A Catalogue of Early Medieval Hiberno-Latin Biblical Commentaries (I)

Abstract

The study of Hiberno-Latin exegesis is a young medieval discipline. As the name suggests, it deals with the exegesis of the Bible by Irishmen writing in Latin. In practice, this discipline is confined to the period from the coming of Christianity to Ireland in the fifth century to the Carolingian Renaissance in the ninth. Furthermore, it deals almost exclusively with texts from Irish circles on the continent because so few texts survive from Ireland itself. Scholars had long known of Irish exegetes like Sedulius Scottus and Aileran the Wise who were usually well-known or at least unquestionably Irish. The works of many Hiberno-Latin exegetes simply languished in anonymity — until 1954.