Pretty much the only European stuff outside of Latin & Greek is 10th to 14th C Celtic/Insular manuscripts created by the monks and two Icelandic MSS from 13th C, I think, They preserved a lot of the Greek and Latin too. They seem to have made little change other than adding content, some MSS are recognisably Oral traditions passed down from the Bronze Age, some maybe for over a 1000 years. Not so unlikely as it seems given that it was all in verse and passed on by Bards, who were almost King rank and changing the existing sagas was taboo.
No, I'm not complaining about the monks. They did very little damage actually. Just wondering why the stuff is in Foreign Universities, still, almost 100 years after the re-establishment of the state.
Probably a lot of stuff from Syria, Iraq & Iran, um … transferred, in USA, UK and France has saved it from destruction from 1980s to today. Iranian Revolution, two gulf wars, Iran-Iraq war and current conflicts. A lot has been lost in Mali or somewhere in that part of Africa lately.
|