multi-volume work, containing the entire text of Scripture surrounded by a commentary drawn from patristic and medieval authors, is still extant in thousands of manuscripts, testifying to the centrality of the work for generations of medieval scholars. Although the Glossa has been the subject of modern study, it is surrounded by myth. This book, based on manuscript evidence, is the first to draw together the history of this monumental work, its authorship, content, layout, production and use. Raising new questions, and pointing the way to further research, it opens up the Glossa to all students of medieval religion and intellectual history.
In this translation of glosses on the Song of Songs, Mary Dove offers a readily accessible and inexpensive resource for students and scholars. Anselm of Laon, possibly assisted by his brother Ralph, is credited with compiling the Glossa Ordinaria on the Song of Songs, drawing from earlier commentaries by Origen, Gregory the Great, Bede, Alcuin, Hrabanus Maurus, Haimo of Auxerre, and Robert of Tombelaine as well as contributing his own readings of the text. As Dove notes in her introduction, the text is quite complicated, with each manuscript page divided into three columns - the biblical text in large letters in the center column, with space left for interlinear glosses, and glosses in smaller letters in both the right- and left-hand columns. (This format is not reproduced in this translation.) The number of surviving manuscripts (over seventy) shows that plenty of readers enjoyed the challenges the text offered, and for modern readers, the Glossa Ordinaria is the first place to go to find medieval interpretation of biblical texts.
The Gloss on Romans is a collection of sources from many periods and places, which accounts for its inconsistencies. And this is what gives the Gloss much of its charm ... The twelfth century was an age of gathering sources and commentaries, in theology (Lombard's Sentences), canon law (Gratian's Decretum), and biblical studies (the Glossa ordinaria). Education began to flourish into what would become universities, where the master's role was to elucidate traditional, authoritative texts. And chief among these was the Bible, not standing alone but with the accompanying Gloss." - from the introduction
The Glossa Ordinaria, the medieval glossed Bible first printed in 1480/81, has been a rich source of biblical commentary for centuries. Circulated first in manuscript, the text is the Latin Vulgate Bible of St. Jerome with patristic commentary both in the margins and within the text itself. This study, the first of its kind, introduces the reader to the Glossa Ordinaria both historically and through the lens of contemporary hypertext theory, arguing that the Glossa Ordinaria is a hypertext of the mind. By application of ancient, medieval and modern theories, this study encourages the reader to engage the Glossa Ordinaria in new and exciting ways. This book serves both as primer on the Glossa Ordinaria and examination of the text in light of modern theories.