Appealing to people whose Latin is better than mine

[tree_and_leaf]

Have come across the sentence: Hoc est michi ineffabile gaudium quod sancti calumpnia valeo loqui tecum

Most of this is quite clear, but what the hell does 'calumpnia' mean? (The text is a Latin translation of a Middle High German text, in diplomatic transcription, but this does not help much, as ineffabile is used to translate endelosú, which does not mean quite the same thing. The sancti calumpnia appears to correspond to a MHG phrase meaning 'without guile', but this doesn't help me much.)

Comments

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Du Cange has a number of meanings for "Calumnia", foremost among which is a legal damage suffered by someone, which demands repayment. It has also "adversitas, infortunium" and "iniuria"; and, amazingly, "constitutio, statutum, dispositio". Does "through the constitutio, statutum, dispositio of the Saint" make sense to you?

[tree_and_leaf]

Thank you. Thinking about it, calumnia, in the sense of injury or misfortune is quite close to some sense of vare - but I think that the translator may have misunderstood the German (which is not especially clear at that point.) Where the sancti crept in from is anyone's guess.

Hum. Will give this further thought :)

Not that I am nec'y in that category of persons....

[wemyss.livejournal.com]

But I do think calumnia is the reading. I may have some ideas on this later.

Right, then. Thoughts on context.

[wemyss.livejournal.com]

Hoc est michi ineffabile gaudium quod sancti calumpnia valeo loqui tecum

‘Ineffabile gaudium’ appears in the Burnet Psalter. Also, In Aquinas’s gloss on Psalm 46, you will find,

Glossa, Iubilus est ineffabile gaudium, quod nec taceri potest, sed non potest exprimi, quia excedit comprehensionem. Et talis est bonitas Dei quae non potest exprimi: et si exprimatur, imperfecte tamen exprimitur. Et ideo dicebat Hier. 1. A a a ecce nescio loqui. Et hunc iubilum signat ecclesia, quando in eadem dictione multiplicat notas: Ps. 65. Iubilate Deo omnis terra, Psalmum dicite etc.

And so on: it is a common trope.

With that for context, what may we make of ‘sancti calumpnia’?

A similar term appears in Jacques-Paul Migne, Patrologiae cursus completus, on a quick search:

Haeret quidem hoc cum superioribus et est sensus: quod si otiosum verbum quod nequaquam ædificat audientes, non est absque periculo ejus qui loquitur: quanto magis vos qui opera Spiritus sancti calumniamini reddituri estis rationem calumniæ vestræ? Porro otiosum verbum est quod sine utilitate audientis loquentisve dicitur.

There is a Norman-Sicilian charter that uses the formula of conveyance and possession, libere et quiete et sine omne calumpnia, which is highly suggestive of the covenants that persist in deeds to freeholds today, for a sort of free and quiet title of possession without – reproach, perhaps, or legal contest? (Learned friends want to weigh in just now.) Indeed, it’s quite common in deeds and charters and grants, especially ecclesiastical (‘sine omni calumpnia, impedimento, aut contradiccione futuri’: grant of the advowson of Pembridge from Roger Mortimer to Emeric the Chancellor, for life; William of Boulogne and Mortain to Furness Abbey, ‘… et omni calumpnia quietam et liberam perpetuo possideant’; similar language in some of the cartularies for Newminster Abbey). Maitland has a fine collection of borough charters (the old year-and-a-day business) that use similar language. Burrill’s dictionary of law (circa 1867) includes the definition of ‘claim’ (as wellas ‘complaint’) for ‘calumpnia’ as it refers to ancient charters and forms of pleading; there;s something in Blackstone as well, I think. Even an 872 charter from Alfred to Athelney Abbey uses the phrase,

Et sint terræ suæ liberæ et solutæ ab omni calumpnia sicuti meæ mihi habentur....

So: what does this suggest to you by way of context?

[fpb.livejournal.com]

This is probably a geeky comment, but isn't it wonderful to have a place where one can go and ask a question about medieval Latin and find at least three people who show intelligent interest? You may say what you like about the Internet, but it has made hundreds of lonely passions less lonely.

Re: Right, then. Thoughts on context.

[tree_and_leaf]

You're dead right about the 'ineffabile gaudium', I think - the latin translator has, as I've noticed before, a tendency to push things in the direction of Scriptural references.

Thanks for the references - I don't think a legal sense is meant, but I shall consider the matter further....

[tree_and_leaf]

Oh, certainly!

Re: Right, then. Thoughts on context.

[tree_and_leaf]

Although looking at the PL passage you've pulled up, I think the sancti is refering back to Spiritus, isn't it? Though in that case the capitalisation is very misleading.

I really do think the translator has fouled up the German, but it would be good to know what he thought he was trying to express...

Yes, it is.

[wemyss.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry, I was unclear: yes, of course it's 'Sp. s~cti' there; I'm simply intrigued there by the whole of 'quanto magis vos qui opera Spiritus sancti calumniamini reddituri estis rationem calumniæ vestræ'.

Legal concepts....

[wemyss.livejournal.com]

Common as the legal sense seems to be (at least in England, where it starts with great Alfred and persists through the reign of Stephen), and appearing as it does on the Continent as well, I do wonder if some part of what we're picking apart here isn't akin in some (typically recursive and anagogical, mediæval) way to such legal-cum-theological concepts as atonement/amercement, pleading/intercession, guiltlessness, not being accused, 'without impeachment' (whether of crime or of sin); of course, not having the German before us in full (not that I'd make anything of it if it were), I don't know. But cd any of that have been in the xlator's mind, in a way not dissimilar to his reaching for Scriptural formulæ is his natural tendency w/r/t 'ineffabile gaudium'?

Fabio, over to you....

Re: Right, then. Thoughts on context.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Migne is notorious for that sort of thing. Abbe' Migne's merit was the colossal scale on which he published, but he cut plenty of corners in order to be able to do so.