CONSTANTIA

Introduction

You are about to surf a poetry site from the age of monasteries, dukes, and serfs. We shall travel backwards in time to some years after the battle of Hastings (1066), when William became the Conqueror, and his daughter Adela received adulatory and requestful poems from the hungry hand of Baudri of Bourgeuil, the Godfather of our glorious poet, Constantia. This experimental edition of a Latin poem written by an intelligent and flirtatious woman includes clickable notes for vocabulary (less common classical words or specifically medieval spellings or vocabulary), history, grammar and syntax, literary comment on Constantia's fine rhetoric, and for her erotic double entendres, and finally for explanations of her allusions to Greek and Roman literature and to Hebrew and Christian Biblical texts. There is an elementary bibliography to which the introduction and notes refer. The site also links you to maps, to photographs of contemporary people, buildings, and events, and to other sites relevant to medieval women writers of Latin.
     It is important, however, to stay focused on the crucial element, reading real Latin. If you cannot read the Latin for yourself, you depend on another mind to interpret it for you, a mind perhaps less nuanced than yours or less interested in what you are interested in. Do not get discouraged if the text causes some initial difficulties. Patience will be rewarded. The notes assume that you have had a year of college Latin or more, or three or more years of high school Latin. Not all vocabulary is glossed, so you should have a standard Latin dictionary nearby
      Some common medieval Latin habits (such as spelling the first declension genitive singular in -e rather than -ae, or spelling the dative of first person singular pronoun as michi, not classical mihi) are explained the first or second time, but not every time. You must get used to Constantia's medieval habits--which are widely shared.
     After reading Constantia's Latin verse, you might try your own hand at versification. Like learning to or ride a bicycle or drive a manual-shift car, it seems impossible at first, but if you apply yourself to the task long enough, you can acquire the knack.
 
 

CONSTANTIA'S LETTER TO BALDERICUS
 
 
 

 FOR FURTHER INFORMATION VISIT:
Our Heroine | Constantia's Classical Model | Constantia's Beloved | Influences | Language & Conclusions
 
 
 

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Last Revision: 11/13/98
© 1998 The Five Colleges of Ohio Consortium
Please send comments to Laurie Churchill at ljchurch@cc.owu.edu.
http://www.owu.edu/~o5medww/cncwomen/index.html