Eric Hewett

Among the various ways in which text and image can be related, a particular genre called the _carmen figuratum_ stands out. In the _carmen figuratum_, some elements of the text are emphasized or highlighted or selected by visual means from the rest of the text. These visually-selected elements of text form other texts and so function of two levels, as part of the base text and as part of the special texts, unlike the other, un-selected elements of text, which are only part of the base text. The visual element therefore divides the text into two sections and creates two levels of language by defining the second level. At the same time, the image is actually composed of those visually-selected text elements. So, image and text are bound together by an inextricable interweaving, the selected text creating the image and the image selecting the text. The genre was brought to its highest point of development by a youngish 9th-century Frankish monk, Hrabanus Maurus, while he was still a student. Between 810 and 814 he composed his first work, the _In honorem sanctae crucis._ He composed 28 _carmina figurata_ in honor of the cross and a number of addition _carmina_ as prefaces and dedications which accompany the main work. The _carmina figurata_ of the _In honorem sanctae crucis_ are of much greater formal complexity than anything written earlier. Hrabanus expands the repertory of figures from geometrical shapes, letters or representations made with simple lines only to include solid geometrical figures, Roman and Greek letters of varying sizes, letters used as number signs, and painted images. Some _carmina_ combine different types of figures. The figures have a much closer relationship to the themes of the poems than was present in earlier examples of the genre. In addition, many _carmina_ are influenced or structured by numerological meanings and references and numerological symbolism structures the work as a whole in various ways. The dissertation proposes a methodology for a systematic analysis of the philosophical and theological content of the _In honorem_. It attempts to sketch an approach which is able to deal with the unparalleled complexities of the form adopted by Hrabanus and provide a coherent structure for discussions of its content. This method of analysis is applied to each _carmen_ of the _In honorem_ in an attempt to elucidate the philosophical and theological content.