25 October 2021
Portion of the page of the Lindisfarne Gospels containing Matthew 13:3 and the use of the verb to seed, meaning to sow or plant. An eighth-century Latin text with a tenth-century Old English (Northumbrian) gloss. London, British Library, Cotton MS Nero D.iv, fol. 51v.
In sports tournaments, the participants are often seeded, or ranked, so that those judged to be of near equal skill do not face each other until the later stages of the competition. But why seeded?
With a little thought, the answer is obvious. The participants are planted in places on the roster best suiting to generate the highest quality of play. In a random placement, the two best participants might face each other in the first round, with the winner of that match romping to easy victories in rest of the tournament. That would not create the greatest number of exciting matches or generate the most income for the tournament promoters.
The word seed, both noun and verb, come out of Old English and a common proto-Germanic root. The noun, for instance, can be found in the poem Exodus, a versification of portions of that biblical book. The use here is particularly interesting in that it is used to denote a plant seed, but its placement in a portion of the text addressing the generations of biblical patriarchs alludes to the generative capacity of humans. The seeds Noah carries on the ark are not just plant seeds, but also the seeds of future generations of people:
On feorh-gebeorh foldan hæfde
eallum eorð-cynne ece lafe,
frum-cneow gehwæs, fæder and moder
tuddor-teondra, geteled rime
missenlicra þonne men cunnon,
snottor sæ-leoda. Eac þon sæda gehwilc
on bearm scipes beornas feredon,
þara þe under heofonum hæleð bryttigað.
Swa þæt wise men wordum secgað
þæt from Noe nigoða wære
fæder Abrahames on folc-tale.(In refuge from the world, he had the eternal remnant of all the creatures of the earth, the first generation of each, father and mother of the offspring-makers, the wise sailor reckoned a more diverse number than people know. Also, the men carried in the bosom of the ship each seed that humans under heaven enjoy. Thus, wise people say in words that Abraham was the ninth father from Noah in the line of descendants.)
The verb to seed, meaning to sow or to plant, is also found in Old English, in particular in the Northumbrian dialect. It can be found in the Lindisfarne Gospels, an eighth-century, illuminated Latin text of the gospels that has a tenth-century, interlinear, Old English gloss inscribed over it. From Matthew 13:3, the beginning of the parable of the sower:
Et locutus est eis multa in parabolis dicens ecce exiit qui seminat seminare.
& spreccende wæs him feolo uel monigo in bissenum cuoeð uel cuoeðende heonu geeade se ðe sawes sede uel gesawe uel sedege.
(And he was speaking of several or many things in parables, he said or saying, “behold, the sowers went forth to seed or to sow or to seed)
Since the text is a gloss rather than a regular translation, it provides Old English alternatives for certain Latin words; hence the multiple choices separated by or, including two variants of the verb to seed.
The sports sense of seed comes about nearly a thousand years later. It was first used in tennis in the late nineteenth century. From an article about a tennis tournament in the Boston Daily Advertiser of 29 April 1895:
Out of the 49 players entered two were unknown to the handicappers, and 10 others could be judged only by their isolated records with players whose skill was known. The men of equal rank were “seeded” in the drawing so as to keep them from meeting as long as possible.
The same word is being used in both the botanical and sports contexts, but for different kinds of generative capacity, one literal, the other metaphorical.
Sources:
Anlezark, Daniel, ed. “Exodus.” Old Testament Narratives. Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library 7. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2011, lines 369–79.
The Lindisfarne and Rushworth Gospels. Publications of the Surtees Society 28. Durham: George Andrews, 1854, 117–118. HathiTrust Digital Archive. London, British Library, Cotton MS Nero D.iv, fol. 51v.
Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, March 2018, modified September 2021, s.v. seed, n., modified June 2021, seed, v.
“Tennis Talk.” Boston Daily Advertiser (Massachusetts), 29 April 1895, 8. Gale Primary Sources: Nineteenth Century U.S. Newspapers.
Image credit: London, British Library, Cotton MS Nero D.iv, fol. 51v. Portion of a mechanical reproduction of a text produced before 1926 used to illustrate the topic under discussion.