The Cambridge Songs {Carmina Cantabrigiensia} (Cambridge, University Library MS Gg. 5.35) are an important collection of Latin poems that English scribes copied in the middle of the eleventh century. The poems come from across medieval Europe and include some classical Latin verse. A number of poems concern music, six have at least some neumes, and many have formal associations with music (sequences, “modus” in title). Breul’s facsimile edition (1915) is available online, as well as Strecker’s edition (1926). The current best edition is that of Ziolkowski (1994).
In medieval Latin and Galician-Portuguese songs, women languished in love for beloved men yet to return home from across the sea. … Read the post languishing for love: medieval women’s songs for beloved men
In medieval Easter plays and resurrection poems, harrowing of Hell starts with repentance. Then Jesus frees captive souls and renews the earth. … Read the post Christian hope for release from Hell
Following Virgil, medieval authors associated bees with chastity & the Virgin Mary. Male workers bees doing sex work thus came to be disparaged as drones. … Read the post literary history made male worker bees into drones
Medieval poets re-imagined female figures of the melodious nightingale & heavenly Jerusalem to incorporate in hymns men’s interests, concerns, and hopes. … Read the post melodious nightingale & heavenly Jerusalem: medieval re-imaginings
A distant girlfriend came to a dying, lovesick medieval man in a dream and urged upon him healing love-medicine. For a warm-hearted woman, that’s realistic. … Read the post warm-hearted medieval woman saved man dying from lovesickness