Talk:Latin translations of the 12th century

Was there a Toledo translation school?
Although there is general consensus that many translations took place in Spain, and some of them at Toledo, recent historical studies dismiss "the legend of the Toledo school of translators supposedly initiated under the patronage of Archbishop Raymond (1125-52)" (Marie Thérèse d'Alverny, "Translations and Translators," pp. 421-62 in R. L. Benson and G. Constable, Renaissance and Renewal in the Twelfth Century, Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Pr., 1982, at p. 444).

Given d'Alverny's status as an expert on medieval translations, this article needs some serious revision and documentation.

Most of the links at the bottom of the article point to material which is either irrelevant or popularized material. --SteveMcCluskey 00:35, 6 April 2007 (UTC)


 * After thinking this over, I find that Wikipedia lacks a general article on the process of translation from Arabic to Latin associated with the Twelfth-Century Renaissance. I suggest that this article be reworked into either:
 * Translations into Latin in Spain
 * Translations into Latin (12th c)
 * A section on translations in Renaissance of the 12th century
 * At the moment, I think that the middle option, a more general article on twelfth century translations, would afford enough scope for an encyclopedic article. --SteveMcCluskey 13:09, 6 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I've started revisions at User:SteveMcCluskey/Translations into Latin (12th c.). Feel free to contribute.  Once we have something good I'll use it to replace this article.  --SteveMcCluskey 15:36, 7 April 2007 (UTC).

Major revision
As discussed above, I've changed this article's title and made a major revision.

--SteveMcCluskey 00:56, 10 April 2007 (UTC) (revised 01:36, 10 April 2007 (UTC))

Title request for comments.
The recent change to "Translations into Latin" -- without any chronological limitation -- makes the article too broad. It could include everything from the translations from Greek in the fourth and fifth centuries through the translations of the Renaissance. That would be an interesting article, but it would really lack historical focus.

I suggest changing it to: or perhaps
 * "Twelfth Century translation movement" (taking Twelfth Century as broadly defined and Latin as the implicit destination language).
 * "Twelfth Century Latin translations" (taking the Twelfth Century as broadly defined).

Both of these resonate nicely with the related historical concept of the "Twelfth Century Renaissance".

I do not like the alternative of "Translations from Arabic to Latin" since it would rule out the translations from Greek to Arabic which were also part of the Twelfth Century Translation Movement.

Comments / other suggestions please. --SteveMcCluskey 12:28, 25 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I removed the "(c. 1050-c. 1350)" because it looks a bit odd for the title of a Wikipedia article. But I agree with your points. To keep in line with the Renaissance of the 12th century article, I think "Latin translations of the 12th century" for this article would also be a good title. Jagged 85 13:00, 25 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks, nicely done. --SteveMcCluskey 17:30, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

X translated the works of Y
This article is beginning to lose focus and specificity as we move from listing the specific works translated in specific historical contexts. It is much more important to say when and where (and if possible, why) a specific translator translated a specific book. Otherwise, it is in danger of becoming a mere list rather than an encyclopedia article.

We've already illustrated here that there are many works that have been translated; it doesn't seem helpful to try to list them all, or even all the translators. A good historical essay should present typical and illuminating examples rather than a catalog of undigested facts. --SteveMcCluskey 04:04, 6 June 2007 (UTC) Edited 15:15, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

James of Venice and the Logica Nova
We seem to be missing the Logica Nova, the 4 books of Aristotle's Logic translated by James of Venice in 1125-1150 that had previously been unknown/ignored in the West. These made a huge impact on the scholarly community. Jheald 23:26, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Thirteenth Century
Considering the companion article Renaissance of the 12th century actually goes well past the year 1201, I wonder if it would be good for this article to cover the continuations and developments into the 13th Century more extensively.

A couple of source articles:
 * The Philosophical Renaissance of the Thirteenth Century. 1. History and Chronology of the New Latin Translations from A History of Medieval Philosophy by Maurice De Wulf, 1909. (Old, but quite well set out).
 * Islamic philosophy: transmission into Western Europe bootlegged from the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
 * plus the tables already there in the External Links section.

It's maybe worth us remembering that types like Aquinas and Albertus Magnus were solidly C13, not C12.

It would be interesting in any case to show where the C12 translation movement went next, and how it changed. Jheald 23:15, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Over referenced
Since the discussion of Gerard of Cremona's translations has been changed in the direction of a complete listing, it has become extremely cluttered with footnotes. I suggest we make it a complete list following the texts given in Burnett and Grant, and reduce the footnotes to those two reliable sources. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 13:13, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm having second thoughts about my suggestion to provide a compete listing; the problem with that proposal is that a mere list of translations tells the reader nothing of their significance. One way to get at their significance would be to remove most of the names -- I'd suggest only including works by people who contributed more than one work to the list (which would include Aristotle, Euclid, Thabit, al-Khwarizmi, Rhazes, Isaac Israeli, Galen, and others) as well as people who contributed a work that was also commented on in one of Gerard's translations (this would include Ptolemy). For economy I recommend listing five works by Aristotle, seven by Galen, rather than cataloging the entire list of works. We would then have space to categorize the translations: astronomy, medicine, natural philosophy, etc.. Any comments? --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 15:32, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Categories
On 20 Feb 2008 the categories Orientalists and Asian Studies were added to this article. The other articles in those categories focus on people who were studying the Orient; this article does not but focuses on people who were translating Arabic texts on topics other than Oriental culture. Unless anyone objects, I'm going to remove those categories shortly. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 20:31, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

"and most significantly"
The removal of "and most significantly" from "The latter concern was reflected in a renewed interest in translations of the Greek Church Fathers into Latin, a concern with translating Jewish teachings from Hebrew, and most significantly, an interest in the Qur'an and other Islamic religious texts" seems to be entirely correct, as that claim is in no regard supported by the reference used to support it in the article (see "Apologetics", pp. 429–430 of the M.T. d'Alverny article).

All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 15:19, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Rise of Universities and Transmission of Learning
The recent edits introducing new sections on the Rise of Universities and the Transmission Of Greek and Arabic Learning, while well-written, don't seem to belong in this article. The article is concerned with the Translation movement which preceded the Rise of the Universities and did much to shape their curriculum. These new sections would fit much better in the articles on the Renaissance of the 12th century or the Medieval university. If they were to stay in this article--which I don't think is a good idea--they belong after the discussion of the translations.

Before I delete these two new sections, I would appreciate comments from other editors. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 01:34, 16 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Since no-one's commented, I've deleted the two recently added sections. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 20:47, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

Augustine not interested in philosophy, only in applying logic to theology?
The article states that "St. Augustine had little interest in exploring philosophy, only applying logic to His discussion in On Free Choice of the Will is certainly philosophical, and not primarily religious. theology." I don't have the source cited in front of me, but that strikes me as wildly inaccurate. To cite one counterexample, Augustine is widely (though not universally) regarded as having introduced libertarianism as a distinct view in the free will debate. Maybe someone can double check the Laughlin source to make sure they actually make that claim? Or we could just remove it since the article isn't mainly about Augustine and it would be easy to find assessments of his work that emphasize philosophy in his thought.2601:B:C580:2D9:CAF7:33FF:FE77:D800 (talk) 04:05, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

Who translated Euclid's Elements? Gerard of Cremona or Adelard of Bath?
Each of their wiki pages says it was them. The article on Euclid's Elements says it was Adelard of Bath. This article attributes it to Gerard under his section, then Adelard under his, then Adelard again in the list of translations at the end. Come on guys sort it out.LastDodo (talk) 11:37, 11 November 2016 (UTC)
 * A quick answer is that both of them did. A more detailed answer is that there were many medieval scholars who translated all or parts of Euclid's Elements and/or published commentaries on it.  For more details see the article by Menso Folkerts, Euclid in Medieval Europe.  --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 22:16, 11 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Perhaps you can edit the articles I referenced to make this more clear? Thanks LastDodo (talk) 11:23, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

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