John Canaparius is little more than a name. A near-contemporary source describes him as a man of noble birth and ample means who renounced the world and became a monk at the monastery of Saints Boniface and Alexius on the Aventine in Rome, a house founded in 977 that for a time seems to have kept Greek-speaking monks alongside Latin ones. Adalbert lived there as a monk for several years, so the two men knew each other well; and after March 997 Canaparius was elected abbot, ruling the community until his death on 12 October 1004. Around 999, two years after Adalbert's death, he wrote the first Life of his former brother monk. That, at least, is the view of most scholars. In 2002, Johannes Fried argued that the oldest version was composed not in Rome but in the circle of Bishop Notker of Liège, resting much of his case on a manuscript of about 1200 from Aachen, and Jürgen Hoffmann’s edition of 2005 followed him. Cristian Nicolae Gaşpar, the Life’s English translator, finds this highly improbable, and Gerard Labuda was blunter still, calling Fried’s hypotheses “pure fantasy.” The earliest datable manuscript, a Roman legendary of 1060–1070 that resurfaced only recently, points to Rome; the author’s classical tags and his constant use of Gregory the Great, Cassian and the Rule of Benedict point to a classically trained monk; his sparing use of rhymed prose fits Italy rather than Liège, where rhymed prose was all the rage; and the Life gives the Aventine monastery a prominence that reads like its own abbot's self-advertisement and would make little sense coming from Liège. We shall therefore call the author Canaparius. Since he remains a shadowy figure, however, the biography that matters most here is his subject’s.

Adalbert (c. 956–997) was born Vojtěch, a son of the Slavník family, the great rivals of the Přemyslid dukes of Bohemia, probably at their stronghold of Libice. He was sent to school at Magdeburg, where Archbishop Adalbert confirmed him and gave him his own name, and he came home in 981 with an excellent education and, by his biographers’ account, rather too much fondness for the good life. In 982, he was chosen bishop of Prague, under the canonical age and the first native of Bohemia in the see. He did not get on with his flock, who sold Christian slaves, practised polygamy, and paid little attention to the clergy, and around 989 he gave up the struggle and left for Rome, intending to go on to Jerusalem. He went instead to Monte Cassino, then, on the advice of the Greek abbot Nilus, to the Aventine, where he took monastic vows in 990 under Abbot Leo. Summoned back to Prague in 992, he founded the monastery of Břevnov, fled again in 994, and was still abroad in 995 when the Přemyslids stormed Libice and killed most of his brothers. He ended as a missionary to the pagan Prussians on the Baltic coast, where he was killed on 23 April 997. Duke Bolesław of Poland is said to have ransomed the body for its weight in gold and buried it at Gniezno; Otto III, who had known Adalbert personally, had him canonised in 999 and came to his tomb as a pilgrim in the year 1000.

The Vita prior, as the first Life is usually called to distinguish it from the second, written by Bruno of Querfurt in 1004, belongs to that moment: an emperor promoting his cult and a new archbishopric at Gniezno built on his relics. Canaparius’s own text is lost, but it survives in three redactions: an “Ottonian” version, apparently prepared for the emperor and generous with praise for him; a second Roman version, made after Otto’s death in 1002; and a version produced at Monte Cassino, which carefully toned down everything in the original that showed the abbey in a poor light. Our passage is exactly the kind of thing that version had to work on. The author writes an ornate, self-consciously literary Latin in what Walter Berschin calls the Ottonian Schmuckstil, the decorative style, and his text, in Gaşpar’s phrase, is “literally swarming” with borrowings: the Bible, the Rule of Saint Benedicti, and Gregory the Great on one side, and on the other the poets, Virgil, Ovid, Lucan, and above all Statius. He also has a fine eye for the moment when a saint loses his temper.

Our passage is one of those moments. Adalbert has given up his bishopric, spent on the poor the gold Empress Theophano gave him for a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, bought a donkey to carry his baggage, and set off. On the way he stopped at Monte Cassino, where Abbot Manso talked him out of wandering, and he decided to stay. The monks are delighted, and then they name their price: he may stay, as long as he goes on consecrating their churches, which is to say, as long as he remains a bishop in every respect except the one he cares about. His reply is the best line in the Vita. He walks out and goes to Nilus, the celebrated Calabrian ascetic who was then living with his Greek community at Valleluce, on land belonging to Monte Cassino, and Nilus, with great tact and a clear view of monastic politics, explains why he cannot take him in and sends him back to Rome with a letter of recommendation. The passage ends at the door of the Aventine monastery, with an abbot who has decided to find out what this visitor is really made of.

The standard critical edition, which prints all three redactions, is Jadwiga Karwasińska, S. Adalberti Pragensis episcopi et martyris vita prior, Monumenta Poloniae Historica, series nova IV/1 (Warsaw, 1962). The best way into the text is Saints of the Christianization Age of Central Europe (Tenth–Eleventh Centuries), ed. Gábor Klaniczay, Central European Medieval Texts 6 (Budapest: CEU Press, 2013), where Gaşpar’s Latin text and English translation come with a commentary that tracks the author’s classical and patristic borrowings line by line, and whose preface sets out the authorship debate. The volume also contains Bruno’s Life of Adalbert. For the dissenting view, see Johannes Fried, “Gnesen – Aachen – Rom. Otto III. und der Kult des hl. Adalbert,” in Polen und Deutschland vor 1000 Jahren, ed. Michael Borgolte (Berlin, 2002), 235–272, and Jürgen Hoffmann, Vita Adalberti. Früheste Textüberlieferungen der Lebensgeschichte Adalberts von Prag (Essen, 2005).

This text is suited to upper intermediate readers of Latin (B2 level). The narrative is straightforward and the two speeches are lively, so our analysis will not include identifying constructions that this level's learners should be familiar with. What makes the passage demanding is its texture: the author writes the Latin of a well-read tenth-century monk, so a sentence of plain narrative will suddenly turn into a line of Virgil, a verse of the Psalms or a clause of the Rule of Saint Benedict. Three practical notes. The text prints j for consonantal i (jam, cujus) and oe for ae in words like coelestibus. The author slips in and out of the historic present (frustratur, transverberat, aggreditur, explorat), sometimes within a sentence, so do not look for a change of time where there is none. And watch the forms of address: domnus is the shortened form reserved for human lords, abbots and bishops, while the full Dominus belongs to God, and both appear in the same sentence.

TEXT

John Canaparius, Vita sancti Adalberti, cc. 15–16

Haec eo cogitante, frustratur eum Deus, volens, dilecti hominis desideria aliquantulum dilatare, ut quanto nunc amara primum et labore parta tanto post dulciora fuissent. Nam cum ibi monastica lege vivere vellet, cumque a minimo usque ad maximum omnes hoc libentissime vellent, repente attonitas terribile verbum transverberat aures: “Et bonum est,” inquiunt, “ut stes nobiscum. Hic monachicum induas habitum; hic Deo placiturum vivere ducas; nostras quoque ecclesias novo opere constructas, cum sis episcopus, sacrare potes.”

Quo audito, ille heros jam dudum intra se turbatus, haec ira dictante reddidit: “Utrum me hominem vel asinum putatis, ut cum amota filiorum cura episcopus esse desisterem, nunc sub nomine episcopi vestras domus consecrarem?” Nec mora, ivit deorsum per montis convexa, et quasi duorum dierum itinere acto, ad magnum virum Nilum perrexit, cujus nobile meritum in monastico ordine velut novus lucifer in aetherio axe refulget; sub quo etiam duce ac divinae artis magistro discipulorum plurima manus Deo militarunt.

Hi vero omnes propriis manibus victum quaerentes, secundum regulam sancti patris nostri Basilii coelestibus vestigiis innituntur. Hac fama ductus, aggreditur sanctum senem, et provolutis genibus diu profudit lacrimas, quaerens ab illo responsa et amica solacia. Quem intuitus domnus abbas Nilus, cujus meriti in conspectu Domini viveret, jam in primo sermone cognovit; qui et usque hodie ita amore Christi ferventem non meminit se vidisse aliquem juvenem.

“Et recepissem te,” inquit, “dulcis nate, nisi haec susceptio mihi meisque nocitura, tibi tamen minime esset profutura. Etenim ut iste habitus et barbae pili testantur, non indigena sed homo Graecus sum. Terra autem quantulacumque est, quam ego et mei mecum incolunt, illorum, quos tu bene fugis, propria est. Si, quod Deo volente nimis vellem, una nobiscum cohabitaveris, tollunt illi quae sua sunt; ego cum caris filiis expellor totus, tu de incerta re plus incertus eris.

Quin immo accipe patris consilium, et unde digressus es, repete urbem Romam. Quo cum angelo bono te ducente perveneris, domnum abbatem Leonem nobis amicissimum ex nostra omniumque persona salutes, atque epistolam nostram feras in haec verba: aut te apud se, quod plus volo, retineat, aut si ei difficile apparet, ad abbatem sancti Sabae mea vice commendet.”

Hac spe confirmatus, regreditur ad sacratam arcem, urbium dominam et caput mundi Romam. Inde, cui monasterio abbas Leo praefuisset, diligenter inquirens, ad sanctorum limina Bonifacii et Alexii monstrante populo perductus est. Postquam ingressus est et cum abbate datur copia fandi, obtulit salutationem et litteras quas miserat abba Nilus. Quibus perlectis, ut ex longo usu spiritum probare doctus erat, priusquam recepisset illum, arguta arte cuncta explorat.

ANALYSIS

Haec eo cogitante, frustratur eum Deus, volens, dilecti hominis desideria aliquantulum dilatare, ut quanto nunc amara primum et labore parta tanto post dulciora fuissent.

Notes:

1) Haec eo cogitante – “while he was turning this over in his mind.” An ablative absolute with a bare pronoun, referring to the previous section. There the abbot of Monte Cassino has lectured Adalbert on the dangers of roaming from place to place, and our providus heros has accepted the advice as heaven-sent and decided to end his wanderings there. Haec is that decision.

2) frustratur eum Deus – “God thwarted him.”

3) dilecti hominis desideria aliquantulum dilatare – “to put off the desires of the man he loved for a little while.” Dilatarehere has its late Latin sense of postponing, and it chimes with desideria and dilecti around it. Aliquantulum is quite an understatement, as the delay will run to several years and two more departures from Prague.

4) quanto nunc amara primum et labore parta tanto post dulciora fuissent – “so that the more bitter they were now at first, and won by toil, the sweeter they would be afterwards.” Correlative quanto… tanto, with fuissent instead of the classical essent. The bitter-and-sweet antithesis is a favourite of this author: in chapter 5, the boy Adalbert has to drink the bitter things of the world so that, as a man, he can drink God’s sweet ones more eagerly.

Nam cum ibi monastica lege vivere vellet, cumque a minimo usque ad maximum omnes hoc libentissime vellent, repente attonitas terribile verbum transverberat aures:

Notes:

1) monastica lege vivere – “to live under the monastic law.” Lex stands in for regula, and at Monte Cassino the law in question needs no name: this is Benedict’s own house.

2) vellet… vellent – he wanted it, and they all wanted it, libentissime. The repeated verb builds a moment of perfect agreement purely so that it can be broken in the next clause.

3) a minimo usque ad maximum – “from the least to the greatest.” A biblical formula for an entire community (Acts 8:10, cf. Jeremiah 6:13), from the youngest novice to the abbot.

4) attonitas terribile verbum transverberat aures – “a terrible word pierced his astonished ears.” The word order is poetic: attonitas opens and aures closes the phrase, as if the ears enclosed the word that strikes them. Transverberare is to run through, the verb for a spear passing through a body, and attonitas is proleptic, since the ears are stunned by a blow that has not yet been described. The phrasing is pure epic: Statius and Lucan have sounds striking the ears, and in the tenth-century Waltharius a rumour pavidi regis transverberat aures, “pierces the ears of the frightened king.”

5) terribile verbum – the mock-epic buildup is a joke. What follows is a warm and rather flattering invitation; the terror is entirely Adalbert’s.

“Et bonum est,” inquiunt, “ut stes nobiscum. Hic monachicum induas habitum; hic Deo placiturum vivere ducas; nostras quoque ecclesias novo opere constructas, cum sis episcopus, sacrare potes.”

Notes:

1) Et bonum est… ut stes nobiscum – “and it is good that you should stay with us.” The opening may well recall Peter at the Transfiguration, bonum est nos hic esse (Matthew 17:4). Stare is the monk’s verb of staying in one place: the Rule of Saint Benedict makes the newcomer promise stabilitas loci.

2) Hic… hic – anaphora with two jussive subjunctives, induas and ducas. The monks are courteous and a little breathless, laying out a whole future for him in two short clauses.

3) Deo placiturum vivere ducas – “you may lead a life that will please God.” Vivere is a substantival infinitive, used as a noun with placiturum agreeing with it, on the model of vitam ducere, in this elegant phrase. In the rest of their speech, its true purpose is revealed.

4) nostras quoque ecclesias novo opere constructas – “our churches too, newly built.” Monte Cassino had been sacked by the Saracens in 883 and was being rebuilt in the later tenth century, so there was a real backlog of churches awaiting consecration, and consecration needs a bishop. The speech was later copied almost word for word into the Monte Cassino chronicle of Leo Marsicanus, with one revealing addition: the monks also wanted him to ordain their clerics.

5) cum sis episcopus, sacrare potes – “since you are a bishop, you can consecrate them.” The sting arrives in the last clause. Causal cum, and then a plain indicative, potes: it is not a request but a statement of fact, which is exactly what Adalbert objects to.

Quo audito, ille heros jam dudum intra se turbatus, haec ira dictante reddidit: “Utrum me hominem vel asinum putatis, ut cum amota filiorum cura episcopus esse desisterem, nunc sub nomine episcopi vestras domus consecrarem?”

Notes:

1) ille heros – “that hero.” An epic word, used by Statius of Achilles among others, and the author has already called Adalbert providus heros in the previous chapter. In this one, the hero loses his temper.

2) jam dudum intra se turbatus – “who had for some time been troubled inwardly.” Jam dudum with the participle suggests the pressure has been building since the word first pierced his ears. The manuscripts disagree here: the Italian branch has Adalbert reply velut qui hiulco fulmine ictus certa loqui nescit, “like a man struck by gaping lightning who cannot speak plainly,” a rare phrase borrowed from Statius, and Gaşpar thinks this more extravagant reading probably goes back to Canaparius himself.

3) ira dictante – “with anger dictating.” Lifted from Lucan, atque haec ira dictante profatur (Pharsalia 5.316). Dictare is what one does to a secretary, so anger is cast as the author of the reply and Adalbert as its scribe. The hagiographer does not pretend his saint was calm.

4) Utrum me hominem vel asinum putatis – “do you take me for a man or a donkey?” Medieval Latin uses utrum… vel for classical utrum… an. The donkey does not fall from the sky: one chapter earlier, Adalbert bought asinum pro portandis oneribus, a donkey to carry his loads, and has led it up the mountain. A donkey carries other people’s burdens without being consulted, which is precisely the role he is being offered. The line was too much for later copyists. Karwasińska found what may be the original wording only in manuscripts preserved in Austria, others softened it, and the Monte Cassino redaction has Adalbert reply, as if troubled, with a bland “Brother, I cannot possibly do what you suggest.”

5) ut cum amota filiorum cura episcopus esse desisterem, nunc sub nomine episcopi… consecrarem – “that, having stopped being a bishop when the care of my children was removed, I should now consecrate your buildings under the name of bishop?” The filii are his flock at Prague. The argument is a sharp one: the care of souls is the substance of the office, the ceremonies are its outward show, and he will not keep the nomen when he has given up the thing.

Nec mora, ivit deorsum per montis convexa, et quasi duorum dierum itinere acto, ad magnum virum Nilum perrexit,

Notes:

1) Nec mora – “without delay.” The epic poets’ transition (Virgil and Ovid use it constantly), and the anger turns at once into movement.

2) ivit deorsum per montis convexa – “he went down over the slopes of the mountain.” Deorsum is a plain, even colloquial adverb; convexa, used as a noun, is a poet’s word for vaults and curving slopes. The two registers meet in one clause, and Monte Cassino, on its hill, really does have to be walked down from.

3) quasi duorum dierum itinere acto – “after a journey of about two days.” Ablative absolute, with quasi in its sense of “roughly.” Valleluce in fact lay only a few miles from the abbey, so the two days are generous; an author writing in Rome, or north of the Alps, need not have known the valley well.

4) ad magnum virum Nilum perrexit – “he made his way to the great man Nilus.” Pergere is purposeful going. Nilus of Rossano (c. 910–1004) was the most famous Greek ascetic in Italy: driven north from Calabria by Arab raids, he had been welcomed at Monte Cassino and given Valleluce, where he and his monks lived at the monastery of St Michael for some fifteen years (981–996). He would end his life founding Grottaferrata near Rome.

cujus nobile meritum in monastico ordine velut novus lucifer in aetherio axe refulget; sub quo etiam duce ac divinae artis magistro discipulorum plurima manus Deo militarunt.

Notes:

1) refulget – note the present tense. Nilus was alive when this was written, and the simile describes a reputation still shining.

2) velut novus lucifer in aetherio axe – “like a new morning star in the vault of heaven.” Lucifer is the planet Venus at dawn, a title given to saints long before it became the devil’s name, and the phrasing comes from Ovid (Tristia 1.2.45, Fasti 3.367). Novus refers to a new star in an old sky, a living ascetic of the kind people thought belonged to the desert fathers.

3) divinae artis magistro – “master of the divine art.” The monastic life as an ars goes back to Gregory the Great, for whom the government of souls was ars artium, the art of arts. The word most likely comes from the Regula Magistri, the anonymous early sixth-century Italian rule that Benedict drew on heavily for his opening chapters. Each of its chapters is set up as a question from the disciples, answered by the Lord per magistrum, “through the master.”

4) sub quo etiam duce… Deo militarunt – “under whose leadership… they served as soldiers of God.” Militarunt is the syncopated perfect for militaverunt. The military metaphor comes from the Rule itself: Benedict’s cenobites are those militans sub regula vel abbate.

5) discipulorum plurima manus – “a great band of disciples.” Manus is a company of soldiers, so the metaphor continues, and the number was real: Nilus is said to have come to Valleluce with some sixty monks.

Hi vero omnes propriis manibus victum quaerentes, secundum regulam sancti patris nostri Basilii coelestibus vestigiis innituntur. Hac fama ductus, aggreditur sanctum senem, et provolutis genibus diu profudit lacrimas, quaerens ab illo responsa et amica solacia.

Notes:

1) propriis manibus victum quaerentes – “earning their living with their own hands.” The ideal goes back to Paul (1 Corinthians 4:12), and Benedict says monks are truly monks si labore manuum suarum vivunt (Rule 48). After manus as “band” we now have manibus as “hands,” and the unspoken contrast is with the wealthy landowning abbey up the hill.

2) secundum regulam sancti patris nostri Basilii – “according to the rule of our holy father Basil.” Basil of Caesarea’s ascetic writings were the norm for Greek monks.

3) coelestibus vestigiis innituntur – “they tread firmly in heavenly footsteps.” Vestigia are footprints to be followed, as in 1 Peter 2:21, ut sequamini vestigia eius; inniti is to put one’s weight on something.

4) aggreditur sanctum senem – “he approached the holy old man.” Aggredi can also mean to attack.

5) provolutis genibus diu profudit lacrimas – “falling to his knees, he wept for a long time.” Tears were a recognised monastic virtue, not a lapse, and diu is approving. He has come for responsa: the counsel an elder gives a disciple, the “word” that the desert fathers were asked for.

Quem intuitus domnus abbas Nilus, cujus meriti in conspectu Domini viveret, jam in primo sermone cognovit; qui et usque hodie ita amore Christi ferventem non meminit se vidisse aliquem juvenem.

Notes:

1) Quem intuitus – “looking at him closely”; intueri is a long, searching look.

2) domnus… Domini – the two forms of the word in a single sentence: domnus for the abbot, Dominus for God. The distinction was carefully kept, and here it is almost a lesson in itself.

3) cujus meriti in conspectu Domini viveret – “of what merit he lived in the sight of the Lord.” An indirect question built on a genitive of quality; in conspectu Domini is the language of the Psalms.

4) jam in primo sermone cognovit – “he recognised at the very first conversation.” The discernment of spirits was the gift expected of a great elder, and Nilus needs only one exchange.

5) qui et usque hodie… non meminit se vidisse aliquem juvenem – “who to this day does not remember seeing any young man so on fire with the love of Christ.” The present meminit again places Nilus among the living. If the remark is more than a rhetorical flourish, the author must have been in touch with Nilus, in person or by letter; the Greek Life of Nilus, written by a disciple soon after his death, says nothing of any meeting with Adalbert.

“Et recepissem te,” inquit, “dulcis nate, nisi haec susceptio mihi meisque nocitura, tibi tamen minime esset profutura. Etenim ut iste habitus et barbae pili testantur, non indigena sed homo Graecus sum.

Notes:

1) Et recepissem te… nisi… esset – “and I would have taken you in, if this reception were not going to…” A past unreal condition, with the protasis built on two future participles, nocitura and profutura, so the harm is presented as already certain.

2) dulcis nate – “my dear son.” Natus for filius is a poetic word, the one Venus uses to Aeneas, and it softens the refusal before it is made. It also sets up the patris consilium a few lines on.

3) mihi meisque nocitura, tibi tamen minime… profutura – “harmful to me and mine, and yet of no use to you.” A neat antithesis, with matching participles and matching endings. Nilus is careful to make the refusal about Adalbert’s good as well as his own.

4) iste habitus et barbae pili – “this habit of mine and the hairs of my beard.” Greek monks were bearded and Latin monks shaven, so the beard was the first thing anyone noticed.

5) non indigena sed homo Graecus sum – “I am not a native but a Greek.” Nilus was a Calabrian, and in Latin Campania he was a guest. The point is political rather than ethnic: a foreigner living on borrowed land cannot afford to offend his hosts.

Terra autem quantulacumque est, quam ego et mei mecum incolunt, illorum, quos tu bene fugis, propria est. Si, quod Deo volente nimis vellem, una nobiscum cohabitaveris, tollunt illi quae sua sunt; ego cum caris filiis expellor totus, tu de incerta re plus incertus eris.

Notes:

1) quantulacumque est – “small as it is.” The diminutive is the tenant’s modesty.

2) illorum, quos tu bene fugis, propria est – “belongs to those whom you are right to flee.” The landlords are the monks of Monte Cassino, who had granted Valleluce to Nilus, and relations were tense: their abbot, Manso, was an aristocrat known for his less than ascetic habits. Bene fugis is the only criticism Nilus allows himself, tucked into a relative clause, and even that was too much for Monte Cassino. The abbey’s own redaction of the Life turned it into its exact opposite, non bene fugis, “whom you are wrong to flee.”

2) quod Deo volente nimis vellem – “which, God willing, I should like very much.” Nimis in medieval Latin often means simply “very,” not “too much.”

3) cohabitaveris… tollunt… expellor – a future perfect in the condition, then two present tenses for the consequences. The vivid present makes the eviction as good as done: if you stay, they take back their land, and I am out.

4) ego cum caris filiis expellor totus, tu de incerta re plus incertus eris – “I am thrown out completely with my dear sons, and you will be more uncertain about an uncertain matter.” Polyptoton in incerta… incertus. The uncertain matter is Adalbert’s vocation, which is exactly what he came to have settled.

Quin immo accipe patris consilium, et unde digressus es, repete urbem Romam. Quo cum angelo bono te ducente perveneris, domnum abbatem Leonem nobis amicissimum ex nostra omniumque persona salutes, atque epistolam nostram feras in haec verba: aut te apud se, quod plus volo, retineat, aut si ei difficile apparet, ad abbatem sancti Sabae mea vice commendet.”

Notes:

1) Quin immo accipe patris consilium – “no, rather, take a father’s advice.” This is the opening of the Rule of Saint Benedict: admonitionem pii patris libenter excipe.

2) unde digressus es, repete urbem Romam – “go back to Rome, where you set out from.” The relative clause comes first and the destination last. Repetere is to make for a place again, and the whole passage is about going backwards.

3) angelo bono te ducente – “with a good angel guiding you.” An echo of the Book of Tobit, where young Tobias is promised that a good angel of God will go with him. Tobias too travels to a stranger carrying a document of introduction, and the angel beside him is Raphael.

4) ex nostra omniumque persona salutes – “greet him in my name and in the name of all of us.” Ex persona is the formula for acting on someone else’s behalf, at home in letters and in law. Salutes and feras are jussive subjunctives after the imperatives.

5) in haec verba: aut… retineat, aut… commendet – “to this effect: that he either keep you… or recommend you.” In haec verba introduces the gist of a document. Nilus has a fallback ready: the abbot of Saint Sabas, the oldest and most important Greek monastery in Rome. Note the ranking, though. The great Greek house is offered as second best, and Nilus’s own preference falls on the Aventine monastery, which happens to be the author’s; Canaparius doesn’t miss a chance to recommend his own community. Quod plus volo and mea vice, “on my behalf,” keep the letter personal.

Hac spe confirmatus, regreditur ad sacratam arcem, urbium dominam et caput mundi Romam. Inde, cui monasterio abbas Leo praefuisset, diligenter inquirens, ad sanctorum limina Bonifacii et Alexii monstrante populo perductus est.

Notes:

1) regreditur – “he went back.” Historic present, and another re- compound after repete: he left Rome to find holiness and is sent back there to look for it.

2) sacratam arcem, urbium dominam et caput mundi – “the sacred citadel, mistress of cities and head of the world.” Three titles in a row before the name, and every one a commonplace: Rome has been caput mundi at least since Lucan (Pharsalia 2.655). The ceremony of the phrase is the author greeting his own city.

3) cui monasterio abbas Leo praefuisset – “which monastery Abbot Leo headed.” An indirect question with praeesse and the dative. Leo, abbot of the house since 981, was a figure of real standing in Otto III’s circle: he would become abbot of Nonantola in 997 and archbishop of Ravenna in 999.

4) ad sanctorum limina Bonifacii et Alexii – “to the threshold of Saints Boniface and Alexius.” Limina is the standard word for the shrine of a saint, as in ad limina apostolorum. Alexius is a well-chosen patron: the legendary “man of God” who lived for years unrecognised under the stairs of his father's house in Rome, the ideal of a bishop who wanted to disappear.

5) monstrante populo – “with the people pointing the way.” The famous bishop has to ask directions like any pilgrim.

Postquam ingressus est et cum abbate datur copia fandi, obtulit salutationem et litteras quas miserat abba Nilus. Quibus perlectis, ut ex longo usu spiritum probare doctus erat, priusquam recepisset illum, arguta arte cuncta explorat.

Notes:

1) Postquam ingressus est et cum abbate datur copia fandi – “after he had entered and been given the chance to speak with the abbot.” This is Virgil, postquam introgressi et coram data copia fandi (Aeneid 1.520), where the shipwrecked Trojans are admitted to Dido. The odd mix of perfect and present comes with the quotation, and the joke is that Adalbert arrives at the Aventine like a Trojan refugee asking a queen for shelter.

2) abba Nilus – abba, the Aramaic “father” of the desert monks, beside abbas for Leo in the same sentence. Whether by design or by habit, the older form suits the Greek elder.

3) Quibus perlectis – “when he had read it through.” Connecting relative and ablative absolute; the per- means he read the letter carefully, to the end.

4) ut ex longo usu spiritum probare doctus erat – “as long experience had taught him to test the spirit.” From 1 John 4:1, probate spiritus si ex Deo sunt, and the Rule of Saint Benedict quotes the same verse in its chapter on receiving newcomers, who are not to be let in easily. Leo is doing exactly what the Rule tells him.

5) priusquam recepisset illum, arguta arte cuncta explorat – “before receiving him, he examined everything with shrewd skill.” Priusquam with the pluperfect subjunctive, and argutus, sharp, clever, even a little sly. The chapter ends on a cliffhanger: after the monks of Monte Cassino wanted Adalbert too much, here is an abbot determined not to want him too quickly.

If you have ever been offered the job you wanted, where you would be doing the work you had just resigned from, Adalbert drafted your reply in 989. It was not very diplomatic, so use his wording sparingly. 🫏

Source:

John Canaparius (attributed). Vita sancti Adalberti episcopi Pragensis, cc. 15–16. In: Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores 4, ed. Georg Heinrich Pertz. Hannover, 1841, 581–595.