42 CHARLES JOHNSON . — nI;ITIIACIS 7.U11 LATßINISCIII3N PIiILOLOGY .
IIISTORISCHE VIERTELJAIIRSCIIRIPT
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ZURLA`l'EINISCIIEN
PHILOLOGI EWith its April number for 1931 the h istorisch e Vierteljahrschriftbega n the 26th year of its existence under that . name with an important chang e of character . In future, it will contain two additional sheets, which will b e assigned the to philology and literary history of mediæval Latin . This sec-tion, under the title of Beiträge zar lateinischen Philologie, will be obtai-nable separately from the publishers of the Vierteljahrschrift (Buchdruc-kerei der Wilhelm and Bertha von Baensch Stiftung, Dresden A . 1 . , Bankstrasse 3) at an annual subscription of RM . 15 . The editors of th e section are W . Stach and H . Walther, the former of whom begins th e series with a prefatory article on the relations of Philology and Histor y which is well worth reading . Ile points to the necessity of accurate an d scientific teats of historical works, a need which is being met by th e more recent editions in M11G ., and for a history the transmission an d development of Latin literature in the Middle Ages . He quotes variou s authorities, including Bornholm, on the need for a dictionary and gram -mar of medieval Latin, and calls attention with approval to the wor k of the Union des Academies : but considers that a large portion of th e field is still open . Latin, he says, was not a living language, and th e work of each writer, in point of vocabulary and style, is determined b y his own circumstances of nationality, degree of education, and access t o classical models . Thus a full literary history, with its complement, a pa-laeographical study of the transmission of MSS ., is essential to the ful l appreciation of mediaeval literature . The three numbers which hav e already appeared contain respectively : A . Ilofrneister, Zur
Ueberliefe-rung von. Cassiodor's Varim (with a photograph of the F'ragntentunt ICopp-manianum,a portion of an unknown MS . of the 11th century) : O . Schu-mann, Bernowini episcopi C.armina (ed . Dümmler, PAC . I . 303 ff .) : an d
Hans ()Ringer Zain Latein des Ruodlieb) . This last, combating F . Seiler ' s accusation of a Germanisms s, is valuable from a grammatical standpoint , showing how alleged Germanisms can be traced back to the Vulgate, an d often evert to Plautus .