Eriugena Unbound

Why Eriugena? The Carolingian Empire was full of intriguing characters—disgruntled clerics, dreamers, plotters, and prophets—but one of the most remarkable of those was surely the Irish émigré Eriugena (also known as Iohannes Scottus), who served under King Charles the Bald, grandson of Charlemagne. So unusual was he that we have hardly known what to make of him, his life-story, philosophy, theology, poetry, and philology. But we should. For he offered his quarrelsome contemporaries a different understanding of their troubled times: that behind the many disruptions of the ninth century—Viking raiders, overweening aristocrats, pious and pompous bishops, starving peasants, and proud but distant royals—there was a divine idea or set of them behind all such existences and their ineluctable Return to and into God. In his own time Eriugena was famous as an expert on the Greek language and an influential master of the liberal arts, but he was also a controversial and engaged figure. One of the most striking features of his continental career is that his handwriting has been identified and survives in a number of manuscripts, which allow us a close-up view of how he worked, when, and where. In Eriugena Unbound in a set of twelve essays, new and old, Paul Edward Dutton explores that manuscript evidence to bring us closer to the mind, personality, and historical importance of the enigmatic Irishman. As the Historian says in the dialogue with a Student that opens the work, he does not believe it possible to understand the Carolingians without Eriugena or Eriugena without the Carolingians.

List of Figures

Preface

I. Why Eriugena Matters: A Dialogue

II. Why did Eriugena Write?

III. Eriugena’s Workshop: The Making of the Periphyseon in Rheims 875

IV. Eriugena and Virgil

V. Eriugena, the Royal Poet

VI. Evidence that Dubthach’s Priscian Codex Once Belonged to Eriugena

VII. Eriugena in Priscianum, with Anneli Luhtala

VIII. Filiolitas: The Short History of One of Eriugena’s Inventions

IX. Minding Irish Ps and Qs: Signs of the First Systematic Reading of Eriugena’s Periphyseon

X. Carolingian Invisibles and Eriugena’s Lost Vision of God

XI. Raoul Glaber’s De diuina quaternitate: An Unnoticed Reading of Eriugena’s Translation of the Ambigua of Maximus the Confessor

XII. ‘I Open at the Close’: What is Eriugena’s Ad Wulfadum (PL 122: 1021C-1022D)?

Corrigenda

Indices

   General

   Manuscripts

PAUL EDWARD DUTTON

Emeritus Professor, Department of Humanities, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C. Canada V5A 1S6

DEGREES: M.S.D. (Doctor of Mediaeval Studies, 1988) Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies; Ph.D. (1981) University of Toronto; M.S.L (1979) Pontifical Institute; M.A. (1977) Toronto; Hons. B.A. (1976) University of Western Ontario

DISTINCTIONS: 

The Jack and Nancy Farley University Professor in History, Simon Fraser University (2005-2015); Fellow, 

Royal Society of Canada 2004-; Fellow, Medieval Academy of America 2005-; Canadian Who’s Who: a Handbook of Canadian Biography of Living Characters, vols. 40- (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005-); Dean’s Medal, SFU 2012; Margaret Wade Labarge Prize (2003-2005) for the best book in medieval studies, presented by the Canadian Society of Medievalists; Visiting Professor of History, Harvard 2006; Featured Researcher, Simon Fraser University 2003; Simon Fraser University Recognition of Scholarly Excellence, 1989; Robert La Verne Eagleson Gold Medal for History, University of Western Ontario, 1976.

AUTHOR/EDITOR of 10 books:

Eriugena Unbound, in the Renovatio series, ed. Matthew Gillis (Budapest: Trivent, 2026)

Micro Middle Ages, in The New Middle Ages, ed. Bonnie Wheeler (New York: Palgrave, 2023).

Many Europes: Choice and Chance in Western Civilization, with Suzanne Marchand and Deborah Harkness (New York: McGraw Hill, 2013; 2nd ed. 2016).

Charlemagne’s Mustache and Other Cultural Clusters of a Dark Age, in The New Middle Ages, ed. Bonnie Wheeler (New York: Palgrave, 2004).

Charlemagne’s Courtier: The Complete Einhard (Peterborough: Broadview Press, 1998).

The Poetry and Paintings of the First Bible of Charles the Bald, with Herbert L. Kessler (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1997).

The Autograph of Eriugena, with Édouard Jeauneau, in Autographa Medii Aevi, vol.3, general editor Claudio Leonardi (Turnhout: Brepols, 1996).

The Politics of Dreaming in the Carolingian Empire (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1994).

Carolingian Civilization: A Reader (Peterborough: Broadview, 1993; repr. 1996; 2nd ed. 2004 with 17 new documents & maps).

The `Glosae super Platonem’ of Bernard of Chartres, in Studies and Texts, vol. 107 (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1991).

AUTHOR of 40+ articles and reviews

SERIES EDITOR of Readings in Medieval Civilizations & Cultures (University of Toronto Press; 25 vols. published); Rethinking the Middle Ages (University of Toronto Press; 3 vols. published); Companions to Medieval Studies (University of Toronto Press; 3 vol. publ.)

INVITED LECTURES AND PLENARY ADDRESSES: USMC Toronto, 2018; Annual MARCO Symposium, University of Tennessee, 2017; The Early Medieval Europe Lecture, IMC Leeds, 2016; Medieval Association of the Pacific, 2006; Gilson Lecture, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2006; University of Illinois, 2005; Harvard, 2004, 2002; Hong Kong 2004; Utrecht, 2003; Menaggio, 2003; National University of Ireland, 2000; Notre Dame, 2000; Canadian Society of Medievalists, 2000, 2019; Institute of Historical Research, London, 1999; Taiwan National University, 1998; University of Helsinki, 1997; University of Washington, 1997; Princeton University, 1996 

ADMINISTRATIVE: Councilor, Medieval Academy of America (2008-10); President, Canadian Society of Medievalists (1997-98); Chair, History Department, SFU (1992-95); Coordinator, Humanities Program, SFU, 1985-1992

• Edited by Paul Edward Dutton