Ars Gramattica Tatuini

The Ars is one of only two surviving eighth-century Latin grammars from England.^[11] The grammar is a reworking of Donatus's Ars Minor with the addition of information drawn from other grammarians, such as Priscian and Consentius.^{[citation needed]} It was not designed for a newcomer to the Latin language, but rather for more advanced students.^[12] It covers the eight parts of speech through illustrations drawn from classical scholars, although not directly but through other grammatical works. There are also some examples drawn from the Psalms. The work was completed before Tatwine became archbishop, and was used not only in England but also on the Continent.^[13]

Riddles

It is almost certain that Tatwine was inspired to develop the culture of riddle-writing in early medieval England because he had read the Epistola ad Acircium by the West-Saxon scholar Aldhelm (d. 709), which combined studies of Latin grammar and metre with the presentation of one hundred hexametrical riddles.^[14] Frederick Tupper believed that Aldhelm's influence was minimal,^[15] but subsequent scholars have argued that Tatwine's riddles owed a substantial debt to those of Aldhelm.^[16][17][18]

Tatwine's riddles deal with such diverse topics as philosophy and charity, the five senses and the alphabet, and a book, and a pen,^[4] yet, according to Mercedes Salvador-Bello, these riddles are placed in a carefully structured sequence: 1–3 and 21–26 on theology (e.g. 2, faith, hope, and charity), 4–14 on objects associated with ecclesiastical life (e.g. 7, a bell), 15–20 on wonders and monsters (e.g. 16, prepositions with two cases), 27–39 on tools and related natural phenomena (e.g. 28, an anvil, and 33, fire), with a final piece on the sun's rays.^[19][4]

Tatwine's riddles survive in two manuscripts: the early 11th-century London, British Library, Royal 12.Cxxiii (fols. 121v–7r) and the mid-11th-century Cambridge, University Library, Gg.5.35 (fols. 374v–77v).^[20] In both manuscripts, they are written alongside the riddles of Eusebius: it seems clear that Eusebius (whose identity is uncertain) added sixty riddles to Tatwine's forty to take the collection up to one hundred.^[21]

Tatwine gives a sign in one of the riddles of the growing acceptance among scholars in the Christian west of the legitimacy of philosophy: "De philosophia: est felix mea qui poterit cognoscere iura" (Of Philosophy: happy is he who can know my laws).^[22] The riddles are formed in acrostics.^[23]