The manuscript tradition of the tragedies of Sophocles has never been fully investigated although many meritorious contributions were made towards this end. There exists, first of all, no complete list of the pertinent manuscripts. In former times several lists, far from being complete, were published by Fabricius-Harles, Blaydes, Campbell, Papageorgiou. The present writer has compiled, from all the known printed catalogs of Greek manuscript collections, a new list which will be presented in this study. Thus the groundwork will be laid for all further research aiming at the establishment of a complete genealogy of the extant mss. of Sophocles. This desideratum has been pointed out by Richard Jebb.

In an article published in 1927, Herbert Meyer showed that the Germanic legal system possessed from an early epoch, perhaps from its very beginning, in the form of friedelehe a type of marital union which was characterized by the legal equality of husband and wife, in contrast with the muntehe in which the wife was legally subject to her husband. This important discovery implied that the distinction made in Roman law between marriage with manus and “free marriage” no longer stood alone. In fact the coexistence, in many known legal systems, of several types of marital relation—differing from one another in their effect upon the relationship between the wife, her husband and his family—may now be considered as established. The theory was first proposed by Meyer himself, who called attention to similar phenomena in a number of legal systems, Indo-European as well as non-Indo-European, in addition to the Roman and the Germanic; and it was later extended by Koschaker in his broad investigation into the “Eheformen bei den Indogermanen.”

The present study deals with a segment from the history of the eternal problem, Ethics and Law, and their interrelation. It investigates the origin and evolution of a moral idea—the meaning of goodwill in action, and especially in giving. Some of the greatest and most noble minds of all times have cooperated in this evolution—Aristotle, St. Paul, and St. John Chrysostom. Emperor Justinian undertook later the attempt to anchor this moral claim in law. The attempt failed. The failure unveils the border line between ethics and law.

Medieval missals that hand on the liturgical tradition of earlier centuries, but record little or nothing that is really new, do not as a rule merit publication of their entire text. Yet it is instructive to study them for the light they shed on the gradual formation of the full missal, the history of plain chant, the diffusion of feasts and prayers, the vicissitudes of the mixed types of sacramentaries and missals, and the local or regional characteristics of the medieval liturgy, which continued to abound until the missal of Pope Pius V came into general use.

In the entire course of the Middle Ages no movement surpasses, in enduring importance and absorbing interest, that known as the Gregorian Reform, or, less correctly, the War of Investitures. It is the movement that had its most determined leader in Pope Gregory VII.

The clergy of medieval England constituted a small but important section of the population. As an order of society it included persons of a wide variety of dignities from the archbishop of Canterbury who sat on the right side of the king to the poor clerk or lonely anchorite. The problem of estimating their numbers varies also from group to group of the clergy, for a careful census of medieval population was almost never made. Such estimates as are made must be secured from data usually prepared for purposes of taxation or other matters of record. They are very uneven because there was little uniformity of practices. Some groups, such as the clerks in minor orders, might be expected to be slighted in the sources, but others of greater importance in their day share the same obscurity with respect to numbers, and for no group is there a continuous and well attested record. This study discusses briefly the sources and methods used and then considers the numbers of the secular clergy and (in much more detail) the orders of nuns, monks, canons, and friars.

When one considers the absence of reliable information about events in general within the city of Constantinople itself between the death of the second Latin Emperor Henry in 1216 and the recapture of the city by the Greeks from Nicaea in 1261, it is surprising that the references to the Franciscans there, comparatively abundant in the sources, have not previously been used to shed some light on the religious and social history of the capital during this dark period.

Some time ago, while I was working on the life of William Lily, the Grammarian, my attention was directed to the state of letters and learning in the Rhodes of early Renaissance times. George Lily, William's son, tells us that his father, when a young man, stayed at Rhodes a certain length of time for the sake of letters, and that he learned there the elements of Greek and Latin. Objection may be made to the second part of this statement: since the senior Lily already had his B.A. from Oxford when he began his foreign travels, presumably he had learned there a fair amount of Latin, and quite possibly some Greek; the choice of the word “elements” was surely not a happy one. However, on the face of things, there would seem to be no good reason for doubting the main assertion: that William Lily went to Rhodes “for the sake of letters.” Later biographers of Lily incorporate George's statement in their own accounts, some of them adding a detail or two of their own. But we must wait until the eighteenth century before we are given a reason for believing in any noteworthy culture in Renaissance Rhodes. Philip Morant, in the article which he wrote on Lily for the Biographica Britannica, says: “At his [Lily's] return from thence [Jerusalem], he studied some time at Rhodes; where, after the taking of Constantinople, several learned men had taken refuge.” Bliss's edition of Anthony à Wood carries this statement about the learned men, quoting the Biographica Britannica as source. Morant, although he did take occasion to drive home the point in correcting an earlier biographer, Thomas Fuller, had offered no support for his assertion.

The traditional view which emphasized the contrast between the Aristotelianism of the Middle Ages and the Platonism of the Renaissance can no longer be maintained in the light of recent studies. Aristotelianism continued to exist throughout the Renaissance and afterwards, and on the other hand, Platonism, in the form of Augustinianism, dominated occidental thought up to the twelfth century and remained a powerful current even during the later Middle Ages. The attempt to ascertain the medieval sources of Renaissance Platonism thus assumes an increased significance. However, it would be quite wrong to conclude that Renaissance Platonism, because it was preceded by some kind of medieval Platonism, was merely a copy or continuation of that earlier phase of Platonism. The history of Platonism, like that of every living tradition, must not be conceived as an endless repetition of identical doctrines, but rather as a continual adaptation and transformation of certain basic ideas. “Platonism” is not a label that establishes a simple equation between various thinkers classified as Platonists, but a kind of general orientation which assumes a new meaning in each particular case, and each representative of Platonism must hence be understood in his own right before his dependence on, or his difference from, other, earlier Platonists can be properly evaluated. Moreover, in the process of its history, Platonism is always exposed to the direct and indirect influence of other, different currents or traditions, and the continual transformation of Platonism is due not only to the original thought of its various representatives, but also to the influence of outside sources. The study of the medieval sources of Renaissance Platonism thus cannot be separated from a genuine understanding of Renaissance Platonism itself, and on the other hand, the medieval background of Renaissance Platonism consists not only of the Platonism or Augustinianism of the earlier Middle Ages, but also of the Aristotelianism of the later Middle Ages.

The ideas expressed by the names of Microcosmus and Macrocosmus have never lost their attraction for speculative minds since the time they first made their appearance in early Greek philosophy. There have been ages in which these ideas receded more or less into the background, others in which they played a rather dominating rôle. It seems worth while to inquire into the nature of these ideas and to study the spirit of those ages which felt them congenial to their total mentality. One might also try to determine those notions and principles with which the idea of the microcosm came to be associated during its long history. Even a superficial survey of the ages to which the notion of microcosm particularly appealed, and of the ideas with which it entered into combinations, seems to show that this idea might be considered as a kind of “symptom”, a characteristic to be found mainly with a certain type of historical mentality.

In the following study I propose to reconstruct the many-layered Occidental background for a German word: the concept of world harmony which underlies the word Stimmung. This task implies a survey of the whole semantic “field”, as it was developed in different epochs and literatures: the concept and the words expressing it had to be brought face to face, and in the words, in turn, the semantic kernel and the emotional connotations with their variations and fluctuations in time had to be considered. A “Stimmungsgeschichte” of the word Stimmung was necessary. I hope that this historical development will spontaneously, if gradually, emerge from the mosaic of texts to which I wished my running text to be subordinated: the consistency of the texture of verbal and conceptual associations and motifs through the centuries seems to me to be herewith established. “Avez-vous un texte?” was the insistent question which the famous positivist Fustel de Coulanges was wont to address to his pupils when they made a historical statement. The student in historical semantics must ask: “Have you many texts?”, for only with a great number of them is one enabled to visualize their ever-recurrent pattern. I realize that the medieval art of tapestry (which Péguy has revived in literature), with its possibility of showing a constant motif along with the labyrinth of interwoven ramifications, would be a more adequate medium of treatment than is the necessarily linear run of the words of language. And, in any case, I shall be obliged, in the notes, to anticipate or recapitulate the events which cannot be treated at their historical place.

The purpose of the following reflections is not polemical, in spite of the fact that the criticism of any philosopher of the past may seem prejudiced to his modern disciples. My intention is rather to point out that the traditional interpretation of William of Ockham as a nominalist and as a skeptic is correct. The reason for insisting on such a point at this time is the series of publications which Father Philotheus Boehner has been contributing to the study of Ockham, and in particular the article which appeared in the first volume of Traditio.

There are quite a number of passages in Tertullian's writings which deal with traditio. One of the most important is found in chapters 3 and 4 of De corona. Here Tertullian answers those of his opponents who always demand first “Where is it written?” Being a Jurist he discusses the question whether law must be written to be recognized as such. He points to the law of custom which flows from tradition. He strongly denies that in pleading tradition written authority must be demanded.

Treating of the passage in Exodus which prescribes, among the holy vestments for Aaron and his sons, “linen breeches, to cover the flesh of their nakedness from the reins to the thighs,” Cyril of Alexandria remarks:

Their breeches are of linen, an excellent covering for the ugliness and unseemliness about the thighs. For all things connected with holy men are most honorable, and there is nothing unseemly in them. Now the linen placed upon the parts of the body about the thighs intimates that the cooling of the pleasures of the flesh is most becoming holy men: for linen is cool. But the heat that rouses the foulest desires is foreign to every holy man.

The origin of the actual Roman Canon missae, despite the labors of prominent scholars in the field of Liturgy, remains a secret. We agree with Dom Bernard Botte who declares in regard to questions concerning the Roman Canon:

Dom O. Lottin has determined, upon a carefully conducted research, the date of the Sententiae by Master Udo as falling between the years 1160 and 1165. He also pointed to the fact that I previously had published from MS Harley 3855 of the British Museum a short piece of Udo's Sententiae which deals with Gilbert de la Porrée and one Master Achardus.

In a recently published article, V. L. Kennedy discusses the career and writings of a medieval theologian who, after the excellent spade work done by Hauréau in 1884, has not received much attention on the part of modern scholars: Peter of Roissy, chancellor of Chartres in the early thirteenth century, one time a renowned preacher in Paris, and author of scriptural glosses, of sermons, and of a Manuale de mysteriis ecclesiae (or Speculum ecclesiae). Father Kennedy brings to light new documents bearing on the life of Peter and presents us in particular with a careful analysis of his main work, the Manuale. After listing the manuscripts and establishing the chief differences between the two redactions of the treatise—notably, the three parts of the first edition were rearranged into four and enlarged by a fifth part, De sacramentis, when Peter revised and re-issued his book—Kennedy goes on to examine some of its characteristic features, to discuss its literary and canonical sources, to publish a sample edition of its section on Extreme Unction, and finally adds a complete index of its hundreds of rubrics.

In the reign of the emperor Otto (the story does not say which of the four monarchs of that name is meant) there lived a certain priest whose conduct was not of the most edifying. As a result his parishioners were extremely scandalized, and one of them gave up going to Mass. Now it so happened that, as this man was walking in the fields one Sunday, while Mass was being celebrated, he was befallen by a terrible feeling of thirst. He discovered a rivulet of pure water, from which he at once drank to quench his thirst. But the more he drank, the more his thirst grew, and he decided to follow the streamlet to its source, there to drink his fill. As he proceeded, an old man of majestic appearance met him and said: “My friend, whither are you going?” The man explained his case, and the old man pointed out to him the spring-head of the rivulet. Then he added: “But why, my good friend, are you not at church?” The other then complained of the evil priest and his ways. To which the old man returned: “Suppose what you say is true. Observe this fountain, from which so much excellent water issues, and from which you have lately drunk.” He looked in the direction pointed out and beheld a putrid dog with its mouth wide open, and its teeth black and decayed, through which the whole fountain gushed in a surprising manner. The man regarded the stream with great terror and confusion of mind, ardently desirous of quenching his thirst but apprehensive of poison from the fetid and loathsome carcass, with which, to all appearance, the water was imbued. “Be not afraid,” said the old man, “because you have already drunk of the rivulet; drink again, it will not harm you.” He followed this bidding and this time did quench his thirst. Then the old man drove home the lesson: “Just as this water, gushing through the mouth of a putrid dog, is neither polluted nor loses aught of its natural taste or color, so is the celebration of the Mass by a worthless priest.” With these words he disappeared; but the good man henceforth went punctually to Mass.

In an impetuous controversy of the kind which was customary between professors and schoolmasters of Dante's age, one Master Mino da Colle di Val d'Elsa, a Tuscan compatriot of Dante's, concludes his answer to a challenging letter by a colleague with the following:

The increasing stream of scholarly and scientific publications pouring steadily from modern presses has created an imperative need for subject bibliographies in practically every field, and to this need the field of Coptic studies is no exception. Indeed the lack of complete bibliographical guidance is here even more keenly felt because Coptic had, until the first issue of the Bulletin of the Société d' Archéologie Copte, in 1935, no proper organ of expression, and articles by Coptic scholars are scattered in periodicals devoted to Egyptian, Greek and the oriental languages, to history, religion, art and many other less likely fields, as well as in the journals of learned societies of many countries. The existing bibliographical guides are incomplete, out of date, or difficult to use for one reason or another, and valuable time and effort often have been spent in bibliographical research by Coptic scholars whose labors might have been saved for more fruitful employment. With the hope of eliminating this duplication of effort, a bibliography of Coptic studies has been compiled at the University of Michigan. At present it is in card form and is housed in the Office of the Curator of MSS. and Papyri. We hope to print it when world conditions again justify such publications, but in the meantime it may be profitable to give a brief account of the project, so that criticisms and suggestions from scholars may make the work more useful to them when it does appear.