Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus 9781783277599, 9781800109049, 9781800109056

Table of contents :
Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus
Contents
Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Introduction
Books and Ladders: The Speaking Prefaces
The Stream of Wealth: The Old English Pastoral Care
True Riches: The Old English Boethius
The Familiar and the Strange: The Old English Soliloquies
Treasure in Heaven: The Prose Psalms
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

Anglo-Saxon Studies 46

WEALTH AND THE MATERIAL WORLD IN THE OLD ENGLISH ALFREDIAN CORPUS

Anglo-Saxon Studies ISSN 1475-2468

general editors John Hines Catherine Cubitt ‘Anglo-Saxon Studies’ aims to provide a forum for the best scholarship on the Anglo-Saxon peoples in the period from the end of Roman Britain to the Norman Conquest, including comparative studies involving adjacent populations and periods; both new research and major re-assessments of central topics are welcomed. Books in the series may be based in any one of the principal disciplines of archaeology, art history, history, language and literature, and inter- or multi-disciplinary studies are encouraged. Proposals or enquiries may be sent directly to the editors or the publisher at the addresses given below; all submissions will receive prompt and informed consideration. Professor Emeritus John Hines, School of History, Archaeology and Religion, Cardiff University, John Percival Building, Colum Drive, Cardiff, Wales, CF10 3EU, UK Professor Catherine Cubitt, School of History, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of East Anglia, Norwich, England, NR4 7TJ, UK Boydell & Brewer, PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk, England, IP12 3DF, UK Recently published volumes in the series are listed at the back of this book

WEALTH AND THE MATERIAL WORLD IN THE OLD ENGLISH ALFREDIAN CORPUS

Amy Faulkner

THE BOYDELL PRESS

© 2023 Amy Faulkner All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system, published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast, transmitted, recorded or reproduced in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the copyright owner The right of Amy Faulkner to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 First published 2023 The Boydell Press, Woodbridge ISBN 978-1-78327-759-9 (hardback) ISBN 978-1-80010-904-9 (ePDF) The Boydell Press is an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK and of Boydell & Brewer Inc. 668 Mt Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620–2731, USA website: www.boydellandbrewer.com A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library The publisher has no responsibility for the continued existence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate Cover image: The Æthelwulf Ring. Permission granted by the Trustees of the British Museum. | Design: Toni Michelle

For my family: Mum, Dad, Rachel, Nat, Thea and Micky.

Contents

List of Illustrations viii Acknowledgements ix List of Abbreviations x Introduction: Use and Enjoyment in Old English Literature

1

1 Books and Ladders: The Speaking Prefaces

23

2 The Stream of Wealth: The Old English Pastoral Care

59

3 True Riches: The Old English Boethius

85

4 The Familiar and the Strange: The Old English Soliloquies

115

5 Treasure in Heaven: The Prose Psalms

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Conclusion: Transformations in Prose and Poetry

176

Bibliography

189

Index

205

vii

Illustrations

1 The Alfred Jewel, permission granted by the Ashmolean Museum

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2 The Minster Lovell Jewel, permission granted by the Ashmolean Museum

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3 The Bowleaze Cove Jewel, permission granted by the Trustees of the British Museum

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4 The Warminster Jewel, © Salisbury Museum / Bridgeman Images 43 The author and publisher are grateful to all the institutions and individuals listed for permission to reproduce the materials in which they hold copyright. Every effort has been made to trace the copyright holders; apologies are offered for any omission, and the publisher will be pleased to add any necessary acknowledgement in subsequent editions.

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Acknowledgements

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his book has gone through many transformations, and I am very grateful to those who have supported and advised me along the way. The person to whom I owe the greatest debt of gratitude is Francis Leneghan, for his insight, wisdom and generosity throughout the development of this book. For valuable feedback on earlier versions, thanks must also go to Laura Ashe, Siân Grønlie, Andy Orchard and Elizabeth Tyler, as well as all those in the English Faculty at Oxford whose conversation and friendship informed the early stages of the research out of which this book developed. I would also like to thank Katherine O’Brien O’Keeffe, for the stimulating discussions we had when she was visiting Oxford in 2017–18. Special thanks are due to Mishtooni Bose, who taught me Old and Middle English when I was an undergraduate, and kindled my fascination with medieval literature. I would like to thank my colleagues and students in the English Department at UCL, where I have been fortunate enough to belong to a vibrant and supportive academic community. I was, moreover, very grateful to receive a generous grant from the department’s Chambers Fund for the cost of reproducing images. I had the opportunity to reflect upon my approach to Alfredian literature through the series of online workshops on the Alfredian corpus which I co-organised with Francis during 2021, and I would like to express my thanks to all those who contributed to and attended these online events. I am very grateful to Elizabeth McDonald at Boydell for her patience and assistance throughout the editorial process, and owe a debt of gratitude to the anonymous reader for their perceptive feedback on earlier drafts of my book. Special thanks are due to Caroline Palmer, for her help, encouragement and valuable suggestions throughout the development of this book. Finally, I would like to thank my family and Michael Gomez for their enduring support.

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Abbreviations

ACMRS ASE ASPR B-T

CCSL DOE EETS o.s. s.s. EHR ES JEGP KIV MÆ MP NM N&Q PQ PMLA RP RES n.s. SN TRHS VA

Arizona Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies Anglo-Saxon England Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records Bosworth, J., An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Based on the Manuscript Collections of J. Bosworth, Edited and Enlarged by T. N. Toller; Supplemented by T. N. Toller (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1898). Corpus Christianorum Series Latina The Toronto Dictionary of Old English Early English Text Society original series supplementary series The English Historical Review English Studies The Journal of English and Germanic Philology Fulk, R. D., Robert E. Bjork and John D. Niles ed., Klaeber’s Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg, 4th ed. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008) Medium Ævum Modern Philology Neuphilologische Mitteilungen Notes and Queries Philological Quarterly Publications of the Modern Language Association of America Regula pastoralis Review of English Studies new series Studia Neophilologica Transactions of the Royal Historical Society Asser’s Vita Alfredi: Stevenson, William Henry, ed., Life of King Alfred: Together with the Annals of St Neots Erroneously Ascribed to Asser (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1959) x

Introduction Use and Enjoyment in Old English Literature

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he translations traditionally attributed to Alfred the Great return again and again to the question of how to make good use of material things.1 Indeed, it is partly for this reason that the case for Alfred’s authorship appeared so persuasive for so long: the translations often seem to reflect the cares and concerns of an individual responsible for significant amounts of wealth and resources, such as a king.2 The translator of the Old English Boethius goes as far as to interrupt the dialogue between Wisdom and Mod in order to introduce the now famous defence of the king’s resources, in which we might be tempted to hear King Alfred’s apology for his own wealth: Eala gesceadwisnes, hwæt þu wast þæt me næfre seo gitsung and seo gemægð þisses eorðlican anwealdes forwel ne licode, ne ic ealles forswiðe ne girnde þisses eorðlican rices, buton tola ic wilnode þeah and andweorces to þam weorce þe me beboden was to wyrcanne (B17.2–6).3 1

2

3

See below, pp. 19–20, for a comprehensive account of the Alfredian canon and the debate surrounding Alfred’s relationship to this group of texts. For the case in favour of Alfred’s authorship, see J. M. Bately, ‘Alfred as Author and Translator’, in A Companion to Alfred the Great, ed. N. G. Discenza and P. E. Szarmach, Brill’s Companions to the Christian Tradition 58 (Leiden, 2015), pp. 113–42; J. M. Bately, ‘The Alfredian Canon Revisited: One Hundred Years On’, in Alfred the Great: Papers from the Eleventh-Centenary Conferences, ed. T. Reuter (Aldershot, 2003), pp. 107–20; and J. M. Bately, ‘Lexical Evidence for the Authorship of the Prose Psalms in the Paris Psalter’, ASE 10 (1981), 69–95. For the argument against Alfred’s authorship, see M. Godden, ‘Did Alfred Write Anything?’, MÆ 76 (2007), 1–23; and M. Godden, ‘Alfredian Prose: Myth and Reality’, Filologia Germanica 5 (2013), 131–58. For a response to Godden’s argument, see J. M. Bately, ‘Did Alfred Actually Translate Anything? The Integrity of the Alfredian Canon Revisited’, MÆ 78 (2009), 189–215. All quotations from the Old English Boethius, both prose and prosimetrical versions, are taken from M. Godden and S. Irvine, ed., with M. Griffith and R. Jayatilaka, The Old English Boethius: An Edition of the Old English Versions of Boethius’s De Consolatione Philosophiae, 2 vols (Oxford, 2009), I, unless otherwise stated; parenthetical references indicate the version of the text, chapter number

1

Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus (Oh Reason, you know that neither greed nor desire for earthly rule ever appealed to me very much, nor did I yearn greatly for this earthly power – except that I desired tools and materials for the work which I was ordered to carry out.4)

Here we see perhaps the most emphatic renunciation of excessive, opulent wealth in all the works associated with Alfred: material resources, the rich treasuries of early medieval kingship, are reduced to tola and andweorc. These ‘tools’, then, are apparently nothing more than the means by which the king carries out his duties: ‘butan þisum tolum nan cyning his cræft ne mæg cyðan’ (B17.13–14) (‘without these tools no king can make his skill known’). The material resources which support the king’s earthly power appear only to serve and support the exercise of the king’s cræft. The translator initially defines these resources in the somewhat abstract terms of the three orders of society: gebedmen, fyrdmen and weorcmen (B17.13) (‘clergy’, ‘soldiers’, ‘labourers’).5 However, as the apology goes on, more concrete tools are revealed as those things which will support these three groups: ‘Þæt is þonne heora biwist: land to bugianne and gifta and wæpnu and mete and ealo and claþas, and gehwæt þæs ðe þa þre geferscipas behofiað’ (B17.16–18) (‘that is then their subsistence: land to inhabit and gifts and weapons and food and ale and clothes, and whatever the three companies require’). The hazy figures of clergy, soldiers and labourers come into focus as specific, material components: weapons, food, clothes. These apologies for useful resources have been seen by many as support for an Alfredian tolerance of material things – or, at the very least, a greater tolerance than can be found in the Latin source material.6 While this book will question the assumption that the Alfredian translators wholeheartedly embraced worldly wealth as a useful resource, it should be recognised that material things do seem to carry special signifi-

4 5

6

and line number(s), with B referring to the B-text (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 180 (S. C. 2079), s. xi/xii), CP to a prose section from the C-text (London, British Library, MS Cotton Otho A. vi, fols. 1–129, s. x. med.) and CM to a metrical section from the C-text. Editorial emendations and markers have been silently emended throughout, unless stated otherwise. All translations are my own unless otherwise stated. T. E. Powell, ‘The “Three Orders” of Society in Anglo-Saxon England’, ASE 23 (1994), 103–32. Bately, ‘Alfred as Author and Translator’, pp. 134–6; on the Boethius in particular see N. G. Discenza, The King’s English: Strategies of Translation in the Old English Boethius (Albany, NY, 2005), p. 100; N. G. Discenza, ‘The Old English Boethius’, in A Companion to Alfred the Great, ed. Discenza and Szarmach, pp. 200–26, at p. 212; F. A. Payne, King Alfred and Boethius: An Analysis of the Old English Version of the Consolation of Philosophy (Madison, 1968), p. 62; and A. J. Frantzen, King Alfred, Twayne’s English Author Series 425 (Boston, 1986), p. 49.

2

Introduction cance in the translations associated with Alfred. In the verse preface to the translation of Gregory’s Dialogues, commissioned by Alfred and carried out by Bishop Wærferth of Worcester, the speaking voice belongs to the physical copy of the translation which was ordered by Bishop Wulfsige of Sherborne.7 The prose preface to the Pastoral Care is preoccupied with the treasures and books which are missing from England’s churches and, in an attempt to remedy this absence of the material things of learning, Alfred insists that the manuscripts he circulates must be kept securely in the monastery, along with the accompanying æstel (whatever that mysterious object may be). The verse epilogue to this translation celebrates learning on a more abstract level, describing the streams of wisdom which flow from God to our doors, directed by learned men such as Gregory. Nonetheless, even here material things intrude, as the epilogue exhorts its readers to fill their pitchers from this stream, and warns against those leaky flasks which will allow the heavenly water to flow away uselessly (lines 25–30).8 The philosophical translations, the Boethius and the Soliloquies, are likewise scattered with tangible odds and ends, mostly as part of original additions or passages which are heavily adapted from their counterparts in the Latin sources. Amongst the flotsam and jetsam of the Boethius we encounter the famous wagon-wheel, standing in for Boethius’s abstract concentric circles; in the Soliloquies we find the minutely detailed building materials of the preface – along with the house that they help to construct – the lord’s letter and his seal, the clothes which separate Augustinus from the naked body of wisdom and, perhaps most startling of all, the ball, apple and painted egg which stand in for Augustine’s geometric sphere. These things all work in different ways across the Alfredian corpus but many, in line with the tools of the famous speech from the Boethius, are emphatically useful: that is to say, they have a clear purpose, and are valued for the purpose that they serve. The pitcher in the verse epilogue to the Pastoral Care, for example, is only acceptable when it functions properly: if its holes allow the precious water to slip away, it must be removed and repaired. Usefulness is a recurring concern in the Alfredian corpus, for humans and objects alike. The preface to the Soliloquies ends with the speaker’s plea that he might be ‘nytwyrde’ (48.12) (‘useful’) here, in this life, before he reaches the next one. While this anxiety about making 7

8

S. Irvine, ‘The Alfredian Prefaces and Epilogues’, in A Companion to Alfred the Great, ed. Discenza and Szarmach, pp. 143–70, at p. 150; though, as Irvine notes, the manuscript in which the preface is found is a considerably later copy: pp. 152–3. S. Irvine and M. Godden, ed. and trans., The Old English Boethius with Verse Prologues and Epilogues Associated with King Alfred, Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library 19 (Cambridge, MA, 2012), p. 410.

3

Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus oneself useful can be seen in nearly all of the translations associated with Alfred, it is perhaps no surprise that the translator of Augustine’s Soliloquia felt particularly moved to draw attention to usefulness in his preface. Augustine, too, was concerned with usefulness, although it is in De doctrina Christiana that he fully articulates his thinking on use, and its counterpart, enjoyment.9 Material things seemed to worry Augustine, as they did the Alfredian translators. Unlike his contemporary Pelagius, Augustine did not advocate the outright rejection of all material things.10 While some material things could only be seen as an impediment to the progress of his faith, others actively supported the daily cleansing of his soul. Unsympathetic to complete renunciation of all possessions or a dramatic dismissal of material wealth, Augustine was in favour of regular almsgiving: a constant, incremental trickle of coins to combat the constant, incremental trickle of sin.11 As Peter Brown argues, ‘Augustine never doubted that prayer for forgiveness should be accompanied by almsgiving’.12 This did not mean, however, that the money he gave as alms formed a fundamental part of his faith: rather, the tangible coins had a role to play – they were useful – but this role was strictly limited. As I shall argue over the course of this book, material things can find usefulness in creating a bridge or a ladder from earth to heaven. Augustine articulates the role of this sort of useful material ‘thing’ in his De doctrina Christiana: ‘Res ergo aliae sunt quibus fruendum est, aliae quibus utendum, aliae quae fruuntur et utuntur’ (1.7) (‘there are some things which are to be enjoyed, some which are to be used, and some whose function is both to enjoy and use’).13 The things we enjoy, he clarifies, make us happy, while the things we use assist us on our journey to happiness; we fall into error when we enjoy something which should only be used:

9

10

11

12 13

At least one copy of De doctrina Christiana survives from early medieval England; Salisbury, Cathedral Library, 106 (s. xi ex.) contains De doctrina along with various other Augustinian and pseudo-Augustinian works: H. Gneuss and M. Lapidge, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A Bibliographical Handlist of Manuscript and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100 (Toronto, 2014), pp. 528–9, no. 717. See M. Lapidge, The Anglo-Saxon Library (Oxford, 2006), p. 199, for citations of De doctrina Christiana in Bede’s writings. P. Brown, The Ransom of the Soul: Afterlife and Wealth in Early Western Christianity (Cambridge, MA, 2015), pp. 95–6; see Pelagius, De divitiis. On the development of the metaphor of sin as a debt to be repaid, see G. A. Anderson, Sin: A History (New Haven, 2009). Brown, Ransom of the Soul, p. 100. Augustine of Hippo, De doctrina Christiana, ed. and trans. R. P. H. Green (Oxford, 1995), pp. 14–15.

4

Introduction Quomodo ergo, si essemus peregrini qui beate vivere nisi in patria non possemus, eaque peregrinatione utique miseri et miseriam finire cupientes in patriam redire vellemus, opus esset vel terrestribus vel marinis vehiculis quibus utendum esset ut ad patriam qua fruendum erat pervenire valeremus; quod si amoenitates itineris et ipsa gestatio vehiculorum nos delectaret, conversi ad fruendum his quibus uti debuimus nollemus cito viam finire et perversa suavitate implicati alienaremur a patria, cuius suavitas faceret beatos (1.8). (Suppose we were travellers who could live happily only in our homeland, and because our absence made us unhappy we wished to put an end to our misery and return to our homeland: we would need transport by land or sea which we could use to travel to our homeland, the object of our enjoyment. But if we were fascinated by the delights of the journey and the actual travelling, we would be perversely enjoying things that we should be using; and we would be reluctant to finish our journey quickly, being ensnared in the wrong kind of pleasure and estranged from the homeland whose pleasures could make us happy).14

Augustine argues that the error lies in enjoying the means, and not the end towards which those means are directed, as if one were to love the alms, rather than the salvation they bring. In the Alfredian translations, likewise, we can sometimes identify a tendency to see the material world’s value in the potential it has to be useful: to act as a tool for higher ends, and to bridge the gap between heaven and earth. Augustine’s theory of use and enjoyment applies to everything in life, not just physical objects like coins. However, the distinction between use and enjoyment resonates with more recent theoretical work which takes a very different approach to the things of the material world. Thing theory attempts to articulate the nature of material ‘things’, and sets things apart from objects. Bill Brown argues that we see objects as things when they cease to function; when, even momentarily, they leave the ‘circuits of production and distribution, consumption and exhibition’.15 Objects serve a function for people, while things transcend mere use, defined by their own quality rather than their usefulness to humans. There is an intriguing parallel here with Augustine’s definition of what it means to use and enjoy things: Frui est enim amore inhaerere alicui rei propter se ipsam; uti autem, quod in usum venerit ad id quod amas obtinendum referre (1.8).

14 15

Green, ed. and trans., De doctrina Christiana, pp. 14–17. B. Brown, ‘Thing Theory’, Critical Inquiry 28 (2001), 1–22, at p. 4.

5

Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus (To enjoy something is to hold fast to it in love for its own sake. To use something is to apply whatever it may be to the purpose of obtaining what you love).16

Through the lens of materialist theory, we can find a new meaning for Augustine’s distinction between things to be used and things to be enjoyed: it is possible to perceive this binary even within a solely material, sublunary context. Objects we make use of when seeking a different end; but things we love, enjoy or perhaps simply experience, in their own right.

Things and objects in early medieval England To return to the defence of the king’s resources in the Old English Boethius, then, the tools that are needed to support the three estates are clearly objects: they serve a purpose. I would like to explore, though, whether these objects can also be things: that is, whether they can be enjoyed for their own sake. The apology in the Boethius insists that these resources are tools only. To admit any enjoyment of these tools would be to undermine the point of this speech, which is to justify the resources of government on the grounds of their usefulness in achieving a more important end: the exercise of the king’s cræft. For this translator, it seems, material objects are acceptable when they are useful objects only, and not enjoyable things. However, as stressed by thing theory, it might not be the place of the translator, or indeed the kingly speaker, to dictate whether these are things or objects. One of the aims of thing theory and other materialist theories is to emphasise that things have a life outside of the limits defined by humans.17 As James Paz has shown in his thing-focussed reading of early medieval literature and material culture, riddling culture is hugely significant for ‘the role that things play in this early period’.18 Paz contends that ‘the power and agency possessed by things has much in common with the way that the riddles work as a genre in Old English literature: riddles engage yet resist those who try to read them; riddles talk to us but also make us speak in response’.19 In spite of this apparent agency, it must be acknowledged that riddles of this period often use the

16 17

18

19

Green, ed. and trans., De doctrina Christiana, pp. 14–15. J. Bennett, Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things (Durham, NC, 2010); D. Coole, ‘The Inertia of Matter and the Generativity of Flesh’, in New Materialisms: Ontology, Agency and Politics, ed. D. Coole and S. Frost (Durham, NC, 2010), pp. 92–115. J. Paz, Nonhuman Voices in Anglo-Saxon Literature and Material Culture (Manchester, 2017), p. 5. Paz, Nonhuman Voices, p. 14.

6

Introduction function of the riddle subject as a clue to the solution; fire, for example, is a wiga (‘warrior’), ‘dryhtum to nytte’ (‘useful to men’).20 Talkative and demanding though they may be, the things of the Exeter Book riddles are nonetheless often defined by the use they serve for humans. However, it remains that the riddles are very conscious of the life that material things have before they begin to interact with humans, and the way that they transcend mere functionality. For example, Riddle 60, ‘Reed-Pen’, begins with the speaker’s life at the edge of the water, removed from the company of men: Ic wæs be sonde, sæwealle neah, æt merefaroþe, minum gewunade frumstaþole fæst; fea ænig wæs monna cynnes, þæt minne þær on anæde eard beheolde (Riddle 60, lines 1–5). (I was by the sand, near to the sea-cliff, at the water’s shore, dwelt fast in my first place; there were few of the kin of men who looked upon my homeland there in that solitude).

The reed lives at the edges, in between land and water, rooted firm in this lonely place. Its sense of identity is reinforced through the metrical stress on ‘minum’ and ‘minne’ in lines 2 and 4: the reed’s ownership of its dwelling place is indisputable. Even after the reader learns about the reed’s displacement, and subsequent transformation at the hands of men into a tool for communicating, the riddle emphasises the pen’s agency and its identity in the process of writing, making the act of writing something which the pen does ‘bealdlice’ (line 16a) (‘boldly’).21 However, perhaps the clearest indication of the independent life of things in the Exeter Book riddles is the first-person, speaking voice of the thing itself. Through this first-person voice, the pen reveals that it has the power to think, and to wonder (lines 7b and 10b). Paz asserts that his booklength study seeks ‘to recognise the voice and agency that nonhuman things have across Anglo-Saxon literature and material culture’, and looks at ‘how nonhumans might be as active and talkative as humans

20

21

Riddle 50, lines 1–2a; G. P. Krapp and E. V. K. Dobbie, ed., The Exeter Book, ASPR 3 (London, 1936), p. 206. All quotations from Old English poetry are taken from the ASPR series unless otherwise specified. B. Mize, Traditional Subjectivities: The Old English Poetics of Mentality (Toronto, 2013), p. 6, uses the phrase ‘subjectivizing moments’ to describe these glimpses of the subjective interiority of a person, animal or thing which occur so frequently in Old English poetry.

7

Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus are assumed to be’.22 This connection between voice and agency, talkativeness and activity, is of central importance not just to the things of the Exeter Book riddles, but more widely in the study of early medieval thing power: it is through giving a thing the power of speech that one acknowledges or reveals its identity. An intriguing counterpart to the voices of the Exeter Book riddles can be found in the real-life speaking objects of this period, which range from brooches and rings to swords, from the lament of the whale on the Franks Casket to the enigmatic Alfred Jewel.23 An assemblage of rock crystal spolia, cloisonné enamel and gold filigree, inscribed with the words ‘Aelfred mec heht gewyrcan’ (‘Alfred ordered me to be made’), the Alfred Jewel is a riddle in its own right.24 Who is the cloisonné figure staring out of the rock crystal, holding the crossed foliate rods? What is the significance of the beast-head socket? And, most importantly for scholars of Alfredian literature, is this one of the æstels that Alfred apparently circulated with copies of the Old English translation of the Pastoral Care? Another question which I would like to add to the ever-growing debate on the jewel is how the Alfred Jewel fits into the two theories considered thus far: thing theory, which draws a distinction between things and objects, and Augustine’s theory of use and enjoyment. These theories allow us to explore the jewel’s functionality and its agency, and, moreover, to go beyond the simple binary of tool versus treasure.

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Paz, Nonhuman Voices, pp. 2–3. On the inscribed Isle of Ely brooch, which claims the ownership of Ædwen and threatens a curse to anyone who takes the brooch from her against her will, see J. F. Kershaw, Viking Identities: Scandinavian Jewellery in England (Oxford, 2013), pp. 118–19; and Paz, Nonhuman Voices, p. 11. On the ninth-century gold ring found in Manchester, inscribed in both roman and runic characters with the words, ‘æDRED MEC AH EAnRED MEC agROf’ (‘Ædred owns me, Eanred engraved me’), see Paz, Nonhuman Voices, p. 11. On the seax found in the River Thames, marked with the runic inscription ‘Beagnoþ’ and runic alphabet, see M. MacLeod and B. Mees, Runic Amulets and Magic Objects (Woodbridge, 2006), pp. 71–2 and 82; and Paz, Nonhuman Voices, p. 2. On the Franks Casket, see L. Webster, The Franks Casket (London, 2010); Mize, Traditional Subjectivities, pp. 3–6; and Paz, Nonhuman Voices, pp. 98–138. On the Alfred Jewel, see D. A. Hinton, The Alfred Jewel and Other Late Anglo-Saxon Decorated Metalwork (Oxford, 2008); see further, Chapter One. On the reading of the Alfred Jewel as an assemblage, see G. Pitt, ‘Ælfred mec het gewyrcan: The Persuasive Agency of Objects and Social Practices in Alfred the Great’s Reform Programme’ (Unpublished PhD Thesis, University of Western Australia, 2022). On assemblages more generally, see Bennett, Vibrant Matter, pp. 20–38.

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Introduction

Brucan Answers to some of these questions will be offered in Chapter One. Before that, though, it is worth establishing what Augustine’s distinction between use and enjoyment might have meant to an early medieval reader. In her discussion of the significance of Augustine’s theory for the Old English poems Guthlac A and B, Robin Norris observes: ‘What is clearly a complex dichotomy becomes even more confusing in Old English, since the word brucan can mean either ‘to use’ or ‘to enjoy’; the word frequently glosses both utor and fruor’.25 While some of the occurrences listed by the Dictionary of Old English in the entry for brucan under sense 1 (‘use, employ’) would be unlikely to include ‘enjoy’ as a possible interpretation, such as those found in medical texts, there are others, for example in the context of using food, which, as the editors note, are less clear-cut.26 Indeed, The Old English Thesaurus lists several verbs under the heading ‘to enjoy, use’: not only (ge)brucan, but also (ge)bryc(s)ian, bryttian, geearnian, neotan and (ge)nyttian.27 Old English, then, allows for a semantic slippage between these apparently quite different modes, use and enjoyment. Continuing with this parallel between Augustine’s use and enjoyment and thing theory’s object and thing, then, it could be asked whether the capaciousness of brucan reveals that speakers of Old English understood all objects to be things: not just tools to fulfil human motives, but rather, in Jane Bennett’s words, ‘vivid entities not entirely reducible to the contexts in which (human) subjects set them’.28 Certainly, this would go some way to explaining the way that the Old English riddling tradition insists upon the agency of things. I would suggest that the riddle-subjects move easily between useful tool and vibrant thing because they are constructed in a vernacular which finds no clear distinction between employing something for a useful purpose and enjoying it in its own right. In a similar way to the riddles, the material things of Old English heroic poetry seem to be invested with an agency and identity which sometimes encompass but ultimately transcend function. This is nowhere more apparent than in things of high material worth: the treasures which form the economy of the heroic world.29 The contrast between the enjoy25

26 27

28 29

R. Norris, ‘The Augustinian Theory of Use and Enjoyment in Guthlac A and B’, NM 104 (2003), pp. 159–78, at p. 166; A. Cameron, A. Crandell Amos, A. diPaolo Healey et al., ed., Dictionary of Old English: A to I online (Toronto, 2018) (henceforth DOE), s.v. brucan. DOE, s.v. brucan. J. Roberts and C. Kay with L. Grundy, A Thesaurus of Old English (Glasgow, 2017). Bennett, Vibrant Matter, p. 5. On the ‘Economy of Honour’ in Old English literature, see P. S. Baker, Honour,

9

Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus able things of heroic poetry and similarly valuable but merely functional objects can be illustrated by a comparison of the spectacular neck-ring which Wealhtheow gives to Beowulf, and a silver dish mentioned in Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica. When Wealhtheow gives Beowulf the mighty neckring reminiscent of the ‘Brosinga mene’ (Beowulf, line 1199b) (‘necklace of the Brosings’), the poet is compelled to relate the subsequent exploits in which the neck-ring is involved, digressing from the comforts of the feast at Heorot to recount the grim death of Hygelac in Frisia (lines 1202–14).30 Similarly, Elizabeth Tyler notes that in an earlier passage (lines 1020–49) the poet combines his description of the treasure ‘with lines explaining the treasure’s lineage and significance’.31 A contrasting episode can be found in the account of Oswald’s almsgiving in Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica (HE III.6). In the Old English version (III.4), the king and his bishop are enjoying an Easter feast when they are interrupted with the news that the street outside is overflowing with beggars. The king orders a ‘micel seolfren disc’ (‘large silver dish’) to be broken ‘to styccum 7 þæm þearfum gedælde’ (‘to pieces and distributed to the needy’).32 Unlike the magnificent neck-ring, the silver dish carries no significance in its own right, but is valued solely as a means to alleviate poverty. It can be literally smashed into pieces and retain its value. The treasures of Beowulf, on the other hand, are things which embody memories and meaning. Their ‘thingness’ is revealed in

30

31

32

Exchange and Violence in Beowulf, Anglo-Saxon Studies 20 (Cambridge, 2013). On the role of treasure in the heroic world more generally, see E. Leisi, ‘Gold und Manneswert im Beowulf’, Anglia 71 (1952), 259–73, trans. J. D. Niles with the assistance of S. A. Dubenion-Smith, in J. D. Niles, Old English Literature: A Guide to Criticism, with Selected Readings (Chichester, 2016), pp. 173–83; M. Cherniss, Ingeld and Christ: Heroic Concepts and Values in Old English Christian Poetry (The Hague, 1972), pp. 79–101; R. Naismith, ‘The Economy of Beowulf’, in Old English Philology: Studies in Honour of R. D. Fulk, ed. L. Neidorf, R. J. Pascual and T. A. Shippey, Anglo-Saxon Studies 31 (Cambridge, 2015), pp. 371–91; M. E. Goldsmith, The Mode and Meaning of Beowulf (London, 1970), p. 90; and P. Silber, ‘Gold and its Significance in Beowulf’, Annuale Mediaevale 18 (1977), 5–19. See F. Leneghan, The Dynastic Drama of Beowulf, Anglo-Saxon Studies 39 (Cambridge, 2020), pp. 121–39. All quotations from Beowulf are taken from R. D. Fulk, R. E. Bjork and J. D. Niles, ed., Klaeber’s Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg, 4th ed. (Toronto, 2008); henceforth referred to as KIV. E. M. Tyler, Old English Poetics: The Aesthetics of the Familiar in Anglo-Saxon England (York, 2006), pp. 9–10. T. Miller, ed. and trans., The Old English Version of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, 2 vols, EETS o.s. 95–6 and 110–11 (London, 1890–98), I, p. 164, line 31 and p. 166, line 8. The account in the Latin version is much the same, except that the silver dish is not said to be large: B. Colgrave and R. A. B. Mynors, ed., Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People (Oxford, 1969), p. 230.

10

Introduction their power to recall the past and unveil the future; the ‘before and after of the object’, to borrow from the terms of thing theory.33 In Beowulf, gifts of treasures are often accompanied with the imperative ‘bruc’ (‘use, enjoy’). When Wealhtheow gives Beowulf the neck-ring, she commands: ‘Bruc ðisses beages, Beowulf leofa’ (line 1216) (‘Use or enjoy this ring, dear Beowulf’). It could be asked whether it is possible to use a neck-ring; it might seem obvious that Wealhtheow here means ‘enjoy’ only. However, the following line forms a chiastic structure which complicates this assumption (emphasis added to highlight chiasmus): Bruc ðisses beages, Beowulf leofa hyse, mid hæle, ond þisses hrægles neot (Beowulf, lines 1216–17).34 (Use or enjoy this ring, dear Beowulf, young warrior, with prosperity, and use or enjoy this mail shirt).

The two imperatives, bruc and neot, bookend these two lines, framing the two gifts mentioned here, the beag and the hrægl (‘mail shirt’). In Wealhtheow’s injunction to ‘þisses hrægles neot’ (‘use or enjoy this mailshirt’) it is easier to see how the different senses of neotan could work together, as the hrægl serves a practical purpose on the battlefield, as well as being a finely crafted and beautiful object that Beowulf can enjoy for its own sake. The careful structuring of these lines, which present the verbs brucan and neotan in parallel, encourages a reconsideration of how Beowulf’s enjoyment of the neck-ring might, likewise, shade into use. Indeed, the primary use that Beowulf finds for the neck-ring is to bestow it upon the Geatish queen, Hygd, as part of his presentation of gifts at Hygelac’s court. Like Wealhtheow, Beowulf accompanies his gifts to Hygelac with an imperative: ‘Bruc ealles well!’ (line 2162b) (‘use or enjoy it all well!).35 Once again, use and enjoyment merge into one another. The giving of glittering treasures is paired with the reminder that these precious things must be used, or enjoyed, or perhaps both. The rusting hoard of treasure ruled over by the dragon at the end of the poem is a reminder of what happens to treasure which is neither used nor enjoyed; it is perhaps this spectre of ‘unnyt’ (line 3168a) (‘useless’) gold which prompts the instruction to ‘bruc ealles well’ when treasure is passed from one person to another.36 In the end it is Hygelac, not Hygd, who uses and enjoys the neck-ring that Beowulf brings back from Heorot, choosing to 33 34

35 36

B. Brown, ‘Thing Theory’, p. 5. On the significance of Wealhtheow’s address to Beowulf here, see Leneghan, Dynastic Drama, pp. 74–6. For variations on this formula, see Beowulf, lines 1045b and 2812b. E. I. Condren, ‘Unnyt Gold in Beowulf 3168’, PQ 52 (1973), 296–9.

11

Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus wear it on the ill-fated expedition to Frisia in which he loses his life. The poet notes, even at the moment Wealhtheow gives the ring to Beowulf, that it is lowly warriors who will strip Hygelac of this spectacular ornament (lines 1212–13a). He may have enjoyed the use of the neck-ring, but it ends up in the hands of petty Frankish skirmishers. This movement of treasures – through gift and plunder alike – is evidently of great interest to the Beowulf poet, as is the cessation of movement, the burial of hoards in the ground. The poet has at his fingertips the genealogy of each old sword and mail-shirt, just as he knows the future fate of the neck-ring Wealhtheow gives to Beowulf: this is the ‘before and after’ which creates thingness, according to thing theory, and which is so readily apparent in the treasures of heroic poetry.37 Indeed, in the world of the poem, the life of treasure seems to stretch almost indefinitely in both directions, past and future. The individual lives of humans intersect with this life course only very briefly – a moment of contact between the corruptible king, queen or warrior and the durable sword, ring or mailshirt.38 As Hrothgar explains to Beowulf, bad kings like Heremod who get too attached to their treasure will be replaced by one who ‘unmurnlice madmas dæleþ, / eorles ærgestreon’ (lines 1756–7a) (‘hands out gifts without anxiety, the man’s ancient treasure’).39 Eorl here is in the singular, meaning that this is not the treasure of men which will be distributed, but the treasure of one particular man: the man who used to be king. Kings should not get so attached to their treasure, because it is not truly theirs.40 The life of the king’s treasure stretches far into the past, as suggested by the first element in the compound ‘ær-gestreon’, and also long into the future; but the individual king only makes fleeting contact with this ancient gold. The Beowulf poet’s awareness of the previous life of treasure, and its continuity, resonates with thing theory’s ‘before and after of the object’. Memories of the previous lives of treasures abound in the poem, in the frequent references to ancestors who bestowed a sword upon the

37

38

39

40

I have used masculine pronouns for Old English poets and authors for ease of comprehension, but it should be acknowledged that these individuals may well have been female. G. R. Owen-Crocker, ‘The Life Course of Artefacts’, in Early Medieval English Life Courses: Cultural-Historical Perspectives, ed. T. Porck and H. Soper, Brill’s Explorations in Medieval Culture 20 (Leiden, 2022), pp. 253–84. It seems as though Scyld Scefing, whose good kingship is praised at the beginning of the poem (Beowulf, lines 4–11), becomes king after an interregnum caused by the expulsion of Heremod; see A. Bonjour, The Digressions in Beowulf, Medium Ævum Monographs 5 (Oxford, 1950), p. 7. On the historical reality of wealth controlled by the king, the fisc, see M. Swanton, Crisis and Development in Germanic Society 700–800: Beowulf and the Burden of Kingship (Göppingen, 1982), pp. 19 and 36.

12

Introduction current owner, accounts of how precious war-gear was plundered, and acknowledgement of the craftsman who first made a splendid mail-shirt.41 It is perhaps this pressing consciousness of the before and after of treasure which lends a sense of pessimism to Beowulf. The poet rarely articulates it fully, but nonetheless reminds his readers again and again that human lives are only brief flickers of light – or indeed, fleeting flights of sparrows – in the context of the near-cosmic lifespan of treasures.42 In its entry for brucan, the DOE includes the sense ‘to enjoy, enjoy the use of’, as well as ‘to possess, enjoy the use of’.43 This recurring sense ‘enjoy the use of’ seems central not only to the bewildering verb brucan, but also the Beowulf poet’s treatment of material treasures more widely. To ‘enjoy the use of’ something carries with it the understanding that enjoyment or possession of the thing, whatever it is, must necessarily be limited. In the words of another Old English poet: Her bið feoh læne, her bið freond læne, her bið mon læne, her bið mæg læne, eal þis eorþan gesteal idel weorþeð! (The Wanderer, lines 108–10) (Here money is on loan; here friends are on loan; here man is on loan; here kinsmen are on loan; all this earthly foundation becomes useless!)

One can enjoy the use of all these things, but outright enjoyment is qualified by the transitoriness of everything on this ‘earthly foundation’. Indeed, this qualification is often an undercurrent in the Beowulf poet’s use of the verb brucan, as in the account of the Last Survivor. Unsurprisingly, this passage brings with it a heightened sense of the transience of human lives in comparison with the enduring life of treasure; the ‘weard winegeomor’ (‘friend-mourning guardian’) expects ‘þæt he lytel fæc longgestreona / brucan moste’ (‘that he for a little time would be able to use or enjoy the ancient treasure’) (lines 2239–41a).44 While royal treasure is ærgestreon, this national treasure is longgestreon, the longevity of the hoard set in direct 41

42

43 44

See for example, Beowulf’s armour, which is Hrethel’s heirloom and the work of the legendary smith Weland (lines 454b–55a); the sword which Hygelac gives to Beowulf, another heirloom of Hrethel’s (line 2191b); the war-gear which Hrothgar gives to Beowulf, given to Hrothgar by his brother Heorogar (lines 2155–62); and the long history of the weapons and armour which Wiglaf inherits from his father Weohstan (lines 2611–25a). The famous analogy of the flight of a sparrow through a hall for the life of men is found in Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica, II.13. DOE, s.v. brucan, senses 2 and 3. See A. Faulkner, ‘Death and Treasure in Exodus and Beowulf’, ES 101, 785–801, at p. 792, on the association between loss of life and loss of treasure in traditional Old English heroic poetry.

13

Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus contrast to the little time the Last Survivor has left to use or enjoy it.45 Motan (‘to have the opportunity, be allowed’) is key here, functioning grammatically as an auxiliary to brucan but semantically undercutting the potential for use and enjoyment. The two verbs collocate on a number of occasions in Beowulf, and elsewhere in the Old English corpus, testament to a shared sense that enjoyment of worldly things is contingent and tentative, rather than an enduring surety. At the very end of the poem, for example, Wiglaf alludes to Beowulf’s life in terms of the time ‘þenden he burhwelan brucan moste’ (line 3100) (‘when he could use or enjoy the prosperity of the city’).46 Enjoyment, or use, of worldly things is qualified with the verb motan; enjoyment of these things is not to be taken for granted, like the foolish king described by Hrothgar: ‘Þinceð him to lytel þæt he lange heold’ (line 1748) (‘To him it seems too little, which he [too] long held’).47 Perhaps most blunt is Wealhtheow’s instruction to Hrothgar: ‘bruc þenden þu mote / manigra medo’ (lines 1177b–78a) (‘enjoy many rewards while you may’). For Augustine, it is the eternal life of the soul which means that enjoyment of material things is limited; but from the perspective of the characters in Beowulf, if not the poet, it is perhaps the long life of the things themselves in comparison to the span of human life which renders man’s enjoyment of them short-lived. An exception to this somewhat gloomy trend comes in the account of Sigemund the dragon-slayer: Hæfde aglæca elne gegongen þæt he beahhordes brucan moste selfes dome; sæbat gehleod, bær on bearm scipes beorhte frætwa Wælses eafera; wyrm hat gemealt. (Beowulf, lines 893–7) (The awe-inspiring one had brought it about with courage that he was able to enjoy or use the ring-hoard according to his own judgement; the son of Wæls loaded the sea-boat, bore into the bosom of the ship the bright treasure; the dragon melted in its heat.)

In this case, motan seems to mark Sigemund’s achievement, given the proximity to ‘gegongen’, rather than any limitation or qualification to his enjoyment of the beahhord. The image of Sigemund loading his sea-boat with this bright treasure recalls the funeral barge of Scyld Scefing from the start of the poem, likewise laden with treasures. In both cases, the 45

46 47

See also Beowulf, line 2097, describing Grendel: ‘lytle hwile lifwynna breac’ (‘enjoyed life-joys for a little while’). See also Beowulf, 1487b. The manuscript reads ‘to lange’, with ‘to “imperfectly erased”’ (KIV, p. 59).

14

Introduction poet gives no indication that either character will be separated from their treasure: in Sigemund’s case because his story (as it is told here, anyway) has all the optimism of fairy-tale, and in Scyld Scefing’s, because he is already dead. It might be assumed, then, that enjoyment or use of læne treasure in this life is qualified in Old English poetry, but that the riches of the afterlife are to be enjoyed without any limitation. However, while brucan occurs frequently in the context of the heavenly life, there too it is accompanied by the auxiliary motan. In The Dream of the Rood, for example, the dreamer anticipates the time when the Cross will fetch him from this ‘lænan life’ (line 138) (‘transitory life’), and take him to where:  ic syþþan mot wunian on wuldre, well mid þam halgum dreames brucan (The Dream of the Rood, lines 142b–44a) (I may afterwards dwell in glory, enjoy bliss well with the saints).48

Here, the uncertainty of motan is a sign of the dreamer’s wish to be at this heavenly feast, the fact that it has not yet happened, marked also by the subjunctive mood elsewhere in this closing passage. In this ‘lænan life’, enjoyment is always limited – whether because one must be parted from the things that one enjoys on earth, or because one has not yet attained the things of heaven. There is a persistent sense of incompleteness, of something lacking. In heroic poetry like Beowulf, this sense of incompleteness is what characterises human use and enjoyment of material things. When gifts are handed over with the instruction ‘bruc’, the qualifier ‘þenden þu mote’ (‘while you may’) is present as an undertone. The characters of the heroic world are often all too aware of the longevity of their material treasures in comparison with their own lifespan. But this is not to say that the Beowulf poet therefore condemns the wealth of the heroic world; while conscious of the dangers and limitations of treasure, the poet nonetheless celebrates the material splendour of this world with awe and reverance. My contention is that poems such as Beowulf reveal an ideology which is able to hold these two seemingly conflicting attitudes together. When looking at, or holding, or even simply remembering an ornamented sword or spectacular neck-ring, the characters of the poem are able to enjoy the sword or ring for its own sake, while simultaneously understanding that their enjoyment is strictly limited. Ultimately, they can only ever enjoy

48

See also Elene, line 1315; Fates of the Apostles, line 117; and The Phoenix, line 674a.

15

Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus the use of the thing; it is understood that the thing itself must always be relinquished, and so never truly possessed or enjoyed. Although they famously do not know God (Beowulf, line 181b), this awareness would seem to bring the characters of Beowulf in line with Augustine’s principles of use and enjoyment: worldly things are only to be used, not enjoyed. However, in Old English heroic poetry, there is a sense that even though the enjoyment of material things is limited, their worth is not diminished. As is implied by the overlap between ‘use’ and ‘enjoy’ in verbs such as brucan and neotan, temporary use of treasure can shade into enjoyment, even if that enjoyment is necessarily fleeting. It is here, perhaps, where the difference between the characters’ paganism and Augustine’s Christianity results in divergent attitudes towards material things. Moreover, for the pagan characters of Beowulf, there is little outside of this life to supersede one’s enjoyment of material things apart from the pursuit of lasting glory, the only prize enduring enough to rival the longevity of treasure. The hoard of treasure buried by the Last Survivor is a good illustration of this longevity, in that it survives the ebb and flow of dynasties and civilisations, and is returned to the ground at the very end of the poem: forleton eorla gestreon eorðan healdan, gold on greote, þær hit nu gen lifað, eldum swa unnyt swa hyt æror wæs. (Beowulf, lines 3166–8) (They let the earth hold the treasure of men, gold in the earth, where it still now lies, as useless to men as it ever was.)

The poet’s certainty that the gold lies in the same place ‘nu’ is testament to the longevity of material treasure, especially in comparison with fleeting human lives. However, in spite of the frequent injunction to ‘bruc’ treasure well, here the poet somewhat bitterly remarks on the uselessness of treasure to men. This perhaps represents one of the glimpses of the disconnect between the Christian poet and his pagan characters: while Beowulf, Wealhtheow and others urge one another to use and enjoy the precious things given as gifts, the poet here reveals a worldview which finds little use for or pleasure in material wealth. The use of brucan in Beowulf reveals a striking overlap between use and enjoyment which complicates the binary made by Augustine between the verbs utor and fruor. In terms of thing theory, the possibility of seeing material things as simultaneously to be used and enjoyed blurs the boundary between thing and object, a phenomenon which resonates with the treatment of things in the Exeter Book riddles as both useful tools and active agents in their own right. The aim of this book is to present a new 16

Introduction reading of Alfredian literature in the light of both Augustine’s principles and thing theory. By reading this corpus alongside Old English poetry, this book will show that wealth in Alfredian literature is not simply a tool to be used, or something to be loved for its own sake. Rather, it transcends these categories of functionality and adoration: through the creative and imaginative work of translation, wealth is both transformed and transformative. Beowulf and his thegns, however, might seem to belong to an entirely different world to Alfred, his scholarly circle and the Old English Boethius. In one sense, this is true: Beowulf is a work of fiction, set in a long ago time and a far away place, however the poem is dated, whereas the translations attributed to Alfred belong to a specific historical and literary moment, framed with prefaces which yoke them, accurately or not, to the king and the turbulence of late ninth-century Wessex. In that sense, Beowulf and Alfred do belong to two very separate worlds. However, in another sense, the distance between the two is artificial. As Renée Trilling has convincingly argued, the world depicted in Beowulf has very little to do with any historical truth, and in fact reveals more about the time of the poem’s composition than the nostalgically tinged ‘heroic’ past in which the story is set.49 While Beowulf takes as its setting pagan Scandinavia, it was produced and received in early medieval England.50 The same readers or listeners who encountered the Old English Boethius as part of one evening’s entertainment or education may have, on the very next night, sat down to listen to the story of Beowulf.51 If the third night of literary performance (or private reading) were to include, for example, some of Cynewulf’s poetry, our imagined audience would be in a position to witness the transformation of heroic poetry into hagiographic and homiletic modes. While retaining many of the conventions of heroic verse, much Old English poetry is characterised by its fusing of this tradition with quite different genres: we might think, for example, not only of Cynewulf’s poetry, but also The Dream of the Rood, Andreas, The Wanderer and The Seafarer, all of 49

50

51

R. Trilling, The Aesthetics of Nostalgia: Historical Representation in Old English Verse, Toronto Anglo-Saxon Series 3 (Toronto, 2009), pp. 3–6. While the dating of Beowulf is notoriously contentious, there is much evidence to suggest that it is a very early poem. R. D. Fulk, A History of Old English Meter (Philadelphia, 1992), pp. 348–9, finds that Beowulf can be dated among the earliest Old English poems on the evidence of non-parasiting, contraction and adherence to Kaluza’s law, among other criteria; see also R. D. Fulk, ‘Beowulf and Language History’, in The Dating of Beowulf: A Reassessment, ed. L. Neidorf, Anglo-Saxon Studies 24 (Cambridge, 2014), pp. 19–36. T. Bredehoft, Authors, Audiences, and Old English Verse (Toronto, 2009), pp. 65–103, has made the case for knowledge of a particular group of Old English poems at the court of Alfred the Great, including Beowulf, Genesis A and B, Exodus, Andreas, Elene and Juliana.

17

Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus which feature heroic elements in new contexts. In all of these poems, the heroic treatment of treasure that we have seen in Beowulf is integrated into an overtly Christian standpoint which views these perishable things from an eschatological perspective: the focus slides from the longevity of ancestral treasure to the condition of the human soul. While it would be facetious to suggest that any one early medieval reader would have had access to all the literature listed above in a single sitting, the fact remains that, although the composition of Beowulf, the Old English Boethius and Cynewulf’s Elene might be separated by at the least decades, if not centuries, the copying, circulation and reading of these texts is by no means so distanced. To take these three texts, for example: one of the manuscripts of the Boethius, the Vercelli Book (home to Elene) and the Beowulf manuscript can all be dated to within a number of decades between the mid-tenth and early eleventh centuries.52 Scribes were copying vernacular poetry at the same time as Old English prose works; indeed, it is not impossible that some manuscripts of poetry and prose translations were produced at the same scriptoria. There is, moreover, some evidence to suggest that vernacular poetry was in fact composed under the patronage of Alfred, or at his court. Richard North and Michael Bintley make this claim for Andreas, and Thomas Bredehoft has argued that a number of Old English poems were produced in an Alfredian milieu, including The Dream of the Rood, Solomon and Saturn and The Battle of Finnsburh, under the influence of Old Saxon poetry.53 The proximity of these texts, whether in their composition, reception, or later copying, collapses the distance between the heroic tradition of Old English poetry and the translations attributed to Alfred the Great. As Trilling observes, ‘the heroic “tradition” is a product not of generations of Germanic storytelling but of poems committed to manuscript in the tenth and eleventh centuries and providing our only evidence of such a tradition’: the traditional world is informed by the literature and culture of the present.54 In this light, we can begin to see how the prose translations attributed to Alfred might have engaged with the poetry circulated 52

53

54

Gneuss and Lapidge, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts, pp. 274–5, 322–3, 682–5; nos. 347, 399 and 941. The manuscripts are London, British Library, MS Cotton Otho A. vi, fols. 1–129, s. x. med (the manuscript of the C-text of the Boethius); London, British Library, MS Cotton Vitellius A.xv, fols. 94–209, s. x/xi (the Beowulf manuscript); and Vercelli, Biblioteca Capitolare, CXVII, s.x2 (the Vercelli Book). See R. North and M. D. J. Bintley, ed., Andreas: An Edition (Liverpool, 2016), pp. 97–115; T. Bredehoft, ‘Old Saxon Influence on Old English Verse: Four New Cases’, in Anglo-Saxon England and the Continent, ed. H. Sauer and J. E. Story, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies 394, Essays in Anglo-Saxon Studies 3 (Tempe, AZ, 2011), pp. 83–111; and Bredehoft, Authors, Audiences, pp. 65–103. Trilling, Aesthetics of Nostalgia, p. 3.

18

Introduction or produced contemporaneously, and how readers of the later copies of those Alfredian translations, mainly produced during the later tenth and eleventh centuries, might have made connections with the vernacular poems which were being copied at the same time. As I will show over the course of this book, the Alfredian translations should by no means be divorced from the poetic corpus; rather, just as poems such as The Dream of the Rood transform heroic convention for didactic (and imaginative) ends, Alfredian prose assimilates and transforms its poetic inheritance. It is worth pausing to establish what exactly is meant by the term ‘Alfredian’. As Janet Bately has noted, the ‘generally accepted’ Alfredian canon (sometimes known as the ‘royal corpus’) is as follows: the translations of Gregory’s Regula pastoralis (The Pastoral Care), Boethius’s De consolatione philosophiae (the Boethius), Augustine’s Soliloquia (the Soliloquies), the prose translation of the first fifty Psalms and the preface to Alfred’s laws.55 Bately shows that the Pastoral Care, Boethius, Soliloquies and Prose Psalms can be grouped together on a number of grounds: these include linguistic agreements,56 shared imagery,57 and a tendency to tone down the rejection of worldly pleasures, such as wealth, found in the Latin source texts.58 She asserts that the ‘condemnation expressed in the Latin source-texts of such things as wealth, power, fame, and luxurious living is no longer absolute’; for example, the translators often qualify their source by condemning only immoderate excesses of the good in question.59 Bately goes on to argue that, as ‘no good reason has yet been given to compel us to discount the contemporary evidence’ for Alfred’s authorship of the Pastoral Care, and as the Pastoral Care shares many features with the Boethius, Soliloquies and Prose Psalms, these four texts represent ‘a canon of the king’s literary, as opposed to legal, compositions’, that is, the prefatory material to Alfred’s laws.60 Not all scholars believe that these four texts are by the same author. Malcolm Godden and Susan Irvine find that the relationship between the Soliloquies and the Boethius is so close that they conclude: ‘It is impossible to resist the conclusion that the two works are 55

56

57

58 59 60

Bately, ‘The Alfredian Canon Revisited’, p. 109; Bately notes that the Metres of Boethius is a ‘possible exception’: p. 109, n. 17. See further Bately, ‘Lexical Evidence’, pp. 94–5, in which Bately expresses her conviction that there was ‘one mind at work’ behind the four canonical literary texts. Bately, ‘Alfred as Author and Translator’, pp. 125–8; for example, cræft with the sense of ‘virtue’ is limited to these four texts (p. 125); on the word cræft in Alfredian translations, see further N. G. Discenza, ‘Power, Skill and Virtue in the Old English Boethius’, ASE 26 (1997), 81–108. Bately, ‘Alfred as Author and Translator’, pp. 130–4; on hunting imagery see pp. 130–1; on ships see pp. 131–3; and on gardening see pp. 133–4. Bately, ‘Alfred as Author and Translator’, pp. 134–6. Bately, ‘Alfred as Author and Translator’, p. 134. Bately, ‘Alfred as Author and Translator’, p. 140.

19

Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus by the same author’; however, they see ‘no apparent links or similarities’ between the Boethius and the Pastoral Care, and only one case of linguistic similarity between the Boethius and the Prose Psalms.61 While I would agree with Bately that these four texts represent a literary canon, and without a doubt one associated with Alfred, this book will not assume the king’s authorship of any of the translations as a certainty. The Old English translations of Orosius’s Historiarum Adversum Paganos Libri VII, Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica and Gregory’s Dialogi have in the past also been associated with Alfred’s authorship; however, Bately shows that the so-called ‘royal corpus’ mentioned above is distinct in ‘language and style’ from all three.62 The Orosius and the Dialogues both contain allusions to Alfred – in the case of the Dialogues, in its prefaces, and in the Orosius, in the additional account from Ohthere – and thus may be considered Alfredian; however, on the grounds of language and style, both fall outside of the main remit of this study. Nonetheless, Chapter One will offer a reading of the verse preface to the Dialogues, as well as the other ‘speaking-book’ prefaces of the Alfredian corpus. These poems, spoken in the voices of the translations and the books they are found in, draw attention to the materiality of the text, and indeed the whole material process of translating, reading and writing. The first chapter will go on to consider the speaking Alfred Jewel alongside the speaking books. I will suggest that the striking and highly valuable jewels occupy a position between use and enjoyment, object and thing, means and end: while the pointers, fittingly enough, serve a pragmatic purpose in ‘pointing’ the way to wisdom, I will argue that they are also agents in their own right, transcending mere function. Like the treasure in Beowulf, these jewels complicate the use/enjoyment and thing/object binaries outlined above. Chapter Two will apply this materialist approach to the Old English Pastoral Care, using the very thing-focussed prose preface as a starting point, and reading this preface alongside Old English riddles which warn against emptying material things of meaning. The verse epilogue, moreover, will play an important role in my reading of the Pastoral Care in that the stream of wisdom image forms a fitting analogy for the way that the Pastoral Care understands wealth as a current, running from earth to heaven. As this chapter will emphasise, though, a process of transformation must take place, in order for worldly wealth to pass from this life 61 62

Godden and Irvine, ed., Old English Boethius, I, pp. 137–9. Bately, ‘Alfred as Author and Translator’, pp. 140–1; see also Bately, ‘The Alfredian Canon Revisited’, p. 109, and Godden and Irvine, ed., Old English Boethius, I, pp. 136–7 and 139. On the differences of vocabulary between the Orosius and the canonical Alfredian texts, see E. M. Liggins, ‘The Authorship of the Old English Orosius’, Anglia 88 (1970), 289–322.

20

Introduction into the next: in the Pastoral Care, this transformation is effected through almsgiving and the exercise of cræft. Chapter Two will also highlight the central position occupied by the parable of the talents in Alfredian philosophy, mirroring Gregory’s own concern with making good use of the resources one has been given, whether material or immaterial. This theme of making good use of one’s resources will also be of great significance in Chapter Three, which will treat the Old English Boethius. This chapter will re-evalute the commonly held assumption that the Boethius is more accepting of material goods than its source texts, drawing attention to the repeated condemnation of material wealth as false and deceitful, and finding parallels for this attitude in Old English poetry, including The Wanderer, The Seafarer, Beowulf and Riddle 11. Building on the brief consideration of the famous ‘tools of the king’ speech here in the Introduction, this chapter will offer a fresh reading of this important and lengthy addition, again identifying parallels in poems such as Beowulf and The Wanderer. Through a reading which highlights the development of Mod’s intellect over the course of the dialogue, this chapter will demonstrate that while material wealth is ultimately found to be false in comparison with the ‘soð wela’ (‘true riches’) of wisdom, it nonetheless has a significant role to play in Mod’s transformation from ignorance to understanding. In Chapter Four I will consider the Old English Soliloquies, a text which, perhaps more than any other in this corpus, seems to be focussed wholly on the world to come, and is nonetheless frequently interrupted by tangible, physical things. This chapter will interpret the material things which recur in this text through the lens of thing theory, and Augustine’s own principles of use and enjoyment. Attitudes towards wealth in the translation will be read in the light of the translator’s approach to the material world more generally, which is not always consistent with his source text. Finally, this chapter will offer a new reading of the preface to the Soliloquies. Chapter Five will continue to interrogate the connection between this material world and the world to come, with focus on the Old English Prose Psalms, which offer pragmatic guidance on how to transform one’s worldly wealth into spiritual rewards. As in the case of the Pastoral Care, I will draw attention to the idea of a current of wealth which flows from earth to heaven; just as in the Pastoral Care, transformation of earthly wealth is effected through almsgiving, a process which, almost alchemically, turns the perishable wealth of this world into the immeasurably more valuable riches of heaven. Parallels for this transformation of material wealth are found in the Old English poem The Phoenix and Cynewulf’s apocalyptic signatures. The originality of the Prose Psalms is stressed throughout by comparison with the Old English Psalter glossing tradition. 21

Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus Over the course of this study, transformation emerges again and again as a central aspect of Alfredian literature. Indeed, this is the basis of Bately’s important publication, The Literary Prose of King Alfred’s Reign: Translation or Transformation?63 As Bately’s title suggests, the Alfredian translations might better be termed ‘transformations’ of their source texts. In addition to this, though, we might think of the transformation expected of the reader, moving from a state of ignorance to one of understanding, and the transformation of wealth from a grubby thing of this world to the shining treasure of heaven and wisdom. The Alfredian authors and translators repeatedly condemn and reject the material world; in spite of this, though, material things surface in these translations again and again: the famous wagon-wheel, the leaky pitcher and the painted egg. All of these are testament to the Alfredian attraction to material things, which finds its greatest flourishing in the Alfred Jewel. By focussing on the transformation of wealth, we can move beyond the fixed, static points of tool versus treasure, or use versus enjoyment. Rather, we can appreciate the fluidity of material wealth, which flows both horizontally as an exchange of gifts between humans, and vertically, as a salvific current between earth and heaven.

63

J. M. Bately, The Literary Prose of King Alfred’s Reign: Translation or Transformation? (London, 1980).

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1. Books and Ladders: The Speaking Prefaces

A

s outlined in the Introduction, the corpus of Old English prose translations traditionally attributed to Alfred the Great has sometimes been characterised by a greater tolerance for worldly possessions than that found in the Latin source texts on which the translations are based. These additions and adaptations might imply a translator or group of translators writing not with the philosophical detachment of Boethius, or the logical abstraction of Augustine, but rather with some of the pragmatism of Gregory the Great, who reluctantly acknowledges the importance of carrying out one’s mundane, worldly duties – much as he would rather spend his days in quiet, monastic contemplation.1 This balanced, even-handed approach to worldly resources can be found throughout the Alfredian corpus; nonetheless, at times we encounter a repudiation not just of material wealth but of all materiality which matches, or even surpasses, Boethius himself. In Book I of De consolatione philosophiae, Lady Philosophy, or Philosophia, works to convince Boethius of the insignificance of the material world from which he has been banished, imprisoned as he is on the grounds of treason. She says to him that she seeks not a richly decorated library ornamented with ivory and glass but ‘tuae mentis sedem’ (1p5, line 23) (‘the storeroom of your mind’), in which she has laid up not books but what gives them value, the ‘sententias’ (1p5, line 25) (‘opinions’) set down in them.2 In the Old English translation, Wisdom tells Mod that he does not desire walls made out of glass, nor: heahsetla mid golde and mid gimmum gerenedra, ne boca mid golde awritenra me swa swiðe ne lyst swa me lyst on þe rihtes willan. Ne sece ic no her þa bec ac þæt þæt ða bec forstent, þæt is þin gewit. (B5.29–32)

1 2

Gregory I, Gregorii magni dialogi, ed. U. Moricca (Rome, 1924), p. 14. H. F. Stewart, E. K. Rand and S. J. Tester, ed. and trans., Boethius: The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy, Loeb Classical Library 74 (Cambridge, MA, 1973), pp. 162–3; parenthetical references give the book number first, followed by the number of either the prose section (‘p’) or the metre (‘m’).

23

Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus (thrones adorned with gold and gems, nor do I desire books written with gold so much as I desire a right will in you. I do not seek books here but that which gives value to the books, that is your understanding.)

Although glass walls and golden thrones studded with gemstones are not common features of early medieval libraries, gold decoration would be familiar from high-status manuscripts such as bibles and gospel books.3 The extended description of the fantastical library in the Old English version might well be seen as evidence for a deeper appreciation of precious things and skilful workmanship on the part of the translator; but for the purpose of Wisdom’s argument, this amplification of the opulence found in the Latin serves to make the dismissal of the fine books and their surroundings all the more emphatic, and to highlight the greater significance of the gewit (‘understanding, mind’). Nicole Discenza argues: ‘The image places an almost tangible value on the work that Alfred and his readers do in their engagement with the text, associating the more abstract cultural capital with highly desirable economic capital’.4 The value of the library and the physical books is transferred from the physical pages and bookshelves to the mind of the reader. As in the Latin version, Wisdom’s message is that no matter where one finds oneself, a prison cell or a sumptuous library, one’s mind is the most valuable thing in the room. However, there is an important difference between the two passages which has hitherto gone unmentioned. For Philosophia, the mind is valuable because it is a storehouse of sententias, while in the Old English, these sententias are not mentioned at all: full focus is given to Boetius’s mind: the gewit. While Philosophia finds the greatest value in the ancient doctrines which can settle in both the pages of books and the minds of philosophers, for the Old English translator, it is the intellect itself which is most highly valued. Discenza’s point about the cultural capital of the readers’ engagement with the text could be applied more specifically to the gewit (‘intellect’): it is this, I would argue, which takes on the golden gleam of the library’s economic capital, becoming almost a material thing itself in association with the tangible treasures of the library and its books. Given this repudiation of richly decorated books, it is perhaps little surprise to learn that most of the manuscripts in which Alfredian translations are found are quite plain, with the exception of a later de luxe copy of the Pastoral Care.5 It would be very easy to conclude that, like

3

4 5

For example, the Canterbury Royal Bible (London, British Library, Royal MS 1 E IV) and the gospel book known as the Codex Aureus (Stockholm, Kungliga Biblioteket, MS A. 135). See also Riddle 51 in the Exeter Book, which alludes to a scribe writing in a manuscript with gold-decorated pages. Discenza, King’s English, p. 20. Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 12, dating from the latter part of the

24

Books and Ladders: The Speaking Prefaces Wisdom and Philosophia, the creators of these manuscripts were solely concerned with the development of the intellect, in a completely abstract and detached way. Indeed, Leslie Webster refers to the surviving Alfredian manuscripts as ‘the physical embodiment and necessary tools of the king’s programme of reform’.6 These books seem more like useful objects than independent things, to draw on the distinction made by thing theory; Alfredian books, we might conclude, are simply a means to the end of education and wisdom. However, this would be to deny the fact that the paratexts of the Alfredian corpus are preoccupied with book production, and with books as things, not as mere vessels of sententias. The prose preface to the Pastoral Care, for example, objectifies the books lost to the Viking raids by grouping them with the treasures that used to stand alongside them in the churches. The source of learning for Alfred’s proposed reform is found in the physical copies of the translation which the king has ordered to be produced, and which, as we learn from the preface, he has disseminated among his bishops. The verse preface that follows is similarly preoccupied with book production, and likewise stresses the importance of physical books as a means of finding one’s way to wisdom. Perhaps most significantly, the copies of the Pastoral Care, although themselves very plain, come accompanied by an æstel, this precious object which is ‘on fiftegum mancessa’ (9.1–2) (‘worth fifty mancuses’), and which probably refers to the Alfred Jewel and the related jewels with socket fittings found in Wessex.7 All the gold decoration which might have been found in the manuscripts has been channelled into the jewels. Their evident economic capital is a reflection of the cultural capital of the translations, as Discenza argues in the case of the library metaphor in the Boethius. Here, though, there is no repudiation of treasure: the Alfred Jewel is an integral part of the gift which is delivered to Alfred’s bishops. By pairing the jewels with copies of the books, Alfred foregrounds the materiality of the books and their value as objects, a move which runs counter to the dismissal of the physical books that we have seen in the Old English Boethius. Further consideration of the paratexts of the Alfredian corpus will illustrate that, contrary to Wisdom’s words in the Boethius, physical books are of central significance to the Alfredian pursuit

6 7

tenth century: Gneuss and Lapidge, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts, pp. 46–7, no. 37; L. Webster, ‘The Art of Alfred and His Times’, in A Companion to Alfred the Great, ed. Discenza and Szarmach, pp. 47–81, at pp. 47–8. Webster, ‘Art of Alfred’, p. 47. Quotations from and references to the Pastoral Care and its prefaces and epilogue are from Oxford, Bodleian Library, Hatton 20, as printed in H. Sweet, ed. and trans., King Alfred’s West-Saxon Version of Gregory’s Pastoral Care, Parts 1 and 2, EETS 45 and 50, o.s. (London, 1871–2), with parenthetical references to page and line number(s).

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Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus of wisdom. The first-person voice of the books and the Alfred Jewel has a transformative effect, turning the simple matter of ink and gold into a ladder to heaven.

The verse preface to the Old English Dialogues In the late ninth century, two influential works by Gregory the Great, the Dialogi and the Regula pastoralis, were translated into Old English. Since their composition in the ninth century both translations have been associated with King Alfred and his scholarly circle. The Anglo-Latin Vita of Gregory testifies to his popularity in England; the great veneration in which Gregory was held is related to his status as the ‘apostle’ of the English, being responsible (if indirectly) for their conversion.8 Moreover, as Daniel Anlezark has observed, Gregory brought to the English not only Christianity but, by extension, literacy, meaning that he has special significance for Anglo-Saxon learning.9 According to Alfred’s advisor and biographer Asser, Bishop Wærferth of Worcester translated the Dialogi into Old English at the king’s request.10 Both translations contain prose prefaces written in Alfred’s voice, and both also feature verse prefaces which implicate Alfred: in the case of the Pastoral Care, Alfred is given credit for the translation, while in the Dialogues, the verse preface praises the king for his gift of the exemplar. While written in Alfred’s voice, it has been noted that, on stylistic grounds, the prose preface to the Dialogues is unlikely to have been written by the king himself; Godden observes that if the author of the preface was Wærferth himself, it would explain why he is not mentioned in it.11 8

9

10

11

The Earliest Life of Gregory the Great, ed. and trans. B. Colgrave (Lawrence, KS, 1968), pp. 82–3; and Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica II.1. On knowledge of Gregory’s works in Anglo-Saxon England, see Lapidge, Anglo-Saxon Library, pp. 176, 181, 209–12, 232, 235, 239, 241, 258–9, and 270; and M. Lapidge, ‘Asser’s Reading’, in Alfred the Great, ed. Reuter, pp. 27–47, at p. 35, for evidence that Asser knew the Regula pastoralis, Dialogi and Moralia in Iob. D. Anlezark, ‘Gregory the Great: Reader, Writer and Read’, in The Church and Literature, ed. P. D. Clarke and C. Methuen, Studies in Church History 48 (Woodbridge, 2012), pp. 12–34, at p. 25; see also Frantzen, King Alfred, p. 25. Asser’s Vita Alfredi 77 (henceforth VA). For the argument that the Dialogi was selected for translation because of its suitability as a teaching text, for both the laity and clergy, see D. F. Johnson, ‘Alfredian Apocrypha: The Old English Dialogues and Bede’, in A Companion to Alfred the Great, ed. Discenza and Szarmach, pp. 368–95, at pp. 387–8. M. Godden, ‘Wærferth and King Alfred: The Fate of the Old English Dialogues’, in Alfred the Wise: Studies in Honour of Janet Bately on the Occasion of her Sixty-Fifth Birthday, ed. J. Roberts and J. L. Nelson, with M. Godden (Cambridge, 1997),

26

Books and Ladders: The Speaking Prefaces The prose preface to the Dialogues appears only in the H-text (Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 322, s.xi1), and the verse preface only in the O-text (London, British Library, Cotton Otho C. i, vol. 2, s. xi in. and s. xi med).12 In the prose preface ‘Alfred’ explains that he requested the translation of Gregory’s Dialogi; he has heard, the king says: þætte us, þam þe God swa micle heanesse worldgeþingða forgifen hafað, is seo mæste ðearf, þæt we hwilon ure mod betwix þas eorþlican ymbhigdo geleoðigen 7 gebigen to ðam godcundan 7 þam gastlican rihte.13 (1.5–12) (that for us, to whom God has given such great supremacy in worldly things, it is the greatest need that we sometimes, amongst this earthly anxiety, soothe and turn our minds to divine and spiritual justice.)

This awareness of the ideal balance between quiet contemplation and involvement in busy worldly affairs is typically Gregorian. Although the prose preface does not appear in the same manuscript as the verse preface, Irvine observes that ‘it is not inconceivable that both prefaces circulated with the OE Dialogues at one stage’, as in one copy of the Pastoral Care only the verse preface is included, the prose preface having been left out.14 If the two prefaces did ever appear together, the prose preface to the Dialogues would serve the purpose of establishing the gap between ‘eorþlican ymbhigdo’ (‘earthly anxiety’) and ‘ðam godcundan 7 þam gastlican rihte’ (‘divine and spiritual justice’). The concept of this gap, and the

12

13

14

pp. 35–51, at pp. 35–7; see also D. Whitelock, ‘Some Charters in the Name of King Alfred’, in Saints, Scholars and Heroes: Studies in Medieval Culture in Honour of Charles W. Jones, ed. M. H. King and W. M. Stevens, 2 vols (Collegeville, MN, 1979), I, pp. 77–98; though for the contrary view see her earlier ‘The Prose of Alfred’s Reign’, in Continuations and Beginnings: Studies in Old English Literature, ed. E. G. Stanley (London, 1966), pp. 67–103, at p. 67. On the prose preface to the Dialogues having little relationship to other Alfredian literature, see Bately, ‘The Alfredian Canon Revisited’, p. 114. Irvine, ‘Prefaces and Epilogues’, p. 147. Gneuss and Lapidge, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts, pp. 104 and 282, nos 92 and 359. H. Hecht, ed., Bischofs Wærferth von Worcester Übersetzung der Dialoge Gregors des Grossen über das Leben und die Wunderthaten italienischer Väter und über die Unsterblichkeit der Seelen, Bibliothek der Angelsächsischen Prosa 5 (Leipzig, 1900). All quotations from the Old English Dialogues are taken from this edition unless otherwise stated, with parenthetical reference to page and line number. Irvine, ‘Prefaces and Epilogues’, pp. 149–50; this is Cambridge, Trinity College, R.5.22. Godden, ‘Wærferth and King Alfred’, pp. 39–40, suggests that Bishop Wulfsige of Sherborne, who perhaps oversaw the dissemination of the translation and may have written the verse preface which now appears in the O-text, was sent a very early copy of the translation, before the prose preface had been added.

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Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus translation’s potential to bridge it, is of central importance to the verse preface which may, at some point, have followed after the prose. The verse preface to the Old English Dialogues is one of several Alfredian prefaces which is spoken in the voice of the book itself, a conceit which highlights the importance of the physical book in forming a connection between earthly and heavenly realms: Se ðe me rædan ðencð tyneð mid rihtum geðance. He in me findan mæg, gif hine feola lysteð gastlices lifes godre biesene, þæt he ful eaþe mæg upp gestigan to ðam heofonlican hame þar byð a hyht ond wyn, blis on burgum, þam þe bearn Godes sielfes hiora eagum geseon motan.15 (Verse preface to the Dialogues, lines 1–7) (He who intends to read me will shut me with correct understanding. He can find in me, if he desires it, many good examples of the spiritual life, so that he can very easily ascend up to the heavenly home where there is ever hope and joy, bliss in the cities, for the ones who are permitted to see the son of God himself with their own eyes.)

By speaking and referring to itself, the book highlights its own agency in the reader’s journey to heavenly happiness. The focus of the poem is this spiritual destination but, as Irvine argues, we can nonetheless see a ‘play between physical and spiritual’ in the poem.16 The heavenly afterlife is imagined in terms of a ‘hame’, and of ‘burgum’: worldly foundations translated into a spiritual setting.17 Even the ultimate goal, proximity to the son of God, is presented in terms of sight, one of the body’s senses, and the poet makes a point of mentioning ‘hiora eagum’, a part of the body which the reader uses here on earth; indeed, as Irvine suggests, the reader uses their bodily eyes to read these very words which point to incorporeal contemplation.18 The intangible ‘gemynd’ (line 19a) (‘memories’) of the saints are ‘gemearcude’ (line 19b) (‘marked, inscribed’) on the very real page of the manuscript; m-alliteration binds together the nebulous memories of the saints and the markings on the page.19 15

16 17

18 19

Irvine and Godden, ed. and trans., Old English Boethius with Verse Prologues and Epilogues, p. 404. Irvine, ‘Prefaces and Epilogues’, p. 152. Irvine, ‘Prefaces and Epilogues’, p. 152, notes that the phrase ‘blis in burgum’ is used twice elsewhere in Old English poetry, in both cases referring to earthly cities. Irvine, ‘Prefaces and Epilogues’, p. 152. Irvine and Godden, ed. and trans., Old English Boethius with Verse Prologues and Epilogues, p. 404.

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Books and Ladders: The Speaking Prefaces Indeed, the reader is constantly reminded of the material nature of the book, and their own physical interaction with it. For example, the verb ‘tyneð’ at the very start of the preface reminds the reader that the book they are holding is not just a portal to the words which their gewit makes sense of, but a tangible object which opens and shuts. Later in the preface the book refers to itself as that which ‘þu on þinum handum nu hafast ond sceawast’ (line 17) (‘you in your hands now have and look at’).20 This line neatly articulates the process of private reading: one has the book in one’s hands, and gazes at it. The scene is not one of a poet’s oral performance, or aural participation in a homily preached from the other end of the church: this is a one-to-one interaction between book and reader, one which depends upon the individual’s sight and touch. The attention given to the book’s physicality, and the reader’s manual interaction with it, might recall poems such as Riddle 26, which is spoken in the voice of a bible, or perhaps the colophon to the copy of the Old English translation of Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica found in Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 41.21 The latter is a prayer addressed to each man ‘þe þas boc ræde / and þa bredu befo’ (2b–3a) (‘who reads this book, and holds the boards [the outer part of the book]’). Tactile and visual interaction with the physical book is foregrounded in the verse preface to the Dialogues, a sense of proximity which is heightened by the first-person voice in which the book speaks. The book’s speaking voice sends out lines of connection not only between earth and heaven, but between itself and the people responsible for its creation. It requests prayers for Bishop Wulfsige of Sherborne, who commissioned the production of this copy of the translation, and also for Alfred: ond eac swa his beah-gifan, þe him ðas bysene forgeaf, þæt is se selesða sinces brytta, Ælfryd mid Englum (Verse preface to the Dialogues, lines 23–5a).22 (and also his ring-giver, who gave him the exemplar, who is Alfred, the greatest distributor of treasure among the English).

20

21

22

Irvine and Godden, ed. and trans., Old English Boethius with Verse Prologues and Epilogues, p. 404; translation my own. Gneuss and Lapidge, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts, pp. 48–50, no. 39, date the manuscript to the first part of the eleventh century. Irvine and Godden, ed. and trans., Old English Boethius with Verse Prologues and Epilogues, p. 406. The manuscript shows that somebody has attempted to erase the name Wulfsige and replace it with ‘Wulfstan’. The Wulfstan in question is probably Wulfstan I of Worcester: N. R. Ker, Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford, 1957 [reissued with supplement 1990]), p. 236.

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Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus As Irvine notes, ‘bysene’ here could refer to the physical exemplar sent by Alfred to Wulfsige or, as earlier in the poem, the examples of the spiritual life found in the book; she goes on to argue that the preface highlights the book’s role as ‘a repository of spiritual treasure’.23 Both the physical exemplar and the treasury of spiritual examples can be understood as the gifts which make Alfred a ‘beahgifa’ (line 23a) (‘ring-giver’) and ‘sinces brytta’ (line 24b) (‘distributor of treasure’). Again, we are reminded of the importance of the physical book, as one part of the treasure which Alfred has provided.

Ladders and learning It is, of course, the physical copy of the book which allows the reader to access the spiritual examples found within. Though Philosophia would pass over physical copies of books in favour of the doctrine contained in Boethius’s mind, the verse preface to the Old English Dialogues stresses their importance in bridging the gap between earth and heaven. One of the most striking images in this short poem comes in the book’s claim that through the good examples contained within it, the reader ‘ful eaþe mæg upp gestigan / to ðam heofonlican hame’ (lines 4–5a) (‘can very easily ascend up to the heavenly home’). We are invited to imagine the book as the first rung on this ladder which will lead the reader all the way to heaven. Modern and medieval readers alike might be reminded here of Jacob’s ladder (Genesis 28.12–17): in a dream, Jacob sees angels ascending and descending a ladder which has one foot on earth and one in heaven. When he wakes, he suddenly perceives that God is there where he had previously seen only material reality: ‘vere Dominus est in loco isto et ego nesciebam’ (Genesis 28.16) (‘indeed the Lord is in this place and I knew it not’).24 The verse preface to the Dialogues presents the copy of the translation in the same way: it has one foot (or corner, perhaps) on earth, and the other, through virtue of the spiritual examples contained within its pages, in heaven. Moreover, just like Jacob’s ladder, the preface reveals the spiritual world hidden in the physical: what may have the appearance of a simple, undecorated book is in fact a treasury of spiritual examples. Jacob’s ladder is alluded to once in the Old English Pastoral Care (101.15–21). However, far more pertinent for the current purpose are the two occasions in the Alfredian corpus where the image of a ladder is employed in order to express mental ascent, with the use of the same verb 23 24

Irvine, ‘Prefaces and Epilogues’, p. 152. All quotations from the Vulgate are from R. Weber et al., ed., Biblia Sacra Iuxta Vulgatam Versionem, 5th ed. (Stuttgart, 2007).

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Books and Ladders: The Speaking Prefaces (ge)stigan (‘ascend’). The first example can be found in the translation of Gregory’s own preface to the Regula pastoralis: Nu ic wilnige ðætte ðeos spræc stigge on ðæt ingeðonc ðæs leorneres, suæ suæ on sume hlædre, stæpmælum near ond near, oððæt hio fæstlice gestonde on ðæm solore ðæs modes ðe hi leornige; ond forðy ic hi todæle on feower (Pastoral Care, 23.16–18) (Now I desire that this account should ascend in the inner thought of the student, just as on a ladder, step by step, nearer and nearer, until it stands firm in the upper chamber of the mind of the one who studies it; and therefore I divide it into four [books]).

The Latin Regula pastoralis uses a step-by-step image, but the specific detail of the ladder is found only in the Old English. With a concrete and homely analogy characteristic of Alfredian literature, we are encouraged to view the journey towards understanding as the ascent of a ladder into an upper room. While the verse preface to the Dialogues uses the image of ascent to depict the journey towards the heavenly home, here we see a similar image employed for the purpose of describing the ascent towards understanding. For the translator of the Pastoral Care, the closing of the gap between ignorance and clarity is best imagined as the climbing of a ladder. The materiality of this image might seem jarring in the context of the ascent towards wisdom; but as we have seen in the verse preface to the Dialogues, material objects can play a central role in traversing the gap between the earthly and the immaterial. A very similar image occurs in the Old English translation of Augustine’s Soliloquies.25 It comes at a point where Gesceadwisnes (‘Reason’) lectures Augustinus on the parallel between the eyes of the body and the eyes of the mind: if one’s bodily eyes are not healthy, she tells him, one cannot look at the sun; likewise, if the eyes of one’s mind are not healthy, one cannot look at the eternal sun, which is divine wisdom. She goes on to explain that one can train one’s bodily eyes by first of all looking at a wall, and then gold and silver, and then fire. After fire, one can build up to looking at the sun by looking at the stars and the moon, and then the sun’s rays, before finally gazing on the sun itself. The same principle applies to the eyes of one’s mind: and swa ylce (hit byð) be þære oðerre sunnan þe we ær ymbe specon, þæt is, wisdom. Se ðe hyne myð hys modes æagum geseon wele, he sceal of swiðe lytlum hyt ongynnan, and þonne lytlum and lytlum stigan near and near stæpmelum, swilce he on sume hlædre stige and 25

T. A. Carnicelli, ed., King Alfred’s Version of St. Augustine’s Soliloquies (Cambridge, MA, 1969), p. 102, observes the similarity to the passage in the Pastoral Care.

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Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus wylle weorðan uppe on sumum sæclife. Gyf he þonne æfre uppe on ðam clife wyrð, þonne mæg he locian egðer ge ofer þone warað ge ofer þa sæ, þe hym ðonne benioðan byð, ge æac ofer þæt land þe hym ær bufan wæs.26 (Soliloquies, 78.17–23) (and thus it is the same regarding the other sun which we spoke about before, that is, wisdom. He who wishes to see with his mind’s eyes must begin it very gradually, and then little by little ascend nearer and nearer, step by step, as if he climbs on a ladder and wishes to be up on a sea-cliff. If he ever gets up on the cliff, then he can look both over the shore and over the sea, which will be beneath him then, and also over the land which previously was above him.)

This passage represents an expansion of the Latin text, which only alludes to the steps that one must take.27 The similarity to the passage in the Pastoral Care is striking, although the simile is subtly different. While the Pastoral Care analogy describes the movement from ignorance to true understanding of the teachings of the Regula pastoralis, the goal in the Soliloquies passage is divine wisdom, which can never be completely understood in the mortal life. However, the Soliloquies passage represents a meeting point between the images of ascension in the verse preface to the Dialogues and in Gregory’s preface to the Pastoral Care, in that the divine wisdom of the Soliloquies is something like a combination of the heavenly destination of the verse preface, and the mental pinnacle of understanding of the Pastoral Care. Heavenly and mental ascent, then, are not so different after all. As in the Pastoral Care passage, the simile used by the translator of the Soliloquies is familiar and concrete, fully grounded in the material world: not only the ladder, but also the detail of the ‘sæclife’, an oddly specific location for this ascent. The choice of the sea-cliff makes more sense if we consider that, once at the top, the student of wisdom has the choice to look out to sea, or out across the land which was previously high above her. It is clear that both prospects represent the wisdom that she has gained through ascending the ladder up the cliff, but it is worth pausing to consider exactly what sort of wisdom this might be. While the wisdom

26

27

Quotations from and references to the Soliloquies and its preface are from Carnicelli, ed., King Alfred’s Version, with parenthetical references to page and line number(s). Soliloquia I.23; Augustine of Hippo, Soliloquies and Immortality of the Soul, ed. and trans. G. Watson, Classical Texts 0953–7961 (Warminster, 1990), p. 58. See Carnicelli, ed., King Alfred’s Version, p. 102. On the image of the mind’s eye in the translations associated with Alfred, see M. Wilcox, ‘Alfred’s Epistemological Metaphors: eagan modes and scip modes’, ASE 35 (2006), 179–217; and A. Faulkner, ‘The Mind in the Old English Prose Psalms’, RES 70 (2019), 597–617, at pp. 609–14.

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Books and Ladders: The Speaking Prefaces which Augustinus seeks in the Soliloquies is ultimately the divine wisdom of heaven, the translator also acknowledges the importance of wisdom in this life: ‘Ac nota þæs wisdomes þe þu habbæ and fagene ðæs dæles þe þu ongitan magæ, and higa georne æfter maran’ (79.22–4) (‘but make use of the wisdom which you have and rejoice in that portion which you can perceive, and hasten eagerly after the greater’). If gazing out to sea represents divine, revelatory wisdom, looking out over the land which was previously out of sight could represent the wisdom of this world. The mental work of reading the Pastoral Care and the Soliloquies, then, is imagined as the climbing of a ladder which leads to wisdom and understanding, presented in terms of an upper chamber in the mind, or the top of a cliff. These analogies provide a background for the image of ascent in the verse preface to the Dialogues, which describes how the reading of a book can aid one in climbing from earth to heaven.

The verse preface and epilogue to the Old English Pastoral Care The verse preface to the Pastoral Care is, like the verse preface to the Dialogues, spoken by the translation itself. This speaking book depicts a chain of literary transmission: the Regula pastoralis travels from Gregory, ‘ofer sealtne sæ’ (line 2a) (‘over the salt sea’), via Augustine of Canterbury: Siððan min on Englisc Ælfred kyning awende worda gehwelc and me his writerum sende suð and norð (Verse preface to the Pastoral Care, lines 11–13a)28 (Afterwards King Alfred turned each word of me into English, and sent me to his scribes, south and north).

Alfred becomes an integral link in the chain which transmits the wisdom of Gregory to his subjects; as Irvine argues, the verse preface ‘reinforces the implication in the prose preface that Alfred is the means by which wisdom and wealth can be restored to his kingdom’.29 As in the verse preface to the Dialogues, the voice of the speaking book stresses the book’s own agency 28

29

Irvine and Godden, ed. and trans., Old English Boethius with Verse Prologues and Epilogues, p. 408. Irvine, ‘Alfredian Prefaces and Epilogues’, p. 158. See also N. G. Discenza, ‘Alfred’s Verse Preface to the Pastoral Care and the Chain of Authority’, Neophilologus 85 (2001), 625–33, at p. 626; D. Pratt, The Political Thought of King Alfred the Great, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought 67, 4th ser. (Cambridge, 2007), p. 142; and E. G. Stanley, ‘King Alfred’s Prefaces’, RES n.s. 39 (1988), 349–64, at p. 355.

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Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus in this chain of wisdom, from Gregory, via Augustine of Canterbury, to Alfred, then to Alfred’s scribes and finally his bishops. Again, we can see a physical book bridging a gap: here, between the wisdom of Gregory and the minds of the bishops who need the translation. As we have seen, the ladder similes in the Pastoral Care and the Soliloquies present the search for wisdom with strikingly material imagery. Here, likewise, the speaking book of the verse preface to the Pastoral Care imagines Gregory’s composition of the Regula pastoralis in the physical terms of movement and space:  Ryht-spell monig Gregorius gleaw-mod gindwod ðurh sefan snyttro, searo-ðonca hord. (Verse preface to the Pastoral Care, lines 5b–7).30 (Wise-minded Gregory traversed among many true writings, through the wisdom of his heart, his hoard of cunning thoughts.)

The verb geondwadan is often translated rather blandly as ‘studied’; Bosworth-Toller offers ‘to go through a subject’; ‘make oneself acquainted with, study’.31 However, if the verb is broken down into its constituent parts, we can see that it is made up of geond (‘through, among’) and wadan (‘to go, pass’), whose primary sense is the literal one.32 Irvine and Godden’s translation captures the physical movement suggested by geond and wadan: ‘The wise Gregory explored / many true texts thoroughly’.33 The preface offers an image of Gregory almost literally moving through these ‘ryht-spell’, the sifting of his scholarship and the progress of his thought captured in this verb of motion. Moreover, Gregory’s mind is imagined as a ‘searo-ðonca hord’, a hoard or treasury of cunning thoughts.34 The source of his intelligence, his gewit, becomes a physical storage space, his wisdom made tangible as the finely wrought contents of the hoard; indeed, the very use of the element searu- implies artifice, craft and design, especially interlaced and interlocking materials such as 30

31

32 33

34

Irvine and Godden, ed. and trans., Old English Boethius with Verse Prologues and Epilogues, p. 408. For example, R. Hamer, ed. and trans., A Choice of Anglo-Saxon Verse (London, 1970) p. 131. J. Bosworth, An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Based on the Manuscript Collections of J. Bosworth, Edited and Enlarged by T. N. Toller; Supplemented by T. N. Toller (Oxford, 1898), henceforth B-T, s.v. geondwadan. B-T, s.v. wadan. Irvine and Godden, ed. and trans., Old English Boethius with Verse Prologues and Epilogues, p. 409, lines 5–6. On the presentation of the mind as a container in Old English poetry, see B. Mize, ‘The Representation of the Mind as an Enclosure in Old English Poetry’, ASE 35 (2006), 57–90; on the verse preface to the Pastoral Care, see p. 60.

34

Books and Ladders: The Speaking Prefaces armour.35 Once again, mental process is presented in material terms. The physical book sent from Rome and those books which are distributed all around England are at the centre of this transmission of wisdom. However, the speaking voice of this preface is arguably not the voice of the book itself, but the text in the book, as the speaker describes how Alfred turned it into English. The speaker is the Latin text, as well as the English translation. The distinction is the same as that between Philosophia’s sententias or doctrine in De consolatione, and the physical books in which that doctrine is found, a distinction between meaning and the physical location of that meaning. The meaning of the Regula pastoralis stays constant, even as the form in which it is transmitted shifts. The essential text inhabits numerous manuscripts, articulated first in Latin and then in English. Through a chain of physical books, which travel on the sea from Rome to Wessex, a transformation is achieved, although the essential message of the text remains the same. The verse epilogue to the Pastoral Care picks up on this idea of a single, unchanging message which is transmitted through various authorities, although here the chain of transmission runs not horizontally from pope to king, but vertically, from heaven to earth. The poem uses the metaphor of a stream of water to convey this process of transmission. The stream has its source in heaven, and is drawn from by saints and other holy people, who direct it via holy books to the minds of men.36 As we have seen elsewhere in Alfredian writings, the mental processes of reading, interpreting and meditating are presented in strikingly material terms. Some who receive the stream of wisdom guard it in their ‘gewitlocan’ (line 13b) (‘intellect-locker’), lock it up with their lips, to prevent it flowing away uselessly. Others let it run away over the land in ‘riðum’ (line 19a) (‘streams’); as the poet remarks, it is not advisable to allow the precious waters to turn into ‘fenne’ (line 21b) (‘mud’). Readers are then exhorted to come and draw from this stream, which Gregory has directed to their very doors. The poet closes by instructing those who would draw from

35

36

P. B. Taylor, ‘Searoniðas: Old Norse Magic and Old English Verse’, Studies in Philology 80 (1983), 109–25, at pp. 114–17. On the relationship between this water and the biblical “waters of life” (John 7.37–8), see J. E. Cross, ‘The Metrical Epilogue to the Old English Version of Gregory’s Cura Pastoralis’, NM 70 (1969), 381–6, at pp. 383–4; and W. T. Whobrey, ‘King Alfred’s Metrical Epilogue to the Pastoral Care’, JEGP 90 (1991), 175–86, at pp. 176–7. For similar water imagery elsewhere in the Pastoral Care, see 277.5–14, 279.11–14, 283.11–15 and 373.7–20; see also N. D. Isaacs, ‘Still Waters Run Undiop’, PQ 44 (1965), 545–9, at pp. 548–9; and Whobrey, ‘King Alfred’s Metrical Epilogue’, pp. 179–84.

35

Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus the stream to bring a ‘fætels’ (line 25a) (‘jug’), and to make sure that it is not leaky, lest the water be lost.37 Study, meditation and memory are presented to the reader through these highly material images. Indeed, Hatton 20 is a good example of the way that the physical book affects the reading and interpretation of the doctrine contained within, in that the poem is laid out so it tapers to a point, mimetic of wisdom’s stream flowing down from heaven; as Irvine observes, the shape resembles ‘water cascading into a container’.38 Though this is not a speaking book poem, it nonetheless highlights the central role that physical books play in the transmission of wisdom. As in the verse preface to the Pastoral Care, the focus is not one particular copy of the translation, like the speaking book in the verse preface to the Dialogues, but rather the essence of the text itself, the unchanging doctrine which lies behind the various forms and languages in which it is presented. The stream of water is a good metaphor for an essence which remains the same, but whose form is ever changing. The same water can be ‘diop and stille’ (line 17b) (‘deep and still’) at one time and place, and ‘hlud and undiop’ (line 20b) (‘loud and shallow’) in another.39 As the poet of Maxims II acknowledges: ‘Ea of dune sceal / flodgræg feran’ (Maxims II, lines 30b–31a) (‘the river must travel from the hill, flood-grey’).

The verse preface to the Old English Boethius The final speaking-book poem of the Alfredian corpus is the verse preface to the Old English Boethius. The verse preface is spoken not in the voice of the physical book, nor by the essential and unchanging text held in its pages, but by the metres which have been produced by an Old English poet to correspond to the metres in the Latin version. These metres unequivocally claim Alfred as their creator: Ðus Ælfred us ealdspell reahte, cyning Westsexna, cræft meldode, leoðwyrhta list. Him wæs lust micel ðæt he ðiossum leodum leoð spellode,40 monnum myrgen, mislice cwidas

37

38 39

40

Irvine and Godden, ed. and trans., Old English Boethius with Verse Prologues and Epilogues, p. 410. Irvine, ‘Prefaces and Epilogues’, p. 158. Irvine and Godden, ed. and trans., Old English Boethius with Verse Prologues and Epilogues, p. 410. Irvine, ‘Prefaces and Epilogues’, p. 163, notes that in the translation itself, the translator is careful to reserve spellian for the recitation of prose, not verse.

36

Books and Ladders: The Speaking Prefaces (Verse preface to the Boethius, lines 1–5).41 (Thus Alfred, king of the West-Saxons, related us,42 old stories, revealed his skill, his poet’s art. He greatly desired to tell poetry to this people, merriment for men, diverse sayings).

The speaking poems go on to frame the versification process as a concession to the ‘selflicne secg’ (line 7a) (‘self-regarding man’), easily bored, it seems, by uninterrupted prose, implying that the prosimetrical version may have been designed for a different audience from that of the entirely prose text.43 The prosimetrical Metres of Boethius could represent a version of the translation designed for audiences who lacked the literacy required to read the entirely prose B-text privately. This could be seen to reflect the situation described in Æthelweard’s Chronicon, dating from the late tenth century. Æthelweard praises the accessibility of the Boethius ‘not only for scholars [‘expertioribus’], but for any who might hear it read’.44 Katherine O’Brien O’Keeffe comments: In contrasting “expertiores” with “audientes” Æthelweard imagines two sets of users for the translation of the Consolation and two scenes of reading. That the scholars of the first set are readers with unmediated access to the text is reasonably inferred from the contrast with the ‘listeners’ of the second set. The listeners, by contrast, are moved by hearing the excellence of Alfred’s language as it is animated by reading aloud.45

A contrast is set up, then, between readers who can access the translation 41 42

43

44 45

Godden and Irvine, ed., Old English Boethius, I, p. 384. ‘Us’ could be seen to refer to the audience listening to the translation; however, J. W. Earl, ‘King Alfred’s Talking Poems’, Pacific Coast Philology 24 (1989), 49–61, at p. 52, argues persuasively that ‘us’ refers to the metres, rather than the audience. E. V. Thornbury, Becoming a Poet in Anglo-Saxon England (Cambridge, 2014), p. 234, makes the suggestion that ‘unadulterated prose’ would not have been taken seriously by judgemental readers. On the translation of ‘selflice’, see K. O’Brien O’Keeffe, ‘Listening to the Scenes of Reading: King Alfred’s Talking Prefaces’, in Orality and Literacy in the Middle Ages: Essays on a Conjunction and its Consequences in Honour of D. H. Green, ed. M. Chinca and C. Young, Utrecht Studies in Medieval Literacy 12 (Turnhout, 2005), pp. 17–36, at pp. 32–4. More recently, S. Irvine, ‘The Protean Form of the Old English Boethius’, in The Legacy of Boethius in Medieval England, ed. A. J. McMullen and E. Weaver (Tempe, AZ, 2018), pp. 1–17, at pp. 8–10, argues that this reference to the ‘self-regarding man’ may only reflect the literary topos that poetry makes a refreshing counterpart to prose, rather than the reality of the intended audience. A. Campbell, ed. and trans., The Chronicle of Æthelweard (London, 1962), p. 51. O’Brien O’Keeffe, ‘Listening to the Scenes of Reading’, p. 36; see also E. Weaver, ‘Hybrid Forms: Translating Boethius in Anglo-Saxon England’, ASE 45 (2017), 213–38, at p. 230.

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Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus privately, and listeners who experience the translation aurally. It may be that the private readers read the entirely prose version, while the listeners listened to the prosimetrical version. Nonetheless, it is unlikely that this public performance was the only means by which the prosimetrical version was accessed.46 Indeed, the speaking book of the preface seems overly emphatic in asserting its status as an oral text; in James Earl’s terms, it creates a ‘calculated illusion of orality’.47 As Irvine observes, the speaking book ‘alludes explicitly to poetry in the words “leoðwyrhta,” “leoð,” and “fitte,” and uses vocabulary associated with the Old English poetic tradition (“fitte” again, and “hæleðum”)’.48 This would imply an entirely oral, poetic context for the verse preface. The poem insists that it exists only as an oral version, floating in the air between speaker and listener, demanding: ‘hliste’! (line 10b) (‘listen’). It pays no heed to material channels of transmission, just in the same way that speech is described later in the Boethius: Genoh sweotol þæt is þætte god word and god hlisa ælces monnes bið betera and deorra þonne ænig wela. Hwæt, þæt word gefylð eallra þara earan þe hit geherð and ne bið þeah no ðy læsse mid þam þe hit spricð. His heortan diegelnesse hit openað and þæs oþres heortan belocene hit þurhfærð, and on þam færelde þær betwyx ne bið hit no gewanod. (B13.25–30) (It is clear enough that a good report and good reputation from everyone is better and more valuable than any wealth. Indeed, that report fills the ears of all who hear it and is nevertheless not any less with the one who speaks it. It opens the privacy of that one’s heart and it passes through the other’s locked heart, and there on the journey between it is not diminished at all.)

The self-conscious orality of the verse preface to the Boethius strives for this immaterial status. Fluid immateriality is shown to be more valuable than material wela, fixed in its form. The voice of the Metres wants us to think of it passing, undiminished, directly from Alfred’s heart into our own. However, the voice here does not represent an unchanging, intangible stream of wisdom. The poem does not speak as the essence of the text, but a specific version of it: verses composed in Old English to correspond to the metrical sections in the Latin. The metres are interspersed among the prose sections, and could not exist independently of them. In 46

47 48

Earl, ‘King Alfred’s Talking Poems’, p. 51; see L. D. Benson, ‘The Literary Character of Anglo-Saxon Formulaic Poetry’, PMLA 81 (1966), 334–41, at pp. 337–9, on the poet of the Metres as a literate poet. Earl, ‘King Alfred’s Talking Poems’, p. 51. Irvine, ‘Prefaces and Epilogues’, pp. 162–3.

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Books and Ladders: The Speaking Prefaces spite of the speaker’s insistence that it is an oral poem, cut loose from the physical pages of the manuscript, this fixed form of the metres is tied to the physical manuscript. This is no disembodied voice speaking, but a thoroughly textual creation. While the three verse prefaces of the Alfredian corpus can all be roughly categorised as ‘speaking-book poems’, we can see that, in truth, the three speakers are very different. The verse preface to the Dialogues is spoken in the voice of a particular book: the one which was made from the exemplar that Alfred sent to Wulfsige. Matters are complicated by the fact that the preface only survives in a much later manuscript, where Wulfsige has been replaced by the more contemporary Wulfstan. As Irvine notes: ‘The preface simultaneously bears witness to the constantly evolving nature of the manuscript text, and the potential pitfalls of the transmission process’.49 Nonetheless, it remains that the preface was composed in the voice of one particular copy of the translation. The verse preface to the Pastoral Care, on the other hand, speaks in the voice of the base text which lies behind the various copies and translations of the Regula pastoralis. The verse epilogue to the Old English translation uses a similar image of the stream of wisdom to describe the core doctrine that lies behind the various holy books which draw ultimately from the wellspring in heaven. This essential doctrine is what is valued by Philosophia in the De consolatione, who dismisses the physical copies of the books themselves in favour of what is found within them, and which Boethius has in his own mind. Although the verse preface to the Pastoral Care centres around book production, the speaker of the poem is detached from any particular physical copy. The verse preface to the Boethius aims at something like this detachment from materiality, on the grounds that the speaker of the poem, the collection of metres themselves, exists on an entirely oral plane. However, the poem’s insistence on its own orality is something of an illusion, disguising the fact that these poems are fully implicated in the text of the translation.

The Alfred Jewel Although Wisdom rejects material books and fine treasures in favour of the intelligence found in the mod, it is evident that the prefaces to the Alfredian translations are in fact very conscious of the role played by physical books in bridging the gap between earth and heaven, blind ignorance and revelation. Indeed, the crossing of this great chasm is often imagined in strikingly material terms, as in the two ladder similes from 49

Irvine, ‘Prefaces and Epilogues’, p. 153.

39

Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus the Pastoral Care and the Soliloquies, or the watertight flagon in the verse epilogue to the Pastoral Care. Material books, then, are seen as acceptable in the journey towards wisdom. But what of material treasures, the gold and gems that decorate the fantastical library and bookshelves? If material books can find a place in the journey to wisdom, perhaps finely crafted treasure also has a role to play in the pursuit of immaterial riches. The speaking voice of the material books serves not only to transform them but, moreover, to bring about the spiritual and sapiential transformation of their readers. The most famous Alfredian treasure, like these books, speaks in the first-person and, as we shall see, is similarly both transformed and transformative. The Alfred Jewel has long been associated with the æstel mentioned in the prose preface to the Pastoral Care, a highly valuable object worth fifty mancuses (Pastoral Care 9.1–2); each bishop who was sent a copy of the translation would have also received an æstel, it seems (7.25–9.1). Etymological evidence suggests that the term æstel may have referred to a pointing device: this interpretation certainly accords with the socket, 4 mm in diameter, issuing from the beast head on the jewel, which would have probably been fitted with a rod.50 The jewel, found near Athelney, Somerset, famously features a human figure depicted in cloisonné enamel, holding two floriate rods; the enamel inlay lies beneath a piece of Roman crystal, enclosed by a gold frame with granulation, filigree and an openwork inscription, ‘Ælfred mec heht gewyrcan’ (‘Alfred ordered me to be made’).51 Because of its inscription, as Webster notes, the jewel is ‘reasonably attributed by most to Alfred’s court workshops’.52 Knowledge of these ‘workshops’ is inferred from Asser’s report that Alfred designed and commissioned many ædificia nova (‘new treasures’), and that he had at his disposal craftsmen from many foreign nations.53 Asser’s assertion that 50

51

52

53

On the identification of the word æstel as a term which refers to the Alfred Jewel, and others like it, see J. R. Clarke and D. A. Hinton, The Alfred and Minster Lovell Jewels, 3rd ed. (Oxford, 1971), pp. 8–9; Hinton, Alfred Jewel, pp. 24–9; and D. R. Howlett, ‘Alfred’s Æstel’, English Philological Studies 14 (1975), 65–74. L. Webster and J. Backhouse, ed., The Making of England: Anglo-Saxon Art and Culture AD 600–900 (London, 1991), pp. 282–3; and L. Webster, ‘Ædificia nova: Treasures of Alfred’s Reign’, in Alfred the Great, ed. Reuter, pp. 79–103, at pp. 81–2. Webster, ‘Ædificia nova’, p. 81. However, it is worth noting, as Hinton, Alfred Jewel, pp. 18–20, does, that the inscription does not feature the word cyning, and, moreover, that mec and heht imply a Mercian rather than West Saxon origin; however, as Hinton goes on to add, it should be remembered that Alfred had many Mercian scholars at his court. VA 76 and 91; see also §56. On Alfred’s craftsmen, who were ‘in omni terreno aedificio edoctos’ (‘skilled in every earthly craft’) see §101: W. H. Stevenson, ed., Asser’s Life of King Alfred, together with the Annals of Saint Neots erroneously

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Books and Ladders: The Speaking Prefaces

Fig. 1. The Alfred Jewel

Alfred himself was intimately involved with the design and construction of these treasures resonates with the close connection between king and jewel implied by the inscription. The king’s involvement allows us to read the Alfred Jewel, and others like it, as royal output similar to the four canonical translations: indeed, ‘Alfred ordered me to be made’ is perhaps a fitting epithet not only for the jewels but moreover for the written ædificia. The fact that the Alfred Jewel was probably intended to accompany one of the copies of the Pastoral Care translation suggests that this was a treasure intimately connected to the acquisition of spiritual wisdom. The Alfred Jewel is not the only Anglo-Saxon treasure to be identified as an æstel. There are three other jewels from the same period fitted with similar sockets: the Minster Lovell, Bowleaze Cove and Warminster jewels.54 The Minster Lovell Jewel, found in Oxfordshire, shares many features with the Alfred Jewel, including, as Webster observes, the ‘round enamel set in a gold frame with filigree and granulation’, and like the

54

ascribed to Asser (Oxford, 1959), p. 87, lines 6–7; and S. Keynes and M. Lapidge, ed. and trans., Alfred the Great: Asser’s Life of King Alfred and Other Contemporary Sources (London, 1983 [repr. 2004]), p. 106. For the translation of ædificia as ‘treasures’ rather than ‘buildings’, see Keynes and Lapidge, ed. and trans., Alfred the Great, pp. 249–50; see also R. Deshman, ‘The Galba Psalter: Pictures, Texts and Contexts in an Early Medieval Prayerbook’, ASE 26 (1997), 109–38, at pp. 132–3; and Webster, ‘Ædificia nova’, p. 79. On Alfred’s craftsmen and the ædificia nova, see further Webster, ‘The Art of Alfred’, p. 49; and D. Pratt, ‘Persuasion and Invention at the Court of King Alfred the Great’, in Court Culture in the Early Middle Ages: The Proceedings of the First Alcuin Conference, ed. C. Cubitt, Studies in the Early Middle Ages 3 (Turnhout, 2003), pp. 189–221, at p. 190. For detailed descriptions, see Webster, ‘Ædificia nova’, pp. 83–5.

41

Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus Alfred Jewel, it has a flat back, though its front is decorated with a cross rather than a figure.55 It is considerably smaller, measuring only 30 mm, though the socket is a similar size, at 5 mm, implying that it may have been designed to hold a similarly sized rod.56 The Bowleaze Cove Jewel, found near Weymouth, Dorset, features a more simple form of the filigree and granulation, with a blue glass cabochon at its centre; according to Webster, the jewel would have featured a flat backplate, but this is now missing; she notes that the Bowleaze Cove Jewel, while simpler than the Alfred and Minster Lovell jewels, ‘is clearly linked to them in size and construction; and the use of blue glass may also be linked to the dominant use of blue enamel in the other two’.57 Its socket measures 4.5 mm, and the jewel itself 28 mm.58 Finally, the Warminster Jewel, like the Alfred Jewel, consists of a reused rock crystal, perhaps originally an amuletic bead, encased in a framework embellished with gold filigree, with a blue glass cabochon at the centre, set at the meeting point of crossed gold strips.59 The size of the socket is in line with the three previous jewels, at 5 mm, and the jewel itself is larger than the Minster Lovell and Bowleaze Cove jewels, but smaller than the Alfred Jewel, at 44 mm.60 While the jewels vary in their decoration, Webster asserts that they clearly ‘form a closely related group’.61 As Pratt observes, the sockets are all roughly 0.5 cm in diameter, and 1 cm long.62 These sockets, Pratt suggests, seem to have been designed to hold a rod of either wood or ivory.63 The appropriateness of such a device for pointing at text in a manuscript, the supposed function of the æstel mentioned in the prose preface to the Pastoral Care, cannot be ignored, though it is still unclear whether one grasped the jewel as the handle or the rod. The flat backs of the Alfred, Minster Lovell and, apparently, the Bowleaze Cove jewels suggest that one held the rod and ran the smooth backs of the jewels across the page. While the Warminster Jewel does not have the same flat backplate, Webster maintains that the flat underside would have been smooth enough to allow it to slide across a page like the others.64 However, 55 56 57

58 59 60 61

62 63 64

Webster, ‘Ædificia nova’, p. 83. See also Hinton, Alfred Jewel, pp. 30–2. Webster, ‘Ædificia nova’, p. 83. Webster and Backhouse, ed., Making of England, p. 281; and Webster, ‘Ædificia nova’, p. 83. See also Hinton, Alfred Jewel, pp. 33–4. Webster, ‘Ædificia nova’, p. 83. Webster, ‘Ædificia nova’, pp. 83–4. See also Hinton, Alfred Jewel, pp. 34–5. Webster, ‘Ædificia nova’, p. 85. Webster, ‘Ædificia nova’, p. 85. On the similarity of the Alfred and Minster Lovell jewels, see Hinton, Alfred Jewel, p. 32; see also pp. 32–3 and 35–6, on other similar artefacts with sockets or nozzles found outside of Wessex. Pratt, ‘Persuasion and Invention’, pp. 197–8. Pratt, ‘Persuasion and Invention’, p. 197. Webster, ‘Ædificia nova’, p. 85.

42

Fig. 2. The Minster Lovell Jewel

Fig. 3. The Bowleaze Cove Jewel

Fig 4. The Warminster Jewel

Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus it is possible that one was supposed to grasp the jewel itself; Pratt suggests that this would have been the case for the jewels containing crystal, as the junction between the socket and the jewel itself would have been too delicate to support the weight of heavy crystal.65 Whichever way they were held, such a device would certainly fall under the category ædificia nova.66 If these jewels are indeed some of the æstels which accompanied copies of the Pastoral Care, there is a clear link between wealth, in the form of the jewels, and wisdom, represented by the manuscripts of the translation. Robert Deshman suggests that Asser uses the word ædifica in his biography of the king in order to highlight the ‘edification’ present in Alfred’s creative ventures, and his rulership more broadly.67 If ædificia nova can be taken to refer to the four socket-jewels, then Asser, at least, appears to have believed that they had some connection to learning, or spiritual development. Moreover, critics have argued that the jewels themselves symbolise wisdom. For example, the white crystal spolia of the Alfred and Warminster jewels is thought to represent clear sight and, by association, wisdom, or true perception.68 Indeed, Catherine Karkov observes that Bede reported the idea that ‘crystal cut into a hexagonal shape was symbolic of the man wise by divine grace’.69 It is easy to see how this idea would have appealed to the individuals behind translations such as the Old English Boethius and Soliloquies. Likewise, the importance of seeing clearly, perhaps represented by the crystal, connects to one of the most important images of the corpus: the modes eagan (‘mind’s eyes’), with which one attains wisdom. As Gesceadwisnes explains to Augustinus in the Soliloquies: ‘swa swa þeos gesewe sunne ures lichaman æagan onleoht, swa onliht se wisdom ures modes æagan, þæt is, ure angyt’ (78.3–5) (‘just as the visible sun illuminates our body’s eyes, so wisdom enlightens the eyes of our mind, that is, our understanding’). As healthy eyes of the body perceive this world the 65 66

67 68

69

Pratt, ‘Persuasion and Invention’, p. 198. It should be noted, however, that not all of the jewels are likely to have cost fifty mancuses, the price specified in the prose preface to the Pastoral Care; Pratt, ‘Persuasion and Invention’, p. 199, suggests that the Alfred and Minster Lovell jewels, the more expensive, may have been intended for ceremonial use, and the Bowleaze Cove and Warminster for ‘humbler contexts’; see also Webster, ‘Art of Alfred’, pp. 64–5. Deshman, ‘Galba Psalter’, p. 133. Webster, ‘Ædificia nova’, p. 86. See also J. Robinson, Finer than Gold: Saints and Relics in the Middle Ages (London, 2011), p. 103: ‘The Christian understanding of rock crystal, derived largely from both pagan classical and Muslim learning, saw the substance as a sort of petrified water representative of great purity’; it was often used in medieval reliquaries. C. E. Karkov, The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England, Anglo-Saxon Studies 3 (Woodbridge, 2004), p. 29; Karkov refers to Bede’s Explanatio apocalypsis.

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Books and Ladders: The Speaking Prefaces clearer, healthy (or virtuous) eyes of the mind are better able to perceive wisdom and God; as Gesceadwisnes cautions: ‘Ac se þe god geseon wille, he scel habban his modes eagan hale’ (67.3–4) (‘but he who wishes to see God, he must have healthy mind’s eyes’).70 Webster observes that the blue glass cabochons which are part of the Bowleaze Cove and Warminster jewels usually appear ‘as insets for eyes’, both human and, more commonly, animal. These bright, eye-like jewels resonate with the theme of the modes eagan found in the translations.71 Perhaps the clearest indication that the Alfred Jewel, at least, symbolises sight is the exaggeration of the figure’s eyes, reminiscent of the central image on the contemporary Fuller Brooch.72 Many scholars have drawn attention to the similarities between these two figures, as both have large, staring eyes and carry floriate rods.73 Charles D. Wright argues that sight is apt for representing the acquisition of wisdom as it is through the eyes that we read the books in which wisdom is stored.74 However, in the Alfredian context, it should be remembered that the Boethius and the Soliloquies are dialogues, in which wisdom is acquired aurally and, moreover, that according to Æthelweard’s Chronicon, the Boethius, at least, was read aloud.75 It is arguably more significant that the iconography of the Alfred Jewel, Fuller Brooch and, possibly, the other jewels complement the emphasis on seeing clearly with the modes eagan in the canonical texts of the Alfredian corpus.

70 71 72

73

74

75

See also Boethius B33.244–7. Webster, ‘Ædificia nova’, p. 87. On the figure of the Alfred Jewel as personified Sight, see E. Bakka, ‘The Alfred Jewel and Sight’, The Antiquaries Journal 46 (1966), 277–82. For more on the Fuller Brooch, see Webster and Backhouse, ed., Making of England, pp. 280–1; Webster, ‘Art of Alfred’, pp. 65–6; and Pratt, ‘Persuasion and Invention’, pp. 206–20. The Fuller Brooch can be dated to the late ninth or possibly early tenth century: Webster and Backhouse, ed., Making of England, p. 281; and Pratt, ‘Persuasion and Invention’, p. 208. Hinton, Alfred Jewel, p. 21; Pratt, ‘Persuasion and Invention’, especially pp. 220–1; and C. D. Wright, ‘Why Sight Holds Flowers: An Apocryphal Source for the Iconography of the Alfred Jewel and Fuller Brooch’, in Text, Image, Interpretation: Studies in Anglo–Saxon Literature and its Insular Context in Honour of Éamonn Ó Carragáin, ed. A. J. Minnis and J. Roberts, Studies in the Early Middle Ages 18 (Turnhout, 2007), pp. 169–86, at pp. 170–2: Wright finds a source for these floriate rods in the early medieval tradition that God made Adam’s eyes from flowers. Wright, ‘Why Sight Holds Flowers’, p. 183; see also Hinton, Alfred Jewel, p. 21. On sight as the highest of all five senses in biblical and patristic texts, with touch as the lowest, see K. O’Brien O’Keeffe, ‘Hands and Eyes, Sight and Touch: Appraising the Senses in Anglo-Saxon England’, ASE 45 (2017), 105–40, at pp. 105–6. Chronicle of Æthelweard, ed. and trans. Campbell, p. 51.

45

Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus It is possible, then, to understand the Alfred Jewel and the other æstels as signs of clear sight and, by inference, wisdom. They seem to have accompanied the copies of the Pastoral Care that were circulated among Alfred’s bishops, and act as a symbol of the wisdom that would be achieved through reading and understanding the translation, using the clear sight of one’s modes eage. The clear rock crystal, blue cabochons and staring eyes of the figure on the Alfred Jewel all serve to bring this impression to bear upon the beholder. However, I would argue that to focus entirely on the iconography of the jewels is to deny their status as things. By seeing them as signs only, they are used, but perhaps not enjoyed. As I argued in the Introduction, Old English poetry such as Beowulf seems to appreciate that it is possible to enjoy treasure, as long as it is understood that one really only enjoys the use of it for a time. We also saw that the Old English riddling tradition often highlights the functionality of objects, while simultaneously asserting their identity as independent things. I would argue that it is possible to read the Alfred Jewel, and each of the other æstels, as both a useful sign and a thing to be enjoyed. Like the speaking books, they are steps towards transformation, and higher understanding; but it is impossible to deny their own materiality, their inherent ‘thingness’.76

The Cross as sign and thing In the early medieval world, perhaps the most significant sign-and-thing is the cross. The cross as a sign represents Christ’s sacrifice and the salvation earned through it for mankind. The True Cross is, in addition to this, emphatically a ‘thing’ in that it is venerated as a relic, perhaps the most important relic in the Christian world.77 Moreover, any representation of the True Cross is a thing as well as a sign; the ‘thingness’ of these crosses is also relevant. This is apparent in two Exeter Book riddles, Riddle 30 and Riddle 55. The subject of both riddles is a wooden cross, which early medieval people would have encountered in a liturgical context. Both riddles highlight the materiality of the wooden crosses. The speaking cross of Riddle 30 simultaneously reveals and conceals its identity by presenting itself in the terms of its wooden material, material which can sway as the top of a tree and crackle in a fire: ‘Ic eom legbysig, lace mid winde’ (line 1) (‘I am fire-busy, I play with the wind’). Similarly, the cross of Riddle 55 is broken down into its constituent parts, ‘wudutreow’ (line 3a) (‘forest tree’), ‘wunden gold’ (line 3b) (‘wound gold’), ‘sinc searobunden’ (line 4a) 76 77

B. Brown, ‘Thing Theory’, p. 5, defines ‘thingness’ as a ‘latency’ and an ‘excess’. Robinson, Finer than Gold, p. 20.

46

Books and Ladders: The Speaking Prefaces (‘treasure cunningly bound’), ‘seolfres dæl’ (line 4b) (‘a portion of silver’) and the ‘rode tacn’ (line 5a) (‘sign of the cross’). The speaker of the riddle goes on to identify the specific kinds of wood which come together to create the cross: ‘þær wæs hlin ond acc ond se hearda iw / ond se fealwa holen’ (Riddle 55, lines 9–10a) (‘there was maple and oak and the hard yew and the dark holly’). Moreover, both poems feature imagery of upward movement; while the cross in Riddle 30 alludes to the ‘upcyme eadignesse’ (line 9) (‘up-springing of blessedness’) which it will increase for those who worship it, the speaker of Riddle 55 relates the sign of the cross to the one who ‘us to roderum up / hlædre rærde’ (lines 5b–6a) (‘for us raised a ladder up to heaven’), meaning Christ. We might be reminded here of the ladders in the Alfredian corpus, discussed above, which bridge the gap between ignorance and wisdom. Both crosses in these riddles are associated with the vertical line which runs between earth and heaven. While the materials which make up the cross in Riddle 55 are said to be ‘nyt’ (line 11a) (‘useful’) when all together, I would argue that the striking materiality of both crosses moves them beyond useful tools, or signs. The most famous cross of Old English poetry also presents itself in riddling terms. This is, of course, the speaking cross of The Dream of the Rood. The decorated cross which appears to the dreamer at the beginning of poem is both a thing which acts upon the senses, and a sign which points to the salvation offered by dedication to the Cross: it is both an end in its own right, as well as a means for something else. Indeed, the poet draws attention to the Cross’s liminal position between material thing and sign, referring to it as a beacen (lines 6b, 21b, 83a, 118b) (‘sign’) even as he stresses the powerful sensory effect of its manifestation, with repeated references to what is seen and heard (lines 4a, 9b, 11a, 14b, 18b, 21b, 25a, 26a). In the midst of this ekphrasis, though, the poet complicates the sensory experience of the Cross: Hwæðre ic þurh þæt gold ongytan meahte earmra ærgewin, þæt hit ærest ongan swætan on þa swiðran healfe. Eall ic wæs mid sorgum gedrefed, forht ic wæs for þære fægran gesyhðe. Geseah ic þæt fuse beacen wendan wædum ond bleom; hwilum hit wæs mid wætan bestemed, beswyled mid swates gange, hwilum mid since gegyrwed. (The Dream of the Rood, lines 18–23) (Yet I could perceive through the gold the ancient strife of the wretched ones; [I could perceive] that it first began to bleed on the right side. I was entirely afflicted with sorrows; I was afraid because of the fair sight. I saw that eager sign change coverings and colours; at times it was drenched with moisture, soaked with the track of blood; sometimes it was adorned with treasure.)

47

Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus Through gazing upon the gold of the exterior, the dreamer is able to perceive the ‘ancient strife’ of the crucifixion. In this way, it could be argued, the sensory perception of the thing gives way to the meaning of the sign. However, it is worth lingering on the preposition þurh for a moment. From a materialist perspective, looking through something is understood as a dismissal of the thing itself. Bill Brown asserts: As they circulate through our lives, we look through objects (to see what they disclose about history, society, nature, or culture – above all, what they disclose about us), but we only catch a glimpse of things. We look through objects because there are codes by which our interpretative attention makes them meaningful, because there is a discourse of objectivity that allows us to use them as facts. A thing, in contrast, can hardly function as a window.78

Brown associates looking through objects with use, as opposed to enjoyment, perhaps. In his view, it is a reductive process; it is only functional objects which we can look through to find the sign behind it, while things resist this sort of functionality. Similarly, the editors of Things: Religion and the Question of Materiality state that ‘the ultimate concern of this volume is to critique the limitations of symbolist and meaning-centred approaches that look through and sideline “things”’; looking through is, again, perceived as an act of dismissing the material thing in favour of what it reveals.79 However, I would argue that The Dream of the Rood demonstrates that looking through something is not simply a means of getting past the thing to find the sign. Rather, I would say that the poem shows how the material thing can be fundamentally implicated in the sign, and that its material components are neither the endpoint of the process, nor simply a means to access the sign; rather, they are means and end at the same time. Looking at the golden cross, the dreamer is able to see the ancient strife through the material gold covering. This idea is played out visually in the description of the alternating coverings of blood and gold on the cross, the swat and the sinc, as the gems and jewels shift to reveal the gore which is just as central a facet of the Cross’s identity. The Cross in The Dream of the Rood is a symbol of victory and defeat, of death and eternal life; but it is also a wooden cross, which is sometimes covered in gold and jewels, and sometimes covered in blood. When the dreamer looks through the gold and sees the ancient strife, the gold is not disregarded; it is fully implicated in the process of looking and understanding. Here, looking through

78 79

B. Brown, ‘Thing Theory’, p. 4. B. Meyer and D. Houtman, ‘Introduction: Material Religion – How Things Matter’, in Things: Religion and the Question of Materiality, ed. B. Meyer and D. Houtman (New York, 2012), pp. 1–23, at p. 13.

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Books and Ladders: The Speaking Prefaces is not dismissive, but an act of contemplation in which the material thing one gazes at is not lost in the revelation, but a fundamental part of it. The dreamer is not so much looking through a window, to borrow Brown’s analogy, as stained glass. The Cross occupies a special position in materialist terms: its foot is in the material world and its top in heaven. This special quality is stressed throughout The Dream of the Rood. Indeed, it could even be said that this paradox lies at the heart of the poem, for it is a paradox shared with Christ and, as the Cross itself acknowledges, with Mary (lines 90–4). In much the same way as a riddle, the Cross begins its narrative with an account of its origins: Þæt wæs geara iu, (ic þæt gyta geman), þæt ic wæs aheawen holtes on ende, astyred of stefne minum. (The Dream of the Rood, lines 28–30a) (It was a long time ago [I remember it yet], that I was cut down at the edge of the wood, removed from my root.)

Just like the reed which is pulled up from the water’s edge in Riddle 60, the tree which becomes the Cross is ripped away from its own liminal space (‘holtes on ende’) and forced to perform a function for humans.80 Though the Cross is no longer an inhabitant of the material world, it still remembers its material origins. This continuity of the Cross’s identity, across the vast expanse of time, which whirls out past the dreamer’s own point in history into immeasurable cosmic time, reminds us that the Cross in heaven is the same tree that was cut down at the edge of the wood. A bridge, then, is formed between the material world of men and the inconceivable world of heaven. This is the same bridge that is offered to us by Mary who, like the Cross, bore the fleshly body of Christ but now resides in heaven, and indeed Christ himself, who is both of the material world and not. Indeed, the poet repeatedly draws our attention to the contact between the body of Christ and the Cross. After the narrative of the crucifixion, the Cross tells the dreamer: On me bearn godes þrowode hwile. Forþan ic þrymfæst nu hlifige under heofenum, ond ic hælan mæg æghwylcne anra, þara þe him bið egesa to me. (The Dream of the Rood, lines 83b–6)

80

See Introduction.

49

Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus (On me the Son of God suffered for a time. Therefore I now tower, glorious, under the heavens, and I can heal any one of those who are in awe of me.)

Carol Braun Pasternack argues that this section of the poem, often known as ‘The Cross’s Sermon’, is characterised by initial ‘adverbs of time and place’.81 A similar phenomenon occurs with the preposition on, which appears at the start of line 83b, highlighting the spatial relationship between Christ and the Cross, the adverb hwile in the following line locating this contact at a specific point in historical time. But it is because of this moment of contact at one point, long ago, that the Cross now has the power to heal man and to tower under the heavens. The half-line ‘hlifige under heofenum’ is effective in reminding us of the vertical line drawn by the Cross between heaven and earth, as another kind of Jacob’s ladder. On is also foregrounded at the beginning of line 98b, in a similar construction of on þrowode, creating an envelope pattern. The Cross urges the dreamer: onwreoh wordum þæt hit is wuldres beam, se ðe ælmihtig god on þrowode (The Dream of the Rood, lines 97–8) (reveal with words that it is the tree of glory, on which almighty God suffered).

The point of contact between flesh and wood at that particular historical moment is what has given the material wood of the Cross the power to transcend its own material origins, to ‘tower under the heavens’. Within the envelope created by the repetition of on … þrowode, we learn that the Cross, previously an instrument of punishment for men, has since ‘lifes weg / rihtne gerymde’ (88b–9a) (‘opened the right way of life’). While geryman is perhaps best translated by Modern English ‘open’, the phonetically fitting (though grammatically nonsensical) ‘roomed’ is more effective in conveying the sense of the Old English, the great material body of the Cross splitting apart the heavens from top to bottom to make a path for men. The Cross in The Dream of the Rood occupies an uncertain position between relic and sign, as while it shows itself to be the very cross on which Christ was crucified, it exists now – in the ‘now’ of the dreamer as well as a cosmic, eternal ‘now’ – in a transcendental, otherworldly form. The Cross appears in its tangible, material form in another Old English poem found in the Vercelli Book, Cynewulf’s Elene. Constantine’s vision of the Cross at the start of Elene bears some similarity to the dreamer’s vision in The 81

C. B. Pasternack, ‘Stylistic Disjunctions in The Dream of the Rood’, ASE 13 (1984), 167–86, at p. 178.

50

Books and Ladders: The Speaking Prefaces Dream of the Rood: it is a decorated version of the Cross, ‘frætwum beorht’ (Elene, line 88b) (‘bright with ornaments’), which appears to Constantine at night, leading him towards the Christian faith – though less explicitly so than the Cross in The Dream of the Rood, as Constantine needs to seek out wise men who can interpret the meaning of the symbol: Þa þa wisestan wordum cwædon for þam heremægene þæt hit heofoncyninges tacen wære, ond þæs tweo nære. (169–71) (Then the wisest said with words, before the army, that it was the sign of the King of Heaven; and about that there was no doubt.)

However, although Elene begins with Constantine’s visionary experience of the symbol of the Cross, the focus of the poem is in fact on the discovery of the True Cross by Helena, Constantine’s mother. The fact that the physical Cross lies at the centre of the poem could be seen to reflect a materialist trend in Elene. The poem opens with Constantine’s victory in battle, and he is referred to as a ‘sinces brytta’ (line 194b) (‘distributor of treasure’), an epithet fitting for the martial tone which pervades not only the scene of his military success, but indeed the poem as a whole.82 Helena herself gives valuable gifts over the course of the poem: the bridle made out of the nails of the Cross which she orders to be adorned and given to her son as a ‘gife unscynde’ (line 1200b) (‘honourable gift’), and the ‘sincweorðunga’ (line 1218a) (‘costly treasures’) which she bestows upon Judas Cyriacus. The three buried crosses themselves (the True Cross and the two crosses which stood beside it) are described as a goldhord (line 790a) (‘gold-hoard’).83 Helena’s relentless pursuit of the True Cross as a tangible manifestation of the faith embraced by her son would seem to suggest that the poem is fervently invested in the material world; indeed, when she eventually uncovers this buried goldhord, she honours the crosses by having them covered in gold and silver, not to say ‘gimcynnum’ (line 1023b) (‘gems’) and ‘þam æðelestum eorcnanstanum’ (line 1024) (‘the most noble precious stones’), implying a correlation between material value and spiritual worth. This impulse to enshrine holy things in precious materials is witnessed throughout the medieval period, and beyond, in the fashioning of dazzling reliquaries. As James Robinson observes: ‘The finest commodities and the most able 82

83

R. W. V. Elliot, ‘Coming Back to Cynewulf’, in Old English Runes and their Continental Background, ed. A. Bammesberger (Heidelberg, 1991), pp. 231–47, at p. 242. A. Brodeur, The Art of Beowulf (Berkeley, 1969) p. 261, sees the use of goldhord here, and in Christ II, line 787b, as ‘inappropriate’.

51

Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus craftsmen were employed to create works that communicated something of the heavenly to those fortunate enough to gaze upon them’.84 This is evident in the conclusion to the narrative of Elene, in which the precious materials which cover the crosses serve to convey the magnificence of heaven. The Cross offers a bridge to heaven from this world, for those who keep it in reverence. However, the conclusion to the narrative of Elene is not the end of the poem itself. The last section of the poem is taken up with Cynewulf’s signature, which is embedded within the text in the form of runic characters. This final section takes an apocalyptic tone characteristic of Cynewulf’s colophons, sweeping away all the riches of this world in a single gesture of dispersal, ‘winde geliccost’ (line 1271b) (‘most like wind’). As Tom Birkett observes: ‘Each of the colophons is concerned with the essential mutability of man and the ephemeral nature of worldly possessions’.85 Given the apparently material focus that has come before, this final section, which dismisses all worldly wealth as læne (line 1270a) (‘loaned’), strikes a jarring note. How can the pursuit, and subsequent costly decoration, of the material Cross coexist with this dismissal of all earthly riches? Catherine A. Regan, however, argues that Cynewulf shows that Helena ‘conceives of the Cross as a symbol, a sign of salvation’ rather than as a relic.86 The material Cross fades into relative insignificance in comparison with the symbol of the Cross. Here, it seems, Cynewulf behaves in the manner critiqued by materialists: he looks past the thing to find the sign. The material thing is less important than what it represents. Indeed, Birkett argues that the process of interpreting and understanding the signature to Elene, looking beyond the surface of the runic characters, ‘dramatizes the abnegation of our physical presence on earth, the passing away of corporality that the poem stresses throughout the signature passage’.87 The Cross in Elene appears in its material, relic form; but the symbol is shown to supersede the relic. We have seen that the shifting matter of The Dream of the Rood allows the Cross to be both sign and relic at the same time: by looking through the gold, the dreamer perceives both. It seems that Cynewulf was not as willing to allow for this overlap between material reality and spiritual truth.88 84 85

86

87

88

Robinson, Finer than Gold, p. 77. T. Birkett, ‘Runes and revelatio: Cynewulf’s Signatures Reconsidered’, RES 65 (2014), 771–89, at p. 778. C. A. Regan, ‘Evangelicalism as the Informing Principle of Cynewulf’s Elene’, Traditio 54 (1973), 27–52, at p. 42; see Elene, lines 677b–82a. Birkett, ‘Runes and revelatio’, p. 782. See also, F. Leneghan, ‘Teaching the Teachers: The Vercelli Book and the Mixed Life’, English Studies 94 (2013), 627–58, at p. 645, on ‘piercing the opacity of the sign’. D. G. Bzdyl, ‘Juliana: Cynewulf’s Dispeller of Delusion’, in The Cynewulf

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Books and Ladders: The Speaking Prefaces

Looking through the jewels Some objects, then, can be both thing and sign: a thing with meaning and agency in its own right as well as a guide to something immaterial. Fundamentally, a material object can only be a thing and a sign if the thing has its own independent identity, and is not simply reduced to a cipher for the meaning that it points towards. As recent materialist theories have emphasised, attention to the materiality of things is vital in understanding their agency. Nonetheless, Bennett has argued that while ‘thing-power’ can be a useful term in disrupting the ‘life-matter binary’, it ‘tends to overstate the thingness or fixed stability of materiality’.89 She uses the term ‘assemblage’ to describe ‘ad hoc groupings of diverse elements, of vibrant materials of all sorts’.90 The Alfred Jewel can be understood as an assemblage, in that its identity is formed from the meeting of re-used Roman rock spolia, cloisonné enamel and the gold filigree work which forms both the letters of the inscription and the beast-head socket.91 Each separate, material element brings its own history and its own identity to the jewel. Awareness of the jewel as an assemblage moreover disrupts the idea of the ‘fixed stability of materiality’ mentioned by Bennett, as we recognise that the Alfred Jewel is just one point in the chronologies of the rock crystal, the enamel and the gold – what we might think of as its perfect ‘butterfly moment’, to borrow a phrase from Gale Owen-Crocker.92 The rock crystal, as outlined above, carries with it a whole range of different symbolic meanings, from clear sight to purity. However, it is important to be conscious of looking past the material crystal, dismissing it in the search for its symbolic referents. The pieces of crystal on both the Alfred Jewel and the Warminster Jewel are recycled: like many of the speaking objects in the Exeter Book riddles and the Cross in The Dream of the Rood, they have a story which pre-exists the thing in its current state. The crystals act as a point of contact between the ‘now’ of the person (be-) holding the jewel, and a time in the distant past. The jewels themselves represent the transformation of these old pieces of crystal, echoing the transformations of so many riddle objects, and the Cross itself. Moreover,

89 90 91

92

Reader, ed. R. E. Bjork (New York, 2001), pp. 193–206, at p. 200, argues that in Cynewulf’s Juliana the material world is shown to be a delusion: the seeming prosperity of Juliana’s pagan tormenters is revealed to be false and empty, while God’s grace and Juliana’s unshakeable faith proves to be the true reality. Bennett, Vibrant Matter, p. 20. Bennett, Vibrant Matter, p. 23. For a reading of the Alfred Jewel as an assemblage, see G. Pitt, ‘Ælfred mec het gewyrcan’. Owen-Crocker, ‘Life Course of Artefacts’, uses the phrase to refer to the moment of an object’s ‘newly-made perfection’, p. 267.

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Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus the shared use of rock crystal in both jewels allows the two to communicate to one another; it creates a network, in the same way that the dissemination of the copies of the Pastoral Care creates a network between recipient and king. In a similar way, as Webster has argued, the blue enamel on the Alfred Jewel speaks to the blue glass cabochons which appear on the Warminster Jewel and Bowleaze Cove Jewel.93 Like the books of the speaking prefaces, the transparent rock crystal of the Alfred Jewel and Warminster Jewel is another material bridge between earthly ignorance and spiritual revelation. Transparent matter such as crystal is at once tangible and physical, yet, because clear, it approaches and hints at the immaterial. It is a property shared with water: perceptible to the senses, yet no barrier to vision. We might think again of the stream of wisdom in the verse epilogue to the Pastoral Care, and how a stream of water is an apt image for a bridge between earth and heaven, in that is both matter and not. Indeed, Robinson observes in his study of medieval relics and reliquaries that rock crystal was seen as ‘a sort of petrified water representative of great purity’, an idea drawn from both pagan classical and Muslim learning.94 These uncertain materials recur in literature at liminal points between earthly and otherworldly states. One of the most moving encounters in all medieval literature takes place on just such a boundary, in the alliterative Middle English poem, Pearl: Swangeande swete þe water con swepe, Wyth a rownande rourde raykande aryʒt. In þe founce þer stoden stonez stepe, As glente þurʒ glas þat glowed and glyʒt — As stremande sternez, quen stroþe-men slepe, Staren in welkyn in wynter nyʒt; For vche a pobbel in pole þer pyʒt Watz emerad, saffer, oþer gemme gente, Þat alle þe loʒe lemed of lyʒt, So dere watz hit adubbement.95 (Pearl, lines 111–20) (Swirling sweetly the water swept along, flowing straight on with a whispering noise. Brilliant stones stood at the bottom, that glowed and glinted like light through glass – like streaming stars shine in the sky on a winter night, when earth-men sleep; for each pebble set in the water there was an emerald, sapphire, or noble gem, so that all the stream gleamed with light, so precious was the adornment.) 93 94 95

Webster, ‘Ædificia nova’, p. 83. Robinson, Finer than Gold, p. 103. M. Andrew and R. Waldron, ed., The Poems of the Pearl Manuscript: Pearl, Cleanness, Patience, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Exeter, 2007), pp. 59–60.

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Books and Ladders: The Speaking Prefaces The barrier which separates the dreamer from his daughter is a rushing stream, paved with glittering gem-stones. Because the light shines through the water and gems, it seems as though the barrier is permeable. The poet hints, though, at the impossibility of passage from one side of the water to the other: the light that shines through is like the light from stars – distant, otherworldly. The opposite side of the bank is out of reach. In the case of the æstels, though, the clear rock crystal is a bridge from ignorance to wisdom. It is itself a transition from the outer part of the jewel to the inner, as well as a symbol of the transition the student of wisdom must make. Beneath the rock crystal of the Alfred Jewel we find the staring figure made out of cloisonné enamel. I have addressed the idea of the staring figure as a symbol of wisdom above; it is worth questioning what happens when we think of it as a thing, not a symbol. The large eyes of the figure are its most striking feature: they point to the eyes of the mind, but, in more immediate terms, they set up a relationship between the jewel and the viewer. A thing with eyes is a thing with power: we look at it, and it looks back. In her study of devotional objects in the later medieval period, Caroline Walker Bynum describes an eye-opening ritual found in Hinduism: ‘Many Indian texts describe the coming to life of images of gods and goddesses as a series of rites or processes, from the initial selection of appropriate material for carving […] to its awakening by the chiseling and painting in of its eyes’; in this, she holds, ‘the power of an Other is emerging in the material object we call an image’.96 The power, it seems, is latent in the material, and it is through revealing the eyes that the power becomes apparent. The large eyes of the figure on the Alfred Jewel, perhaps, evoke a similar sense of latent power, revealed through the fine craftsmanship of the cloisonné enamel. Indeed, things with eyes can be disturbing in that they might suggest a little too much power in an inanimate object. The large reliquary statue of Sainte Foy, for example, made some people who beheld it a little uneasy.97 Michael Camille observes: The animate aura of such cult images as […] the statue of Ste. Foy at Conques stemmed from their articulation of a whole set of hieratic conventions associated with power and magic – such as the glaring eyes, potent and penetrating to the beholder – that go back to imperial portraiture. Medieval optical theory judged spiritus to emanate from the eye like a ray, illuminating the world around so that the beholders could literally be trapped by the gaze of the image.98

96

97 98

C. W. Bynum, Dissimilar Similitudes: Devotional Objects in Late Medieval Europe (Brooklyn, NY, 2020), pp. 129–30. See Robinson, Finer than Gold, pp. 34–5 and fig. 19. M. Camille, The Gothic Idol: Ideology and Image-making in Medieval Art (Cambridge,

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Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus It is worth asking whether the Alfred Jewel, too, would have had the power to capture the gaze of the bishop who beheld it when it arrived with his copy of the Pastoral Care. Even the other jewels, which lack the enamel human figure, bear some resemblance to eyes. The presence of the wide eyes, impossible to ignore, demands that the beholder looks at the jewel – through it, even, but certainly not past it. The vivifying effect of the eyes prevent the Alfred Jewel from being a sign alone: it has an emphatic ‘thingness’. But the eyes of the figure with the floriate rods are not the only eyes on the jewel. While much attention has been granted to the staring eyes on the figure, less has been made of the face of the beast-head socket, which features its own (admittedly, much smaller) pair of eyes. Arguably, the ‘thingness’ of the Alfred Jewel is bound up with its golden beast head: being animal, rather than human, it engages with the viewer in quite a different way. Zoomorphic imagery is commonplace in the material and visual culture of this period;99 nonetheless, the number of golden or silver beasts with voices is striking, and could point to an old association between precious metals and animism. The gilded silver beast-head fitting discovered in the Thames, for example, bears a runic message which makes no obvious sense. As Paz observes: This is a thing that seems as if it should be talking but which fails to make straightforward meaning. It features a striking animal head, with blue glass eyes which, whilst fearsome, almost lend an air of intelligence. Its open mouth and sharp fangs hover between feral snarl and playful grimace, while its long tongue implies eloquence even as it loops round and ties itself to the back of the beast’s throat.100

The blue glass eyes on this inscribed fitting might bring to mind the blue glass cabochons on the eye-like æstels: like the jewels, it looks back at its beholder. Paz is hesitant to allow that the mere presence of eyes grants a thing intelligence; he is more ready to find eloquence in the thing’s twisting tongue. However, as we have seen, eyes do give things the power to command, if not intelligence. Though the runic message is garbled, this silver beast has eyes, a tongue and a voice. The apparent nonsense of the message only makes the beholder look more closely at the object as a thing: while we might be quick to interpret the Alfred Jewel as a sign of wisdom, we have no idea what this thing might gesture at.

99

100

1989), p. 223. See also P. Sheingorn, The Book of Sainte Foy (Philadelphia, 1995). L. Webster, ‘Anglo-Saxon Art: Tradition and Transformation’, in Transformation in Anglo-Saxon Culture: Toller Lectures on Art, Archaeology and Text, ed. C. Insley and G. Owen-Crocker (Oxford, 2017), pp. 23–46, at pp. 29–36. Paz, Nonhuman Voices, p. 23. MacLeod and Mees, Runic Amulets and Magic Objects, pp. 82–3, identify a man’s name in the inscription, coded and repeated.

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Books and Ladders: The Speaking Prefaces A much more comprehensible inscription can be found on a golden strip unearthed among the many treasures of the Staffordshire Hoard.101 This strip, now bent in half, features an inscription of the Latin text of Numbers 10.35, and a very similar inscription on the reverse side whose lettering has features characteristic of a first attempt.102 On one end is engraved a snake’s head with its tongue out; on the other an empty D-shaped gem setting. Whether the two inscriptions were the work of the same engraver or not, Richard Gameson observes that in both cases the person responsible was not familiar with either the Latin language or even the alphabet: ‘the graphic evidence is most compatible with an engraver or engravers who perceived letters as recurring elements within an intelligible system of writing’.103 This reminder of the scarcity of literacy in the early medieval world only lends greater significance to the animism of this speaking golden strip, with its serpentine face and tongue, and space for a gemstone which might have recalled the jewelled eyes of the Thames fitting. For the engraver, as for many others who would have looked on the engraved strip, the Latin words may well have seemed as garbled as the runes inscribed on the silver fitting from the Thames. From this perspective, the silver and gold speaking beasts might have been seen to possess their own special, esoteric knowledge. These examples of speaking gold and silver beasts reveal an association between precious metals, eyes (especially jewelled ones), tongues, and inscriptions. Through artful manipulation of matter, gold- and silver-smiths have the power to give life to things. None of these things are signs alone, pointing to something more important or more valuable. While they may well function as signs, their vivacious ‘thingness’ transcend mere functionality. The tongues on the Thames fitting and the Staffordshire Hoard strip point clearly to speech, providing a visual complement to their inscriptions. In this light, it is perhaps unusual that the Alfred Jewel beast does not have a tongue. However, it must be remembered that when we look at the æstels, we do not see the whole picture. If the socket of the beast head were filled with its pointer of wood, the mouth of the beast would have a pointing tongue, just like the Thames fitting and the Staffordshire Hoard strip. The imminence of its voice would be all the more evident. The other æstels, perhaps, would 101

102

103

C. Fern, T. Dickinson and L. Webster, ed., The Staffordshire Hoard: An AngloSaxon Treasure (London, 2019), pp. 102–8, cat. no. 540. R. Gameson, ‘The palaeography of the inscription’, in Staffordshire Hoard, ed. Fern, Dickinson and Webster, pp. 103–8, at p. 103, prints the inscription on the obverse side as: ‘surge. dne. disepentur inimici tui et fugent qui oderuntteafacie tua’, and offers the normalised reading as: ‘Surge, domine, disepentur inimici tui et fugent qui oderunt te a facie tua’. Gameson, ‘Palaeography of the inscription’, p. 105.

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Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus be simply eye and tongue, with the vitalism of the other beasts broken down into the scarcest components. The inscription of the Alfred Jewel differs from that of the other beast heads in that it speaks, unambiguously, in a first-person voice: ‘Ælfred mec heht gewyrcan’ (‘Alfred ordered me to be made’). For all the mysterious vivacity of these other things, this first-person voice arguably gives the Alfred Jewel the clearest sense of identity. Moreover, the first-person voice reveals the jewel’s origins. Like a riddle object and the Cross in The Dream of the Rood, it remembers where it came from. The jewel, then, has two sets of eyes, a tongue, a voice and a memory. Just as the Cross’s memory of its former life creates a clear line between its earthly life and its heavenly form, the jewel’s memory of Alfred is a line between the king and the recipient of the gift. The gift of the jewel forges a connection between king and reader, along which both wealth and wisdom flow. The voices of the book and the jewel signal the transformative power of these material things.

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2. The Stream of Wealth: The Old English Pastoral Care

T

he Pastoral Care is perhaps the most famous of the translations associated with Alfred the Great, if only because of its prose preface. The prose preface to the Pastoral Care is included in most anthologies of Old English literature, and regularly appears on undergraduate syllabuses. The preface is employed as a teaching text partly because it is relatively short and easy to translate; but also, I would suggest, because of the powerful effect of the first-person voice of the king. Enthusiastic educators seeking to bring the early medieval world alive for their students can do worse than introduce them to Alfred’s sorrowful lament on the lack of learning in his kingdom, his persuasive words and his pragmatic, hands-on solution to the problem. Of course, as has already been noted, Alfred’s actual involvement in any of the translations or accompanying prefaces remains a contentious issue. The prose preface takes a very different form to the ‘speaking-book’ verse preface and the verse epilogue. However, like those paratexts, it is preoccupied with the role that material things can play in bridging the gap between ignorance and wisdom, and between earth and heaven. The prose preface touches on the place of both books and treasures within a church, leading the reader to question whether the presence of these material things is an index of a community’s wisdom, or indeed its faith. As in the paratexts considered in the previous chapter, material, earthly imagery is employed to describe a journey towards wisdom. And in a striking alliterative pairing, wealth becomes linked with the wisdom which is Alfred’s ultimate goal, although the precise nature of that connection remains uncertain. This chapter will take the materially oriented prose preface as a starting point for a reading of material wealth in the Old English Pastoral Care, a text which is often classed as the most faithful of the Alfredian translations but which, as we shall see, transforms Gregory’s text in subtle yet deliberate ways.

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Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus

Alfred the Great and the prose preface to the Pastoral Care The Pastoral Care has been associated with Alfred since the time of its composition.1 The prose preface is written in Alfred’s own voice and claims his authorship of the Old English text, while, as we have seen, the verse preface foregrounds Alfred’s role in the dissemination of the translation. The Pastoral Care is often identified as the first of the four canonical literary works of the ‘royal corpus’.2 There are more surviving copies of the Pastoral Care than any other Alfredian translation, presumably because it was copied and distributed to a large number of bishoprics, as indicated in the prose preface. Records detailing the recipients of the translation reveals that it must have been circulated during Alfred’s lifetime, suggesting that the king was probably at the very least aware of it.3 Asser’s silence on Alfred’s translation programme (excepting the Dialogues)4 in his Vita Alfredi, completed in 893, could be interpreted as further evidence for the dating of the Pastoral Care: if work on the translation had been initiated when Asser wrote his biography, he would arguably have mentioned it. However, Dorothy Whitelock argues that the lack of any reference to the Pastoral Care translation may be because the biography is unfinished: 1

2 3

4

The Pastoral Care survives in six manuscripts: Cambridge, University Library, MS Ii. 2. 4, a manuscript dating from the third quarter of the eleventh century, containing a copy of the prose preface, addressed to Bishop Wulfsige, and the verse preface; Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 12, dating from the latter half of the tenth century, with both prose and verse prefaces and the verse epilogue; Cambridge, Trinity College, MS R. 5. 22 (717), ff. 72–158, a late tenth- or early eleventh-century manuscript containing the verse preface, but lacking the prose preface and epilogue; London, British Library, MS Cotton Otho B. ii, with London, British Library, MS Cotton Otho B. x, ff. 61, 63, 64 (‘C ii’), a fire-damaged copy of the translation dating from the latter part of the tenth or early eleventh century, derived from the copy sent to Bishop Hehstan; London, British Library, MS Cotton Tiberius B. xi, with Kassel, Gesamthochschulbibliothek 4° MS. theol. 131 (‘C i’), fragments from a fire-damaged manuscript datable to 890–7, preserved in a copy by Junius, containing both prefaces and a note detailing the bishops to whom a copy of the translation had been sent; Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Hatton 20 (S.C. 4113) (‘H’), also datable to 890–7, featuring both prefaces, the prose addressed to Bishop Wærferth, and the epilogue: Gneuss and Lapidge, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts, pp. 29–30, 46–7, 157–8, 277, 299–300 and 477–8; nos 14, 37, 180, 353, 375 and 626; see also Ker, Catalogue of Manuscripts, pp. 27–8, 41–2, 132–3, 222–3, 257–9 and 385; nos 19, 30, 87, 175, 195 and 324. Bately, ‘Alfred as Author and Translator’, p. 141. C. Schreiber, ‘Searoðonca Hord: Alfred’s Translation of Gregory the Great’s Regula Pastoralis’, in A Companion to Alfred the Great, ed. Discenza and Szarmach, pp. 171–99, at p. 178. VA 77. See also §89, on Alfred’s enchiridion and the king’s desire to translate.

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The Stream of Wealth: The Old English Pastoral Care certainly, the work ‘ends abruptly’.5 Moreover, Simon Keynes observes that Asser’s approach ‘is idiosyncratic, rather than systematic, objective, or evenly balanced, and it would be dangerous to infer much from his silence about one thing or another’.6 In spite of these arguments, it seems likely that, if he was writing the biography at the time, Asser would have been eager to broadcast Alfred’s direct involvement in the translation programme, as is described in the prose preface to the Pastoral Care, if indeed this was the case. The veracity of the prose preface has long been the subject of debate.7 Alfred claims that, due to the decline of learning in his kingdom, he has decided to exhort his bishops – the recipients of not only a copy of the translation but an æstel – to assist him in restoring wisdom to the land. This entails not only removing themselves (as much as possible) from their ‘woruldðinga’ (5.3) (‘worldly duties’) to contemplate wisdom, but also facilitating the implementation of a dual translation-education programme, whereby, given the poor standards of Latin, important books will be translated into English, and schools will be set up to teach literacy in the vernacular and, for those who have the ability, Latin.8 Taking the claims of the preface at face value, it seems, then, that the Old English Pastoral Care, constituting one of the books most necessary to know, is designed to make Gregory’s text accessible to anyone literate in Old English but not Latin: this could include secular readers, as well as the bishops or other ecclesiastics. However, Godden has argued that the translation is intended solely for use by the bishops themselves, and that the preface represents something of a smoke-screen to disguise the perhaps embarrassing fact that some bishops do not know enough Latin to read the Regula pastoralis in the original Latin.9 Godden, furthermore, 5 6

7

8

9

Whitelock, ‘The Prose of Alfred’s Reign’, p. 75. S. Keynes, ‘Alfred the Great and the Kingdom of the Anglo-Saxons’, in A Companion to Alfred the Great, ed. Discenza and Szarmach, pp. 13–46, at p. 37. Alfred’s authorship of the Pastoral Care is not the only contested point. The lamentable state of learning during Alfred’s reign, described in the prose preface, has also been called into question; see J. Morrish, ‘King Alfred’s Letter as a Source of Learning in England in the Ninth Century’, in Studies in Earlier Old English Prose: Sixteen Original Contributions, ed. P. E. Szarmach (Albany, NY, 1986), pp. 87–107; for the opposing view, see H. Gneuss, ‘King Alfred and the History of Anglo-Saxon Libraries’, in Modes of Interpretation in Old English Literature: Essays in Honour of Stanley B. Greenfield, ed. P. R. Brown, G. R. Crampton and F. C. Robinson (Toronto, 1986), pp. 29–49. See M. Godden, ‘King Alfred’s Preface and Teaching Latin’, EHR 117 (2002), 596–604, for the argument that Latin learning was open to laymen, as well as clergy. M. Godden, ‘Prologues and Epilogues in the Old English Pastoral Care, and their Carolingian Models’, JEGP 110 (2011), 441–73, at pp. 459–61.

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Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus maintains that the Pastoral Care author tends to ‘render rector and similar terms of generalised authority by words that more specifically denote authority within the Church, or at least authority as a teacher providing moral and religious guidance […]. This is an author who is very conscious that bishops are his primary target’.10 Patrick Wormald, however, argues that the Old English translation blurs ‘the line between episcopal and secular government’, a line which, he suggests, is not altogether clear in the Latin; a ‘book about how to be bishop’, he affirms, ‘is becoming one about how to be king’.11 Even if the audience of the translation was limited to ecclesiastics, however, the question of wealth remains pertinent. Bishops are by no means removed from the hustle and bustle of worldly activity; as Alfred shows in his preface, his bishops were at risk of being embroiled in secular affairs, and were probably involved in the transfer and administration of wealth no less than Alfred’s ealdormenn. The credibility of anything that is said in the prose preface has been shaken by the doubt that hangs over Alfred as the author of the ‘royal corpus’. Godden argues that while the Old English Boethius and the Soliloquies bear many similarities to one another, the Pastoral Care is a very different text, critiquing the idea of a coherent corpus written by one author.12 He does acknowledge, however, that ‘the arguments against Alfred’s personal authorship of the Pastoral Care are not overwhelming’.13 Moreover, the Pastoral Care, unlike the Boethius and Soliloquies, could feasibly be classed as a book most necessary for all men to know, making it suitable for the translation programme outlined in the prose preface.14 The most striking feature of the prose preface to the Pastoral Care, at least in the context of this study, is the alliterative pairing of wela and wisdom (5.14–15 and 16). This dyad, wealth and wisdom, familiar from certain books of the Old Testament, has significance not only in the Pastoral Care but throughout the Alfredian corpus.15 While there is some debate as 10 11

12 13 14

15

Godden, ‘Alfredian Prose: Myth and Reality’, pp. 148–9. P. Wormald, ‘Living with King Alfred’, Haskins Society Journal 15 (2006 [for 2004]), 1–39, at p. 15. See also N. G. Discenza, ‘Wealth and Wisdom: Symbolic Capital and the Ruler in the Translational Program of Alfred the Great’, Exemplaria 13 (2001), 433–67, at p. 454. Godden, ‘Did Alfred Write Anything?’, pp. 9 and 13. Godden, ‘Did Alfred Write Anything?’, p. 14. However, D. Anlezark, ‘Which Books are “Most Necessary” to Know? The Old English Pastoral Care and King Alfred’s Educational Reform’, ES 98 (2017), 759–80, at pp. 764–7, argues that these ‘most necessary’ books were scriptural writings only. E.g. 1 Kings 3.5–14, Proverbs 3.13–16, Ecclesiastes 7.12, Wisdom 8.5; on the imagery of wealth and poverty in Proverbs, a wisdom book, see T. J. Sandoval, The Discourse of Wealth and Poverty in the Book of Proverbs, Biblical Interpretation Series 77 (Leiden, 2006).

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The Stream of Wealth: The Old English Pastoral Care to whether the author of the preface drew this pairing from Carolingian literature, it is clear that the alliterative pair of wealth and wisdom contributes strikingly to the Alfredian preoccupation with the relationship between material and immaterial that we have already encountered in the speaking-book prefaces and the verse epilogue to the Pastoral Care.16

Books and treasures in the prose preface and Exeter Book riddles In the speaking-book poems, we saw that physical copies of books had an integral role to play in bridging the gap between mundane ignorance and divine understanding, or indeed between earth and heaven. By making the books speak, the agency of these physical things is brought into the foreground. In the prose preface to the Pastoral Care, we encounter a very different situation. In the intellectual wasteland described by Alfred (or somebody writing in his name), we find books and treasures which can no longer bridge that gap between ignorance and understanding: without the intelligence of the people who interact with them, they are emptied of all significance. They have become signs without meaning. Alfred uses as an example the case of the ‘ærendgewrit’ (3.15) (‘letter’) in Latin which only a few people south of the Humber (and not many north of it) would be able to translate into English. Without the skill of translation, the letter becomes a useless shell. Alfred goes on to reflect on the books which, he remembers, used to be in plentiful supply: ‘ða gemunde ic eac hu ic geseah, ærðæmðe hit eall forhergod wære & forbærned, hu ða 16

J. L. Nelson, ‘Wealth and Wisdom: The Politics of Alfred the Great’, in Kings and Kingship, ed. J. Rosenthal, Acta 11 (Binghampton, NY, 1986 [for 1984]), pp. 31–52, at p. 36, argues that the pairing of wealth and wisdom was not common in Carolingian literature; Pratt, Political Thought, pp. 159–60, on the other hand, does find numerous examples of this pairing. For some examples of the association of wealth and wisdom in Carolingian literature, see P. Godman, ed., Poetry of the Carolingian Renaissance (London, 1985) pp. 112–15, lines 15–17, for Angilbert’s poem ‘To Charlemagne and his Entourage’; S. Hellmann, ed., Sedulius Scottus, Quellen und Untersuchungen zur lateinischen Philologie des Mittelalters 1.1 (Munich, 1906), p. 24, lines 21–2, p. 25, lines 1–2, and p. 32, lines 16–19, for Sedulius Scottus’s On Christian Rulers; P. E. Dutton and H. L. Kessler, The Poetry and Paintings of the First Bible of Charles the Bald (Ann Arbor, 1997), pp. 110–1, lines 180–2, for the dedicatory verses to the first bible made for Charles the Bald; and, in the visual arts, the Psalter frontispiece in this bible (Dutton and Kessler, Poetry and Paintings, p. 59 and fig. 8; Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, MS lat. 1, fol. 215v). On Alcuin’s preface to his De dialectia, which is spoken by the book and refers to the wisdom that the book contains in terms of wealth, as a direct source for the verse preface to the Pastoral Care, see Godden, ‘Prologues and Epilogues’, p. 463.

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Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus ciricean giond eall Angelcynn stodon maðma and boca gefyldæ’ (5.8–10) (‘then I remembered also how I saw, before it was all ravaged and burned, how the churches throughout all England stood filled with treasures and books’). These books of Alfred’s memory sit alongside the treasures in churches, as a sort of foreshadowing of the partnership of the Pastoral Care and Alfred Jewel which, by Alfred’s command, will sit alongside one another in the churches of his kingdom. However, these books and treasures were both, like the letter, useless to those who looked upon them. Although the churches were well supplied with clerics, they could not read Latin, and so they ‘swiðe lytle fiorme ðara boca wiston’ (5.11) (‘knew very little use of the books’). The use of feorm here is especially striking, as it elsewhere only refers to the tangible benefits of food, provisions and feasting: by framing the benefit that is lost from the books in these terms, Alfred emphasises the waste that is brought about by a lack of literacy.17 The clerics may well have appreciated the books and shining treasures as things; but it is clear that they were not able to use them as intended. The result of this, as Alfred reveals in a speech by these imagined clerics, is that both wisdom and wealth fall away and are lost: Ure ieldran, ða ðe ðas stowa ær hioldon, hie lufodon wisdom & ðurh ðone hie begeaton welan & us læfdon. Her mon mæg giet gesion hiora swæð, ac we him ne cunnon æfterspyrigean, & forðæm we habbað nu ægðer forlæten ge ðone welan ge ðone wisdom, forðæmðe we noldon to ðæm spore mid ure mode onlutan. (5.13–18) (Our elders, those who previously kept these places, they loved wisdom and through it they acquired wealth and left it to us. Here one can still see their track, but we cannot follow them, and therefore we have lost both wealth and wisdom, because we would not bend to the trail with our minds.)

Through lack of understanding, the beautiful things which filled the churches – books and treasures – have faded into nothingness. Like the letter which few can translate, they are signs without any meaning.18 These silent books and treasures offer a striking counterpoint to the proud, talkative books that we met in the speaking-book prefaces. Those

17 18

DOE, s.v. feorm. T. A. Shippey, ‘Wealth and Wisdom in King Alfred’s Preface to the Old English Pastoral Care’, EHR 94 (1979), 346–55, at p. 347, argues that the clerics’ speech should end at ‘æfterspyrigean’, and that the final clause is Alfred lamenting that in his own time they do not even have the books and wealth which the earlier clerics did not know how to make use of. For the counter argument, see P. R. Orton, ‘King Alfred’s Prose Preface to the Old English Pastoral Care, ll. 30–41’, Peritia 2 (1983), 140–8.

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The Stream of Wealth: The Old English Pastoral Care books can be enjoyed as lively things in their own right, but also used as ladders to heaven or wisdom, or indeed both. As mentioned in the previous chapter, the speaking books of these prefaces bear some similarities to the speaking objects of the Exeter Book riddles. Riddle 26 is spoken in the voice of some sort of holy book, perhaps a richly decorated bible or gospel-book.19 It is just this sort of book which might have filled the churches Alfred alludes to, venerated as a thing but perhaps used and understood by only a few. The speaking book of Riddle 26 is quite clear on the way that men should engage with it in order to reap its benefits: Gif min bearn wera brucan willað, hy beoð þy gesundran ond þy sigefæstran (Riddle 26, lines 18–19) (if men wish to use or enjoy me, they will be the sounder and the more victory-fast).

The verb brucan implies that same complex relationship between human and thing that we encountered in Beowulf during gift-giving scenes, when the recipient was exhorted: ‘Bruc ealles well!’ (‘Use or enjoy it all well!). While a beautifully decorated gospel-book such as the Codex Aureus might well be enjoyed as a thing in its own right, there is also an imperative to make good use of it.20 The speaking book closes by asserting that it is both a useful tool for men, as well as holy in its own right: ‘Nama min is mære, / hæleþum gifre ond halig sylf’ (27b–28) (‘my name is famous, useful to men and holy myself’). The book is both a tool and a thing; something to be both used and enjoyed.21 This bible, or gospel-book, like the speaking books of the Alfredian prefaces, offers the reader a ladder to heaven – as long as they have the skills and the will to climb. In addition, though, the book’s sylf is stressed: it is its own holiness, ultimately, on which the riddle ends, not its usefulness to men. Like the bible of Riddle 26 and the speaking books of the Alfredian prefaces, the manuscript described in Riddle 47 has plenty to say, but it is not given the power of speech. Indeed, like the books which filled the churches of Alfred’s memory, it is rendered silent by the reader’s failure to apprehend its meaning. The riddle is normally solved as ‘book-worm’, 19

20 21

D. Bitterli, Say What I am Called: The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book and the Anglo-Latin Riddle Tradition (Toronto, 2009), p. 171; see further pp. 171–8. Stockholm, National Library of Sweden, MS A. 135. M. Salvador-Bello, Isidorean Perceptions of Order: The Exeter Book Riddles and Medieval Latin Enigmata (Morgantown, WV, 2015), p. 325; R. Marsden, ‘“Ask What I am Called”: The Anglo-Saxons and their Bibles’, in The Bible as Book: The Manuscript Tradition, ed. J. L. Sharpe and K. van Kampen (London, 1998), 145–76, at p. 146.

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Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus a solution hard to miss, in that is hinted at by the reference to a book-moth in the very first line: Moððe word fræt. Me þæt þuhte wrætlicu wyrd, þa ic þæt wundor gefrægn, þæt se wyrm forswealg wera gied sumes, þeof in þystro, þrymfæstne cwide ond þæs strangan staþol. Stælgiest ne wæs wihte þy gleawra, þe he þam wordum swealg. (Riddle 47, lines 1–6) (A moth ate words. To me that seemed a marvellous event, when I heard about that wonder, that the worm, a thief in the dark, swallowed the song of a man, the glory-fast saying, and the strong foundation. The stealing-guest was not a whit the wiser for eating those words.)

However, while the most evident solution to this riddle is ‘book-worm’, the greedy but ignorant creature has also been interpreted as a foolish reader, who hungrily devours books but is no wiser for it.22 This failure to grasp the meaning of the book results in the silencing of the ‘gied’ (line 3b) (‘song’) contained within the pages, the ‘cwide’ (line 4b) (‘saying’) and the ‘word’ (lines 1a and 6b) (‘words’); it is no coincidence that the language used to describe the devoured text is the language of the spoken word. Without the proper understanding, the book is deprived of its voice. Likewise, the books that fill the churches of Alfred’s memory may well be revered as things, as powerful physical objects; but without the skill to understand them, their meaning is silenced and then, like the ruined book of Riddle 47, the book itself is lost. There is some danger, it seems, in enjoying things without properly using them. These churches that Alfred remembers are filled not only with books, but also with treasures. It is worth pausing to question just what this treasure might be, and how it might have been used by the clerics who failed to learn the feorm (‘use, benefit’) of the books. Gold and silver were by no means uncommon sights in early medieval churches, and the riddle immediately following Riddle 47 in the Exeter Book seems to describe one such precious, sacramental object. The speaker of Riddle 48 describes how he has heard a ‘hring’ (line 1b) (‘ring’), later described as ‘sinc’ (line 4a) (‘treasure’) singing ‘torhtne butan tungan’ (line 2a) (‘bright without a tongue’). The ring says: ‘Gehæle mec, helpend gæsta’ (line 5) (‘heal me, saviour of souls’). The riddle is usually interpreted as a chalice or a patten, both sacramental vessels which may have been made from gold.23 In sharp contrast to the book-worm of the riddle which precedes it, the chalice in 22 23

Salvador-Bello, Isidorean Perceptions, p. 357. Salvador-Bello, Isidorean Perceptions, p. 359.

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The Stream of Wealth: The Old English Pastoral Care this riddle does have a voice.24 Indeed, the aural nature of its message is reiterated from the very beginning of the riddle: instead of the typical ‘Ic seah’ (‘I saw’) opening formula, the speaker begins his account with ‘Ic gefrægn’ (line 1a) (‘I heard’). The poet, though, highlights the paradox of the chalice’s silent speech, alluding not only to its absent tongue but the fact that it ‘for secgum swigende cwæð’ (line 4) (‘spoke in silence before men’). With apparent sensitivity to the agency of the chalice, the poet endows it with the power of speech. However, as the riddle continues, it is revealed that the power to give meaning to the words of the inscription lies not in the chalice itself, but in the beholders: ‘Ryne ongietan readan goldes / guman galdorcwide’ (lines 6–7a) (‘may men understand the mystery of the red gold, the charm-song’). As in the preceding ‘book-worm’ riddle, it is the intellectual capabilities of the reader which decides whether the voice of the thing is to be heard, either through correctly interpreting the written message, or failing to. The treasures in the churches may, like the books, have languished in silence, with nobody to correctly understand their meaning. These empty books and treasures could well have been enjoyed as things, but it is clear that the clerics did not know how to correctly use them. These clerics, Alfred seems to suggest, engaged with the books and treasures only in a very superficial way, in the same way that the English had understood their religion: ‘ðone naman anne we lufodon ðætte we Cristne wæren, & swiðe feawe ða ðeawas’ (5.6–8) (‘we loved the name alone that we were Christian, and very few of the practices’). The clerics still have the books and treasures; they can still see the ‘swæð’ (‘track’) of their wise ancestors, but it is a path which cannot be followed. Unlike the ladders we encountered in the previous chapter, this is a path which leads nowhere. In the dismal picture painted by Alfred, true faith and wisdom are known only by their surfaces; books and treasures are valued, but not understood. As a result, both wisdom and wela slip away; the path comes to a halt. The solution that Alfred offers is the gift of a new book and treasure: the translation of the Pastoral Care and the Alfred Jewel. The jewel can be enjoyed as a precious treasure created from the king’s wealth; but, like the gifts given in Beowulf, it must also be used. Its recipients must see it at once as a valuable thing in its own right, as well as a tool to help them find the wisdom of the book. It is at once a thing of wealth, and a sign of wisdom. Alfred’s ancestors went wrong, he claims, by interpreting their books and treasures only as marvellous things, and neglecting to use them as tools. 24

Salvador-Bello, Isidorean Perceptions, p. 360, notes that the minimal punctuation between the two riddles ‘might have been intended as a visual acknowledgement of the relationship between the two subjects dealt with in Riddles 47 and 48’.

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Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus The correct and proper use of wealth is a theme which Gregory dwells upon at some length in his Regula pastoralis, and which the Old English translator adapts and explores with sometimes striking originality.

Gregorian attitudes towards wealth Before considering the Old English translation of the Regula pastoralis, it is worth briefly surveying the attitudes towards wealth in the original Latin version. The Regula pastoralis is concerned with the practicalities of instructing one’s flock in the correct way to use wealth. The primary risks of possessing wealth, according to Gregory, are that it can lead to pride (I.3 and III.2) and distract one from love of God and a virtuous life (I.11, III.26 and III.32). He suggests that the wealthy can be admonished by being reminded that their wealth is only transitory (III.2 and III.20), and moreover that the wealthy are in fact only custodians of wealth (III.21). Perhaps of most relevance to Alfred, and other rulers, is the admonition that one cannot take up a position of power unless one has already conquered one’s desire for wealth and other worldly things; if a man cannot conquer these desires when in an ordinary position in life, Gregory argues, he will be susceptible to them when in a position of power, and surrounded by wealth (I.9). Gregory does acknowledge, if obliquely, that worldly things do ‘seruiant’ (‘serve’) and ‘subsidium praebent’ (‘support’) us; though his point here is that we should not be distracted by these things.25 Alongside these reminders of the dangers and transitory nature of riches, however, the Regula pastoralis is full of imagery of wealth and money, representing virtuous qualities and concepts.26 This at times takes the form of biblical exegesis, with Gregory explaining, for example, the gold on the Ark of the Covenant as the ‘splendore’ (‘splendour’) of the teacher’s way of life, while elsewhere gold represents ‘excellentia sanctitatis’ (‘surpassing holiness’).27 The image of inheritance is used to represent heavenly rewards (III.12), while elsewhere, the skill of preaching is compared to money, in that it should not be kept concealed (III.25), and the 25

26

27

RP III.26; Gregory I, Règle Pastorale, ed. B. Judic and F. Rommel, trans. C. Morel, 2 vols, Sources Chrétiennes 381–2 (Paris, 1992), II, p. 440, lines 32–4 and 35; translation from Gregory I, Pastoral Care, ed. and trans. H. Davis, Ancient Christian Writers 11 (Westminster, MD, 1950), p. 183. Discenza, ‘Wealth and Wisdom’, pp. 440–1, observes how frequently the imagery of wealth is used both in Scripture and patristic writings, including the Regula pastoralis, to represent virtue. With reference to Exodus 25.12–15 and Lamentations 4.1; RP II.11 and 7; Judic et al., ed., Règle Pastorale, I, p. 254, line 38 and p. 224, line 76; Davis, ed. and trans., Pastoral Care, pp. 88 and 71.

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The Stream of Wealth: The Old English Pastoral Care hierarchy of garnets and jacinths is used to explain the ranks and estates of man (III.28).28 However, the dominant attitude towards wealth in the Regula pastoralis is anxiety lest it make man over proud, coupled with reminders of the fleeting nature of all earthly possessions. Use is very much the dominant mode when it comes to wealth, rather than enjoyment.

The parable of the talents The Old English translator of Regula pastoralis, likewise, uses the language of wealth metaphorically, as in his translation of Gregory’s brief allusion to the parable of the talents. This parable resonates with the Gregorian and Alfredian conviction that one has a responsibility to make good use of whatever resources one has been lucky enough to receive. While Gregory sternly admonishes those who eagerly desire positions of rulership without fully understanding their burdens, he also emphasises on a number of occasions that those who have the requisite skills for ruling should not shy away from the responsibility. He supports his argument through an allusion to the parable of the talents as it is told in Luke, warning his reader against tying up received money in a napkin (Luke 19:11–27): that is, wasting the skills one has received from God. In Matthew’s more well-known version of the parable (Matthew 25:14–30), a rich man about to undertake a journey entrusts his servants with his goods, giving five talents to one servant, one to another, according to their ability. When he returns, he finds that the servants who had received five and two talents have doubled the amount through interest, but the servant who had received only one has buried it in the ground. The lord is angry with this servant for not making better use of the goods with which he had been entrusted. It is easy to see how this story supports Gregory’s argument that his readers need to make the best use of the gifts that they have received from God: specifically, those people who have received the requisite gifts to rule should not hide them in a napkin, or in the ground. Gregory alludes to the parable with a passing reference to the napkin of the version in Luke’s Gospel; the Old English translator builds a little on Gregory’s allusion: Se ðonne se ðe ðeonde bið on swelcum cræftum & geearnungum, swelce we ær spræcon, & ðonne to swiðe wiðsceorað ðæm ealdordome, healde hine ðæt he ne cnytte ðæt underfongne feoh on ðæm swatline ðe Xrist 28

In III.25 Gregory quotes from Sirach 20.32: ‘Sapientia abscondita et thesaurus inuisus, quae utilitas in utrisque?’ (‘Wisdom that is hid, and treasure that is not seen, what profit is there in them both?’): Judic et al., ed., Règle Pastorale, II, p. 428, lines 23–4; Davis, ed. and trans., Pastoral Care, p. 177.

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Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus ymbe spræc on his godspelle; ðæt is ðæt he ða Godes gifa ðe he onfeng ge on cræftum ge on æhtum ðæt he ða ne becnytte on ðæm sceate his slæwðe (59.11–16) (He, then, who is gifted in such skills and merits, as we previously spoke of, and then too vigorously refuses authority, should take care that he does not tie up the received money in the napkin which Christ spoke about in his Gospel; that is, that he does not tie up in the cloth of his sloth those gifts from God that he received both in skills and in possessions).29

The translation follows the Latin fairly closely. However, in Gregory’s version, the money is said to represent ‘dona percepta’ (‘gifts that have been received’).30 In the Old English, the money which is uselessly hidden is translated faithfully as ‘ðæt underfongne feoh’ (‘the received money’), but then interpreted with an additional exegetical phrase as ‘Godes gifa ðe he onfeng ge on cræftum ge on æhtum’ (‘God’s gifts which he received both in skills and in possessions’). The phrase ‘ge on cræftum ge on æhtum’ is a significant one, and will repay further attention. Cræft is an important word in many Alfredian translations. Discenza has shown that cræft has a specialised meaning in the works associated with Alfred.31 In these translations, she argues, cræft encompasses the three referents ‘power’, ‘skill’ and ‘virtue’. ‘Power’ has a physical dimension, ‘skill’ belongs to the mental realm and ‘virtue’ to the moral. In her words: ‘Physical, mental and moral cræftas are all intimately connected in the works of Alfred, particularly the Boethius’.32 I would emphasise that the union of the material, mental and spiritual in the word cræft represents a characteristically Alfredian fusing of secular and religious responsibilities that underpins the whole canon. The specialised use of this word in the translations attributed to Alfred epitomises an awareness, found throughout the corpus, of the close relationship between one’s worldly life and the spiritual realm. That is to say, the exercise of mental cræftas feeds into the cultivation of moral cræftas. This awareness, found throughout the translations attributed to Alfred, is in accord with Gregory’s emphasis on the importance of not abandoning one’s worldly responsibilities, even in order to practise one’s private, 29 30

31

32

Cf. Regula pastoralis I.9; Judic et al., ed., Règle Pastorale, I, p. 160. Judic et al., ed., Règle Pastorale, I, p. 160, line 42; Davis, ed. and trans., Pastoral Care, p. 38. Discenza, ‘Power, Skill and Virtue’. See further P. Clemoes, ‘King Alfred’s Debt to Vernacular Poetry: The Evidence of ellen and cræft’, in Words, Texts and Manuscripts: Studies in Anglo-Saxon Culture Presented to Helmut Gneuss on the Occasion of his Sixty-Fifth Birthday, ed. M. Korhammer, with K. Reichl and H. Sauer (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 213–38. Discenza, ‘Power, Skill and Virtue’, p. 95.

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The Stream of Wealth: The Old English Pastoral Care spiritual devotion. Much as Gregory would have liked to spend his days in monastic contemplation, he recognises that it is imperative that those with the requisite skills do not shun positions of power: Qua enim mente is qui proximis profuturus enitesceret, utilitati ceterorum secretum proponit suum, quando ipse summi Patris unigenitus, ut multis prodesset, de sinu Patris egressus est ad publicum nostrum? (Indeed, what disposition of mind is revealed in him, who could perform conspicuous public benefit on coming to his task, but prefers his own privacy to the benefit of others, seeing that the Only-Begotten of the Supreme Father came forth from the bosom of His Father into our midst, that He might benefit many?)33

In Alfredian terms, Gregory’s worldly skill as a leader and his spiritual virtue are both a part of his cræft: to neglect either of them is to let that cræft diminish. In this light, the Old English translator’s use of the word cræft in the passage about the parable of talents supports the thrust of the argument. Gregory’s point is that his readers should not waste any skills that they have received from God – specifically, in this case, the skills of a ruler. The choice to use cræft in this passage, then, is clearly understandable: to waste the intellectual skills implied by cræft is also to allow one’s moral cræftas to fail. However, the choice of æht is less straightforward: to say that the gift, the wasted resources, should be read not only as wasted skills, but as possessions, seems to be entirely out of keeping with the context of the passage, which is wholly concerned with not allowing one’s skills to go to waste. Although money, the literal gift from the lord to his lazy servant, is at the heart of this parable, it seems natural to assume that we are supposed to interpret the gift of money metaphorically, as elsewhere in the Gospels – the pearl of great price, for example.34 The Old English translator appears to be over-literalising the matter with the addition of the phrase ‘ge on æhtum’ (‘and in possessions’). For all the allusions to bankers and usury in the parable, we assume that the gifts Jesus is talking about are those skills and virtues which come from God; certainly, this is how Gregory interprets it. However, a closer look at the context of the parable in both Matthew and Luke reveals that literal money has a greater part to play than might be assumed on a first reading. Both versions of the parable occur in the context of almsgiving. In Matthew, the parable is followed by Jesus’s instruction that, whenever 33

34

Regula pastoralis I.5; Judic et al., ed., Règle Pastorale, I, p. 148, lines 53–6; Davis, ed. and trans., Pastoral Care, p. 31. See also RP I.6–7. Matthew 13.45–6.

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Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus one of his followers feeds, clothes, or shelters somebody, they are feeding, clothing and sheltering him.35 These words reinforce the importance of almsgiving, emphasising that a gift to the poor is a gift to Christ. The version of the parable in Luke’s Gospel is immediately preceded by the story of Zacchaeus, who represents the lost saved by Christ (Luke 19.1–10). A wealthy tax-collector, Zacchaeus exemplifies corruption and ill-gotten gains: however, we learn that he has in fact given half of his goods away to the poor, an act which results in his salvation. In the context of almsgiving, the parable of the talents takes on another aspect. It is possible to read this story as an explicit invitation to make good use of the literal wealth that one has received through the grace of God by giving alms to the poor; as Gary Anderson shows, in early Christian thought, as well as in rabbinic Judaism, almsgiving raises ‘a form of “spiritual currency” that will alleviate the debt of sin’.36 The poor recipient is seen as a conduit by which one is able to lay one’s wealth up in heaven, as Jesus urges in the Gospels (Matthew 6:19–21).37 Through the act of almsgiving, the value of one’s money is multiplied incomparably, just as the industrious servants multiply the value of their talents through interest.38 Almsgiving enables the transformation of wealth, a process which, as we shall see, is also played out in the Prose Psalms.39 In this context, then, the Old English translator’s decision to make the gifts from God not only ‘skills’ but also ‘possessions’ seems not only understandable, but in fact more sensitive to the original context of the biblical parable. Though it is clear that Gregory is concerned with the gifts one receives from God in terms of the skills of a ruler, memory of the parable may well have encouraged the translator to make this passage about good use of skills and the material gifts we receive from God. Indeed, it is striking that the translator groups both skills and possessions together as things granted, not acquired. It could even be said the material possessions are made acceptable by their proximity to skills; both, the translator implies, are things that are bestowed on one from God, and so cannot be the result of avarice. However, the Old English version

35 36 37

38

39

Matthew 25.35–40. Anderson, Sin, pp. 143–4. R. Garrison, Redemptive Almsgiving in Early Christianity (London, 1993), p. 65, notes that the corresponding passage in Luke is specifically about giving one’s wealth away as alms (Luke 12.33–4). On the development of almsgiving and its incorporation into Christian practice in the late antique and early medieval Church, see P. Brown, The Ransom of the Soul; see also R. Finn, Almsgiving in the Later Roman Empire: Christian Promotion and Practice 313–450 (Oxford, 2006). See Chapter Five.

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The Stream of Wealth: The Old English Pastoral Care does insist that if one has been lucky enough to receive gifts – material or immaterial – from God, one must put them to good use.

Wealth on earth and in heaven The act of almsgiving, advocated in the sermons of Jesus recorded in the Gospels, remained of central importance to early Christian communities.40 Indeed, with some modification, almsgiving went on to become an integral part of Christian life in the late antique church, and was eventually incorporated into the doctrines of penance and redemption.41 Roman Garrison suggests that the doctrine of redemptive almsgiving answered the question of how Christians could ‘find atonement for sins they had committed after their redemption in Christ’.42 Indeed, as Peter Brown asserts, the expiation of daily sin through giving alms to the poor was, for Augustine, ‘fundamental to the Christian search for salvation’.43 Through almsgiving, it was believed, one could transform one’s earthly riches into spiritual compensation for postbaptismal sins; according to some, this transformation was brought about by the efficacious prayers of the grateful poor.44 There is a striking sense of continuity behind this doctrine: just like wisdom’s stream in the verse epilogue to the Pastoral Care, the currency of one’s wealth remains constant, as it runs from earth to heaven in a continuous flow. Only its outward appearance is different. This is quite a different matter from the earthbound treasures we encounter in Old English poetry, such as the gold in The Seafarer which the grieving man wants to lay in his brother’s grave; the poet admonishes: ne mæg þære sawle þe biþ synna ful gold to geoce for Godes egsan (The Seafarer, lines 100–1)

40

41

42 43 44

Brown, Ransom of the Soul, pp. 41–4. See J. L. González, Faith and Wealth: A History of Early Christian Ideas on the Origin, Significance, and Use of Money (San Francisco, 1990), pp. 83–6, on the reality of the koinonía (‘fellowship, brotherhood’) in early Christian communities; 1 Corinthians 16.1–4 and 2 Corinthians 8–9. See Brown, Ransom of the Soul, pp. 83–114, on Augustine’s understanding of the relationship between almsgiving and penance; and pp. 115–48, on almsgiving and penance in fifth and sixth century Gaul. Garrison, Redemptive Almsgiving, p. 75. Brown, Ransom of the Soul, p. 84. Garrison, Redemptive Almsgiving, pp. 9–10; Finn, Almsgiving, pp. 179–80. On the idea of heavenly credit as the counterpart to the debt of sin, see Anderson, Sin, p. 135.

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Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus (gold cannot be a help for the soul that is full of sins, before the terror of God).45

Unlike these fixedly material treasures, money given as alms becomes a tributary in a transformative stream of wealth that flows continually between earth and heaven. Gregory frequently acknowledges the connection between almsgiving and the rewards of heaven. For example, when he warns against giving away one’s possessions before one is ready to live without them, he cautions that all one had earned through almsgiving, the ‘praemissae largitatis merces’ (‘reward of former bounty’), will be lost.46 In the Old English, this becomes: ‘ða lean ðæs ðe he ær sealde’ (325.18–19) (‘the reward for what he previously gave’).47 Elsewhere, Gregory refers to the benefits of using wealth well as ‘fructus’ (‘fruit’).48 The Old English author renders this once as ‘wæsðm’ (331.8) (‘fruit’), and shortly after uses a word pair of ‘wæsðm’ and ‘edleane’ (331.11) (‘reward’). Elsewhere, though, Gregory is more ambiguous about what one earns through good use of wealth. He warns that when benefactors give themselves credit for almsgiving, they will ‘simul omnia postquam peregerint perdant’ (‘lose all they have accomplished’).49 This is rendered with a similar lack of specificity in the Old English: ‘ðylæs hie hit eal forleosen, ðonne hie hit gedæled hæbben’ (323.2–3) (‘the less they lose it all, when they have distributed it’). The double use of hit here forces a semantic overlap between the gift given and the reward to be received. Gifts of wealth can be imagined accumulating as a glittering hoard, waiting for the giver after death. Indeed, it is just such an image that Augustine uses in his Enarrationes in Psalmos, arguing that he can offer the rich man a better storehouse than his own home or the bank; there is One, he says, who ‘habet magna horrea ubi perire non possint diuitiae’ (‘hath great store-houses; where riches cannot be lost’).50

45

46

47 48

49

50

On this passage, see J. F. Vickrey, ‘The Seafarer 97–102: Dives and the Burial of Treasure’, JEGP 94 (1995), 19–30. RP III.20; Judic et al., ed., Règle Pastorale, II, p. 386, lines 71–2; Davis, ed. and trans., Pastoral Care, p. 154. Leanian (‘to reward’) is used elsewhere in this context: see 337.19–21. RP III. 20; Judic et al., ed., Règle Pastorale, II, p. 390, lines 130 and 132; Davis, ed. and trans., Pastoral Care, p. 157. RP III.20; Judic et al., ed., Règle Pastorale, II, p. 384, lines 34–5; Davis, ed. and trans., Pastoral Care, p. 153. On Psalm 38.7, XXXVIII.12; Augustine of Hippo, Les Commentaires des Psaumes, Ps. 37–44, ed. M. Dulaey et al., Œuvres de Saint Augustin, 8th ser., 59/a (Paris, 2017), p. 160; translation from Augustine of Hippo, Expositions on the Book of Psalms, 6 vols, Library of Fathers of the Holy Catholic Church 8–13 (Oxford, 1848), II, p. 113.

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The Stream of Wealth: The Old English Pastoral Care Indeed, it is not only through the ambiguity of hit that the Old English translator hints at the continuity between earthly and heavenly wealth. Old English features a wide range of terms for wealth, many of which are ambiguous enough to encompass both earthly and heavenly riches. The adjective eadig (‘happy, wealthy, blessed’) appears five times in the Pastoral Care. On three of these occasions, it refers to the materially wealthy (175.14, 183.8 and 331.14).51 On two occasions it translates beatus (‘blessed’) (323.23 and 359.10); elsewhere, eadignes translates beatitudo (‘bliss’) (389.27). The translator, then, uses eadig to refer to both spiritual and material fortune. In his translation of Gregory’s quotation of Proverbs 28.20, the Old English translator evidently believed that clarification was required: Qui festinat ditari, non erit innocens (He that maketh haste to be rich, shall not be innocent).52 Se ðe æfter ðæm higað ðæt he eadig sie on ðisse worulde, ne bið he unsceaðful (331.14–15) (He who hastens to be rich in this world, he will not be innocent).53

In the Old English, the addition of ‘on ðisse worulde’ clarifies that eadig here refers to material wealth. The unspoken corollary is that the desire to be eadig in the next world is no cause for guilt. Wela (‘wealth, riches, prosperity’) is another word which can refer to both earthly and heavenly prosperity. On most occasions wela clearly refers to earthly wealth; however, as with eadig, the translator also exploits the semantic fluidity of this word. Gregory warns that ‘Qui itaque in principio hereditari festinant, sortem sibi in nouissimo benedictionis amputant’ (‘They, therefore, who hasten to an inheritance in the beginning, cut

51

52

53

In the first case eadig translates ‘locupletes’ (‘wealthy’) (RP III.1; Judic et al., ed., Règle Pastorale, II, p. 262, line 4; Davis, ed. and trans., Pastoral Care, p. 90), in the second case the sentence is additional and in the third case eadig corresponds to ‘ditari’ (‘to be rich’) (RP III.20; Judic et al., ed., Règle Pastorale, II, p. 392, line 134; Davis, ed. and trans., Pastoral Care, p. 157). RP III.20; Judic et al., ed., Règle Pastorale, II, pp. 390–2, lines 133–4; Davis, ed. and trans., Pastoral Care, p. 157. As is common in the Old English translation, the quotation is attributed to Solomon, while Gregory says only that it is written (‘scriptum est’): see A. Faulkner ‘Royal Authority in the Biblical Quotations of the Old English Pastoral Care’, Neophilologus 102 (2018), 125–40, at pp. 129 and 133–6.

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Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus themselves off from the lot of the blessed in the end’).54 In the Old English this becomes: Se ðonne ðe wilnað ðæt wolde on ðæm angienne his lifes woroldspedig weorðan mid unryhte, se hine wile selfne bedælan ðære bledsunge & ðæs weolan on ðæm ytemestan dæge. (333.1–4). (He then who desires to become prosperous in worldly things at the beginning of his life improperly, he will deprive himself of that blessing and that wealth on the last day).

In this context, wela evidently refers to heavenly wealth, as part of a word pair with ‘bledsunge’. The use of eadig and wela in these heavenly contexts contributes productively to the idea that one’s wealth is a constant stream, unchanging in essence but variable in its form, which delivers one from this life into heaven. Peter Brown maintains that the idea of laying up treasure in heaven joins ‘two zones of the imagination that common sense held apart’, and was seen to have the power to overcome ‘the brutal antithesis between heaven and earth, pure spirit and dull matter’.55 Moreover, the addition of ‘mid unryhte’ (‘improperly’) here suggests that it is possible to be materially prosperous without cutting oneself off from heavenly riches. The correct use of wealth is addressed by Gregory and translated with some minor but significant changes into Old English; as we shall see, good use of wealth, the means by which it is transformed into heavenly riches, is not limited to renunciation and almsgiving, but also encompasses wise, moderate and useful application of wealth.

Good use of wealth One of the most well-known biblical examples of someone who does not use their wealth well is the rich man, Dives, who would not give any of his wealth to the poor beggar, Lazarus. In this story, Dives feasts lavishly every day, and refuses Lazarus a morsel from his table.56 When they both die, Lazarus is received into the bosom of Abraham while Dives suffers in Hell. In the Regula pastoralis, Gregory uses this story to instruct his readers that simply not despoiling others is not enough to escape God’s censure, as one should also give to the needy:

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RP III.20; Judic et al., ed., Règle Pastorale, II, p. 392, lines 143–4; Davis, ed. and trans., Pastoral Care, p. 157. Brown, Ransom of the Soul, p. 31. This parable is alluded to on one other occasion in the Pastoral Care (309.2–11), in the Soliloquies (95.4–21) and, possibly, in the Prose Psalms (48.7).

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The Stream of Wealth: The Old English Pastoral Care Neque enim dives in Euangelio […] aliena rapuisse sed infructuose propriis usus fuisse perhibetur, eumque post hanc uitam ultrix gehenna suscepit, non quia aliquid illicitum gessit, sed qui immoderato usu totum se licitis tradidit. (It is not recorded of the rich man of the Gospel […] that he despoiled others, but that he used what was his own unfruitfully. It was after this life that avenging hell received him, not because he had done positive evil, but because he had abandoned himself immoderately to the use of what he was entitled to use.)57

Gregory makes allowance for the existence of private property, but on the condition that it is not used improperly.58 The Old English translator amplifies this idea of improper use, and immoderate enjoyment: nis hit no gesæd ðæt he for ðy getæled wære ðy he oðre menn reafode, ac forðyðe he his agenes ungemetlice breac, & oðrum monnum nawuht ne sealde; & ðeah æfter ðisse worulde he underfeng helle wite, nalles no forðyðe he awuht unaliefedes dyde, ac forðæm ðe he ðæs aliefdan nanwuht nolde forlætan, ac his swiðe ungemetlice breac, & hine selfne eallinga gesealde ðiossum woruldwelum. (339.1–6) (It is not said that he was blamed because he despoiled others, but because he immoderately enjoyed his own, and gave nothing to other men; and yet after this world he received the punishment of hell, not at all because he did anything illicit, but because he would not abstain from anything of what was allowed, but rather enjoyed his own very immoderately and gave himself entirely to this worldly wealth.)

By giving himself ‘eallinga’ (‘entirely’) to his wealth – an elaboration in the Old English – Dives gives himself wholly over to this world, without considering the world beyond. There is no awareness that what he enjoys is limited; he does not understand that he only enjoys the temporary use of his wealth. He does not transform his wealth through almsgiving, and so the current cannot flow into the next life. All his riches have their end in earth. This is not the wela that transforms into heavenly wealth but, rather, earthbound woruldwela. The Old English translation lays double emphasis on the theme of immoderation. By focussing on Dives’s immoderation, moderate enjoy57

58

RP III.21; Judic et al., ed., Règle Pastorale, II p. 396, lines 39–44; Davis, ed. and trans., Pastoral Care, p. 160. In Roman law, one is permitted to abuse one’s private property, whereas in the Christian and Jewish traditions, the underlying awareness that what one owns is on loan from God, and so not truly one’s own, prevents this; see González, Faith and Wealth, p. 22.

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Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus ment of wealth emerges as acceptable.59 Immoderation is a concern that runs throughout the Alfredian corpus, as demonstrated by the relatively high frequency of the adjective ungemetlic (‘immoderate’) and adverb ungemetlice (‘immoderately’) in the Pastoral Care (55 occurrences), the Boethius (26), the Orosius (26) and the Soliloquies (7): to put these figures in context, there are only six occurrences across all of Ælfric’s works.60 Good use of wealth, then, must be moderate. Moderate use of wealth is commensurate with the understanding that what one uses is not really one’s own. Elsewhere, the Pastoral Care translator emphasises that one’s wealth must be useful, and not wasteful. For example, Gregory quotes a saying widely but falsely believed to be biblical: ‘Sudet eleemosyna in manu tua’ (‘let the alms sweat in thy hand’).61 The Old English includes a characteristic clarification: ‘Heald ðine ælmessan, ðylæs ðu hie forweorpe’ (325.4) (‘hold your alms, lest you throw them away’). This addition implies an anxiety about wasting wealth: even almsgiving has the potential to be wasteful. Moreover, in a passage about not giving either too little or too much, the Old English version adapts Gregory’s caution: ‘ne praecipitatione hoc quod tribuunt inutiliter spargant’ (‘not to be in haste and bestow unprofitably’) with the elaboration: ‘ðylæs hie unnytlice forweorpan ðæt ðæt hie sellen for hira hrædhydignesse’ (321.17–18) (‘lest they uselessly throw away that which they give for their hastiness’).62 In both examples, by warning against throwing wealth away uselessly, the Old English translation serves to highlight the potential usefulness of wealth. We saw in the Introduction that it can be reductive to focus only on the usefulness of wealth; but this anxiety about useless wealth should perhaps be read in the context of the situation depicted by the prose preface to the Pastoral Care, in which the materiality of both books and treasures was wasted in adoration, with limited understanding of how either should be used. 59

60

61

62

Immoderation is also a key theme in the Regula pastoralis: Gregory warns not only against immoderately indulging oneself, but also against giving away alms too freely (RP III.20). This passage on almsgiving is quoted by Asser (VA 102), indicating that Gregory’s attitudes towards wealth were current at the West-Saxon court: Stevenson, ed., Asser’s Life of King Alfred, p. 88, lines 13–14; Keynes and Lapidge, ed. and trans., Alfred the Great, p. 107. Data acquired through a search in the Dictionary of Old English Corpus: A. diPaolo Healey, J. P. Wilkin and X. Xiang, Dictionary of Old English Web Corpus (Toronto, 2009). RP III.20; Judic et al., ed., Règle Pastorale, II, p. 386, lines 58–9; Davis, ed. and trans., Pastoral Care, p. 154. On the false belief that this saying is biblical, see Davis, ed. and trans., Pastoral Care, p. 258, n. 173; see also González, Faith and Wealth, p. 94. RP III.20; Judic et al., ed., Règle Pastorale, II, p. 384, lines 27–8; Davis, ed. and trans., Pastoral Care, p. 153.

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The Stream of Wealth: The Old English Pastoral Care The transformative power of wealth transcends simply use or enjoyment; but this transformation can only be effected through good use in the first place. Unnyt (‘useless’) is a central word in the Old English translator’s warnings against wasting wealth.63 It appears seven times in Chapters 44 and 45 of the Pastoral Care, two key chapters on the use of wealth. It often occurs in response to a prompt from Gregory’s Latin, but in Chapter 50, an important chapter on prosperity, the Old English translator introduces it of his own accord: Deiecisti eos, cum alleuarentur. Quia uidelicet reprobi cum recta opera diuinis muneribus non rependunt, cum totos se hic deserunt, et affluentibus prosperitatibus dimittunt, unde exterius proficiunt, inde ab intimis cadunt. (When they were lifted up, Thou hast cast them down; that is, because the reprobate do not requite divine favours by good works, when here on earth they neglect themselves entirely and give themselves up to their great prosperity, their progress in the world brings on the ruin of their souls.)64 Đu hie geniðrades, ða hi hi selfe upahofon. Swa, ðonne ðonne unnyttan men ða godcundan gife nyllað leanian mid ryhtum weorcum, ac willað hi selfe her mid ealle fordon mid ðære fortruwunga ðæs to flowendan welan & orsorgnesse, & ðonon ðe hi utan bioð ahæfene, ðanon hie bioð innan afeallene. (391.9–13) (You have brought them down low, when they raised themselves up. Thus, when useless men will not repay the divine gift with just works, but wish to entirely destroy themselves here with over-confidence in abundant wealth and prosperity, and when they are outwardly exalted, then inwardly they are fallen).

Gregory’s reprobi becomes ‘unnyttan men’: in the Old English, those men who refuse to repay God’s gift of wealth with good works are ‘unnytt’: ‘useless’, or perhaps more appropriate here, ‘unprofitable’.65 There is a clear sense that wealth has the potential to be useful, provided one uses it for ‘ryhtum weorcum’ (‘just works’). In this example, outward prosperity is not reflected on the inside: the ‘unnyttan men’ are inwardly impoverished. They have failed to find a use for their wealth and, as such, cannot 63 64

65

On unnyt in Beowulf see Chapter One. RP III.26; Judic et al., ed., Règle Pastorale, II, p. 442, lines 71–5; Davis, ed. and trans., Pastoral Care, p. 185; see Psalm 72.18. B-T, s.v. unnyt.

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Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus incorporate it into the exercise of their cræft. It flows in abundance, but not for any purpose, and so becomes useless and wasted, like the waters of wisdom which flow into the mud in the verse epilogue to the Pastoral Care. As in the parable of the talents, received gifts must be used well. Indeed, Eric Stanley identifies the doctrine of this parable in the verse epilogue: ‘As elsewhere’, Stanley argues, ‘Alfred writes in terms of opportunity for good’.66 The good servant corresponds to those who draw the water without any waste, and make good use of what they have received according to their own ability. But the bad servant, who wastes what they have received, is represented in ‘the man whose mind Alfred depicts as a leaky vessel which has not been repaired; that is the man who has lost the drink of life’.67 In the Pastoral Care the flow of wealth must be directed into a useful channel, and not allowed to turn uselessly into mud. In addition to moderation and usefulness, wisdom, or perhaps more accurately rationality, emerges as a third essential quality in the handling of wealth. On numerous occasions, the translator recommends rational use of wealth: wise works, as well as good ones, transform worldly wealth into heavenly rewards. For example, Gregory admonishes that wealth is of no use to the man who loves his riches and will not distribute them – though it can be of use to the man who will give it away. To reinforce this, he quotes from Ecclesiastes 5.9: Cum augendis pecuniis inhiant, audient quod scriptum est: Auarus non impletur pecunia; et qui amat diuitias, fructus non capiet ex eis. Fructus quippe ex illis caperet, si eas bene spargere, non amando, uoluisset. Quia uero eas diligendo retinet, hic utique sine fructu derelinquet. (As they gape for an increase of their monies, let them hear what Scripture says: A covetous man shall not be satisfied with money, and he that loveth riches shall reap no fruit from them. He would, indeed, reap fruit from them, if he decided to distribute them for the purpose of doing good and without loving them; but a man who, loving them, withholds them, will surely leave them here behind him without profit.)68 Ac gehiere ge feohgietseras hwæt be eow gecweden is on Salomonnes bocum, hit is gecweden: Ne wyrð se gitsere næfre full feos, & se ðe woruldwelan lufað ungesceadwislice, ne cymð him of ðæm nan wæsðm. Ac him meahte cuman, gif he hi to swiðe ne lufode, & he hi wel wolde

66 67 68

Stanley, ‘King Alfred’s Prefaces’, p. 356. Stanley, ‘King Alfred’s Prefaces’, p. 356. RP III.20; Judic et al., ed., Règle Pastorale, II, p. 390, lines 127–32; Davis, ed. and trans., Pastoral Care, p. 157.

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The Stream of Wealth: The Old English Pastoral Care dælan. Ac forðæmðe he hi her lufað & hielt, he hi eac her forlæt butan ælcum wæsðme & ælcum edleane. (331.5–8) (But hear you avaricious ones what is said about you in Solomon’s book, it is said: The avaricious man will never be full of money, and he who loves worldly wealth foolishly, no fruit will come to him from that. But it might come to him, if he did not love it too much, and would distribute it freely.69 But because he loves and holds it here, he will also leave it here without any fruit or any reward.70)

Augustine’s principle of use and enjoyment echoes behind Gregory’s words here: the covetous man would benefit from his riches if he used them, but instead he just loves them. The adverb ungesceadwislice (‘foolishly’) is additional in the Old English, laying emphasis upon not only love but, specifically, foolish love of wealth. This qualification raises the question of whether it is possible to possess, even to love, wealth wisely. Indeed, the Old English version subsequently maintains that one might gain some benefit from wealth, provided that it is not loved ‘to swiðe’ (‘too much’), a moderation of Gregory’s ‘non amando’ (‘without loving’).71 In these adaptations, the Old English translator obliquely makes the case for the benefits that can be gained through rational use of wealth. What is imperative, it seems, is the understanding that riches should be held at arm’s length, and that one should not give oneself over to them entirely, as Dives did. The rational mind understands that all the wealth of this world is fleeting and transitory, and that though we may seem to be able to enjoy it, we only ever enjoy the use of it. Moreover, if holding onto wealth means that one must leave it behind on earth, the corollary is that, paradoxically, if it is released one will somehow be able to keep it. Wealth that is relinquished has the power to flow from earth to heaven. Man can only reach this awareness of the fleetingness and foreignness of wealth through the possession, and exercising, of gesceadwisnes (‘reason’). It is precisely the lack of this faculty which the translator warns against in the passage above. Through the exercise of gesceadwisnes, one has the power to turn the wealth left behind on earth into lasting riches. The term gesceadwisnes plays a central role in two Alfredian texts, the Boethius and the Soliloquies, in which Gesceadwisnes manifests as personified Reason and converses with, respectively, Boetius and Augustinus.72 Gesceadwisnes is also significant in the Pastoral Care, especially in the 69

70 71

72

On this translation of wel see B-T, s.v. wel, definition 1.d., ‘marking degree, well, much, thoroughly, freely’. See Faulkner, ‘Royal Authority’, pp. 133–4, on the translation of this quotation. On the qualification of some of the strictures of the Latin text in the Old English Pastoral Care, see Schreiber, ‘Searoðonca Hord’, pp. 186–7. In the Boethius, Wisdom is the primary interlocutor, but Gesceadwisnes appears

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Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus context of wealth. For example, giving ‘indiscrete’ (‘without discretion’) in Gregory’s text becomes ‘ungesceadwislice & ungemetlice’ (341.2) (‘foolishly and immoderately’) in the Old English.73 This is part of Gregory’s allusion to people who will give away what they have, and then become avaricious for lack of money. A few lines later, Gregory advises that these people should first learn how to ‘tenere sua rationabiliter’ (‘retain their own possessions in a reasonable way’).74 This is rendered in the Old English: ‘ðæt hie cunnen hiora ægen gesceadwislice gehealdan’ (341.8) (‘that they know how to retain their own things prudently’). As before, wise use of wealth is stressed, and it is significant that the Old English author chooses gesceadwislice, a word with particular significance in the Alfredian corpus and which, as we can begin to see here, plays a transformative role when it comes to material wealth.

Promised riches Wealth in the Old English Pastoral Care, then, can be transformed into heavenly riches, provided it is used as part of one’s cræft, and not allowed to go to waste. As we have seen, the fluidity of words such as wela and eadig allows for this slippage between earthly and heavenly riches. Gregory, too, uses the language of wealth to refer to spiritual rewards, for example when he uses the word divitia for the riches of the poor. Gregory instructs his reader on how to admonish the poor and the rich man: ‘ut et illi discant quia diuitias quas non conspiciunt possident, et isti cognoscant quia eas quas conspiciunt, tenere nequaquam possunt’ (‘the former [the poor] are to learn that they do possess riches, though they do not see them; and the latter [the rich] must realise that they certainly cannot retain the wealth which they behold’).75 This sentiment is representative of the scriptural and patristic commonplace that the poor are truly rich in virtue, and the rich are truly poor.76 There are several significant alterations in the Old English:

73

74

75

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on several occasions, sometimes along with Wisdom, sometimes alone. Gesceadwisnes is the sole interlocutor in the Soliloquies. RP III.21; Judic et al., ed., Règle Pastorale, II, p. 398, line 62; Davis, ed. and trans., Pastoral Care, p. 161. Gesceadwislic is also used in a pair with gemetlic at 291.1. RP III.21; Judic et al., ed., Règle Pastorale, II, p. 398, line 67; Davis, ed. and trans., Pastoral Care, p. 161. RP III.2; Judic et al., ed., Règle Pastorale, II, p. 270, lines 35–8; Davis, ed. and trans., Pastoral Care, p. 93. González, Faith and Wealth, p. 88; Revelation 3.17.

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The Stream of Wealth: The Old English Pastoral Care ða sorgfullan ongieten ðæt him becumað ða welan ðe him gehatene sint, ðeah hi hi ðonne git ne geseon; & eac ða welegan ongieten ðætte ða welan ðe hie onlociað & habbað, ðæt hie ða habban ne magon. (183.4–7) (The sorrowful should understand that the riches which are promised to them will come to them, though they do not yet see them; and also the wealthy should understand that they cannot keep the wealth which they look upon and possess.)

Firstly, the poor that are indicated by Gregory’s ‘illi’ have become the ‘sorgfullan’ (‘the sorrowful’). This opens the way for blessedness to those who are poor in spirit, not solely the literal poor.77 Secondly, while the Regula pastoralis states that the poor currently possess riches that cannot be seen, implying metaphorical virtues of piety or blessedness, in the Old English, the riches are ‘gehatene’ (‘promised’) to the poor: they do not yet possess them. This is reiterated by the third significant alteration: ‘ðeah hi hi ðonne git ne geseon’ (‘though they do not see them yet’). The implication is that while the poor do not yet see their riches, they will do one day. The promised reward is imagined in sensory terms: the riches of heaven are not presented in the abstract, but as things which will be seen. The message in the Old English recalls the Great Reversal: the belief that at the Day of Judgement the rich will be made poor and the poor rich.78 It should be remembered, though, that the Old English translator has opened the way for the poor in spirit, who could be wealthy in literal terms, through his use of ‘sorgfullan’. What is striking about this adaptation, though, is that it reveals a reluctance on the translator’s part to allow these spiritual riches to exist in this world. For Gregory, the riches of the poor are very much a part of their life in this world – only, they exist outside of the material realm of sensory perception. The Old English translator, however, turns these extrasensory riches into riches which will be perceived through the sense of sight; although it is a sight which is confined to the otherworld of heaven. His adaptations here are reminiscent of the translator of the Soliloquies who, as we shall see in Chapter Four, hesitates about the possibility of seeing God in this life – but, nonetheless, is emphatic that God will be seen in the afterlife. While both translators, like the poet of the verse preface to the Dialogues,79 are certain that an otherworldly, divine sight will be granted in the afterlife, they are reluctant to admit the perception of the immaterial in this world. 77 78

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See also Pastoral Care, 325.12–14. Luke 6.20 and 24; D. L. Mealand, Poverty and Expectation in the Gospels (London, 1980), pp. 45–6. Irvine and Godden, ed. and trans., Old English Boethius with Verse Prologues and Epilogues, p. 404, lines 6b–7.

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Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus However, as we have seen, in spite of this distinction between the material and immaterial realms, the Pastoral Care shows that wealth can form a link which crosses the boundary between the two. If, like the good servant in the parable of the talents, one uses wealth correctly and makes it part of one’s cræft, it becomes a current which can join together the world of grubby money and heavenly rewards. The prose preface to the Pastoral Care paints a picture of a world in which that understanding has faded, and where material things like books and treasures are enjoyed as things only, and not put to good use. This is a world in which things are only understood in terms of their surface, and not their significance. In this dystopian vision of disappearing literacy, books and letters become empty shells, devoid of their meaning. It is only the gewit (‘mind, intelligence’) of the beholder which can give them meaning. In order to transform material stuff into spiritual rewards, one needs to exercise one’s gesceadwisnes. This is Alfred’s purpose in instigating the circulation of the Pastoral Care translation and the æstels: through reason, these physical things are transformed, and the path to wisdom is made visible once again.

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3. True Riches: The Old English Boethius

T

he Old English translation of Boethius’s De consolatione philosophiae, like the Old English Pastoral Care, features a preface which attributes the work of the translation – and subsequent versification in the prosimetrical version – to King Alfred. As we shall see, the two Old English translations share many of the same concerns and preoccupations. However, they are fundamentally very different works: while the Pastoral Care offers practical guidance for people in positions of authority, the Boethius is ultimately a philosophical text, detached from the practicalities of everyday life. Following De consolatione, the Old English Boethius presents wealth as deceptive, false and fleeting. Indeed, much of the material world is seen in this light, as Philosophia’s message to Boethius’s fictional persona is that true happiness can only be found through severing one’s attachment to earthly things. Nonetheless, as discussed at the very start of this book, the Old English translation is famous for the speech in a king’s voice which defends the need for material resources in order to govern a kingdom and exercise one’s cræft. Over the course of this chapter, I will argue that as the dialogue between Mod and Wisdom progresses, the Old English Boethius nuances this apparent binary between useful tool and excessive indulgence. The translator seems to quite firmly condemn material wealth – and yet closely associates wela (‘wealth’) with wisdom; ‘soð wela’ (‘true riches’) are at once worldly and transcendent. This chapter will explore the use of wealth imagery throughout the translation, and will offer a fresh reading of the Boethius as a transformative text: in the sense of Mod’s own transformation, the transformation that is expected of the reader, and the transformation of ‘true riches’.1

1

This analysis of wealth and other material things in the Boethius follows in the wake of a number of studies which have read the translation by focussing on a particular theme: on free will, see Payne, King Alfred and Boethius; on kingship, see M. Godden, ‘The Player King: Identification and Self-Representation in King Alfred’s Writings’, in Alfred the Great, ed. T. Reuter, pp. 137–50, at pp. 140–6; on fortune, see J. C. Frakes, The Fate of Fortune in the Early Middle Ages (Leiden, 1988), pp. 81–122.

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Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus

Boethius’s De consolatione Boethius’s Latin text takes the form of a dialogue, in which Philosophia appears to ‘Boethius’, a fictionalised persona of the author, in his prison cell. She leads him to the understanding that worldly goods are only deceptive and fleeting images of the good which all men seek. The falsity of these goods, such as wealth, is one of the central concerns of the first half of the dialogue. The dialogue begins with ‘Boethius’s’ lament for the injustice of his suffering and the deprivation of all his wealth and status. Indeed, his complaint here is the premise of the work: why should good and innocent men be deprived of their worldly prosperity? Philosophia shows him that he has no need to mourn the loss of his worldly goods because he never truly possessed them and, in any case, they do not provide true happiness. In Book Two, Philosophia seeks to address this complaint firstly by showing that ‘Boethius’ never truly possessed any of the gifts that Fortune bestowed upon him. This is achieved through the speech of the personified Fortuna: ‘Habes gratiam velut usus alienis, non habes ius querelae tamquam prorsus tua perdideris’ (2p2) (‘you should thank me, as having enjoyed the use of what was not yours, not complain as if you had lost something of your own’).2 Later, we learn that Fortuna is subject to divine order, as one operation of fatum (fate), meaning that her goods are ultimately under divine control. At this stage, however, Boethius presents Fortuna as the capricious goddess-figure, who is commonly understood to control the fortunes of men.3 Wealth, then, can only ever be loaned, not possessed; Boethius has enjoyed the use of it for a time but now that temporary period has come to an end. As Book Two progresses, Philosophia systematically goes through each of the worldly goods, opes (‘wealth’), honores (‘honour’), potentia (‘power’), gloria (‘glory’) and voluptates (‘pleasure’),4 explaining that they cannot truly be possessed, and indeed do not confer anything of value onto those who possess them temporarily.5 There is a significant distinction here between Boethian philosophy and the Old English heroic poetry considered in the Introduction: although the characters in Beowulf are aware that their enjoyment of worldly wealth is

2

3

4

5

Quotation and translation are taken from Stewart, et al., ed. and trans., Consolation of Philosophy, pp. 180–1, lines 14–16. For more on the Roman concept of Fortuna, and her descent from the status of a goddess to a convenient rhetorical device, see Frakes, Fate of Fortune, pp. 11–29. 3p2; Stewart, et al., ed. and trans., Consolation of Philosophy, pp. 234–5, lines 47–8; voluptates is not dealt with explicitly in Book Two with the other four worldly goods, but is introduced in Book Three. See 2p5 on wealth.

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True Riches: The Old English Boethius necessarily limited, treasures and ornaments are in fact shown to confer some of their good onto those who possess them. This is most immediately obvious in the gifts of armour and weaponry; for example, when Beowulf gives the watchman who has guarded the Geats’ boat a sword decorated with gold, the poet remarks that the ‘batwearde’ (line 1900a) (‘boat-guardian’) was thereafter ‘on meodubence maþme þy weorþra, / yrfelafe’ (lines 1902–3a) (‘on the mead-benches more honourable because of that treasure, the heirloom’).6 While treasures do not last for men, they can confer some of their lasting worth. Moreover, their limitations do not, ultimately, detract from their value. In Book Three of De consolatione, Philosophia introduces the idea of true happiness, which she comes to call the summum bonum (‘the highest good’). She argues that when men seek things like wealth or power, they are actually seeking, in those cases, sufficiency (sufficientia) and respect (reverentia) (3p2).7 John Marenbon summarises Philosophia’s argument here as ‘where we have a desire, our real desire is for the end, even if we believe our desire is for a means to an end’.8 There are parallels here, of course, with Augustine’s distinction between use and enjoyment, and the error that man commits when he enjoys the means, which should only be used to achieve the true end. Philosophia’s point at this stage is that man commits a twofold error: firstly, he desires the means, rather than the end, and secondly, that means will not enable him to achieve the true end that he (subconsciously) desires.9 In the case of riches, for example, the avaricious man ostensibly desires wealth, though he really desires sufficiency; however, as Philosophia shows, wealth does not actually enable one to reach sufficiency, as the avaricious man always wants more. It is worth quoting 3m3 in its entirety, as it summarises Philosophia’s argument well: Quamvis fluente dives auri gurgite Non expleturas cogat avarus opes Oneretque bacis colla rubri litoris Ruraque centeno scindat opima bove, Nec cura mordax deseret superstitem, Defunctumque leves non comitantur opes. (3m3) (Let the rich man in his avarice pile up his wealth [Which is never enough!] with flowing streams of gold; 6

7 8 9

J. Bazelmans, By Weapons Made Worthy: Lords, Retainers and their Relationships in Beowulf (Amsterdam, 1999); and D. C. V. Meter, ‘The Ritualized Presentation of Weapons and the Ideology of Nobility in Beowulf’, JEGP 95 (1996), 175–89. Stewart, et al., ed. and trans., Consolation of Philosophy, pp. 236–7, lines 74–5. J. Marenbon, Boethius (Oxford, 2003), p. 105. Marenbon, Boethius, p. 106.

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Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus Let him load his neck with Red Sea pearls; And plough his fat fields with hundreds of oxen! Gnawing care will never leave him while he lives, Nor does his insubstantial wealth go with him dead).10

Marenbon observes that Philosophia’s argument subsequently changes direction: rather than criticising man for pursuing false goods (for example, riches), she chastises him for pursuing single goods (for example, sufficiency), rather than the single, ultimate good that these lesser goods make up (3p9).11 The argument moves away from the deception and falsity of goods such as riches, with Philosophia becoming more concerned with explaining the logic of the perfect good. The dialogue thus moves from the realm of consolation into that of philosophy, continuing to do so in Book Four, where Philosophia addresses the issue of how, in a cosmos ordered by God, the wicked can prosper and the good suffer.12 Finally, in Book Five, Philosophia tackles the apparent paradox of divine prescience and free will, showing that God’s prescience does not affect man’s free will, as God exists in an eternal state, outside of the sequence of time, and so sees all events as if in the present. Philosophia argues that if we see something happen in the present, it does not mean it has been preordained, and applies this logic to the way that God sees events in time. By this point, the motivations of consolation and philosophy are so intertwined as to be almost indistinguishable. De consolatione is not always easy to follow; as Marenbon observes, both the literary and argumentative structure of the dialogue can be described as ‘circular’, rather than ‘linear’.13 Marenbon proposes that the deficiencies in Boethius’s argument are intentional. He suggests that Boethius’s purpose could have been to demonstrate that secular philosophy is limited in the consolation it can offer: Philosophia does not provide ‘a way for Boethius to grasp and gain the highest good to which she has led him’.14 As this chapter will demonstrate, the Old English version, with the pragmatism of the Pastoral Care, offers wisdom as a weg (‘way’) through which one can attain the good that Boethius’s Philosophia describes: significantly, this weg 10 11

12

13 14

Stewart, et al., ed. and trans., Consolation of Philosophy, pp. 244–5. Stewart, et al., ed. and trans., Consolation of Philosophy, pp. 266–7, lines 45–9; Marenbon, Boethius, p. 107. See 3p9, Stewart, et al., ed. and trans., Consolation of Philosophy, pp. 264–7, lines 10–44, for Philosophia’s argument on how sufficiency, power, respect, fame and joy (the ends rather than the means) add up to the highest good. Marenbon, Boethius, p. 97, argues that while Books Two and Three fit into the genre of consolatio, ‘the work goes far beyond the conventions of the consolatio in the scope of its philosophical discussion’. Marenbon, Boethius, pp. 96–7. Marenbon, Boethius, pp. 162–3.

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True Riches: The Old English Boethius has its roots in cræft (‘skill, strength, virtue’), a term which, as we have seen, applies to both worldly skill and spiritual virtues.15 While the Alfredian version represents the first sustained translation of De consolatione into English, Boethius’s dialogue had long-standing associations with early medieval England, as it was likely Alcuin who introduced the text to the Carolingian world.16 An extensive commentary tradition arises from the Carolingian engagement with De consolatione, which can be divided into two main strands, one attributed to Remigius of Auxerre, the other to the ‘anonymous of St Gall’,17 though this neat distinction has been problematised in recent years.18 The degree to which these extensive glosses influenced the Old English translator has long been the subject of scholarly debate.19 Jacob Hobson has recently offered an approach to the commentary tradition that considers the glosses not so much as a source, but as a way of reading De consolatione which informed the translator’s reading of the Latin.20

15

16

17

18 19

20

Clemoes, ‘King Alfred’s Debt to Vernacular Poetry’; and Discenza, ‘Power, Skill and Virtue’. J. Bately, ‘Boethius and King Alfred’, in Platonism and the English Imagination, ed. A. Baldwin and S. Hutton (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 38–44, at p. 38. For Boethius’s influence on Alcuin, specifically on his Disputatio de Vera Philosophia, see J. Marenbon, From the Circle of Alcuin to the School of Auxerre: Logic, Theology, and Philosophy in the Early Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1981), p. 31; and Pratt, Political Thought, p. 271. See further M. Gibson, ‘Boethius in the Carolingian Schools’, TRHS, 5th ser., 32 (1982), 43–56, at pp. 45–7. See J. Wittig, ‘King Alfred’s Boethius and its Latin Sources: A Reconsideration’, ASE 11 (1982), 157–98, at pp. 187–9, for a list of the manuscripts of De consolatione which correspond to the Remigian strand, and which correspond to the St Gall. See also Godden and Irvine, ed., Old English Boethius, I, pp. xlv–vi, for up-to-date locations of manuscripts. On a commentary distinct from these two strands, found in Rome, Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS lat. 3363, originating from early ninth-century Fleury but containing various insular glosses, see M. Godden, ‘Alfred, Asser, and Boethius’, in Latin Learning and English Lore: Studies in Anglo-Saxon Literature for Michael Lapidge, ed. K. O’Brien O’Keeffe and A. Orchard, 2 vols (Toronto, 2005), I, pp. 326–48. Godden and Irvine, ed., Old English Boethius, I, p. 7. B. S. Donaghey, ‘The Sources of King Alfred’s Translation of Boethius’s De Consolatione Philosophiae’, Anglia 82 (1964), 23–57; Donaghey draws upon Pierre Courcelle, ‘Étude critique sur les commentaires de la Consolation de Boèce (IXe–XVe siècles)’, Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du Moyen Âge 12 (1939), 5–140; see also D. K. Bolton, ‘The Study of the Consolation of Philosophy in Anglo-Saxon England’, Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du Moyen Âge 44 (1977), 33–78. Wittig, ‘King Alfred’s Boethius’, argues that the Old English translator did not make extensive use of a commentary at all. J. Hobson, ‘Translation as Gloss in the Old English Boethius’, MÆ 86 (2017), 207–23, at p. 208.

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Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus

The Old English translation There are two main attestations to the Old English translation of Boethius’s De consolatione: Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 180 (2079), dating from the late eleventh to the early twelfth century (B), and the damaged London, British Library, MS Cotton Otho A. vi, dating from the mid-tenth century (C).21 The B-text is entirely prose, while the C-text reflects the prosimetrical nature of De consolatione. Despite the later date of the B-text manuscript, the composition of the entirely prose version is thought to precede the prosimetrical version, as is implied in the prose preface to the Boethius.22 Godden and Irvine date both versions of the translation to between c. 885 and the mid-tenth century.23 As this study is concerned with the treatment of wealth in the flourishing of Old English prose writing associated with Alfred’s reign, this chapter will discuss only the entirely prose B-text. Both the prose and verse prefaces to the Boethius claim King Alfred as author.24 This attribution is reiterated by Æthelweard’s Chronicon, in

21

22

23 24

Gneuss and Lapidge, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts, pp. 440 and 274–5, nos 555 and 347, respectively, and Godden and Irvine, ed., Old English Boethius, I, pp. 9–43. Other attestations include Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Junius 12 (J), which is Junius’s copy of the B-text, with marginal variants from the prose sections of C, his copy of the verse of C and excerpts from the Latin De consolatione; and Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Junius 86 (S.C. 5197), endleaf, also known as the Napier Fragment (N), which is ‘a fragment of a single leaf, now lost’: Godden and Irvine, ed., Old English Boethius, I, p. 34. Godden and Irvine, ed., Old English Boethius, I, pp. 34–5, observe that N is ‘probably the earliest known copy of the text’; while Napier dated the fragment to the first half of the tenth century, Godden and Irvine offer evidence which could suggest a date between the late ninth and first half of the tenth century, though Gneuss and Lapidge date it as late as the middle of the eleventh century: Gneuss and Lapidge, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts, p. 495, no. 643. Godden and Irvine, ed., Old English Boethius, I, p. 44. Weaver, ‘Hybrid Forms’, pp. 216–17, argues that the two versions should be understood not as independent works, but as part of the opus geminatum tradition, in which prose and verse texts on the same subject complement one another, despite the fact that the C-text is not entirely in verse; she bases her argument partly upon the fact that the opus geminatum tradition was far more common in early medieval England than the prosimetrum form, and suggests that Boethius’s De consolatione was therefore adapted to suit expectations. For the argument that the opus geminatum form seems to have had an influence on the reception, rather than the composition, of the two versions, see Irvine, ‘Protean Form’. Godden and Irvine, ed., Old English Boethius, I, p. 8. The B-text includes the prose preface, which refers to the versification process, despite the fact that no metrical sections appear in the B-text. Junius 12 indicates

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True Riches: The Old English Boethius the late tenth century, and by William of Malmesbury, in the twelfth.25 However, Godden questions whether Alfred, coming to Latinity at such a relatively late age, would have had ‘the linguistic and intellectual skills’ required for translating and, in some cases, rewriting difficult Latin texts, such as the Boethius and the Soliloquies.26 As such an intellectually difficult text, De consolatione may also be considered unsuitable for Alfred’s translation programme, which was intended to encompass those books ‘most necessary’ for all men to know.27 Godden moreover takes issue with the reliability of the prose preface to the Boethius on the grounds that it claims that Alfred translated De consolatione and subsequently versified sections, when it seems that the translator and versifier were not one and the same person;28 this apparent fiction, according to Godden, thus throws doubt upon the claim that Alfred was the original translator.29 In spite of these doubts, many critics take Alfred’s authorship as their point of departure in studies of the Boethius. Whether Alfred was involved, directly or indirectly, with the translation process, it was clearly important that the resulting translation was presented as his work.30 As Alfred died in 899 and the C-text manuscript dates from the mid-tenth century, the

25 26

27

28

29

30

that the C-text, prior to its fire-damage, would have contained both prefaces (Godden and Irvine, ed., Old English Boethius, I, p. 19). Godden and Irvine, ed., Old English Boethius, I, p. 140. Godden, ‘Did Alfred Write Anything?’; and Godden, ‘Alfredian Prose: Myth and Reality’, pp. 144–5. For the contrasting opinion, see Discenza, King’s English, p. 1; and Bately, ‘Alfred as Author and Translator’, pp. 140–2. On Alfred’s literacy, see VA 87–8. Godden, ‘Alfredian Prose: Myth and Reality’, p. 155; prose preface to the Pastoral Care (7.7); see Anlezark, ‘Which Books are “Most Necessary” to Know?’ pp. 764–7. For evidence that the translator and versifier were different people, see Godden and Irvine, ed., Old English Boethius, I, pp. 146–51. For the alternative opinion, see D. Anlezark, ‘Three Notes on the Old English Meters of Boethius’, N&Q n.s. 51 (2004), 10–15; and B. Griffiths, ed., Alfred’s Metres of Boethius (Pinner, 1991), pp. 33–43. Godden, ‘Did Alfred Write Anything?’, p. 8. On the authenticity of the prose preface to the Boethius see further N. G. Discenza, ‘Alfred the Great and the Anonymous Prose Proem to the Boethius’, JEGP 107 (2008), 57–76, at pp. 58–9, for the argument that while Alfred did not write the preface, this does not necessarily negate its claims that Alfred wrote the Boethius itself. D. Pratt, ‘Problems of Authorship and Audience in the Writings of King Alfred the Great’, in Lay Intellectuals in the Carolingian World, ed. P. Wormald and J. L. Nelson (Cambridge, 2007), pp. 162–91, at p. 170, offers a ‘minimalist’ position on the authorship debate, which focuses not on whether Alfred wrote the texts attributed to him, but rather emphasises ‘Alfred’s contemporary image as author’.

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Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus attribution of the translation to Alfred must have taken place, at the most, within a few decades of his death, if not during his life.31 The Old English version of De consolatione is characterised by a pragmatism which is absent from the Latin text: abstract figures are made concrete, as in the famous wagon-wheel metaphor, hints are given as to what course the argument will follow later in the dialogue and rhetorical questions are given answers, or simply changed into statements.32 While the Old English dialogue ostensibly takes place between two speakers, Mod and Wisdom, the translator sometimes refers to Gesceadwisnes (‘Reason’) as a variation on or perhaps different aspect of Wisdom.33 Gesceadwisnes is the name of one of the two speakers in the Old English Soliloquies, suggesting if not common authorship, at least a common background for the two dialogues. While Discenza maintains that ‘the text ultimately connects this figure to the divine’,34 F. Anne Payne argues that gesceadwisnes is one of God’s gifts to men ‘and hence is a particularly human faculty’.35 The term gesceadwisnes is significant, as the translator of the Pastoral Care frequently introduces the adverb gesceadwislice (‘rationally’) in passages of Gregory’s text that deal with wealth, implying that reason is necessary for the correct use of wealth. One of the major departures that the Old English makes from De consolatione is the increase of specifically religious reference, at times transforming Boethius’s late antique philosophy into devotional prose appropriate for early medieval piety.36 Another of the major departures in the Old English is the transformation of the female Philosophia into 31

32

33

34 35 36

Godden and Irvine, ed., Old English Boethius, I, p. 141, note that the prose preface to the Boethius is written as if looking back on Alfred’s reign, suggesting it may have been composed after his death; it is therefore possible that the association with Alfred did not originate in the king’s lifetime. However, this tone of retrospection is absent from the verse preface to the Boethius, which is written more after the style of the verse preface to the Pastoral Care. Discenza, King’s English, pp. 23 and 64–6. See also Hobson, ‘Translation as Gloss’, pp. 208 and 212–14, who argues that the changes that the Old English translator makes, sometimes simplifying meaning or making it more concrete, sometimes providing a deeper interpretation, reflect the sorts of glosses added by commentators; like the glosses, Hobson argues, these adaptations are often triggered by individual words, though these small-scale revisions can accumulate to result in significant adaptation of the argument. Discenza, ‘The Old English Boethius’, pp. 200–1, notes that unlike Wisdom, Gesceadwisnes is feminine. Discenza, ‘The Old English Boethius’, p. 201. Payne, King Alfred and Boethius, p. 128; see B41.138–40. B5.18, B12.17 and B39.206. Godden and Irvine, ed., Old English Boethius, I, pp. 66–7, observe that while the translator adds many references to religion, there are very few explicitly Christian references. See further Payne, King Alfred and Boethius, p. 50.

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True Riches: The Old English Boethius the male personification of wisdom. Some critics have interpreted this substitution as another example of Christianisation, given the association between wisdom and Christ.37 Moreover, the Old English translation specifically associates wisdom with divinity: ‘forþam se wisdom is God’ (B41.113) (‘for wisdom is God’).38 Payne holds that Old English Wisdom is not meant to represent God, though she acknowledges that there are certain Christological features in his personification.39 More convincing is the argument that the Old English Wisdom recalls the personified Wisdom of the Old Testament, though it should be remembered that this personification is typically female.40 For Carolingian readers, Pratt argues, Philosophia was understood as ‘the biblical Lady Wisdom’.41 He suggests that the Old English transformation of Philosophia into Wisdom ‘enabled explicit account of Solomonic kingship’, as the personified Wisdom of the Old Testament is often depicted bringing riches to those who submit to her, including King Solomon. In the Old English Boethius, Wisdom claims soð wela (‘true riches’) as his servant, the implication being, perhaps, that pursuing wisdom will result in wealth.42 Pratt observes that the commentary traditions associated with both the Anonymous of St Gall and Remigius interpret Philosophia’s ‘sceptre as the “riches and glory” carried in Wisdom’s left hand’ (Proverbs 3.16).43 This reading of Wisdom as the Old Testament

37

38 39

40 41

42

43

E.g. I Corinthians 24, Sirach 1.5, and John 1.1; see Pratt, Political Thought, p. 275. See also Augustine’s De civitate Dei 17.20: ‘Hic certe agnoscimus Dei sapientiam, hoc est Verbum Patri coaeternum, in utero virginali domum sibi aedificasse corpus humanum’ (‘In this we surely recognize that the Wisdom of God, that is, the Word, coeternal with the Father, built in the virgin’s womb her house, a human body’): Augustine of Hippo, De civitate Dei, ed. and trans. W. M. Green et al., 7 vols, Loeb Classical Library 411–17 (Cambridge, MA, 2014), V, pp. 344–5. See also B42.40–1. Payne, King Alfred and Boethius, p. 126. Payne suggests that Wisdom’s words at B7.118–19 recall Christ in Matthew 28.20; she further observes that like Christ, Wisdom is a both a mediator and is at times unable to ‘defend himself against human indifference and misunderstanding’. She concludes, however, that there is no evidence that Wisdom is meant to be Christ: King Alfred and Boethius, pp. 127–8. For example, Wisdom 7.12, where wisdom is referred to as mater (‘mother’). Pratt, Political Thought, p. 275, observes further that the commentary traditions associated with Anonymous of St Gall and Remigius both interpret Philosophia not only as ‘divine Sapientia, but Christ himself, whom Paul had identified as the wisdom of God’. Pratt, Political Thought, p. 280. See Proverbs 3.16, 8.18 and 14.24; Wisdom 7.11–13 and 8.18; Sirach 1.21, 4.21 and 24.23. Pratt, Political Thought, p. 275.

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Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus Wisdom resonates with the famous pairing of wealth and wisdom in the prose preface to the Pastoral Care. Much scholarship on the Old English Boethius has focussed on the translator’s ‘recuperation of earthly goods’, in Discenza’s words.44 As Allen J. Frantzen argues, the translator ‘consistently viewed’ worldly goods such as wealth and power ‘more positively, and gave more emphasis to them in his arguments than did his source’.45 Indeed, Bately identifies the toning down of the condemnation of earthly pleasures as representative of all four canonical Alfredian texts: the Pastoral Care, the Boethius, the Soliloquies and the Prose Psalms.46 However, critics such as Pratt take a more cautious approach, showing awareness of the translator’s widespread disdain for worldly goods, following the Latin source.47 Discenza, sometimes a proponent of the recuperation argument, observes: ‘The Boethius at times locates positive value in worldly goods, but in almost the same breath it cautions against valuing them too much’.48 Readers are encouraged to use wealth, but to enjoy it at their risk. However, this is not where the translator’s interpretation of wealth ends. In the midst of the Boethian rejection of all worldly and material things, we find a striking account of wealth that goes far beyond tolerance, toning down or recuperation.

False and fleeting In De consolatione, Philosophia spends part of Book Two going through each of the worldly goods (wealth, office, power and fame), and lists their faults. This is to show to ‘Boethius’ that these goods are not worth pursuing, while in Book Three she addresses the more complex argument that, when men pursue these things they are truly seeking the states that people mistakenly believe can be fulfilled by the worldly goods: in the case of wealth, for example, men truly seek sufficiency. Wealth is the first of the goods to be treated, in 2p5, which becomes two chapters in the Old English Boethius, B13 and 14. In these chapters Wisdom emphasises that, among its other faults, wealth is not natural to man. This is the theme with which B13 opens. Wisdom demands of Mod: ‘Geþenc nu hwæt þines agnes seo ealra ðissa woruldæhta and welena, oððe hwæt þu þæron age unandergildes’ (B13.5–7) (‘think now what of these worldly possessions

44

45 46 47 48

Discenza, King’s English, p. 100; see Discenza, ‘The Old English Boethius’, p. 212, and Payne, King Alfred and Boethius, p. 62. Frantzen, King Alfred, p. 49. Bately, ‘Alfred as Author and Translator’, p. 134. Pratt, Political Thought, pp. 291–2. Discenza, ‘The Old English Boethius’, p. 214.

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True Riches: The Old English Boethius and riches are your own, or which of those you possess which is not to be paid back’).49 The sense of unandergilde (‘not to be paid back’), the only appearance of this word in the surviving corpus of Old English, is the translator’s addition, emphasising that the wealth of this world is not truly man’s, but in fact only on loan.50 The corollary to the foreign and transitory nature of all earthly wealth is that heavenly things are natural to man, as revealed in the next chapter of the Boethius: ‘Ac þa heofencundan þing ðe sint gecynde, næs þæs eorðlican’ (B14.18–19) (‘but those divine things are natural to you, not the earthly’).51 By contrast, Old English heroic poetry such as Beowulf presents a world in which material treasures do, in fact, seem to be right and even natural possessions for humans. Inheritance down the blood-line weaves treasure into the lives of men, as when the poet recounts young Wiglaf’s inheritance of his father Weohstan’s ‘guðgewæda’ (Beowulf, line 2623b) (‘armour’). Likewise, in the heroic retelling of Genesis, Genesis A, Abraham despairs that he will not have a blood heir to inherit his wela (Genesis A, line 2179b), just as Beowulf – perhaps insensitively – laments to Wiglaf upon his deathbed that he wishes he had an heir who could inherit his own ‘guðgewædu’ (Beowulf, line 2730a). Beowulf does, eventually, grant Wiglaf some of his treasure, with the conventional instruction to use it well: ‘het hyne brucan well’ (line 2812b) (‘commanded him to use or enjoy [it ]well’); however, as Francis Leneghan has observed, this is ‘a scene of non-succession’.52 Indeed, Leneghan argues that this latter half of Beowulf problematises smooth dynastic succession.53 Nonetheless, in the idealised heroic world we see in the earlier part of the poem, the inheritance of treasure becomes an almost natural counterpart to reproduction and succession. Elsewhere in Old English poetry, though, material wealth is seen in far less natural terms. In The Wanderer all the things of this

49

50

51

52

53

Cf. 2p5, Stewart, et al., ed. and trans., Consolation of Philosophy, p. 198, lines 2–6. Godden and Irvine, ed., Old English Boethius, offer a different translation: see II, pp. 18 and 299. Andergilde appears once in the extant corpus: Dicts of Cato 1.38; R. Cox, ‘The Old English Dicts of Cato’, Anglia 90 (1972), 1–42, at p. 10. Cf. the Soliloquies ‘Ðu us wel lerdest þæt we ongeatan þæt us wæs fremde and lene þæt ðæt we iu wendon þæt ure agen were, þæt ys, weoruldwela’ (52.5–7) (‘You taught us well to perceive that that which we previously believed to be our own was foreign and loaned to us, that is, worldly wealth’). This is additional to De consolatione, but see Godden and Irvine, ed., Old English Boethius, II, p. 302, for the possible influence of the glossing tradition. Leneghan, Dynastic Drama, p. 102; see also, A. Faulkner, ‘Treasure and the Life Course in Genesis A and Beowulf’, in Early Medieval English Life Courses, ed. Porck and Soper, pp. 229–50. Leneghan, Dynastic Drama, pp. 82–102.

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Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus world, material or otherwise, are læne (‘transitory’, ‘loaned’).54 As in the Boethius, the speaker asserts that we do not possess anything unandergilde (‘not to be paid back’): all man owns has been granted to him, whether by Fortune, Wyrd or God, and must be returned.55 Indeed, towards the end of Beowulf, the earlier celebration of wealth on the part of the characters ultimately gives way to the poet’s gloomy contention that man’s contact with the material world is fleeting; material treasure is finally found to be ‘unnyt’ (line 3168a) (‘useless’). As the poet of The Seafarer urges his readers: ‘Uton we hycgan hwær we ham agen’ (line 117) (‘let us think on where we possess a home’). For this poet, in any case, the heavenly home is something which cannot be lost. The belief that wealth is unnatural to man is apparent in Boethius’s 2p5 but expanded upon in the Old English.56 The translator’s great respect for enduring, natural qualities, as opposed to fleeting and foreign goods such as wealth, can be seen throughout these chapters and, indeed, the rest of the dialogue. Philosophia criticises the admiration men heap on gemstones: ‘Quid est enim carens animae motu atque compage quod animatae rationabilique naturae pulchrum esse iure videatur?’ (2p5) (‘What is there, lacking the structure and movement of the living spirit, which a living, rational being could rightly think beautiful?’).57 The Old English translator, while following the same argument, seizes upon the phrase rationabili naturae and makes this the focal point, with Wisdom wondering why men marvel at ‘æniges þara deadlicena þinga þe gesceadwisnesse næfð’ (B13.45–6) (‘any of those inanimate things that do not have reason’). While in the Latin, ratio refers to the wasted quality belonging to the human being discerning the gems, in the Old English, the lack of reason is applied to the gems themselves. Clearly, the translator did not see the agency and vibrancy of material things in the same way as the poets of the Exeter Book riddles, discussed in the Introduction and Chapter One. In B14 the translator continues to pursue this theme of material wealth versus reason, developing his earlier contrast between rational men and

54 55

56 57

The Wanderer, lines 108–9. The Boethian overtones in The Wanderer have not gone unnoticed in scholarship: see A. D. Horgan, ‘The Wanderer – A Boethian Poem?’, RES 38 (1987), 40–6; R. North, ‘Boethius and the Mercenary in The Wanderer’, in Pagans and Christians: The Interplay between Christian Latin and Traditional Germanic Cultures in Early Medieval Europe, ed. T. Hofstra, L. A. J. R. Houwen and A. A. MacDonald, Mediaevalia Groningana 16 (Groningen, 1995), pp. 71–98; P. S. Langeslag, ‘Boethian Similitude in Deor and The Wanderer’, Neophilologus 109 (2008), 205–22, challenges the interpretation that The Wanderer and Deor are wholly Boethian. See B14.14–15 and 97–8, both faithful translations of De consolatione. Stewart, et al., ed. and trans., Consolation of Philosophy, pp. 200–1, lines 25–7.

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True Riches: The Old English Boethius riches into a comparison between men who are tricked by riches and irrational beasts: Þas eorðlican wæstmas sint gesceapene netenum to andlifene and þa woruldwelan synt gesceapene to biswice þam monnum þe beoð neatenum gelice, þæt beoð unrihtwise and ungemetfæste. To þam hi eac becumað oftost. (B14.19–22) (These earthly fruits are created as sustenance for beasts and worldly riches are created to deceive those men who are like beasts, who are unjust and immoderate. To them they also come the most often.)

The parallel section in the Latin only refers to the fruits of the earth being sustenance for beasts (2p5, 40–1). Godden and Irvine comment that the addition is independent of both De consolatione and its glossing tradition.58 By comparing men who are tricked by riches to beasts, the translator implies that they, like the precious things they worship, lack the gesceadwisnes that he praises throughout the text. This addition has its parallels in other works associated with Alfred. Firstly, the reference to immoderation (‘ungemetfæst’) recalls the Pastoral Care, in which riches are shown to be acceptable when handled with moderation. Moreover, in the Prose Psalms the translator diverges from Scripture to make wealth, as well as honour, the focus of his criticism in Psalm 48: Ac þas spræce ne ongit na swylc mann, þonne he byð on welan and on weorðscipe, and onhyreð þonne dysegum neatum, and byð him swiðe gelic geworden.59 (Prose Psalms 48.20) (But such a man does not understand at all what is said, when he is in wealth and honour, and imitates dumb beasts, and is made very much like them.)

The Romanum source (Psalm 48.21) has only ‘honore’ (‘honour’) at this point.60 As will be explored more fully in Chapter Five, the texts of the Alfredian corpus share a network of imagery which depicts worldly pros58 59

60

Godden and Irvine, ed., Old English Boethius, II, p. 302. Quotations from the Prose Psalms are from King Alfred’s Old English Prose Translation of the First Fifty Psalms, ed. P. P. O’Neill, Medieval Academy Books 104 (Cambridge, MA, 2001), with parenthetical reference to Old English psalm and verse(s). All quotations from the Romanum Psalter are taken from Le Psautier Romain et les autres anciens Psautiers latins: Édition critique, ed. R. Weber, Collectanea Biblica Latina Cura et Studio Monachorum S. Benedicti 10 (Rome, 1953). Old English glossed psalters translate honor here either with weorðscipe, as in the Prose Psalms, or ar (both ‘honour’), or both; wela is unique to the Prose Psalms: P. Pulsiano, ed., Old English Glossed Psalters: Psalms 1–50 (Toronto, 2001), p. 704.

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Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus perity as a snare for humans, making them like beasts. Gesceadwisnes can defend men from such snares, but can also be stolen from them by the allure of wealth. Materiality is presented as the origin of this deception and enchantment, as the source of confusion, rather than clarity. Indeed, material treasure, in particular, is often presented as the source of illusion and the loss of reason in Old English poetry. As the Beowulf poet warns: Sinc eaðe mæg, gold on grunde, gumcynnes gehwone oferhigian, hyde se ðe wylle. (Beowulf, lines 2764b–6) (Treasure, gold in the ground, can easily elude any man, hide it who will.)

The half-line ‘gold on grunde’ draws out the earthy materiality of gold, and its power to outwit those who would possess it. This quality of gold may also be present in Riddle 11 from the Exeter Book. This riddle, quoted here in its entirety, is often solved as ‘Wine’, though the solution ‘Gold’ is also a possibility: Hrægl is min hasofag, hyrste beorhte, reade ond scire on reafe minum. Ic dysge dwelle ond dole hwette unrædsiþas, oþrum styre nyttre fore. Ic þæs nowiht wat þæt heo swa gemædde, mode bestolene, dæde gedwolene, deoraþ mine won wisan gehwam. Wa him þæs þeawes, siþþan heah bringað horda deorast, gif hi unrædes ær ne geswicaþ. (Riddle 11, lines 1–10) (My dress is dun, my ornaments bright, red and brilliant on my garment. I deceive the foolish and urge the stupid on ill-advised ventures; others I steer away from useful journeys. I do not know at all why they, mad as they are, robbed of their minds, their deeds misdirected, should value all my wicked ways. Woe to them for this custom, when the High One brings forth the dearest of hoards, if they have not previously ceased from this folly.)

The bright ornaments and reddish appearance could be an allusion to gold which, as in the Boethius, could be seen as the source of deception in The translator of the Prose Psalms may have been tempted to use the doublet wela and weorðscipe, rather than weorðscipe alone, for the sake of alliteration.

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True Riches: The Old English Boethius the riddle, the confusion which causes men to lose their minds; indeed, the phrasing of minds being ‘bestolene’ (‘robbed, stolen’) is a particularly aggressive image of the loss of reason. The final sentence of the riddle could be an allusion to Judgement Day: the ‘heah’ one, God, brings forth the true treasure, the ‘horda deorast’, which could be a reference to the soul. Earthly treasure bewitches man to the extent that he cannot recognise the true, precious treasure of his soul. The Old English Boethius, as we have seen, shares this view of treasure as potentially bewitching, enchanting and deluding. Most importantly, though, it is not gecynde (‘natural’) to man.

Skills and possessions As explored in the previous chapter, the translator of the Pastoral Care is similarly preoccupied with material possessions and natural qualities. The striking use of the phrase ‘ge on cræftum ge on æhtum’ (‘both in skills and in possessions’) in the Pastoral Care highlights that, for this translator, both skills and possessions needed to be put to good use, responsibly. Possessions can be seen to correspond to the outer and the fleeting, while skills correspond to the inner, the natural, and the enduring. The translator of the Old English Boethius follows his Latin source in making a clear distinction between possessions – those fleeting gifts of Fortune – and those qualities or faculties which cannot be dislodged by change in circumstance. Boethius makes this point with reference to the story of Ulysses and Circe: while Circe turns Ulysses’ men into beasts, she cannot affect their minds.61 Man’s reason is one of those inviolable ‘possessions’ which unlike wealth or worldly position cannot be swept away by the turning of Fortune’s wheel. In the Old English version, these inviolable possessions are closely aligned with cræft. For example, Wisdom explains why he calls Weland the Smith ‘the wise’: Forþi ic cwæð þæs wisan for þy þam cræftegan ne mæg næfre his cræft losigan ne hine mon ne mæg þonne eð on him geniman ðe mon mæg þa sunnan awendan of hiere stede. (B19.17–18) (I said “the wise” because the skilful one cannot ever lose his skill, nor can it be taken away from him more easily than the sun could be removed from its station.)

Even a secular, worldly skill, such as the art of the smith, is inviolable and permanent. Wisdom is said to be the ‘hehsta cræft’ (B27.47) (‘highest skill’) 61

4m3; see B38.1–49 for the Old English translation.

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Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus and gesceadwisnes (‘reason’) is the ‘synderlic cræft þære saule’ (B33.225) (‘special skill or virtue of the soul’). Moreover, Wisdom stresses to Mod that even those with worldly power cannot give their subjects cræft, ‘gif hi hine on heora gecynde nabbað’ (B27.53–4) (‘if they do not have it in their nature’). There is a very clear distinction between a person’s natural and untouchable cræftas, and the transient gifts of Fortune, which come from outside and do not last long. Philosophia systematically dismantles all of these transient gifts: wealth, worldly power, the honour of public office, fame and pleasure. In her attack on worldly honours she offers a detailed explanation of the difference between those qualities which confer something of themselves on the individual, and those which do not. The quality bravery, for example, makes the person who has it brave. However, the worldly honours of public office do not make the person who has them honourable: if there is any honour to be found, it must belong to the individual.62 Philosophia’s point is that worldly authority is not good in its own right as like all the other goods of Fortune, it so often goes to the very worst people: Ita cum pessimos plerumque dignitatibus fungi dubium non sit, illud etiam liquet natura sui bona non esse quae se pessimis haerere patiantur. Quod quidem de cunctis fortunae muneribus dignius existimari potest, quae ad improbissimum quemque uberiora perveniunt. (2p6) (Therefore since there is no doubt that offices are often filled by evil men, this also is clear, that they are not good in their nature, since they allow themselves to be joined with evil in this way. The same may be very rightly held true of all the gifts of fortune which evil men all enjoy so abundantly.63)

Receiving the honours of worldly power, then, is by no means a sure indicator of inherent worth. The Old English translator follows Boethius’s Latin fairly closely in this section, making the same point that if worldly power was really good, it would not align itself to evil people, as it so often does: Nis ðæs nu nan tweo þæt oft þa eallra forcuþestan men cumað to þam anwealde and to þam weorðscipe. Gif se anweald þonne of his agenre gecynde and his agenes gewealdes god wære ne underfenge he næfre þa yfelan ac þa godan. Þæs ilcan is to wenanne to eallum ðæm gesælþum þe seo wyrd brengð þisses andweardan lifes, ge on cræftum ge on æhtum, forþam hie hwilum becumað to þam forcuðestum (B16.99–105)

62 63

See De consolatione, 2p6. Stewart, et al., ed. and trans., Consolation of Philosophy, p. 213, lines 44–9.

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True Riches: The Old English Boethius (Now there is no doubt that often the most wicked of all men come to power and to honour. If power were then good by its own nature and its own control it would never receive evil men but good. The same is to be expected of all the felicities which fate brings in this present life, both in skills and in possessions, because they sometimes come to the most wicked men.)

In the Old English version, Lady Fortune becomes Wyrd (‘Fate’), the operation of God’s providence in the temporal realm.64 Like Fortune, Wyrd appears capricious and random but is actually part of God’s divine plan. Here, it is Wyrd who brings the transient worldly gifts. The fact that these gifts, such as power, sometimes come to bad men is proof for Wisdom that the gifts are not in their nature good. In a significant departure from Boethius’s Latin, the Old English translation asserts that these gifts can be numbered ‘ge on cræftum ge on æhtum’ (‘both in skills and in possessions’), the phrase that, as we have seen, appears in the Pastoral Care in the context of the parable of the talents. As in the Pastoral Care, the translator’s choice of this phrase is not immediately comprehensible. It is easy to see how possessions are counted among the transient gifts of Fortune, which do not make those who possess them good. But, as we have seen, the word cræft is used throughout the Old English Boethius to refer to those very faculties and skills which are natural and inviolable, like wisdom and gesceadwisnes. Indeed, in the discourse which follows, the Old English translator uses the word cræft to refer to the skills which, unlike worldly honours, do confer their quality on the person who possesses them, such as ‘dreamcræft’ (B16.108) (‘skill in music’) and ‘læcecræft’ (B16.109) (‘skill in medicine’). Even more so than in the case of the Pastoral Care, the phrase ‘ge on cræftum ge on æhtum’ seems to completely contradict the point of this passage. Discenza identifies the incongruity of the word cræft in this passage, observing: ‘This sense of cræft conflicts with the usage throughout the rest of the text’.65 One explanation for the inclusion of cræft here might be that the translator knew the Pastoral Care well, and recalled that the phrase ‘ge on cræftum ge on æhtum’ was used there to describe the gifts which come from God, and so applied it to the gifts which come from God’s agent in this world, Wyrd. This hypothesis would certainly lend support to the case for the close relationship between the two translations. However, while it is indeed striking that this phrase only appears at these two places in the whole of the extant corpus of Old English literature,66 it is also worth ques64

65 66

B39.114–35; cf. De consolatione 4p6, Stewart, et al., ed. and trans., Consolation of Philosophy, pp. 356–8, lines 22–42. Discenza, ‘Power, Skill and Virtue’, p. 93. Based on a search carried out in The DOE Corpus.

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Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus tioning whether a single use of the phrase ‘ge on cræftum ge on æhtum’ in the Pastoral Care would have really been all that memorable. It may be that the translator of the Boethius had some doubts about cræft, after all. For all his emphasis on its inviolable and permanent nature, he must have been aware of the fact that skills do very frequently come to bad people. The Alfredian translations intertwine the concepts ‘skill’ and ‘virtue’ in the word cræft, to the extent that the reader might easily forget that, in real life, the skilful are not always synonymous with the virtuous. It seems as though it is in this chapter, where Boethius’s Philosophia examines the question of natural skills versus fleeting fortunes, that the translator attempts to work out this problem. Philosophia makes the same point about the nature of power at an earlier stage in the chapter. The Old English translator augments Boethius’s argument, but nonetheless follows the essential meaning fairly closely: ‘se anweald næfre ne bið god buton se god sie þe hine hæbbe’ (B16.26–7) (‘power is never good unless he who has it is good’).67 However, following this relatively close paraphrase, the translator goes on to elaborate upon Boethius’s theme: ‘ne bið nan man for his anwealde na þe betere, ac for his cræftum he beoð god gif he god bið, and for his cræftum he bið anwealdes weorðe gif he his weorðe bið’ (B16.31–3) (‘no man is the better because of his power, but for his skills he is good if he is good, and because of his skills he is worthy of power if he is worthy of it’). The logic of this statement might seem a little puzzling, or even tautologous, at first, but what Wisdom is asserting is that while one cannot be good without cræft, simply having cræft does not make one good, or worthy of power. What makes one’s cræft worthy and good is the exercise of wisdom, as Wisdom himself explains in a startling departure from the Latin: Leorniað forþam wisdom, and þonne ge hine geleornod habban ne forhogiað hine þonne. Þonne secge ic eow buton ælcum tweon þæt ge magon þurh hine becuman to anwealde þeah ge no þæs anwealdes ne wilnigan. (B16.33–6) (Therefore study wisdom, and when you have learned it do not neglect it. I say to you then without a doubt that you may come to power through it [wisdom] even if you do not desire power.)

It is not simply the pursuit of wisdom which makes men worthy of their cræft, but the unceasing practice of it: once you have attained it, he tells Mod, you cannot neglect it. In this chapter, then, the translator seems to be feeling out the idea that simply being in possession of cræft does not

67

Cf. De consolatione 2p6; Stewart, et al., ed. and trans., Consolation of Philosophy, pp. 208–10.

102

True Riches: The Old English Boethius necessarily make one virtuous. This is dangerous territory, as he verges on contradicting one of Boethius’s main points in the chapter: that is, that the skills a person possesses do reflect a quality in the person that possesses them. However, for the Old English translator, it seems more important to show that having cræft is not enough: anyone can have cræft, even the very worst people, just as anyone can be blessed with possessions. The person who has received cræft must do something good and wise with it, in order to transform morally neutral skill into morally charged virtue. As in the Pastoral Care, the emphasis is placed upon not wasting the resources one has received. This need to exercise one’s cræft with wisdom receives full expression in the very next chapter, B17, which features the famous speech about the tools that a king needs in order make his cræft known.68 Here, we see the fear of letting one’s cræft go to waste: ‘forþam ælc cræft and ælc anweald bið sona forealdod and forswugod, gif he bið buton wisdome’ (B17.22–3) (‘because every skill and power is quickly worn out and silenced if it is without wisdom’). This sense of the ruler’s responsibility may well reflect the influence of Gregorian philosophy on the translator of the Boethius, whether at first-hand or via the translation of the Old English Pastoral Care.69 Returning to the passage in the Boethius where the phrase ‘ge on cræftum ge on æhtum’ occurs, it seems as though the translator wanted to indicate that cræftas can become like the valueless, fleeting possessions which are bestowed by Fortune, or Wyrd, unless the recipient earnestly strives to put them to good use through the exercise of wisdom. It is striking that, in both the Pastoral Care and the Boethius, the use of the phrase supplements the original Latin in such a way as to shift the emphasis: in the Pastoral Care, emphasis is placed not only on skills, but also possessions; in the Boethius, the warning applies to both transient possessions but also supposedly inviolable skills. Moreover, the fact that both skills and possessions are grouped together as gifts from God serves to make material possessions more acceptable, in that they are divinely bestowed. Neither cræft nor æht can be allowed to grow stale and unused. All the gifts we receive, whether from God or from Wyrd, have the potential to be transformed. A vertical stream flows between heaven and earth: gifts in the forms of skills and possessions flow readily down this stream, for the lucky; but one needs more than luck alone in order to transform these gifts, return them to the stream, and send them heavenwards. 68 69

B17; see Discenza, ‘Power, Skill and Virtue’, p. 104, on cræft in this passage. On the influence of Gregorian ideology on Alfredian literature, see N. G. Discenza, ‘The Influence of Gregory the Great on the Alfredian Social Imaginary’, in Rome and the North: The Early Reception of Gregory the Great in Germanic Europe, ed. R. H. Bremmer, Jr., K. Dekker and D. F. Johnson (Paris, 2001), pp. 67–81; see also Anlezark, ‘Gregory the Great’, p. 34.

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Tools of a king The concern for good use of one’s resources, then, appears again and again throughout the literature associated with Alfred. Good use of resources is, of course, the theme of the famous speech in the Boethius where Mod seemingly switches to the persona of a king and defends royal use of material resources in the governance of a kingdom and exercise of the king’s cræft (B17). As I argued in the Introduction, the vague allusions to tools and materials crystalize into the more tangible ‘gifta and wæpnu and mete and ealo and claþas’ (B17.16–17) (‘gifts and weapons and food and ale and clothes’), which support the king’s dependents. While this long additional passage would certainly suggest a greater tolerance for worldly resources than the Latin source text, the emphasis is nonetheless on the use, not the enjoyment, of these worldly things. Material things appear to be tolerated in so far as they are useful: as the translator reminds us, throughout the Old English version, the treasures of this world are in our possession for only a short time; in fact, we never truly possess them, for they are not natural to us. As we have seen, one of the few possessions which does truly belong to us is our cræft. It is on this cræft, and not the tools used to exercise it, that the royal speech is ultimately focussed. Indeed, Wisdom emphasises this distinction in a preceding chapter: his list of the necessities appropriate for a moderate lifestyle includes not only the essentials of food, drink and clothes, but also ‘tol to swelcum cræfte swelce þu cunne þæt þe is gecynde, and þæt þe is riht to habbenne’ (B14.24–6) (‘tools for such skill which you know is natural to you, and right for you to have’). The message is clear: the cræft may be natural and ‘right to have’, but the tools are not. The tools, then, enable the king to exercise his cræft, and to perform everything ‘þe him beboden is to wyrcenne’ (B17.19–20) (‘which he is commanded to carry out’). This is a strikingly selfless portrait of a king, it seems, driven only by his duty and responsibility, lighting only on material things as tools for completing the tasks he has been given. Towards the end of the speech, though, a new note is introduced. The royal speaker continues: ‘Forþy ic wilnode andweorces þone anweald mid to reccenne, þæt mine cræftas and anweald ne wurde forgiten and forholen, forþam ælc cræft and ælc anweald bið sona forealdod and forswugod, gif he bið buton wisdome’ (B17.20–3) (‘therefore I desired material with which to exercise power, so that my skills and rule would not be forgotten and covered over, because every skill and power is quickly worn out and silenced if it is without wisdom’.) Here, the royal speaker reveals a fear that the skill and power he exercised in life will fade and disappear under the weight of history: with characteristically Alfredian emphasis, Mod stresses that it is only through wisdom that these achievements will 104

True Riches: The Old English Boethius endure. The speech closes with a desire for respect, and even renown, in life and after death: ‘ic wilnode weorðfullice to libbanne þa hwile þe ic lifede, and æfter minum life þam monnum to læfanne þe æfter me wæren min gemynd on godum weorccum’ (B17.26–8) (‘I desired to live honourably while I lived, and after my life to leave my memory in good works to the men who were after me’). These words recall the end of the preface to the Soliloquies, where the speaker expresses his desire ‘ge her nytwyrde to beonne, ge huru þider to cumane’ (48.12) (‘both to be useful here, and to attain thither’). There is a significant difference, however: the speaker of the preface to the Soliloquies makes a clear distinction between his wishes for the ‘her’ of this life, where he wishes to be useful, and the ‘þider’ of heaven, where he simply wishes to be. The royal speaker in the Boethius does, similarly, see a clear distinction between life and death, but both of his desires are grounded in the ‘her’ of this life. Even after death, his focus is on this world, and how he will be remembered here. This inability to see beyond the earthly (even though he is capable of seeing beyond his own life) is perhaps representative of Mod’s limited understanding and earthly attachment at this stage in the dialogue. Indeed, Mod’s attitude here, expressed in the voice of the royal speaker, has more in common with the characters of Beowulf than Boethius. We might think of Beowulf’s advice to Hrothgar in the wake of Æschere’s death: Ure æghwylc sceal ende gebidan worolde lifes; wyrce se þe mote domes ær deaþe; þæt bið drihtguman unlifigendum æfter selest. (Beowulf, lines 1386–9) (Each of us must endure the end of worldly life; acquire he who can glory after death; that is best, afterwards, for an unliving man.)

It is perhaps unsurprising that at the beginning of the next chapter (B18), Wisdom reproaches Mod for his desire to be remembered well.70 This attitude towards fame relies on the understanding that this world continues much the same after one’s death. It is this same attitude which lies behind the idea of treasure in Old English heroic poetry as something which runs on into the distance, and back into the time of legend, with man’s possession of that treasure only a fleeting moment of contact. Like the philosopher Boethius, the characters in Beowulf understand that their possession of wealth is transitory: the difference is that for Boethius, it is treasure 70

Godden, ‘Player King’, p. 144. However, Discenza, ‘Power, Skill and Virtue’, p. 99, observes that the criticism in Wisdom’s response is ‘limited’ by certain qualifiers; for example, he warns Mod against the desire for ‘ungemetlices hlisan godra weorca’ (B18.7) (‘immoderate fame for good works’) (emphasis added).

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Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus which is transitory, while in the world of Beowulf, it is man who is. The yearning for fame which we see in both Beowulf and the royal speech in the Old English Boethius comes from a similar perspective: man’s own life cannot last, but fame, grounded in this world, does go on. Treasure and fame, moreover, are intimately connected in heroic poetry. Indeed, it is from his ‘wordhord’ (Widsith, line 1b) (‘word-hoard, treasury of words’) that Widsith draws the fantastically long account of all the nations and rulers that he has known, and whose fame he intends to broadcast. Moreover, when somebody receives a gift of treasure, or plunders it from the battlefield, the treasure brings with it the fame and name of the people who had previously possessed it. This can be seen, for example, in the Beowulf poet’s long history of the ‘gomel swyrd’ (line 2610b) (‘old sword’) which Wiglaf inherits from his father. Michael D. Cherniss maintains: ‘The genealogy of Wiglaf’s old sword serves to establish both the value of the sword itself, and the merit of its young owner’.71 Peter Baker also reminds us of: ‘The ability of treasure to store up some aspect of those who have owned it’ which, he argues, ‘explains the extraordinary value placed on such objects as the swords of Ongentheow and Eanmund’.72 The honour that the sword has accrued belongs to Wiglaf, the current owner of the sword; but the Beowulf poet does not let us forget that it is ‘Eanmundes laf’ (line 2611b) (‘Eanmund’s heirloom’). In heroic poetry, then, treasure brings with it the memory of all the hands through which it has passed. Treasure and fame are both things which carry on, though men leave them behind. At this quite early stage in the dialogue, Mod is still grounded in the things of this world. The view expressed in the royal speech is fixed in a perspective which imagines the world continuing long after one’s death, and which does not understand ‘hu gæstlic bið, / þonne ealre þisse worulde wela weste stondeð’ (The Wanderer, lines 73b–74) (‘how ghostly it will be, when all the wealth of this world stands wasted’). However, over the course of the dialogue, the reader sees the first-person speaker turn from this earthbound perspective, lamenting his lost riches and honour, to a more introspective frame of mind, able to perceive that the things of this world offer no true happiness. It may be that this transformation also takes place within the mind of the reader themselves.73 The developing imagery of wealth in the dialogue is a good example of how this transformation plays out.

71 72 73

Cherniss, Ingeld and Christ, p. 96. Baker, Honour, Exchange and Violence, pp. 59–60. Discenza, ‘Old English Boethius’, p. 208, observes that by naming the ‘I’-speaker Mod, as well as Boetius, the translator enables greater ‘possibility for reader identification’.

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Wisdom’s true riches At any early stage in the Boethius, Wisdom makes a speech in which he claims soð wela (‘true riches’) as his own servant. Here, the Old English translator has given the speech made by Fortuna in De consolatione 2p2 to Wisdom. Godden and Irvine argue that this was an intentional choice on the part of the translator, their reasons being that the Latin is not at all confusing at the beginning of this speech, so would not mislead the translator, and many manuscripts contain comments which make it clear that Fortuna is speaking; moreover, the speech itself suggests that Fortuna is the speaker, and finally, later in this chapter, a speech is made in the voice of woruldsælða (‘worldly blessings’) which summarises much of the speech of Fortuna, suggesting that the translator had understood the conceit of Fortuna speaking.74 The point of the original Latin speech in 2p2 is to show ‘Boethius’, firstly, that worldly goods, including wealth, are in Fortuna’s domain, though we will later learn that Fortuna herself is an aspect of fatum, and so subject to divine order; secondly, that even though he seemed to possess worldly goods for a time, they were actually only on loan from Fortuna; and thirdly that Fortuna is by her nature inconstant, and so cannot be expected to be just or consistent in the distribution of her gifts.75 The transformation in the Old English version places the worldly goods wela and weorðscipe (‘honour’) under Wisdom’s control (see B7.64– 121), creating a strong association between wealth and wisdom. Indeed, Jerold Frakes holds that, as the goods have a divine origin in wisdom, ‘they must themselves have some positive value’.76 Wisdom claims: ‘Ælc soþ wela and soð weorðscipe sindan mine agne þeowas, and swa hwar ic beo hie beoð mid me’ (B7.77–9) (‘all true wealth and true honour are my own servants, and wherever I am, they are with me’). One complicating factor in interpretating the relationship between wealth and wisdom in the Boethius is Wisdom’s occasional use of the adjective soð (‘true’) in connection with his wela. This adjective elsewhere distinguishes true blessings from the false: it seems to follow that Wisdom’s wela can be seen in those same otherworldly terms.77 In this vein, Frakes argues that in the Boethius every worldly good has a true or false form, the true form of wealth being represented by soð wela.78 This argument,

74

75 76

77 78

Godden and Irvine, ed., Old English Boethius, I, p. 51. See also Payne, King Alfred and Boethius, pp. 80–2. Stewart, et al., ed. and trans., Consolation of Philosophy, pp. 180–3, lines 5–33. Frakes, Fate of Fortune, p. 82. See also Payne, King Alfred and Boethius, p. 63; and Discenza, ‘The Old English Boethius’, p. 213. See, for example, B23.40–2. Frakes, Fate of Fortune, p. 107–19.

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Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus however, relies upon a reading of the Boethius in which B7 is taken to be representative of the work as a whole. In reality, the collocation soð wela never appears again in the Boethius: all uses are confined to B7.79 If wela is read literally in this section, the translator’s ideology appears to fit very well with that of the prose preface to the Pastoral Care: that is, that the pursuit of wisdom produces wealth. Wisdom tells Mod: ‘Ægþer ge þira welona ge þines weorþscipes, ægþer þara þe com ær from me, þa hi þe onlande wæron’ (B7.67–8) (‘both your wealth and your honour, they both came to you previously from me, when they were lent to you’). In his next mention of wealth and honour the translator makes a significant addition. Wisdom says to Mod: ‘Ælc soþ wela and soð weorðscipe sindan mine agne þeowas, and swa hwar ic beo hie beoð mid me’ (B7.77–9) (‘all true wealth and true honour are my own servants, and wherever I am, they are with me’). While Boethius refers only to: ‘Opes honores ceteraque’ (2p2) (‘wealth and honours and other such’), the Old English version clarifies that these are the true versions of these goods.80 Wisdom later makes the confusing assertion that: ‘Þa mine þeowas sindon wisdomas and cræftas and soþe welan’ (B7.95–6) (‘they, my servants, are wisdom and skills and true riches’). A literal reading of wela here would be consonant with the prose preface to the Pastoral Care, in which wela follows the pursuit of wisdom. However, while this reading makes sense in B7, it becomes fraught with difficulties when considered in the light of the complete dialogue. The translator, as we have seen, sometimes following De consolatione, sometimes in his own words, repeatedly warns against the dangers and uselessness of worldly wealth: it must be asked whether this same text could so boldly claim that wealth should be associated with wisdom, which is presented as ‘se hehsta cræft’ (B27.47) (‘the highest virtue’). I would suggest that at this early stage in the dialogue, the meaning of Wisdom’s ‘true riches’ remains veiled, because Mod himself is still so grounded in material reality that the only riches he knows are those of this world. It is only as he develops, gradually learning from Wisdom’s lessons, that he begins to perceive what these true riches may be. Looking back to Riddle 11, discussed above, Mod does not yet understand what the ‘horda deorast’ (line 9b) (‘dearest of hoards’) might be, wrongly thinking that it can be found in material things. Just as the riddle-solver must uncover the solution to the puzzle, so Mod must progress to an understanding of what Wisdom’s true riches may be. The journey towards wisdom in the Boethius, then, finds a parallel in the vernacular riddling tradition. Both depend upon uncovering layers of meaning to find the truth; in both the

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It is worth noting that soþ weorðscipe does appear elsewhere in the text (B33.7–8). Stewart, et al., ed. and trans., Consolation of Philosophy, pp. 180–1, line 17.

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True Riches: The Old English Boethius Boethius and the riddles though, the layers which are uncovered need not necessarily be discarded as false. Just as the discarded solutions to riddles are part of the very object of the riddling genre, so in the Boethius are Mod’s stages of development necessary for the whole work, as a model for the reader’s own progress up the ladder towards wisdom.81 The ‘true riches’ of wisdom have many possible referents. Arguably, a case can be made for a very specific quality which the translator understands as the true riches of wisdom: gesceadwisnes, man’s capacity for reason, that which leads him to wisdom and thus to God. Gesceadwisnes is the quality which separates men from animals: as well as the qualities which both animate and inanimate creatures possess, man is blessed with the ‘micle gife gesceadwisnesse’ (B41.139–40) (‘the great gift of reason’). As demonstrated above, the translator contrasts man’s reasoning mind with inanimate treasures, and marvels at how such a mind could be attracted to them (B13.42–7). In an elaboration of the Latin,82 Wisdom explains to Mod that ‘nauht nis betere on þis andweardum life þonne seo gesceadwisnes, forþam ðe heo þurh nan þing ne mæg þam men losian’ (B11.67–9) (‘nothing is better in this present life than reason, because it cannot be lost to men through any means’).83 He goes on to add: ‘forðy is betere þæt feoh þætte næfre losian ne mæg þonne þæt ðe mæg and sceal’ (B11.69–70) (‘therefore that money which can never be lost is better than that which can and must be’). The translator was evidently willing to use the imagery of wealth for gesceadwisnes here, giving weight to the argument that soð wela may similarly refer to gesceadwisnes in B7. Unlike worldly wealth, then, gesceadwisnes is not foreign and fleeting, but lasting, and, moreover, right for men to have. Wisdom’s soð wela is associated with the similarly enduring and natural cræft (‘skill’ or ‘virtue’), which, as outlined above, is closely linked to both wisdom and gesceadwisnes: unlike material possessions, these are all things which cannot be lost. In B7, for example, the translator links wisdom and cræft with Wisdom’s soð wela: ‘Þa mine þeowas sindon wisdomas and cræftas and soþe welan’ (B7.95–6) (‘they, my servants, are wisdom and skills / virtues and true riches’). The translator clearly wanted his readers to understand soð wela in the same light as wisdom and cræft, these precious qualities which, like gesceadwisnes, cannot be lost.

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On ladder imagery in Alfredian literature, see Chapter One. Philosophia explains that there can be no true happiness in this life, and then posits that happiness is the highest good of a rational nature (2p4, 78–80). The Old English translator misinterprets, or wilfully adapts, this to mean that the rational nature is the only good thing in this life. See Godden and Irvine, ed., Old English Boethius, II, p. 295, for a gloss which interprets the Latin in a similar way.

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Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus There is strong evidence that Wisdom’s soð wela in B7 is meant to be read not, or not primarily, as literal, material riches, which are by their nature false and fleeting, but the enduring riches of the mind.84 Specifically, the faculty of gesceadwisnes could well be the referent of this soð wela: it is lasting and natural for man to have, and there are other occasions in the dialogue when the translator compares or contrasts gesceadwisnes with wealth. While some readers may come to B7 with the same understanding as Mod, imagining only one sort of wealth, these readers should learn, by the end of the dialogue, that true riches, like true blessings, are not of the material world.

Wealth to come On his journey towards wisdom, Mod also learns that, paradoxically, possession of wealth does not actually make one wealthy. As the dialogue of the Boethius progresses and Mod’s understanding grows, Wisdom exploits the semantic fluidity of the words wela and ead (both ‘wealth, prosperity’) and the related adjectives welig (‘wealthy, prosperous’) and eadig (‘wealthy, blessed, happy’), in order to illustrate the wide gulf between being materially wealthy and being truly prosperous. In B26 (3p3) Wisdom explains to Mod that riches do not really make one happy. He admonishes Mod: ‘Hwi nære þu ðonne genog earm and genog unhyðig, þeah þe ðuhte þæt ðu welig wære’ (B26.28–9) (‘were you not then poor and disadvantaged enough, though you thought that you were wealthy?’). Mod agrees that although it seemed as if he was wealthy, he was truly poor (B26.31). Having established that Mod was actually earm (‘poor’) even when it seemed to him that he was wealthy, Wisdom observes that if a person is earm he ‘ne bið eadig’ (B26.34) (‘is not wealthy or happy’).85 Wisdom’s discourse is enriched by the double meaning of eadig, as he leads Mod to the understanding that while riches may make one wealthy in a literal sense, they cannot make one spiritually wealthy, or happy. This point is reiterated as Wisdom’s argument progresses: 84

85

Some decades later, Ælfric uses the phrase soð wela in an immaterial sense, in association with heavenly wisdom: Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies: The Second Series: Text, ed. M. Godden, EETS s.s. 5 (London, 1979), pp. 53–4, lines 45–8. This section is not a direct translation of the Latin, but the closest approximation for eadig in the corresponding section is sufficiens (‘sufficient’) (3p3). The translator could have rendered sufficiens more accurately, as elsewhere he translates sufficientia (‘sufficiency’) as geniht (‘abundance’) (B33.23; 3p9). See also B26.57 where, similarly, the closest Latin word to eadig is ‘sufficientes’ (3p3): Stewart, et al., ed. and trans., Consolation of Philosophy, pp. 242–3, lines 25 and 44; and pp. 264–5, line 19.

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True Riches: The Old English Boethius Hu ne þincð me þonne nu þæt ealle þa welan þisses middaneardes ne mægon gedon ænne mon weligne, swa weligne þæt he genog habbe and no maran ne ðurfe (B26.39–41) (Does it not then seem to me now that all the wealth of this earth cannot make any man wealthy, so wealthy that he has enough and does not need any more?)

The irony is that wela does not make one truly welig. The underlying point here, hinted at with ‘þisses middaneardes’, is that one is only made wealthy by otherworldly riches: the wealth of this world is fundamentally limited. Wisdom’s argument in this chapter, located roughly in the middle of the dialogue, relies upon the dual meanings of welig and eadig. Mod has begun to develop intellectually, and thus can begin to comprehend immaterial riches. The parallel section in the Latin reads: ‘Opes igitur nihilo indigentem sufficientemque sibi facere nequeunt’ (3p3) (‘then wealth cannot make a man self-sufficient, lacking nothing’).86 There is no mention of ‘this earth’, nor the polyptoton (wela and welig) which lends such irony to the Old English version; although the positioning of nihilo (‘nothing’) in the Latin sentence does emphasise the emptiness of opes. Elsewhere, Boethius does generate rhetorical effect through the irony that riches do not really make their possessor rich: ‘O igitur angustas inopesque divitias’ (2p5) (‘well then, O riches, how poor and mean you are’).87 However, unlike the Old English translator, he does not emphasise this ironic situation through repetition of words sharing the same root. There are three occasions in the Boethius where wela has an indisputably immaterial referent, all occurring towards the end of the dialogue, when Mod is fast approaching a state of wisdom and true understanding.88 In the first, Mod marvels at the idea of a sort of happiness which can give a lasting form of those blessings which men pursue on earth: Ac þæs me þincð þæt þæt beo seo soðe and seo fullfremede gesælð þe mæg ælcum hire folgera sellan [ðurhwunigende welan]89 and ecne

86 87 88 89

Stewart, et al., ed. and trans., Consolation of Philosophy, pp. 242–3, lines 28–9. Stewart, et al., ed. and trans., Consolation of Philosophy, pp. 200–1, line 20. See also feoh at B11.69, B20.41, B39.282, and possibly gestreon at B20.28. This bracketed phrase is omitted from the B-text: Godden and Irvine, ed., Old English Boethius, I, pp. 314 and 462, supply the emendation using both the damaged C-text and Junius’s marginal copy of that text in his version of the B-text. In the C-text itself, only ‘wunigende welan’ is legible (64r): the ðurh- part of this compound adjective is reconstructed from Junius’s marginal note of the C-text variant in his copy of the B-text. As the ‘and’ before ‘ecne’ is present in the B-text, it is safe to assume that ‘ðurhwunigende welan’ is an accidental omission by the B-text scribe, whose manuscript was produced at a later

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Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus anweald and singalne weorðscipe and ece mærða and fulle genyht. (B33.114–17) (But that seems to me that that is the true and perfect blessing which can bestow on each of its followers lasting wealth and eternal power and everlasting honour and eternal renown and full sufficiency).

At this point in the text, towards the end of the dialogue, Mod has grasped the concept of a sort of wealth which does not perish, in contrast to the riches of this world. In the corresponding Latin section, ‘Boethius’s’ list is of the things men really seek when they seek the false goods. He believes that true happiness makes a man: ‘sufficientem, potentem, reverendum, celebrem laetumque’ (3p9) (‘sufficient, powerful, respected, famous and joyful’).90 In the Old English, however, the translator, for most of the goods, takes the term he has been using for the false, worldly good and pairs it with an adjective meaning ‘lasting’. Wealth appears in the Old English list twice: firstly, ‘ðurhwunigende welan’ in its usual place at the head of the list, and then at the end, ‘fulle genyht’, equating to the true good of sufficiency.91 While the latter phrase corresponds to Boethius’s concept of sufficientia (‘sufficiency’), the ‘ðurhwunigende welan’ suggests a type of ordinary, worldly wealth which is distinguished only by its durability. We are reminded of the Old English Pastoral Care, where the rewards of heaven are figured in terms of the wealth of this world. Here, in the Boethius, Mod imagines that one receives these benefits through being a folgere (‘follower’) of the one true good. As in the ‘tools of a king’ speech in B17, wealth appears in the context of the gifts or resources bestowed upon a subject by a leader or ruler. This ‘ðurhwunigende welan’ is quite different from the material resources which the king needs to support his dependents. Nonetheless, it is worth noting that it is in these terms that Mod imagines receiving lasting wealth: as a gift from his leader. Here, at the point in the dialogue where Mod approaches true wisdom, we can finally see the transformation of those useful material things that serve the needs of the king, in Mod’s earlier speech. Those useful tools, the resources that a king distributes to his dependents, have become the gifts received by the followers of the one true good, a sort of wealth which transcends either use or enjoyment. Elsewhere, wela refers to ‘future riches’. Departing from the Latin (cf. 4p6), Wisdom asks of Mod:

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date than that of the C-text, rather than an invention of the C-text scribe. Cf. CP19.114–15. Stewart, et al., ed. and trans., Consolation of Philosophy, pp. 268–9, lines 81–2. Godden and Irvine, ed., Old English Boethius, II, p. 377.

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True Riches: The Old English Boethius Ac hwæt wille we cweþan be þam andweardan welan þe oft cymð to þam godum, hwæt he elles sie butan tacn þæs toweardan welan and þæs edleanes angin þe him God getihhod hæfð for his godan willan? (B39.292–6) (But what will we say about that present wealth which often comes to the good, what else is it but a symbol of the future wealth and the beginning of the reward which God has assigned to them because of his good will?)

Wela here refers to both the present, material wealth of this life, and the future, immaterial wealth of the next life. Signs and symbols are significant in the developing definition of ‘true riches’ in the Old English Boethius: as Mod grows intellectually, he comes to learn that the riches of this world are a symbol of something greater. We might think back here to the Alfred Jewel which, as I argued in Chapter One, begs to be understood not only as a symbol of wisdom, but as a valuable material thing in its own right: something to be both used and enjoyed. Similarly, in the Introduction I suggested that the precious materiality of the cross in The Dream of the Rood is a part of its meaning. However, here the Boethius seems to imply that material wealth can be dismissed as only a symbol of something more significant. The imprecise and semantically loose term wela does not encourage us to see the ‘andweardan welan’ (‘present wealth’) that Wisdom mentions as material thing with its own independent value, like the Alfred Jewel. Rather, the very imprecision renders this wela a transparent cipher for the more valuable ‘toweardan welan’ (‘future wealth’). Nonetheless, it is worth pausing for a moment on the second definition that Wisdom gives for ‘andweardan welan’. This present wealth, he says, is not only a sign of the wealth to come, but also, significantly, ‘þæs edleanes angin’ (‘the beginning of the reward’) assigned by God. Present wealth, then, is both a sign of something greater and, also, the beginning of a reward which will be fulfilled in heaven. At this late stage in the dialogue, Wisdom reveals that the present wealth of this life is part of a continuum, a current which has one end in the riches of the next life, and one in this present, material world. Finally, at the very close of the Boethius, wela refers to God’s riches: ‘ne wexð his [wela na]92, ne eac næfre wanað’ (B42.27–8) (‘his wealth never grows, nor either does it ever wane’). Godden and Irvine describe the end of the Boethius, in which this line appears, as a ‘long and eloquent encomium on God’s qualities, unrelated to the Latin or glosses’.93 In this

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The phrase in parenthesis represents the C-text reading; the B-text reads ‘welena’: Godden and Irvine, ed., Old English Boethius, I, p. 381. Cf. CP33.28–9. Godden and Irvine, ed., Old English Boethius, II, p. 496.

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Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus final chapter, the reader, like Mod, should have come to the understanding that spiritual riches are the only riches that bestow true happiness. The fact that these immaterial referents for wela cluster towards the end of the dialogue affirms that it is only as his intellect develops that Mod learns that true riches are not to be found in material wealth. Nonetheless, as we have seen, material wealth does have a role to play as the foundation of the wealth in heaven which is the ultimate goal of Mod’s journey: it is the first rung on the ladder. Neither Mod nor the reader can leap straight up to the intangible wealth of God, the ‘true riches’ of wisdom or the ‘ðurhwunigende welan’ which belongs to the one true good. We need a first foothold, something familiarly material with which to ground ourselves. Arguably, though, material wealth in the Boethius is not just a useful tool for accessing the riches of heaven or wisdom. Wealth and other material possessions have been given to us as gifts in this life, just like our skills and other intangible qualities. We learn, ultimately, that the best gifts are those lasting possessions received by the followers of the one true good. Nonetheless, this framework of benefactor, follower and gift links together the material resources distributed by the king that Boetius describes in the early stage of the dialogue, and the lasting, immaterial wealth of heaven that he discovers towards the end. While immaterial riches emerge superior, the king’s material gifts do not disappear completely: they remain as the ‘angin’ (‘beginning’) of that superior, heavenly wealth in this life. In the same way, the material sense of ‘soð wela’ remains in the mind of the reader, even as they progress to the understanding that the ‘true riches’ of wisdom are the more valuable. The framework of benefactor, follower and gift is central to the next translation to be considered, the Old English Soliloquies. In this translation, moreover, we find a striking plea for the importance of both familiarity and proximity. Material things, we shall see, have a powerful identity of their own. As in the Boethius, they form the first rung on the ladder to true wisdom; more so than the Boethius, though, the Soliloquies finds these things worthy of love and enjoyment.

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4. The Familiar and the Strange: The Old English Soliloquies

T

he Old English Soliloquies,1 a loose translation of Augustine’s early dialogue the Soliloquia, is well-known for the many metaphors and images which are drawn from the realm of everyday experience and the material world.2 These metaphors tend to be characterised by their aristocratic, courtly setting: they assume that the reader is familiar with a society governed by benevolent kings and lords who generously distribute wealth to their grateful dependents. The gradual accumulation of these metaphors validates this sort of community, bound together by friendship and wealth, as the ideal society.3 Wealth is a central aspect of this society, but, as elsewhere in the literature associated with Alfred, the Soliloquies promotes wealth that is managed well for the good of the community, rather than the excessive wealth of a greedy individual. This careful management of the currents of wealth can be compared to the role of wealth in heroic poetry such as Beowulf, where wealth flows down the bloodline and along the social bonds made by gift-giving, and humans

1

2

3

The Soliloquies survives fully in only one manuscript, London, British Library, MS Cotton Vitellius A.xv, fols. 4r–59v, which dates from the mid-twelfth century, though an extract of two parts of the opening prayer is also found in the mid-eleventh-century manuscript, London, British Library, MS Cotton Tiberius A.iii. fols. 50v–51v: Ker, Catalogue of Manuscripts, pp. 240–8 and 279–81, nos 186 and 215; Gneuss and Lapidge, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts, pp. 285–90, no. 363. The Vitellius manuscript is defective in places, particularly in the arrangement of the third book of the translation, which appears to have become drastically disordered at an earlier stage in the transmission of the text: M. Godden, ‘Text and Eschatology in Book III of the Old English Soliloquies’, Anglia 121 (2003), 177–209, at pp. 177–84. P. E. Szarmach, ‘Augustine’s Soliloquia in Old English’, in A Companion to Alfred the Great, ed. Discenza and Szarmach, pp. 227–55, at pp. 239–42; R. Waterhouse, ‘Tone in Alfred’s Version of Augustine’s Soliloquies’, in Studies in Earlier Old English Prose, ed. Szarmach, pp. 47–85, at pp. 63–80; and S. Hitch, ‘Alfred’s Cræft: Imagery in Alfred’s Version of Augustine’s Soliloquies’, Journal of the Department of English, University of Calcutta 22 (1986–7), 130–47. See Hitch, ‘Alfred’s Cræft’, p. 144, on the cumulative effect of the repeated use of a small number of images, including the image of the lord or king and his servants.

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Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus can only consider themselves lucky, or eadig (‘blessed, wealthy’), enough to have some contact with that bright gold before their own life comes to an end. Unlike in Beowulf, however, in the Soliloquies these currents of gift-giving are metaphors for the streams of exchange which flow between God and man. As much as the Old English translator of the Soliloquies values the earthly life and its necessary material goods, wisdom is nonetheless the ultimate goal, in this life and the next; indeed, while the Latin text is most concerned to prove the immortality of the soul, the Old English seems as focussed on, if not more so, the immortality of the individual’s own personal wisdom.4 Looking again to Old English verse, the accumulation of personal wisdom can be seen to parallel the impulse to accrue material wealth that we find in some vernacular poetry. In the Soliloquies, material wealth is not presented as an impediment to the pursuit of wisdom, but rather a part of the ideal earthly life that enables the pursuit of wisdom in this world. This chapter will show that the translator presents the earthly life and its material resources as an important – even enjoyable – preparation for the next life, rather than something that must simply be used to attain that higher goal. The idealised society that the translator presents, therefore, with wealth as its centre, is shown to be an important stage on the individual’s journey to the heavenly life, where nothing will be unknown, ‘nawðer ne þæs þe on urum dagum byd, ne þæs þe ær us wæs, ne æac þæs þe æfter us gewyrð’ (94.19–20) (‘neither of that which is in our time, nor of that which was before us, nor also of that which happens after us’).5

The Soliloquia The Soliloquia is an early dialogue of Augustine’s.6 The speakers of the dialogue are the fictional persona of Augustine himself and Ratio (‘Reason’),

4

5

6

L. Lockett, Anglo-Saxon Psychologies in the Vernacular and Latin Traditions (Toronto, 2011), p. 337, argues that the Old English text presents a persona who accepts the immortality of the soul from the very beginning, this being a central feature of the soul (sawol), as compared with the mind (mod), in Old English poetry. Lockett suggests that the question that is addressed in the Old English text is whether the mod, the ‘locus of mental activity’, also survives the death of the body; see also p. 351. Godden, ‘Text and Eschatology’, pp. 189–93 and 199–202, observes that the Old English author’s insistence on complete knowledge in the afterlife, specifically after Judgement Day (94.17–18), common between both the blessed and damned, is at odds with most patristic writings; he suggests that Julian of Toledo’s Prognosticon may have influenced this belief. All quotations and translations from the Soliloquia are taken from Watson, ed.

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The Familiar and the Strange: The Old English Soliloquies who may or may not reside within him (1.I.1). Brian Stock argues that Augustine sees ‘a connection between the dialogue within the mind and the argument of the mind’s existence’.7 This relates to one of the main contentions of the Soliloquia, that the act of thinking proves the existence of the individual, and that there therefore is certain knowledge, contrary to the arguments of the Sceptics.8 To prove the certain knowledge of the existence of the self is the first step of the Soliloquies; its second goal is to prove that the soul is immortal, and it is with this that the dialogue is largely concerned. Augustine’s method for proving the immortality of the soul involves complex dialectic and rational proofs. As Gerard Watson summarises: ‘if an immortal quality belongs essentially to any reality, that reality is immortal. The human soul is essentially the possessor of truth. Truth is immortal and so the human soul is immortal’.9 The argument relies upon a series of logical, though sometimes challenging, steps from proof to proof. Another major theme of the Soliloquia, discussed in the same logical dialectic, is epistemology, namely, what the soul can and cannot know.10 While awareness of one’s own act of thinking might well prove self-existence, the Soliloquia presents human senses as unreliable and deceptive, therefore questioning whether there is anything, aside from knowledge of our own existence, which we can truly know for certain. However, through the intellectus (‘understanding’), one is able to grasp things that the senses cannot, such as the soul of a friend, if it can be known at all (1.III.8). While ‘Augustine’ perceives the shape of a line and a sphere using his senses, he understands the geometrical truths of these shapes,

7 8

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10

and trans., Soliloquies. For more on the inner dialogue in Augustine’s work see B. Stock, Augustine’s Inner Dialogue: The Philosophical Soliloquy in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, 2010); on the Soliloquia in particular, see pp. 76–9 and pp. 84–90. See also Soliloquia 2.VII.14 on the advantages of the internal dialogue. Stock, Augustine’s Inner Dialogue, pp. 78–9. Stock, Augustine’s Inner Dialogue, pp. 5–6; and Watson, ed. and trans., Soliloquies, p. 16. On Augustine’s rejection of scepticism, see G. O’Daly, Augustine’s Philosophy of Mind (London, 1987), pp. 162–71. Watson, ed. and trans., Soliloquies, p. 184. See 2.XIII.24: ‘Omne, quod in subiecto est, si semper manet, ipsum etiam subiectum maneat semper necesse est. Et omnis in subiecto est animo disciplina. Necesse est igitur semper animus maneat, si semper manet disciplina. Est autem disciplina veritas et semper, ut in initio libri huius ratio persuasit, veritas manet. Semper igitur animus manet’ (‘if everything which is in a subject lasts for ever, it follows necessarily that the subject lasts for ever. Every discipline is in the soul as its subject. It is necessary, therefore, that the soul lasts for ever, if the discipline does. A discipline, however, is truth, and the truth remains for ever as reason persuaded us at the beginning of this book. Therefore, the soul lasts for ever’): Watson, ed. and trans., Soliloquies, pp. 104–7. Stock, Augustine’s Inner Dialogue, p. 84.

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Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus which do not change, through his intellectus (1.IV.9).11 Reason persuades ‘Augustine’ that he will know God in the same way as he knows the geometric Forms of the line and sphere: ‘Esto plus te ac multo plus quam de istis deo cognito gavisurum, rerum tamen, non intellectus dissimilitudine’ (‘granted that you will rejoice more and much more on knowing God than on knowing these things, nevertheless the dissimilarity rests on a difference of objects and not of understanding’) (1.V.11).12 This intellectus is the faculty of the mind which perceives incorporeal truths, and which cannot be deceived. Here, the mind can bypass the deception of the senses and know things for certain.13 The material world is dismissed like a veil to reveal the otherworld of incorporeal truth beneath. In the Soliloquia, Augustine conflates this Platonic otherworld with the Christian Kingdom of Heaven: both are realities separate from the senses. R. A. Markus observes that while in later works Augustine distinguishes between the Platonic intelligible reality and the eschatological Kingdom of Heaven, in his earlier work, ‘he scarcely distinguished the teaching of Christianity from that of Plato and was very ready to read each into the other’.14 Through this conflation of the two extrasensory realities, the Soliloquia implies that it is possible to know God in this world, as although the Kingdom of Heaven is not accessible in this life, the Platonic intelligible reality is. This implication is brought to the fore later in the text: ‘in ista vita […] deo intellecto anima iam beata sit’ (1.VII.14) (‘in this life the soul is already blessed because of its understanding of God’).15 Augustine explicitly regretted that he conveyed this sentiment in Soliloquia.16 The epistemology of Soliloquia, in short, allows that one can know God in both this life and the next; that the heavy matter of this world need not prevent one from apprehending incorporeal, immortal truths.

11 12 13 14

15 16

Watson, ed. and trans., Soliloquies, pp. 171–3. Watson, ed. and trans., Soliloquies, pp. 38–9. See Soliloquia 1.IV.9. R. A. Markus, ‘Augustine. Reason and Illumination’, in The Cambridge History of Later Greek and Early Medieval Philosophy, ed. A. H. Armstrong (Cambridge, 1970 [repr. with corrections]), pp. 362–73, at p. 364. On Augustine’s understanding of Plato’s intelligible and sensible worlds, see his Contra Academicos, III.17.37. See further Watson, ed. and trans., Soliloquies, pp. 10–11, on Augustine’s conversion to ‘the world of spirit’, which embraces both Christianity and Neoplatonism. Watson, ed. and trans., Soliloquies, pp. 42–3. See Retractiones 4.3, on Soliloquia 1.VII.14.

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The Old English translation The Old English Soliloquies, a dialogue between Augustinus and Gesceadwisnes, has long been considered to be closely related to the Old English Boethius not only because of the overlap of subject matter, such as the soul’s immortality, but also because of similarity of phrasing and rhetorical devices.17 While some of the overlap in subject matter could be the result of similarities in the two Latin texts, the closeness of phrasing strongly suggests shared authorship, or at the very least that the Soliloquies translator was very familiar with the Boethius, or vice versa.18 The Soliloquies ends with a defective colophon attributing the translation to Alfred: ‘Hær endiað þa cwidas þe Ælfred kining alæs of þære bec þe we hatað on […]’ (97.17) (‘here end the sayings which King Alfred selected from the book which we call in …’), which in Thomas Carnicelli’s edition is supplemented with: ‘Ledene de uidendo deo and on Englisc be godes ansyne’ (97.18) (‘Latin De videndo Deo and in English On Seeing God’).19 The similarities between the Boethius and Soliloquies and attributions to Alfred in both texts (in the prefaces and colophon, respectively) have led to the belief that the Soliloquies is Alfred’s work. However, even Carnicelli, who makes the case for Alfred as author, acknowledges that the colophon may have been added at a later date by a scribe to add authority, ‘just as Alfred’s name came to be associated with the Proverbs of Alfred’.20 While it seems likely that one translator was responsible for both the Soliloquies and the Boethius, it cannot be assumed that this author was Alfred. While it is generally understood that the translation of the Boethius preceded that of the Soliloquies, there is at least one example of a passage in the Old English Boethius which has no parallel in De consolatione, but does find a parallel in the Latin Soliloquia, implying that the translator had at least read the

17 18

19

20

See Carnicelli, ed., King Alfred’s Version, pp. 29–37. The first prayer, in Book One of the Soliloquia, conceives of God as the source and defender of cosmic harmony, the highest good, and the object towards which all things strive: these are themes which also occur in De consolatione. On the possibility of common authorship, see Carnicelli, ed., King Alfred’s Version, pp. 29–34; Godden, ‘Did Alfred Write Anything?’, p. 9; and Godden and Irvine, ed., Old English Boethius, I, pp. 133–4. See Carnicelli, ed., King Alfred’s Version, p. 97, n. 18, on the decision to follow Richard Wülker’s reconstruction, despite the fact that De videndo Deo was by no means the primary source for Book Three: R. P. Wülker, ‘Über die angelsächsische Bearbeitung der Soliloquien Augustins’, Beiträge zur Geschichte der angelsächsischen Litteratur 4 (1877), 101–31; see also M. Godden, The Translations of Alfred and his Circle, and the Misappropriation of the Past, H. M. Chadwick Memorial Lectures 14 (Cambridge, 2004), pp. 23–4. Carnicelli, ed., King Alfred’s Version, p. 38.

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Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus Soliloquia before he translated De consolatione.21 Ronald J. Ganze suggests that both Latin texts influenced the translator in both his translations, his reading of De consolatione contributing to a greater emphasis on free will in the Soliloquies, and his reading of the Soliloquia resulting in a more orthodox retelling of Boethius. He posits that the texts may have been translated simultaneously, which would certainly explain the sporadic appearance of Gesceadwisnes, the interlocutor in the Soliloquies, in the Boethius.22 As in the Boethius, the translator of the Soliloquies simplifies the Latin rhetoric, with plain analogies and metaphors preferred to abstract reasoning. The Soliloquies is a looser translation than even the Boethius, with the author adding a whole third book to his text, and considerably adapting the second. Much of Augustine’s complex dialectic is lost, resulting in a very different text. Leslie Lockett suggests that the translator did not grasp the Platonic notion of incorporeality, and therefore had to remove all mention of this from the text.23 As a result, he must find a way of proving that we can know things reliably that we do not know from the senses without recourse to Augustine’s intellectus, the Platonic faculty which perceives true, incorporeal Forms, and can therefore offer certain knowledge.24 The solution he arrives at is faith: there are things that we have not perceived with our senses, but we still believe in because of testimony from sources we trust, though this belief is quite different in nature from the sure knowledge offered by the intellectus.25 While the intellectus permits one to bypass the deception of the sensory world in which we live, the faith that is promoted in the Old English version very much depends upon what we learn from the authorities that we have encountered in this deceptive world.

21

22

23

24 25

Carnicelli, ed., King Alfred’s Version, pp. 32–3, n. 49; and Frantzen, King Alfred, p. 84. R. J. Ganze, ‘The Individual in the Afterlife: Theological and Sociopolitical Concerns in King Alfred’s Translation of Augustine’s Soliloquies’, SN 83 (2011), 21–40, at p. 33. Lockett, Anglo-Saxon Psychologies, p. 333; Lockett does warn, however, that we should not assume that the Old English translation represents the sum of the translator’s knowledge, as he may have left material out for the benefit of his readers. See also S. Hitch, ‘Alfred’s Reading of Augustine’s Soliloquies’, in Sentences Presented to Alan Ward, ed. D. M. Reeks (Southampton, 1988), pp. 21–9, at p. 28. Lockett, Anglo-Saxon Psychologies, pp. 339–41. Lockett, Anglo-Saxon Psychologies, pp. 341–2; see also M. McC. Gatch, ‘King Alfred’s Version of Augustine’s Soliloquia: Some Suggestions on its Rationale and Unity’, in Studies in Earlier Old English Prose, ed. Szarmach, pp. 17–45, at p. 31; and Waterhouse, ‘Tone in Alfred’s Version’, p. 75. See Soliloquies 62.22ff. and 88.1ff.

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Letter and seal The translator introduces the importance of faith in those we trust through a metaphor which compares the earthly lord with God, the logic being that if you believe the contents of a letter from your lord that arrives with his seal, then you should certainly trust the message from the eternal Lord, or Scripture.26 This metaphor appears in response to Augustinus’s complaint that he cannot put aside the things of this life without knowing anything of what he is giving them up for, in a powerful assertion of the importance of familiarity and proximity. Gesceadwisnes responds with the metaphor about the lord’s letter and seal to show Augustinus that it is possible to believe in things that you have not immediately perceived with your senses, provided that the report comes from a reliable source. This awareness that there is much which cannot be known in this material world has a counterpart in vernacular wisdom poetry. Maxims II, for example, is emphatic about the limitations of mortal knowledge: ‘Meotod ana wat / hwyder seo sawul sceal syððan hweorfan’ (lines 57b–58) (‘the Lord only knows whither the soul shall turn afterwards’). The poet goes on to reiterate this sentiment: ‘Is seo forðgesceaft / digol and dyrne; drihten ana wat’ (lines 61b–62) (‘that which will come is secret and dark; the Lord only knows’). In the Soliloquies, however, some of this secrecy and darkness can be dissipated through faith in a trusted, worldly authority. Though the object of the rhetorical device in the Soliloquies, which replaces a logical proof in the Latin,27 is to redirect attention from worldly pleasures to virtues, it nonetheless demonstrates the value that the Old English translator places on the worldly life and human relationships. The starting point for this discussion is Augustinus’s reluctance to abandon ‘woruldlustas’ (‘worldly pleasures’), which he must put aside in order to achieve the figurative anchors of virtue:28 hu mæg ic forlæten þæt ðæt ic wot and can and of cyldehade to gewonad eom, and lufian þæt ðet me uncuð is buton be gesegenum? Ic wene þeah, gyf me were swa cuð þæt ðet þu me ymbe sagest swa me is þæt ðæt ic hær geseo, þæt ic lufede þæt and forsawe ðis. (62.18–21) (How may I abandon that which I know and am acquainted with and from childhood am accustomed to, and love that which is unfamiliar to me except from by reports? I expect, nevertheless, if that which you are 26

27 28

Carnicelli, ed., King Alfred’s Version, pp. 100–1, identifies an ‘implicit appeal to scriptural authority’ in this section; see also Gatch, ‘King Alfred’s Version’, pp. 30–1. Carnicelli, ed., King Alfred’s Version, p. 100. On the anchors as representations of virtues, see Soliloquies 61.23–62.10.

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Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus talking about to me were as familiar to me as that which I see here, that I would love that and despise this.)

Augustinus’s naivety is a construct which enables Gesceadwisnes to prove to him, and the reader, that it is possible to believe in things we know of only by report. Nonetheless, this passage represents a strikingly straightforward statement of love for the things of this world, based simply on familiarity. The threefold repetition of verbs for knowing (‘wot and can and […] to gewonad eom’) establishes the apparent certainty with which mortals understand, and love, the things of this world. These are things which, unlike the virtues Gesceadwisnes describes, Augustinus can see: he believes that if he could see the virtues, he would love them too. The implicit connection between sight and knowledge in this passage is a reflection of Augustinus’s desire to see and know God.29 Gesceadwisnes responds to this complaint by asking Augustinus whether or not he would know his lord and his lord’s will through a letter and his seal, and, moreover: gyf þu ðonne cwyst þæt þu hys willan ðær-on gecnawan mage, cweð þonne hweðer þe rihtra þince þe þe hys willan folgie, þe þu folgie þam welam þe he ðe er forgeaf to-eacan hys freondscype (62.25–7) (If you then say that you can thereby know his will, say then whether you think it is more fitting that you follow his will, or that you follow the wealth which he previously gave to you in addition to his friendship).

Augustinus readily replies: me þincð betere þæt ic forlete þa gyfe and folgyge þam gyfan, ðe me egðer ys stiward ge ðas welan ge eac hys freondscypes, buton ic egðer habban mage. Ic wolde þeah egþer habban gyf ic myhte, ge ðone welan ge eac hys willan folgyan (62.30–3) (It seems better to me that I abandon the gift and follow the giver, who is both steward of the wealth and also of his friendship, unless I could have both. I would nevertheless have both if I could; follow both his wealth and his will).

On a metaphorical level, wela represents the ‘worlde lusta’ (62.15) (‘worldly desires’) that Augustinus is so familiar with, and therefore so reluctant to

29

For similarities or possible models in the Soliloquia, see Carnicelli, ed., King Alfred’s Version, p. 100; and Watson, ed. and trans., Soliloquies, I.V.11 (p. 38), and I.XIV.24 (p. 58), though neither passage shares the appreciation for the worldly and the familiar evident in the Old English.

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The Familiar and the Strange: The Old English Soliloquies relinquish.30 Gesceadwisnes has proved to him that as he would prioritise his lord’s will, which he knows only by report of the letter, over his wealth, so too might he put aside the pleasures he knows for the virtues he has only heard of.31 The lord’s will, representing the pursuit of virtue, must take priority – but this does not mean that one cannot desire wealth, also. Wealth, as the index of success in the secular life, and the tool with which one carries out secular responsibilities, will reoccur in these scenes of the ideal secular community. Augustinus’s lord, the epitome of authority, is characterised by his distribution of wealth. In this metaphor for the relationship between God and man, God is represented by a wealthy, secular lord. Moreover, Augustinus’s assertion that, if he could, he would follow both his lord’s wealth and will, is sanctioned by Gesceadwisnes: ‘ful rihte þu me hæfst geandwyrd’ (63.1) (‘very properly you have answered me’). Desire for wealth is accommodated within the constraints of this secular, aristocratic framework. Finally, it is worth emphasising the role that the material ‘insegel’ (62.23) (‘seal’) plays in this analogy: in the absence of the lord himself, this material thing perceived through the senses of the body acts as a sign, something by which Augustinus may ‘ongytan’ (62.24) (‘perceive, know, recognise’) his lord. Because of the familiarity of the seal, the recipient of the letter trusts in that which he cannot immediately perceive with his senses, the lord who is separated from him in space. It is hard to say whether the insegel would also have been enjoyed as a thing in its own right, like the æstel jewels discussed in Chapter One; but the importance of familiarity, proximity and even physical contact in the Soliloquies suggests it might be so. In this passage, the translator uses a wholly earthly, human relationship as a model for the relationship between man and God, which unlike a human relationship exists both in this world and the next. This earthly model, the relationship between a servant and his lord, is one dominated by the exchange of wealth. The description of this hierarchically structured friendship, strengthened through gifts of wealth, recalls the relationships in early Old English heroic poetry such as Beowulf, in which friendship is no less loving for its reliance on treasure; we might think, for example, of the luftacen (Beowulf, line 1863a) (‘love-tokens, gifts’) which Hrothgar hopes will pass between the Danes and the Geats, over the sea. Though Augustinus admits to his desire for wealth, it is within the specific context of socially motivated gift distribution, and is in any case subordinate to the will of his lord. Moreover, the reference to the lord as a ‘stiward’ (62.31) (‘steward’) underlines the fact that the author is concerned with the management and 30 31

See Gatch, ‘King Alfred’s Version’, p. 30; and Frantzen, King Alfred, p. 75. Pratt, Political Thought, p. 329, maintains that Augustinus’s decision to follow his lord’s will, rather than wealth, resembles Solomon’s desire for wisdom, rather than riches; like Augustinus, he follows the giver, rather than the gift.

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Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus transmission of wealth, rather than ownership. Throughout the translation, the author uses social relationships and situations as models for the otherworldly: to depict the afterlife or represent man’s relationship with God or wisdom. This strongly hierarchical society, in which the richest and most powerful individual is the most honoured and most trustworthy, recurs so often throughout the translation that it becomes the paradigm of community life, on earth and in heaven.

The rich and generous lord This recurrent network of images operates on the basis of a society governed by a rich and generous lord, who benevolently supports his dependents.32 The repeated aristocratic imagery serves to validate such a community, and the wealth and power on which it depends. For example, in order to explain to Augustinus that there are many different ways of approaching wisdom, by which God is also implied, Gesceadwisnes uses an analogy in which the king represents wisdom, who may be approached by many different roads, whether he ‘on tune byd, oððe hys gemot, oððe hys fird’ (77.6) (‘is in town, or his assembly, or his army’).33 Ganze argues that ‘the various homes of the king’ represent the king’s various social functions: town, assembly and army suggest, respectively, his ‘civic, legislative, and military functions’.34 The passage goes on to refer to the different dwelling places of subjects of varying rank (77.18–19). As Ganze maintains, this comparison of the relationships between the many individual subjects and their king with the many individual ‘subjects’ of wisdom or God serves to validate ‘the social structure of Anglo-Saxon England’; the author ‘is asserting the “correctness” of Anglo-Saxon social structure within the wider scheme of Creation’.35 This is a social structure in which the most powerful are necessarily the most respected. I would add, moreover, that the image of the roads to wisdom builds on the idea which has been latent, just below the surface, in the Old English translation, but which will elsewhere receive full expression, that physical proximity to something enables greater perception and understanding of it. As Augustinus complains to Gesceadwisnes a little earlier, why would he give up the things he has known for a long time and is accustomed to for things which are unfamiliar to him?

32

33 34 35

The need to support dependents recalls Mod’s defence of a king’s resources in the Boethius (B17.14–18). See 77.5–78.8 for the full passage. Ganze, ‘The Individual in the Afterlife’, p. 31. Ganze, ‘The Individual in the Afterlife’, p. 31.

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The Familiar and the Strange: The Old English Soliloquies In Book Two, Gesceadwisnes returns to the comparison between the earthly lord and eternal Lord to remind Augustinus that if he believes in what his lord tells him, regardless of whether he has perceived it with his own senses, then he should certainly believe in what he has heard from God, that is to say, Scripture, despite the fact that he has not seen it himself: ‘truwast ðu nu þe selfum and þinum geferum bet þonne ðam apostolum, þe weron Cristes selfes ðegnas?’ (89.1–3) (‘now do you trust yourself and your companions better than the apostles, who were Christ’s own thegns?’).36 The trustworthiness of Scripture is a vital point for the proof of the immortality of the soul in the Soliloquies, as once Gesceadwisnes has established this she need only remind Augustinus that the Bible frequently refers to the soul’s immortality: ‘Hwet sprec god þonne oftor, oððe hwæt sede he soðlicor þurht hys witgan hys folce þonne be sawle undeaðlicnesse?’ (89.7–8) (‘what did God speak of more often, or what said he more truthfully to his people through his prophets, than about the soul’s immortality?’).37 When Gesceadwisnes asks Augustinus how much he trusts what his lord says, she reminds him that many servants have ‘unricran hlaford’ (87.20) (‘a less rich or powerful lord’) than Augustinus. In this discussion about trustworthiness, Gesceadwisnes makes a point of mentioning that Augustinus’s lord is rice, a man of high secular status. The ideal community that forms a backdrop to the philosophy and theology of the Soliloquies is one that places a high value on secular power and material prosperity, associating high social and financial standing with trustworthiness.38 Influence in the material world maps onto divine authority. We encounter this proverbial rice (‘rich, powerful’) figure on two further occasions in the Soliloquies, on both occasions in the mostly original Book Three. This section of the text is largely focussed on the question of how much is known after death. The Old English translator allows for far greater knowledge in the afterlife than either Augustine or Gregory the 36

37 38

Carnicelli, ed., King Alfred’s Version, p. 103, observes that the trustworthiness of Scripture is an idea found in De videndo Deo, another of Augustine’s works, referred to in the Old English Soliloquies (92.5). De videndo Deo is, according to Carnicelli, ‘the announced source’ of Book Three, though ‘it is certainly not the only source’: King Alfred’s Version, p. 28; see pp. 28–9 on other sources for the Soliloquies. On the reference to and use of De videndo Deo in the Soliloquies, see also Godden, Translations of Alfred and his Circle, pp. 20–5. See Carnicelli, ed., King Alfred’s Version, pp. 100–1. The hierarchical nature of this trusting relationship is further suggested by the fact that Augustinus is said to have ‘æac manige freond þara þe ðu genoh wel truwast, þeah ðu him ealles swa wel ne truige swa ðu ðinum hlaforde dest’ (87.21–88.1) (‘also many friends who you trust in well enough, though you do not trust any of them as well as you do your lord’). However much Augustinus trusts his friends, it is his lord, his superior, in whom he puts most faith.

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Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus Great, among the damned as well as the blessed.39 He describes how the good, who are entirely free, will: geseoð egðer ge heora freond ge heora feond, swa swa her rice men geseoð ofð egðer ætsumne ge heora freond ge heora feond (96.16–18) (see both their friends and their enemies, just as here rich or powerful men often see both their friends and their enemies at once).

It is not exactly clear what earthly example the translator is thinking of, but again, his point of reference is a society in which the rich and powerful have the most freedom. Similarly, when explaining that the memory of all past torments does not make the good unhappy in the afterlife, the author draws on this same hierarchically structured social world, in which the hierarchy ascends according to wealth and power. The good, it is said, are glad that they did not forsake their Lord’s will: swa swa sum rice man on þisse weorulde hym habbe hys deorlingas sumne fram adrifan, oððe heora begra unwyllum he hym si fram anyd, and hæbbe ðonne monige wite and mani ungelimp on hys wrecsiðe, and cume þeah to þam ylcan hlaforde þe he ær myd wes, and si þær micle arlicor þonne he ær wæs. þonne gemynð he þa ungelimp þe he er hafde on hys wrecsiðe, and ne byð þeah na þe unbliðre. (96.24–97.2) (Just as some rich or powerful man in this world has driven away from his favourites a certain one, or against both of their wills he [the favourite] is driven from him [the rich man], and then has many torments and many misfortunes in his exile, and nevertheless comes to the same lord who he was previously with, and is there much more honourable than he previously was. Then he remembers the misfortunes which he previously had in his exile, and is nevertheless not the unhappier.)

In this situation, the rice man who is reunited with his lost deorling represents God Himself. As with the roads-to-wisdom metaphor, earthly society is shown to be a reflection of the heavenly life, in which the blessed will be reunited with their Lord, and their happiness will be so great that the memory of their past woes will not affect them. This striking choice of metaphor once again asserts the validity of a hierarchically ordered secular society. The position of the rice man, who is also a hlaford, at the pinnacle of the hierarchy is reinforced by being in parallel with God’s position as king in heaven. 39

Godden, ‘Text and Eschatology’, pp. 189–90. See further Godden’s comment that the author ‘seems to believe that the condemned souls will be able to see God after the Last Judgement (though I think nothing quite says that they will be able to see Him before the Judgement)’: ‘Text and Eschatology’, p. 204.

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The Familiar and the Strange: The Old English Soliloquies However, just as the good rejoice in their knowledge in the afterlife, the wicked suffer all the more for theirs: hym byð þonne swa swa þam mannum þe her beoð on sumes kincges carcerne gebrohte, and magon geseon ælc dæge heora freond and geahsian be heom þæt þæt hy willað, and ne magon heom þeah na nane gode ne beon (96.8–11) (For them it is then just as for those men who here are brought into a king’s prison, and can everyday see their friends and ask whatever they want about them, and nevertheless cannot be any good to them).

As Pratt argues, ‘Alfredian afterlife mirrored that of an earthly royal community, ordered on merit with full visibility’.40 The image of a prison is yet another example of the earthly life serving as a model for the heavenly. Michael Treschow argues that John Scottus Eriugena’s Periphyseon may be a source for the Old English author’s assertion that both the blessed and the damned see God; however, he posits that the Old English author ‘shows himself to be more interested in the social than the ontological implications of this common society of the blessed and the damned’.41 Treschow emphasises the communality in the Old English author’s description, contrasting it with Augustine’s more traditional view of the afterlife in De civitate Dei, where the blessed and damned are two distinctly separate communities.42 This vision of the afterlife is inspired by the community of the royal court. Wealth plays a vital role in the ideal community which lies behind so many of these socially inspired metaphors. The hierarchies that govern these social structures are defined by the distribution of wealth and power: whoever controls the most is at the top. However, it is important to stress that in this community wealth is constantly in motion, flowing down the rungs of the social ladder along with the intangible gifts of love and friendship.

Wealth as gift The Old English translator is more tolerant of worldly wealth than Augustine, provided that it is subordinate to the pursuit of wisdom, on which he places the highest value. In Book One, Gesceadwisnes questions

40 41

42

Pratt, Political Thought, p. 325. M. Treschow, ‘Echoes of the Periphyseon in the Third Book of Alfred’s Soliloquies’, N&Q 40 (1993), 281–6, p. 285. Treschow, ‘Echoes of the Periphyseon’, p. 283.

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Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus Augustinus on his attachment to worldly goods, to discover whether he has ‘hal eagan’ (72.5) (‘healthy eyes’): that is, the virtue required to begin to see wisdom clearly. Firstly, Gesceadwisnes asks Augustinus whether he desires ‘wela’ (72.11), which Augustinus firmly denies: gefirn ic hyt hohgode þæt ic hine sceolde forseon. ic hæbbe nu XXXIII wintra, and ic hæfde ane les þene XX þa ic erest hyt gehogede þæt ic hine ealles to swiðe ne lufige. þeah me genoh cume, ne fagnige ic hys na ful swiðe, ne hys ful ungemetlice ne bruce, ne æac maran getilige to haldænne þonne ic gemetlice bi beon mage, and þa men on gehabban and gehealdan þe ic forðian scel; and þæt þæt þær ofer byð ic hohgie swa ændebyrdlice gedelan swa ic ændebyrðlicost mæg. (72.12–18) (Long ago I intended that I would renounce it [wealth]. I am now thirty-three years old, and I was one less than twenty when I first decided that I would not love it all too much, though enough might come to me, nor do I rejoice in it very much, nor enjoy it very immoderately, nor either strive to keep more than I can moderately live [lit. ‘be’] by, and keep and maintain those men who I must further; and that which is excess I intend to distribute as appropriately as I most appropriately may.)

Though the translator follows the Latin quite closely at this point, he makes some subtle yet significant additions. Augustine’s text reads: Nam cum triginta tres annos agam, quattuordecim fere anni sunt, ex quo ista cupere destiti. Nec aliquid quicquam in his, si quo casu offerentur, praeter necessarium victum liberalemque usum cogitavi. Prorsus unus mihi Ciceronia liber facillime persuasit nullo modo adpetendas esse divitias, sed si provenerint, sapientissime atque cautissime administrandas. (1.X.17) (I’m thirty-three years old now, and it’s almost fourteen years since I gave up my desire for riches. And if they were by chance offered to me, I had no thought for anything else in connection with them other than that of supplying the needs of everyday life and a generous use of them. Yes, one book of Cicero’s was enough to persuade me very easily that riches should in no way be sought after, and that if they did happen to come along, they should be administered with wisdom and caution.)43

The Old English author mitigates the full force of the renunciation through qualifiers such as ‘ealles to swiðe’, ‘ful swiðe’ and ‘ful ungemetlice’, in line with Bately’s observation that the four canonical Alfredian translations often tone down condemnation of worldly goods and pleasures, by 43

Watson, ed. and trans., Soliloquies, pp. 46–7.

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The Familiar and the Strange: The Old English Soliloquies condemning not those things themselves but immoderate enjoyment of them.44 Gesceadwisnes offers no rebuke to Augustinus here, implying that his attitude is to be understood as acceptable. The qualification in this passage implies that the Old English translator tolerated possession of worldly wealth to a greater degree than Augustine. However, this tolerance is not consistent throughout the translation. Earlier in the dialogue, for example, where there is no mention of wealth in the Latin, the translator contrasts the fleeting weoruldwela (‘worldly wealth’) of this life with the kingdom of heaven, which is truly ours (52.5–9). Similarly, in Book Three, the author draws upon the parable of Dives, the rich man, and Lazarus, a story which hardly presents the wealthy in a positive light. The allowances that the author makes towards possession of wealth in the passage quoted above can be partly explained by Augustinus’s social position, as imagined in the Old English. The Latin word ‘administrandas’ evidently prompted the Old English author to portray his Augustinus as somebody with a responsibility to distribute wealth, though this is arguably not necessarily the case in the Latin. The ‘generous use’ that the Latin ‘Augustine’ refers to seems to indicate charity, while the Old English Augustinus is responsible for supporting the wellbeing of a group of dependents, in similar terms to the situation described by Mod in the famous ‘tools of a king’ speech from the Boethius – or indeed a king in a poem such as Beowulf.45 Just as the Old English Augustinus receives wealth and friendship from his socially superior lord, so he too has a responsibility to distribute these things to the men below him in the hierarchy. The translator’s tolerance of wealth in this section is understandable when viewed in this social context in which wealth plays a major role. Only a few pages before, the Old English Augustinus states plainly that though he would rather follow his lord’s will than his wealth, he would rather have both, if possible (62.32–3). Wealth is acceptable in this social context of support and gift-giving. It is a current which flows between men, from the most powerful and respected to their dependents, just as the stream of wisdom flows from heaven to earth in the verse epilogue to the Pastoral

44

45

Bately, ‘Alfred as Author and Translator’, p. 134; likewise, Pratt, Political Thought, p. 320, observes that, as in the Old English Boethius, ‘dangers are restricted solely to excess’. See also Gesceadwisnes’s reference to ‘ofermetta wela, and ofermytta wyrdscipe, and ungemetlice riclic and seftlic lyf’ (73.23–4) (‘excessive wealth, and excessive honour, and an immoderately rich and luxurious life’). B17.14–18. Carnicelli, ed., King Alfred’s Version, p. 101, argues that this additional reference to the needs of the speaker’s men suggests that the translator ‘is clearly thinking as a king’. Though this addition need not confirm Alfred’s authorship, it could certainly suggest a secular, aristocratic author and/or audience.

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Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus Care. Awareness that one is only a steward of this wealth prevents the sort of attachment which leads to self-interested greed and over-indulgence. As the dialogue progresses, Gesceadwisnes continues in her attempt to ascertain Augustinus’s relationship to worldly goods, which also include honour, a wife who would be able to support him, and food. Augustinus continues to assert that he only requires them to fulfil basic needs, and the needs of his dependents: Hwæt wille ic ma cwæðan aðer oððe be mete, oððe be drince, oððe be baðe, oððe be welan, oððe be wyrðscype, oððe be ænigum worldlusta? ne wilnige ic heora nanes nawyt mycle ma ðonne ic nede sceol habban to þam þæt ic mynes lichaman hele and strengðe gehealdan mage. Ic beþearf þeah micle maren to ðara manna þearfa ðe ic bewitan sceal – þæs æac ic wilnige and nede sceal. (73.11–16) (What more am I willing to say either about food, or drink, or bathing, or wealth, or honour, or any worldly pleasures? I desire none of them at all greatly beyond that which I must have through necessity so that I can maintain the health and strength of my body. Yet I require much more for the needs of men who I must care for – that I also desire and must through necessity [wish for]).46

In the Latin, Augustine lists only the bodily pleasures food, drink and baths (1.X.17); the Old English adds wealth and honour to this list, resulting in the curious assertion that these things benefit the body, a claim that is supported by Gesceadwisnes’s approval of Augustinus’s words: ‘on riht þu æart’ (73.17) (‘you are in the right’). As in the previous example, the Old English translator’s mention of dependents is absent in the Latin. These additions indicate that, for the translator, a discussion of Augustinus’s desire for wealth was incomplete without the social context of hierarchy and distribution of goods. In Book Three the author makes reference to the parable of Dives and Lazarus as part of his explanation of how both good and evil have knowledge of each other after death.47 This parable portrays the rich man who prospered on earth suffering in hell; the significant point for the argument of the Soliloquies at this point is that Dives can see Lazarus, the poor man he

46

47

See Carnicelli, ed., King Alfred’s Version, p. 73, note on line 16: ‘wilnian is understood after sceal’. This allusion comes after the point at which the dialogue form appears to break down, and so it makes more sense to refer to a single authorial voice, rather than explicitly Augustinus or Gesceadwisnes: see Waterhouse, ‘Tone in Alfred’s Version’, p. 48 and p. 81, n. 5; and Pratt, Political Thought, p. 325; see Godden, ‘Text and Eschatology’, pp. 185–7, for an alternative interpretation.

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The Familiar and the Strange: The Old English Soliloquies had not helped in life, in heaven.48 Given the value that the author bestows upon secular society and all its worldly goods, it seems unusual to include this parable which casts the wealthy man, ‘se yfela welega’ (95.8) (‘the evil rich man’), in such a negative light. This is especially out of place in the very short Book Three, in which, as we have seen, there are two references to the proverbial rice man as an honourable and trustworthy member of society. The story of Dives does not sit well in a society in which the rich and powerful are the most trusted. However, the distinction between ‘se yfela welega’ and the rich lord in whom Augustinus places his faith is a clear one: the rich man of the biblical parable desires wealth for himself, while the proverbial rich lord – and indeed Augustinus himself – uses wealth moderately to support dependents. The correct and incorrect use of wealth is elucidated further by comparison with one of the allusions to the Dives and Lazarus parable in the Pastoral Care. The author of the Pastoral Care stresses that Dives was not punished because he robbed others of their wealth but because he ‘his swiðe ungemetlice breac, & hine selfne eallinga gesealde ðiossum woruldwelum’ (339.5–6) (‘enjoyed his own very immoderately and gave himself entirely to this worldly wealth).49 The language employed here is very close to the qualifiers in Augustinus’s renunciation of wealth quoted above (72.12–18): he, unlike Dives, does not love wealth ‘to swiðe’ or ‘ful ungemetlice’ (‘too much’ or ‘very immoderately’).50 Material wealth is acceptable in moderation, provided it is put to good use.

This life and the next In the Soliloquia, one of his earlier works, Augustine conflates the Christian Kingdom of Heaven with the Neoplatonic intelligible reality, the realm of the intellectus, which is accessible in this life. As a result, Augustine is able to describe the soul knowing both certain wisdom and God while still in the body. By contrast, the Old English translator appears reluctant to acknowledge that it is possible to know either true wisdom or God (the 48

49 50

The biblical source for this parable is Luke 16.19–31, though the author may also have known it from the Old English Dialogues (309.25–311.16) or Pastoral Care (309.2–8 and 337.23–339.6), or the Latin version of either of these translations. The author may also have been familiar with Gregory’s Homily on Luke 16.91–31. See Carnicelli, ed., King Alfred’s Version, pp. 28 and 106. See also Pastoral Care 339.2. Note also the use of brucan in this passage, as in the quotation from the Pastoral Care. Bately, ‘Alfred as Author and Translator’, p. 134, finds linguistic parallels between two different passages in the Soliloquies and Pastoral Care which offer qualified versions of their sources’ condemnation of worldly things.

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Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus two are often understood to be synonymous) in this life. Though he sometimes translates sections which do imply this belief, on other occasions, he makes additions that explicitly contradict this possibility.51 For example, Gesceadwisnes makes an analogy between God and the sun, a comparison drawn from the Latin which reappears on multiple occasions throughout the translation. She declares: Forði me þincð swiðe dysi man þe wilnat þæt we hine eallunga ongytan swilcene swilc he is, þa hwile þe we on þysse worlde beoð. hwæt, ic wene þæt nan man si to þam dysig þæt he forði unrotsige þeah he ne mage þas sunnan, þe we lichamlicum eagum onlociað, eallunga geseon and ongytan swilce swilce heo is. Ac ælc fagnað þæs þe læste he ongytan mæg by hys andgytes mæðe. Wel se deð þe wilnað þa ecan sunnan and ælmyhtian to ongytænne. Ac he deð swiðe disilice, gyf he wilnað þæt he hi52 ealunga ongyte þa hwile þe he in þisse worlde byð. (69.26–70.5) (Therefore I think him a very foolish man who desires that we entirely perceive Him [God] just as he is, while we are in this world. Indeed, I believe that no man is so foolish that he is consequently sad if he cannot entirely see the sun, which we look upon with our bodily eyes, and perceive it just as it is. But each rejoices in that little which he can perceive through the measure of his understanding. Well does he who desires to perceive the sun and the Almighty. But he does very foolishly, if he desires to entirely perceive them while he is in this world.)

Augustinus must accept that the true knowledge he desires will not be granted until he leaves this world. Materiality and corporeality prove an impediment to that complete and unqualified perception. Nonetheless, in this life he can enjoy (fægnian) that small glimpse of the wisdom that awaits him in heaven. We might be reminded here of Wisdom’s interpretation of the andweard (‘present’) wealth of this life in the Old English Boethius:

51

52

See Carnicelli, ed., King Alfred’s Version, p. 101: the passages that assert that it is impossible to truly know God in this life are 69.26–70.5, 76.28–77.2 and 79.17– 21; the translated passages that allow for this possibility are 67.3–5, 67.20–68.3 and 79.4–8. Carnicelli, moreover, observes that the translator of the Boethius likewise asserts that it is impossible to know either God or wisdom in this life: King Alfred’s Version, p. 101. See also Soliloquies 87.4–7, on man not being able to know all he wishes until death, and not as clearly as he would wish until Judgement Day. For a similar transformation of a passage from the Dialogi in the Old English Napier Homily I, which insists that ‘certainty concerning spiritual matters is possible only after death’, see D. Thomas, ‘Rewriting Gregory the Great: The Prison Analogy in Napier Homily I’, RES 68 (2017), 203–23, at p. 218. While hi has been translated ‘them’ here, assuming that Gesceadwisnes refers to both God and the sun, it could likewise be the accusative singular feminine pronoun, referring to the sun only.

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The Familiar and the Strange: The Old English Soliloquies this wealth, he tells Mod, is both a tacn (‘sign’) of the wealth to come, and the angin (‘beginning’) of the reward decreed by God. In this life we are granted a glimpse of something which will ultimately be fulfilled in the next, when all materiality and corporeality are swept away. In vernacular poetry such as Beowulf, a parallel can be found in the brief contact that humans have with treasure. Ancient and enduring, imbued with legends and histories which far exceed human memory, treasure offers those who come into contact with it a glimpse of something that transcends mortal time and concerns. Although the materiality of this life is ultimately a barrier to complete knowledge of God in the Old English Soliloquies, the translator does seem to acknowledge the importance of the material world, not only in the quest towards sure understanding, but also for its own sake. We need only think back to the analogy of the lord’s ærendgewrit (‘letter’) and insegel (‘seal’) (62.22–5): the seal, a material thing perceived entirely by the senses, acts as a stepping-stone, or a rung on the ladder, towards the certain knowledge of his trustworthy lord. From the perspective of Augustine’s own principles of use and enjoyment, outlined in his De doctrina Christiana, we might say that Augustinus would use the seal in order to achieve that which should be enjoyed. Thing theory would suggest that he uses the seal as a tool, therefore denying its ‘thingness’. However, as in some of the other Alfredian texts we have encountered, I would argue that the Soliloquies does reveal an appreciation for material things beyond mere use or functionality. In this same analogy of the lord and the seal, it will be recalled, Augustinus is asked whether he would choose the wealth given to him by the lord, or the lord who gave it to him. He chooses the lord without a doubt; but admits quite readily that if allowed both, he would like the wealth as well. He shows, very rightly, that he prioritises the source of the stream of wealth (his lord), but also that he values its end (the wealth itself). A similar example to the seal analogy can be found in Gesceadwisnes’s explanation of the principles of geometry. In this section, Gesceadwisnes asks Augustinus if he understands geometry through his ‘eagum’ (‘eyes’) or his ‘ingeþance’ (‘mind, thought’) (61.13–14). Augustinus promptly responds that he first uses his eyes: ‘ða eagan me gebrodton on þam angytte’ (61.14) (‘the eyes brought me to understanding’). He goes on, however, to abandon this sensory form of knowledge and rely on his intellect, using the analogy of beginning a journey with a ship, but abandoning it when one reaches dry land, as the journey over land would be considerably easier without it: ‘Eaðre me þincð þeah myd scipe on drigum lande to farande þonne me þynce mid ðam eagum buta þara gesceadwisnes ænigne creft to geleornianne, þeah eagam þær-to hwilum fultmian scylen’ (61.20–2) (‘it seems to me easier to travel by ship on dry land than to learn any skill with the eyes, without reason; nevertheless, 133

Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus eyes will sometimes help with that’).53 Here, although the material tools of geometry are eventually abandoned in favour of the abstract power of gesceadwisnes, Augustinus builds a strong case for the importance of sensory perception as a step on the ladder towards true understanding. Moreover, Gesceadwisnes’s passing allusion to the materials one might use to study geometry is oddly specific: ‘onn anum þoðere oðþe on æpple oððe on æge atefred’ (60.16–17) (‘on a ball or on an apple or on a painted egg’). The enumeration of these individual things generates a profound sense of their ‘thingness’, their identity beyond the mere functionality of teaching geometry. The translator’s nod to the painted egg, especially, has the effect of reminding readers of the liveliness of material things. We are reminded again of Augustinus’s plea for familiarity, for the things that are known through the senses. This appreciation of what is known through sensory interaction informs what is probably the most striking image in the Old English Soliloquies. Gesceadwisnes articulates the desire for complete, unadulterated knowledge through the image of touching another body without the barrier of clothing: ‘Ic ongyte nu þæt þu lufast þone wisdom swa swiðe, and þe lyst hine swa wel nacode ongitan and gefredan þæt þu noldest þæt ænig clað betweuh were’ (75.22–4) (‘I see now that you love wisdom so much, and that you greatly desire to know and feel it naked, so that you would not want there to be any clothes between’). Again, we can identify a profound desire for proximity to the thing which one wants to know. The analogy operates on principles founded in the material world: physical proximity has no significance in a solely abstract realm. The yearning for physical proximity receives full expression in Book III, when Gesceadwisnes stresses the impediment caused by the physical body: ‘Ac þæt mod is mid þa lichaman gehefegod and abysgod, þæt we ne magon myd þæs modes eagum nan þing geseon swylc swilc hyt is’ (92.22–93.2) (‘but the mind is weighed down and troubled by the body, so that we may not with the mind’s eye see anything just as it is’). The heavy matter of the body prevents one from attaining physical proximity to God, and from enjoying true wisdom. Gesceadwisnes draws once again on the analogy of God as the sun to emphasise to Augustinus that one cannot attain full knowledge in this life: ‘þu hyne ne myht ful sweotole geseon swilce swilc heo is, forðam þu ne eart ðer þær heo is’ (93.5–6) (‘you cannot see it entirely clearly just as it is, because you are not there where it is’). Though matter is what prevents man from knowing God truly, this yearning to be there where God is takes its departure from the physical, sensory relationships of the

53

Cf. Soliloquia 1.IV.9; Watson, ed. and trans., Soliloquies, p. 36. On nautical metaphors in the translations associated with Alfred, see Wilcox, ‘Alfred’s Epistemological Metaphors’.

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The Familiar and the Strange: The Old English Soliloquies material world, and the understanding that to be proximate to something is to know it better. A reader of the Soliloquies may well wonder what the point of pursuing wisdom is, if it is impossible to fully attain it until after death. The Old English translator counters such uncertainty with assurances that our love of wisdom during life provides us with joy in this life and is necessary preparation for the next. Even as Gesceadwisnes tells Augustinus that no man should expect to see God as He really is in this life, she comments: ‘Ac ælc fagnað þæs þe læste he ongytan mæg by hys andgytes mæðe’ (70.2–3) (‘but each rejoices in that little which he can perceive through the measure of his understanding’). The same philosophy applies to wisdom: ‘Ac nota þæs wisdomes þe þu habbæ and fagene ðæs dæles þe þu ongitan magæ, and higa georne æfter maran’ (79.22–4) (‘but make use of the wisdom which you have and rejoice in that portion which you can perceive, and hasten eagerly after the greater’). Moreover, one of the translator’s major additions to Augustine’s definition of the soul’s knowledge is his assertion that the more one pursues wisdom on earth, the more one will receive in heaven: nis þæs æac to wenanne þæt ealle men hæbben gelicne wisdom on heofenum Ac ælc hefð be þam andefnum þe he ær æfter ærnað; swa ær he hær swiðor swincð and swiðor giornð wisdomes and rihtwisnesse, swa he hys þær mare hæft, and æac maren are and maren wuldor. (94.9–13) (It is also not to be believed that all men have the same wisdom in heaven. But each has [wisdom] by the amount which he previously strived for [it]; as previously he more greatly laboured and more greatly desired wisdom and righteousness here, so he will have more of it there, and also more honour and more glory).54

Gesceadwisnes therefore offers strong motives for pursuing wisdom in this life: not only is it enjoyable in its own right, anticipating complete wisdom, it also increases the wisdom available in the afterlife.55

54

55

Carnicelli, ed., King Alfred’s Version, p. 105, comments on the originality of this concept of ‘proportionate wisdom in heaven’, suggesting it may be the author’s own; see also Frantzen, King Alfred, p. 80. Carnicelli also observes that while the question of the soul’s knowledge after death is present in the Latin, it is stressed to a greater degree in the Old English: King Alfred’s Version, p. 103; see, for example, 85.13–14, 91.24–7, 92.16–17. The concept of proportionate wisdom does not seem entirely compatible with the idea that all will receive complete knowledge after Judgement Day: see Godden, ‘Text and Eschatology’, p. 204.

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Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus The Old English translator’s attitude to the pursuit of wisdom, therefore, complements his attitude towards the earthly, secular life. The wisdom of this world is limited, yet we should pursue it anyway because, despite its limitations, the level of wisdom that we reach in this life corresponds to that which we will have in heaven. Likewise, while material things suffer the limitations of being transitory and insubstantial, compared with heavenly things, this does not mean that some good cannot be gleaned from them. When Gesceadwisnes explains to Augustinus about the eternal gifts that God bestows upon angels and men’s souls, such as wisdom and righteousness, she does not neglect to mention that God: gyfð eac mannum mænega and mislicum gooda gifa on þissa wurlda, þeah hi eca ne sien. hi beoð þeah stælwyrðe þa hwile þe we on þisse wurlde beoð (82.19–21) (Also gives to men many and various good gifts in this world, though they are not eternal. They are nevertheless serviceable while we are in this world).

We might be reminded here of the gifts that humans are shown to receive from God or wyrd in the Old English Pastoral Care and Boethius, ‘ge on cræftum ge on æhtum’ (‘both in skills and in possessions’): as in the Soliloquies, the material gifts received on earth may not be lasting, but they are ‘stælwyrðe’ (‘serviceable, stalwart’). The earthly life in the Old English Soliloquies represents a preparation for the heavenly one. They could be considered two distinct stages on the same journey, or separate rungs on a ladder, although I would argue that the Soliloquies in fact presents these limited earthly experiences as possibilities for enjoyment, as is suggested by the translator’s use of the verb fægnian (‘to rejoice, be glad’) when discussing the brief glimpses of God and wisdom available in this life (70.2–3; 79.22–4). This reading accords well with the translator’s repeated use of models from lived experience, and moreover will elucidate the metaphors of the original and perplexing preface to the Old English Soliloquies.

The preface to the Soliloquies The preface to the Old English Soliloquies differs from the prose and verse prefaces to the Pastoral Care and Boethius in that it does not name Alfred as author: it differs further in its rhetoric, which relies, unlike the other prefaces, on the unfurling of an extended metaphor, the interpretation of which is still the subject of debate. The preface begins in media res with an unidentified speaker describing the process of gathering materials from

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The Familiar and the Strange: The Old English Soliloquies a forest to construct a building, encouraging others to do the same.56 The object of this activity is to create a dwelling place where one may live comfortably in both winter and summer. The metaphor then shifts its focus from wood-gathering and building to the dwelling-place itself, and a spiritual dimension is introduced: Ac se þe me lærde, þam se wudu licode, se mæg gedon þæt ic softor eardian mæge ægðer ge on þisum lænan stoclife be þis wæge ða hwile þe ic on þisse weorulde beo, ge eac on þam ecan hame ðe he us gehaten hefð þurh sanctus Augustinus and sanctus Gregorius and sanctus Ieronimus, and þurh manege oððre halie fæderas (47.12–16) (But He who instructed me, to whom the wood was pleasing, He can make it that I dwell more easily both in this transitory dwelling place, on this way, while I am in this world, and also in the eternal home which He has promised us through Saint Augustine and Saint Gregory and Saint Jerome, and through many other holy fathers).

The speaker expresses his hope that his instructor, presumably God, the one who promised the eternal home, will both make ‘þisne weig gelimpfulran’ (47.17) (‘this way more convenient’) and ‘mines modes eagan to þam ongelihte þæt ic mage rihtne weig aredian’ (48.1–2) (‘enlighten my mind’s eyes so that I can find the right way’) to the eternal home, honour and rest that have been promised. The metaphor shifts again as the speaker introduces a lord-servant model similar to those examples which we have encountered in the main text,57 comparing the transitory home with the dwelling place that is built on land leased by one’s 56

57

There is some debate as to whether there is any text missing from the beginning of the preface, not only due to the absence of any details of setting or who is speaking, but also because of the presence of the adverb þonne (‘then’) in the first line; as Carnicelli, ed., King Alfred’s Version, pp. 1–2, maintains, if any material is missing, it would also be missing in the exemplar, as the g of the first word, gaderode (‘gathered’) is a ‘large, illuminated capital’. S. Potter, ‘King Alfred’s Last Preface’, Philologica: The Malone Anniversary Studies, ed. T. A. Kirby and H. B. Woolf (Baltimore, 1949), pp. 25–30, at pp. 28–9, has argued that it is not necessary to assume that the opening is defective, as þonne is ‘a light adverb whose function is rhythmic rather than semantic’. However, S. Irvine, Uncertain Beginnings: The Prefatory Tradition in Old English, H. M. Chadwick Memorial Lectures 27 (Cambridge, 2017), pp. 14–15, has suggested that the opening words of the preface as it stands, gaderode me þonne, represent a truncated form of a conventional, stylistic device for starting a new section in a text, positing, therefore, that there may well be at least one missing section preceding this. As Irvine, ‘Alfredian Prefaces and Epilogues’, p. 165, observes, the preface ‘draws parallels between the earthly and spiritual’ which anticipate the dialogue that follows.

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Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus lord, and the eternal home with the dwelling that is given in perpetuity through a lord’s kindness: ælcne man lyst, siððan he ænig cotlyf on his hlafordes læne myd his fultume getimbred hæfð, þæt he hine mote hwilum þar-on gerestan, and huntigan and fuglian, and fiscian, and his on gehwilce wisan to þere lænan tilian, ægþær ge on se ge on lande, oð þone fyrst þe he bocland and æce yrfe þurh his hlafordes miltse geearnige. (48.5–9) (Each man desires, once he has built a dwelling on his lord’s leased land with his help, that he might rest there for a time, and hunt and fowl and fish, and to provide for himself from the leasehold in every way, both on sea and on land, until the time when he earns bookland and perpetual inheritance through the kindness of his lord.)

The ideal of the generous lord anticipates the ideal secular society as presented in the main text of the Soliloquies. This lord offers his subject not only a leasehold and bookland, land which has been ‘booked’ in a charter,58 but also the intangible gifts of fultum (‘help’) and milts (‘kindness’).59 The author then makes an explicit comparison between the earthly lord and eternal Lord, ‘se weliga gifola, se ðe egðer wilt ge þissa lænena stoclife ge þara ecena hama’ (48.9–10) (‘the wealthy generous-one, he who rules both this transitory dwelling place and the eternal home’), before closing with a brief description of the text that will follow. The extended metaphor of the preface can therefore be seen to have three overlapping stages: the wood-cutting and building; the temporary and enduring homes; and the Lord who controls both temporal and eternal realms, who bears some resemblance to the earthly lord. Critics have tended to focus on the first of these stages, comparing the gathering of wood to the conventional metaphor of flower gathering which represents the compilation of a florilegium.60 The traditional reading is that the wood represents the work of patristic authors, specifically those mentioned in the preface, and the house represents the Soliloquies, or multiple Alfredian translations.61 However, Treschow has warned against 58

59

60

61

Bookland was not taxed in the same way as leased land, and the owner had the freedom to bequeath it to anyone they liked after their death: Keynes and Lapidge, ed. and trans., Alfred the Great, pp. 308–9. Milts can also be translated as ‘mercy’, often God’s, a reminder that the earthly lord is to be compared with the heavenly ruler: B-T, s.v. milts. Potter, ‘King Alfred’s Last Preface’, p. 27; Potter notes that while the flower-gathering metaphor is replaced by one ‘far more vigorous and original’ in the preface, it does appear in the links between books: see 83.13–14 and 92.13. Potter, ‘King Alfred’s Last Preface’, p. 27; R. Abels, Alfred the Great: War, Kingship and Culture in Anglo-Saxon England (London, 1998), p. 235. Frantzen, King Alfred, pp. 71–2, offers a subtly different reading: the wood represents the ideas of the

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The Familiar and the Strange: The Old English Soliloquies conflating the flower and wood gathering metaphors, as, he asserts, the Soliloquies is actually not a florilegium.62 Moreover, this reading does not readily accommodate the later developments of the metaphor: though it is easy to see how the construction of the dwelling-place represents the translation process, it is not clear what the eternal counterpart represents in this analogy. Valerie Heuchan’s argument that the gathered wood, the writings, ‘will both make the present life more pleasant and instruct the individual in the way to attain eternal life’ goes some way to addressing this flaw.63 Other critics have proposed that it is more fruitful to focus on the construction of the heavenly home, rather than the gathering motif; as Milton Gatch argues, the author ‘concentrates primarily not upon the act of gathering from the Fathers but upon the use to which the building materials are put’, that is, the preparation of the heavenly home.64 The understanding that the earthly home is a preparation for the heavenly anticipates the argument of the main text, in which the earthly, secular life is not a distraction from the heavenly life, but a useful, and even enjoyable, stage on the journey.65

62

63

64

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patristic writings and the house ‘Alfred’s reconstruction of those thoughts into his own concepts’. M. Treschow, ‘Wisdom’s Land: King Alfred’s Imagery in his Preface to his Translation of Augustine’s Soliloquies’, in Divine Creation in Ancient, Medieval and Early Modern Thought: Essays Presented to the Rev’d Dr. Robert D. Crouse, ed. M. Treschow, W. Otten and W. Hannam, Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History 151 (Leiden, 2007), pp. 257–84, at p. 259; see also Gatch, ‘King Alfred’s Version’, pp. 23–4. This view can be contrasted with Potter, ‘King Alfred’s Last Preface’, p. 27: ‘King Alfred’s last book is, to be sure, a chrestomathy or anthology, a gathering of flowers, blossoms or blooms from the spiritual gardens, meadows and orchards of the fathers’. V. Heuchan, ‘God’s Co-workers and the Powerful Tools: A Study of the Sources of Alfred’s Building Metaphor in the Old English Translation of Augustine’s Soliloquies’, N&Q 54 (2007), 1–11, at p. 3. Gatch, ‘King Alfred’s Version’, p. 24, suggests, moreover, that the construction image could be understood as ‘a variant upon a rhetorical topic that might be called “feathering one’s nest” or “preparing one’s dwelling in the heavenly homeland”’, which he identifies in The Phoenix and a passage of Ælfric’s. P. Gradon, Form and Style in Early English Literature (London, 1971), p. 168, argues that the ‘distinction between a house on lease and a house held by charter is a happy comparison neatly twisting the conventional reference to “heavenly mansions”’. Images of a ‘way’ or ‘road’ occur frequently in both the preface and the main text; as Treschow, ‘Wisdom’s Land’, p. 277, argues, the earthly dwelling place is also a ‘pilgrimage’; as the speaker dwells there he is simultaneously ‘making his way forward’. Examples of journey imagery in the Soliloquies and its preface can be found at 47.13 and 17, 48.1–2, 52.17–18, 55.13–14, 55.20, 56.4–5 and 69.5.

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Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus In Treschow’s recent interpretation of the preface, the forest represents not books but wisdom: going to the forest means accessing this mental space, while the earthly home ‘represents the temporal cultivation of wisdom’, and is ‘proleptic of paradise’, the heavenly home.66 The distinction Treschow makes is noteworthy, as it is a distinction between physical, material books and the meditative, immaterial space of one’s own mind. The construction of the dwelling-place can then be seen to draw upon the motif of ‘building the house of wisdom’: Treschow refers to the biblical example of the wise man that built his house upon a rock (Matthew 7.24), and a similar example can be found in the Boethius, when Wisdom urges Mod to build his house of wisdom on the firm ground of humility.67 In this reading, I would suggest, the image of the two houses of wisdom can moreover be understood as a visualisation of the translator’s belief that the amount we pursue wisdom in this life relates to the amount we receive in heaven, in that the earthly house is, as Treschow argues, ‘proleptic of paradise’.68 While the heavenly life and the wisdom one possesses there are far superior to the earthly world and the meagre amount of wisdom available in it, a life lived in wisdom is nonetheless a necessary – and possibly enjoyable – prior stage. As Gesceadwisnes declares in the main text: Đi me þincð swiðe dysig man and swiðe unlæde, þe nele hys andgyt æcan þa hwile þe he on þisse weorulde byð, and simle wiscan and willnian þæt he mote cuman to ðam æcan lyfe þær us nanwiht byð dygles (97.15–16) (Therefore I think him a very foolish and miserable man, who will not increase his understanding while he is in this world, and always wish and desire that he might come to the eternal life where nothing is concealed from us).

In the preface, the speaker both constructs the earthly house of wisdom, 66

67

68

Treschow, ‘Wisdom’s Land’, pp. 272–8. Similarly, Frantzen, King Alfred, p. 72, argues that in the forest, one finds knowledge, and in the cottage one ‘finds two uses for it: to enjoy life in this world, and to pursue salvation and happiness in the next’. Treschow, ‘Wisdom’s Land’, p. 260. See B12, especially lines 6–7: ‘gif þu wisdom timbrian wille ne sete þu hine onuppan þa gitsunga’ (‘if you wish to build wisdom do not set it upon avarice’); and lines 14–18: ‘Ac se þe wille habban þa ecan gesælða, he sceal fleon þone frecnan wlite þises middaneardes and timbrian þæt hus his modes on þam fæstan stane eaðmetta, forþam þe Crist eardað on þære dene eadmodnesse and on þam gemynde wisdomes’ (‘but he who wishes to have eternal blessings, he must flee the terrible beauty of this earth and build the house of his mind on the firm stone of humility, for Christ dwells in the valley of humility and in the memory of wisdom’). Treschow, ‘Wisdom’s Land’, p. 276.

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The Familiar and the Strange: The Old English Soliloquies and looks forward to the day when he will be granted its heavenly counterpart. The importance of both living well in this life and aspiring to the next is encapsulated in the speaker’s desire to be ‘nytwyrde’ (‘useful’) here and ‘þider to cumane’ (‘to come thither’) (48.12). As we have seen, the desire for usefulness resonates throughout the translations associated with Alfred. Living well in this life is not only necessary but also enjoyable, as the speaker’s description of the earthly dwelling-place demonstrates: he fondly evokes the possibility of rest and self-sufficiency, which depends primarily on the aristocratic leisure pursuits of hunting and fishing (48.5–8). As Paul Szarmach argues: ‘The speaker finds value in earthly pursuits and sees them in positive relation to the pursuit of heaven’.69 This appreciation of earthly life is echoed by Augustinus’s frank avowal in the main text: æalle þas weorlde ic lufige, ælc ðinc be ðam dæle þe ic hyt nytwyrðe ongyte, and huru þa þing swiðost þe me to wisdome fultimiað (76.14–16) (I love all this world, each thing by the portion which I understand it to be useful, and indeed those things most of all which help me to wisdom).70

This passage, of course, recalls Augustine’s principles of enjoyment and use. Although usefulness dictates the degree to which Augustinus loves something, I would argue that his love for the things of this world in fact exceeds mere use. His attitude here recalls the appreciation that the speaker of the preface has for the earthly dwelling place, both as a step towards the heavenly home, and also as something which he enjoys for its own sake. Earthly things, even material things, are to be loved and rejoiced in perhaps not only for their usefulness, but because they are enjoyable in their own right. While the relationship between the generous lord and grateful subject is a metaphor for man’s relationship with God, it nonetheless serves to locate the speaker’s pursuit of wisdom within a secular context dominated by the exchange of wealth and friendship: the wealthy benefactor bestows upon his dependent the means by which he may pursue wisdom. As we have seen, this exchange between lord and subject reoccurs in metaphors throughout the main text of the translation, reinforcing and validating the ideals of secular, aristocratic life. This idealised relationship may well reflect the actual context in which the Soliloquies was produced:

69

70

Szarmach, ‘Augustine’s Soliloquia in Old English’, p. 236. See also Treschow, ‘Wisdom’s Land’, p. 278. Cf. Soliloquia 1.XIII.22.

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Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus King Alfred, for example, is known to have patronised craftsmen and encouraged scholars and ecclesiastics through gifts of material wealth.71 As in the main text, wealth is central to this idealised relationship between lord and subject, with God Himself referred to as the ‘weliga gifola’ (48.10) (‘wealthy generous-one’). Welig may seem an unusual epithet for God in a text which later tells the story of the evil rich man and Lazarus; however, the wealth of the weliga gifola is acceptable, even to be desired, as it is in motion, a gift from superior to inferior, and not the object of an individual’s greedy desire. It is worth remembering, though, that the ideal society presented in both the preface and main text may not be an exact reflection of lived experience. In the preface, the speaker contrasts the transitory leasehold with the ‘bocland and æce yrfe’ (48.9) (‘bookland and eternal inheritance’). The phrase ece yrfe is a legal construction which means ‘in perpetuity’, and so the author conveys both the literal sense of bocland and moreover the metaphorical dimension of the eternal inheritance of heaven.72 However, a piece of contemporary charter evidence in which the phrase ece yrfe appears shatters the illusion of the idealised social hierarchy as presented in the preface, in which the wealthy lord bestows property on his dependent in exchange for friendship. A charter dating from 892–9, which records a grant of land from King Alfred to a certain Deormod, states: Deormod gebohte æt Ælfred cyninge mid fiftigum mancessan arodenes goldes fif hida land on ece yrfe ælces þinges freoh butan fyrde & fæstingeweorces on þisum land fæst (Deormod bought from King Alfred with fifty mancusses of red gold five hides of land in perpetuity, free from all things except from military service and fortification work, secure in this land).73

While the preface to the Soliloquies implies that wealth flows in a downwards direction from a generous and selfless lord to his grateful dependents, in this charter the reality is a mutually beneficial financial exchange between Alfred and Deormod. Moreover, while the terminology of wealth in the main text is dominated by the ambiguous wela, the reference to

71 72 73

VA 76–9, 81 and 91. DOE, s.v. ece. P. H. Sawyer, ed., Anglo-Saxon Charters: An Annotated List and Bibliography, Royal Historical Society Guides and Handbooks 8 (London, 1968), p. 158, no. 355; see also W. d. G. Birch, ed., Cartularium Saxonicum: A Collection of Charters Relating to Anglo-Saxon History, 3 vols (London, 1885–93), II, pp. 223–4, no. 581. The Latin section of the charter reveals that Alfred received land, as well as gold, in exchange for his grant of land, meaning that the fifty mancusses was not the only payment that Deormod was required to make.

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The Familiar and the Strange: The Old English Soliloquies aroden gold in the charter situates the exchange in specifically material terms.74 The reality of relationships between lord and dependent in the late ninth century does not quite correlate with the idealised image presented in the Soliloquies: rather, this is the society to which the author aspires. In conclusion, then, the translator of the Soliloquies evidently did not spurn the secular life: his frequent recourse to the aristocratic world of his own time seems to suggest that he understood that a life lived in secular society, in pursuit of wisdom, was a valuable preparation for the heavenly afterlife. He is conscious of the dangers of wealth, but also very aware of its benefits and uses. These factors seem to suggest either that the translator was a layman or, if he was an ecclesiastic, that he was thoroughly involved in secular life and was perhaps writing for a secular audience. De consolatione and Soliloquia both denigrate the earthly life, to varying extents, as inferior to the spiritual. The Old English translations of these texts, the Boethius and the Soliloquies, likewise, insist upon the priority of this spiritual life. However, while promoting the spiritual pursuit of God, they nonetheless show that a secular life, lived well, could be incorporated into the pursuit of heavenly rewards. While prioritising the next life above this earthly, material one, both translations repeatedly seek out links between the two. In the Soliloquies, especially, the translator acknowledges that the material things of this world are not just useful, but moreover worthy of love and even enjoyment. The final translation associated with Alfred to be considered here, the Prose Psalms, similarly attempt to find room for the secular and material world, including possession of wealth, in a life of piety.

74

On the interpretation of aroden, which appears only on this occasion, see DOE, s.v. aroden. On charter payments specified in terms of gold, the frequency of which contrasts with the relatively low incidence of archaeological discovery of gold from the period, see Naismith ‘Economy of Beowulf’, p. 381.

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5. Treasure in Heaven: The Prose Psalms

T

he Old English Prose Psalms offer a characteristically Alfredian retelling of one of the most familiar books of the Bible.1 While retaining the devotional aspects of the Psalms which render them so appealing for personal prayer, the translator of the Prose Psalms introduces a pragmatic tone and advice for good secular living reminiscent of the Old English Pastoral Care, Boethius and Soliloquies. Like these texts, the Prose Psalms promote the ideology that piety is readily compatible with involvement in worldly affairs, and that one can be devout not in spite of one’s worldly activities but because of them. Central to the good secular life is the appropriate use of wealth. The translator acknowledges the dangers that wealth can pose to human souls, but nonetheless recognises the benefits that good use of wealth can bring about, when treated with wisdom. The translator’s efforts to clarify the often cryptic wisdom of the Psalms results in a text that offers practical advice on wealth which is directly relevant to contemporary readers.2 The transformation from the enigmatic text of the Romanum Psalter to the clear lessons found in the Old English version finds a parallel in the transformation from ignorance to understanding on the part of the reader. Moreover, I will suggest that the Prose Psalms understand wealth as a current which runs from earth to heaven, as we have already seen in the case of the Pastoral Care. As in that translation, though, wealth cannot go straight to heaven unchanged: just as the reader turns from ignorance to understanding, so too must wealth be transformed from an earthly to a heavenly currency. As we shall see, this transformation is effected through the powerful act of almsgiving. Through giving alms, the giver shows awareness that the tangible, material prosperity of this life is not

1

2

See M. J. Toswell, The Anglo-Saxon Psalter, Medieval Church Studies 10 (Turnhout, 2014), pp. 3–4, on the widespread familiarity of the Psalms in early medieval England, in both lay and monastic spheres. See also F. Leneghan, ‘Introduction: A Case Study of Psalm 50.1–3 in Old and Middle English’, in The Psalms and Medieval English Literature: From the Conversion to the Reformation, ed. T. Atkin and F. Leneghan (Cambridge, 2017), pp. 1–33, at p. 1–3. See J. M. Bately, ‘The Nature of Old English Prose’, in The Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature, ed. M. Godden and M. Lapidge (Cambridge, 1986), pp. 71–87, at pp. 75–6.

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Treasure in Heaven: The Prose Psalms the endpoint of their wealth. The importance of understanding that one’s material existence is by no means stable or enduring is stressed again and again throughout the Prose Psalms and, moreover, finds a perhaps unexpected counterpart in Old English poetry.

Translating the Psalms: style, sources and interpretation The Old English prose translation of the psalms, traditionally attributed to Alfred the Great, covers only Psalms 1–50: it is unclear whether this is all that remains of a full translation, or whether the translator intentionally stopped at Psalm 50. The only surviving copy of this text is found in Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS Fonds latin 8824, ff. 1–63v, or ‘The Paris Psalter’.3 The Paris Psalter also contains Old English metrical versions of the subsequent psalms, 51–150, as well as a full Romanum version of the Psalms, with the Old English and Latin texts presented in parallel columns.4 Though the manuscript is mid-eleventh century, the text of the Prose Psalms can be dated to before the tenth century.5 A long tradition of psalm translation had already been established in England by the tenth century, mostly in the form of interlinear glossed psalters, providing a 3

4

5

The Paris Psalter is missing a folio between fols. 20–1 containing the end of Psalm 20 and the introduction and rubric to Psalm 21; a folio between fols. 26–7 containing the end of Psalm 25 and the introduction to Psalm 26; a folio between fols. 45–6 containing the rubric to Psalm 38 and Psalm 38.2–6a; and two folios after fol. 63 containing the end of Psalm 50: O’Neill, ed., Prose Translation, pp. 122, 128–9, 147, 163. Fragments of the introductions which accompany most of the psalms in the Old English translation are also found in London, British Library, MS Cotton Vitellius E.xviii: O’Neill, ed., Prose Translation, p. 1. For an edition of these fragmentary introductions, see P. Pulsiano, ‘The Old English Introductions in the Vitellius Psalter’, SN 63 (1991), 13–35. As Frantzen, King Alfred, p. 90, notes, the London manuscript does not appear to have been made from the Paris manuscript but, rather, both manuscripts seem to share a common ancestor. O’Neill, ed., Prose Translation, p. 10, observes that the Latin of the Paris Psalter is ‘not directly related’ to either Old English text. See also R. L. Ramsay, ‘The Latin Text of the Paris Psalter: A Collation and Some Conclusions’, The American Journal of Philology 41 (1920), 147–76, at p. 152. For the full text and translation of both the Prose Psalms and Metrical Psalms, see P. P. O’Neill, ed. and trans., Old English Psalms, Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library 42 (Cambridge, MA, 2016). Gneuss and Lapidge, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts, pp. 643–4, no. 891; O’Neill, ed., Prose Translation, p. 21, dates the Paris Psalter to between 1030 and c. 1050; see also J. M. Bately, ‘Old English Prose Before and During the Reign of Alfred’, ASE 17 (1988), 93–138, at p. 97. Vitellius E.xviii, containing fragments of the introductions, dates from the mid or latter part of the eleventh century: Gneuss and Lapidge, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts, pp. 334–5, no. 407.

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Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus readily available, fairly uniform vocabulary. However, the language of the Prose Psalms often differs from that of the Old English glossed psalter tradition.6 The translator’s aim, it appears, is to render the text of the Psalms in terms understandable to contemporary readers, while glossed psalters tend to translate the Latin text word for word, which does not necessarily result in readable Old English.7 Bately’s observation on the difference between translation and transformation in the Alfredian corpus is apposite here: she argues that translation only replicates the problems of the source text in the destination language, while transformation, explication of difficult material through addition and adaptation of the source text, solves these problems.8 As M. J. Toswell maintains, the prose text of the Paris Psalter is ‘more adaptation than translation’.9 While the Prose Psalms are closer to their source than the Boethius or the Soliloquies, it is possible to detect the translator at work, especially in the individual introductions to each Psalm. Here we can identify the translator selecting material from commentaries and glosses, and reshaping the source material to make the version of the Psalms which will best suit his purposes. One such purpose is to clarify the lyrical ambiguity of the Psalms. The Romanum, the primary source for the Old English translation, poses many problems, not least because it is itself a translation of a Greek version of the Psalms, ultimately derived from the Hebrew.10 The Latin text thus preserves certain aspects of Hebrew poetry which, according to Patrick O’Neill, is ‘replete with highly idiomatic language, anthropomorphisms and images evocative of Hebrew culture’.11 On a syntactical level, T. R. Henn observes that in biblical Hebrew, the ‘poverty of connecting particles’ results in ‘a simple disjunctive style, working in short units’.12

6

7

8 9 10

11

12

P. P. O’Neill, ‘The Prose Translation of Psalms 1–50’, in A Companion to Alfred the Great, ed. Discenza and Szarmach, pp. 256–81, at pp. 258–9. On the translator’s frequent use of mod (‘mind’) for the Latin words cor (‘heart’) and anima (‘soul’), in contrast to the glossed psalter tradition, see Faulkner, ‘The Mind in the Old English Prose Psalms’, pp. 604–6. However, not all glossed psalters consistently value word-for-word accuracy over readability; J. Roberts, ‘Some Anglo-Saxon Psalters and their Glosses’, in The Psalms and Medieval Literature, ed. Atkin and Leneghan, pp. 37–71, at p. 49, argues that the Regius Psalter scribe ‘sometimes thinks in phrases’. Bately, Literary Prose, pp. 13–14; see also O’Neill, ed., Prose Translation, p. 45. Toswell, Anglo-Saxon Psalter, p. 75. On the Romanum as the main source for the Prose Psalms, see O’Neill, ed., Prose Translation, p. 31. P. P. O’Neill, ‘Strategies of Translation in the Old English Versions (Prose and Metrical) of the Psalms in the Paris Psalter (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Fonds latin 8824)’, Bulletin of the Institute of Oriental and Occidental Studies, Kansai University 48 (2015), 137–71, at pp. 142–3. T. R. Henn, The Bible as Literature (London, 1970), p. 33.

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Treasure in Heaven: The Prose Psalms The Prose Psalms retain much of the imagery of their source, though at times present it in different, clearer terms; as Frantzen argues, the translator carries out ‘a thorough revision of the lyricism of the Latin into discourse’.13 The characteristic asyndetic parataxis of the Latin is rendered more coherent through the introduction of connectives and adverbials, joining together verses into syntactically complete units; the addition of demonstratives and pronouns and the removal of certain awkward or unnecessary Latin words serves to further reduce ambiguity.14 While it has been suggested that the Prose Psalms attempt to replicate some of the literary qualities of the Latin,15 O’Neill maintains that this never supersedes the quest for clarity.16 The use of sources in the Prose Psalms reflects this explicatory motivation. For example, while the Old English translation is primarily based on the Romanum, the translator sometimes introduces variants taken from the Gallicanum, Jerome’s version of the Psalms which was widespread in continental Europe from the ninth century: these variants often occur at moments when the Gallicanum offers a clearer reading than the Romanum.17 Likewise, the translator’s focus on the literal and historical strand of Psalm commentary, as opposed to the more prevalent allegorical school of interpretation, could be understood as an attempt to draw out the plainest and most understandable reading of the Psalms.18 O’Neill argues that the Prose Psalms are ‘remarkable’ in preferring the literal interpretations of the Antiochene School, namely that of Theodore of Mopsuestia (c. 350–428).19 There is a strong likelihood that the translator came into contact with an Irish glossed psalter or commentary on the Psalms, as Hiberno-Latin scholarship was the primary transmitter of this historically focussed commentary tradition.20 Moreover, for the introductions to the individual psalms, the translator draws upon the Irish version of the fourfold interpretative system.21 While the traditional fourfold exegesis has one historical clause, one moral, one typological (also 13 14

15 16 17

18 19

20 21

Frantzen, King Alfred, p. 99. O’Neill, ed., Prose Translation, pp. 46–7. O’Neill, ‘Strategies of Translation’, p. 146, observes that this explicatory technique can be contrasted with the more direct translation of the Metrical Psalms. Bately, Literary Prose, p. 14; O’Neill, ed., Prose Translation, p. 49. O’Neill, ed., Prose Translation, p. 52. O’Neill, ed., Prose Translation, p. 33; O’Neill suggests, moreover, that the desire to improve understanding could also be behind ‘occasional correspondences’ with the Hebraicum version of the Psalms. Frantzen, King Alfred, p. 98. O’Neill, ed., Prose Translation, p. 34; Theodore’s commentary survives in a Latin translation made by Julian of Eclanum: Prose Translation, ed. O’Neill, p. 37. O’Neill, ed., Prose Translation, p. 41. O’Neill, ed., Prose Translation, p. 41.

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Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus known as Christological or mystical) and one anagogical, the Irish system replaces the anagogical clause with a second historical one.22 In the Prose Psalms, the focus of the first historical clause is always David (in those that survive), who is presented as the original composer of every psalm, often prophesying events beyond his own time.23 As Emily Butler has observed, the second historical interpretation, when present, is usually concerned with Hezekiah.24 The literal or historical interpretation is typically the most readily understandable form of exegesis, and the fourfold system situates these readings in a framework whereby they are given relevance for the contemporary audience through the moral clause.

Authorship and audience The emphasis on David as the original composer of the Psalms in the Old English translation could be viewed as support for Alfred’s authorship, as Asser’s biography draws out parallels between the two kings, framing Alfred as a novus David.25 The attribution to Alfred comes from the historian William of Malmesbury, writing some several hundred years later, who states that King Alfred began to translate the Psalms; though O’Neill acknowledges that William’s assertions about Alfred’s authorship cannot always be trusted, in his opinion the fact that the Old English Prose Psalms are incomplete, suggesting only the beginning of a translation, supports William’s claim.26 Unlike the other translations considered so far, there is no preface or colophon attached to the text itself which makes the case for the king’s authorship. Nonetheless, a preface could well have been removed, as in the case of one quite late manuscript of the Pastoral

22

23

24

25

26

Frantzen, King Alfred, p. 95; O’Neill, ‘Prose Translation of Psalms 1–50’, p. 264. See O’Neill, ‘Prose Translation of Psalms 1–50’, pp. 264–8, on the translator’s use of the Pseudo-Bede Argumenta as a source for his introductions. Pratt, Political Thought, pp. 250–1, observes that David is presented as the author of every psalm, despite the fact that biblical tituli attribute Pss. 41, 44 and 49 to the sons of Chore and Asaph. E. Butler, ‘“And Thus Did Hezekiah”: Perspectives on Judaism in the Old English Prose Psalms’, RES 67 (2016), 617–35, at p. 617; see also E. Butler, ‘Alfred and the Children of Israel’, N&Q 57 (2010), 10–17, at p. 11. Toswell, Anglo-Saxon Psalter, pp. 64–72; however, it should be noted that it is Solomon, rather than David, with whom Asser directly compares Alfred (VA 76). On the parallels between Alfred and David, see further Pratt, Political Thought, pp. 251–3; Abels, Alfred the Great, p. 239; and D. Orton, ‘Royal Piety and Davidic Imitation: Cultivating Political Capital in the Alfredian Psalms’, Neophilologus 99 (2015), 477–92, at pp. 482–3. O’Neill, ed., Prose Translation, p. 73.

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Treasure in Heaven: The Prose Psalms Care.27 There are certain correspondences between the Prose Psalms and the other Alfredian translations, which could offer support for Alfred’s authorship.28 However, this depends upon the assumption that Alfred was the author of the other translations, which remains a contentious issue. The ‘most important’ sources for the Prose Psalms, O’Neill observes, ‘enjoyed currency in the period before the tenth century’, meaning that it is unlikely that the translation was carried out after Alfred’s lifetime.29 Moreover, the Prose Psalms would be very suitable as a book ‘niedbeðearfosta’ (‘most necessary’) for all men to know (Pastoral Care 7.6–7).30 O’Neill observes that the translator’s ‘exegetical idiosyncrasies’ seem to suggest that he was not a typical biblical commentator, but rather, ‘an “outsider”’.31 This figure of the ‘outsider’ seems to fit very well with Alfred. It is possible, moreover, that the king’s own response to the sacred text could have been supplemented by the learning of his scholars, who would have been better placed to access the obscure branch of commentary which the Prose Psalms draw upon.32 Some critics have read the Prose Psalms in a specifically Alfredian historical context, relating it to the events and politics of his reign.33 Godden, in contrast, draws attention to the absence of any preface attributing the translation to Alfred, and the late date of the Paris Psalter.34 However, it is perhaps unsurprising that a manuscript as late as the Paris Psalter, containing not only the Prose Psalms but also the Romanum text and the Metrical Psalms, does not contain a preface claiming Alfred’s authorship. It is also worth noting that Asser frequently mentions Alfred’s devotion to the Psalms.35 This devotion was more to 27

28 29 30

31 32 33

34 35

Orton, ‘Royal Piety’, p. 479, n. 6; the manuscript is Cambridge, Trinity College, MS R. 5. 22 (717), dating to the late tenth or early eleventh century: Gneuss and Lapidge, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts, pp. 157–8, no. 180. O’Neill, ed., Prose Translation, pp. 74–95. O’Neill, ed., Prose Translation, p. 74. O’Neill, ed., Prose Translation, p. 95. Pratt holds that the Prose Psalms had a central role to play in the supposed educational programme due to the ‘sapiential character of the Psalms’ (Political Thought, p. 261); see further Bately, Literary Prose, p. 11. Anlezark, ‘Which Books are “Most Necessary” to Know?’, pp. 764–7 and 777, argues that prose preface to the Pastoral Care represents a demand for the translation of Scripture into English, building on the preface’s account of scriptural translation over time, and suggests that the Prose Psalms could be ‘evidence of this abortive project’; see also D. Anlezark, Alfred the Great (Kalamazoo, MI, 2017), pp. 83–5. O’Neill, ‘Prose Translation of Psalms 1–50’, p. 281. Frantzen, King Alfred, p. 96. Pratt, Political Thought, p. 258; and M. Treschow, ‘Godes Word for Vox Domini in Psalm 28 of the Paris Psalter: Biblical Translation and Alfredian Politics’, Florilegium 31 (2014), 165–80, at p. 165. Godden, ‘Did Alfred Write Anything?’, p. 4. VA 24, 76 and 88; Asser also mentions that Alfred’s children Edward and

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Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus be expected of a monastic than a layman, though there is some evidence, besides Alfred, of early medieval secular devotion to the Psalms.36 This context of secular piety represents a likely environment for the production of the Prose Psalms. While Alfred may not have personally carried out this translation, the king would, nonetheless, be a good example of the pious lay reader for whom this translation seems to have been created. There are numerous parallels between the Prose Psalms and the other canonical Alfredian translations, which could suggest a single hand behind all four works. These parallels in vocabulary and phrasing have long been the subject of critical attention.37 The Prose Psalms also take the ‘pragmatic approach’ to translation familiar from other Alfredian works, which O’Neill defines as ‘literal translation of straightforward passages with paraphrase of difficult passages’, drawing attention to the shared goal in the Prose Psalms, the Boethius and Soliloquies of making a difficult source text comprehensible to contemporary readers.38 Stanley B. Greenfield and Daniel G. Calder likewise observe that the Prose Psalms make ‘the abstract concrete, as was Alfred’s habit’.39 Bately has criticised attempts to compare the vocabulary of the Prose Psalms with other texts of the Alfredian corpus using linguistic analysis tools, on the grounds that this methodology does not take into account the way that the source text conditions the translator’s vocabulary.40 She moreover argues that

36

37

38 39

40

Ælfthryth learned the Psalms as part of their education (§75). See also Frantzen, King Alfred, p. 90; Bately, Literary Prose, p. 11; O’Neill, ed., Prose Translation, pp. 95–6; and ‘The Prose Translation of Psalms 1–50’, p. 281. O’Neill, ‘Strategies of Translation’, p. 138, observes that while devotion to the Psalms is primarily monastic, there is evidence for secular devotion in late eighth-century France; likewise, Pratt, Political Thought, p. 243, draws attention to ‘the likely presence in England of two Carolingian Psalters, both customized for personal use’. See also D. Anlezark, ‘The Psalms in the Old English Office of Prime’, in The Psalms and Medieval English Literature, ed. Atkin and Leneghan, pp. 198–217, at p. 200. J. I’a Bromwich, ‘Who Was the Translator of the Prose Parts of the Paris Psalter?’, in The Early Cultures of North-West Europe: H.M. Chadwick Memorial Studies, ed. C. Fox and B. Dickins (Cambridge, 1950), pp. 289–303, at pp. 297–300; O’Neill, ed., Prose Translation, pp. 84–94; Bately, ‘Lexical Evidence’, pp. 82–4; and Literary Prose, p. 4. On parallels between the Prose Psalms, Boethius and Soliloquies in the depiction of the mind, see Faulkner, ‘The Mind in the Old English Prose Psalms’. O’Neill, ed., Prose Translation, p. 74; see further, pp. 75–8. S. B. Greenfield and D. G. Calder, A New Critical History of Old English Literature (New York, 1986), p. 55. Bately, ‘Did Alfred Actually Translate Anything?’, p. 194; for example, P. S. Gill, T. B. Swartz and M. Treschow, ‘A Stylometric Analysis of King Alfred’s Literary Works’, Journal of Applied Statistics 34 (2007), 1251–8. See also Bately, Literary Prose, pp. 4–5; and Bately, ‘Lexical Evidence’, p. 78.

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Treasure in Heaven: The Prose Psalms the translator’s attempt to capture some of the literary qualities of the Psalms affects the vocabulary of the Old English text, perhaps explaining certain dissimilarities between the Prose Psalms and other Alfredian translations.41 The Prose Psalms also differs from the Boethius and the Soliloquies in that it does not depart significantly from its source; Bately argues that this relative fidelity is due to the ‘veneration’ in which the Psalms were held.42 The Old English Pastoral Care features several psalm quotations which, in spite of these arguments for common authorship, are sometimes quite different from the translation of the same verses in the Prose Psalms.43 O’Neill identifies ten psalm translations common to the Prose Psalms and the Pastoral Care, arguing that two (Pss. 1.1 and 22.4) are ‘very similar’; four (Pss. 33.20, 37.9, 39.13 and 50.5) are ‘basically similar, with readily explainable differences’ and the final four (Pss. 29.7–8, 31.5, 39.10–11, 48.8–9) feature ‘significant differences’; he concludes that even these significant differences do not indicate different authorship, but rather ‘all could be explained as the work of a single author adjusting his translation to different sources and contexts’.44 Frantzen likewise emphasises the different purpose of the two texts, noting also that the identical Psalm 48.11 and 20 are translated differently within the Prose Psalms, which thus admits the possibility that an individual author may have translated the same verses differently in two different texts.45 The absence of any preface and the late date of the only extant manuscript of the Prose Psalms could somewhat obscure the audience for which the translation was designed, and the purpose for which it was intended. Frantzen argues for a possible devotional, meditative purpose, as many additions ‘impart a pious, devout tone’.46 O’Neill, however, comments that, in contrast with the Metrical Psalms with which they share a manuscript, the Prose Psalms are rarely devotional in tone; the dominant method, he argues, is exegetical, with the main focus on the historical interpretation.47 Richard Abels postulates that the translation was motivated by awareness of a lay audience, resulting in an interpretative and explanatory translation.48 The function of the Paris Psalter can perhaps offer a guide to understanding, if not how the prose translation was 41 42 43

44 45 46 47 48

Bately, ‘Lexical Evidence’, p. 79. Bately, Literary Prose, p. 15. See also Frantzen, King Alfred, p. 101. See Faulkner, ‘Royal Authority’, pp. 134–5, on the translation of Psalm 39.13 in the Pastoral Care. O’Neill, ed., Prose Translation, pp. 79–83. Frantzen, King Alfred, p. 102. Frantzen, King Alfred, p. 101. O’Neill, ‘Strategies of Translation’, p. 155. Abels, Alfred the Great, p. 238. See also O’Neill, ‘Prose Translation of Psalms

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Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus received at the time of its composition, at least how it was understood by later readers. O’Neill presents evidence which suggests that the Paris Psalter may have had a lay audience: for example, there is no intercession for an abbot in the litany, and the manuscript seems to reflect the Roman rather than Benedictine Office, which would have been unusual among the clergy in the mid-eleventh century; as O’Neill observes: ‘The only group who might have followed the Roman Office and used a Romanum psalter at such a late date would be pious laity who recited the psalms as a daily devotional exercise’.49 As we will see, the Prose Psalms seem to have been intended for an audience who, whether lay or ecclesiastic, sought guidance in matters both spiritual and secular.

Wealth in this world and the next In both the Latin Psalms and Old English translation, the enemy of the Psalmist is frequently characterised as wealthy: this generally negative attitude is epitomised in Ps(P) 36.15: ‘Betere ys þam rihtwisan lytel þonne þam synfullan mycel wela’ (‘better for the righteous man is the little amount than for the sinful man great wealth’).50 The wealthy are aligned with the powerful, oppressive and sinful, the poor with the humble, oppressed and righteous. This dichotomy reflects the starkly polarised world of good and evil in the Psalms which is carried over into the Old English.51 However, the characterisation of the enemy as wealthy does not represent the extent of the Prose Psalms’ engagement with wealth. Wealth imagery is often employed in the celebration of precious things, material and immaterial, and the translator appears to appreciate that wealth can be used and owned well, much in the same way as the Old English Pastoral Care. For the translator of the Prose Psalms, it is not wealth itself that is necessarily at issue, but the fact that it is in the enemy’s possession.52 One of the central concerns of the Psalms is why the wicked are allowed to flourish when the good suffer.53 If a single author is assumed for the

49 50

51

52

53

1–50’, pp. 279–80. Pratt, Political Thought, p. 245, assumes a mixed audience of laymen and ecclesiastics. O’Neill, ed., Prose Translation, pp. 19–20. Cf. Psalm 36.16: ‘melius est modicum iusto super diuitias peccatorum multas’ (‘better is a little to the just than the great riches of sinners’). The abbreviation Ps(P) for Prose Psalms follows O’Neill, ed., Prose Translation. Henn, Bible as Literature, p. 215; and Pratt, Political Thought, p. 252. See Butler, ‘“And Thus Did Hezekiah”’, p. 619, on this contrast in the introductions. For examples of wealth or prosperity in a neutral or positive sense, or belonging to David, see Ps(P) 21.27, 30.22 and 37.10. Henn, Bible as Literature, p. 215.

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Treasure in Heaven: The Prose Psalms Prose Psalms and the Boethius, it is easy to see how this same author would be attracted to the two Latin source texts, one biblical and intensely familiar, the other philosophical and more loosely connected to the Christian faith, both of which address this fundamental issue of seeming injustice. Following the Latin, the Prose Psalms offer the solution that the wealth of the wicked is fleeting; as Henn observes of the Latin Psalms: ‘In the perfect world of God’s justice and omnipotence, the wicked should not flourish. If they appear to do so, this is only temporary’.54 Rather, God will bestow upon his faithful an eternal inheritance, as in Ps(P) 36.17: ‘for þæm he wat þa wegas þæra unsceðfulra, and heora yrfeweardnesse byð on ecnesse’ (‘because he knows the ways of the innocent, and their inheritance will be eternal’).55 The warning against deceptive and short-lived riches, in contrast with lasting blessings, again recalls the Old English Boethius, as noted by Frantzen.56 Moreover, as in the Boethius, the rewards of heaven are presented in the terms of the wealth of this earth. Treasure in heaven, in the Prose Psalms, takes the form of an eternal inheritance. The Old Testament Psalms, ultimately based upon the Hebrew, naturally do not present this eternal inheritance as the Christian consolation of heaven, but the Old English translator can make much of such an interpretation in the introductions, as in Ps(P) 5, introduction 1, which states that the psalm which follows is: ‘be herenesse ealra ðæra rihtwisena ðe secað yrfeweardnesse on heofonrice mid Criste, se ys ende ealra ðinga’ (‘about the praise of all the righteous who seek inheritance in the kingdom of heaven with Christ, who is the end57 of all things’).58 Like the Old English Boethius, the Prose Psalms warn against the transience of worldly wealth: David taught all men, Ps(P) 48, introduction 1 reads, ‘þæt hy ongeaton þæt hi ne mihton þa welan mid him lædon heonon of weorulde’ (‘so that they understood that they could not bring those riches with them hence from the world’). The poet of the Metres of Boethius reproaches the ‘welegan woruldgitsere’ (CM14.1) (‘wealthy 54 55

56 57

58

See especially Ps(P) 48; Henn, Bible as Literature, p. 141. Cf. Psalm 36.18: ‘nouit Dominus uias inmaculatorum et hereditas eorum in aeternum erit’ (‘the Lord knows the ways of the blameless, and their inheritance will be forever’). Frantzen, King Alfred, p. 104; see also Pratt, Political Thought, p. 259. O’Neill, ed., Prose Translation, p. 291, translates this occurrence of ende as ‘perfection’ in his glossary, while DOE, s.v. ende, offers definition B.1.a.iii, ‘referring to God / Christ as the end of all things’. See also O’Neill’s translation in Old English Psalms, p. 13. See O’Neill, ed., Prose Translation, pp. 172–3 on the influence of the biblical titulus to this psalm, ‘In finem pro ea quae hereditatem consequitur psalmus David’ (‘unto the end, for her that obtains the inheritance; a psalm of David’), and traditional allegorical exegesis of this titulus, in which, according to Augustine, the inheritance represents eternal life.

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Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus worldly-miser’) with wording similar to the Prose Psalms, especially in the collocation of heonan and lædan: Ne mot he þara hyrsta hionane lædan of ðisse worulde wuhte þon mare, hordgestreona, ðonne he hiðer brohte.59 (CM14.9–11) (He cannot take any more ornaments hence from this world, hoarded treasure, than he brought hither.)

We might think here of Scyld Scefing’s funeral barge at the beginning of Beowulf, on which many various treasures are loaded: ‘of feorwegum frætwa gelæded’ (line 37) (‘ornaments brought from afar’). Indeed, the poet remarks that Scyld’s people provided no fewer ‘þeodgestreonum’ (line 44a) (‘people’s treasure’) than those ‘þe hine æt frumsceafte forð onsendon’ (line 45) (‘who sent him forth at the beginning’). Contrary to philosophy of the Prose Psalms and the Metres of Boethius, Scyld’s subjects hold to the belief that it is, in fact, possible to send off a loved one with more treasure than they brought into the world. Similarly, in preparation for Beowulf’s own funeral at the very end of the poem, the poet records: ‘Þa wæs wunden gold on wæn hladen’ (line 3134) (‘then wound gold was loaded on a wagon’). This gold is taken up to Hrones Næs, where it is either burned, or buried in the barrow, or both. Here we catch a glimpse of a culture in which, it seems, it could be possible to lead treasure out of this world; although, as the poet remarks, no-one knew who received the ‘hlæste’ (line 52b) (‘cargo’) of Scyld’s treasure-laden boat. Elsewhere in Old English poetry, though, this belief in the transferal of earthly treasure is firmly repudiated. The poet of The Seafarer, for example, describes a scene not dissimilar from the burial of Beowulf in his barrow, surrounded by gold: Þeah þe græf wille golde stregan broþor his geborenum, brygan be deadum maþmum mislicum þæt hine mid wille, ne mæg þære sawle þe biþ synna ful gold to geoce for Godes egsan, þonne he hit ær hydeð þenden he her leofað. (The Seafarer lines 97–102) (Though a brother might wish to strew the grave of his sibling with gold, to bury with the dead one as various treasures that which he wants to go

59

Cf. B26.78–82 and 3m3, 1–6.

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Treasure in Heaven: The Prose Psalms with him, that which he previously hid when he lived here, gold cannot be a help for the soul that is full of sins, before the terror of God).60

Here, as in Beowulf, the grieving brother lays treasure in the grave of the dead man, presumably with the hope that this wealth which he had attained in his life will be of some help to him after death. The speaker of The Seafarer, afloat on the sea and cut off from all worldly prosperity, rejects the idea that material wealth can be of any use in the wholly spiritual encounter with God after death. If material wealth is to be of any use in the afterlife, it must be transformed from its earthly state. In the main text of Ps(P) 48 itself, ‘David’ exhorts all those ‘þe truwiað heora agenum mægene, and þære mycelnesse hiora speda gylpað and wuldrað’ (Ps(P) 48.6) (‘who trust in their own power, and boast of and glory in the abundance of their wealth’61) to understand: þæt nan broðor oþres sawle nele alysan of helle, ne ne mæg (þeah he wylle), gif he sylf nanwuht nyle, ne ne deð to goode þa hwile þe he her byð. Gylde for þy him sylf and alyse his sawle þa hwyle ðe he her sy, for þam se broðor oþþe nyle oððe ne mæg, gif he sylf na ne onginð to tilianne þæt he þæt weorð agife to alysnesse his sawle. (Ps(P) 48.7) (that no brother is willing to free another’s soul from hell, nor is able to [even if he may wish], if he himself does not want it at all, or does no good while he is here. Therefore let him make compensation for himself and free his soul while he is here, because that brother is either unwilling or unable, if he himself does not by any means begin to strive so that he might pay the price for the redemption of his soul).

Here we can hear an echo of the mourner in The Seafarer, who tries to help his dead brother by means of material wealth. This long verse in the Old English psalm represents an attempt to clarify an obscure section of the Latin, Psalm 48.8–9: ‘(8) frater non redemit redemit homo non dabit Deo placationem suam (9) nec pretium redemptionis animae suae’ (‘no brother has redeemed, nor man redeemed: he shall not give God his ransom [9] nor the price of the redemption of his soul’). The difference in length alone indicates the extent of the elaboration in the Old English. While the Romanum gives no indication of whether the events it describes take place temporally or extra-temporally, the Old English version clearly distinguishes between the world of the living and the afterlife. This is achieved not only through the reference to ‘helle’ (‘hell’), but likewise through the

60 61

Vickrey, ‘The Seafarer 97–102’. While sped is often best translated as ‘success’ or ‘prosperity’, the word it glosses in the Romanum is divitia; see B-T, s.v. sped, definition 3, ‘means, substance, abundance, wealth’.

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Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus repetition of ‘her’ (‘here’).62 While financial imagery is present in the Latin in the form of ‘pretium’ (‘price’), this imagery receives elaboration in the Old English with the references to compensation and payment, resonating with the allusion to the archetypal rich men in the previous verse, who trust too much in their transitory prosperity. There are several parallels here with the parable of Dives and Lazarus (Luke 16.20–31), not only in the rich man who thinks of his possessions and not of death, but also in the inability to save another’s soul.63 If the translator was familiar with the Pastoral Care, in Old English or in Latin, he may have been reminded of the fact that Gregory’s quotation of these verses from Psalm 48 follows shortly after a reference to Dives. While the translation in the Old English Pastoral Care is quite different from that in the Prose Psalms,64 both texts, as O’Neill observes, ‘find the same meaning in placationem suam, the necessity of good works to save a man’s life’.65 Moreover, there are particular parallels with the exegesis of the Dives and Lazarus parable in the Soliloquies, in which the wicked man in hell is imagined as a prisoner in the king’s jail, whose friends either would not or could not be of any help to him: the phrasing, ‘oððe nellað, oððe ne magon’ (Soliloquies, 96.11) (‘either are not willing, or could not’), corresponds to the phrasing of Ps(P) 48.7, ‘for þam se broðor oþþe nyle oððe ne mæg’ (‘because that brother is either unwilling or unable’). As O’Neill observes, ‘the inability of one’s friends to help is the commonplace patristic interpretation of the Dives and Lazarus parable, but the idea of unwillingness to help is apparently original to Solil [Soliloquies]’.66 As the Prose Psalms verse emphasises, it is one’s own good works, carried out during life, that one must count upon. The inability to be of any assistance to a brother after his death recalls, as I have already suggested, the passage from The Seafarer quoted above, where the narrator speaks grimly of the attempt to save a dead man’s soul with buried treasure. The message is the same as that in the Prose Psalms: one cannot buy one’s way out of Hell with any earthly currency. The grieving man in The Seafarer makes the mistake of thinking that he 62

63 64

65

66

See O’Neill, ed., Prose Translation, pp. 263–4 on the use of such references to this life and the next, in this verse and elsewhere in the translation of Psalm 48. O’Neill, ed., Prose Translation, p. 265. ‘He ne sealde Gode nanne metsceat for his saule ne nænne geðingsceat wið his miltse. Đæt is ðonne se medsceat wið his saule ðæt he him gielde god weorc for ðære giefe ðe he him ær sealde’ (Pastoral Care, 339.9–12) (‘he did not give to God any wages for his soul, nor any ransom for his mercy. The wages for his soul, then, is that he paid Him good works for the gift which He previously gave him’). O’Neill, ed., Prose Translation, p. 83; cf. RP III.21, which has ‘depropitiationem’ for ‘placationem’: Judic et al., ed., Règle Pastorale, II, p. 396, lines 48–50. O’Neill, ed., Prose Translation, p. 86; see also Frantzen, King Alfred, p. 104.

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Treasure in Heaven: The Prose Psalms can send his brother’s treasures into the next life as they are, without any transformative process.67 The transformation of earthly wealth into spiritual rewards can be effected, as we have seen already in the case of the Pastoral Care, through the powerful act of almsgiving.

Alms and gifts Almsgiving transforms money, earning rewards for the giver, turning material wealth into spiritual rewards. The current of prosperity runs from heaven to earth, changing its form through the power of almsgiving, but retaining its fundamental value. The salvific effect of almsgiving is made clear in a short poem found in the Exeter Book: Efne swa he mid wætre þone weallendan leg adwæsce, þæt he leng ne mæg blac byrnende burgum sceððan, swa he mid ælmessan ealle toscufeð synna wunde, sawla lacnað. (Almsgiving, lines 5–9) (Just as he might quench the surging flame with water, so that it may no longer harm the bright burning city, so he entirely removes the wounds of sin with alms, heals the soul.)

Almsgiving is shown to have a healing power, the ability to cool and quench the fires of sin. Indeed, it is perhaps significant that Dives, who refused to give any of his great bounty to Lazarus, suffers in the fires of Hell, and begs that Lazarus, who resides in heaven, might dip his finger in water and cool his tongue.68 The Prose Psalms encourage almsgiving on several occasions, as in Ps(P) 19.3: ‘Gemyndig sy Drihten ealra þinra offrunga, and þin ælmesse sy andfengu’ (‘may God be mindful of all of your offerings, and may your alms be acceptable’), translating Psalm 19.4 ‘memor sit Dominis omnis sacrificii tui et holocaustum tuum pingue fiat’ (‘may the Lord be mindful of all your sacrifices and your whole burnt offering be made fat’).69 The Prose Psalms departs from the Old English glossed psalter tradition in choosing to translate holocaustum as ælmesse; the glosses in psalters include onsægedness, offrung (both ‘sacrifice, offering’) and lac (‘offering, sacrifice, gift’), 67

68 69

The Conclusion considers the idea of transformation in the Exeter Book elegies in greater depth. Luke 16.24. Though it should be noted that in Ps(P) 49, introduction 1, the translator warns against presenting offerings to God, rather than offering oneself.

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Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus but none in Phillip Pulsiano’s record of the glosses to Psalms 1–50 feature ælmesse here.70 The unusual translation choice results in a verse which has greater applicability to contemporary readers, especially wealthy, pious readers, who were both in possession of material wealth and in need of a way of managing that wealth in line with their faith.71 The introduction to Ps(P) 28 is more didactic in its promotion of almsgiving, presenting this financial-devotional exchange as a necessary expression of gratitude in recognition of God’s gifts, as in introduction 1: Đysne eahta and twentigoðan sealm Dauid sang bebeodenne þam folce þæt hi gelæston heora gehat and heora ælmessan sealdon Gode for swa myclum gifum swa he him geaf (David sang this twenty-eighth psalm commanding the people that they fulfil their promise and give their alms to God for such great gifts as he gave them).

This interpretation is given contemporary relevance in introduction 4, the moral clause, in David’s prophecy that all those who suffered and were then given comfort ‘eac þæs Gode þancode æfter heora bysne’ (‘also thanked God for that after their example’).72 While the translator is relatively free to direct the introductions as he wishes, in the psalm itself, he must remain close to the often confusing Latin verses, adapting them only a little in his attempt to create a coherent discourse. For example, the last section of Psalm 39.7, ‘holocausta etiam pro delicto non postulasti’ (‘you did not require whole burnt offerings even for sin’), potentially complicates the previous promotion of almsgiving in the Old English Prose Psalms. These words are translated: ‘Ne bud þu me na ælmessan to syllanne for minum synnum, þa þa ic hy næfde’ (Ps(P) 39.7) (‘You did not command me to give alms for my sins, when I did not have them’). O’Neill comments that hy refers to the alms, and sees this addition as a ‘qualification’ of the Romanum.73 The additional clause, then, ‘þa þa ic hy næfde’, specifies that one does not have to give alms when one does not have any to give, which implies that, contrary to the sense of the Latin, for those who do have the means, almsgiving is necessary to atone for sin. This pragmatic note is characteristic of the Prose Psalms, and reminiscent 70 71

72

73

Pulsiano, ed., Old English Glossed Psalters, p. 235. Alfred, one such pious and wealthy individual, was known to gives alms: on his offering pieces, see VA 74 and 76; and S. Irvine, ed., The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: A Collaborative Collation, vol. 7, MS E (Cambridge, 2004), p. 51, entry for 883. See Treschow, ‘Godes Word’, pp. 176–8, on almsgiving and the obligation to express gratitude in the translation of Psalm 28. O’Neill, ed., Prose Translation, p. 244.

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Treasure in Heaven: The Prose Psalms of the other Alfredian translations, especially the Pastoral Care, which also emphasises the importance of almsgiving. Moreover, by stipulating that almsgiving is required of the wealthy alone, the Old English verse partly frames this form of charity as a means of managing excess wealth. As in Ps(P) 19.3, quoted above, holocaustum becomes ælmesse, departing again from the Old English glossed psalter preference, here for onsægednesse or offrung, arguably in an effort to make the translation relevant to the contemporary audience.74 Ps(P) 4.6 exhorts its readers: ‘Offriað ge mid rihtwisnesse, and bringað þa Gode to lacum’ (‘make offerings with righteousness, and bring them as gifts to God’). In Beowulf, the same collocation of bringan and lac appears, though not in terms of bringing offerings to God, but to kings: ‘sceal hringnaca ofer heafu bringan / lac ond luftacen’ (lines 1862–3a) (‘the ring-prowed ship will bring over the sea / gifts and love-tokens’). In these words, spoken by Hrothgar, describing the treasures that will be exchanged between Danes and Geats, wealth fulfils its function solely on the terrestrial plane, moving across the sea, but retaining its earthly, material form. In the Prose Psalms, the same vocabulary is applied to quite different effect. The same lac that are carried across the ‘ganotes bæð’ (line 1861b) (‘gannet’s bath’) by a ring-prowed ship in Beowulf become, in the Prose Psalms, offerings to God, valued not only in material terms, but as gifts that transcend the temporal and terrestrial world, part of the currency which runs from earth to heaven, changing its form from the material to the otherworldly. The horizontal line of exchange between men in Beowulf is, in the Prose Psalms, a vertical line between earth and heaven. Here we can see how the prose translations draw on some of the same language as vernacular poetry, but in such a way as to convert that language to suit a wholly different discourse. Bredehoft has argued that Beowulf, among other Old English poems, was known at the court of King Alfred, who, as we have seen, might possibly have commissioned the translation of the Psalms into Old English.75 The Paris Psalter, in any case, was copied in the mid-eleventh century, not long after the estimated date for the production of the Beowulf-manuscript, home to the only surviving copy of the poem.76 Andreas, a poem which borrows from Beowulf,77 is possibly more closely implicated with Alfred and the translations associated with his reign, as North and Bintley’s new edition of the poem suggests that it could have been composed under 74 75 76

77

Pulsiano, ed., Old English Glossed Psalters, p. 572. Bredehoft, Authors, Audiences, pp. 65–103. Gneuss and Lapidge, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts, pp. 322–3, no. 399, date the Beowulf manuscript to s. x/xi. A. Orchard, ‘The Originality of Andreas’, in Old English Philology, ed. Neidorf, Pascual and Shippey, pp. 331–70.

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Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus Alfred’s patronage.78 In Andreas, we find a treasure-laden boat which recalls not only the boat carrying gifts across the sea in Beowulf, but also Scyld Scefing’s funeral barge from the start of the poem. Echoing the Beowulf poet’s account of Scyld’s funerary arrangements, the narrator claims that he has never heard of a ‘cymlicor ceol gehladenne / heahgestreonum’ (Andreas, lines 361–2a) (‘ship more beautifully laden with treasure’).79 In Andreas, however, the treasures are, as North and Bintley argue, ‘not only goods of the merchant ship but figuratively also the Lord, His angels, St Andrew and the latter’s disciples’.80 In Andreas, wealth is taken from the material into the spiritual realm through the literary device of metaphor. The Prose Psalms, on the other hand, offer a practical means to turn one’s literal wealth into treasure in heaven although, as we shall see, metaphor also has an important role to play in the translator’s treatment of wealth. Both Andreas and the Prose Psalms might be seen, then, as ‘Alfredian’ texts which draw upon the vocabulary of heroic poetry in order to turn the horizontal exchange of material goods between men into vertical currents running between earth and heaven.

Practical advice on wealth The Pastoral Care, Boethius and Soliloquies offer a model of good living which incorporates both worldly responsibilities and devotion to God and his Wisdom. The Prose Psalms address both the sacred and the practical, suggesting that the translator acknowledged the compatibility of piety and a well-lived worldly life. This shared outlook goes some way to supporting the case for a common production context for these translations. One aspect of this practical outlook is the translator’s acknowledgement of the just uses of wealth. In Ps(P) 14.6, the translator shows an awareness of the benefits of wealth, provided it is used well. He lists among those who may dwell in the Lord’s temple and rest themselves on the holy mountain, ‘se þe his feoh to unrihtum wæstmsceatte ne syleð’ (‘he who does not give his money to unjust usury’).81 The adjective unriht has no parallel in the Romanum verse; this addition, according to O’Neill, ‘seems to imply rec78 79 80

81

North and Bintley, ed., Andreas, pp. 97–115. Orchard, ‘Originality of Andreas’, p. 358; cf. Beowulf, lines. 38–40a. North and Bintley, ed., Andreas, p. 110. On the parallel between the treasure-laden ship in Andreas and Asser’s depiction of Alfred steering the ship of state, similarly carrying treasure, to safety (VA 91), see North and Bintley, ed., Andreas, pp. 113–14. Cf. Psalm 14.5: ‘qui pecuniam suam non dedit ad usuram’ (‘who has not given his money to usury’).

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Treasure in Heaven: The Prose Psalms ognition of lawful interest and, if so, a bold interpretation of a passage traditionally used by Carolingian canonists to support an absolute ban on the exacting of interest’.82 Similar qualification can be observed in Ps(P) 38, introduction 1.ii: on þæm sealme he lærde and tælde ealle men þe worulde welan gaderiað mid unrihte, and nytan hwam hi hine læfað (in that psalm he taught and rebuked all men who gather worldly wealth unjustly, and do not know to whom they leave it).

O’Neill notes the likely influence of the Pseudo-Bede Argumenta, clause (b), which draws on Psalm 38.7: ‘Aliter, propheta increpat eos qui diuitias habent et nesciunt cui dimittant’ (‘in another way, the prophet rebukes those who have riches and do not know to whom they leave [them]’).83 In the Old English version, the addition of ‘mid unrihte’ (‘unjustly’) implies that just possession of wealth could be acceptable. While it is likely that the choice of gaderian (‘gather’) is inspired by verse seven of this psalm, as O’Neill suggests,84 it is worth noting the difference in implication between gaderian and the habere (‘have’) of the Pseudo-Bede Argumenta clause: the Old English translator appears to be condemning, in David’s voice, not the possession of wealth but the unjust hoarding of it. As in the verse on usury, this adaptation perhaps implies that the translator was working in a milieu in which lawful and moderate uses of wealth were not to be condemned. The advice offered in the Prose Psalms is more akin to the instructional tone of the Pastoral Care than a devotional, lyrical text. While the sacred nature of the Psalms prevents the translator from departing radically from his source, as the translators of the Boethius or the Soliloquies do, the whole tone of a verse can be transformed through inventive translation of individual words, as in Ps(P) 29.6: ‘Ic cwæð on minum wlencum and on minre orsorhnesse: “Ne wyrð þises næfre nan wendincg”’ (‘I said in my pride and in my prosperity: “this will never change”’), where wlencu and orsorgness translate abundantia (‘abundance’).85 This translation decision represents a departure from the preferred gloss in Old English glossed psalters, genyhtsumnes (‘abundance’). Instead, the choice of wlencu is in line with the translation of this verse in the Pastoral Care, perhaps indicating that the 82 83

84 85

O’Neill, ed., Prose Translation, p. 190. O’Neill, ed., Prose Translation, p. 241; J. W. Bright and R. L. Ramsay, ed., Liber Psalmorum: The West-Saxon Psalms (Boston, 1907), p. 89; see also for the addition of ‘eas’ (‘them’) after ‘dimittant’ in certain manuscripts. O’Neill, ed., Prose Translation, p. 241. Cf. Psalm 29.7: ‘ego autem dixi in mea abundantia non mouebor in aeternum’ (‘and I said in my abundance: “I will never be moved”’).

161

Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus translations have a common origin: ‘Ic wende on minum wlencum & on minum forwanan, ða ic wæs full ægðer ge welona ge godra weorca, ðæt ðæs næfre ne wurde nan ende’ (465.15–17) (‘I believed in my pride and in my abundance, when I was full both of wealth and good works, that there would never be an end of that’).86 The general sense of ‘abundance’ is transformed: it is made more specific, and hints at the dangers faced by those in positions of honour or power, those, perhaps, who have every intention of carrying out good works, but are nonetheless privately motivated by pride. This sentiment recalls the object of the Pastoral Care, which warns those in positions of authority against the vice of pride.87 The only other collocations between wlencu and orsorgness in the extant Old English corpus occur in the Metres of Boethius (CM5.29–34a) and the Pastoral Care. The collocation in the Pastoral Care appears in a chapter titled ‘Hu se lareow sceal beon on his weorcum fyrmest’ (81.1) (‘How the teacher must be foremost in his works’), which describes how when the priest or teacher meditates on divine matters, he should not ‘bion to upahæfen for nanum wlencum ne for nanre orsorgnesse’ (83.16–17) (‘be too exalted for any pride nor for any prosperity’). While this section of the chapter specifically prescribes the behaviour of a priest, the reference to lareow in the title, and throughout the Pastoral Care, suggests that all leaders, secular or ecclesiastic, could benefit from such warnings against the temptations of power. To believe that one’s material prosperity will never change is to forget that all our apparent enjoyment of material things is limited and qualified. The line in Ps(P) 29.6: ‘Ic cwæð on minum wlencum and on minre orsorhnesse: “Ne wyrð þises næfre nan wendincg”’ (‘I said in my pride and in my prosperity: “this will never change”’) reveals a dangerous attitude towards worldly success, one which fails to take into account the necessary transience of all our worldly things. It is precisely this attitude which Hrothgar warns Beowulf about in the section of the poem often known as ‘Hrothgar’s Sermon’. The King of the Danes paints an image of the archetypal bad ruler, someone who has been given such power and prosperity by God, ‘þæt he his selfa ne mæg / for his unsnyttrum ende geþencean’ (Beowulf, lines 1733b–34) (‘that because of his foolishness he himself cannot imagine an end for it’). The poet of The Seafarer offers a similar warning: ‘Dol biþ se þe him his Dryhten ne ondrædeþ; / cymeð him se deað unþinged’ (line 106) (‘foolish is he who does not fear his Lord; death will come unexpected to him’). The counterpart to this foolish man 86

87

Pulsiano, ed., Old English Glossed Psalters, p. 371. Cf. RP IV; Judic et al., ed., Règle Pastorale, II, p. 538, lines 52–3; O’Neill, ed., Prose Translation, pp. 80–1. On the scrutiny of the subconscious mind in the Pastoral Care, see A. Faulkner, ‘Seeking within the Self in The Metres of Boethius’ Anglo-Saxon England 48 (2019), 43–62.

162

Treasure in Heaven: The Prose Psalms is the eadig (‘blessed, happy, rich’) man who lives humbly and believes in the ‘meahte’ (‘might’) of God (The Seafarer, lines 107–8). This man puts his trust in God’s power, as something true and unchanging, unlike the transitory prosperity of this material world. The translator of the Prose Psalms warns his readers that their material prosperity is unstable and unenduring. In Beowulf, as will be remembered from the Introduction, people are separated from their treasure more because of the briefness of human life than the transience of the treasure itself; in the world of the poem, treasure remains long after the death of its human owners. Despite his exhortations to almsgiving, the translator of the Prose Psalms was conscious that not all of his readers would be in the position to make charitable gifts. Psalm 40.2, ‘Beatus qui intellegit super egenum et pauperem’ (‘blessed is he who understands about the needy and poor’), becomes: Eadig bið se þe ongyt þæs þearfan and þæs wædlan, and him þonne gefultumað gif hine to onhagað; gif hine ne onhagað, þonne ne licað him, þeah, his earfoðu (Ps(P) 40.1) (Blessed is he who perceives the needy and the poor, and then helps them if he has the means to; if he does not have the means, then, at least, their troubles should not please him).88

This addition addresses the practicalities of almsgiving, recalling a similarly pragmatic attitude in the Old English Boethius: ‘Gif men to godum weorce ne onhagie, habbe godne willan; þæt is emngod’ (B41.35–6) (‘if a man does not have the means for good work, let him have a good will: that is just as good’).89 In the Prose Psalms, among the devotional and meditative lyrics, the reader or listener discovers practical advice on how to best use their wealth: earthly and divine wisdom are placed side-by-side.

Metaphorical and material riches While much of the wealth vocabulary in the Prose Psalms refers to literal wealth, the translation, following the Latin, also features many examples of treasure imagery, often employed in a figurative sense, such as the compound goldhord in Ps(P) 32.6, translating the Romanum thesaurus

88

89

See O’Neill, ed., Prose Translation, p. 246 on whether earfoðu is a plural or late singular form. See O’Neill, ed., Prose Translation, p. 85 on this parallel; he notes that in both texts it is understood that this good will earns temporal blessings from God.

163

Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus (‘treasure-hoard’).90 Henn observes that in the Psalms, value is ‘in terms of the precious metals and stones’, and also expensive products such as ivory, needlework and spices.91 These commodities appear in Ps(P) 44, in which David describes the riches that accompany the Son of God:92 incense and spices and ivory houses inhabited by kings’ daughters (see Ps(P) 44.10).93 Contrary to the typical historical or literal focus in the Prose Psalms, here, the translator goes to great pains to specify the allegorical interpretation of these riches,94 as in Ps(P) 44.13: þa dohtor þære welegan byrig Tyrig, hi hine weorðiað mid gyfum (þæt synt, þa sawla þe beoð gewelgoda mid goodum geearnuncgum) (the daughters of the wealthy city of Tyre, they honour Him with gifts [those are, the souls which are enriched with good merits]).95

The allegorical association between rich gifts and merits is a reminder of the relationship between the rich gifts of alms and the merits that they earn for the soul.96 The repeated exegetical explanations in this section, contrasting with the usual historical or literal focus, perhaps suggest that the translator was not comfortable with potentially ambiguous praise of excessive material wealth, or perhaps that he believed that, here at least, the figurative meaning was clearer than the literal: as O’Neill observes, the primarily literal focus of the Prose Psalms is not incompatible with 90

91 92

93

94 95

96

Cf. Psalm 32.7; this is the usual gloss in Old English psalters (Pulsiano, ed., Old English Glossed Psalters, p. 421). Henn, Bible as Literature, pp. 64 and 66. Indications that Christ is the subject of verses Ps(P) 44.3–11 can be found in explanatory, exegetical additions to verses 1–2; e.g., ‘Min heorte bealcet good Word (þæt ys, good Godes bearn)’ (Ps(P) 44.1) (‘my heart sends forth a good Word [that is, the good Son of God]’); cf. Psalm 44.2: ‘Eructauit cor meum uerbum bonum’ (‘my heart has brought up a good word’). While the Romanum Psalm 44.9 reads ‘a gradibus eburneis’ (‘from the ivory steps’), the Old English translator here selects the reading from the Gallicanum, ‘a domibus eburneis’ (‘from the ivory houses’), translated as ‘of þinum elpanbænenum husum’ (‘from your ivory houses’), probably because the Gallicanum reading makes better sense: O’Neill, ed., Prose Translation, p. 256. Pratt, Political Thought, p. 247. Cf. Psalm 44.13: ‘filiae Tyri in muneribus’ (‘the daughters of Tyre with gifts’). O’Neill, ed., Prose Translation, p. 257, observes the possible influence of the Epitome of Julian of Eclanum’s commentary on the psalms, a Latin translation of Theodore of Mopsuestia’s commentary, in the references to the wealth of Tyre, though he also notes that the city was commonly referred to as wealthy; on Theodore’s commentary and the Epitome of Julian’s translation, see O’Neill, ed., Prose Translation, p. 37. Cassiodorus makes an explicit connection between these gifts and ‘eleemosynas’ (‘alms’): Magni Aurelii Cassiodori: Expositio Psalmorum, 2 vols, ed. M. Adriaen, CCSL 97–98 (Turnhout, 1958), I, p. 412; O’Neill, ed., Prose Translation, p. 257.

164

Treasure in Heaven: The Prose Psalms allegorical readings, which sometimes better suit the translator’s didactic, explanatory technique.97 This wariness surrounding the description of excessive material wealth could indicate an ecclesiastical background for the translator; it is equally possible, however, that a devout layman might feel uncomfortable about seeming to promote such riches. In Ps(P) 8.6, the Romanum ‘gloria et honore coronasti eum’ (Psalm 8.6) (‘you have crowned him with glory and honour’) is rendered ‘þu hine gewuldrast and geweorðast, and him sylst heafodgold to mærðe’ (‘you glorified and honoured him, and gave him a crown [lit. ‘head-gold’] as an honour’). No allegorical exegesis accompanies this verse; in fact, the translation of this psalm is striking in its avoidance of Messianic interpretation, aside from the reference to David’s prophecy about the ‘wundorlican acennednesse Cristes’ (‘the wonderful birth of Christ’) (Ps(P) 8, introduction 1.ii).98 The element gold in the rare compound heafodgold makes the preciousness of the crown explicit, with the phrasing in the Old English more suggestive of a literal coronation.99 Here, at least, the translator is comfortable with praising an item of material worth. In Ps(P) 16.9, however, the translator seems to contrast material wealth with something intangible and yet far more precious: the wealth of the world to come. Here, he translates the Romanum adips (‘fat’) as not only fætnes but also wela and tohopa (‘hope’): and hi habbað ealle heora fætnesse and heora tohopan and heora weolan swiþe orsorhlice utan bewunden, and sprecað nu for ði swiðe ofermodlice. (And they [my enemies] have all their fatness and their hope and their wealth very securely100 wrapped up on the outside, and speak now therefore very proudly).101

Here, the sometimes abstract wela is crudely grounded in the emphatically gross fætnes of the enemies: this is material wealth at its most grotesque 97 98 99

100

101

O’Neill, ed., Prose Translation, p. 44. O’Neill, ed., Prose Translation, p. 177. Heafodgold occurs only four times in the extant corpus: DOE, s.v. heafodgold. See Bately, ‘Lexical Evidence’, p. 81, on the vocabulary for ‘crown’ in the Prose Psalms and other Alfredian works. Æthelstan, Alfred’s grandson, was apparently the first king of England to be coronated; previously, kings would have been bestowed with a helmet: S. Foot, Æthelstan: The First King of England (New Haven, 2011), pp. 18 and 76–7. B-T, s.v. orsorglice, offers several different translations: ‘without anxiety’, ‘carelessly, rashly’ and ‘securely, safely’; O’Neill, Old English Psalms, p. 49, chooses ‘securely’ in his translation. Cf. Psalm 16.10: ‘adipem suum concluserunt os eorum locutum est superbia’ (‘they have shut up their fat: their mouth has spoken with pride’).

165

Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus and corporeal. While wela can be understood as an attempt to clarify adips, the prosperity of the enemies, tohopa is a gloss less easily explained. However, comparison with a passage in the Pastoral Care, which features both tohopa and the adjective welig, reveals that the translator is perhaps alluding here to the scriptural idea, found, for example, in the parable of Dives and Lazarus, that the rich man has his wealth here on earth, and therefore cannot expect any in heaven: Be ðæm Crist cuæð on his godspelle: Waa ieow welegum, ðe iower lufu eall & eower tohopa is on eowrum woruldwelum, & ne giemað ðæs ecan gefean, ac gefeoð ealle mode ðisses andweardan lifes genyhte (Pastoral Care 181.22–183.1) (Christ said about that in his Gospel: Woe to you wealthy men, whose whole love and hope is in your worldly wealth, and [who] do not care for eternal joy, but rejoice with all [your] mind in the abundance of this present life).102

In this context, it could be understood that the enemies in the psalm text have, like the rich men of the Gospel, all their tohopa in their literal wealth, rather than the riches to come: like the bad king imagined by Hrothgar in Beowulf, they cannot imagine either their material wealth or their enjoyment of that wealth coming to an end. The Prose Psalms offer a reminder that those who focus on earthly riches in this way cannot possibly attain the riches of heaven, like the rich man in Ps(P) 48.18 who ‘hæfde his heofonrice her on eorðan’ (‘had his heavenly kingdom here on earth’).103 The necessarily transitory nature of wealth is the subject of Psalm 48, which, in the Old English version, features the warning to the rich man mentioned above, so reminiscent of the Dives and Lazarus parable, and in particular the treatment of it in the Old English Soliloquies. O’Neill suggests: Of all the paraphrases of individual psalms, this one tells the most about its author: its interpretations […] go far beyond the commentaries and are expressed with a solemnity and intensity best explained by a personal connection about how wealth may jeopordize a man’s soul.104

The focus of Ps(P) 48 is on the dangers of trusting too much in wealth, in forgetting that it is earthbound, unlike the soul. David, we learn, taught all men to perceive that ‘hi ne mihton þa welan mid him lædon heonon of weorulde’ (Ps(P) 48, introduction 1) (‘they could not bring those riches 102

103 104

Cf. RP III.2; Judic et al., ed., Règle Pastorale, II, p. 268, lines 29–30; see Luke 6.24: ‘vae vobis divitibus quia habetis consolationem vestram’ (‘woe to you that are rich, for you have your consolation’). Cf. Psalm 48.19. O’Neill, ed., Prose Translation, p. 264.

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Treasure in Heaven: The Prose Psalms with them hence from the world’).105 As in the Old English Boethius, these earthbound riches can be deceptive for the person who puts all their confidence in them, and fails to remember that the only way to bring them to heaven is through transformation.

Riches as a snare The error of trusting too much in one’s present success is also the theme of Ps(P) 9.26, with wording very similar to Ps(P) 29.6, considered above: And he cwyð on his mode: ‘Ne wyrð þisses næfre nan wending butan mycelre frecennesse minra feonda’. (And he says in his mind: ‘This will never change, without the great threat of my enemies.’)106

The figure in this verse is depicted scheming with ‘þam welegan’ (Ps(P) 9.28) (‘the wealthy man’) in order to undo the innocent and the poor: and þreatað þone earman mid his eagum, and sætað his digollice swa swa leo det of his hole. [30] He sætað þæt he bereafige þone earman and þæs wilnað; and þonne he hine gefangen hafað mid his gryne, þonne genæt he hine. (Ps(P) 9.29–30) (and oppresses the destitute man with his eyes, and lies in wait for him secretly, just as a lion does from his den. [30] He lies in wait so that he can plunder the destitute man and desires that; and when he has caught him with his snare, then he mistreats him.)107

The presence of the wealthy man in this plot, as in the Romanum, can be explained by the recurring contrast in the Psalms between the wicked, wealthy oppressors and humble, poor oppressed. While the translation 105 106

107

See also Ps(P) 48.16–17 (cf. Psalm 48.17–18). Cf. Psalm 9.27: ‘dixit enim in corde suo non mouebor de generatione in generationem sine malo’ (‘for he said in his heart: I will never be moved from generation to generation, without evil’). O’Neill, Old English Psalms, p. 27, reverses the order of the two clauses in his translation of this verse, implying that the threat of the speaker’s enemies has already been removed: ‘And he says to himself: “Absent the great threat of my enemies, this situation will never change.”’ See also Ps(P) 29.6 (cf. Psalm 29.7) and 13.9 (cf. Psalm 13.4–5). Cf. Psalm 9.30–1: ‘oculi eius in pauperem respiciunt insidiatur in occulto sicut leo in cubili suo / insidiatur ut rapiat pauperem rapere pauperem dum abstrahit eum [31] in laqueo suo humiliabit eum’ (‘his eyes gaze upon the poor man; he secretly lies in ambush like a lion in his den; he lies in wait in order to seize the poor man; to seize the poor man while he drags him off [31]. In his net he humiliates him’).

167

Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus of these verses follows the Latin fairly faithfully, the confluence of the archetypal wealthy man and snare imagery may well have had particular significance for the translator of the Prose Psalms if this translation originated in the same milieu as the other translations attributed to Alfred, or if these translations were known to him. The wording of this passage recalls the image of the bird in a snare in the Pastoral Care, a metaphor for the man greedy for riches: Swa swa fleogende fugel, ðonne he gifre bið, he gesihð ðæt æs on eorðan, & ðonne for ðæm luste ðæs metes he forgiet ðæt grin ðæt he mid awierged wirð; swa bið ðæm gitsere. He gesihð ðone welan ðe he wilnað, & he ne geliefð ðæs grines ðe he mid gebrogden wyrð, ærðon he hit gefrede. (Pastoral Care 331.17–21) (Likewise the flying bird, when it is greedy, it sees the bait on the ground, and then because of the desire for that food it forgets the snare with which it becomes strangled; just so for the avaricious man. He sees the wealth he desires, and he does not believe in the snare with which he becomes ensnared, before he feels it.)108

In this metaphor, wealth represents the bait, so attractive to the greedy man that he forgets the danger that it brings; that is, sinfulness. A similar metaphor occurs in the Soliloquies, when Gesceadwisnes advises Augustinus that he should abandon: weorlde ara, and huru ungemetlice and unalifedlice, forðam ic ondrede þæt hy gebynden þin mod to hæom, and þa gefon myd heora grine, swa swa man deor oððe fugelas feht (Soliloquies 78.31–79.2) (worldly honours, and especially immoderate and unlawful ones, because I fear that they may bind your mind to them, and seize it with their snare, just as one catches beasts or birds).109

These metaphors operate on the basis that wealth or other worldly blessings are tempting yet deceptive, like bait; in falling for these deceptions, men become like beasts and birds in that they do not have the reason to separate the trick from the truth, or the appearance from the reality. Here, we see the material world presented as deceptive, and the enjoyment of its pleasures a source of danger. The Old English Boethius, following the Latin, separates men from animals on account of the reason they possess: men, Wisdom tells Mod, 108 109

Cf. RP 3.20; Judic et al., ed., Règle Pastorale, II, p. 392, lines 135–7. Cf. Soliloquia 1.XIV.24: the image of catching birds in a snare is absent in the Soliloquia, though the Old English translator may have been inspired by the references to both wings and cages at this point.

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Treasure in Heaven: The Prose Psalms have all the qualities animals have, ‘and eac toeacan þam micle gife gesceadwisnesse’ (B41.139–40) (‘and also in addition to that the great gift of reason’).110 The Boethius, moreover, like the Prose Psalms, associates the desire for wealth with the loss of human reason.111 The translations of the Alfredian corpus share a discourse in which the robbing of men’s wits through the desirability of riches can be signified through the imagery of trapping an animal or bird in a snare. This discourse sheds light on the quotation from Ps(P) 9 above, in which the poor are ensnared by the traps laid by the rich man: while this image is present in the Romanum, it would have arguably appealed to the translator if he were responsible for the other translations attributed to Alfred, or a member of the same scholarly community. Read through this Alfredian lens, the snare laid by the rich man in the Psalms can be understood as riches themselves. Such a reading would make sense of a translation decision later in the text: in Ps(P) 36.13, the verb deicere (‘throw, cause to fall’) from the Romanum version of Psalm 36.14 is translated as besyrwan (‘ensnare, deceive’), following the Gallicanum reading of ‘decipiant’ from decipere (‘cheat, deceive’): Þa synfullan teoð heora sweord and bendað heora bogan to þæm þæt hi mægon besyrian þone earman and þone wædlan (The sinful draw their swords and bend their bows so that they can ensnare the destitute and the needy).112

If the snare imagery was indeed meaningful to the translator of the Prose Psalms, as suggested above, it would explain why he follows the Gallicanum reading here. In light of passages from other Alfredian translations, it is possible to read this snare, intended to trap the poor, as wealth. The Pastoral Care, Boethius, Soliloquies and the Prose Psalms share a discourse whereby worldly prosperity, wealth in particular, traps men like snares trap animals by robbing them of their reason.

110 111 112

Cf. De consolatione, 5p5. Frantzen, King Alfred, p. 104. Cf. Psalm 36.14: ‘gladium euaginauerunt peccatores tetenderunt arcum suum ut deiciant inopem et pauperem’ (‘the sinners have unsheathed swords, have drawn their bows in order to overthrow the needy and poor’). The translation departs from the most common Old English psalter gloss for ‘deiciant’ here, aweorpan (‘throw’); the gloss for this verb in the Lambeth Psalter at this point is ‘hi bepæcan’ (‘they deceived’), indicating a Gallicanum text: Pulsiano, ed., Old English Glossed Psalters, p. 504.

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Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus

Purification and transformation Another seam of wealth imagery that runs through the Prose Psalms is the purification of precious metals. This imagery is found also in the Latin Psalms; as Henn remarks: ‘Gold and silver, metals that are purified by smelting, serve to set forth the immortal character of the soul’.113 In the Prose Psalms, this purification imagery has as much to do with the soul’s wisdom as its immortal character. Psalm 16.3, ‘probasti cor meum et uisitasti nocte igne me examinasti’ (‘You have proved my heart and visited it in the night; You tried me by fire’), addressed to God, becomes in Ps(P) 16.3: Þu hæfst afandod min mod, and þu come to me on niht and me gemettest unrotne, and me sude mid þam fyre monegra earfoða, swa swa gold oþþe seolfor (You have tested my mind, and You come to me in the night and find me sad, and test me with the fire of many hardships, just as gold or silver).

The differences from the Latin are easily identified: cor (‘heart’), the emotional centre, becomes mod (‘mind’), associated with the intellect as well as emotions;114 the Lord finds the mod sad; ignis (‘fire’) is given an interpretative gloss; and finally, the translation explicitly presents this testing by fire as the purification of gold and silver. In this Old English version of the psalm verse, then, the mind tested by the Lord is likened to precious metals purified by fire. This pairing of wisdom and wealth recalls other Alfredian texts, such as the prose preface to the Pastoral Care, or Chapter 7 in the B-text of the Boethius, in which Wisdom claims ‘true wealth’ as his servant. The use of mod is likewise reminiscent of the Boethius; at the start of the dialogue, as in the translation of this psalm verse, a manifestation of the divine (Wisdom),115 meets a mod in a decidedly unrot (‘sad’) state.116 113 114

115 116

Henn, Bible as Literature, p. 64. On the translation of cor as mod in the Prose Psalms see Faulkner, ‘The Mind in the Old English Prose Psalms’. See B41.113: ‘forþam se wisdom is God’ (‘for wisdom is God’). See also the Soliloquies, in which Gesceadwisnes says to Augustinus ‘me ðingð þæt ic ðe geseo swiðe unrotne and swiðe gedrefedne on þinum mode’ (71.12–13) (‘it seems to me that I see you very sad and very disturbed in your mind’); cf. the corresponding section of Soliloquia, 1.IX.16, in which Ratio observes that ‘Augustine’ must be experiencing ‘animo nonnullam aegritudinem’ (‘some mental anxiety’): Watson, ed. and trans., Soliloquies, p. 47. For further parallels, see Faulkner, ‘The Mind in the Old English Prose Psalms’, pp. 607–17. O’Neill, ed., Prose Translation, p. 194, suggests that the translator may have been influenced by Theodore’s commentary at this point.

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Treasure in Heaven: The Prose Psalms In both the Boethius and the Prose Psalms, then, we encounter the testing of the mind by a divine force, the results of which, in the Prose Psalms, are figured in terms of precious metals. The dialogue in the Boethius can be seen to represent Mod’s testing by Wisdom, and his wiser state at the end of the text a purer, more valuable version of his former self. This reading of the Boethius consolidates the argument advanced earlier in this study, which reads Wisdom’s soð wela (‘true wealth’) as the riches of wisdom, the valuable and lasting gesceadwisnes: in light of the psalm verse, then, these ‘riches of wisdom’ in the Boethius could be seen as the results of the testing, or purification, which Mod undergoes over the course of his dialogue with Wisdom and Gesceadwisnes.117 A further example of purification imagery in a mental context can be found in Ps(P) 25.2, in which purification is again given an intellectual focus: ‘Fanda min, Drihten, and smea mine geþohtas’ (‘try me, Lord, and examine my thoughts’).118 Smeagan (‘consider, meditate, examine’) corresponds to the verb urere (‘burn’) in the Romanum, while geþohtas translates both renes (‘kidneys’) and cor (‘heart’). The Old English translation interprets the purification by fire here as an intellectual discourse that is sustained between the mind of the person speaking the psalm and the deity. In the Prose Psalms, then, wealth, which emerges pure from the flames, and wisdom are shown to be compatible not only according to the practical advice that wisdom enables good use of wealth, as is promoted in the Pastoral Care, but also on a symbolic level, as in the ‘riches of wisdom’ imagery of the Boethius. The Phoenix, a poem fundamentally concerned with fire and renewal, features a passage on the burning of earthly treasures at the Day of Judgement: Weorþeð anra gehwylc forht on ferþþe, þonne fyr briceð læne londwelan, lig eal þigeð eorðan æhtgestreon, æpplede gold gifre forgripeð, grædig swelgeð londes frætwe. (Lines 503b–8a) (Each one will become fearful in spirit when fire destroys the loaned wealth of the land, [when] flame consumes all the precious possessions

117

118

On purification imagery in the Old English Boethius, see H. Momma, ‘Purgatoria Clementia: Philosophy and Principles of Pain in the Old English Boethius’, in The Legacy of Boethius, ed. McMullen and Weaver, pp. 53–69, at pp. 55–8. Cf. Psalm 25.2: ‘proba me Domine et tempta me ure renes meos et cor meum’ (‘try me Lord and test me; burn my kidneys and my heart’).

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Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus of the earth, eagerly grasps the balls of gold, greedily swallows the treasures of the land).119

Hilary Fox has identified a network of associations between the Phoenix poet’s description of the phoenix as a bejewelled artifice crafted by God and the focus at the end of the poem on both the restoration of the body at the resurrection and God’s purification of the righteous in fire.120 God the craftsman (artifex) becomes God the goldsmith (aurifex) who refines his gold (the righteous) in the fires of Judgement Day, as the phoenix burns itself in its pyre. This is perhaps the context in which burning of treasure not only at the end of The Phoenix, but also at the end of Cynewulf’s Christ II, should be read.121 The imagery of burning gold evokes the purification of the just at the end of days, with the wicked melting away like the dross: ‘Þonne frætwe sculon / byrnan on bæle’ (Christ II, lines 807b–8a) (‘then ornaments shall burn in the fire’). Indeed, Cynewulf alludes more explicitly to this purification at the end of Elene: Hie asodene beoð, asundrod fram synnum, swa smæte gold þæt in wylme bið womma gehwylces þurh ofnes fyr eall geclænsod, amered ond gemylted. Swa bið þara manna ælc ascyred ond asceaden scylda gehwylcre, deopra firena, þurh þæs domes fyr. (Elene, lines 1308b–14) (They are refined,122 sundered from sins, as pure gold that in heat, through the fire of the furnace, is entirely cleansed of every stain, puri-

119

120

121

122

Although the Phoenix poet uses londes frætwe earlier in the poem to refer to the vegetation of the phoenix’s country (line 150b), the reference to æhtgestreon and gold in this passage (line 506) suggests that here he uses the phrase to emphasise the earthly and therefore transient nature of treasure. See D. G. Calder, ‘The Vision of Paradise: A Symbolic Reading of the Old English Phoenix’, ASE 1 (1972), 167–81, at p. 170, on the widespread use of frætwe in The Phoenix, which often refers to natural phenomena (e.g. lines 73b, 200b and 309a). H. E. Fox, ‘The Aesthetics of Resurrection: Goldwork, the Soul, and the Deus artifex in The Phoenix’, RES 63 (2012), 1–19; see especially pp. 10–15. Christ II, lines 807b–8a and 811b–14; other poems by Cynewulf, The Fates of the Apostles, lines 99b–102 and Elene, lines 1270b–71, similarly portray the destruction or dispersal of wealth in their signature sections. DOE, s.v. aseoþan, gives ‘to smelt (metal), refine (gold, silver)’ as definition 2.b.i, but also offers under 2.b.ii: ‘figurative: asoden beon “to be purified (of sins)”’, citing this example from Elene.

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Treasure in Heaven: The Prose Psalms fied and softened. So will every man be freed and separated from every sin,123 [every] awful crime, through the judgement of the fire.)

The refining and transformation of precious metals recalls the transformation of earthly wealth into material rewards through almsgiving. Elsewhere in The Phoenix, the saved resurrected are described travelling to heaven ‘fægere gefrætwed, fugle gelicast, / in eadwelum æþelum stencum’ (lines 585–6) (‘fairly adorned, most like a bird, / in rich wealth, with noble scents’). This eadwela represents not the temporary fruits of this earth but the blessedness of heaven. The souls of the just are reunited with their restored bodies, travelling ‘fugle gelicast’ (‘most like a bird’). Fox argues that this comparison could simply reflect the flight of the just, or it could equally refer to ‘the decoration of the soul and body being most like the phoenix’s gem-like plumage’.124 The adornments of the resurrected bodies (lines 591–4a and 602–10) can perhaps be understood as the replacement of the lost wealth of this world, destroyed in the Judgement Day fires: they represent the purified gold which remains after the dross has been burned. There is both continuity and transformation in the comparison and contrast of the blessings of earth and heaven. The focus on transformation, rather than destruction, resonates with the transformation of worldly wealth through almsgiving found in the Prose Psalms: the currency continues, from earth to heaven, but the act of almsgiving changes its form. As in the Pastoral Care, the translator of the Prose Psalms presents almsgiving as a ladder from earth to heaven: a means by which one transforms the currency of material wealth, allowing it to flow out of this life and into the next. The Prose Psalms warn against the error of becoming static, of thinking that one’s earthly prosperity is assured and unchanging. As vernacular poetry such as The Seafarer reminds its readers time and again, putting all of one’s faith in this earthly life means that one becomes unprepared for death. Hrothgar’s advice to Beowulf is, again, apposite here:  Nu is þines mægnes blæd ane hwile; eft sona bið þæt þec adl oððe ecg eafoþes getwæfeð, oððe fyres feng, oððe flodes wylm, oððe gripe meces, oððe gares fliht, oððe atol yldo; oððe eagena bearhtm forsiteð and forsworceð; semninga bið 123 124

DOE, s.v. ascyrian, definition 3.a.i. As Fox notes, restored bodies are depicted as constructed from glass and precious metals in Christ III, lines 1281b–84 and Vercelli Homily IV.157–60, and The Phoenix refers to the riches with which the saved are adorned: The Phoenix, lines 602–10; Fox, ‘Aesthetics of Resurrection’, pp. 12–13 and 15.

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Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus þæt ðec, dryhtguma, deað oferswyðeð. (Beowulf, lines 1761b–68) (Now is the flourishing of your might – for a while; soon afterwards illness or blade will deprive you of power, or the touch of fire, or the surge of the flood, or the grip of a sword, or the flight of a spear, or dire old age; or the brightness of your eyes will fail and grow dim; suddenly, warrior, death will overcome you.)

Unlike the proverbial figure in the Psalms, Hrothgar understands that worldly prosperity does not last. If one has been blessed with material riches, it is very easy to fall into the trap of saying: ‘Ne wyrð þises næfre nan wendincg’ (Ps(P) 29.6) (‘this will never change’). Moreover, it is worth noting that Hrothgar’s warning that the brightness of one’s eyes may well ‘forsiteð and forsworceð’ (‘fail and grow dim’) recalls the famous ‘tools of a king’ speech in the Boethius. Mod, apparently speaking in the voice of a king, fears that his cræft (‘skill’) and anweald (‘rule’) will be ‘forgiten and forholen’ (B17.21–2) (‘forgotten and covered over’) or ‘forealdod and forswugod’ (B17.22–3) (‘worn out and silenced’). Although these kings speak from different perspectives, in very different contexts, both of them succeed where the proverbial figure in the Psalms fail, in that they know that their earthly power is not secure or everlasting. It is not like the ‘ðurhwunigende welan’ (‘enduring wealth’) which, as Mod learns, comes from serving the true good. The Old English Prose Psalms stress that we go wrong when we put our trust in such unstable worldly things. The Boethius offers the true good, or summum bonum, as a steadfast alternative to the ‘brotel wele of mannes joie unstable’ (‘brittle happiness of man’s unstable joy’), to borrow from Criseyde’s Boethian speech in Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde.125 Beowulf has its own consolation in the durability of a man’s renown, stored up in the treasure which is given, inherited, or stolen, continuing on long after its old owners are dead. The Prose Psalms promise God’s people their yrfeweardness in heaven: one way in which this heavenly inheritance can be attained is through giving alms, transforming brittle worldly wealth into lasting rewards. The matter of this world is full of potential, but, as the Old English translator of the Prose Psalms warns, it cannot be led out of this life in its present form. The Prose Psalms does find a place for wealth in heaven, but it must be transformed first. Transformation is central to the treatment of wealth throughout the Alfredian corpus. In the Prose Psalms and the Pastoral Care, almsgiving emerges as the primary method for transforming the wealth of this earth 125

Book III, line 820; L. D. Benson et al., ed., The Riverside Chaucer, 3rd ed. (Oxford, 2008), p. 524.

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Treasure in Heaven: The Prose Psalms into treasure in heaven. In the Boethius we find a similar transformation: soð wela (‘true riches’) turn from material wealth to the riches of the intellect; but this is a transformation which takes place in the mind of the reader. The material things of the Soliloquies retain their comforting familiarity while at the same time finding a way to heaven. The translations themselves, like the material things they explore, are transformations in their own right, as Janet Bately has argued.126 This is perhaps nowhere more significant than in the case of the Prose Psalms, as this is a text built on layers of translation, from the original Hebrew via Latin and into Old English. Through transforming the Romanum source text, the translator produces something which has a new meaning in Old English: while we can hear echoes of the Psalter’s lyricism, the result is a text which offers practical guidance and advice on (among other things) what to do with one’s wealth. This mundane, everyday advice is situated within a worldview which is confident about the links and channels between this world and the next. The act of literary translation presented by the Prose Psalms offers a model for the transformation of material things and the purification of the mind. The boundary between worlds is thin in the Prose Psalms, and open to the movement of matter from one state to another.

126

Bately, Literary Prose.

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Conclusion Transformations in Prose and Poetry

T

he aim of this study has been to re-evaluate the role of material things, especially wealth, in Alfredian literature through the lens of Augustine’s principles of use and enjoyment, and the supposed binary between thing and object articulated by thing theory. Critics have long observed that Alfredian literature appears to be more tolerant of material resources than the Latin texts on which the translations are based, especially when those material things are shown to be useful: the most obvious and famous example of this tolerance for useful things is the ‘tools of a king’ speech in the Old English Boethius, with which this book began. However, this book has demonstrated that the Alfredian translations go beyond this supposed binary of either using wealth as a tool, or enjoying it immoderately. Certainly, the translators appreciate the usefulness of wealth, and condemn excessive indulgence in it; but this is not the limit of their engagement with wealth. Rather, wealth emerges as something fluid and ever-changing. It is at once of this world and the next, as well as a bridge between the two. The Alfred Jewel, as I argued in the first chapter, is emphatically a ‘thing’, a piece of vibrant matter, to borrow from Bennett.1 The jewel, I suggest, is not only an object which one might use as a guide to find wisdom, but also a thing, with its own agency and identity, to be enjoyed for its own sake. The prefaces and epilogues of the Alfredian corpus are filled with things – mainly books – which are both useful tools and independent things: their vibrant materiality cannot be ignored. We might use them as a ladder to heaven or to wisdom, but their agency in the prefaces means that we cannot dismiss them as tools. When we turn to the translations themselves, we find a similar panoply of material things. The prose preface to the Pastoral Care betrays a fear of what happens when meaningful things stop being signs, and are only things, when we appreciate books and treasures only because of their materiality, and not because of their power as signs for something greater. In the translation itself, we find a stream of wealth which runs from earth to heaven, much like the stream of wisdom which runs from heaven to earth in the verse epilogue. Material wealth has the power to flow out of this world and into the next through the quasi-magical transformation 1

Bennett, Vibrant Matter.

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Conclusion of almsgiving. We find this same transformation of wealth in the Prose Psalms, along with transformation through purification by fire, a model for the refining of the intellect through meditation. The investigation of the boundary between this world and the next is also apparent in the Old English Boethius. In his dialogue with Wisdom, Boetius or Mod learns that the material things of this world are false and fleeting, and that it is the wealth of heaven and wisdom which endures. We can see the stream of wealth here as well, in that the translator uses the same word, wela, to refer to the riches of earth and the riches of heaven; even when Mod learns that ‘true riches’ are not material ones, the sense of the material wela lingers, and informs the nature of that true wealth. The Old English Soliloquies similarly uses the material world as a starting point, building its argument upon analogies from secular, aristocratic life, and although the text is ultimately concerned with the world to come, the repeated use of these scenes of a king’s court cannot help but validate that hierarchical world of kings and thegns, lords and servants. Like the Boethius, the Soliloquies presents an ideal model in which wealth is controlled by rich men for the good of their subjects, and responsibly distributed down through the ranks. In this model, men are not the owners of material wealth, but its stewards. The Soliloquies, moreover, reveals that through responsible use and distribution it is possible to enjoy wealth. When asked by Gesceadwisnes if he would rather follow the one who gives him wealth or the wealth itself, Augustinus immediately answers that he would choose the giver, showing an admirable preference for the source over the stream of wela – but adds, frankly, that if he could have both he would also like the wealth. Moreover, on a number of occasions the Soliloquies asserts the importance of familiarity and proximity, qualities which stem from a material, sensory engagement with the world. It is here, most strikingly of all, that we find the strongest sense of an appreciation for the material world. As Augustinus says: ‘æalle þas weorlde ic lufige, ælc ðinc be ðam dæle þe ic hyt nytwyrðe ongyte, and huru þa þing swiðost þe me to wisdome fultimiað’ (76.14–16) (‘I love all this world, each thing by the portion which I understand it to be useful, and indeed those things most of all which help me to wisdom’). As I argued in the Introduction, Beowulf conveys a strong awareness that one will not possess wealth for ever – although this is more because of man’s own mortality than because of the inherent transitoriness of treasure – but that it is possible to enjoy wealth nonetheless. It is as though the characters of Beowulf are able to hold the two things simultaneously in their mind, much like Augustinus in the Soliloquies: this will not last but I can love and use it for a short time anyway. The importance of treasure in Beowulf, moreover, lies in its ability to store up that which does last: a man’s reputation. However, as we have seen, this attitude towards treas177

Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus ure is not found in all Old English poetry. In The Seafarer we encounter an emphatic rejection of this material world and all its pleasures: Forþon me hatran sind dryhtnes dreamas þonne þis deade lif, læne on londe. Ic gelyfe no þæt him eorðwelan ece stondað. (The Seafarer, lines 64b–67) (Therefore the joys of the Lord are hotter for me than this dead life, loaned on land. I do not believe that earthly wealth stands eternally for him.)

It is hardly possible to imagine a more scathing dismissal of our experience in this world than to announce it a ‘dead life’. The foolish, landlocked man who hopes his earthly wealth will last for him will be disappointed. Nonetheless, it is worth noting that the poet makes his contrast between this life and the joys of the Lord through the comparison of heat: the idea of divine joy being ‘hot’ depends upon just the sensory, materialist perspective from which the ascetic pilgrim on the sea appears to want to divorce himself. A similar rejection of this world can be found in The Wanderer, which closes with the speaker of the poem setting his sights on heaven, where the only true ‘fæstnung’ (line 115b) (‘stability’) can be found. All worldly things are dismissed, as in The Seafarer, as læne (lines 108–9) (‘loaned, transitory’). These ideas of divine stability and the fleetingness of all worldly things have, of course, their parallels in Boethius’s De consolatione philosophiae. The influence of Boethius on The Wanderer, and other Old English poetry, has long been recognised as a possibility, made all the more persuasive by the fact that the Latin dialogue would have been available in Old English from at least the mid-tenth century, if not earlier.2 However, the Boethian ideals which can be identified in The Wanderer are somewhat at odds with the heroic world to which the speaker in the poem looks with longing. As Trilling as shown, the heroic world that we 2

Horgan, ‘The Wanderer’; North, ‘Boethius and the Mercenary’; R. M. Lumiansky, ‘The Dramatic Structure of the Old English Wanderer’, SN 41 (1969), 104–11, at pp. 110–11; L. Whitbread, ‘The Pattern of Misfortune in Deor and Other Old English Poems’, Neophilologus 54 (1970), 167–83, at pp. 173–4; for the influence of Boethian philosophy on Deor, see further M. F. Markland, ‘Boethius, Alfred, and Deor’, MP 66 (1968), 1–4; W. F. Bolton, ‘Boethius, Alfred, and Deor Again’, MP 69 (1972), 222–7; and K. S. Kiernan, ‘Deor: The Consolations of an AngloSaxon Boethius’, NM 79 (1978), 333–40. London, British Library, MS Cotton Otho A. vi, which contains the C-text of the Old English Boethius, dates from the mid-tenth century: Gneuss and Lapidge, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts, pp. 274–5, no. 347.

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Conclusion encounter in Old English poetry is not a historical reality, but rather a nostalgic confection, a reconstruction of a past that never was: ‘The Germanic lord’, she argues, ‘was as anachronistic then as he is now, and heroic Old English verse accordingly is coloured by a profound sense of nostalgia’.3 The affection with which the speaker of The Wanderer regards the things of this imagined heroic world comes into conflict with the ascetic philosophy of Boethius’s De consolatione. The Old English Boethius, however, and the other translations associated with Alfred, as we have seen, balance the rejection of the this world typical of De consolatione with an awareness of the potential for continuity between material things and the otherworldly. Over the course of this book, I have read the Alfredian translations in the context of Old English poetry, demonstrating that the poetic context can reveal much about the treatment of wealth in this group of prose translations. Now, in the conclusion, I propose that the inverse is also true: that is, that Alfredian literature can uncover new meaning in the poetic corpus.

Circles and wheels As mentioned above, the possibility of a connection between Boethius and The Wanderer has been recognised for some time. One area of possible Boethian influence on The Wanderer is the role of fate, or wyrd, in the lives of men. According to Boethius, fatum is the sublunary agent of divine providence: or to be more precise, God’s plan is called providentia when considered in relation to His divine intelligence, but is called fatum when considered from the perspective of the unfolding of this plan in the world of men.4 The Old English Boethius maintains this distinction between ‘Godes foreþonc and his foretiohhung’ (B39.143–4) (‘God’s providence and His predestination’) and wyrd, except, as Paul Langeslag observes, the translator makes the distinction a temporal one: it is providence before it happens, and wyrd after it plays out in our lives.5 As we have seen, the Old English Boethius also presents wyrd as the distributor of gifts which humans might be lucky enough to receive, ‘ge on cræftum ge on æhtum’ (‘both in skills and possessions’). The Old English Pastoral Care identifies God Himself as the distributor of these gifts. As Langeslag acknowledges, it is possible to find ‘a Boethian cosmology’ in The Wanderer, ‘since the poem appears to present wyrd as subordinate to God but governing worldly processes’.6 For example, the speaker laments:

3 4 5 6

Trilling, Aesthetics of Nostalgia, pp. 3–4. 4p6; Rand, et al., p. 358. Langeslag, ‘Boethian Similitude’, pp. 209–10. Langeslag, ‘Boethian Similitude’, pp. 211–12.

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Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus ‘onwendeð wyrda gesceaft weoruld under heofonum’ (The Wanderer, line 107) (‘the disposition of fate changes the world under the heavens’): wyrd is only permitted to affect the sublunary world. However, Langeslag also notes that ‘a knowledge of Boethius was not required for an Anglo-Saxon to conclude that God controls wyrd’, and in fact goes on to argue that the philosophy of The Wanderer is Christian, rather than strictly Boethian.7 Nonetheless, I would maintain that the poem shares with De consolatione a preoccupation with the role of fate in the lives of men, and ultimately portrays an individual’s journey from immersion in the material world to an awareness that none of the apparent pleasures of this life can offer lasting happiness. Comparison of Boethius’s Latin with the Old English translation, however, reveals that in its removal from worldly things, The Wanderer is actually far closer to the Old English than the Latin. In De consolatione, Philosophia uses the abstract image of concentric circles rotating around a still centre to explain the extent to which we are controlled by fate. The innermost sphere is nearest to the still centre, and so rotates the least, but the outermost has a far greater circumference. She goes on: simili ratione quod longius a prima mente discedit maioribus fati nexibus implicatur ac tanto aliquid fato liberum est quanto illum rerum cardinem vicinius petit. Quod si supernae mentis haeserit firmitati, motu carens fati quoque supergreditur necessitatem. (in a similar manner, that which is furthest separated from the principal mind is entangled in the tighter meshes of fate, and a thing is the more free from fate the more closely it moves towards that centre of all things. And if it should cling fast to the firmness of the supernal mind, then being without motion it is also superior to the necessity of fate).8

The point of the analogy is to show that the closer one cleaves to divinity, the less one is whirled by the turnings of fate. We can see parallels here with the final sentiment of The Wanderer, when the speaker learns to direct his attention to the ‘fæstnung’ (line 115b) (‘security’) of heaven, and detaches himself from the unsteady fortunes of this world. The Old English adaptation of this analogy is probably the most famous passage in the whole translation. The translator takes Boethius’s abstract image of concentric circles whirling around a centre stillness, and turns it into a wagon-wheel, rotating around an axle (B39.153–93). Three separate parts of the wheel correspond to the three different types of men. The best men are like the nafu (‘hub’), which is nearest the axle. The hub ‘ferð

7 8

Langeslag, ‘Boethian Similitude’, p. 214. 4p6; Stewart, et al., ed. and trans., Consolation of Philosophy, pp. 360–3, lines 74–9.

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Conclusion micle fæstlicor and orsorlicor þonne þa felgan don’ (B39.161) (‘travels much more securely and smoothly than the rim-pieces do’). These rimpieces symbolise the worst men, those who are most bumped about by the movement of the wheel: they are furthest from the axle, and their journey therefore represents the widest circumference. In between the rim and the hub we find the spokes of the wheel, which symbolise ‘þa midmestan’ (B39.163–4) (‘middlemost men’): Forþam ðe ælces spacan bið oðer ende fæst on þære nafe, oðer on þære felge. Swa bið þam midlestan monnum; oðre hwile he smeað on his mode ymb þis eorðlice lif, oðre hwile ymb þæt godcundlice, swelce he locie mid oðre eagan to heofonum, mid oðre to eorþan, swa swa þæs spacan sticað oðer ende on þære felge oðer on þære nafe.9 (B39.164–9) (For each of the spokes is on one end firm in the hub, the other in the rim-piece. So it is for the middlemost man; sometimes he considers this earthly life in his mind, sometimes the divine, as though he looked with one eye to heaven and with the other to earth, just as the one end of the spoke sticks in the rim-piece and the other in the hub.)

The image of looking with one eye to earth, the other to heaven, is a striking portrait of somebody torn between two worlds; indeed, it is an apt reflection of a ruler such as Gregory or Alfred himself, both of whom found themselves torn between secular duties and religious devotion. We might also consider it a reflection of the speaker in The Wanderer, who trudges stoically forward on the ‘wræclast’ (line 32a) (‘path of an exile’) which will ultimately lead him to wisdom, but who cannot help but look back over his shoulder at all he has lost. The wagon-wheel analogy not only serves to make Boethius’s concentric circles more comprehensible, but also lends a more didactic, homiletic note. The worst men, we learn ‘ealle hiora lufe wenden to þisse worulde’ (B39.177) (‘turn all their love to this world’). Better it is, Wisdom tells Mod, to turn away from the love of this world, and direct all one’s attention to the still centre that is God. The nearer one is to this still centre, the axle, the less one is whirled about by fate: Ða felga bioð fyrrest þære eaxe; forþam hi farað ungerydelicost. Sio nafu færð nehst þære eaxe; forþy hio færð gesundfullicost. Swa doð þa selestan men. Swa hi hiora lufe near Gode lætað and swiðor þas eorðlicon þing forsioð, swa hi bioð orsorgran and læs reccað hu sio wyrd wandrige oððe hwæt hio brenge (B39.181–6)

9

Wisdom elsewhere describes Boetius as someone who looks with one eye to heavenly things and with one eye to the earthly: B38.191–3; Godden and Irvine, ed., Old English Boethius, II, p. 467.

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Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus (The rim-pieces are furthest from the axle; therefore they move most roughly. The hub moves nearest the axle; therefore it moves most soundly. So do the best men. Just as they set their love the closer to God and all the more reject these earthly things, so they are the more secure, and care the less about how fate wanders or what it brings).

More so than in De consolatione, the Old English version makes it clear that proximity to the still centre of God is attained through removing oneself from ‘þas eorðlicon þing’. It is easier to see how one might apply the message of the Old English wagon-wheel analogy to one’s own life: it is a case of turning one’s love away from earthly things, and directing it towards God. In Augustinian terms, it is about enjoying one’s devotion to God, rather than the material things of this life. This instruction to turn aside from ‘þas eorðlicon þing’ is far closer to The Wanderer, and the speaker’s departure from the things he has lost, than Boethius’s more abstract and theoretical analogy, which is harder to connect with real life. There is another significant alteration from Boethius’s Latin which to my knowledge has not received any critical attention. This is Wisdom’s statement that by being closer to the axle, the best men are more secure and ‘læs reccað’ (‘care the less’) about the turbulence of fate. While it may seem a minor addition, what Wisdom is saying here is that even those best men, nearest to God, will be confronted by wandering wyrd, but that their proximity to God will mean that they care less about what wyrd will bring. This is an important departure from Boethius, whose analogy shows that by being closer to the divine, one is less controlled by fate. Although this is the stated object of Wisdom’s explanation (B39.153–4), as the wagon-wheel analogy develops, it appears that he is more concerned to show that proximity to God means that one is simply less bothered about what fate brings.

Transforming wealth This difference is significant when considering the Old English Boethius in relation to The Wanderer, as the progress of the poem teaches not that detachment from worldly things prevents misfortune, as Boethius suggests in De consolatione, but rather that a detached approach allows one to accept these misfortunes with equanimity. At the poem’s opening, we find that the things of this world have caused the speaker no little care. Indeed, the epithet eardstapa (line 6a) (‘wanderer’) is significant in terms of the Old English Boethius in that it brings to mind the rim-pieces of the wagon-wheel, the section of the wheel furthest from the axle and nearest to the earth, ever moving on the surface of the earth just as the eardstapa moves ceaselessly in his search for a new lord and home. At this stage in 182

Conclusion the poem, the speaker has both eyes turned to the earth, and cannot turn his love away from his lost friends and ‘wunden gold’ (line 32b) (‘wound gold’). However, as the poem progresses, the speaker realises the insubstantiality of these memories, and turns from his own misfortune to more general contemplation on the lot of mortals, the transitoriness of ‘þes middangeard’ (line 62b) (‘this middle-earth’), and the prerequisites for wisdom. The speaker develops intellectually, just as Mod does through his dialogue with Wisdom. By the latter stages of The Wanderer, the speaker is sure in the knowledge that all men must die, and that this world will become ‘idel’ (line 110b) (‘idle’). By the very end of the poem, the figure that speaks is not the roaming eardstapa, but the snottor (line 111a) (‘wise man’), who sits ‘sundor æt rune’ (111b) (‘apart in consultation’), just as Mod consults with Wisdom. It is in this contemplative state, apart from all else, that the speaker is able to conclude that it is well for him who seeks the security of God in heaven. This snottor, then, is like the best men of the wagon-wheel, who move closest to God, and are least attached to the material world. He still experiences misfortune, but has learned not to care about it. We might also think of the seafarer, similarly cut off from ‘hringþege’ (The Seafarer, line 44b) (‘receiving of rings’) and all ‘worulde hyht’ (line 45b) (‘worldly hope’).10 Both of these figures have removed themselves from all worldly expectation. Nonetheless, this account in The Seafarer about the one who ventures on a ‘sæfore’ (line 42a) (‘sea voyage’) is followed by the somewhat ambiguous statement: ‘ac a hafað longunge se þe on lagu fundað’ (line 47) (‘but he ever has longing, he who sets out on the water’). While it could be that this longing is directed towards the spiritual object of the traveller’s sea-voyage, it is also possible that the poet here refers back to the things the seafarer has left behind on land. This longung is significant, as it could suggest that while the seafarer has determined to detach himself from the comforts of the ‘læne’ (line 66a) (‘loaned’) life on land, he nonetheless longs for them. It is perhaps unsurprising that even somewhat homiletic Old English poetry, such as The Seafarer, should betray a reluctance to let go of this world, given that it develops out of a literary tradition deeply invested in material things. We have seen in Beowulf that even the knowledge of treasure’s fleetingness does not stop the kings, queen and heroes that exchange it from taking pleasure in it. Indeed, treasure is not just an attractive adornment, but a testament to and record of one’s ancestors: it stores up fame and renown, which for characters such as Beowulf, at least, make life worth living. Heroic poetry, and Old English poetry which draws upon heroic conventions, has materiality at its centre: as we saw 10

See also The Wanderer, line 34b, ‘sincþege’ (‘receiving of treasure’).

183

Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus in Chapter One, The Dream of the Rood makes the material components of the Cross a central part of its theological significance. The matter of the Cross is not just a symbol of Christ’s simultaneous victory and defeat, but a fundamental agent in the dreamer’s revelation. In The Wanderer, moreover, I would argue that we can identify a stronger sense of this same love of and longing for material things that we catch a glimpse of in The Seafarer, even at the point in the poem where the speaker is leaning towards the security of the heavenly home. The famous ubi sunt lament is, I would say, a clear sign of this love and longing struggling to co-exist alongside the speaker’s knowledge that all these things must fade away and disappear: Hwær cwom mearg? Hwær cwom mago? Hwær cwom maþþumgyfa? Hwær cwom symbla gesetu? Hwær sindon seledreamas? Eala beorht bune! Eala byrnwiga! Eala þeodnes þrym! Hu seo þrag gewat, genap under nihthelm, swa heo no wære. (The Wanderer, lines 92–6) (Where has the horse gone? Where has the young man gone? Where has the treasure-giver gone? Where have the seats at the feasts gone? Where are the joys of the hall? Alas the bright cup! Alas the mailed warrior! Alas the glory of the lord! How that time has passed away, darkened under the cover of night, as if it never were.)

The fact that these lines are so often quoted has perhaps somewhat dulled their effect. The repeated question, ‘hwær cwom’, is not a mark of detachment: rather, it is the sign of somebody torn between resignation and longing. Again, we can identify the figure from the Boethius, with one eye looking to earth – to the horse and the rider – and one eye turned towards heaven. Moreover, this is not just a lament for lost loved ones but for the things that are gone. Line 94 is particularly significant in this sense, in that it draws attention to the materiality of the lost things: the brightness of the cup reminds us of the shiny, reflective metal from which it is made; likewise, the reference to the warrior’s mail points not just to the living warrior but his precious – and similarly shiny – mail-coat. This is a lament not just for the aristocratic life, but for the tangible things in it. Poems such as The Wanderer and The Seafarer, then, are poised between the heroic world of Beowulf and a homiletic mode which advocates complete rejection of all those material things which populate the heroic imagination. That tone of utter renunciation resonates throughout much of the Latin source material upon which the Alfredian translations are based and, indeed, the translators themselves do in some cases amplify that condemnation of the material world. However, this admonishment of indulgence 184

Conclusion in material things is not the limit of the translators’ treatment of wealth. As we have seen throughout this book, Alfredian literature is littered with precious material things, both useful and enjoyed. As in The Wanderer, there emerges from the translations a love and longing for the material world, and a reliance upon it for making sense of one’s own role. In the Old English Soliloquies, for example, we find a striking appeal for the importance of familiarity and proximity. Augustinus demands of Gesceadwisnes: ‘hu mæg ic forlæten þæt ðæt ic wot and can and of cyldehade to gewonad eom, and lufian þæt ðet me uncuð is buton be gesegenum?’ (62.18–19) (‘How may I abandon that which I know and am acquainted with and from childhood am accustomed to, and love that which is unfamiliar to me except from by reports?’). While Gesceadwisnes does go on to prove to Augustinus that he can, in fact, love and trust those things that he has only heard by report, these lines remain a powerful assertion of the importance of familiar things. It represents an innate preference for the things known through senses and experience, rather than things known only in the abstract and theoretical. Indeed, many of the Alfredian translators rely upon the familiarity of the material world to explain unfamiliar, abstract concepts. As Wisdom says to Mod: ‘Be þam ic þe mæg sum bispell secgan þæt ðu miht þy sweotolor ongitan’ (B39.153–4) (‘I can tell you a certain example about that so that you might more clearly understand’). We might think here not only of the wagon-wheel in the Boethius, but also the leaky pitcher in the epilogue to the Pastoral Care, or the house of wisdom in the preface to the Soliloquies, constructed out of materials itemised specifically by the speaker, with the help of particular tools. Material things in Alfredian literature are valued not only for their familiarity, but also for their transformative potential, whether in the sense of their power to transform those who interact with them, like the Alfred Jewel, or their ability to be transformed themselves, like the coins which become treasure in heaven through almsgiving. It is that transformative power which bridges the gap between the thoroughly material world imagined in heroic poetry and the Christian call for renunciation of material wealth. Material wealth has a role to play in Alfredian literature, offering a means of joining together earth and heaven. Through returning wealth to the vertical stream which runs from God to man, it can be transformed from something fleeting to enduring. We see similar transformations in Old English poems such as Cynewulf’s signed works and The Phoenix, poems which are indebted to the heroic vocabulary of wealth, but which ultimately transform the wealth of this earth into treasure in heaven. In the Exeter Book elegies considered here, however, wealth and other material things do not have that transformative power. They are idel (The Wanderer, line 87b) (‘idle’), whether the speaker longs for them, as in The Wanderer, or spurns them, as in The Seafarer. The primary stream of exchange that we find in these poems is between humans, namely, the 185

Wealth and the Material World in the Old English Alfredian Corpus gifts that are distributed from the lord to his retainers.11 The Alfredian translations, as we have seen, allude to and validate this horizontal current of exchange, but they also turn it on its axis and reveal a vertical stream of exchange between God and man. Gifts and blessings pour down this stream from heaven to earth and, through transformation, can return up the stream as true, lasting riches. As outlined above, in The Wanderer the distributor of fortune, both good and bad, is wyrd (‘fate’). Readers of the poem familiar with Boethius can see that wyrd is God’s agent on earth, enacting divine providence in human time and space. However, in the poem itself, the relationship between wyrd and the divine plan is not quite so clear. In each of its appearances, wyrd is a strong and destructive force, not clearly linked to God in either His vengeful or merciful aspect; as Langeslag observes, wyrd appears to be ‘subordinate to God’, but the poem does not articulate the relationship more precisely than that.12 From the perspective of the speaker in The Wanderer, wyrd brings misfortune to the lives of men on earth: this life and everything in it, he concludes, is unstable and fleeting, and so we must set our hearts on the heavenly home and ‘are’ (The Wanderer, line 114b) (‘mercy’) of the Father. Unlike in the Old English Boethius, there is no clear link between God’s careful plan and the apparently random wanderings of wyrd in this life. The Boethius reveals the machinery of fate and providence, and in so doing makes the vertical stream between heaven and earth visible to its readers: we see that God controls fate in this world, and that whatever fate brings us ultimately stems from God. In The Wanderer, this machinery of fate is concealed. Fate appears random and capricious; we do not clearly see heaven as the seat of the divine providence which controls that fate, but rather a comforting place to which we can hope to escape from the vicissitudes of this life. I would argue that it is because the machinery of fate is hidden in The Wanderer that material things do not have the same transformative power that we see in Alfredian literature. If one can see the stream which brings fortune (good and bad) from heaven, one can also see that it is possible to transform those gifts and return them to their source. In Alfredian literature, as we have seen, the boundaries between worlds are permeable. The speaker of The Wanderer grasps that this world is fleeting and that heaven is our true home; but the two worlds remain quite separate. In the Alfredian translations, however, time and time again we see connections between material and immaterial worlds, connections which are forged through interaction with material things. It is this inability to see the transformative power of material things which makes The Wanderer and

11 12

See, for example, The Wanderer, lines 43b–44. Langeslag, ‘Boethian Similitude’, pp. 211–12.

186

Conclusion The Seafarer elegies, or laments. There is a frustration in these poems with the dead things of this life, even if the speaker of The Wanderer loves and longs for them. Alfredian literature, however, sees the transformative potential in the things of this world, especially material wealth. There is no better example of this potential than the Alfred Jewel. A gift from a king to his dependents, it points to the gift of wealth bestowed on that king by God, fusing the horizontal and vertical currents of exchange. Through the making and distributing of the jewel, the king’s wealth is transformed into the riches of both wisdom and piety, riches which will multiply through the intellectual development of the jewel’s recipients. The Alfred Jewel, finally, manifests the transformation of the Old English poetic tradition that we find in Alfredian literature: it merges the bright gold familiar from Beowulf with the speaking things that we hear in the Exeter Book riddles and, overall, embodies the ambition and innovation of Alfredian literature, which looks with one eye to past tradition, and one eye to the future.

187

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Bibliography Bright, James Wilson, and Robert L. Ramsay, ed., Liber Psalmorum: The West-Saxon Psalms (Boston: Heath and Co., 1907). Carnicelli, Thomas A., ed., King Alfred’s Version of St. Augustine’s Soliloquies (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1969). [Cassiodorus], Magni Aurelii Cassiodori: Expositio Psalmorum, 2 vols, ed. Marcus Adriaen, CCSL 97–8 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1958). [Chaucer, Geoffrey], The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Larry D. Benson et al., 3rd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008). Colgrave, Bertram, ed. and trans., The Earliest Life of Gregory the Great (Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 1968). Cox, R. S., ‘The Old English Dicts of Cato’, Anglia 90 (1972), 1–42. Dobbie, Elliott Van Kirk, ed., Beowulf and Judith, ASPR 4 (London: Routledge and Keegan Paul, 1953). —— The Anglo-Saxon Minor Poems, ASPR 6 (London: Routledge and Keegan Paul, 1942). Fulk, R. D., Robert E. Bjork and John D. Niles, ed., Klaeber’s Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg, 4th ed. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008). Godden, Malcolm, and Susan Irvine, ed. and trans., with Mark Griffith and Rohini Jayatilaka, The Old English Boethius: An Edition of the Old English Versions of Boethius’s De Consolatione Philosophiae, 2 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). Godman, Peter, ed., Poetry of the Carolingian Renaissance (London: Duckworth, 1985). [Gregory I], Gregorii magni dialogi, ed. Umberto Moricca (Rome: Tip. del Senato, 1924). —— Pastoral Care, ed. and trans. H. Davis, Ancient Christian Writers 11 (Westminster, MD: Newman Press, 1950). —— Règle Pastorale, ed. Bruno Judic and Floribert Rommel, trans. Charles Morel, 2 vols, Sources Chrétiennes 381–2 (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1992). Griffiths, Bill, ed., Alfred’s Metres of Boethius (Pinner: Anglo-Saxon Books, 1991). Hamer, Richard, ed. and trans., A Choice of Anglo-Saxon Verse (London: Faber and Faber, 1970). Irvine, Susan, ed., The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: A Collaborative Collation, vol. 7, MS E (Cambridge: Brewer, 2004). Irvine, Susan, and Malcolm Godden, ed. and trans., The Old English Boethius with Verse Prologues and Epilogues Associated with King Alfred, Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library 19 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012). Krapp, George Philip, ed., The Junius Manuscript, ASPR 1 (London: Routledge, 1931). —— ed., The Paris Psalter and the Metres of Boethius, ASPR 5 (London: Routledge, 1933). 190

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203

Index

Abraham 95 Ælfric, Abbot of Eynsham 78 Æthelstan 165 n.99 Æthelweard’s Chronicon 37, 45, 90–1 afterlife, the 15, 28, 76–7, 133, 155–6. See also afterlife under OE Soliloquies Alcuin of York 89 Disputatio de Vera Philosophia 89 n.16 Alfred Jewel 22, 41, 44 n.66, 45–6, 185, 187 as æstel 25–6, 40–2 thing theory 8, 20, 46, 53–8, 113, 176 See also æstel under prose preface to under OE Pastoral Care Alfred, King of Wessex 17–18, 158 n.71, 181 as author of the prose preface to the OE Pastoral Care 63–5, 67 authorship 1, 19–20 of the OE Boethius 85, 90–2 of the OE Pastoral Care 26, 59–62 of the OE Prose Psalms 145, 148–50, 168–9 of the OE Soliloquies 119, 129 n.45, 136 distribution of the OE Pastoral Care 25, 46, 54, 58, 60–1, 84 and King David 148 and the OE Dialogues 26–7, 29–30, 39 patron of Old English poetry 18, 159–60

preface to the Laws 19 in verse preface to the OE Boethius 36–8 in verse preface to the OE Pastoral Care 33–5 See also Vita Alfredi under Asser; and prose preface to under OE Pastoral Care almsgiving 4, 71–4, 77–8, 129, 185 Old English poem Almsgiving 157 See also almsgiving under OE Pastoral Care and OE Prose Psalms Andreas 17, 18, 159–60 Ark of the Covenant 68 assemblage theory 8, 53 Asser 26 Vita Alfredi 60–1, 78 n.59, 91 n.26, 142 n.71, 148–9, 158 n.71, 159 n.80 Alfred’s ædificia nova 40–1, 44, 141–2 Augustine, Archbishop of Canterbury 33–4 Augustine, Bishop of Hippo 23, 137, 153 and almsgiving 4, 73, 129 De civitate Dei 93 n.37, 127 De doctrina Christiana 4–6, 133 De videndo Deo 119, 125 n.36 Enarrationes in Psalmos 74 Soliloquia 116–18 and the OE Boethius 119–20 and the OE Soliloquies 32, 122 n.29, 128–31, 134 n.53, 135 n.54, 143, 168 n.109, 170 n.166

205

Index Augustine, Bishop of Hippo (cont’d) theory of use and enjoyment 4–6, 8, 21, 81, 133, 141, 176 and De consolatione philosophiae 87, 182 and OE brucan 9, 14, 16–17

Carolingian period 63, 89, 93 Cassiodorus 164 n.96 charters 142–3 Chaucer, Geoffrey, Troilus and Criseyde 174 Christ 47, 69–70, 93, 125, 140 n.67, 153, 164, 165, 166 Christ III 173 n.124 Codex Aureus 24 n.3, 65 cræft 19 n.56, 133. See also cræft in under OE Boethius and cræft in under OE Pastoral Care Cross, the 46–52, 53, 58, 184 crowns 165 crystal 8, 40, 42–4, 46, 53–5 Cynewulf 17, 21, 185 Christ II 172 Elene 15 n.48, 17 n.51, 18, 50–2, 172–3 Fates of the Apostles 15 n.48, 172 n.121 Juliana 17 n.51

Battle of Finnsburh, The 18 Bede 44 Explanatio apocalypsis 44 n.69 Historia ecclesiastica 10, 13 n.42, 20. See also OE Bede Beowulf 17–18, 46, 65, 67, 105, 115–16, 129, 184 Brosinga mene 10 funerals 14–15, 154–5, 160 Heremod 12 Hrothgar’s Sermon 12, 14, 162, 166, 173–4 Lament of the Last Survivor 13–14, 16 manuscript of 18, 159 Scyld Scefing 14–15, 154, 160 Sigemund 14–15 swords 13 n.41, 87, 106 treasure in 9–16, 18, 20, 95–6, 98, 123, 133, 159, 163, 174, 177, 183, 187 Wiglaf 13 n.41, 14, 95, 106 Boethius 23, 105 De consolatione philosophiae 30, 35, 39, 86–8, 178–80, 186 commentary tradition 89, 92 n.32, 93, 95 n.51, 97, 109 n.83, 113 Fortuna 86, 99–100, 107 and the OE Boethius 23, 85, 91–2, 107–112, 143, 153, 169 n.110, 180–2 and the OE Soliloquies 119–20 Ulysses and Circe 99 wealth in 94–6 Bowleaze Cove Jewel 41–2, 43, 44 n.66, 45, 54

David, King 152 n.52, 153, 155, 158, 161, 164–6. See also and King David under Alfred, King of Wessex Deor 178 n.2 Dives and Lazarus 76–7, 81, 129, 130–1, 142, 156–7, 166 Dream of the Rood, The 15, 17, 18, 19, 47–52, 53, 58, 113, 184 exegesis, see interpretation Exeter Book riddles 7–8, 16, 20, 53, 96, 187 Riddle 11 (‘Wine, Gold’) 21, 98–9, 108 Riddle 26 (‘Bible, GospelBook’) 29, 65 Riddle 30 (‘Cross’) 46–7 Riddle 47 (‘Book-Worm’) 65–6 Riddle 48 (‘Chalice, Patten’) 66–7 Riddle 50 (‘Fire’) 7 Riddle 51 (‘Pen and Fingers’) 24 n.3 Riddle 55 (‘Cross’) 46–7 Riddle 60 (‘Reed Pen’) 7, 49

Canterbury Royal Bible 24 n.3

206

Index Exodus 17 n.51 eyes 28, 45–6, 55–8, 128, 133–4 of the mind 31, 44–6, 55, 134, 137

Jerome 137, 147 John Scottus Eriugena, Periphyseon 127 Judgement Day 83, 99, 116 n.5, 126 n.39, 132 n.51, 135 n.55, 171–3 Julian of Toledo, Prognosticon 116 n.5

fame 105–6 fate 96, 100–1, 103, 107, 136, 179–82, 186 Fuller Brooch 45

ladders 30–3, 47 Jacob’s 30, 50

gesceadwisnes, see reason Genesis A 17 n.51, 95 Genesis B 17 n.51 gifts 11–12, 51, 67, 69–74, 79–80, 99–103, 114, 136, 179 from leader to dependent 29–30, 58, 115–16, 185–7 in the OE Boethius 2, 104, 112, 114 in the OE Soliloquies 122–4, 127, 129–131, 138, 141–3, 177 Great Reversal, the 83 Gregory I, Pope 3, 21, 23, 33–4, 35, 103, 137, 181 as “Apostle” of the English 26 Dialogi 20, 23 n.1, 26–7, 131 n.48, 132 n.51 Homily on Luke 131 n.48 Moralia in Iob 26 n.8 Regula pastoralis 19, 26, 32, 33–5, 39, 61, 70–1, 79–82 almsgiving in 74, 78 Dives and Lazarus in 76–7, 131 n.48, 156 parable of the talents in 69–72 poor, the, in 82–3 preface to 31 wealth in 68–9, 75–6 Guthlac A and B 9

Mary 49 Maxims II 36, 121 Metres of Boethius 19 n.55, 37–9, 153–4, 162 Metrical Psalms 145, 149, 151 Minster Lovell Jewel 41–2, 43, 44 n.66 modes eagan, see eyes of the mind Napier Homily I 132 n.51 OE Bede 20 scribal colophon to 29 OE Boethius 21, 81, 92–4, 143, 153, 163, 168–9, 177, 185–6 and the Alfred Jewel 44–5 audience of 17–18, 37 authorship of 19–20, 62, 85, 90–2, 119–20 and Boethian commentary tradition 89, 92 n.32, 95 n.51, 97, 113 cræft in 85, 88–9, 99–104, 108, 109, 136, 174. See also defence of royal resources under OE Boethius defence of royal resources 1–2, 6, 21, 124 n.32, 129, 176 fame in 105–6 library image 23–5 manuscripts of 90–1, 111, 113 n.92 and the OE Soliloquies 78, 92, 119–20, 132 n.51, 136, 140, 146, 150–1, 161

heaven, see afterlife hell, see afterlife inheritance 68, 75, 95, 138, 142, 153, 174 intellect 24–5, 34, 117–18, 120, 131 intellectus, see intellect interpretation 52

207

Index OE Boethius (cont’d) as opus geminatum 90 n.22 prose preface to 85, 90–1, 136 riches of wisdom 107–10, 114, 170–1, 175 verse preface to 36–9, 92 n.31, 136 wagon-wheel metaphor 92, 180–5 and The Wanderer 178–9 wealth in 94–9, 110–14, 132–3, 153, 167 OE Dialogues 20, 26, 60, 131 n.48 prose preface to 26–8 manuscripts of 27 verse preface to 3, 20, 26–33, 39, 83 OE Dicts of Cato 95 n.50 OE Orosius 20, 78 OE Pastoral Care 20–1, 85, 88, 161–2, 176 and the Alfred Jewel 56, 64, 67. See also and æstel under prose preface to under OE Pastoral Care and almsgiving 21, 74, 78, 159, 173–7 authorship of 19–20, 26, 60–2 cræft in 70–1, 80, 82, 84, 99, 101–3, 136, 179 Dives and Lazarus in 76 n.56, 77–8, 131, 156 intended readership of 61–2 ladder imagery 30–3 manuscripts of 24–5, 27, 36, 60, 148–9 parable of the talents in 69–73, 101 prose preface to 33, 91, 94, 108, 170 and æstel 3, 8, 25, 44 n.66, 61 and thing theory 20, 63–7, 78, 84, 176 See also distribution of the OE Pastoral Care under Alfred, King of Wessex; and in prose preface to OE Pastoral Care

under wisdom psalm quotations 79, 151, 156, 161–2 verse epilogue to 3, 35–6, 39, 40, 54, 73, 80, 129–30, 176, 185 verse preface to 25, 33–5, 39, 59–60, 63 n.16, 92 n.31 and wealth 75–84, 92, 97, 112, 152, 166, 168–9, 171 OE Prose Psalms 21, 94, 146–8 and almsgiving 21, 72, 144, 157–60, 163, 164, 173–5, 177 authorship of 19–20, 145, 148–51, 169 and Dives and Lazarus 76 n.56, 156 readership 151–2 and wealth 97, 144, 152–6, 160–71 OE Soliloquies 21, 78, 94, 95 n.50, 168–9, 170 n.116, 175, 177, 185 and the afterlife 83, 116, 124, 125–7, 130, 132, 135–6, 137–41, 143 authorship of 19–20, 62, 91, 92, 119, 129 n.45, 136, 143 Dives and Lazarus in 76 n.56, 129, 130–1, 142, 156, 166 knowledge of God 131–3, 134 ladder imagery 31–3 letter and seal 121–3, 133 manuscripts of 115 n.1 preface to 3–4, 21, 105, 136–42, 185 wealth in 115–16, 122–31, 133, 142, 177 wisdom in 44–5, 116, 124, 127–8, 131–2, 134–6, 140–1 See also and the OE Soliloquies under OE Boethius; and in the OE Soliloquies under from leader to dependent under gifts Old Saxon 18 oral performance 17, 36–9, 45 Orosius, Historiarum Adversum

208

Index Paganos Libri VII 20 Oswald, King of Northumbria 10 parable of the talents 21, 69–72, 80, 84, 101 Pearl 54–5 Pelagius 4 Phoenix, The 15 n.48, 21, 171–3, 185 private reading 29, 37–8 Proverbs of Alfred 119 Psalms, The 144–8, 150–3 commentaries on 74, 146, 147–8, 149 glossed psalters 21, 97 n.59, 145–7, 157–9, 161, 164 n.90, 169 n.112 Paris Psalter 145, 149, 151–2, 159 Regius Psalter 146 n.7 See also psalm quotations under OE Pastoral Care; and OE Prose Psalms Pseudo-Bede, Argumenta 148 n.22, 161

Ædwen brooch 8 n.23 Beagnoþ seax  8 n.23 Franks Casket 8 Staffordshire Hoard inscribed gold strip 57 Thames silver fitting 56–7 See also Alfred Jewel; Dream of the Rood, The; Exeter Book riddles; and speaking books spoken word 17–18, 38–9, 65–7 Staffordshire Hoard see Staffordshire Hoard inscribed gold strip under speaking objects statue of Sainte Foy 55 symbols see signs thing theory 5–6, 9–12, 16–17, 21, 25, 48–9, 52, 123, 133–4. See also thing theory under Alfred Jewel; and thing theory under prose preface to under OE Pastoral Care treasure 29–30, 34, 51, 56–7, 63–4, 66–7. See also swords and treasure under Beowulf; Alfred’s ædificia nova under Vita Alfredi under Asser; and burial of treasure under Seafarer, The

reason 80–2, 92, 96–9, 109, 116–17, 133–4, 168–9 relics 46, 51–2, 54, 55 rock crystal, see crystal runes 8 n.23, 52, 56–7 Seafarer, The 17, 21, 96, 162–3, 173, 178, 183–7 burial of treasure 73–4, 154–7 signs 55–7, 63–4, 67, 113, 123, 133, 176. See also Cross, the snares 98, 167–9 Solomon, King 75 n.53, 80–1, 93, 123 n.31, 148 n.25 Solomon and Saturn 18 speaking books 40, 46, 54, 63–5. See also verse preface to under OE Boethius; verse preface to under OE Dialogues; and verse preface to under OE Pastoral Care speaking objects 8 Ædred ring 8 n.23

usury 160–1 Vercelli Book 18, 50 Homilies 173 n.124 Wærferth, Bishop of Worcester 3, 26 Wanderer, The 13, 17, 21, 95–6, 106, 178–87 Warminster Jewel 41–2, 43, 44 n.66, 45, 53–4 water 35–6, 39, 54–5, 80 Weland 13 n.41, 99 Widsith 106 William of Malmesbury 91, 148

209

Index wisdom 31–6, 44–6, 93, 102–5, 183 in prose preface to OE Pastoral Care 59, 62–4, 67, 94, 108 See also riches of wisdom under OE Boethius; wisdom under OE Soliloquies; and reason

Wulfsige, Bishop of Sherborne 3, 27 n.14, 29–30, 39 Wyrd, see fate zoomorphic imagery 56

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ANGLO-SAXON STUDIES Please see the Boydell & Brewer website for details of earlier titles in the series.

Volume 25: The Cruciform Brooch and Anglo-Saxon England, Toby F. Martin Volume 26: Trees in the Religions of Early Medieval England, Michael D. J. Bintley Volume 27: The Peterborough Version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: Rewriting Post-Conquest History, Malasree Home Volume 28: The Anglo-Saxon Chancery: The History, Language and Production of Anglo-Saxon Charters from Alfred to Edgar, Ben Snook Volume 29: Representing Beasts in Early Medieval England and Scandinavia, edited by Michael D.J. Bintley and Thomas J. T. Williams Volume 30: Direct Speech in Beowulf and Other Old English Narrative Poems, Elise Louviot Volume 31: Old English Philology: Studies in Honour of R. D. Fulk, edited by Leonard Neidorf, Rafael J. Pascual and Tom Shippey Volume 32: ‘Charms’, Liturgies, and Secret Rites in Early Medieval England, Ciaran Arthur Volume 33: Old Age in Early Medieval England: A Cultural History, Thijs Porck Volume 34: Priests and their Books in Late Anglo-Saxon England, Gerald P. Dyson Volume 35: Burial, Landscape and Identity in Early Medieval Wessex, Kate Mees Volume 36: The Sword in Early Medieval Northern Europe: Experience, Identity, Representation, Sue Brunning Volume 37: The Chronology and Canon of Ælfric of Eynsham, Aaron J. Kleist

Volume 38: Medical Texts in Anglo-Saxon Literary Culture, Emily Kesling Volume 39: The Dynastic Drama of Beowulf, Francis Leneghan Volume 40: Old English Lexicology and Lexicography: Essays in Honor of Antonette diPaolo Healey, edited by Maren Clegg Hyer, Haruko Momma and Samantha Zacher Volume 41: Debating with Demons: Pedagogy and Materiality in Early English Literature, Christina M. Heckman Volume 42: Textual Identites in Early Medieval England: Essays in Honour of Katherine O’Brien O’Keefe, edited by Jacqueline Fay, Rebecca Stephenson and Renée R. Trilling Volume 43: Bishop Æthelwold, his Followers, and Saints’ Cults in Early Medieval England: Power, Belief, and Religious Reform, Alison Hudson Volume 44: Global Perspectives on Early Medieval England, edited by Karen Louise Jolly and Britton Elliott Brooks Volume 45: Performance in Beowulf and Other Old English Poems, Steven J. A. Breeze