Evidence for knowledge of Greek in Anglo-Saxon England
Mary Catherine Bodden
More than half of the extant manuscripts from Anglo-Saxon England, both vernacular and Latin, contain Greek. How much Greek did early English know? M. L. W. Laistner accepted only a handful authors, Bede among them, as ‘competent Hellenists’. Bernhard Bischoff, too, noted that numerous witnesses to writing in medieval West, few show knowledge language itself, majority their corrupt state suggest just opposite; moreover, he points out, function is very often liturgical. By same token, recent survey rich materials Sankt Gallen makes general observation ‘few medievals possessed an ability read prose, based on, at least, acquaintance with elementary principles grammar’. For number years, I have been compiling catalogue containing Greek, on basis what seen, these various assumptions – was badly copied, its vocabulary largely ecclesiastical or liturgical, such would necessarily repeat yielding therefore perhaps no more some 500 800 words, grammer (declensions, inflexions so forth) minimal need major modification. In follows, shall examine turn.
Anglo-Saxon England