Poet, Scholar, Trickster: Israel the Grammarian and his “Versus de arte metrica”
Seppo Heikkinen
Israel the Grammarian was a tenth-century scholar and poet of presumably Breton origin, who played an influential role in King AEthelstan’s court before becoming tutor to Bruno, future archbishop Cologne. This article focuses on his hexameter poem “Versus Israhelis de arte metrica super nomen et uerbum,” discussion prosody final syllables, addressed Bishop Robert Trier, Israel’s patron. While surface metrica” appear be didactic poem, it has, reality, probably been intended as academic parlour game that tests reader’s command Latin grammar grammatical literature. At same time, reflects central inflectional paradigms emergence inflection tables medieval instruction.
The Journal of medieval Latin