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Saint Tatwine
Archbishop of Canterbury
Riddles of Tatwine, London, British Library, Royal MA 12 c xxiii folio 121v, showing Tatwine's riddles on philosophy and on faith, hope, and charity following on from the riddles of Eusebius
Appointed	731
Term ended	30 July 734
Predecessor	Berhtwald
Successor	Nothhelm
Other post(s)	Abbot of Breedon-on-the-Hill
Orders
Consecration	10 June 731
Personal details
Born	c. 670
Died	30 July 734
Sainthood
Feast day	30 July
Venerated in	Catholic Church Eastern Orthodox Church
Canonized	Pre-Congregation

Tatwine (c. 670 – 30 July 734) was the tenth Archbishop of Canterbury from 731 to 734. Prior to becoming archbishop, he was a monk and abbot of a Benedictine monastery. Besides his ecclesiastical career, Tatwine was a writer, and riddles he composed survive. Another work he composed was on the grammar of the Latin language, which was aimed at advanced students of that language. He was subsequently considered a saint.

Biography

Tatwine was a Mercian by birth. His epigraph at Canterbury stated that when he died he was in old age, so perhaps he was born around 670. He became a monk at the monastery at Breedon-on-the-Hill in the present-day County of Leicestershire, and then abbot of that house. Through the influence of King Æthelbald he was appointed as Archbishop of Canterbury in 731 and was consecrated on 10 June 731. He was one of a number of Mercians who were appointed to Canterbury during the 730s and 740s. Apart from his consecration of the Bishops of Lindsey and Selsey in 733, Tatwine's period as archbishop appears to have been uneventful. He died in office on 30 July 734. Later considered a saint, his feast day is 30 July.

Writings

Bede's commentary on Tatwine calls him a "vir religione et Prudentia insignis, sacris quoque literis nobiliter instructus" (a man notable for his prudence, devotion and learning). These qualities were displayed in the two surviving manuscripts of his riddles and four of his Ars Gramattica Tatuini.

Ars Gramattica Tatuini

The Ars is one of only two surviving eighth-century Latin grammars from England. The grammar is a reworking of Donatus's Ars Minor with the addition of information drawn from other grammarians, such as Priscian and Consentius. It was not designed for a newcomer to the Latin language, but rather for more advanced students. It covers the eight parts of speech through illustrations drawn from classical scholars, although not directly but through other grammatical works. There are also some examples drawn from the Psalms. The work was completed before Tatwine became archbishop, and was used not only in England but also on the Continent.

Riddles

It is almost certain that Tatwine was inspired to develop the culture of riddle-writing in early medieval England because he had read the Epistola ad Acircium by the West-Saxon scholar Aldhelm (d. 709), which combined studies of Latin grammar and metre with the presentation of one hundred hexametrical riddles. Frederick Tupper believed that Aldhelm's influence was minimal, but subsequent scholars have argued that Tatwine's riddles owed a substantial debt to those of Aldhelm.

Tatwine's riddles deal with such diverse topics as philosophy and charity, the five senses and the alphabet, and a book, and a pen, yet, according to Mercedes Salvador-Bello, these riddles are placed in a carefully structured sequence: 1–3 and 21–26 on theology (e.g. 2, faith, hope, and charity), 4–14 on objects associated with ecclesiastical life (e.g. 7, a bell), 15–20 on wonders and monsters (e.g. 16, prepositions with two cases), 27–39 on tools and related natural phenomena (e.g. 28, an anvil, and 33, fire), with a final piece on the sun's rays.

Tatwine's riddles survive in two manuscripts: the early 11th-century London, British Library, Royal 12.Cxxiii (fols. 121v–7r) and the mid-11th-century Cambridge, University Library, Gg.5.35 (fols. 374v–77v). In both manuscripts, they are written alongside the riddles of Eusebius: it seems clear that Eusebius (whose identity is uncertain) added sixty riddles to Tatwine's forty to take the collection up to one hundred.

Tatwine gives a sign in one of the riddles of the growing acceptance among scholars in the Christian west of the legitimacy of philosophy: "De philosophia: est felix mea qui poterit cognoscere iura" (Of Philosophy: happy is he who can know my laws). The riddles are formed in acrostics.

Example

An example of Tatwine's work is enigma 11, on the needle:

List

Tatwine's riddles are on the following topics.

Editions and translations

• 'Aenigmata Tatvini', ed. by Fr. Glorie, trans. by Erika von Erhardt-Seebold, in Tatuini omnia opera, Variae collectiones aenigmatum merovingicae aetatis, Anonymus de dubiis nominibus, Corpus christianorum: series latina, 133–133a, 2 vols (Turnholt: Brepols, 1968), I 165–208.

Notes

1. Sometimes Tatwin, Tatuini, or Tadwinus

Citations

1. ^ Farmer Oxford Dictionary of Saints pp. 492–493
2. Hutchison-Hall Orthodox Saints of the British Isles p. 81
3. ^ Brooks Early History of the Church of Canterbury p. 80
4. ^ Lapidge "Tatwine" Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
5. Yorke Kings and Kingdoms p. 31
6. Stenton Anglo-Saxon England p. 183
7. ^ Fryde, et al. Handbook of British Chronology p. 213
8. Kirby Earliest English Kings p. 113
9. Williams Kingship and Government p. 24
10. Walsh New Dictionary of Saints p. 571
11. ^ Law "Transmission" Revue d'Histoire des Textes p. 281
12. Brooks Early History of the Church of Canterbury pp. 98–99
13. Blair World of Bede pp. 246–247
14. Salvador-Bello. Isidorean Perceptions of Order. p. 222.
15. Tupper, Frederick (1910). The Riddles of the Exeter Book. Boston: Ginn. pp. xxxiv.
16. Lapidge, Michael; Rosier, James (2009). Aldhelm: The Poetic Works. Woodbridge: D.S. Brewer. p. 66. ISBN 9781843841982.
17. Orchard, Andy (1994). The Poetic Art of Aldhelm. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 242. ISBN 9780521034579.
18. Salvador-Bello. Isidorean Perceptions of Order. pp. 222–224.
19. Mercedes Salvador-Bello, 'Patterns of Compilation in Anglo-Latin Enigmata and the Evidence of A Source-Collection in Riddles 1–40 of the Exeter Book, Viator, 43 (2012), 339–374 (pp. 346–49, 373). 10.1484/J.VIATOR.1.102554.
20. Salvador-Bello, Mercedes (2014). Isidorean Perceptions of Order: The Exeter Book Riddles and Medieval Latin Enigmata. Morgantown: West Virginia University Press. p. 221. ISBN 9781935978527.
21. Williams, Mary Jane McDonald (1974). The Riddles of Tatwine and Eusebius. University of Michigan: Unpublished PhD thesis. pp. 44–57.
22. Rory Naismith, Antiquity, Authority, and Religion in the Epitomae and Epistolae of Virgilius Maro Grammaticus' Peritia v.20 (2008) 59, at 66.
23. Lapidge "Tatwine" Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo-Saxon England
24. ^ 'Aenigmata Tatvini', ed. by Fr. Glorie, trans. by Erika von Erhardt-Seebold, in Tatuini omnia opera, Variae collectiones aenigmatum merovingicae aetatis, Anonymus de dubiis nominibus, Corpus christianorum: series latina, 133-133a, 2 vols (Turnholt: Brepols, 1968), I 165–208.

References

• Blair, Peter Hunter (1990) . The World of Bede (Reprint ed.). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-39819-3.
• Brooks, Nicholas (1984). The Early History of the Church of Canterbury: Christ Church from 597 to 1066. London: Leicester University Press. ISBN 0-7185-0041-5.
• Farmer, David Hugh (2004). Oxford Dictionary of Saints (Fifth ed.). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-860949-0.
• Fryde, E. B.; Greenway, D. E.; Porter, S.; Roy, I. (1996). Handbook of British Chronology (Third revised ed.). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-56350-X.
• Kirby, D. P. (2000). The Earliest English Kings. New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-24211-8.
• Hutchison-Hall, John (2014). Orthodox Saints of the British Isles: Volume III, July–September. St. Eadfrith Press. ISBN 978-0-692-25766-1.
• Lapidge, Michael (2001). "Tatwine". In Lapidge, Michael; Blair, John; Keynes, Simon; Scragg, Donald (eds.). The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Anglo-Saxon England. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. p. 440. ISBN 978-0-631-22492-1.
• Lapidge, Michael (2004). "Tatwine (d. 734)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/26998. Retrieved 7 November 2007. (subscription or UK public library membership required)
• Law, V. (1979). "The Transmission of the Ars Bonifacii and the Ars Tatuini". Revue d'Histoire des Textes. 9 (1979): 281–288. doi:10.3406/rht.1980.1206.
• Stenton, F. M. (1971). Anglo-Saxon England (Third ed.). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-280139-5.
• Walsh, Michael J. (2007). A New Dictionary of Saints: East and West. London: Burns & Oats. ISBN 978-0-86012-438-2.
• Williams, Ann (1999). Kingship and Government in Pre-Conquest England c. 500–1066. London: MacMillan Press. ISBN 0-333-56797-8.
• Yorke, Barbara (1997). Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England. New York: Routledge. p. 31. ISBN 0-415-16639-X.

Further reading

• Law, Vivien (1977). "The Latin and Old English glosses in the Ars Tatuini". Anglo-Saxon England 6. pp. 77–89.

External links

• Tatwine 2 at Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England

• 670s births
• 734 deaths
• 8th-century archbishops
• 8th-century English writers
• 8th-century writers in Latin
• Archbishops of Canterbury
• Grammarians of Latin
• Linguists from England
• Medieval linguists
• Riddles
• Medieval Latin-language poets