Today I went on a scavenger hunt! My scavenger hunts are of a peculiar variety. I look for clues in footnotes and endnotes and bibliographies.
I happened to be reading Honorius Augustodunensis today (yes, he basically is supercalifragilisticexpialidotious), and I noticed that his comment on the origins of the tonsure was exactly the same as I had been reading in Lombard with my Latin students in the fall. Honorius died c. 1100, and Lombard c. 1160, so I knew who was borrowing from whom. My edition of Honorius, however, did not lead me to his sources. So I had to travel back to the future and see whom Lombard used. To condense a couple of hours’ work into a short sentence, I found myself swinging to Gratian to Ivo of Chartres to Hugh of St Victor to Isidore of Seville to Gregory the Great. Ah, Pope Gregory. I should have known all sources lead to Rome. It is remarkable to me what long road this information travelled, and seemingly without losing much in the game of Telephone.
So that was fun. Part of my aim was to discover just how little regard the medievals had for classification by genre. Consulting canon law, liturgical treatises, theological treatises, and sermons, I got the sense that all knowledge was united in their minds. Division is for babies.
In other news, I discovered this fabulous line by a Trappist monk of the twentieth century, Thomas Merton, and have added it to my florilegia:
Reluctant Scholar 