Ciaran Arthur
My principal research interests lie in medieval manuscript studies, monastic culture, liturgy, medical and remedial practices, constructions of magic and paganism, theologies of language and translation, and hermeneutic traditions from England, Ireland, and the Continent.
My current project 'Intentional Obscurity and "Divine Speech" in Early English Texts' (Irish Research Council) applies an original alternative interpretative framework to case studies of obscure texts from early medieval England to ‘decode’ them and demonstrate that they are far from meaningless when they are situated in the wider historical and intellectual contexts of classical and medieval understandings of obscurity, hermeneutics, secrecy, language manipulation, cosmology, and ‘divine speech’. Many of these texts appear in manuscripts that also contain a wealth of material concerned with biblical interpretation (exegesis), the decoding of astronomical ‘data’ (computistics), and predictions of cosmological events (prognostications), and in some cases they are said to be written by angels. Furthermore, their often impenetrably obscure content bears striking similarities to methods of encryption that were well-known and developed by early medieval Continental and Insular scribes from the seventh century onwards. These obscure writings rather indicate that the Christian scribes who wrote obscure texts had also studied or read ancient philosophies of language that often engaged closely with issues of ‘divine speech’ and its cosmological significance throughout salvation history, which in turn inspired several systems of linguistic obfuscation. Interpreting highly obscure early medieval texts according to older and contemporary practices of discovering and concealing knowledge places them in an overtly Christian, intellectual context. The project will produce several outputs including a book that analyses intertextual case studies of so-called ‘gibberish’ texts that have never been deciphered within this wider philosophical context to generate original interpretations of their obscure content, which can build the foundations of a larger international project on obscurity and hermeneutics throughout pre-Modern Europe.
My teaching to-date has spanned English and History departments in different universities at undergraduate and postgraduate levels.
My current project 'Intentional Obscurity and "Divine Speech" in Early English Texts' (Irish Research Council) applies an original alternative interpretative framework to case studies of obscure texts from early medieval England to ‘decode’ them and demonstrate that they are far from meaningless when they are situated in the wider historical and intellectual contexts of classical and medieval understandings of obscurity, hermeneutics, secrecy, language manipulation, cosmology, and ‘divine speech’. Many of these texts appear in manuscripts that also contain a wealth of material concerned with biblical interpretation (exegesis), the decoding of astronomical ‘data’ (computistics), and predictions of cosmological events (prognostications), and in some cases they are said to be written by angels. Furthermore, their often impenetrably obscure content bears striking similarities to methods of encryption that were well-known and developed by early medieval Continental and Insular scribes from the seventh century onwards. These obscure writings rather indicate that the Christian scribes who wrote obscure texts had also studied or read ancient philosophies of language that often engaged closely with issues of ‘divine speech’ and its cosmological significance throughout salvation history, which in turn inspired several systems of linguistic obfuscation. Interpreting highly obscure early medieval texts according to older and contemporary practices of discovering and concealing knowledge places them in an overtly Christian, intellectual context. The project will produce several outputs including a book that analyses intertextual case studies of so-called ‘gibberish’ texts that have never been deciphered within this wider philosophical context to generate original interpretations of their obscure content, which can build the foundations of a larger international project on obscurity and hermeneutics throughout pre-Modern Europe.
My teaching to-date has spanned English and History departments in different universities at undergraduate and postgraduate levels.
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Books
Arthur re-evaluates of the concept of ‘charms’ in Anglo-Saxon culture, and reconsiders the core issues that lie at the heart of this constructed genre. The book challenges the notion that there was any such thing as an Anglo-Saxon ‘charm’, and it offers alternative interpretations of these rituals as creative liturgical rites, which testify to the diversity of early medieval English Christianity. When considered in their contemporary ecclesiastical and philosophical contexts, even the most enigmatic rituals that have been dismissed as mere ‘gibberish’ begin to emerge as secret, deliberately obscured texts with hidden spiritual meaning.
Reviews:
Margaret Coombe, English Historical Review (2019, advanced access).
https://academic.oup.com/ehr/advance-article/doi/10.1093/ehr/cez318/5579365
Leonard Neidorf, Anglia: Journal of English Philology, 137.2 (2019), 356-60.
https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/ang.2019.137.issue-2/issue-files/ang.2019.137.issue-2.xml
Rafał Borysławski, Medium Aevum, 88.1 (2019), 147-8.
https://aevum.space/88/1
Philip A. Shaw, Review of English Studies, 70.296 (2019), 752-4.
https://academic.oup.com/res/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/res/hgz024/5423860?redirectedFrom=fulltext
Richard Sowerby, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 70.3 (2019), 600-1.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-ecclesiastical-history/issue/C1677CE7C50B5FE9C9923D88407A3DDC
Martha Rampton, The Medieval Review, 19.09.26.
https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/tmr
Ethan Doyle White, Reading Religion, (2019).
http://readingreligion.org/books/charms-liturgies-and-secret-rites-early-modern-england
Articles and Book Chapters
Presentations and Lectures
Leeds International Medieval Congress, 1 July 2019
Greek appears in no fewer than around 700 manuscripts from Anglo-Saxon England, comprising more than half of the surviving corpus. Traditional scholarly attitudes towards the use of Greek in England has tended to focus on the errors and corruptions in such attempts, proving that knowledge of this language was very poor in the early medieval period. With the exception of well-known liturgical prayers from the Mass, ritual texts in particular have been the subject of nothing short of ridicule for their attempts at Greek, as well as other languages that sometimes coexist with it in the same text. However, the fact that efforts were made to include Greek in public and private ritual contexts reflects a lot about medieval attitudes to this classical and biblical language. Ecclesiastics seem to have engaged with it seriously and in earnest from the early eighth to eleventh centuries – to whatever degree of success – and it was an important component of advanced monastic education. Greek also enjoyed an elevated status as the prototype for biblical translation, it was used in highbrow intellectual circles (especially in obscurantist writings), and it occupied a central position in exegesis on divine and human languages from Creation to Pentecost. This paper will consider wider intellectual attitudes towards foreign and exotic languages in general from across early medieval Europe as well as the use of Greek in a wide variety of high-status, ecclesiastical contexts. It will then consider its appearance in texts for private and public ritual performances from the seventh to eleventh centuries, including some of the most bizarre and obscure ‘gibberish’ writings of the early medieval period.
Arthur re-evaluates of the concept of ‘charms’ in Anglo-Saxon culture, and reconsiders the core issues that lie at the heart of this constructed genre. The book challenges the notion that there was any such thing as an Anglo-Saxon ‘charm’, and it offers alternative interpretations of these rituals as creative liturgical rites, which testify to the diversity of early medieval English Christianity. When considered in their contemporary ecclesiastical and philosophical contexts, even the most enigmatic rituals that have been dismissed as mere ‘gibberish’ begin to emerge as secret, deliberately obscured texts with hidden spiritual meaning.
Reviews:
Margaret Coombe, English Historical Review (2019, advanced access).
https://academic.oup.com/ehr/advance-article/doi/10.1093/ehr/cez318/5579365
Leonard Neidorf, Anglia: Journal of English Philology, 137.2 (2019), 356-60.
https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/ang.2019.137.issue-2/issue-files/ang.2019.137.issue-2.xml
Rafał Borysławski, Medium Aevum, 88.1 (2019), 147-8.
https://aevum.space/88/1
Philip A. Shaw, Review of English Studies, 70.296 (2019), 752-4.
https://academic.oup.com/res/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/res/hgz024/5423860?redirectedFrom=fulltext
Richard Sowerby, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 70.3 (2019), 600-1.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-ecclesiastical-history/issue/C1677CE7C50B5FE9C9923D88407A3DDC
Martha Rampton, The Medieval Review, 19.09.26.
https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/tmr
Ethan Doyle White, Reading Religion, (2019).
http://readingreligion.org/books/charms-liturgies-and-secret-rites-early-modern-england
Leeds International Medieval Congress, 1 July 2019
Greek appears in no fewer than around 700 manuscripts from Anglo-Saxon England, comprising more than half of the surviving corpus. Traditional scholarly attitudes towards the use of Greek in England has tended to focus on the errors and corruptions in such attempts, proving that knowledge of this language was very poor in the early medieval period. With the exception of well-known liturgical prayers from the Mass, ritual texts in particular have been the subject of nothing short of ridicule for their attempts at Greek, as well as other languages that sometimes coexist with it in the same text. However, the fact that efforts were made to include Greek in public and private ritual contexts reflects a lot about medieval attitudes to this classical and biblical language. Ecclesiastics seem to have engaged with it seriously and in earnest from the early eighth to eleventh centuries – to whatever degree of success – and it was an important component of advanced monastic education. Greek also enjoyed an elevated status as the prototype for biblical translation, it was used in highbrow intellectual circles (especially in obscurantist writings), and it occupied a central position in exegesis on divine and human languages from Creation to Pentecost. This paper will consider wider intellectual attitudes towards foreign and exotic languages in general from across early medieval Europe as well as the use of Greek in a wide variety of high-status, ecclesiastical contexts. It will then consider its appearance in texts for private and public ritual performances from the seventh to eleventh centuries, including some of the most bizarre and obscure ‘gibberish’ writings of the early medieval period.
This paper explores some of the sources that appear to have been used in the composition of ‘gibberish’ rituals. In addition to classical texts, particularly those concerning medicine and healing, glossaries had fundamental importance as repositories of obscure vocabulary. Anglo-Saxon ecclesiastics plundered glossaries to deliberately obscure powerful rituals so that access to them could be restricted and controlled. The choice of languages used in these texts points towards wider efforts made by early medieval theologians to situate vernacular languages in the context of biblical history. These highly obscure rituals reflect more about early medieval attitudes to hermeneutics, etymologies, multilingualism, and the theological status of human languages than they do about poor scribal copying.
16 September 2016
For the physical exhibition in the McClay Library (provisionally scheduled November 2020 - January 2021) these medieval materials sit alongside modern examples of notetaking, debate, codebreaking and encryption. The modern examples are drawn from the works of the following literary figures connected with Belfast: Seamus Heaney, C.S. Lewis and Helen Waddell (manuscripts of their works are held in Special Collections, Queen's University Belfast). These writers were deeply indebted to the medieval past.
See
https://www.qub.ac.uk/directorates/InformationServices/TheLibrary/SpecialCollections/DigitalResources/Exhibitions/CiphersCodesandNotesExhibition/