From Aleph to Taw: the study of Hebrew at the sixteenth ......From Aleph to Taw: the study of Hebrew...

From Aleph to Taw: the

study of Hebrew at the

sixteenth-century Louvain

Collegium Trilingue

Maxime Maleux (QLVL)

Supervisor: prof. dr. Pierre Van Hecke

Co-supervisor: dr. Raf Van Rooy

• Hieronymus van Busleyden

• Latin, Greek, Hebrew

• Difficult start

• First time Hebrew was taught at a university institution

pioneering role for first teachers

Matthaeus Adrianus

Johannes Campensis

Nicolaus Clenardus

Isaac Levita

Faculty of Arts, QLVL2

Quid Collegium Trilingue?

• Concept copied in other learned centers

• Decline after sixteenth century


• Didactic aspect

• Central question: “How exactly was Hebrew taught?”

• Intended curriculum

• Link to other centers of Hebrew learning?


Objectives

• Course notes

• Annotations

• Grammars

• Psalters

• Orations


Methodology & sources

• I. Introduction: Logical nature of Hebrew, division of letters in literae

essentiales and literae serviles

• II. Caput primum: function of literae serviles

• III. Caput secundum: literae heemanticae

• IV. Caput tertium: literae consignificativae

• V. Caput quartum: affixa

תׁשנמלכיוהבא


Course notes: grammatical part

• Mnemonic word ‘heëmanti’ (‘I believed’) יתנמאה

• To form nouns out of verbal stems

• Frequent use of examples

• Frequency of certain derivations is made explicit


Litterae heemanticae

• Mnemonic word ‘moshe wekaleb’ (‘Moses and Caleb’) בלכוהׁשמ

• = particles attached to a word to express syntactic functions

• Verses from Genesis (& 1x Exodus + Song of Songs) as illustration of use


Litterae consignificativae

• Mnemonic word ‘haknuïm’ (‘pronouns’) םיונכה

• Order of presentation is of the personal pronouns

• Listing of ‘cases’ (obliqui)

• Appendix on agreement and the attaching of affixes to verbal forms


Affixa

• Existing terminology but new presentation: normally affixes are treated

separately and distinction is made between litterae serviles and litterae

superadditae

• Many resemblances with Levita (1552 & 1557), but probably also influences of

Campensis, Clenardus & Munster/Levita

• Remarkable: contradicting Levita (1557) on the functions of the heëmantic :ה

“[…] Grammatici fere omnes qui hac nostra aetate etiam in vniversitatibus celeberrimis,

scribunt, hac in re, maxime aberasse mihi visi sunt. Scribunt enim Iה in ממלכה ,נחמה, […] &

similibus, quae omnia accentum habent in vltima, esse heemanticum.”


• Book of Psalms: widely used didactic text

• Word for word, grammatical explanations with emphasis on the litterae serviles

(cf. part I)

• Grammatical features like verbal stems and constructed state are not made

explicit

no course for beginners?

• Pages cited from grammar J.I. Levita (1557), references to Targum and Rashi

• Hebrew was probably dictated (orthographic errors + wrong vowel points), but

also partly copied from Hebrew bible (accents)


Course notes: Psalm analysis

• Often very brief determination

• Focus on vowel points (although there are many errors and ommissions)


• Transcription and translation college notes: done

• Heuristics: largely finished, but still work to be done

• More thorough analysis in relation to 16th-century Hebrew grammaticography

• Digitization

• Workshop

• Presentation of preliminary results


Expectations

• De Vocht, Henry (1951-55). History of the Foundation and the Rise of the Collegium Trilingue Lovaniense 1517-1550. 4 vols. Louvain: Publications Universitaires.

• Kessler-Mesguich, Sophie. 2013. Les Etudes hébraïques en France de François Tissard à Richard Simon (1508-1680). Genève: Droz.

• Kukenheim, Louis. 1951. Contributions à l’histoire de la grammaire grecque, latine et hébraïque à l’époque de la renaissance. Leiden: Brill.

• Papy, Jan (ed.). 2017. Erasmus’ droom: Het Leuvense Collegium Trilingue 1517–2017. Catalogus bij de tentoonstelling in de Leuvense Universiteitsbibliotheek, 18 oktober 2017 –18 januari 2018. Leuven: Peeters.

• Van Hecke, Pierre (2018). Omnium linguarum purissima: The study of Hebrew at the Collegium Trilingue, in Papy J. (ed.), The Leuven Collegium Trilingue 1517-1797. Erasmus, Humanist Educational Practice and the New Language Institute Latin-Greek-Hebrew. Louvain: Peeters: 155-182.


Bibliography

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From Aleph to Taw: the study of Hebrew at the sixteenth ......From Aleph to Taw: the study of Hebrew...

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