# sepulturae



## Novanas

Hello, Folks!

I've come across a sentence in Book 6, Chapter 2 of William of Tyre's History of the Crusades.  In this incident, the Crusaders have just captured Antioch, but one of their number, Roger of Barneville, has been killed in a skirmish outside the city:

_. . . nostri corpus ejus cum honestis exsequiis non sine lacrymis et universorum gemitu in urbem introducentes, in porticu basilicae apostolorum Principis, supremo humanitatis officio, praesentibus principibus et universo populo, *sepulturae*.
_
This obviously means that they carried his body into the city and buried it.  But I cannot see how the sentence fits together.  For one thing, I can't find any main verb in it.  But neither can I see how this word "sepulturae" fits in with the rest of it.  Perhaps it's connected to "introducentes" and thus might mean "they brought it in for burial."

But that's the best guess I have.  If anybody has any ideas, I'd be pleased to hear them.  Many thanks!


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## Snodv

I looked for the main verb too and didn't find it.  Is it possible that it comes in the absent part of the sentence represented b the ellipsis (...)?  If not, I wonder if the _introducentes_ is a textual error for _introducebant_ or _introduxerunt.  _Alternatively, might there a series of scene-setting phrases which all use  present participles?
I would go along with your interpretation of _sepulturae_ as making sense in context, but I'm not sure of its grammar.


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## Novanas

The ellipsis is only two words: "Quibus abeuntibus", in this case, "When they [the enemy] had departed."  As for scene-setting phrases using present participles, no, I wouldn't say the preceding text contains anything like that.

Perhaps the text is corrupt here.  I've come across a number of obvious errors in this text, and there'd be other places where I've raised questions.  Anyway, thanks for your comment here.  It lets me know it's not just me.  I'm not the only one having difficulties with this sentence.


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## Scholiast

Greetings all round.

If I may chip in my tuppence-worth here: first,_ sepulturae_ hangs on_ supremo...officio_, that is (with light re-organisation of the conceptual order), '[they carried out/performed], in the presence of the leading men and the whole populace, the ultimate compassionate duty, _namely that of_ burial'. Secondly, this ablative (_officio_) appears to presuppose some such verb as_ functi sunt_, 'they discharged.'

Σ


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## Novanas

Yes, I see what you're saying, and it does make sense to me.

This sentence is odd in a way, because generally speaking, I wouldn't come across too many stylistic problems in William, as I did with a number of the Roman writers.  I'd describe his Latin as straightforward and quite competent.  As he's a medieval writer, you may have problems from time to time with his vocabulary, the way he uses words differently from the classical writers.  But the sort of problem this sentence poses, I haven't come across much of that.


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## Scholiast

Greetings once more.

As it happens I was in my Uni. Library earlier today (whence I wrote my response in # 4), and, with my curiosity piqued, tried to track down the passage in question in an up-to-date edition. Unsuccessfully, unfortunately. Is it from what are called the _Chronica_? There is a modern edition, published by Brepols in Belgium, but this was accessible to me only in electronic format, and it's quite difficult to navigate (the publisher's fault). With an (admittedly cursory) look at the text I saw enough to satisfy myself that William's Latin (and knowledge of classical Latinity, especially Cicero) is pretty good for his 12th-century period. I think he would be most unlikely to commit such a solecism as (we are agreed) the omission of a main verb, so I think we must assume that there has been an error of transmission (or printing).

It's worth remembering that before printing, mediaeval as well as classical texts are subject to the carelessness or ignorance of monastic scribes, whose own grasp of 'classical' syntax may have been dodgy.

It would be interesting to know what other oddities (or errors) Novanas has met in this work, for these might shed some light on what is going on in the cited passage here.

Σ


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## Novanas

First of all, the formal title of William's work is_ Historia rerum in partibus transmarinis gestarum.  _How this work is related to some _Chronica_, unfortunately I can't say.  I've noticed that modern historians refer to his work as his "chronicle", so perhaps it's the same work or a part of the _Chronica_.  I myself rely for back-up on the 1943 translation of Emily Atwater Babcock and on a 19th-century French translation I found on-line.  My Latin simply isn't strong enough for me to take on a work of this length without some back-up.  Also, my first criterion in rating a book is how difficult it is to read.  I'd rate William as moderately easy.

Now I'm into Book 6 (out of 23), and I haven't noticed any stylistic peculiarities of William.  As I said earlier, his writing strikes me as quite straightforward.  However, given my abilities in Latin, I'd hardly be competent to judge such a question.  A true scholar would perhaps have all sorts of comments to make on that score.

As regards errors in the text, many of these are straightforward and readily identifiable typos--e.g., _cum _rather than _eum_--and on this point I'd tend to blame the carelessness of whatever modern editor prepared the text.  There are quite a few occasions when I suspect some difficulty with the text that comes from early scribes.  But this is the usual sort of problem you have to deal with when it comes to reading writers of past centuries.

One of the obvious difficulties you face is William's vocabulary, which is often different from what you encounter in classical writers.  E.g., he uses _contradicere _not in the sense of "contradict", but to actively oppose some action, and I don't know if that meaning occurs in classical writers.  He uses _castra _to mean a "camp", but he also uses the word in the singular--_castrum_--to mean a "fort" or "redoubt".  He uses _expeditio _to mean an "army". One word he uses quite frequently is _nihilominus_, but almost never in its classical sense of "nonetheless".  It's hard to say exactly what he does mean by it.  I finally decided it means "no less", in the sense of "no less than before" or "no less than the others", depending on context.  The two translators I look at often simply don't translate the word, or translate it as "also" or "likewise", something like that.  So just a few examples of how you have to adjust to his vocabulary.

As far as the history itself is concerned, we have to bear in mind that he was a Christian writing about the Crusades, so he's hardly unbiased.  When he's talking about the harsh rule that the Turks imposed on the Christian inhabitants of the region, you don't know how far to believe him.  Also, there was one incident when the Crusaders broke into Antioch.  The city was betrayed to them.  A Christian official who was trusted by the Turks commanded a tower, and he let the Crusaders in that way.  But he suspected that his brother was going to oppose this act, so he killed him.  And William portrays that as a pious deed.  We do have to make allowances for the man.  And then the story he tells about how Godfrey killed a bear was absolutely ludicrous.

But having said all that, this is a work I'd certainly recommend to anyone who's interested in medieval history or the Crusades specifically.  William is quite readable and enjoyable.  In fact I was amazed to see that Penguin doesn't publish a translation of this work.  Penguin publishes everything--and given that they publish Einhard and Notker and Anna Comnena, it's hard for me to understand why they've overlooked William.  Perhaps the Babcock translation pre-empted them, and they've never taken up William in recent times even though that translation is now out of print and almost unobtainable.


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## Scholiast

Last one tonight


Novanas said:


> I'm into Book 6 (out of 23)


This at least confirms that I was looking in the right place.
I'll go back to it.
Σ


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## Scholiast

ΕΥΡΗΚΑ!

The text given by the Belgian electronic edition I mentioned earlier (# 6), which in my Library catalogue is listed as _Chronicon / Guillielmus de Tyro_, and was published as recently as 2010 but not accredited to a named editor, reads as follows:

quibus abeuntibus nostri corpus eius cum honestis exequiis non sine lacrimis et universorum gemitu in urbem introducentes, in porticu basilice apostolorum principis supremo humanitatis officio, presentibus principibus et universo populo,* sepultus est magnifice*.​So the _Chronica_ are indeed the work in question; in _sepultus est _we now have a main verb; the suspicion of textual corruption entertained by Snodv (# 2) is vindicated, though perhaps not quite as he envisaged; And Novanas and I (## 4, 5) were both mistaken in attempting to construe _sepulturae_ as a noun in the first place.

Edited afterthought: the syntax is still a little strange: _nostri...introducentes_ begins to look like a nominative absolute—not completely unknown in classical Greek, but I don't think I have ever met such a thing in Latin before; maybe we need _sepeliverunt_ rather than the passive _sepultus est_?

Σ


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## bearded

Hello
Another doubt: does 'sepultus' still refer to 'corpus'? Then shouldn't it be 'sepultum'?


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## Scholiast

bearded said:


> does 'sepultus' still refer to 'corpus'? Then shouldn't it be 'sepultum'?


Not necessarily. Just as it makes sense to say 'They carried his body...he was buried': from the context it is clear that _corpus_ is accusative object of _introducentes_, which, regardless of how precisely we construe the syntax, is certainly a separate clause from _sepultus est.
_
Σ


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## Novanas

Thank you, Scholiast, for that bit of detective work.  That makes matters much clearer.  As to this question of _sepultus _v. _sepultum_, the previous few sentences refer repeatedly to the man himself.  So I don't think the use of _sepultus _will confuse a reader.  It will be clear that it is the man himself who is being referred to.  Another point is the use of this word "magnifice", which isn't found in the Latin text as I have it.  Both of the translations I'm consulting translated this as "with great splendor", and I was wondering where they got that because, as I say, there's nothing like that in the text I'm using.

I thought I'd take the opportunity to make another point--one of my pet peeves--because perhaps it will help someone whose Latin is more or less at the same stage as mine.  You'll find lots of Latin texts online.  A lot of the websites in question allow you to download the text onto your computer.  I always do this because I find it easier to read something from my own documents, rather than reading something directly on a website.  One advantage is that it allows me to edit the text.

This is often handy because one thing that annoys me to no end is that these texts tend to be wildly over-punctuated.  The editors have put in lots of unnecessary commas, they use a semi-colon where a comma would be appropriate, and they use a colon where a semi-colon would be appropriate.  This is not an idle complaint.  It does often make a text harder to understand, and I don't know how many times I've run into difficulties before eventually realizing that if I simply eliminate an unnecessary comma, e.g., the sentence becomes perfectly clear.  An example I ran into today:

. . . sciensque quod nullatenus posset contra tantum exercitum, praedictam tueri munitionem . . .

Note the comma. What's its purpose?  The whole clause is of one piece: ". . . knowing that he could in no way defend the fort against such a great army . . ."

I think perhaps it's traditional in the teaching of Latin to divide sentences up into chunks.  You understand each one, and then put them all together to understand the sentence as a whole.  But as in this case, a comma often suggests that two chunks are perhaps not connected, that the second one might perhaps be logically connected to another part of the sentence.  However, as in this case, the second is connected to the first, and once you realize that, once you eliminate the distraction, then you understand the text more easily.

So basically, editing texts, for me, involves eliminating a lot of useless punctuation.

Anyway, thanks again, Scholiast, for your help with this problem.


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## Scholiast

saluete de nouo!


Novanas said:


> The editors have put in lots of unnecessary commas,


It may be worth pointing out here that numerous modern Latin texts emanate from, or are influenced by, German scholarship, which since the 19th century has been particularly energetic in textual criticism. And German rules of punctuation are much stricter than English (for instance, subordinate clauses, no matter how short or simple, must _always_ be demarcated from principal clauses with commas). In preparing their texts for publication, German scholars would naturally adopt German punctuational conventions.



Novanas said:


> Anyway, thanks again, Scholiast, for your help with this problem


A pleasure. I relish this kind of intellectual challenge.

Σ


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## Novanas

OK.  I'm happier now, knowing I have someone to blame.


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## exgerman

The OCRed text from Migne's  Patrologia in archive.org has many OCR failures, but it got the verb right:





> Quibus
> abeuntibus, nostri corpus ejus cum honestis exse-
> quiis, non sine lacrymis et universorum gemilu in
> urbem introducentes, in porlicu basilica; apostoio-
> rum Principis, supremo humanitatis officio, prKsen-
> tibus principibus et universo populo, sepulturae
> dederunt magnifioe.



It looks like the last two words went missing in the original poster's quote, as well as the first two.


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## Novanas

This reading "sepulturae dederunt magnifice" is certainly a very good option.  It's clear to me that there are various problems with this text.  But that's hardly surprising.


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