Abstract

The eleventh-century collection of forty-six Latin and Anglo-Saxon proverbs contained in Durham Cathedral MS B.III.32 is of considerable importance, including as it does a number of maxims otherwise unattested in English sources or evidenced only at a far later date. In a sense the Durham proverbs can be said to bridge the gap between the oldest Anglo-Saxon gnomic verses and the Middle English specimens of the genre, sharing features that are peculiar to both groups. Scholars have known and studied the Durham Proverbs for more than a century. A short note was devoted to them in the 1948 edition of The Oxford Dictionary of English Proverbs, but they were not published until 1956, when the present writer brought out a first edition. One reason why the Durham text remained unprinted was probably, as suggested in my edition, the difficulties of the English proverbs and still more of the Latin renderings . Hence, too, my edition was tentative rather than definitive, and to be looked upon as a first attempt to make the proverbs available for study. This paper aims at providing an improved text and a more detailed commentary, offering additional analogues and sources. jQuery.click { event.preventDefault(); })