Was it Augustine After All? Patristic Sources of Medieval Anti-heretical Polemics from the Perspective of Text Reuse Analysis - UTU Research Portal

A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal

Was it Augustine After All? Patristic Sources of Medieval Anti-heretical Polemics from the Perspective of Text Reuse Analysis

Authors: Välimäki, Reima; Aho, Marius

Publisher: University of Bologna

Publication year: 2024

Journal: I Quaderni del M.AE.S.

Journal name in source: I Quaderni del M.AE.S.

Volume: 22

Issue: 1s

First page : 67

Last page: 122

eISSN: 2533-2325

DOI: https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2533-2325/19116

Web address : https://maes.unibo.it/article/view/19116

Self-archived copy’s web address: https://research.utu.fi/converis/portal/detail/Publication/457576956

Abstract

This article explores the extent to which medieval polemical authors resorted to patristic originals and how much they adopted patristic argumentation. The authors used computational text reuse analysis using Basic Local Alignment Search Tool (BLAST) to compare 189 classical and medieval texts, mainly from open repositories of digitised texts, to find similarities. The corpus includes classical works, particularly Augustine’s anti-heretical treatises, canon law, inquisition manuals, exempla collections and florilegia, sermons and theological commentaries. The lack of medieval texts after ca. 1200 in machine-readable format is the greatest hindrance to building a representative medieval corpus. The authors propose that although medieval polemicists saw Augustine and other Church fathers as models of Christian champions fighting heresy, intensive engagement with patristic theology took place in medieval works that enjoyed limited circulation and influence.

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Välimäki - Aho_ Was it Augustine.pdf

Funding information in the publication:
This study is part of the project titled \u201CCausalities of Polemics and Persecution in Late Medieval Europe\u201D (PERSECUTIO, https://sites.utu.fi/persecutio/), funded by the Research Council of Finland (Academy Fellowship 2023\u20132027, grant number 356086). This research was also supported by the Turku Institute for Advanced Studies postdoctoral fellowship (2020\u20132022).