Transmarinis litteris: Southumbria and the Transmission of Isidore's Synonyma

by Matthew T. Hussey, Simon Fraser University

The letters between Boniface of Mainz (d. 754) and Anglo-Saxon abbots, abbesses, bishops, and nuns amply attest to ongoing contact between the missionary and reformer in Germany and his colleagues in his native England. Not only did letters cross the sea, but the correspondence indicates the movement of books to and from English foundations. These letters are traces of the now mostly invisible paths of textual transmission between Southumbria and the Continent. At issue in this paper is Anglo-Saxon reception and transmission of a single patristic text, Isidore of Seville's Synonyma. Literary, historical, and manuscript evidence, I shall argue, suggests that Southumbrian missionaries, and perhaps boniface himself, were significant intermediaries in the dissemination of Isidore of Seville's Synonyma between Merovingian Gaul and foundations in Fulda, Würzburg, and other areas of the Anglo-Saxon mission.