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Notker Labeo - monk, grammarian, teacher at the school at the Abbey of St. Gall - was a remarkable innovator. Writing a series of simplified, well-punctuated versions of Latin texts for his students (the Psalter, Boethius' De Consolatione Philosophiae, Martianus Capella, the Boethian versions of Aristotle's De categoriis and De interpretatione), along with accompanying German translation and commentary, Notker played an important part in creating the high academic reputation which St. Gall enjoyed during the turn of the eleventh century. He was aware of the magnitude of his venture - writing to Bishop Hugo of Sion, he wrote:

Since I wanted my students to have an introduction to these texts, I presumed to do something almost unprecedented: I ventured to translate them from Latin into our language.

Anna A. Grotans' engaging book explores Notker's contributions in the wider context of eleventh century vernacular theory, ably describing his 'extraordinary step of granting the vernacular a place...within the classroom linguistic hierarchy and textual culture' (p.2).

In recent years much work has been carried out on the way in which written Romance vernaculars developed from the written Latin tradition, such as Michel Banniard's Viva Voce (1992) and Roger Wright's A Sociophilological Study of Late Latin (2003). Grotans' book discusses the relationship between Latin and vernacular writing in Germanic language areas, where Latin had to be learned as a foreign language. Reading in Medieval St. Gall is also an invaluable contribution to medieval translation studies, pursuing the translation-as-commentary theory described by Rita Copeland in Rhetoric, Hermeneutics and Translation in the Middle Ages (1991).

Grotans' study falls into two halves. The first three chapters set Notker's work in the context of medieval theories of literacy and orality, investigate the practical use of his writings in the classroom, and discuss the wider relationship between Latin and German in the middle ages. The second half consists of a detailed analysis of Notker's grammatical writings, with chapters devoted to punctuation, accents and spelling.

Noting that there is still much work to be done on the day-to-day teaching methods used in the early middle ages, particularly in German-speaking regions, Grotans provides convincing reconstructions of classroom life in Chapter 2, 'Education at St. Gall'. The school at St. Gall was an acclaimed centre of learning between the ninth and eleventh centuries, and both monks and students prided themselves on the correctness of their Latinity. Notker's great achievement was to suggest a way in which German could be elevated to the level of Latin in order to be used as a tool for reading and interpreting Latin texts. Unlike many other grammarians, '[i]n Notker's model, the vernacular is not an aberration of Latin, but an autonomous language... However, the linguistic newcomer...needed to be written, read and performed correctly. The codes of lectio and the grammar of legibility needed to be applied to the vernacular as well as to the Latin' (p.46).

One of the strengths of Grotans' work is her ability to combine focused localised discussion with an awareness of the wider European situation - in Chapter 3 'Language Choice and Use', she compares the Latin-German diglossia in eleventh century Germany with the situation in other countries with emerging written vernaculars, relating Notker's work to that of his English contemporaries Ă†lfric and Byrhtferth.

The second half of Reading in Medieval St. Gall begins with a detailed discussion of the St. Gall Tractate (Chapter 4) one of the oldest extant medieval treatises to discuss theories of sentence structure and word order. Its authorship is uncertain, although Grotans feels that Notker is by far the most likely person to have written it. After a detailed discussion of the teaching methodologies contained within this text, Chapters 5, 6 and 7 provide a thorough study of the way in which Notker's writings facilitated the reading aloud of Latin texts in the schoolroom. Close readings of his grammatical theories are given, along with an extended examination of his innovative punctuation, accenting and attempts to standardise German spelling.

Reading in Medieval St. Gall is an invaluable addition to the field of medieval vernacular theory and translation studies - and the first half is particularly accessible to anyone working in this general area. Grotans writes in a lively, readable style, illustrating her discussion with anecdotes of monastic life recorded in letters and other documents (the renowned Latin grammarian Gunzo's embarrassing incident concerning a misplaced ablative, or how Bishop Salomo pardoned a group of prank-playing students on account of their Latin skills). The second half will prove extremely useful to scholars of medieval grammar and punctuation - but anyone with an interest in the development of vernacular writing systems and medieval theories of reading will find much of value in the writings of primus barbicam scribens faciensque saporam, 'the first who wrote German and made it so savoury'.

Elizabeth Dearnley, University of Cambridge

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