Entertainment / Literature / Patrologia Latina: A famous (or perhaps infamous) scholarly collection of 228+ fat volumes of biblical and theological commentary that has been both a boon and bane to twentieth-century medieval scholarship. The Patrologia Graeca reproduces a series of Greek writings from the patristic and medieval Christian writers, while the Patrologia Latina covers the same sort of material in Latin sources. These works are often not available in print in any other texts. This collection, known familiarly as the PL or 'the Migne' (after one of its French editors), includes vast quantities of theological interpretations, Biblical exegesis, typological and anti-typological discussion, medieval treatises on hagiography, medieval medicine, lapidary lore, and oodles of relevant materials necessary for students seeking to understand the medieval world and medieval literature. Unfortunately, the material is all in Latin, with facing French translations, which makes it less useful for English-speakers hindered by linguistic inabilities. Additionally, a series of editors compiled the volumes of the PL and they did not follow the same system of cataloging and organization as their predecessors. The result is a confusing mishmash that requires four volumes of indices and an additional index to the indices. Four generations of scholars have blessed the PL as an astonishing and ambitious collection of medieval lore, while simultaneously cursing it as a devilish, misorganized amalgam riddled with errors, typos, and blunders in pagination. The PL is being displaced from its throne by the Corpus Christianorum, an electronic collection superseding the older half-edited material. However, major research libraries at this time are more likely to have an old, dusty set of shelves devoted to the PL than to have an expensive, computerized copy of the Corpus Christianorum. For a student of medieval literature who can speak Latin, the best starting spot is the index to the indices, and from there work one's way backward. If any readers find a library that is about to throw away or sell its copies of the PL, please contact me at [email protected]. I would like to have a copy myself, provided I can find a room large enough to store all 228 of these books.
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Entertainment / Literature / Patrologia Latina: A famous (or perhaps infamous) scholarly collection of 228+ fat volumes of biblical and theological commentary that has been both a boon and bane to twentieth-century medieval scholarship. The Patrolo MORE
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