The Glacier Glosses
The standard medieval verse-by-verse gloss
The Glacier Glosses are the standard verse-by-verse gloss of the Rime produced by the Hibernal Renaissance schools — the great accumulated commentary copied in the margins and between the lines of medieval Rime-manuscripts, gathering the readings of the Fathers and Doctors for every verse. For centuries “the Gloss” was the first authority a student met: to read the Rime was to read it glossed.
Form and Use
Two layers were distinguished: the marginal gloss (longer expositions in the page’s margins) and the interlinear gloss (brief word-meanings written above the text). Drawing on Saint Hagal, Saint Cael of Frosthold, and the conciliar Fathers, the Glosses transmitted the Threefold Sense to the medieval church and shaped its preaching and law. The reformers, prizing the plain (Snow) sense, both used and quarreled with the Gloss — Vorne complaining that “the warm fog of glosses had hidden the cold text.”