Studies in Medieval Irish Legal Ancillary Material
type: CreativeWork
description: Preserved in medieval Irish manuscripts are a number of legal texts, which generated a broad range of glosses and commentary. Focus has hitherto generally been on the older strata of material and their immediate glossing. This dissertation begins with in-text glossing, and goes beyond the immediate glossing context to consider other forms of what I call legal ancillary material. It is composed of two major parts: etymological glosses; and glossae collectae (independent sets of glosses). The introduction provides an overview of scholarship thus far on legal ancillary material and sets out the overall aim of this dissertation, which is to examine the purpose, function, and method of the composition and transmission of legal ancillary material. By treating glossarial material as primary sources in their own right, they give an insight into how scribes thought. Questions asked include: how do these glossing methods differ? What was their purpose? Why did scribes consider them relevant? What can they tell us about the way in which legal material was expanded and transmitted? In the ‘etymological glosses’ part of the dissertation, I demonstrate the previously overlooked significance of etymological glossing in a learning environment. Owing to the vast amount of etymological glossing across medieval Irish law texts, I use a sample group of eight legal texts from TCD H 2. 15A (1316) pp. 17a–42b, 47a–66b. As it is syllabic etymology which has drawn the most attention (negative or otherwise), it is this type which forms the core of this first major part of the dissertation. The main body of the discussion is split into two sections: the first is given to process, in which methodological aspects of first and final syllable etymology are examined in detail. The second looks at the purpose of etymological glosses. A key conclusion to arise from this discussion is the scribes’ preoccupation with preserving the consonant structure of the lemma, while the meaning of the lemma is ma…
abstract: Preserved in medieval Irish manuscripts are a number of legal texts, which generated a broad range of glosses and commentary. Focus has hitherto generally been on the older strata of material and their immediate glossing. This dissertation begins with in-text glossing, and goes beyond the immediate glossing context to consider other forms of what I call legal ancillary material. It is composed of two major parts: etymological glosses; and glossae collectae (independent sets of glosses). The introduction provides an overview of scholarship thus far on legal ancillary material and sets out the overall aim of this dissertation, which is to examine the purpose, function, and method of the composition and transmission of legal ancillary material. By treating glossarial material as primary sources in their own right, they give an insight into how scribes thought. Questions asked include: how do these glossing methods differ? What was their purpose? Why did scribes consider them relevant? What can they tell us about the way in which legal material was expanded and transmitted? In the ‘etymological glosses’ part of the dissertation, I demonstrate the previously overlooked significance of etymological glossing in a learning environment. Owing to the vast amount of etymological glossing across medieval Irish law texts, I use a sample group of eight legal texts from TCD H 2. 15A (1316) pp. 17a–42b, 47a–66b. As it is syllabic etymology which has drawn the most attention (negative or otherwise), it is this type which forms the core of this first major part of the dissertation. The main body of the discussion is split into two sections: the first is given to process, in which methodological aspects of first and final syllable etymology are examined in detail. The second looks at the purpose of etymological glosses. A key conclusion to arise from this discussion is the scribes’ preoccupation with preserving the consonant structure of the lemma, while the meaning of the lemma is ma…
author: Taylor-Griffiths, Alice
language: en
keywords: Medieval, Irish, Glossography, Glosses, Law
license: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/e9a17958-76a9-4d0e-867e-d7c451a9d59b/download
license: https://www.rioxx.net/licenses/all-rights-reserved/
date published: 2020-11-28
date modified: 2026-07-22T22:23:57Z
provider: Cambridge University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Cambridge

PropertyValue
property ID: DOI
value: 10.17863/CAM.60431