The Corpus Agrimensorum Romanorum (Corpus of Roman Land Surveyors) is a Roman book on land surveying which collects works by Siculus Flaccus, Frontinus, Agennius Urbicus, Hyginus Gromaticus and other writers, known as the Gromatici or Agrimensores ("land surveyors"). The work is preserved in various manuscripts, of which the oldest is the 6th or 7th-century Codex Arcerianus.
The Corpus consists of a number of texts with different contents, composed at different dates. The Codex Arcerianus alone contains 33 separate works, [1] most of which are the writings of the Agrimensores. These writings were clearly written as textbooks or manuals for working land surveyors. [2] The most important authors in the collection are Frontinus (1st century AD), Agennius Urbicus (5th or 6th century), Hyginus Gromaticus, Siculus Flaccus (2nd century), Balbus and Marcus Junius Nipsus (2nd century).
Another important component of the work are the Libri Coloniarum ("Books of Colonies"), lists of surveyed areas of countryside and cities in Italy between Etruria and Sicily, mostly in southern Italy. [3] Possibly, these were areas that were subject to land surveys, although they had already been occupied under the arcifinalis law (i.e. land survey and distribution at point of conquest). [4] The process is much debated among historians.
A third sub-set of works in the corpus are writings which deal with the mathematical and geometric aspects of land surveying. The most important of these are the Expositio et ratio omnium formarum (Explanation and Calculation of All Shapes) by Balbus and a mathematical work by Epaphrodites and Vitruvius Rufus [5]
Various other texts are also bundled into the Corpus, including: [6]
The Corpus is transmitted in several manuscripts. The oldest of these is the sixth- or seventh-century uncial manuscript known as the Codex Arcerianus or Codex Guelfferbytanus 36.23 Augusteus 2, now held in the Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel. [8] [9] This is one of the few surviving non-literary and non-religious illuminated manuscripts from late antiquity. Like all later manuscripts, this text contains gaps and corrupt sections; the beginning and ending of the manuscript are both missing. [10] The various scripts and formats of the manuscript show that the work is a compilation. Different manuscripts have very different contents. For example, Siculus Flaccus' text is absent from the Codex Arcerianus and manuscripts derived from it, except for a short extract appearing within another text.
The Corpus, especially its mathematical portions, were also included in the encyclopaedic works of Late Antiquity. Its influence may extend to the Palace school of Charlemagne . [11] The collection was still widely read in the Early Middle Ages. [12]
Individual texts from the Corpus began to appear in printed editions from 1491. In 1554, Adrianus Turnebus published a printed edition of the majority of the Corpus, including the important Agrimensores, under the title De Agrorum Conditionibus et Constitutionibus Limitum (On the Creation of Fields and Delimitation of their Borders). [13] Petrus Scriverius used the Codex Arcerianus as the basis of his edition in 1607. [14]
The German ancient historian, Karl Lachmann edited significant portions of the collection, especially the writings of the Agrimensores Frontinues, Agennius Urbicus, Hyginus Gromaticus and Siculus Flaccus, as well as the Libri Coloniarum in 1848. The 1913 edition of Carl Olof Thulin contains only a few works. The 2000 edition of Brian Campbell is much broader and also contains an English translation.
Minnesang was a tradition of lyric- and song-writing in Germany and Austria that flourished in the Middle High German period. This period of medieval German literature began in the 12th century and continued into the 14th. People who wrote and performed Minnesang were known as Minnesänger, and a single song was called a Minnelied.
Karl Konrad Friedrich Wilhelm Lachmann was a German philologist and critic. He is particularly noted for his foundational contributions to the field of textual criticism.
Walther von der Vogelweide was a Minnesänger who composed and performed love-songs and political songs ("Sprüche") in Middle High German. Walther has been described as the greatest German lyrical poet before Goethe; his hundred or so love-songs are widely regarded as the pinnacle of Minnesang, the medieval German love lyric, and his innovations breathed new life into the tradition of courtly love. He was also the first political poet to write in German, with a considerable body of encomium, satire, invective, and moralising.
Macrobius Ambrosius Theodosius, usually referred to as Macrobius, was a Roman provincial who lived during the early fifth century, during late antiquity, the period of time corresponding to the Later Roman Empire, and when Latin was as widespread as Greek among the elite. He is primarily known for his writings, which include the widely copied and read Commentarii in Somnium Scipionis about Somnium Scipionis, which was one of the most important sources for Neoplatonism in the Latin West during the Middle Ages; the Saturnalia, a compendium of ancient Roman religious and antiquarian lore; and De differentiis et societatibus graeci latinique verbi, which is now lost. He is the basis for the protagonist Manlius in Iain Pears' book The Dream of Scipio.
Georg Friedrich Puchta was an important German Legal scholar.
Heldenbücher is the conventional title under which a group of German manuscripts and prints of the 15th and 16th centuries has come down to us. Each Heldenbuch contains a collection of primarily epic poetry, typically including material from the Theodoric cycle, and the cycle of Hugdietrich, Wolfdietrich and Ortnit. The Heldenbuch texts are thus based on medieval German literature, but adapted to the tastes of the Renaissance.
Gromatici or agrimensores was the name for land surveyors amongst the ancient Romans. The "gromatic writers" were technical writers who codified their techniques of surveying, most of whose preserved writings are found in the Corpus Agrimensorum Romanorum.
The Vercelli Book is one of the oldest of the four Old English Poetic Codices. It is an anthology of Old English prose and verse that dates back to the late 10th century. The manuscript is housed in the Capitulary Library of Vercelli, in northern Italy.
Hyginus Gromaticus was a Latin writer on land-surveying, who flourished in the reign of Trajan. Fragments of a work on boundaries attributed to him are found in Corpus Agrimensorum Romanorum, a collection of works on land surveying compiled in Late Antiquity. The "surname" Gromaticus ("surveyor") is a false attribution.
De Munitionibus Castrorum is a work by an unknown author. Due to this work formerly being attributed to Hyginus Gromaticus, its author is often called "Pseudo-Hyginus". This work is the most detailed surviving description of a Roman military camp and dates most probably from the late 1st to early 2nd century AD.
Reinmar von Hagenau was a German Minnesänger of the late twelfth century who composed and performed love-songs in Middle High German. He was regarded by his contemporaries as the greatest Minnesänger before Walther von der Vogelweide, a view widely shared by modern scholars. Although there are uncertainties as to which songs can be reliably attributed to him, a substantial body of his work — over 60 songs — survives. His presentation of courtly love as the unrequited love of a knight for a lady is "the essence of classical Minesang".
Ernst Friedrich Karl Rudorff was a German composer and music teacher, also a founder of nature protection movement.
Aggenus Urbicus was an ancient Roman technical writer appearing in the Corpus Agrimensorum Romanorum, a collection of works on land surveying from Late Antiquity. It is uncertain when he lived, but he may have been a Christian living in the later part of the 4th century, judging by expressions he uses.
The Herzog August Library, in Wolfenbüttel, Lower Saxony, known also as Bibliotheca Augusta, is a library of international importance for its collection from the Middle Ages and early modern Europe. The library is overseen by the Lower Saxony Ministry for Science and Culture.
Papyrus 6, designated by 𝔓6 or by ε 021, is a fragmentary early copy of the New Testament in Greek and Coptic (Akhmimic). It is a papyrus manuscript of the Gospel of John that has been dated paleographically to the 4th century. The manuscript also contains text of the First Epistle of Clement, which is treated as a canonical book of the New Testament by the Coptic Church. The major part of the codex is lost.
Minuscule 56, ε 517, is a Greek minuscule manuscript of the New Testament, on paper leaves. Palaeographically it has been assigned to the 15th century. The manuscript has complex contents and some marginalia.
The Novellae Constitutiones, or Justinian's Novels, are now considered one of the four major units of Roman law initiated by Roman emperor Justinian I in the course of his long reign. The other three pieces are: the Codex Justinianus, the Digest, and the Institutes. Justinian's quaestor Tribonian was primarily responsible for compiling these last three. Together, the four parts are known as the Corpus Juris Civilis. Whereas the Code, Digest, and Institutes were designed by Justinian as coherent works, the Novels are diverse laws enacted after 534 that never were officially compiled during his reign.
Karin Anna Reich is a German historian of mathematics.
Marcus Junius Nipsus was a second-century Roman gromatic writer, who also dealt with various mathematical questions. His surviving writings are preserved in the Corpus Agrimensorum Romanorum, a compilation of Latin works on land surveying made in the 4th or 5th centuries AD.
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