Israel the Grammarian

A mistranslation of the word "Israel" in a record from the court of King Æthelstan made it sound that there was a Jew working in the court, but evidence shows that the man's name was actually Israel, and he was one of the foremost scholars of the 10th century.

Living from approximately 895 - 965 CE, Israel benefitted from the Carolingian Renascence (to distinguish it from the historical Renaissance), when Charlemagne in the 8th century sponsored scholars and promoted education. Although the Carolingian Empire collapsed in the late ninth century, King Alfred the Great invited scholars from the continent, a trend that was continued by his grandson, Æthelstan. (It is possible that Israel knew the recently discussed Æthelwold and Dunstan.)

Israel was one of those continental scholars. We know little of his early life, except that he was at Rome for a while as a student of "Ambrose" (whoever that was). He probably had a Celtic origin, because it was a 10th-century habit to give Celtic children Old Testament names.

Israel produced the Gospel book that contains the explanation (and diagram) of the board game Alea Evangelii, the "Game of The Gospels." A note in the manuscript claims:

Here begins the Gospel Dice [or Game] which Dub Innse, bishop of Bangor, brought from the English king, that is from the household of Æthelstan, King of England, drawn by a certain Franco [or Frank] and by a Roman scholar, that is Israel.

He also wrote Versus Israhelis de arte metrica super nomen et uerbum, "Verses from Israel on the metrical art of the noun and verb." This was dedicated to Bishop Rotbert of Trier. It is assumed that this was written around the time (or right after) Æthelstan's death, and Israel was looking for a new patron.

He found one. From 940 Israel was in Trier. He was the tutor of the future archbishop of Cologne, Bruno, brother of the Holy Roman Emperor Otto the Great. At a synod in Verdun in 947, Israel is referred to as "bishop." An Israel is mentioned as Bishop of Aix-en-Provence, but it is not definitively known to be "our" Israel. A bishop in Aachen between 948 and 950 debated religion with a Jew named Salomon. It is tempting to equate that bishop with Israel, since he would have been an important figure at the school in Aachen.

He was apparently a rare thing of his time and place: a man who knew Greek. Israel wrote on theology, and he produced a major teaching text when he edited the Ars Minor of Donatus and redacted everything he thought was too sensitive, an edition that could still be found in print in the 20th century. He also wrote commentary on the works of John Scottus Eriugena, and a commentary in the Isagoge of Porphyry (illustration).

Israel retired to become a monk at a Benedictine monastery in Saint-Maximin in Trier.

We know quite a bit about Archbishop Rotbert of Trier; I'll share some of it with you. See you tomorrow.

The Game of the Gospels

The popularity in the Middle Ages of tafl, a type of table game, led someone to develop a version of it that could be used as a teaching tool about Christianity.

It was found in an 11th-century Irish manuscript that includes the Vulgate Latin version of the four Gospels with St. Jerome's prologue, the Eusebian Canons that lay out the differences and similarities between them, the diagram of the game Alea Evangelii (seen here), and two pages of description of the game.

The instructions tell us that it was created at the court of the 10th-century King Æthelstan (ruled 924 - 939) by two men, Israel the Grammarian and an unnamed Frank, and brought to Ireland by the Bishop of Bangor, Dub Innse (who died in 953, so this manuscript was an Irish copy made later).

The game is called Alea Evangelii, the "Game of The Gospels," and is far more elaborate than the strategy game of tafl from which it derives. You can see from the illustration that it was a much larger board than the original, with many more pieces. The manuscript mentions:

If any one would know this game fully, before all the lessons of this teaching he must thoroughly know these seven: to wit, dukes and counts, defenders and attackers, city and citadel, and nine steps twice over.

It acknowledges that the current as well as the source game are about attacking and defending, but it is not clear from the diagram which is the offensive and which the defensive position. Also, tafl has only two kinds of pieces: a king and the rest. Alea Evangelii has more differentiations between pieces. Also, the pieces in Alea Evangelii are placed on the intersections of lines, not inside the squares. This makes it resemble the modern game of Go.

The four corners are each assigned to a different Gospel. A total of 67 pieces represent the Eusebian Canons. The pieces are black except for four red pieces, two for John and two for Mark (nothing for Mathew and Luke?). One black piece represents the unity of the Trinity. Each of Eusebius' Canons have a different number of pieces assigned to them, from the 16 pieces assigned to Canon I to the single piece assigned to Canon X.

Trying to figure out how it was played makes my head spin. A 1951 book, A History of Board-Games Other than Chess. (Oxford: Oxford University Press) by H.J.R.Murray tries to re-create it, or you can read the original ms. yourself.

Instead, I'm going to ask myself about one of the creators, Israel the Grammarian, who was considered one of the 10th-century's leading scholars. Tomorrow I'll tell you what I found out.