The motive behind the manuscript

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Written by:

Eleanor Gunn

Posted:

31 Jul 2024

Incoming PhD student and Trinity Hall graduate, Rhiannon Warren, took a trip to the International Medieval Congress (IMC) this summer to present her research on Marianus Scottus’ Chronicon to Europe’s largest medieval forum. Held by the University of Leeds, the IMC draws medievalists from over 60 countries to share and discuss new ideas and findings in their research, with this year’s research being focussed on the theme of ‘Crisis’.

Rhiannon spent over four years at Trinity Hall studying Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic and was the recipient of the Winifred Georgina Holgate-Pollard Memorial Prize for her final year undergraduate Tripos. At the IMC, she presented a paper based on her final year dissertation titled ‘Ductus as a Response to the Investiture Controversy in Marianus Scottus’ Chronicon’, which examined how the passage of time is communicated in Marianus Scottus’ two primary manuscripts: the Vatican Manuscript Pal. Lat. 830 and London, British Library, Cotton Nero C.V.

Rhiannon Warren presenting at the International Medieval Congress

When asked about the manuscripts’ history, Rhiannon explained how Marianus created an entirely new dating system, shifting the passage of time by 230 years:

“Marianus (1028–1082) was a monk from Ireland who moved to Frankia and became a hermit at Mainz under Abbot Sigfried. He wrote a world chronicle (completed c.1076) where he shifted all chronology between the birth of Christ and his own day by 22 years, and between the creation of the world and Christ (as calculated by the venerable Bede) by 230 years; creating a new dating system he called verior assertio. The dating system was adopted for a short time at various monastic houses including Worchester.”

In Rhiannon’s presentation, she argued that the page layout and hypertextual components of Pal. Lat. 830 (which was partly written in Marianus’ own hand) was a way of legitimising his agenda on the authority of the Church during the political crisis of the Investiture Contest – a conflict between the King and the authority of the Pope about the right to legitimate the other’s rule.

“Marianus was operating on the brink of a considerable political crisis in Frankia: the beginnings of the German civil wars and the Investiture Contest. He would been aware of these political events, particularly through his patron Siegfried who became archbishop of Mainz in 1960 and with whom Marianus likely moved to Mainz… In my paper, I argued that Pal. Lat. 830 uses page layout to push the agenda of his dating system linked to the ongoing political crisis of the ‘Investiture Controversy’ that Sigfried was involved in.”

When she was not presenting, Rhiannon attended the Congress programme and listened in on several panels and discussion that will inform her upcoming PhD.

Rhiannon said: “I really enjoyed my time at IMC Leeds, particularly the chance to present this research and meet fellow medievalists in my field. Leeds is the largest conference in medieval studies in the UK and in some ways feels like a festival – alongside the papers, there were reenactments, falconry, craft and book fairs and even a disco!”

Rhiannon Warren and Silly the cat

In October, Rhiannon will return to College to research the Icelandic Liturgical Manuscript fragments in the collection of the antiquarian Árni Magnússon, supervised by Erik Niblaeus and co-funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council Open-Oxford-Cambridge Doctoral Training Programme and Trinity Hall.

“Thinking about how Iceland’s ‘fragmentation context’ (how we went from an original book to the fragment) differs from mainland Scandinavia, where liturgical books were systematically reused in the bindings of chancery document, might help me understand how Árni encountered them!”