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CASSIDORE, CASSIDORIE. Flavius Cassiodorus Magnus Aurelius, c. A.D. 490-c.580/583, was born in Syllach, Calabria, into a family of Syrian origin. A description of Cassiodorus and of his family appears in the letter that introduces him to the aristocrats of Theodoric's court (Epistola I.4). The letter says that the family is of noble birth, healthy of body, and very tall. Cassiodorus became quaestor to Theodoric, the Ostrogothic king of Rome, in A.D. 507, consul in 514, and succeeded Boethius as Magister officiorum (Master of the Offices) in 527. In 537, after his retirement from public life, he issued his Epistolae Theodoricianae variae (Various Letters Written for Theodoric), letters written for both Ostrogothic kings, Theodoric and Athalaricus. His most influential work is a treatise on religious and secular education called Institutiones. After the collapse of the Ostrogothic kingdom in 540, Cassiodorus founded a monastery at Vivarium at Calabria, where the monks were to devote their time to sound learning and to the copying of manuscripts and books. His history of the Goths is summarized by Jordanes in his work Getica or History of the Goths.

All of Chaucer's references to Cassiodorus appear in The Tale of Melibee, translated from Le Livre de Melibee et de Dame Prudence, by Renaud de Louens (after 1336), which is an adaptation of the Latin work, Liber consolationis et consilii (c. 1246), by Albertanus of Brescia. The following references are to the letters written for Theodoric, Epistolae Theodoricianae variae: Book 10, Letter 18, p. 309, Mel 1196; Book I, Letter 17, p. 23, Mel 1348; Book I, Letter 4, p. 14, Mel 1438; Book I, Letter 30, p. 30, Mel 1528; Book 9, Letter 13, pp. 277-278, Mel 1564; Book I, Letter 4, p. 15, Mel 1642. [Boece]

The forms are the variants found in the French text.


Cassiodorus, Institutiones, ed. R.A.B. Mynors; ibid., An Introduction to Divine and Human Readings, trans. with introd. and notes by L.W. Jones; ibid., Variae epistolae, ed. Th. Momsen; J.J. O'Donnell, Cassiodorus; Renaud de Louens, Le livre de Melibee et de Prudence, ed. J. Burke Severs, S&A, 568-614.
From CHAUCER NAME DICTIONARY
Copyright © 1988, 1996 Jacqueline de Weever
Published by Garland Publishing, Inc., New York and London.

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