Main Menu | List of entries | finished

SENEC, SENECA, SENEK, SENEKKE. Lucius Annaeus Seneca, 4 B.C.-A.D. 65, was born in Cordova, Spain, and died at Campania. By A.D. 37, the time of Caligula's accession to the imperial throne, Seneca had become an orator of the first class. He was banished by the Empress Messalina to Corsica in 41 on a charge of adultery but was recalled by Agrippina to be tutor to her son Nero in 49. Nero made Seneca a minister in 54, and Seneca found himself confronted with the emperor's brutality and madness. He composed Nero's speech explaining the death of Agrippina, whom Nero had put to death. However, when he found he could not check the emperor's excesses, he retired to Campania in 64, having by then amassed a considerable fortune. He was named in the Pisonian conspiracy in 65, and Nero commanded him to take his own life. He opened his veins while lying in a hot bath.

Seneca's reputation reached its pinnacle during the Middle Ages. His dialogues, letters, and essays became basic texts of medieval rhetoric with Cicero's writings. His moral essays persuaded medieval scholars that he was almost Christian, and there grew a tradition of a correspondence between Seneca and St. Paul. Seneca's Letters to Lucilius were known by the twelfth century in the whole of France, a large part of Germany, in Austria, and in England. Manuscripts were imported into England from France following the Norman Conquest in 1066. Many Benedictine and Cluniac houses had manuscripts of the Letters in France as well as in England. The Letters were quoted by Bernard of Clairvaux, William of St. Thierry, Abelard, William of Malmesbury, and Otto of Freising. Albertanus of Brescia knew Seneca's Letters in the Q manuscript; he quotes frequently from the Letters throughout his work Liber consolationis et consilii (The Book of Consolation and Counsel), written in 1246.

There is no proof that Chaucer knew Seneca at firsthand. Many of the quotations from Seneca are in his sources, and when they are not, it is likely that he learned of them from anthologies and florilegia. One such anthology was De moribus, a collection of works by Seneca, Publilius Syrus, Ausonius, and Lactantius and attributed, wrongly, to Martin of Braga (d. A.D. 579). Modern scholars refer to its author as the pseudo-Seneca. Martin of Braga's work, Formula vitae honestae, written after 570 and taken directly from Seneca, was also attributed to Seneca by A.D. 1100 under the name De quattuor virtutibus cardinalibus (Barlow 5-7). Seneca's aphorism on the loss of time, MLT 27-28; Tr IV.1283, was current in the preaching of Chaucer's time. S. Wenzel points out that in Bromyard's Predicantium there are two passages expressing the same idea and written in the margin next to each passage is the word "senc."

The old wife advises her knight to read Seneca, WBT 1168; she quotes Seneca on poverty, Epistle XVII.3-5, WBT 1184. The friar tells the story of the angry governor, identified as Piso in Seneca's De ira I.18, SumT 2019. The story about Cambyses, SumT 2043-2073, comes from De ira 3:14, Epistle 86.1; and the story about Cyrus, SumT 2079-2088, comes from De ira 3:21. Januarie quotes Seneca, MerchT 1375-1376, a reference from Albertanus Brixiensis, Liber consolationis 18. The passage from Seneca, MerchT 1523-1525, is influenced in a general way by De beneficiis I.14-15 (Robinson 714). The Pardoner quotes Seneca on drunkenness, Epistle LXXXIII.18, PardT 492-497. The quotations in The Tale of Melibee appear in the sources Liber consolationis et consilii by Albertanus Brixiensis (1246) and Le Livre de Mellibee et de Prudence by Renaud de Louens (after 1336). Dame Prudence quotes Seneca, Epistle LXXIV.30, Mel 984. Instead of Seneca, she quotes Publilius Syrus, Sententiae 281, Mel 1127. She quotes from pseudo-Seneca, De moribus, Sententiae 16 (PL 72: 29), not from Seneca, Mel 1147; from Publilius Syrus Sententiae 389, Mel 1185; Dame Prudence says she quotes Seneca, Mel 1226, but the quotation cannot be identified; she quotes from Publilius Syrus, Sententiae 607, not Seneca, Mel 1320; from Publilius Syrus, Sententiae 255, not Seneca, Mel 1324; from Publilius Syrus, Sententiae 172, Mel 1455; from Publilius Syrus, Sententiae 483, Mel 1488; from pseudo-Seneca, De moribus VI (PL 72: 32), Mel 1531. Melibee quotes pseudo-Seneca, De moribus IV (PL 72: 31), not Seneca, Mel 1775-1776; Dame Prudence quotes Seneca, De clementia, I.24.1, Mel 1857, and Publilius Syrus, Sententiae 64, not Seneca, Mel 1859; from Publilius Syrus, Sententiae 366, not Seneca, Mel 1866. Nero slays his "maister deere," MkT 2495-2518; Seneca dies in his bath after he has failed to lead Nero from vice and dies rather than suffer torment. The reference at MancT 345 has not been traced. The quotation in ParsT 144-145 has not been traced. The Parson quotes from De Clementia I.3.3, I.19.2, in ParsT 466-468. The quotation in ParsT 759-763 is from Epistle XLVII. Seneca had tried to hand over his wealth to Nero, but Nero banished him, Bo III, Prosa 5.47-49; he subsequently commanded Seneca to choose the manner of his death, Bo III, Prosa 5.53-60. [Cambises: Cirus: Nero: Papynian: Publilius Syrus]

Senec occurs twice medially, MLI 25; WBT 1184; Seneca occurs once initially, PardT 492; Senek, an ME spelling variant of Senec, appears once initially, MerchT 1523, and four times medially, WBT 1168; SumT 2018; MerchT 1376, 1567; Senekke, trisyllabic ME spelling variant of Latin Seneca, occurs in final rhyming position, MancT 345. The three forms Senec, Senek, Seneca appear throughout the Melibee, The Parson's Tale, and the Boece.


C.W. Barlow, "Epistulae Senecae ad Paulinum et Pauli ad Senecam (quae vocantur)." Papers and Monographs of the American Academy in Rome 4 (1938); M.T. Griffin, Seneca; Martin of Braga, Opera Omnia, ed. C.W. Barlow; Publilius Syrus, The Moral Sayings of Publilius Syrus, trans. D. Lyman; ibid., Publilii Syrii Sententiae, ed. E. Woelfflin; L.D. Reynolds, The Medieval Tradition of Seneca's Letters, 100-124; Seneca, Epistulae morales, ed. and trans. R.M. Gummere, I: 110-111; II: 132-133, 268-269, 310-311; ibid., Moral Essays, ed. and trans. J.W. Basore, I: 152-157, 288-293, 308-309, 364-366, 408-409, 420; III: 42-49; S. Wenzel, "Chaucer and the Language of Contemporary Preaching." SP 73 (1976): 138-161.
From CHAUCER NAME DICTIONARY
Copyright © 1988, 1996 Jacqueline de Weever
Published by Garland Publishing, Inc., New York and London.

Main Menu | List of entries | finished