that he was a master of arts, the author of some thirty
learned works (ten preserved), and with Siger of Brabant
became one of the main targets of the condemnation
issued by the bishop of Paris in 1277. He may at some
later time have become a Dominican. Boethius was an
important linguistic theoretician who contributed to the
development of the theory of “modi signifi candi.” The
theory distinguishes between a word’s lexical meaning
(the thing it signifi es) and its secondary semantical com-
ponents (the ways in which it signifi es the thing, “modi
signifi candi”). Grammaticality depends exclusively on
concord of “modi signifi candi.” The “modi signifi candi”
were supposed to be linguistic universals, although not
having the same sort of morphological expression in
all languages. The “modi signifi candi” refl ect ways
of understanding (“modi intelligendi”) common to all
humankind, and they in turn are based on real features
of things (“modi essendi”). Boethius is best known
for his theory of knowledge and science, which makes
each science an autonomous system into which it is
impossible to incorporate nonscientifi c facts known
only through revelation. Thus, Christian beliefs about
a temporal beginning of the world, about the existence
of a fi rst pair of human beings, or about the resurrec-
tion and the ultimate good of the individual are true,
but it would be an error to try to assign them a place in
scientifi c theories.
See also Siger of Brabant
Further Reading
Editions
Boethii Daci Opera = Corpus Philosophorum Danicorum Medii
Aevi [CPhD], 4–9. The Danish Society of Language and
Literature. Copenhagen: Gad, 1969–; contents of individual
volumes: Pinborg, Joannes, and Henricus Roos, eds. Modi
signifi candi sive Quaestiones super Priscianum minorem.
CPhD, 4.1–2, 1969.
Sajó, Gèza, ed. Quaestiones de generatione et corruptio-
ne—Quaestiones super libros Physicorum. CPhD, 5.1–2,
1972–74.
Green-Pedersen, N.J., et al., eds. Topica—Opuscula. CPhD,
6.1–2, 1976 [Opuscula = De aeternitate mundi, De summo
bono, De somniis].
Fioravanti, Gianfranco, ed. Quaestiones super IVm Meteorlogi-
corum. CPhD, 8, 1979.
Ebbesen, S. Sophismata. CPhD, 9.
Translations
McDermott, A. Charlene Senape, trans. Godfrey of Fontaine’s
Abridgement of Boethius of Dacia’s Modi signifi candi sive
Quaestiones super Priscianum maiorem. History of Linguis-
tic Science, ser. 3; Studies in the History of Linguistics, 22.
Amsterdam: Benjamin, 1980.
Wippel, John F., trans. Boethius of Dacia: On the Supreme Good,
On the Eternity of the World, On Dreams. Mediaeval Sources
in Translation, 30. Toronto: Pontifi cal Institute of Mediaeval
Studies; Leiden: Brill, 1987.
Bibliographies
Pinborg, Jan. “Zur Philosophie des Boethius de Dacia. Ein
Ueberblick.” Studia Mediewistyczne 15 (1974), 165–85; rpt.
in Pinborg, Jan. Medieval Semantics, Selected Studies on
Medieval Logic and Grammar. Ed. Sten Ebbesen, London:
Variorum, 1984.
Green-Pedersen, N. J., in CPhD, 6.2, 1976 [see above].
Wippel, J. F. Boethius de Dacia [see above].
Literature
Jensen, Søren Skovgaard. “On the National Origin of the Phi-
losopher Boetius de Dacia.” “Classica et Mediaevalia 24
(1963), 232–41.
Pinborg, Jan. Die Entwicklung der Sprachtheorie im Mittelalter.
Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie und Theologie des
Mittelalters, Texte und Untersuchungen, 42.2. Münster:
Aschendorff; Copenhagen: Frost-Hansen, 1967; Pinborg, Jan.
“Zur Philosophie” [see above].
Sten EbbesenBOHEMOND OF TARANTO
(c. 1050 or 1058–1111)
Bohemond (or Bohemund; Bohemond I, prince of An-
tioch) was the eldest son of Robert Guiscard by Robert’s
fi rst wife, Alberada. He developed in the shadow of his
father’s transformation from a Norman brigand-mer-
cenary to the founder, as duke of Apulia, of a powerful
new state in southern Italy. Bohemond emerged early
as his father’s chief lieutenant, notably during Robert
Guiscard’s daring invasion of the Byzantine empire in
the early 1080s.
Bohemond was bypassed in the succession to his
father’s Apulian realm in favor of Roger Borsa, Robert’s
eldest son by his second wife. However, Bohemond forc-
ibly extorted from his half-brother a territorial enclave
that included Bari. Beyond that, he had inherited his
father’s grandiose dream of carving out a realm in the
east at the expense of Byzantium. The great project that
was to become the First Crusade was clearly a perfect
opportunity for Bohemond. When Pope Urban II called
for crusaders to champion Christendom against Islam,
Bohemond was among the western barons who respond-
ed. He was an archetype of the self-seeking opportunist,
hungry for a principality of his own in the east.
Bohemond set out in the autumn of 1096 for Con-
stantinople, where the crusaders had agreed to meet.
The Byzantines, who knew him all too well, inevitably
suspected that he had ulterior motives; but Bohemond
went out of his way to be deferential to Emperor Alexius
I Comnenus (Alexios Komnenos). Pledging loyalty, he
sought for himself the Byzantine post of domestikos of
the east, and he became a leading negotiator between
the crusaders and Alexius. He accepted Alexius’s
terms—an oath of fealty and a promise to surrender
to the emperor any conquered cities or lands that had
previously belonged to the empire—but Alexius hadBOETHIUS DE DACIA