Glossa Ordinaria. Pars 22. In Canticum Canticorum. Corpus Christianorum. Continuatio Mediavalis CLXX

Turnholt: Brepols. Good with no dust jacket. 1997. Hardcover. 978250304701 . 454 oo. Indices,bibliography. Frontis plate. In Latin and English, text with facing translation. Original orange cloth covers with gilt are clean, just a hint of shelf wear and slight in-turning of bottom corners. Interior clean and unmarked. Nice copy. The present edition of the Glossa Ordinaria on the Song of Songs is offered as a contribution to the programme Smalley proposed. While it does not pretend to be a full critical edition of the text, since a fully comprehensive investigation of the entire manuscript tradition would have ensured that this particular part of the Gloss would remain unedited this side of the new millennium, Smalley's suggestion of reproducing the early text of the Glossed Song of Songs, a text based on manuscripts dated c. 1120 - c.1170. Smalley was quite right to claim that the importance of the Gloss as a whole is as much literary as theological, and perhaps this makes the Glossed Song of Songs a particularly appropriate part of the whole to make available. Ever since this book of the Bible was given the title Shir haShirim, the best of songs, its literary excellence has always been recognised. To medievalists, the pervasiveness of its influence on the literature of the Middle Ages, in Latin and in the vernaculars, is a commonplace, yet the text that medieval writers were influenced by was rarely sola scriptura. This text and translation of the glossed Song of Songs, the most widely-transmitted of all late medieval commentaries, will enable scholars and interpreters of medieval culture to trace and analyse the ciruclation of the Song of Songs more comprehensively and minutely.; 8vo - over 7" - 9" tall .