Abstract
Medieval proverbs, especially the Latin ones, often use to slip out of paremiological definitions and typologies. They are just seldom rooted in the folk tradition and the knowledge of them was restricted to the educated classes - mainly to the clergy.
Not being understood as a distinct genre in the Middle Ages, proverbs used to be copied mixed up with similar genres like maxims, epigrams, gnomes, or didactic verses. Another feature of medieval proverbs is their close connection to the school milieu.
Their primary function was education as they were convenient both for grammar analysis and moral instruction. Besides proverbs in verses, usually leonine hexameters, there is a great deal of proverbial expressions or gnomes of varied origin and form, which were often gathered in larger collections.
Recently, one such a collection has been found in a manuscript from the late 14th or early 15th century of Bohemian origin (Olomouc, Provincial Archives in Opava, Olomouc branch, Library of the Metropolitan Chapter in Olomouc, CO 362), which has been lacking more thorough description and edition so far. It contains about three hundred proverbial expressions ordered alphabetically and evinces certain similarities to other two collections from late medieval Bohemia of comparable extent which have been already published (Prague, Archives of the Prague Castle, Library of the Metropolitan Chapter at St.
Vitus, M 127; Třeboň, State Regional Archives in Třeboň, A 6). The three collections, however, differ considerably as it is characteristic for the genre so tightly bound with the oral transmission and the use of memory.
The present research has expressed hope that the very gnomes and proverbs could well reflect the mentality of medieval intellectuals, being, as they are, linked so closely to the education they received and expressed in Latin, the lingua franca of the West. Hopefully, the analysis of the newly found collection could be a tiny piece of puzzle in the uncovering of this complex of medieval thought.