This is one of the very few texts which let us see how life was really lived in monasteries in the early Middle Ages. Written in Old English and preserved in a manuscript of the mid-eleventh century, it consists of 127 signs used by Anglo-Saxon monks during times when the Benedictine Rule forbade them to speak. These indicate the food the monks ate, the clothes they wore, and the books they used in church and chapter, as well as the tools they used in their daily life, and persons they might meet both in the monastery and outside. The text is printed here with a parallel translation. The introduction gives a summary of the background, both historical and textual, as well as a brief look at the later evidence for monastic sign language in England. Extensive notes provide details of textual relationships, explore problems of interpretation, and set out the historical implications of the text.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Handy!,
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This review is from: Monasteriales Indicia: The Anglo-Saxon Sign Language (Paperback)
This is a straightforward translation work. The signs were developed for monks, living in monasteries, who had taken a vow of silence. As a result, the signs tend to be skewed toward things that monks would need to speak of: terms for ceremonial clothing and objects, religious holidays and time (the canonical hours, matins, lauds,vespers, compline, etc), animals, food, people and places in the monastery, etc. The people who were using these signs already spoke the language, and many of them were literate, but had *chosen* not to speak. These signs provided a terse, rudimentary way to communicate without speaking. One can draw some conclusions by what signs were developed and what signs are lacking; for example, one assumes that they only made ups signs for foods they actually ate, and situations that were routine.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Everything I expected, nothing more,
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This review is from: Monasteriales Indicia: The Anglo-Saxon Sign Language (Paperback)
The book was exactly what it was supposed to be - a description of monastic hand signs from a Benedictine monastery - but had nothing more, and was very brief. Useful and worth buying, but not as a sole source of information.
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