Finding the Right Words: Isidore s Synonyma in Anglo-Saxon England,

This book is the first dedicated monograph on the Synonyma by Isidore of Seville. Generally classified among Isidore’s minor works, the Synonyma enjoyed a wide and long-lasting success in the medieval West and they in fact are one of the classics of medieval spirituality as well as the main and most characteristic source of the stilus ysydorianus, that is a rhymed, rhythmical prose the main feature of which is the pervasive use of synonymical variation and paraphrase. Anglo-Saxon England proved particularly receptive to the Synonyma, which represented a rich source of devotional and penitential motifs as well as a model of style. The book opens with a general survey of Isidore’s life and activity as a bishop in early seventh-century Visigothic Spain as well as an introduction to the Synonyma, their theme, structure, and distinctive style. Successive chapters focus on the transmission of the Synonyma to England, providing a close examination of the Anglo-Saxon branch of their manuscript tradition, and on their ‘vernacularisation’, that is translations, adaptations and any use of the Isidorian text as a source in Old English texts. The Synonyma were also the main ultimate source for the ubi sunt topos, a favourite theme not only in Old English homilies, but in Anglo-Saxon literature as a whole. Further evidence shows that the Synonyma played no small role in the tradition of Anglo-Latin scholastic colloquies and that their synonymical style may well have been implemented in the teaching of Latin by the Benedictine Reformers, first of whom perhaps Æthelwold himself. The tantalising conclusion then is that the Synonyma can definitely contribute to our understanding of the pedagogical practices of late Anglo-Saxon England and offer new insights into the interaction of Latin and vernacular within an essentially bilingual culture such as that of the Anglo-Saxons. The volume has been published within the Toronto Old English Series by the international publishers University of Toronto Press.