The Lorsch riddles, also known as the Aenigmata Anglica,[1] are a collection of twelve
hexametrical, early medieval Latin
riddles that were anonymously written in the ninth century.
The absence of line breaks separating individual verses (among other things)[2] show that they are possibly of English origin.[3] The poems were heavily influenced by
Aldhelm's Enigmata.[4] None of the poems have a written solution, which has caused much debate over the answers to some of them; the solutions as given in Glore's edition are: 1. de homine/person; 2. de anima/soul; 3. de aqua/water; 4. de glacie/ice; 5. de cupa uinaria/wine-cup; 6. de niue/snow; 7. de castanea/chestnut; 8. de fetu/foetus; 9. de penna/feather; 10. de luminari/eternal light; 11. de tauro/bull; 12. de atramento/ink.[5]
The riddles are preserved in only one manuscript (Vatican,
Pal. Lat. 1753).[6] The manuscript was written c. 800 in the Carolingian scriptorium of
Lorsch Abbey, where it was rediscovered in 1753.[7] It contains among a variety of grammatical texts the Aenigmata of
Symphosius, the Enigmata of
Aldhelm and a variety of prose and metrical texts by
Boniface.[8]
Editions
'Aenigmata "lavreshamensia" [anigmata "anglica"]', ed. by Fr. Glorie, trans. by Karl J. Minst, in Tatuini omnia opera, Variae collectiones aenigmatum merovingicae aetatis, Anonymus de dubiis nominibus, Corpus christianorum: series latina, 133-133a, 2 vols (Turnholt: Brepols, 1968),
I 345–58 [including German translation].
The Lorsch riddles have also been edited twice by
Ernst Dümmler--once in 1879 and again in 1881.[9]
^Schottenius Cullhed, Sigrid (2015). Proba the Prophet: The Christian Virgilian Cento of Faltonia Betitia Proba. Leiden: Brill. p. 87.
^'Aenigmata "lavreshamensia" [anigmata "anglica"]', ed. by Fr. Glorie, trans. by Karl J. Minst, in Tatuini omnia opera, Variae collectiones aenigmatum merovingicae aetatis, Anonymus de dubiis nominibus, Corpus christianorum: series latina, 133-133a, 2 vols (Turnholt: Brepols, 1968),
I 345–58.
^Patrick J. Murphy, Unriddling the Exeter Riddles (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2011), p. 4.