Old English Prose: Basic Readings [1 ed.] 081530305X, 9780815303053

Table of contents :
Contents
Preface of the General Editors
Introduction
List of Abbreviations
The Literary Prose of King Alfred’s Reign: Translation or Transformation? • Janet M. Bately
The Chronology of Ælfric’s Works • Peter Clemoes
The Corpus of Vernacular Homilies and Prose Saints’ Lives before Ælfric • D.G. Scragg
Homiliaries and Preaching in Anglo-Saxon England • Mary Clayton
King Alfred’s Version of Augustine’s Soliloquia: Some Suggestions on Its Rationale and Unity • Milton McC. Gatch
The Myth of Circe in King Alfred’s Boethius • Klaus Grinda
Alfred and Ælfric: A Study of Two Prefaces • Bernard F. Huppé
Ælfric’s Saints’ Lives and the Problem of Miracles • M.R. Godden
Ælfric’s Use of Etymologies • Joyce Hill
Ælfric, the Prose Vision, and the Dream of the Rood • Paul E. Szarmach
The Transmission and Structure of Archbishop Wulfstan’s “Commonplace Book” • Hans Sauer
The Wolf on Shepherds: Wulfstan, Bishops, and the Context of the Sermo Lupi ad Anglos • Jonathan Wilcox
The Notice on Marina (7 July) and Passiones S. Margaritae • J.E. Cross
The English Saints Remembered in Old English Anonymous Homilies • Jane Roberts
Alfred the Great: A Bibliography with Special Reference to Literature • Nicole Guenther Discenza
An Annotated Bibliography of Ælfrician Studies: 1983–1996 • Aaron Kleist

Citation preview

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B a s i c Re a d i n g s in A n g l o -S a x o n En g l a n d Vo l . 5

OLD ENGLISH PROSE

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m a n it ie s

Lib r

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Ba s ic R e a d in g s in A n g l o -S a x o n E n g l a n d C a r l a n d

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B e r k h o u t ,

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Pa ul

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Sz a r m a c h ,

General Editors

OLD ENGLISH SHORTER POEMS

ANGLO-SAXON MANUSCRIPTS

edited by Katherine O’Brien O ’Keeffe

edited by Mary R Richards

Basic Readings

Basic Readings

BEOWULF

CYNEWULF

Basic Readings

Basic Readings

edited by Peter S. Baker

Robert E. Bjork

T h e A r c h a e o l o g y o f A n g l o -S a x o n En g l a n d

Basic Readings edited by Catherine E. Karkov

O l d E n g l is h Pr o s e

Basic Readings edited by Paul E. Szarmach

OLD ENGLISH PROSE Basic Readings

edited by

Paul E. Szarmach with the assistance o f Deborah A. Oosterhouse

First published 2000 by Garland Publishing Inc. Published 2019 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

Copyright © 2000 Paul E. Szarmach All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Old english prose: basic readings I edited by Paul E. Szarmach with the assistance of Debroah A. Oosterhouse. p. cm.- (Garland reference library of the humanities; vol. 1447. Basic readings in Anglo-Saxon England ; vol.5) ISBN: 0-8153-0305-X (alk. paper) l. English prose literature-Old English, ca. 450-1100History and criticism. 2. Christian literature, English (Old)History and criticism. 3. Latin prose literature-Translations into English-History and criticism. I. Szarmach, Paul E. II. Oosterhouse, Deborah A. III. Garland reference library of the humanities; vol. 1447. IV. Garland reference library of the humanities. Basic readings in Anglo-Saxon England; vol. 5. PR 221.043 2000 829'.8-dc21 00-061753 ISBN 13: 978-0-8153-0305-3 (hbk)

Contents Preface o f the General Editors Introduction List o f Abbreviations The Literary Prose o f King Alfred’s Reign: Translation or Transformation? Ja n e t M. B a t e l y

vii ix xvii

3

The Chronology o f ¿Elffic’s Works Pet er C le m o es

29

The Corpus o f Vernacular Homilies and Prose Saints’ Lives before TElfric D.G. Sc r a g g

73

Homiliaries and Preaching in Anglo-Saxon England Ma r y Cl a y t o n

151

King Alfred’s Version o f Augustine’s Soliloquia: Some Suggestions on Its Rationale and Unity M il ton M c C. Ga t c h

199

The Myth o f Circe in King Alfred’s Boethius K l a u s Gr i n d a

237

Alfred and TElfric: A Study o f Two Prefaces B e r n a r d F. H uppé

267

TElfric’s Saints’ Lives and the Problem o f Miracles M.R. G o d d e n

287

¿Elfric’s Use o f Etymologies J o y c e H il l

311

/Elfric, the Prose Vision, and the Dream o f the Rood Pa u l E. S z a r m a c h 327 The Transmission and Structure o f Archbishop Wulfstan’s “Commonplace Book” H a n s Sa u e r 339 The W olf on Shepherds: Wulfstan, Bishops, and the Context o f the Sermo Lupi ad Anglos Jo n a t h a n Wil c o x

395

The Notice on Marina (7 July) and Passiones S. Margaritae J.E. Cr o s s

419

The English Saints Remembered in Old English Anonymous Homilies Ja n e Ro b e r t s

433

Alfred the Great: A Bibliography with Special Reference to Literature N ic ole Gu e n t h e r D is c e n z a

463

An Annotated Bibliography o f Ailffician Studies: 1983-1996 A a r o n J. Kl e is t

503

Preface o f the General Editors Basic Readings in Anglo-Saxon England (BRASE) is a series of volumes bringing together classic, exemplary, or ground-breaking essays in Anglo-Saxon studies published chiefly within the preceding three or four decades. The editor of each volume also commissions new essays deemed necessary or helpful for a current, comprehensive perspective on the volume’s particular subject. The general editors impose no critical, methodological, or ideological constraints on the volume editors, who are invited to contribute to this series on the basis of their demonstrated expertise in significant, well-articulated fields of AngloSaxon studies and their periscopic knowledge of publications representing past achievement or pointing toward productive areas of future study in those fields. The incremental vitality of the study of Anglo-Saxon England, in all its diverse areas and sub-disciplines ranging from literature and language to history, art, and archaeology, is manifest annually in the Old English Bibliography and its complementary Year’s Work in Old English Studies in the Old English Newsletter. It was generally in the 1960s that the study of Anglo-Saxon England began to venture as never before into research, criticism, and interdisciplinary activity that continue to flourish and that have most regularly been published in serial venues whose numbers and costs have also expanded at unprecedented rates even in the new era of electronic publication. It is this phenomenon that BRASE recognizes, with its focus on relatively recent scholarship, as the series seeks to make generous, carefully presented selections of the most important periodical publications in major areas of AngloSaxon studies easily available to students and instructors as well as to other current and future scholars wishing to have essential publications in their areas of research conveniently and reliably to hand. In this fifth volume of the series, Old English Prose, Paul E. Szarmach has assembled sixteen contributions to the study of the literary dimensions and wider implications of Old English prose texts, vii

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the study and appreciation of which had been largely confined to their historical, religious, or other traditionally didactic import far into the twentieth century. The texts range from the early vernacular achievements produced around the time of King Alfred, some of them possibly by Alfred himself, to the great hagiographie and homiletic corpora of Ælfric and Wulfstan in the late tenth and early eleventh centuries. The critical importance and influence of eleven of the essays here, two of them newly translated from the German for this volume, are already established. Three other essays—on anonymous homilies, on the Sermo Lupi ad Anglos, and another by the late J.E. Cross toward the end of his long program of studies of the Old English Martyrology—appear here for the first time. Two new, up-to-date bibliographies, on Alfredian literature and on studies of Ælfric, complete the volume. Carl Berkhout Paul E. Szarmach Joseph B. Trahem, Jr.

Introduction But William o f Normandy won at Hastings. King Alfred, the noblest Englishman o f them all, had laid out the garden o f English prose, jElfric and his fellows brought it to high cultivation, and extended it with new plantings full o f promise. The Normans laid it waste, and slew its keepers. 1

Kemp Malone’s florid and extended metaphor, or some version of it, can only serve as a leafy alibi to cover up one of the more remarkable lapses in the study of Anglo-Saxon England. Indeed, what will AngloSaxonists do when they don’t have Normans to kick around any more (?), for Normans or no Normans, the body of surviving Old English prose remains substantial, and yet the study of that prose has been inverse to the body of material.2OE prose has always been there, but the way(s) to consider it have not. To be sure, poetry is always primary in the study of past culture, and for Anglo-Saxon literary culture the pursuit of the Germanic past, which is the Romantic foil to Christianity, still lingers on in post-Wagnerian discussions. Sometimes prose has been squeezed to produce vestigial remains of saga, as in the Cynewulf and Cyneheard episode of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (755/757), or to find an idea of Germania generally in various Alfredian digressions, or to see a faint fingerprint of oral tradition as in AHfric’s allusion to red gold.3 In the last half generation or so there has been some movement away from these intellectual positions and pursuits to a broader, more independent view of prose and to an attempt to see prose not only as an area of stylistic innovation and engagement with the Latin tradition but also as a treasure trove of its own that contains straightforward information, cultural attitudes, and an array of expressed and implied values whose complexity requires subtle analysis. In a discussion of women in Anglo-Saxon England can one now focus only on Grendel’s dam and without peril ignore the women of history and the saints of the church? Does not the body of prose offer countless examples of the resisting reality of the Middle Ages? Whatever the real or imagined sins of ix

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“theory,” the newer ways of looking have brought value back to prose and promise to accord it equal status with poetry in the study of AngloSaxon England.4 With only few exceptions prose could never offer the well-wrought urn in the heady days of formalist analysis, and poetry always had its Wanderer, if study continues to move towards culture and not towards mere aestheticism without a historical dimension, prose can play its rightful role in describing the historical-cultural phenomena under discussion. This collection of sixteen contributions means to assist the revisionary development of the study of Old English prose by offering a baseline or starting point. The essays as a whole offer the empirical foundation for the subject (at least in part), present classic or exemplary studies, suggest some new directions, and through the concluding bibliographies make continuing research possible. The essays by Peter Clemoes, Janet M. Bately, and D.G. Scragg describe in broad outline what the corpus contains, particularly the homiletic corpus. Though Clemoes’ work is more than forty years old, it does not stand too far behind his edition of Ailfric’s First Series, which appeared in 1997.5 Combined with the textual work of John Collins Pope and that of M.R. Godden, this detailed essay is an important part of the process by which Anglo-Saxonists have generally ascertained the sum total of what the premier prose writer of the period produced. The authorship question is more fraught when scholars consider Alfred the Great, who is the site of the intersection of nationalism, politics (academic and otherwise), literary value, and the anxiety of Latin influence, among other grand ideas. Janet Bately’s inaugural lecture offers a first, authoritative statement on Alfred’s authorship of the Pastoralis, Consolatio, and Soliloquies, which she has now amplified to include the translation of the Prose Psalms.6D.G. Scragg’s magisterial survey of the anonymous tradition shows how vexed and complicated textual evidence can be when the actual manuscripts are analyzed. In one sense Clemoes, Bately, and Scragg offer a counterpoint to the contemporary antihumanist attitude towards authors.7 When scholars are uncertain as to who wrote what when, i.e., when, so to speak, laboratory conditions remove the author from possible analysis, scholars may find it necessary and desirable to bring the author back so as to make some sense of the

Introduction

xi

overall phenomena. Part of this overall sense of OE prose derives from the Latin tradition. Mary Clayton’s essay on homiliaries and the role of this genre in preaching explains just one of the many connections to Latin literature. Behind any manuscript collection of OE homilies is, expressed or implied, a medieval genre that by and large has no contemporary equivalent. The main body of this collection consists of studies focusing on exemplary issues and topics in four areas: Alfred, iElfric, the anonymous tradition, and Wulfstan. Any one of these areas could easily have numbered more essays than space here allows. For Alfrediana I have chosen to emphasize works that have received less attention than they deserve. Thus, Milton McC. Gatch offers one of the few thoroughgoing discussions of Alfred’s Soliloquies, which poses interesting and daunting problems for readers of Alfredian prose, much as it did for Alfred and indeed even for Augustine, who began it all!8 Alfred’s Boethius, despite its ambition and scope, has likewise suffered remarkable neglect. Klaus Grinda’s study of Circe, as translated by Paul R. Battles, reminds us that there is more classical heritage to study beyond the story of Orpheus, that old chestnut found in many Old English primers. The inclusion of this essay, as well as the one by Hans Sauer, is also a reminder to the English-speaking world that our German colleagues have been producing excellent work in OE prose studies. Bernard F. Huppe’s study of Alfred’s Preface to the Pastoral Care and iElfric’s Preface to Genesis contrasts the techniques of the two writers at either end of West Saxon literary production, while serving this volume by making a transition to the most stylish Old English prose writer celebrated in Malone’s garden. M.R. Godden and Joyce Hill, two of this generation’s most important interpreters of JElfric, take up specific topics: miracles and etymologies, respectively. My own essay seeks to remind readers that there are genres, in this instance the visio, that form sites for connections between prose and poetry.9 Two new essays expressly written for this volume discuss the growing field of hagiography. J.E. Cross’ now posthumously published study on Marina/Margaret in the Old English Martyrology exemplifies his detailed source criticism. Jane Roberts surveys English saints in homilies, documenting fashions in hagiography and striking changes

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even in so small a group of works. (It would be obvious to note here that the study of Anglo-Saxon hagiography merits its own volume in the BRASE series.10) The final two essays in this collection are also “new.” Hans Sauer has translated his exemplary research on Wulfstan’s Commonplace Book in its various manuscript versions. Complementing Sauer’s broadly philological essay is Jonathan Wilcox’s contextual investigation ofWulfstan’s Sermo Lupi and his characteristic theme, the admonition to the bishops. Nicole Guenther Discenza and Aaron J. Kleist complete this volume with bibliographies on Alfred and Ailfric respectively. Guenther Discenza offers a convenient record of publications on Alfredian literary matters, selected from the vast bibliography on Alfred as a historical figure.11 Kleist continues from 1983 through 1996 the bibliography that Luke Reinsma compiled from the beginnings through 1982.12 In that fourteen-year period, Kleist notes, nearly half as much scholarship was produced as in the preceding four centuries. An appendix gives an abbreviated account of entries on iElfric in Fontes A nglo-Saxon ici.n A collaborative volume always requires multiple thanks. No enterprise such as this could come to completion without the cooperation and help of those who have contributed their essays. Bernard F. Huppé, Peter Clemoes, and J.E. Cross are not with us to share our closure of this project, and despite Time’s fell hand I was able to plan extensively with Professors Clemoes and Cross. I am particularly grateful to the five colleagues who offered new contributions for this collection: J.E. Cross, Jane Roberts, Jonathan Wilcox, Nicole Guenther Discenza, and Aaron J. Kleist. I am also grateful to those contributors who were willing to correct or to update their work, as appropriate. The publication date of this volume of BRASE is about seven years later than planned, thanks to its editor’s professional commitments and the remarkable gravitational pull of the International Medieval Congress at Western Michigan University. This book would still be a sketch or a mere plan, if it had not been for the editorial assistance of Deborah A. Oosterhouse, who consistently did her work, while the volume editor did not. Before the collection got underway, Helmut Gneuss gave the editor the benefit of his wide knowledge. I owe special thanks to

Introduction

x Ui

Katherine O’Brien O’Keeffe for calling my attention to Malone’s garden. I am very grateful to Paul R. Battles for his translation of Klaus Grinda’s article and to Prof. Grinda for his kind cooperation, as I am grateful to Hans Sauer for offering his own translation of his essay. Let me end by acknowledging with thanks the cooperation and support of the following institutions and individuals, who gave permissions to reprint, as indicated, the essays that follow: Cambridge University Press and Ted Gemey for permission to reprint: Joyce Hill, “Ælfric’s Use of Etymologies,” ASE 17 (1988): 35-44 D.G. Scragg, “The Corpus of Vernacular Homilies and Prose Saints’ Lives before Ælfric,” ASE 8 (1979): 223-77 Department of English, University of Ghent, and A.-M. Vandenbergen, Head, for permission to reprint: Paul E. Szarmach, “Ælfric, the Prose Vision, and the Dream o f the Rood,” Studies in Honour o f René Derolez, ed. A.-M. SimonVandenbergen (Ghent, 1987), pp. 592-602 Leeds Studies in English and P. Meredith, Chairman of the Board, for permission to reprint: M.R. Godden, “Ælfric’s Saints’ Lives and the Problem of Miracles,” Leeds Studies in English, n.s., 16 (1985): 83-100 Max Niemeyer Verlag and Birgitta Zeller for permission to reprint in English translation: Klaus R. Grinda, “Zu Tradition und Gestaltung des Kirke-Mythos in König Alfreds Boethius,” in Motive und Themen in Englischsprachiger Literatur als Indikatoren Literaturgeschichtlicher Prozesse [Festschrift zum 65. Geburtstag von Theodor Wolpers], ed. Heinz-Joachim Müllenbrock and Alfons Klein (Tübingen, 1990), pp. 1-22 Monumenta Germaniae Historica and Prof. Dr. Rudolf Schieffer for permission to reprint in English translation:

xiv

Old English Prose: Basic Readings Hans Sauer, “Zur Überlieferung und Anlage von Erzbischof Wulfstans Handbuch,” Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters 36 (1980): 341-84

Peritia and Prof. Donnchadh Ó Corrain for permission to reprint: Mary Clayton, “Homiliaries and Preaching in Anglo-Saxon England,” Peritia 4 (1985): 207-42 State University of New York Press and Jennifer C. Darrigo, Rights and Permissions Manager, for permission to reprint Bernard F. Huppé, “Alfred and iElfric: A Study of Two Prefaces,” in The Old English Homily and Its Backgrounds ed. Paul E. Szarmach and Bernard F. Huppé (Albany, NY, 1978), pp. 119-37 Milton 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. Paul E. Szarmach (Albany, NY, 1986), pp. 17-45 The essays by Peter Clemoes and Janet Bately derive from the first reprinting in OEN Subsidia 3 (1980) and OEN Subsidia 10 (1984).

Notes 1. Kemp Malone, “The Old English Period (to 1100),” in A Literary History o f England (New York and London, 1948), p. 105. 2. See my contribution on “Old English Prose” to “Old English Studies: Current State and Future Prospects,” ed. Nicholas Howe in ANQ3 (1990): 56-59. The “review of the subject” is a well-established genre of scholarship, but prose does not necessarily play a significant role in such overviews. For a recent and dyspeptic example of the genre see John P. Hermann, “Why Anglo-Saxonists Can’t Read: Or, Who Took the Mead out of Medieval Studies,” Exemplaria 7 (1995): 9-26, who in his review of theory in Old English literature has little to say about prose.

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xv

3. For an early view of saga in the Cynewulf and Cyneheard account see C.E. Wright, The Cultivation o f Saga in Anglo-Saxon England (Edinburgh, 1939), pp. 56-115, passim; there are, however, many problems with this view. The Voyages of Ohthere and Wulfstan or the mention of Weland the Smith offer Germanic moments in the prose associated with Alfred, as in, respectively, the Orosius (ed. Janet M. Bately, The Old English Orosius, EETS SS 6 [1980], pp. 13.29-18.2) and Boethius XIX (ed. Walter J. Sedgefield .King Alfred's Old English Version o f Boethius De Consolatio Philosophiae [Oxford, 1899], p. 46) and its equivalent Meter 10.33-37 (ed. George Philip Krapp, The Paris Psalter and the Metres o f Boethius, ASPR 5 [1932], p. 166). The Orosius is no longer attributed to Alfred directly. Ælfric’s homily on the Assumption of John contains an allusion to “heroic” gold; see Peter Clemoes, ed., Æ lfric’s Catholic Homilies: The First Series, Text, EETS SS 17 (1997) p. 209.93. 4. Clare Lees, “Working with Patristic Sources: Language and Context in Old English Homilies,” in Speaking Two Languages: Traditional Disciplines and Contemporary Theory in Medieval Studies, ed. Allen J. Frantzen (Albany, NY, 1991), pp. 157-80, suggests some of these newer issues. 5. Cited at the end of n. 3 above. 6. Janet M. Bately, “Lexical Evidence for the Authorship of the Prose Psalms in the Paris Psalter,” ASE 10 (1982): 69-95. 7. This stance is exemplified by Michel Foucault, “What is Author?” and Roland Barthes, “The Death of the Author.” See the essay by Jonathan Wilcox, below, pp. 395-418 and n. 11. 8. One must point out here that Ruth Waterhouse offers a sensitive essay on the Soliloquies in the same collection: “Tone in Alfred’s Version of Augustine’s Soliloquies” in Studies in Earlier Old English Prose, ed. Paul E. Szarmach (Albany, NY, 1986), pp. 47-85. 9. D.R. Letson, “The Poetic Content of the Revival Homily,” in The Old English Homily and Its Backgrounds, ed. Paul E. Szarmach and Bernard F. Huppé (Albany, NY, 1978), pp. 139-56.

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10. E. Gordon Whatley’s “Acta Sanctorum” is now in preparation as the major part of volume 1 of Sources o f Anglo-Saxon Literary Culture (forthcoming from Medieval Institute Publications, Kalamazoo). 11. See Simon D. Keynes’ bibliography, Anglo-Saxon History, OEN Subsidia 13, 3rd ed. (1998), and especially pp. 66-70 for entries on Alfred. This edition is also the second World Wide Web edition, available at: www.wmich.edu/medieval/rawl/keynesl/index.html 12. Luke Reinsma ,JElfric: An Annotated Bibliography (New York and London, 1987). 13. Fontes now has its own website, which provides information on the sources of /Elfric: http://fontes.english.ox.ac.uk/

List o f Abbreviations ASE

Anglo-Saxon England (cited as a periodical by volume and year)

ASPR

Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records, in 6 vols., ed. G.P. Krapp and E.V.K. Dobbie (New York, 1931-42; 2nd printing 1958-65)

BHL

Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina, 2 vols. (Brussels, 1898-1901)

BL

British Library, London (in citations of manuscripts)

BN

Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris (in citations of manuscripts)

CCCC Cambridge, Corpus manuscripts)

Christi

College

(in

citations

of

CCSL

Corpus Christianorum Series Latina, cited by volume

CUL

Cambridge, University Library (in citations of manuscripts)

EEMF Early English Manuscripts in Facsimile EETS

Early English Text Society (cited in the various series: OS, Original Series; ES, Extra Series; SS, Supplementary Series)

Ker, Catalogue N(eil) R. Ker, Catalogue o f Manuscripts Containing AngloSaxon (Oxford, 1957) MGH

Monumenta Germaniae Historica, cited by subseries and volume

OEN

Old English Newsletter, cited by volume and year

PL

Patrologia Latina, ed. J.P. Migne (Paris, 1844-91), cited by volume and column

OLD ENGLISH PROSE

The Literary Prose o f King Alfred’s Reign: Translation or Transformation? Janet M. Bately For its giver, the easiest part of the inaugural lecture is the beginning. Here tradition allows you the pleasure of looking back at the achievements of your predecessors, at the contributions they have made to your department and to your subject. And this is particularly agreeable when, as I do, you owe a great deal to them—either through their publications or because, like Wrenn, Garmonsway, and Kane before me, they were not only distinguished scholars, but also at some time friends and teachers or colleagues. As it is, I have a constant reminder of them in their photographs and portraits, hanging on the walls of my room, from which they gaze down at my tutorials and classes with varying degrees of approval and, I suspect, sometimes disapproval. Their achievements would be a fitting subject for an entire lecture, so I hope I may be forgiven if I concentrate now on the last of a distinguished line, George Kane. George Kane was professor of English Language and Medieval Literature at King’s College for ten years: a short time, perhaps, in comparison with the twenty-seven years of his eminent predecessor Sir Israel Gollancz. However, during these ten years George Kane not only played an active and important role on the Board of Studies in English at a crucial time when syllabuses were under review, he also inaugurated important projects that are still being carried on by colleagues in the department, and he produced the major second installment of the work that has brought both international acclaim to himself and fame to the college, for in this period he published not only his important study of the evidence for authorship of Piers Plowman, but also the massive collaborative edition of the B text 3

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of Langland’s poem. Typically, on retirement he has launched himself on a new career in the States, where he is now Professor of English in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill—a career in which there can be no doubt about his success. Professor Kane’s main interests are centered on the late fourteenth century; I propose today to go back yet another five hundred years, to the time when English first became a serious rival to Latin as a medium for the expression of intellectual concerns. And I propose to explore two particularly surprising and exciting features of the literary prose of that period. One is the fact that it can almost all be labelled translation (and often gets summarily dismissed as such), yet it is far more than mere translation in any sense of the term, much of it showing great independence, individuality, and artistic sensitivity. The second is the extent to which it is dominated by one man—Alfred ¿EJ)elwulfmg, Alfred, son of ¿Ethelwulf, late ninth-century king of the West Saxons. Alfred was a great war-leader, strategist, law-maker, ever preoccupied, as he himself says, with the manifold and various cares of his kingdom (though not to the extent of burning the cakes, the exploit for which he is generally most famous); preoccupied, then, by the cares of government in a troubled age, yet finding time and energy not only actively to promote a revival of learning, but above all to practice what he preached by himself becoming the major translator and prose writer of his reign. If I were to look for a parallel down the ages, I would, I suppose, pause on the Elizabethan age: this too was a time of intellectual exploration and discovery, with many of the great (and not-so-great) classics being for the first time made available in the vernacular, and with a ruler on the throne with a passion for learning—strangely enough both King Alfred and Queen Elizabeth the First were responsible for translations of the same work, the De Consolatione of Boethius. However, it is Alfred’s version that is still read and studied today, and in both intention and achievement Alfredian prose remains unique. Since time is limited, I propose today to concentrate on what I see as the major aims of Alfredian prose translation and consider the extent to which they have been achieved in three works, all different in subject matter and approach, yet all attributed at some time or other to King Alfred, and all with certain important features in common: the Boethius,

The Literary Prose o f King Alfred's Reign

5

the Orosius, and the first fifty Psalms of the Paris Psalter. But first I must justify my claim that these three are indeed prose works of King Alfred’s reign, one of the greatest problems, as well as the greatest pleasures, of working in the Anglo-Saxon period being the challenge of the number of initial uncertainties with which one is confronted. My first work—a version of the De Consolatione Philosophiae of Boethius—is indisputably the work of Alfred.1My second work—the Orosius (so-called because it is based on The Seven Books o f History against the Pagans by the fifth-century writer Paulus Orosius2)—was long attributed to King Alfred, the first person to claim authorship on his behalf being the twelfth-century historian William of Malmesbury.3 However, William’s other attributions are not all correct, and recent studies of syntax and vocabulary have revealed what seem to me at least excellent reasons for removing the Orosius from the Alfredian canon, the list of undoubted works by Alfred.4 At the same time, these studies of vocabulary and syntax have strengthened the somewhat shaky claims of my third work—the prose Psalms of the Paris Psalter5—for inclusion in the canon. Now although William of Malmesbury claimed that King Alfred was at work on a translation of the Psalms at the time of his death, it was only a hundred years ago that attempts were first made to identify that translation with the fifty prose Psalms of the Paris Psalter.6 And scholarly opinion has remained at best cautious on the subject. As the editors of the recently published facsimile observe, likenesses so far produced are “not all striking,” and they believe that the most that can be claimed is that the work is “undoubtedly nearer to Alfred’s Boethius than to ¿Elfric’s prose or Wulfstan’s.”7 It is of course far easier to demonstrate convincingly that two works are not by the same author than that they are, since the former exercise depends positively on the presence of significant differences, the latter negatively on their absence. It is rather like doing a large jigsaw puzzle with a lot of sky. It is often easy enough to say that such and such a piece does not fit. It is less easy, until surrounding pieces have been put into place, to determine whether a piece that appears to fit actually does belong to a particular context. And in the case of Old English texts a lot of very important pieces of the jigsaw are missing. However, it is my

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personal conviction that the prose Psalms of the Paris Psalter are the work of King Alfred. The evidence of similarities in vocabulary between them and the known works of Alfred (and there are considerably more of these than previous studies have suggested) is backed up by the evidence of dissimilarities that I have observed between the Psalms and the Alfredian canon8(taken as a unit) and other prose works of the same period. For example, where Alfred and the Old English Orosius disagree in their choice of words for certain key concepts, the Paris Psalms agree with Alfred;9 where Alfred and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, or Alfred and the Old English translation of Bede disagree, then the Psalms share the same usage as Alfred.10Those mannerisms that are not common to both the Alfredian canon and the Paris Psalms can either be shown to be absent from one of the two because there is no scope for them there, or prove to represent a concept so rarely found there that the absence of the form or forms is statistically non-significant. To illustrate this, let me take at random one of the words in my list of “problems,” the verb ahreddan, “save, rescue.” This occurs no fewer than thirteen times in the Psalms, but never in the Pastoral Care, Boethius, and Soliloquies. At first sight this might seem to militate against common authorship, or at least cast serious doubts on it. A relatively common word in one text; totally absent from the others. But what is the evidence? For the concept “save, rescue” (“set free,” etc), the prose Psalms of the Paris Psalter have no fewer than four different words including ahreddan and they occur a total of fifty-four times; the Boethius on the other hand uses only three of these words and that once each. That is to say in the Boethius there are three slots for four words. One of the words is bound to be omitted. And similar arguments can be applied to the other texts. So the absence of ahreddan from the Alfredian canon in no way disproves Alfredian authorship of the Paris Psalter Psalms and the same applies to the absence from the accepted works of Alfred of phrases such as a worulde woruld, “world without end,” “for ever and ever,” or the construction his pone halgan munt, “his the holy mount.” On the one hand, there simply is no opening in the Alfredian canon for these particular expressions; on the other, the usage of the Paris Psalter, the decision to refer (in whatever terms) to “his holy

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mountain” or use the expression “for ever and ever,” is predetermined by the usage of its Latin source, that is, we can rule out idiosyncracy on the part of the Old English translator. I have not yet finished checking my material; my jigsaw is not yet complete.11However, on syntactical and lexical grounds, the claims of the prose Psalms of the Paris Psalter to be the work of Alfred seem to be excellent. The Old English Orosius, on the other hand, stands apart. Can that translation then in any sense be called Alfredian? Is there any evidence that it was translated during Alfred’s reign? Could it have formed part of Alfred’s educational program? This program is set out in the prefatory letter to the Pastoral Care, circulated sometime between 890 and, at the latest, 895. In it Alfred suggests to his bishops not only that education should be provided for the freeborn youth of the country but that “we” (he and the bishops, I suppose) should furnish as reading matter a translation into English of “da [bee] 6e niedbedearfosta sien eallum monnum to wiotonne” (“those books that are most necessary for all men to know”).12 To take the question of date first, the answer appears to be yes, the Orosius was translated not just during, but towards the end of, Alfred’s reign. And I am not basing my conclusion on what is probably the most famous sentence in the work, “Ohthere saede his hlaforde, ¿Elfrede cyninge, J)aet he ealra Nordmonna norjjmest bude” (“Ohthere told his lord King Alfred that he lived furthest north of ail Norwegians”). This sentence has been taken as proof not merely of a late ninth-century date for the work but, in addition, of Alfredian authorship of it; in fact, however, it proves nothing. The author could have found the account of Ohthere’s visit to King Alfred when searching the archives for his additional material or, together with the report of Wulfstan’s voyage to the Vistula,13 it could have been added subsequently by a scribe; there are after all no signs of the care in adapting—the editorial touch—that is evident elsewhere in the Orosius. And this is something that troubles me every time I read it. However, there are indications that the Orosius was in existence by the time Alfred was translating the Boethius, as Professor Whitelock has demonstrated,14 and there are a couple of details that appear to suggest that it was not completed before the end of the 880s at the very earliest.15 One of these is in the rewritten and

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highly important section on the geography of Europe, which redefines the political divisions of not merely Northern but also Western and Eastern Europe. Here the area known as the Pannonian Mark is twice described as a waste land, (westeri).16 The other is the identification in the main historical section of the Bastemae, a tribe active in the Danube area in the second century B.C., with a people who, says the translator, are now called Hungarians (Hungerre).17Now the Pannonian Mark was laid waste by the Moravian ruler Svatopluk in 883 and 884, while the Hungarians or Magyars seem first to have arrived at the mouth of the Danube in 889. After 889—but before Boethius. The date then fits. So was the translation part of Alfred’s plan? Was it one of those books that it is necessary for all men to know? In the past writers have had no doubts at all about this or, in general, about the reasons for its eligibility. It provides—or so they argue—a valuable digest of world history and geography; and as such it provides a perfect complement to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and translation of Bede, with their surveys of English history, secular and ecclesiastical.18 What more suitable reading matter for the youth of England? Certainly from a modem standpoint, a knowledge of world history and geography might well be considered an essential component, after reading, writing, and arithmetic, of a basic education. However, two of Alfred’s own translations—the Boethius and the Soliloquies—are difficult works of philosophy and theology and reflect what to us would seem a specialized interest, a personal preoccupation. Indeed, to explain their selection scholars like Hodgkin have been forced to argue that by the time he came to compose them, Alfred was “clearly translating to satisfy himself. . . rather than to educate his subjects.” But medieval curricula and views on curricula were very different from our own. The basic education of the Frankish emperor Charlemagne, for instance, consisted of a training in rhetoric, dialectic, mathematics, astrology, and the elements of grammar. That is to say he studied the trivium and part of the quadrivium. Yet he could not write. He kept wax tablets under the pillows on his bed so he could try his hand at forming letters during his leisure moments. However, although he tried very hard, according to his biographer, Einhard, he began too late in life and alas made little progress.19 As for Alfred, I have always assumed that a person of his

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intellectual curiosity must have learned to write, even though he got others—including eminent bishops—to write down choice quotations for him. However, he was a late reader, and though his eldest son and daughter are said by his biographer, Asser, “frequently to have made use of books,” an environment of writing is mentioned only in connection with his youngest son.20 So writing did not automatically go with reading. And what Alfred says in his prefatory letter that he wants for all the freeborn youth of England—no, not all, he is very much a realist; for all those freeborn youths who have enough money to support themselves while they study and then only while they are not needed for more urgent duties—like bringing in the harvest, I suppose, or fighting off the Danes—what Alfred wants is that they be able to read. The medium, it should be noted, is English—Latin is to be only for the chosen few.21 This then was his first aim; his second was to provide suitable books in the vernacular; and both so that he might achieve his ultimate goal—to restore not literacy, not culture, not education in general (though these are all steps on his way), but what he describes as wisdom, “wisdom.” And for Alfred, as for St. Augustine before him, wisdom is different from knowledge; sapientia is to be distinguished from scientia or eruditio. Admittedly certain kinds of knowledge are an essential prerequisite for wisdom, and wisdom and learning, wisdom and lar, are indeed coupled in the preface to the Pastoral Care;22 however it is wisdom that is the ultimate goal. Wisdom, according to Alfred’s rewriting of a passage in the Boethius (and almost every reference to wisdom in the Boethius is a rewriting or expansion by Alfred), is se hehsta crceft, “the loftiest of virtues.”23 Absence of wisdom, that is dysig, “folly,” Alfred couples with unrighteousness (a similar coupling is found in the introductions to the Paris Psalms).24 Moreover wisdom is God-given. Indeed in both the Boethius and the Soliloquies Alfred identifies it not only with the highest good but with God: “Ic J)e bydde, driten,” he says in the Soliloquies, “6u {>e aeart se hehstan wysdon [sic] 7 Jmrh J>e sint wyse aealle £>a J)e wyse sinf ” (“I pray to you, lord, you who are the highest wisdom and through you are wise all who are wise”).25 And wisdom is also something to be used in God’s service, as we learn from the prefatory letter to the Pastoral

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Care, the one addressed by Alfred to his leading churchmen. Alfred, you will note, is being extremely tactful and diplomatic in the wording of his appeal: “I bid you,” he says, “as I believe that it is your wish to do, namely that you free yourselves as often as you can from the affairs of this world, so that you can apply the wisdom that God gave you wherever you can.”26 So wisdom is the gift of God and it must be used in the service of God. What is more Alfred sees its cultivation as bringing temporal rewards, and its neglect as resulting in their loss. In the good old days, he says in the prefatory letter, the English prospered both in war and in wisdom (“ge mid wige ge mid wisdome”); now, though our predecessors left us great wealth acquired as a result of that wisdom, we have lost both (“ge done welan ge done wisdom”) because we were not prepared to follow in their footsteps.27 So, according to Alfred’s reinterpretation of Augustine and Boethius, worldly success and wisdom can go hand in hand. Neglect of wisdom, however, in Alfred’s eyes, can bring more than just loss of riches. And in this context we must remember that in Alfred’s time, and indeed later, disasters and catastrophes, such as plague and the attacks of the Vikings, were supposed to be the direct result of human wickedness, a punishment for sin: “Leofan men, gecnawad J>aet sod is,” an Archbishop of York was to cry over a century later, “deos worold is on ofste 7 hit nealaecd J)am ende, 7 [)y hit is on worolde aa swa leng swa wyrse, 7 swa hit sceal nyde for folces synnan aer Antecristes tocyme yfelian swy{)e” (“Dearly beloved, hear the truth: this world is hastening to its end, and as a result things are going from bad to worse, and even worse is yet to come on account of people’s sins, before the arrival of Antichrist”).28 Alfred, writing to his bishops, is more restrained on the matter but nonetheless confident in his conclusions: “Think what temporal punishments came upon us when we neither loved wisdom ourselves nor allowed it to other people.”29 Finally a reading of the Boethius and the Soliloquies shows us that Alfred saw wisdom once acquired as something everlasting: Wisdom, he makes Ratio say in the Soliloquies, does not die with the body.30 Indeed in addition to potential earthly rewards for the cultivation of wisdom, he sees also heavenly ones: “Just as no one believes that those in hell will have like punishment, or all in heaven like glory but each gets his deserts wherever he is, so it is with

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wisdom. It is not to be supposed that all men have equal wisdom in heaven. But each will have it in like proportion to the extent to which he has striven after it on earth. The more a man has toiled for it and yearned for it, the more he will have of it, and the greater honor and the greater glory.”31 A splendid incentive to study! So it seems that the education that Alfred sought for his people, as for himself, was in the first instance one with a spiritual rather than an economic goal, though, given the accepted connection between sin and worldly misfortune on the one hand, and wisdom and worldly prosperity on the other, he may also have expected material spin-offs. And there is ample precedent for such a heaven-slanted view of literary studies. A century earlier, for instance, Charlemagne had sent a circular letter to his churchmen, calling on them to devote their efforts to the study of literature and to the teaching of it, the primary purpose of such studies being that they should “be able more easily and more rightly to penetrate the mysteries of the holy scriptures.”32 Charlemagne’s program, the program of the Carolingian revival, is that of the De Doctrina Christiana of Augustine, which saw learning as a preparation for Bible study. Indeed such was the primary aim of the curricula of the early Middle Ages, of the trivium and quadrivium. Ancillary studies like philosophy and history were employed as aids to exegesis, the only value of secular studies being that they help people to understand the sacred text. A few might cry with ninth-century scholar Lupus of Ferrières, “Knowledge to my mind is its own end and goal”;33 others might agree with John Scotus that no one may enter heaven except through philosophy;34but in the main it was sapientia, “wisdom,” sapientia divina, “divine wisdom,” that was the be-all and end-all of education. All this is a far cry from modem ideas of the purposes and practices of education. But it is against this background that we must examine the claims of the Old English Orosius to be part of Alfred’s plan, and against this background it is immediately obvious that although Orosius’s History may provide a conveniently compact survey of world history, this in itself is not automatic qualification for inclusion in a short list of books most necessary for all men to know. Had this and this alone been the case indeed there might have been stronger candidates, and ones providing fewer difficulties of translation, needing less

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explanation and expansion by the translator. And I don’t agree with David Daiches when he says that “It is a pity that this shoddy production was the only world history available to [the translator].”35 First, I don’t believe that Orosius’ History was selected because it was the only one available, any more than I believe that it was necessarily selected to complement the Old English Bede and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (after all neither of these has features requiring us to associate it with the king);36and second, had the translator (not of course Alfred) selected another historical work—perhaps one of those from which some of his additional material is taken—he probably would not have added to it, rewritten and reinterpreted it in the way that he did the Orosius. We would have been deprived of one of the most interesting and challenging prose works of the Old English period. Be that as it may, and shoddy as Daiches may think the Latin text, the latter enjoyed tremendous popularity in the Middle Ages:37Orosius even has a place in Dante’s heaven. And one of the reasons for this popularity is that it is a patristic text giving a specifically Christian view of history. This view, as I shall attempt to show, was modified by the translator, but nonetheless forcefully expressed. If dates are treated highhandedly by the translator, facts distorted, invented, or even flatly contradicted,38this is perhaps simply because what is most important to him is the way history reveals an overall picture of God’s hand in events. A Christian interpretation of history, a Christian way of interpreting events: given its content and probable late ninth-century date, the likelihood is that the translation of Orosius was indeed undertaken as part of Alfred’s plan. And a similar case can be made for the Psalms. For Alfred, the Psalter was undoubtedly one of those books that it was most necessary for all men to know. Psalms were among the first things he learned after the book of Saxon poetry his mother gave him as a child; Psalms were in the book he carried about with him day and night “for the sake of prayer”; Psalms are named along with Saxon books as the texts “carefully learned” by his children;39and the Psalter was one of the two so-called Sapiential Books of the Bible, the books of wisdom.40As for Alfred’s Boethius, well, this is a dialogue not, as in the original, between Boethius and the Lady Philosophy, but between Mod, “the mind,” and se wisdom, “wisdom.”

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Now according to a recent book on Alfred’s Boethius, the substitution of Wisdom for Philosophy is due in the first place to the fact that there is no Old English equivalent for the Latin term Philosophiaf However, this suggestion of inadequacy on the part of the English language is completely baseless. For one thing, Alfred’s scholarly helpers could have told him the meaning and application of the term—if he did not already know it himself—so the concept was a comprehensible one. Moreover, Alfred himself has a word for “philosopher,” upwita, and corresponding to this in Old English there is not only a verb upwitigan and an adjective upwitlic, but the abstract noun upwitgung (not, I think, recorded before iElfric, but certainly coinable at any time it was needed). In any case, the author of the Old English Orosius is perfectly content to borrow the Latin term philosophus (filosof) for “philosopher,” and Alfred could just as easily, like the German writer Notker after him, have adopted the word Philosophia and presented it in such a way as to make it intelligible. In fact his substitution of the concept “wisdom” is, as we shall see, part and parcel of his remolding of his Latin source. And this brings me to the second part of my subject: the nature of the literary prose of Alfred’s reign. Is it just translation, and not particularly accurate translation at that, or does it represent a reworking, a reshaping of Latin material that justifies a description such as the one I have suggested in my title, a transformation? Our word translate did not exist in English at the time when Alfred was writing: it seems to have entered the language from Latin around the year 1300, while its stablemate paraphrase is even later, being first recorded in the sixteenth century. The Old English word for the activity was (a)wendan, “turn.” And it covers both translation and paraphrase, as can be demonstrated from Alfred’s prefatory letter to the Pastoral Care. “Then,” he says, “amidst the other various and manifold preoccupations of government, I began to translate into English the book which in Latin is called Pastoralis . . . sometimes word for word, sometimes sense for sense” (“hwilum word be worde, hwilum andgit of andgiete”), a method for which he might have claimed the authority of no lesser figures than Gregory and Jerome.42In spite of Alfred’s claim to be using both types of rendering, straight word for word translation is not to be

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found more than sporadically in the literary prose of his reign. Even the two texts of the period that follow their source most faithfully, Bishop Waerferth’s translation of Gregory’s Dialogues and the anonymous Old English Bede, normally respect and preserve the distinctive nature of Old English prose syntax, at the same time revealing a certain sophistication. And the result can be highly effective prose.43As for the three texts I have chosen to concentrate on today, they are all different in their ways of meeting the challenge of their Latin originals, but (like the Soliloquies) all seek to do far more than provide mere translation of them. For an insight into the problem their authors were facing, I shall return to Charlemagne and his encyclical letter. As we saw, one important reason for Charlemagne’s campaign for literary studies was his fear that a lack of knowledge of writing might be matched by a more serious lack of wisdom in the understanding of holy scripture. And a major reason for his concern is the presence of figures of speech, metaphors, and the like on the sacred pages, which he says cannot be understood without prior full instruction in literature. Now Charlemagne’s readers are reading Latin; Alfred’s young freeborn men will for the most part not be progressing beyond English and they are not likely to read much of that. Close and accurate translation of a difficult text will simply transfer the problem from Latin into English.44 If the thought is hard to grasp in Latin, it will stay hard in English. Figures of speech, unfamiliar allusions that are obscure in Latin, will be no less obscure in English. If the young men’s reading is to be profitable then, if it is to restore wisdom to the land, it has to be more explicit than the originals. And this is precisely the effect of the methods of “rendering” adopted by the authors of my three texts. To begin with the prose Psalms: their author—Alfred—exercises a freedom of expression that would have horrified the fourteenthcentury mystic, Richard Rolle, who says of his own translation of the Psalter, “In [)e translacioun I folow j)e letter als mekil als I may.”45 For the Old English author, part of the meaning of the Psalms is their poetic quality, their sentence rhythms, their balance. And he tries to convey something of this particular level of meaning in his rendering. Take, for instance, the Old English version of Psalm 16, verse 5: “Geriht, Drihten, mine staeppas on {)ine wegas, J>aet ic ne aslide f>aer J)aer ic staeppan scy le”

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(“make straight [or direct] Lord, my steps on thy ways, so that I do not slip where I must step”). How much more effective that is with its elaborate pattemings of sound, its pronounced rhythms, its repetition of the root “step” in different morphological forms and functions, than the Authorized Version, “hold up my goings in thy paths, that my footsteps slip not.” And even the scholars responsible for the James I Bible found it necessary to apologize for the liberties they took!46 At the same time, for the author part of the meaning of the Psalms is their relevance to mankind, to the Church, to the individual Christian using them. The wise man needs to understand this to use the Psalms effectively, to know what he—and they—are about when he recites them. So the translator not only makes clear what otherwise might be obscure, he also spells out their application, whether universal or particular. One of his sources for this is a commentary on the Psalter deriving ultimately from Theodore of Mopsuestia.47 Interpretation of the Psalms takes two main forms: interpretation of individual words and phrases in a psalm, and interpretation of each psalm as a whole. To take the first first: where the Authorized Version speaks of God breaking the arm of the wicked man, the Old English version refers to him breaking his arm and his might: “f>one earm 7 J)aet maegen” (no. 9, v. 15). The rod and the staff of the twenty-third Psalm (no. 22 in the Paris Psalter) are God’s correction followed by his consolation: “Jrin gyrd and J>in staef me afrefredon, J)aet is j)in })reaung and eft [)in frefrung.” A brief allusion in Psalm 47, verse 6, to the Lord as destroying the ships of Tarsus “in spiritu vehementi” is expanded and explained and the place identified: “7 hy waeron gebrytte swa hraedlice swa swa hradu yst windes scip tobrycd on [5 am sandum, neah [)aere byrig [>e Tarsit hatte, seo is on [)am lande J)e Cilicia hatte.” At a different level, we are told in a brief introduction to each psalm of its special significance, and since David was supposed to be the author of all the Psalms they are first explained with reference to him. So, for example, Psalm 14 (our 15). According to the preface, David sang this fourteenth Psalm when he was driven from his homeland; he wished that he might come back there again. And so did the people of Israel, when they were led in captivity from Jerusalem to Babylon. And so does every righteous man, when he sings this psalm; he wishes for

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himself some time of refreshment in this world and eternal rest after that. And so did Christ when he sang it: he lamented or more precisely sighed his sufferings to the Lord (“seofode his earfeou to Drihtne”). The translator then is providing his reader not just with one of those texts that it is necessary for all men to know; he is providing him also with all those things that it is necessary for him to know when he first studies and then himself comes to use the Psalms. So what in the hands of a less adventurous and highly motivated writer might have been a simple translation, becomes translation and commentary rolled into one, an interpretation, in a limited sense a transformation. However, the very nature of the Psalms, their tight structure, the veneration in which they were held, his own emotional response to and involvement with them, all these things prevent the translator—Alfred— from departing from his text as freely as he does in the Boethius (or indeed the Soliloquies) or his colleague does in the Orosius. In both the Orosius and the Boethius rendering sense for sense is clearly the accepted norm (we see the beginnings of this in the Pastoral Care translation).48 It applies even in the geographical section of the Orosius with its factual accounts of such matters as the boundaries of India or the course of the Nile. In these works too there is an obvious attempt at self-sufficiency, at providing within a single book everything that is necessary for its understanding and proper use. And again understanding for the authors means understanding at more than one level. First of all, both attempt to explain or clarify classical and geographical allusions in their sources—attempt, since their knowledge is, not surprisingly, limited and occasionally second-hand, and I am afraid a little learning is a dangerous thing. So in the Orosius a graphic description of Cato flinging himself from the city wall so that he eall tobcerst (“burst completely to bits”) is the result of the telescoping of two separate accounts of suicide, one by Cato, the other by a man called Theombrotus. It was the latter whose dramatic and rather grisly end is attributed to Cato by the Old English author (his source here is, I think, Firmianus Lactantius, though most of the new material in this story comes from Augustine).49 Again Cinna the consul is said to die at Smyrna, not at Ancona, because of an underlying association of another Cinna (the poet) with Smyrna (his poem).50 Similarly in the Boethius,

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Catullus is assumed to be a consul (he is in fact the poet of that name) and the curule or official chair he refers to is mistakenly supposed to be a chariot—the word curulis in Latin texts applies to both chair and chariot.51 And as for the story of Ulysses and Circe, this is told delightfully—back to front. I would like to pause for a moment here and consider the claim that crops up from time to time that in translating the Boethius Alfred used a commentary made for him by Asser, and that this commentary is preserved for us in the Vatican MS 3363. That Asser wrote a commentary is a conclusion based on William of Malmesbury’s observation that “Asser at the king’s command explained the sense of the De Consolatione in plainer words and that the king turned these into English.”52 However, William does not say that Asser wrote down his explanation, and in any case we do not know how reliable his source for this information was. The case for a written commentary by Asser is at the very least not proven. And from what I have seen of the readings of Vatican 3363,1am also inclined to reject this as a source for alterations to the Boethius by Alfred.53 However, we have to wait for the appearance of Fabio Troncarelli’s edition of the Vatican commentary later this year54 before we can speak with certainty on this point. One thing I am convinced of is that though there are resemblances between additions in Alfred’s Boethius and surviving commentary material, there are also striking differences. Indeed, I would suggest that Alfred could not have made the error he did about Catullus and the curule chair had he known of the comments in these commentaries.55 So both the Orosius and the Boethius freely add explanatory material. However, there is one significant difference in method between them. In the Old English Orosius part of the function of the additional material is to give the complete story regardless of context. In the Boethius completeness is relative to context. I should like to illustrate this from a single passage in the Consolatio, where Boethius alludes to two figures from myth and history. Busiris, says Boethius, used to put strangers to death, until he himself was killed by a stranger, in the person of Hercules. And Regulus put fetters on many a Carthaginian prisoner of war, but not long afterwards he himself received conqueror’s chains. Alfred expands and explains the first of

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these allusions, describing Busiris as an Egyptian, Hercules as son of Jove, and the manner of the death of the strangers (when they tried to leave their up-to-then hospitable host) as drowning in the Nile.56 Expansion, you will note, is within the existing framework of the story. And, significantly, apart from the identification of Busiris as an Egyptian, none of this is found in the surviving commentaries. Those that tell the story indeed follow classical tradition in referring to sacrifice on the altars of Busiris’ gods. My suspicion is that Alfred knew of and was influenced by a version of the story found in Hyginus and Servius,57 where Busiris is described as son of Neptune and as performing human sacrifice to bring to an end a nine-year drought in Egypt. In such a context a watery immolation might be easily assumed, with the Nile the obvious location. The second story, that of Regulus, Alfred leaves virtually unmodified, not going beyond Regulus’ capture, though again some at least of the surviving commentaries, including that of the Vatican manuscript, tell of his heroic end, and this story was a great favorite with Latin writers. We may compare the Old English Orosius, where the author adds nothing to the story of Busiris, but relates in moving detail Regulus’ mission to Rome and his insistence on returning to Carthage with his captors in spite of his friends’ entreaties and the knowledge of certain death.58 Regulus’ nobility, bravery, and self-sacrifice are incidentally not the aspects of his behavior that the Latin author Orosius wanted to draw attention to, and such details would have been completely out of place in either the Latin or Old English versions of Boethius, for here the moral of the story is “you will be done by as you did,” and so you cannot have a glorious outcome to it. The two authors’ approaches then are different.59 That is not to suggest, however, that the author of the Orosius is any less scrupulous than Alfred in his handling of his material—though he will cheerfully invent details or even contradict his source from time to time.60 The author is highly scrupulous, in pursuit of his main theme—and here we have the biggest contradiction of them all. For one of Orosius’ main themes is that humanity always did suffer and always will: indeed in spite of his adversaries’ claims, it is mainly thanks to the presence of Christians in Rome that things are not even more dreadful than they are.

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Orosius was of course writing against the background of the violent disintegration of the Roman empire. For the author of the Old English version, however, the sack of Rome by the Goths was hardly a traumatic experience. His focal point is the birth of Christ and, in spite of his primary source’s concentration on evil and misery, his interpretation of history allows him to see much good in both times and people B.c. It also enables him to see much mercy in God’s control of events after Christ’s birth.61 So he can add to his source and tell of the peaceful outcome of the Rape of the Sabines, with women and their children flinging themselves at the feet of their fathers and obtaining reconciliation; he can use the topos of the departed glories of the past (that was very clear, he says, of the Romans in the time of Hannibal, that they were better thegns than exist nowadays); and he can record the courage of a Mucius, the integrity of a Regulus, and the compassion and mildness of a Caesar.62The Old English author can also make use of the commonly held view that nowadays misfortunes are directly as a result of men’s sins. For in his eyes the events of history are linked with the doctrines of both atonement and redemption: Now I have told, said Orosius, from the beginning o f the world how all mankind paid for the first man’s sins with great injuries and punishments. Now I wish [and as so often when his name is specifically mentioned, Orosius actually said nothing o f the sort] to show what mercy and what concord there was after the coming o f the Christian era, just as though men’s hearts had been changed, because the previous things had been paid for.63

But the extent of the transformation is perhaps most effectively illustrated from the opening sentence of the Old English Orosius’ last chapter, the chapter that describes the final catastrophe, the sack of Rome by a Goth and a heretic: “One thousand, one hundred and sixtyfour years after the foundation of Rome, God showed his mercy to the Romans, so that when he allowed them to be punished for their misdeeds this was nevertheless done by Alaric the Christian and mildest king.”64A similar bold and even more far-reaching freedom is to be seen in Alfred’s rendering of Boethius. Here, as in the Orosius, the unit is not the phrase or the sentence but the paragraph or even larger section. And to an even greater extent than the author of the Orosius—who is after all

20

Old English Prose: Basic Readings

restricted by the factual nature of so much of his material—Alfred does not so much render sense for sense as use his source as a jumping-off ground for what he himself wants to say. The most important transformation indeed is the reinterpretation of the Neoplatonic philosophy of Boethius in the light of the teachings of Augustine and Gregory.65 Temporal things such as wealth, honor, power, and glory, which in Boethius’ eyes could not be good, Alfred views as things that God himself has given to men to bring about good and so to reconcile them with their Creator—a thing only the wise man can achieve. At the same time he rewrites and reshapes sections where no matters of interpretation or doctrine are involved, making optional rather than necessary modifications. And this right from the beginning of the work, where if anywhere he might be expected to be feeling his way and keeping relatively close to his “original.” So I would conclude by referring to the very first words by Boethius that Alfred translated (assuming that he began at the beginning): verse meter number 1. Alfred’s version, like Boethius’, opens with a reference to composing poetry,66 and ends by asking how his friends could possibly have called him happy, since he could not remain so. But the central parts of the two versions are very different. Boethius himself describes his premature aging and Death’s refusal to heed his cries, blaming fickle Fortune for his misery. Alfred replaces this with a different but no less effective use of personification and metaphor. Perfidious earthly blessings, he cries, have blinded me and left me thus blinded in this dark place (dimme hoi), stealing from me every pleasure. I trusted in them then and they turned their back on me and all departed from me. In other words, he had enjoyed prosperity without wisdom, wela without wisdom, and not surprisingly lost it. In view of the enormous respect afforded to authority in the early Middle Ages, the liberties taken by these ninth-century authors are quite extraordinary. Translation is in itself a tedious, difficult, and laborious business, but the kind of rewriting we have to do with here must have involved considerably greater labor and surely must have been intended to meet a special need. But perhaps King Alfred should have the last word. In his preface to the Soliloquies, and using an extended metaphor, he tells of going to the forest, that is to Latin literature, to get material

The Literary Prose o f King Alfred's Reign

21

for his work. He describes how he gathered for himself staves and props and handles for all the tools he knew how to use, and wood for all the structures he knew how to build, the fairest pieces of timber, as many as he could carry. “Nor did I come home with a single load,” he says, “without wishing to bring home all the wood, if I could have carried it.” And he urges all others who have the strength and (he is always practical) enough wagons to go to that wood also and bring home timber, “so that each of them can build walls and buildings and a fair enclosure with the wood and may dwell therein pleasantly and at his ease winter and summer.”67 Just as Alfred’s wood-gatherer took it from more than one source and transformed it into a fair dwelling for the refreshment of the body, so the king himself and at least one other translator of his reign shaped their source material for the refreshment of the mind, and discarding literal translation transformed the Latin into what may be called independent English prose.

Notes Originally delivered as an Inaugural Lecture in the Chair of English Language and Medieval Literature at University of London King’s College on 4 March 1980. Reprinted with permission as OEN Subsidia 10(1984). 1. For the Latin text sezAnicii Manlii Severini Boethii Philosophiae Consolatio, ed. Ludwig Bieler, CCSL 94 (Tumholt, 1957); for the Old English see King Alfred’s Old English Version o f Boethius' De Consolatione Philosophiae, ed. W.J. Sedgefield (Oxford, 1899) [cited by page and line]. 2. See Pauli Orosii Presbyteri Hispani adversum Paganos Historiarum Libri Septem, ed. Carolus Zangemeister, CSEL 5 (Vienna, 1882), and The Old English Orosius, ed. Janet Bately, EETS SS 6 (London, 1980) [cited by page and line].

Old English Prose: Basic Readings

22

3. Gesta Regum Anglorum, ed. William Stubbs, Rolls Series 90 (London, 1887, 1889), 1:132. 4. See Elizabeth M. Liggins, “The Authorship of the Old English Orosius,” Anglia 88 (1970): 289-322, and J.M. Bately, “King Alfred and the Old English Translation of Orosius,” ibid., pp. 433-60. 5. Liber Psalmorum: The West-Saxon Psalms, ed. J.W. Bright and R.L. Ramsay (London, 1907). 6. See John Bromwich, “Who Was the Translator of the Paris Psalter?” in The Early Cultures o f North-West Europe, ed. Cyril Fox and Bruce Dickins (Cambridge, 1950), pp. 289-303. 7. The Paris Psalter, ed. John Bromwich et al., EEMF 8 (Copenhagen, 1958), p. 16. ¿Elfric and Wulfstan were writing a century later than Alfred. 8. The three members of the Alfredian canon are the Boethius, the translation of Gregory’s Pastoral Care (ed. Henry Sweet, EETS OS 45, 50 [London, 1871-72; repr.1958]), and the work known as the Soliloquies, based largely on Augustine, for which see King Alfred's Version o f St. Augustine's Soliliquies, ed. T.A. Camicelli (Harvard, 1969) [cited by page and line]. It is possible that Alfred’s hand may also be seen in the Introduction to his Laws. 9. See Bately, “Old English Translation of Orosius,” pp. 454-56. 10. See Janet Bately, “The Compilation of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 60 B.c. to a . d . 890: Vocabulary as Evidence,” Proceedings o f the British Academy 64 (1978): 93-129. 11. See my forthcoming article on the Paris Psalter in ASE. 12. References to the prefatory letter are, for convenience, taken from Dorothy Whitelock’s text in Sweet's Anglo-Saxon Reader, rev. Dorothy Whitelock (Oxford, 1967), pp. 4-7. 13. Sweet-Whitelock, IV. 14. See Dorothy Whitelock, “The Prose of Alfred’s Reign,” in Continuations and Beginnings, ed. E.G. Stanley (London, 1966), p. 82.

The Literary Prose o f King Alfred's Reign

23

15. For a discussion of the date of the Orosius see The OE Orosius, pp. lxxxvi-xciii. 16. The OE Orosius 13.7 and 18.17. 17. The OE Orosius 110.7-8. 18. See, e.g., R.H. Hodgkin, ,4 History o f the Anglo-Saxons, rev. ed. (Oxford, 1952), 2:630, and Anglo-Saxon Prose, ed. Michael Swanton (London, 1975), p. xvii. The sole dissentient voice is that of J.M. Wallace-Hadrill, Early Germanic Kingship in England and on the Continent (Oxford, 1971), p. 142, who states that Alfred’s books were “the obvious books for his purpose of self-instruction and general instruction in the social role of Christianity.” 19. Einhard's Life o f Charlemagne, ed. H.W. Garrod and R.B Mowat (Oxford, 1915), vol. 3, chap. 26. 20. See English Historical Documents, vol. 1, ed. Dorothy Whitelock, 2nd ed. (London, 1979), pp. 289-303, esp. 291-93; also C.P. Wormald, “The Uses of Literacy in Anglo-Saxon England and Its Neighbors,” Transactions o f the Royal Historical Society, 5th ser., 27 (1977): 95-114. 21. Sweet-Whitelock, 11.56-66. 22. Sweet-Whitelock, 11.13. 23. Alfred's Boethius 62.24. 24. Alfred's Boethius 104.5-6. See also 62.13 anti Paris Psalter 11 and 13. 25. Soliloquies 51.4-5. See also Alfred's Boethius 145.12-13 and Soliloquies 75.16-17. 26. Sweet-Whitelock, 11.22-25. 27. Sweet-Whitelock, II.9-10 and 39-41. 28. Sweet-Whitelock, XVI. 1-4. 29. Sweet-Whitelock, 11.25-27.

Old English Prose: Basic Readings

24

30. Soliloquies 81.21 ff. 31. Soliloquies 94.6-13 (emphasis mine). 32. For the Encyclica De Litteris Colendis see H.R. Loyn and John Percival, The Reign o f Charlemagne (London, 1975), pp. 63-64. See also Wolfgang Edelstein, Eruditio undSapientia (Freiburg i. Breisgau, 1965). 33. Letter 1 in Ad Einhardum, ed. Leon Levillan (Paris, 1927), 1:6. 34. Iohannis Scotti Annotationes in Marcianum, ed. C.E. Lutz (Cambridge, 1939), p. 64. 35. David Daiches, A Critical History o f English Literature (London, 1960), 1:25. 36. That the OE Bede could not be the work of Alfred was first suggested as long ago as 1876; see also Liggins, “Authorship of the OE Orosius,” pp. 289-322. For the separateness of the Chronicle see J.M. Bately, “World History in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: Its Sources and Its Separateness from the OE Orosius,” ASE 8 ( 1979): 177-94; eadem, “Compilation of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,” p. 64; and The OE Orosius, pp. lxxxiiiff. 37. There are over 250 manuscripts of the Latin work still in existence today. See J.M. Bately and D.J.A. Ross, “A Check List of Manuscripts of Orosius’ ‘Historiarum adversum paganos Libri septem,’” Scriptorium 15 (1961): 329-34. 38. See, e.g., The OE Orosius, 79.2-3, 90.13-15, 91.16-17,91.28, 96.19-20, 111.29, 129.6-9, and Commentary. 39. See Asser, Life o f King Alfred, quoted in English Historical Documents 1:292-93. 40. For the important role of the Psalter in continental education see, e.g., C.E. Lutz, Schoolmasters o f the Tenth Century (Hamden, Conn., 1977), p. 84. 41. F. A. Payne,

Alfred and Boethius (London, 1968), p. 113.

The Literary Prose o f King Alfred's Reign

25

42. Sweet-Whitelock, 11.68-72. 43. Cf., e.g., the rendering in the OE Bede (ed. Thomas Miller, EETS OS 95, 96 [London, 1890; repr. 1959], 134.23-136.5) of Bede’s story of the sparrow flying through the hall, Il.xiii, with its replacing of participial constructions by a series of main and subordinate clauses, and the highly effective sequence “7 sie fyr onaeled 7 J)in heall gewyrmed, 7 hit rine 7 sniwe 7 styrme ute.” 44. English Writings o f Richard Rolle, ed. H.E. Allen (Oxford, 1931), p. 7. 45. Cf. ¿Elfric’s comment, in the proem to Genesis (The Old English Version o f the Heptateuch, AElfric’s Treatise on the Old and New Testament and his Preface to Genesis, ed. Samuel J. Crawford, EETS 160 [London, 1922], Proem 11.37-40): “We secgad eac foran to t>aet seo boc is swide deop gastlice to understandenne, 7 we writad na mare buton J)a nacedan gerecednisse.” 46. “Another thing, we think good to admonish thee of, gentle Reader, that we have not tied ourselves to a uniformity of phrasing, or to an identity of words, as some peradventure would wish we had done” (AV, Preface). 47. See J.D. Bruce, “The Anglo-Saxon Version of the Book of Psalms Commonly Known as the Paris Psalter,” Publications o f the Modern Language Association 8 (1894): 43-164. 48. Cf., e.g., the OE version of Gregory’s introduction to the Pastoral Care (ed. Sweet, 23.9-25.13) with the corresponding Latin. 49. See The OE Orosius 128.13-21 and Commentary. 50. See The OE Orosius 125.12-13 and Commentary. 51. See Alfred's Boethius 61.16-25 and cf. Isidore, Etymologies, ed. W.M. Lindsay (Oxford, 1911), XX.xi.l 1. 52. Gesta Regum Anglorum 1:132. 53. My skepticism is shared by Miss Diane Bolton, who kindly let me have transcripts of relevant sections of the many medieval Latin

26

Old English Prose: Basic Readings

commentaries on the Boethius. See her important studies, “Remigian Commentaries on the ‘Consolation of Philosophy’ and Their Sources,” Traditio 33 (1977): 381-94, and “The Study of the Consolation o f Philosophy in Anglo-Saxon England,” A rchives d ’his to ire doctr inale et litteraire du Moyen Age 44 (1978): 33-78. 54. In a book entitled Tradizioni Perdute (Padua, 1981). I am indebted to Signor Troncarelli for xeroxes of selected pages of his edition. 55. Catulus (s/c) is, for instance, identified as Veronensis nobilis poeta in Paris, BN, Lat. 6401A and CUL MS Kk.3.21; for curules in Vat. 3363 and Par. BN Lat. 15090 see Fabio Troncarelli, “Per una Ricerca sui Commenti Altomedievali al De Consolatione di Boezio,” in Miscellanea in Memoria di Giorgio Cencetti (Turin, 1973), p. 373. 56. Bieler, De Consolatione, II.6.10-11, Alfred’s Boethius 36.28-37.10. 57. See Hyginus, Fabulae, ed. H.I. Rose (Leiden, 1934), p. lvi and Servii Grammatici qui feruntur in Vergilii Carmina Commentarii, ed. Georgius Thilo and Hermannus Hagen (Leipzig, 1881; repr. Hildesheim, 1961), Georgies III.5. 58. See The OE Orosius 95.23-96.3 and Commentary. 59. Other differences of approach involve the treatment of pagan gods (explained as kings of the past in Alfred’s Boethius and as devils in the OE Orosius) and the naming of the Latin author (of frequent occurrence in the OE Orosius, even where new material is involved, but virtually restricted in Alfred’s Boethius to the preface, excipits, and two adjacent sections XXVI and XXVII). 60. See, e.g., the story of Mucius Scaevola, where instead of deliberately holding his hand in the fire on the altar to demonstrate his unflinching courage and resolution Mucius is shown as resisting torture, when Tarquin burned his hand finger by finger: “6a pinedon hie hiene, mid {)aem {)aet hie his hand forbaemdon, anne finger 7 anne.’” See The OE Orosius 41.2-4 and Commentary. 61. See The OE Orosius, pp. xciiiff.

The Literary Prose o f King Alfred's Reign

27

62. See, e.g., The OE Orosius 39.3-16,103.3-7,41.2-4,95.23-96.3, 128.13-21, and 128.30-31, and Commentary. It is interesting to compare with these and similar expansions Soliloquies 97.5-6, where a reference to Romulus as founder of Rome is deliberately omitted. 63. The OE Orosius 132.17-22. 64. Alaric was an Arian. The list of chapter-headings says merely: “How God showed his mercy to the Romans.” See The OE Orosius 156.1-18 and 8.10. 65. See Karl Otten, König Alfreds Boethius (Tübingen, 1964). 66. Alfred's Boethius 8.6-14. Differences between the openings of the two versions seem to be the result of the miscopying or misreading of Boethius’ qui as quae. 67. Soliloquies 47.1-12.

Addenda Note 11: Now published as “Lexical Evidence for the Authorship of the Prose Psalms in the Paris Psalter,” ASE 10 (1982): 69-95. Note 43: See now further Janet Bately, “The Nature of Old English Prose,” in The Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature, ed. Malcolm Godden and Michael Lapidge (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 71-87. Note 53: See further Joseph S. Wittig, “King Alfred’s Boethius and Its Latin Sources: A Reconsideration,” ASE 11 (1983): 157-98 and also my “Evidence for Knowledge of Latin Literature in Old English,” Sources o f Anglo-Saxon Culture, ed. Paul E. Szarmach with the assistance of Virginia Darrow Oggins (Kalamazoo, 1986), pp. 35-51.

The Chronology o f ¿Elfric’s Works1 Peter Clemoes ABBREVIATIONS: A d m o n itio

The A n g lo -S a x o n R e m a in s o f St. B a s i l ’s A d m o n itio a d F iliu m S p ir itu a le m , ed. H.W. Norman (London, 1848).

Assmann

Bruno Assmann, ed., A n g e ls ä c h s is c h e H o m ilie n

und

H e ilig e n le b e n , Bibliothek der angelsächsischen Prosa 3

Belfour Bethurum Brotanek CH 1 and II C o llo q u y

Crawford

(Kassel, 1889). A.O. Belfour, ed., T w e lfth -C e n tu ry H o m ilie s in M S B o d le y 3 4 3 , vol. 1, EETS OS 137 (London, 1909). Dorothy Bethurum, ed., The H o m ilie s o fW u lf s ta n , (Oxford, 1957). Rudolf Brotanek, T ex te u n d U n te rsu c h u n g e n z u r a lte n g lis ch e n L ite r a tu r u n d K ir c h e n g e s c h ic h te (Halle, 1913). The First and Second Series o f C a th o lic H o m i l ie s , ed. Thorpe (see below). A llfr ic ’s C o llo q u y , ed. G.N. Garmonsway, 2nd ed. (London, 1947). S.J. Crawford, ed., T he O ld E n g lish V ersion o f th e H e p ta teu ch , EETS OS 160 (London, 1922).

D e T em p o rib u s A n n i D e T e m p o rib u s A n n i , ed. H[einrich] Henel, EETS OS 213

(London, 1942). Fehr

Bernhard D ie H ir te n b r ie fe jE lfr ic s , Bibliothek der angelsächsischen Prosa 9 (Hamburg, 1914).

G lo s s a r y and G r a m m a r M lfr ic s G r a m m a tik u n d G lo s s a r , ed. Julius Zupitza, vol. 1

(Berlin, 1880). H ex a m e ro n

E x a m e r o n A n g lic e , ed. S.J. Crawford, Bibliothek der

angelsächsischen Prosa 10 (Hamburg, 1921).

29

Old English Prose: Basic Readings

30 Interrogationes

Ker, Catalogue

G.E. Maclean, “Ailfric’s Version o f Alcuini Interrogationes Sigeuulfi in Genesin,” Anglia 6 (1883): 425 ff., and 7 (1884): Iff. N.R. Ker, Catalogue o f Manuscripts containing AngloSaxon (Oxford, 1957).

Letter to the Monks o f Eynsham

Lives Morris Muller

Napier Sisam, Studies Skeat TH I and II Thorpe

Mary Bateson, ed., “Excerptaex Institutionibus monasticis, etc.,” in Compotus Rolls o f the Obedientiaries o f St. Swithun’s Priory, Winchester, ed. G.W. Kitchin (London, 1892), App. 7, pp. 171 ff. Lives o f Saints, ed. Skeat (see below). Richard Morris, ed., Old English Homilies and Homiletic Treatises . . . , EETS OS 29,34 (London, 1867-68). L.C. Muller, “Dominica III in Quadragesima,” in Collectanea Anglo-Saxonica (Copenhagen, 1835), pp. 19 ff. (Also printed Tvende Old-engelske Digte , ed. George Stephens [Copenhagen, 1853], pp. 81 ff.) A.S. Napier, Wulfstan, vol. 1 (Berlin, 1883). Kenneth Sisam, Studies in the History o f Old English Literature (Oxford, 1953). W. W. Skeat, ed., JElfric 's Lives o f Saints, EETS OS 76, 82, 94, 114 (London, 1881-1900). Two series o f hom ilies for the Proper o f the Season (Temporale) described below, pp. 42 ff. Benjamin Thorpe, ed., The Homilies o f the Anglo-Saxon

Church: The First Part Containing the Sermones Catholici, or Homilies o f JElfric, 2 vols. (London, 1844-46). Vita S. AZthelwoldi “V ita S. Aithelwoldi, Episcopi W intoniensis, Auctore Ailfrico,” in Chronicon Monasterii de Abingdon, ed. John Stevenson, Rolls Series 2 (London, 1858), vol. 2, App. 1, pp. 253 ff.

iElfric, Professor Dorothy Whitelock has recently remarked, is an author on whom “more work is needed.”2The wide range of his learning is not in dispute, nor are his economy and clarity of expression, the ease and originality of his use of English. But the true nature of his plan to provide the means of religious education in the vernacular is insufficiently realized, a scheme that Dr. Sisam has described as “comparable to Alfred’s plan a century earlier, but more systematic and concentrated

The Chronology o f Ælfric 's Works

31

on the advancement of religion.”3The present paper is offered as prolegomena to an intended critical study of TElfric’s work in its intellectual, literary, and linguistic aspects. My aim here is simply to define the main features of AHfric’s educational program and to determine their chronological sequence—and, so far as possible, the order of individual texts within groups—by means of a survey and interpretation of our manuscript resources. Stopping at the analytical stage, a preliminary study of this kind cannot hope to make easy or satisfying reading, especially since, for reasons of space, so much of the writing has to be condensed and so many numerical references have to be cited without amplification.4

THE CANON A classified list of TElfric’s works will be useful as a working basis.51 do not want to discuss here any special problems, but simply to list all those pieces I have so far come across that I regard as certainly by TElfric. Among pieces not so far attributed to him, in some cases cross-references to known works make identification certain;6in others it depends either on immediate links with known works in subjectmatter or expression, or on stylistic evidence in the widest sense—conformity to TElfric’s known intentions and habits of mind as well as to the characteristics of his way of writing.7

7. Liturgical Homilies8 (a ) T h

e

Pr

o pe r o f t h e

Christmas

St. Stephen St. John the Evangelist Holy Innocents Circumcision Epiphany Second Sunday after Epiphany

Se

9 CH I.2;10II. 1; Skeat I (rewritten as Belfour IX); an unpublished homily in London, BL, Cotton Vitellius C.v (P). CH 1.3; II.2. CH 1.4. CH 1.5 (P). CH 1.6 (P). CH 1.7 (P); II.3. CH II.4 (P).

a so n

32 Third Sunday after Epiphany Septuagésima Sunday Sexagésima Sunday Quinquagesima Sunday First Sunday in Lent Friday after the First Sunday in Lent Second Sunday in Lent Friday after the Second Sunday in Lent Third Sunday in Lent Friday after the Third Sunday in Lent Fourth Sunday in Lent Wednesday after the Fourth Sunday in Lent Friday after the Fourth Sunday in Lent

Old English Prose: Basic Readings CH 1.8 (P). CH II.5 (P). CH II.6 (P). CH 1.10 (P); SkeatXII. CHI. 11 (P); II.7. an unpublished homily in CCCC 162 and Vitellius C.v (P). CH II.8 (P). an unpublished homily in CCCC 162 and Vitellius C.v (P). Müller (P). an unpublished homily in CCCC 162 and Vitellius C.v (P). CH 1.12 (P); II. 12 (1) and (2); Skeat XIII. Belfour VII (P).

an unpublished homily in CCCC 162, CCCC 303, and Vitellius C.v (P). (Extract in Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley 343 published as Belfour XIV.) Fifth Sunday in Lent CH 11.13 (P). Friday after the Fifth Sunday Assmann V (P). in Lent CH 1.14 (P); 11.14. Palm Sunday Easter Sunday CH 1.15 (P); 11.15; 11.16 (P for Easter Monday); 11.17 (P for Wednesday in Easter Week). First Sunday after Easter CH 1.16 (P). Second Sunday after Easter CH 1.17 (P). Third Sunday after Easter a partly unpublished homily in London, BL, Cotton Faustina A.ix; Assmann VI (P). an unpublished homily in CUL Ii.4.6, Fourth Sunday after Easter Faustina A.ix, and Trinity College, Cambridge, B.15.34 (P).

The Chronology o f Æ lfric’s Works Fifth Sunday after Easter The Greater Litany Monday in Rogationtide Tuesday in Rogationtide Wednesday in Rogationtide Ascension Day Sunday after the Ascension

Pentecost

Sunday after Pentecost

33

Belfour II (P). CH 1.18 (P); Skeat XVII. CH 11.21. CH 1.19; 11.22, 23, and 24. CH 1.20; 11.25 (P for Vigil of the Ascension). CH 1.21 (P). an unpublished hom ily in I i .4.6, Faustina A.ix, B. 15.34, and Oxford, Bodleian Library, Junius 121 (P). CH 1.22; an unpublished homily in Ii.4.6, Faustina A.ix, and B.15.34 (P). Belfour I (P); an unpublished homily in CCCC 178, 188, 303, and 421, B. 15.34, Oxford, Bodleian Library, Hatton 113, and Jesus College, Cambridge, 15 (end only, rest lost). (Extract in Ii.4.6.) CH 1.23 (P).

Second Sunday after Pentecost Third Sunday after Pentecost CH 11.26 (P); 11.27 (P for the fourth Sunday after Epiphany). CH 1.24 (P). Fourth Sunday after Pentecost Fifth Sunday after Pentecost an unpublished homily in B. 15.34 and Vitellius C.v (P). Sixth Sunday after Pentecost an unpublished homily in B. 15.34 and Vitellius C.v (P). an unpublished homily in B. 15.34 and Seventh Sunday after Vitellius C.v (P). Pentecost CH 11.29 (P). Eighth Sunday after Pentecost Ninth Sunday after Pentecost CH 11.30 (P). Tenth Sunday after Pentecost an unpublished homily in B. 15.34 and Vitellius C.v (P). CH 1.28 (P). Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost

Old English Prose: Basic Readings

34

Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost

CH 11.33 (P).

First Sunday in September Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost First Sunday of Advent Second Sunday of Advent (b )

Th

e

Pr

o pe r o f t h e

Sa

an unpublished homily in Vitellius C.v (P, incorporating CH 11.27: see above, under the third Sunday after Pentecost). CH 11.35. CH 11.36 (P). CH 1.33 (P). CH 1.35 (P). Belfour III (P). Belfour IV (P). CH 1.39. CH 1.40 (P).

in t s

22 January, St. Vincent 2 February, Purification 12 March, St. Gregory 20 March, St. Cuthbert 21 March, St. Benedict 25 March, Annunciation 1 May, SS Philip and James the Less 3 May, Invention of the Cross SS Alexander, Eventius, and Theodulus 24 June, Nativity of St. John the Baptist 29 June, SS Peter and Paul 30 June, St. Paul

Skeat XXXVII + Belfour VIII (P for a martyr out of Paschaltide). CH 1.9 (P). CH II.9. CH 11.10. CH 11.11. CH 1.13 (P). CH 11.18. CH 11.19. CH 11.20. CH 1.25 (P). CH 1.26 (P); 11.28 (P for the Octave). CH 1.27 (P).

The Chronology o f Æ lfric’s Works

35

25 July , St. James the Greater CH II.31; 11.32 (27 July, the Seven Sleepers). 10 August, St. Laurence CH 1.29. 15 August, Assumption of CH 1.30; 11.34 (P); a homily in Vitellius the B.V. Mary C.v, fols. 182v-184v. 24 August, St. Bartholomew CH 1.31. 29 August, Decollation of CH 1.32 (P). St. John The Baptist 8 September, Nativity of Assmann III. the B.V. Mary 21 September, St. Matthew CH 11.37 (P). 29 September, St. Michael CH 1.34 (P). 28 October, SS Simon and CH 11.38. Jude 1 November, All Saints CH 1.36 (P). 11 November, St. Martin CH 11.39. 23 November, St. Clement CH 1.37. 30 November, St. Andrew CH 1.38 (P). (c ) T h

e

Co

mmo n o f t he

An apostle Apostles Martyrs

A confessor Virgins Dedication of a church (d ) U n

Sa

in t s

CH 11.40 (P). CH 11.41 (P). CH 11.42 (P). (For a martyr out of Paschaltide see above, under 22 January, St. Vincent.) CH 11.43 (P); Assmann IV (P for a confessor bishop). CH 11.44 (P). CH 11.45; Brotanek 1(1) (P).

s pe c if ie d o c c a s io n s ( Q

u a n d o

v o l u e r is

)

De Initio Creaturae (CH 1.1); Skeat XVI; Hexameron; De Populo Israhel (an unpublished homily in Oxford, Bodleian Library, Hatton 115 and London, BL, Cotton Otho C.i); Sermo de Die Iudicii (an unpublished homily in Hatton 115, CCCC 178, and, formerly, CCCC 188);D^ Virginitate (a mostly unpublished homily in CCCC 419); De Sancta Trinitate et de Festis Diebusper Annum (a mostly unpublished homily in Vitellius C.v); a homily without rubric in Junius 121, fols. 124-130v.

Old English Prose: Basic Readings

36

2. Separate Works

De Temporibus Anni; Grammar; Glossary; Colloquy (Latin); Interrogations', De Falsis Deis (not wholly published, but partly by Kluge, Forster, Warner, Kemble, Unger, Miillenhoff, and Dubois1*); De XII Abusivis (Morris, p. 299, line 1-p. 304); Admonitio; Napier VII (Latin) and VIII; De Creatore et Creatura and De Sex JEtatibus Mundi (in Otho C.i, the former partly and the latter wholly unpublished).

3. Non-liturgical Narrative Pieces

d T e s t a m e n t 12 Crawford Genesis, chaps. I-III, VI-IX, and XII-XXIV.22;13 Crawford Numbers, chaps. XIII-XXXI; Crawford Joshua (except chaps. 1.1-10, and XII14); Crawford Judges:; Skeat XVIII (Kings); Assmann VIII (Esther); Assmann IX (Judith); Skeat XXV (Maccabees).

(a ) O l

(b ) O t

h er s

Skeat II-XI; XIV; XV; XIX (1); XX-XXII; XXIV; XXVI-XXIX; XXXI; XXXII; XXXIV-XXXVI; Vita S. JEthelwoldi (Latin).

4. Letters

Letter for Wulfsige (Fehr I); Latin Letter to Wulfstan (Fehr 2a); First Latin Letter for Wulfstan (Fehr 2); Second Latin Letter for Wulfstan (Fehr 3); First OE Letter for Wulfstan (Fehr II); Second OE Letter for Wulfstan (Fehr III); Letter to the Monks ofEynsham (Latin); Letter to Sigeweard (Crawford “On the Old and New Testament”); Letter to Sigefyrd (Assmann II); Letter to Wulfgeat (Assmann I). I suggest below that we may also have the substance of, or extracts from, letters in: Thorpe 2:602 ff.; Thorpe 2:608; Skeat XIX. 155-258; De DoctrinaApostolica (an unpublished piece in Hatton 115 and CCCC 303); an unpublished piece beginning Wyrdwriteras . . . in Hatton 115, fols. 63-64v.

5. Prefaces

To: CHI (Latin and OE); CHII (Latin and OE); Letterfor Wulfsige (Latin); Grammar (Latin and OE); Crawford Genesis; Lives (Latin and OE); Skeat XXXII; Skeat XXXVI (Latin); Admonitio; Vita S. jEthelwoldi (Latin); Letter to the Monks ofEynsham (Latin); Fehr II and III (Latin).

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6. Miscellanea

Admonitio (Latin), De Sancta Maria, Excusatio Dietantis, and Oratio in CH II; Pater Noster, Creeds, prayers, and blessings (Thorpe 2:596ff.); De Cogitatione (A.S. Napier, “Ein altenglishes Leben des heiligen Chad,” Anglia 10 [1888]: 155); Napier XXXI.15

7. Notes

After OE preface to CH I (Latin, Thorpe 1:8); in CH 1.11 (Latin, Thorpe 1:172); two in CH 1.12 (Sisam, Studies, p. 173, and Latin, Thorpe 1:186); after CH 1.14 (Thorpe 1:218); inCH 1.21 (Latin, Thorpe 1:304); in CH 1.26 (Latin, Thorpe 1:374); in CH 1.28 (Latin, Ker, Catalogue, p. 13); in CH 1.30 (Latin, Ker, Catalogue, p. 324); two in CH 1.32 (Latin, Thorpe 1:478, and Latin, Ker, Catalogue, p. 13); in CH II.4 (Latin, Thorpe 2:60); in CH II.6 (Latin, Thorpe 2:92); after CH 11.14 (Thorpe 2:262); in CH 11.35 (Latin, Thorpe 2:446); before the Pater Noster (Thorpe 2:596); before De Temporibus Anni {De Temporibus Anni, p. 2); after Skeat XXXI (Latin verse); before Assmann IV (Latin); in Assmann IV (Latin, lines 62-63).

CHRONOLOGY After jElfric’s early Catholic Homilies—two series of liturgical homilies combining Temporale and Sanctorale—his next major project, it is generally agreed, was to compile a book of Lives. For its contents we turn to London, BL, Cotton Julius E.vii, our only extant copy of the set as a whole. Four items in this manuscript, differing from the rest in intention, style, and linguistic usage, must be eliminated at the outset as not by iElfric (Skeat XXIII, XXIIIB,16XXX, and XXXIII). Of the rest, most items (Skeat II-IX, XI, XIV, XIX (1), XX-XXII, XXIV-XXVI,17 XXVIII, XXIX, XXXII, XXXIV, and XXXV) provide, as iElfric promised in his prefaces, accounts of saints whose festivals were not celebrated by the laity with special services and about whom, therefore, a homily would be useless. Others (Skeat X, XV, XXVII, and XXXVI) fill in gaps left in CH I and II. Another (Skeat XXXI) is a longer version of CH II.39’s account of St. Martin’s miracles and death, which iElfric had been asked for.18 These are all narrative pieces intended not for

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reading as part of the liturgy, but for pious reading at any time,19though placed in the set in the order of the anniversaries of the liturgical year for ease of reference. But there are also some homilies (Skeat I, XII, XIII, and XVI-XVIII); and three pieces (Interrogationes, De Falsis Deis, and De XII Abusivis) in, as it were, an appendix at the end. The same mixture occurs, though not as an organized set, in CUL Ii.l .33,20 a manuscript uniformly unconnected with Julius textually and therefore representing a distinct line of transmission. ¿Elfric himself must have issued the set in this form. Two of the homilies, Skeat XII and XIII, reveal the principle on which he compiled it. They occur in CCCC 162 in company with CH I and II items, of an early type textually, and some other homilies by ^ lfric —Müller (for the third Sunday in Lent)21and homilies for the five Fridays in Lent. CCCC 162 ’s variants show that its version of Skeat XII and XIII is of an earlier type than Julius’s.22Thus all CCCC 162’s items by i^lfric except Müller and the homilies for Fridays in Lent can be shown to be earlier than the publication of the Lives. This suggests that the composition of Müller and the homilies for Fridays in Lent may also have preceded the compilation of the Lives. If so, they were deliberately excluded when the set was made. This must have been because they are expositions of pericopes. Evidently ¿Elfric considered homilies directly dependent on the liturgy unsuitable for inclusion in his non-liturgical reading-book, but those on general themes suitable. Viewed in the light of this principle, the composition of the Lives set presents no further problem. Skeat I and XVII, which reads to me like a homiletic adaptation of a letter,23are homilies of a general nature. Skeat XVIII was eligible as a narrative. Three pieces that were instructive, but neither narrative nor homily, were placed at the end of the set, and another short one, Skeat XIX. 155-258, which reads to me very like an extract from a letter, was attached to a short item.24 It is a fair inference that ¿Elfric included all the material to hand he considered suitable and that any of the same type not included had not yet been written. The case of Skeat XVI seems to me different. Here, I think, we have a homily25specially written for the set—to serve as a general introduction to it in much the same way as CH 1.1 served as a general introduction to CH. It places the passions of martyrs in an historical

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perspective and relates them to the reader’s struggle against sin. It has been removed from first place in Julius, though it is still not assigned to any specific occasion; but in Ii.1.33 it retains the rubric appropriate to an initial position: Inc ip it sermo de memoria sanctorum .26 ¿Elfric’s English preface makes it clear that the Lives proper were written over a period of time, but there is very little to suggest an order of priority between them: their cross-references are only to CH, all the pieces are in the rhythmical style AHfric had adopted for several items already in CH II, and, so far, I have not found any linguistic test that is valid later than pieces composed immediately after CH II.27 All we can say is that XXXII must be among the early Lives, for in a preface, written not when the piece was composed but when it was included in the set, iElfric implies he wrote this Life “within a few years” of 985 (the year, “three years before Dunstan died,” in which Abbo and the archbishop met). As to the supplementary items, Skeat I is not in the rhythmical style, nor are XVI. 1-49, XVII. 1-48, Interrogationes, lines 18-511, and the introduction on the Trinity in De Falsis Deis. Outside the Lives set the non-rhythmical pieces are De Temporibus Anni; the Pater Nos ter, Creeds, prayers, and blessings printed Thorpe 2:596ff; the piece printed Thorpe 2:602ff. (from which excerpts were taken over into Skeat XII as explained above); the short piece printed Thorpe 2:608;28 Letterfor Wulfsige, section 117-end (section 73 not clearly rhythmical); Grammar (mainly); Crawford Genesis, chapters I—III, VI-IX, and XII-XIX.19 (not consistently rhythmical until chap. XXII);29 and the main, central part of De Doctrina A postolical as well as prefaces, CH I, and most of CH II. This suggests that all these pieces may be earlier than Skeat XII and XIII, Muller, the homilies for the five Fridays in Lent, Skeat XVIII, De XII Abusivis, and the Lives proper.31 In most cases this causes little difficulty. There are other signs of early work. Dr. Sisam has already shown that the order in which items occur at the end of CUL Gg.3.2832probably corresponds to their relative order of composition.33Grammatical irregularities, of which Sisam used the one most effective as a test, and which are not found after the piece printed Thorpe 2:602ff.,34 indicate that at least this and the texts preceding it in Gg.3.28 were also nearest to CH II in time. But this may not be true of the rest.35 As for the other non-rhythmical pieces, the

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Grammar's English preface proves that it followed soon after CH; there is a reference in Interrogationes to De Temporibus Anni; Skeat 1.214-16 corresponds closely to De Temporibus Anni, chapter 10, section 7, and in lines 71-77 the sun serves to symbolize the Trinity as in CH 1.20 and the piece printed Thorpe 2:602ff.; a reference to the planets in De Falsis Deis implies the pre-existence of Interrogationes, lines 115-42;36Muller contains a reference that is almost certainly to De Falsis Deis?1 Only two pieces require special discussion: Crawford Genesis and De Doctrina Apostolica. Interest in the former so far has centered mainly on the questions how much is ^Elfric’s work38 and whether it is his “third book.”391 do not want to take up either problem here, but simply to point out that the interpretation of ^Elfric’s phrase post quartum librum in his Latin preface to the Lives has given rise to such differences of opinion that it is poor evidence on which to base any chronological conclusions.40 They must be reached along other lines. The absence of Tilfric’s rhythmical style from his preface to Crawford Genesis need not be a sign of early work, for JElfric never adopted it for prefaces discussing the circumstances in which his works came to be written, though the analogy of the English preface to the Lives, which goes over to the rhythmical style when it begins to discuss the book’s theme, would lead us to expect a similar transition in the preface to Crawford Genesis when ^Elfric takes up the subject of typology. But the absence of this style from the translation up to chapter XIX. 19, may be more significant, for its use from then on, consistently from chapter XXII, shows that ^Elfric did not consider it unsuitable for literal translation as such. Then there is the impression the preface gives of the hesitancy of a beginner. The strongest reason, however, for regarding the translation as early work is, I think, the possibility, even likelihood, that Interrogationes presupposes its existence: that this commentary was in fact supplied precisely to clothe pa nacedan gerecednisse about which ¿Elfric had such misgivings. When iElfric wrote about the Creation and Fall he did so normally from a specific point of view: in CH 1.1 he sees them as part of the Creation-Fall-Redemption-Judgement pattern and his theme is God’s power and the relationship between Creator and Created; in De

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Temporibus Anni and Hexameron Creation and Fall are related to the facts of the physical world as the reader or hearer knows them; in De Creatore et Creatura and its sequel, De Sex JEtatibus Mundi, they are part of the sweep of world history; in the Letter to Sigeweard, as in the preface to Crawford Genesis, it is typology that matters, the relationship between Creation and Fall and Redemption. But in Interrogations there is no such controlling idea: there is something of everything. All that can be called distinctive about it is that it breaks off with the sacrifice of Isaac, at just about the point at which JElfric, translating to Isaace, must have stopped. This is a remarkable coincidence. And, surely, if Interrogationes already existed when ¿Elfric undertook the translation of Genesis, it is extraordinary that he makes no reference to it in his preface, especially as three of the points he specifically mentions there are covered by three of the questions and answers in the other piece.41 De Doctrina Apostolica, concerned with specific points, particularly problems of sex, rather than general doctrine, reads to me more like a letter than a homily, and this impression is in line with the use made of its material elsewhere in homilies.42Its manuscript distribution does not suggest early work, and in placing pride first in its list of chief sins (in its non-rhythmical part) it agrees with AHfric’s Second OELetterfor Wulfstan (a certainly late work) against CH 11.12 (2), Skeat XVI, and Müller, which all place it last.43But the occurrence of Adfric’s nonrhythmical style in so much of the piece suggests a composition as early as can be reconciled with the other evidence: a date immediately after the publication of the Lives seems the most likely, and there is a hint that this may be so in that this piece occurs in CCCC 303 among a block of texts that are all drawn from a Lives set of the Julius type. As to the fully rhythmical pieces among the supplementary items in Julius’s set of Lives, there is nothing to show a relative order of composition among them, except that Skeat XIII and De XII Abusivis are not likely to be far apart in time: the latter treats at length the theme summarized briefly in lines 116-27 of the former. There is no evidence suggesting that any piece not so far mentioned belongs to this early phase of ¿Elfric’s work. But in putting together the run we have established, I associate the Glossary and Colloquy with the Grammar on grounds of subject-matter, for, so far as I am aware, there

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are no other indications of the time of their composition, except that the Glossary is likely to have preceded the Colloquy.44 Our order is therefore: CH I / CH II / De Temporibus Anni /Pater Noster, etc. / Thorpe 2:602ff. / Thorpe 2:608; Letterfor Wulfsige; Grammar, Glossary; preface to Crawford Genesis and Crawford Genesis, chapters I—III, VI-IX, and XII-XXIV.22 / Colloquy, Interrogations; Skeat I / Skeat XVI;45 Skeat XVII; DeFalsisDeis / Skeat XII; Skeat XIII; Müller; homilies for the five Fridays in Lent; Skeat XVIII; DeXIIAbusivis / completion and publication of the Lives/De DoctrinaApostolica. It only remains to add that the most probable identification of the quattuor sententias that iElfric added to ^Ethelweard’s copy of CH I46 is among Lives that were composed early, but precisely which it is impossible to say, though 1.32 may well have been one.47 If they were Lives, ¿Elfric’s statement in his English preface to the Lives set that ¿Ethelweard and ^Ethelmaer had asked him for such writings “and of handum gelaehton” would receive a natural explanation; and Dr. Sisam’s suggestion that Gg.3.28’s note is more likely to refer to items distributed throughout ¿Ethel weard’s special copy in the order of feast-days than to ones simply added on extra leaves at the end of the manuscript receives support.48 With the publication of the Lives ¿Elfiric had made considerable progress with his educational scheme. He had begun with two series of liturgical homilies, combining Temporale and Sanctorale, representative not only in their occasions but also in their subject-matter, for they set forth essential basic doctrine—on the Trinity, Free Will, and the like— and the essential facts of the New Testament, of the Old Testament that preceded it, and of the dissemination of Christianity (particularly apostolic) that followed it. These were the themes he developed in all his later work. Then had followed a brief account of the physical world, a grammar of Latin, and a non-liturgical reading-book, mainly telling the story of leading saints during the spread of Christianity through Western Europe. Nor had he deviated far from his central purpose in response to others: the guidance for parish priests in his Letter for Wulfsige had its relevance to the grand plan, and only occasionally had ¿Ethelweard’s requests led him into writing primarily at the behest of this powerful patron. The period following the publication of the Lives is notable for important developments in the liturgical homilies for the Proper of the

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Season.49 The manuscript evidence is good for two distinct phases of reorganization and expansion, represented by two sets of homilies that I propose to refer to as TH I and II, respectively. Ii.4.6 (mid-eleventh-century), CCCC 302 (eleventh- to twelfthcentury), and Faustina A.ix (of the first half of the twelfth century) are our witnesses for TH I.50 All three manuscripts follow the order of the liturgical year strictly: Ii.4.6 from the second Sunday after Epiphany (beginning imperfectly) to the Sunday after Pentecost, CCCC 302 from the first Sunday of Advent to Wednesday in Rogationtide (ending imperfectly), and Faustina A.ix from the second Sunday after Epiphany (beginning imperfectly) to Pentecost. Numerous conjunctive readings show that CCCC 302 and Faustina A.ix represent a common line of transmission. Between the three manuscripts all ^Elfric’s CH I and II homilies for the Proper of the Season from Christmas51 to the Sunday after Pentecost are represented, except for II. 1 (Christmas), 1.6 (Circumcision),52 1.7 and II.3 (Epiphany), 11.21 (Monday in Rogationtide), and 11.22, 23, and 24 (Tuesday in Rogationtide). Skeat XII, Muller, Skeat XIII, and Assmann V (Friday after the fifth Sunday in Lent) occur as well, together with some homilies by iElfric that we have not met before: for the third,53 fourth, and fifth Sundays after Easter (fifth Sunday, Belfour II), for the Sunday after the Ascension, for Pentecost, and for the Sunday after Pentecost (Belfour I). Finally CH 1.16 and 17 occur in a lengthened form. Clearly a series by ¿Elfric for the Proper of the Season from Christmas to the Sunday after Pentecost lies behind these manuscripts. As well as the items they contain this series must have included at least CH 1.6 and either 1.7 or II.3, or more probably both,54for it is unthinkable that iElfric would have left unrepresented such important feasts as the Circumcision and Epiphany. For this part of the year CCCC 302 is our only witness. All five homilies for the Fridays in Lent were probably in the set too: most of them might well be omitted from our extant selections, being of relatively minor usefulness. On the other hand these selections have items from other sources that indicate that ¿Elfric had not yet supplied any homilies for Sundays after Epiphany beyond the fourth.55TH I must have consisted of just about forty items. It was during the Middle Ages that the first Sunday after Pentecost came to be regarded as the climax of the liturgical celebrations that

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since Christmas had commemorated the chief events in Christ’s life and the descent of the Holy Spirit. It was observed as a separate feast, Trinity Sunday, instead of as the Octave of Pentecost, first at Liège in the tenth century and not at Rome until 1334.56Ælffic’s series is clearly in accord with this line of development: its theme could be called “Man’s Redemption.” The liturgical celebrations from Christmas to Pentecost are summarized in two homilies by Ælfric: In Octavis Pentecosten57 and De Sancta Trinitate et de Festis Diebus per Annum.5* In the former the summary leads into an impressive eschatological homily on the grand scale, and in the latter it is preceded by a summary of history up to the Incarnation and followed by a passage setting forth the attributes of the Trinity. The one homily would make an ideal epilogue to TH I and the other an ideal prologue, yet neither seems to have been issued as part of the set. In Octavis Pentecosten contains a reference to the TH I homily for the third Sunday after Easter, but does not occur in any TH I manuscript except that a part of it is combined with the opening words of CH 11.21 and matter not by Ælfric in a homily for Monday in Rogationtide in Ii.4.6, an appearance that does not imply that In Octavis Pentecosten was necessarily available as early as the set itself. Its manuscript associations, in fact, are all with the reissue of CH I, to be described below, or with TH II, while its rubric, in all manuscripts in which it is likely to go back to Ælfric, begins with the phrase Sermo ad populum, unlikely to occur except in the rubric of the first item of a set or of a homily issued on its own.59The most probable explanation seems to me to be that this homily was circulated separately after TH I and thought of as an epilogue to it. The liturgical summary is in identical words in In Octavis Pentecosten and De Sancta Trinitate except for two small differences, namely that the former’s reference to the Octave as “today” and its reference to the TH I homily for the third Sunday after Easter, already mentioned, are absent from the latter. The first change adapts the summary to a homily for any occasion and the second removes a reference to a homily that was discarded in TH II, where it is replaced by Assmann VI. The historical summary that precedes the liturgical summary in De Sancta Trinitate is an adaptation by Ælfric of portions of Assmann I {Letter to Wulfgeat),60but the concluding passage

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on the Trinity was, I think, written for this context.61De Sancta Trinitate is not found in CCCC 302, our only TH I manuscript that is not defective at the beginning, where Hexameron (without lines 1-30) is used as the general introduction. There can be little doubt that, having written and circulated In Octavis Pentecosten and his Letter to Wulfgeat, ¿Elfric adapted the relevant portions of each to form part of an introductory homily for his Temporale set when he reorganized and reissued it as TH II. At this second stage iElfric’s scheme underwent both expansion and limitation. Our witnesses are Vitellius C.v (additions of the first half of the eleventh century), B. 15.34 (mid-eleventh-century), and some items in Bodley 343 (of the second half of the twelfth century). Vitellius’ and Bodley’s TH II homilies are only selected items. In Vitellius they are interpolations in an already existing set consisting of CH I and the five homilies for Fridays in Lent. These interpolations include De Sancta Trinitate et de Festis Diebusper Annum and new homilies forChristmas (on the pericope) and for the fifth, sixth, seventh, tenth, and thirteenth Sundays after Pentecost (that for the thirteenth incorporating CH 11.27); an expanded text of CH 11.33 (for the twelfth Sunday after Pentecost) that is found elsewhere only in CCCC 178; a text of CH 11.36 (for the sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost) that is longer than that of any other copy; and an addition to the homily for Friday after the fourth Sunday in Lent. Bodley’s new material consists of Belfour VII (Wednesday after the fourth Sunday in Lent), Belfour XIV (an extract from the expanded form of the homily for Friday after the fourth Sunday in Lent), Belfour III (twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost), and Belfour IV (twenty-third Sunday). B.15.34’s contents are a well-organized set running from Easter to the eleventh Sunday after Pentecost (ending imperfectly). For its short period of overlap with TH I manuscripts it replaces their homily for the third Sunday after Easter with Assmann VI; adds Napier VII (Latin) and VIII (no longer used for the third Sunday after Easter62) as a pendant to the homilies for Pentecost, and In Octavis Pentecosten before Belfour I; has a text of the homily for the fourth Sunday after Easter that is longer than TH I’s; and eliminates CH II. 15 and 11.25. For the second to eleventh Sundays after Pentecost it has Vitellius C.v’s new homilies for the fifth, sixth, seventh, and tenth

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Sundays, and CH I and II homilies for the others (i.e., all the CHI and II homilies for the period of the second to eleventh Sundays except for 11.27, originally a pendant to 11.26 for the third Sunday but worked into Vitellius’ homily for the thirteenth Sunday). Within its limits B. 15.34 has all Vitellius’ and Bodley’s new material. The replacement of TH I’s makeshift homily for the third Sunday after Easter and the expansion of the homily for the fourth Sunday are sufficient to show that TH II represents a reissue. On the other hand the provision of a homily for Wednesday after the fourth Sunday in Lent and the expansion of the homily for Friday after the same Sunday may well have been part of TH I though we lack the evidence to prove it today. That TH II’s reorganization lay in extending the series throughout the year there are two indications: first, the two TH I manuscripts that are not defective at the end finish at Pentecost and the Sunday after Pentecost, respectively; second, TH II’s homilies for the thirteenth and twenty-second Sundays after Pentecost are shown to be new compositions at the TH II stage because, when they raise the subject of the sevenfold gifts of the Holy Spirit, they make no reference to the TH I homily for the third Sunday after Easter, which, as we have seen, was discarded at the TH II stage, whereas the TH I homily for the Sunday after the Ascension and In Octavis Pentecosten both have such a reference63 when they mention the same subject. Other evidence indicates that the reorganization also involved a limitation. Most TH I homilies had been expositions of pericopes, but not all: among the new material the homily for the third Sunday after Easter had not been of this type, nor had CH 1.2, Skeat XII, CH II.7,11.12 (1) and (2), Skeat XIII, CH 11.14,11.15,1.19,1.20, and 1.22, among the homilies retained from earlier sets. But there are signs that TH II was more strictly confined to pericope homilies: all the new material falls in this category, except De Sancta Trinitate and In Octavis Pentecosten (both, as we have seen, in a special relationship to the theme of the series as a whole) and Napier VII (Latin) and VIII (released from duty in TH I’s homily for the third Sunday after Easter); furthermore of the five examples of TH I’s nonpericope homilies falling within its period, B. 15.34 replaces one (the homily for the third Sunday after Easter), eliminates another (CH 11.15), and retains only CH 1.19 and 1.20, for Tuesday and Wednesday in

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Rogationtide, when the same pericope is appointed as for the Greater Litany (CH 1.18). Evidently iElfric intended TH II to provide a set of pericope expositions for the entire year. There are fifty-two of them now extant. But we have today no pericope homily for the first Sunday of Advent and no homilies at all for the third and fourth Sundays of Advent, for the first Sunday after Epiphany and any Sundays beyond the third (never more than six required), and for the fourteenth, fifteenth, eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth Sundays after Pentecost and any Sundays beyond the twenty-third (twenty-four to twenty-seven required). If iElfric filled all these gaps, and also included in his set at least De Sancta Trinitate, CH 1.19, 20, and 22, and In Octavis Pentecosten, TH II must have consisted of seventy-two homilies (not counting Napier VII [Latin] and VIII), and it must have been convenient to divide them into two volumes.64B. 15.34 is clearly the second volume (ending imperfectly) of a two-volume TH II set of which the first volume has not survived. It is a serious loss, for probably it contained any prefaces that iElfric wrote. The runs (a) Napier VII (Latin) and VIII / TH I / In Octavis Pentecosten, and (b) Assmann I / TH II have emerged. Another chronological point can be made. In his Letter to SigeweardiElfric says with reference to the Gospels: “ic gesett haebbe of [)isum feower bocum wel feowertig larspella on Engliscum gereorde and sumne eacan 6aerto. .. .”65 There are fifty-one homilies on Gospel narrative (forty-nine on pericopes) in CH I and II if we include Temporale and Sanctorale, thirty-four (thirtytwo) if we exclude the Sanctorale. Six other early homilies, Muller and the five homilies for Fridays in Lent, bring the Temporale total up to forty (thirty-eight). At the TH I stage this number goes up to forty-four (forty-two), and forty-five (forty-three)66 if we include (as we probably should) the homily for Wednesday after the fourth Sunday in Lent, extant today only in a TH II manuscript. In TH II the number of pericope homilies was perhaps as high as sixty-eight (fifty-two extant). AHfric’s reference in his Letter is only approximate, but it seems to fit best the number of Temporale homilies on the Gospels after the issue of TH I. On these grounds we have an order TH I / Letter to Sigeweard / TH II. Beside this considerable expansion within the Temporale, development within the Sanctorale was slight. But the provision of a homily for

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the Nativity of the B.V. Mary (Assmann III) was probably part of a reissue of CH I, while the expansion of CH 11.20 and 44 was possibly part of a general revision of CH II. From CCCC 188 and other manuscripts67 we know that ^ lfric reissued CH I, containing the lengthened forms of 16 and 17 that we have seen included in TH I, a lengthened form of 39, and, as items new to the set, Hexameron,68 Müller, In Octavis Pentecosten and Assmann III. I should place the composition of Hexameron early in the period after the Lives, for it is closely associated in subject matter with De Temporibus Anni and Interrogationes and is indeed little more than a homiletic treatment of their material. Müller, we have seen,69 was earlier still, while In Octavis Pentecosten, it has been suggested,70 was probably issued on its own soon after the circulation of TH I. On the other hand, Assmann III may well have been written specially for the reissue of CH I, for, apart from the use of part of it in a homily in Vitellius C.v,71 it is extant today only in manuscripts representing or drawing on this reissue. At the end of the set in CCCC 188 is appended Assmann IV (for the Common of a Confessor72), with a note explaining that ^ lfric has had it added here so that a record of it may be kept after it has been sent to Bishop ¿Ethelwold II of Winchester, at whose request it has been composed. Thus results the order TH I ! In Octavis Pentecosten / reissue of CH I (Assmann III and expansion of CH 1.39) / Assmann IV. Another inference that can be drawn from the fact that jElfric added Assmann IV to CH I rather than to the homilies for the Common of the Saints already in CH II is that it is unlikely that CH II was in circulation as an organized set when he did so. We have no manuscript of CH II as a complete series except for Gg.3.28, so that our only evidence as to whether it was ever reissued consists of the appearance in certain manuscripts of expanded forms of individual homilies: 11.20, 25, 33, 36, and 44.11.20 (for SS Alexander, Eventius, and Theodulus, the secondary feast of 3 May) had been written originally to provide a supplement to 11.19 (for the Invention of the Cross, the day’s principal feast), which was short because it had only Jerome’s narrative for its source; in Oxford, Bodleian Library, Hatton 114 an alternative, longer, opening to 11.20 is supplied,73 bringing it up to normal length as a

,

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homily on its own account. CCCC 178’s copy of 11.25 contains three additions not occurring in Ii.4.6’s (THI) copy or elsewhere. Only one of these additions is partly rhythmical, and the others not at all. The expanded texts of 11.33 and 11.36 we have already seen as part of the TH II interpolations in Vitellius C.v. CCCC 178’s text of 11.33, however, as well as having the additional passage occurring in Vitellius, has another that is nonrhythmical and that, though not in Vitellius, is found as part of De Virginitate in CCCC 419.74 An authentically ¿Elfrician, though nonrhythmical, sentence linking this passage to the rest of CH 11.33 in CCCC 178 shows that this represents an expansion by Ailfric himself. The lengthened form of 11.44 occurs in Hatton 115 and CCCC 421. Without full manuscript collations it is impossible to tell whether or not these several additions are really part of a single recension of the series as a whole. In the meantime, until this information is available, it can be pointed out that, although some of the additions are non-rhythmical, the recension, if it exists, must come after the issue of TH II, since one of CCCC 178’s additions to 11.33 is absent from Vitellius C.v. At any rate it is clear that, alongside his expanded Temporale set, ^Elfric retained and reorganized at least CH I as a combined Temporale-Sanctorale series. As most manuscripts we have containing Lives mix them with Sanctorale homilies from CH I and II, the further question arises whether Tilfric himself ever organized a set along these lines, corresponding to his TH for the Proper of the Season. The answer is that there is no evidence that he did. In the first place there is the general objection that it would have involved a mixing of kinds—liturgical homily and non-liturgical reading-piece—that we should not expect from so deliberate an author. Second, the manuscripts concerned show no expansion of existing texts and the provision of only one new one. Third, the evidence of textual variants is against the existence of a unified set. Our witnesses are London, BL, Cotton Otho B.x, London, BL, Cotton Vitellius D.xvii, Gloucester Cathedral 35, and additions in CCCC 198, all of the first half of the eleventh century, and CCCC 303 and 367, Ii. 1.33, and Bodley 343, all of the twelfth. Their only new material is a St. Vincent homily, not extant as a whole, but dismembered

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in two parts: one in Ii.1.33 and the other in Bodley 343.75 This distribution does not suggest that it was part of an organized set. Furthermore the majority of these manuscripts—and those the most representative for our purpose—have a striking characteristic in common, namely that their arrangement does not conform so much to the order of the liturgical year as to the division of labor between scribes and the use of different exemplars in different parts of the manuscript, an unlikely state of affairs if the scribes had had in front of them a single, well-ordered, coherent series. And then there are several particular objections: CCCC 303 and Ii.1.33 contain some of the supplementary items in the Julius type of Lives set; CH 1.1 occurs in Otho B.x, and CH 1.11 (belonging to the Temporale) occurs in the block of additions in CCCC 198 to which Skeat V and XV belong; the short form of CH 11.20 is found in Otho B.x and Vitellius D.xvii, and the short form of CH 11.44 in Bodley 343; the CH I Sanctorale items are not uniform textually in either Vitellius D.xvii or CCCC 303; finally, in CCCC 367 and in the block of additions in CCCC 198 to which Skeat XXV belongs the CH I Sanctorale items are textually of a type that was superseded before the Lives were published. The fragments, Gloucester Cathedral 35, remain, and with them should be considered two other fragmentary manuscripts, London, BL, Royal 8 C.vii, fols. 1 and 2, and Queens’ College, Cambridge, (Home) 75. It will be convenient to describe these last two first. Royal consists of two binding leaves, part of a bifolium, containing fragments of Skeat VII (1) and Skeat VIII, respectively. If Skeat VII (2) originally followed VII (1), as it does in all other copies we have, exactly six intervening leaves would be accounted for and our extant leaves would have formed the outer sheet of a quire. This must have been the case. Therefore neither the Vincent homily nor CH 1.9 (the Purification)76can have come between Skeat VII and VIII, and we have no evidence that the manuscript in its original state was anything but a set of the Lives. The case of Queens’ (Home) 75 is similar. The extant remains consist of two binding strips, containing a fragment of Skeat XXII, and fragments of Skeat XXIV (end) and XXV (beginning) as adjacent items. Here our suspicions are roused because the written space is large and the script small, so that a Lives set would occupy, I calculate, only 112

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folios. This would make a slim book. The end of Skeat XXII and the beginning of Skeat XXIV, without any intervening items, would account for one lost leaf; whereas, I estimate, if CH 11.31 (James the Greater) had followed Skeat XXII (but not CH 11.32,3 l ’s appendix on the Seven Sleepers)77exactly two lost intervening leaves would be accounted for. Fortunately we are able to decide which was the case. If there had been only one intervening leaf the two extant strips would correspond to one another in their distribution of hair and flesh sides between recto and verso, assuming a normal quire; if there had been two intervening leaves they would differ. In fact they correspond78 so that, whatever else the manuscript may have contained, we have no evidence that its Lives set was interspersed with any CH I and II items. Gloucester Cathedral 35 cannot be similarly disposed of. Like Royal and Queens’ (Home) 75 it consists of binding pieces, seven in number, containing fragments of CH 1.26 (end) and 11.28 (beginning) as adjacent items, and fragments of Skeat XXI.79 If the manuscript followed the order of the liturgical year,80on calculations of length it is possible to say that CH 11.28 (1) (i.e., without the pericope exposition) and Skeat XXI cannot have been adjacent, but impossible to say if CH 11.28 (2) and/or CH 1.27 (with or without its pericope exposition)81 intervened: none of the alternatives makes a good fit. Nor, at present, can we call on textual evidence: there is too little of CH 1.26 to classify its type, and collations of CH II are not available. In the meantime the possibility that we have here—and only here—the fragmentary record of a series that Aftfric himself compiled is so remote that it does not deserve consideration. A few homilies remain: Brotanek I (1) (for the dedication of a church); Sermo de Die Iudicii; a homily without rubric in Junius 121 (fols. 124~130v); a homily in Vitellius C.v associated by its position with the Assumption of the B.V. Mary; and De Virginitate in CCCC 419.82 Brotanek 1(1) and Sermo de Die Iudicii both have a manuscriptdistribution suggesting the “middle” period (the latter is in Hatton 115, a manuscript that draws on a Worcester selection of /Elfric’s works, only one of which is known to have been composed after he became abbot of Eynsham), and both have the Sermo rubric that suggests circulation as a separate item.83On the other hand Junius 12 l ’s and Vitellius’

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homilies andDe Virginitate must be late: they all draw on Ailfric’s letters to Wulfgeat (Assmann I) and Sigefyró (Assmann II). Junius’ homily adapts for homiletic purposes Assmann I.92-end; Vitellius’ homily, consisting of Assmann 11.13-224 (including additions, lines 132-37, 147-52, and 157-61, that adapt it for homiletic purposes) and Assmann III.505-97, is in my opinion to be regarded as a compilation that c itric made by detaching a portion from an already existing, but overlong, Assmann III; De Virginitate, close to Assmann III in subject matter, combines Assmann 11.133-88 (including Vitellius’ homiletic additions mentioned above), extracts from De Doctrina Apostólica, new material by ^lffic, and a passage found in CCCC 178 as an addition to CH II.33.84 Thus for these items we have the sequences (a) Assmann I / the Junius homily, (b) Assmann II and III / the Vitellius homily, and (c) Assmann II ¡De Virginitate. The Vitellius homily may have been circulated with TH II, for it occurs among Vitellius’ TH II interpolations. Skeat I was rewritten as Belfour IX before De Creatore et Creatura drew on the latter. Skeat XVII was reissued too, for in CCCC 178 and Oxford, Bodleian Library, Hatton 116, two manuscripts drawing on a common source, its text contains an addition by jElfric that includes Skeat XXI.464—95. Another reissued text in these two manuscripts is De Falsis Deis}5This prompts the question whether ^lfric himself issued a set of his homilies for unspecified occasions and pieces on general themes, revising some for the purpose. I cannot find any evidence that he did.86 Certainly he is very unlikely to have issued a set in the form it assumes in the first part of CCCC 178, for this includes, among other things, CH 1.24, which was an item in TH II. The pieces associated with the expanded texts in CCCC 178 and Hatton 116 are homilies from the reissue of CH I. To iElfric, as indeed to all Christians, the primary importance of the Old Testament was its preparation for the New. And this in two ways: in the typological relationship between much of its narrative and Christ’s redemption of man, and in its numerous prophecies of the redeemer. And so the exposition of its most significant events was a vital section of Ailfric’s homiletic plan. Exodus, Numbers, and Joshua were fundamental typologically, and most of this ground iLlfric covered in CH 1.22,11.15, and 11.12 (1) and (2), filling in gaps with Skeat XIII

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(Moses’ prayer) and De Populo Israhel (from the giving of the Law to the death of Moses). Other single events that were important—the Flood, Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac, Samson carrying off the gates of Gaza, and the like—were fully expounded too (e.g., in CH II.4 and 1.15). The only chronological point to be made is that the composition of De Populo Israhel must fall between the publication of the Lives and that of TH I, for while it was not included in the former, Belfour I contains a reference to it. There was another way, too, in which the Old Testament was important for ^Elfric’s homiletic purposes: as a rich storehouse of moral exempla. But, while Ailfric constantly drew on Judges, Kings, and the rest for this purpose, it did not lead to systematic treatment as did typology. And so, as an appendix to his homilies, he provided summary narratives of certain Old Testament books, narratives that with very little elucidation made the point that obedience to God is best. Two were included in the Lives: one as an independent item, Skeat XVIII (Kings), and the other as an extension of one of the Lives proper, Skeat XXV (Maccabees). Others—Crawford Judges, Assmann VIII (Esther), and Assmann IX (Judith)—followed not too long afterwards, one would suppose on general grounds, but our only evidence is that Judges, like Skeat XVIII, occurs in Hatton 115,87and that all these pieces are earlier than the Letter to Sigeweard where they are mentioned. The two other Old Testament narrative pieces by jLlfric that we have (apart from Crawford Genesis already discussed) seem to stand somewhat outside the deliberately conceived plan. They are the (summarized) translation of Numbers, chapters XIII-XXXI, duplicating, but also extending beyond, De Populo Israhel, and Crawford Joshua, duplicating CH II. 12 (2), though without the typology. Both of them we have only as parts of the Hexateuch compilation (printed by Crawford), with which ¿Elfric himself had nothing to do.88 All we know of their conditions of composition is that Crawford Joshua was written at AThelweard’s request.89 Like the other Old Testament pieces they are mentioned in the Letter to Sigeweard. So far we have been concerned mainly with the various branches of iLlfric’s central plan. But the “occasional” pieces he wrote are among the most useful as chronological evidence. In the first place there are his

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letters. Those for Wulfsige and to Sigeweard, Wulfgeat (Assmann I), and SigefyrS (Assmann II) have been mentioned already, and it has been suggested that others may lie behind the pieces printed Thorpe 2:602ff. and 608, SkeatXVII, Skeat XIX. 155-258, andDeDoctrinaApostolica. The remainder are th q Letter to the Monks ofEynsham (in Latin) and the five Wulfstan letters. A short piece in Hatton 115 beginning Wyrdwr iter as . . . reads to me like an extract from another. Fehr has shown for certain that the Latin Letter to Wulfstan (Fehr 2a) precedes the other four Wulfstan letters. He has made out a good case for an order First Latin Letter fo r Wulfstan (Fehr 2) / Assmann II / Assmann I and III (homily for the Nativity of the B.V. Mary) / First OE Letter for Wulfstan (Fehr II) / Assmann IV (homily for the Common of a Confessor).90 He also has established as certain an order Second Latin Letter fo r Wulfstan (Fehr 3) / Letter to the Monks o f Eynsham / Second OE Letterfor Wulfstan (Fehr III).91 There is no need for me to repeat his arguments. A close similarity of wording between the account of the Ten Commandments in Second OE Letter for Wulfstan and that in De SexJEtatibus Mundi suggests that these two texts may have been written at about the same time. This last piece, together with De Creatore et Creatura,92which precedes it in Otho C.i, provides an epitome of world history, which is hardly homiletic and which is very close to the main theme of iElfric’s total plan. Hatton 115’s extract beginning Wyrdwriteras . .. contains references to Skeat VII (2) and Crawford Judges. Of two other extracts—from what it cannot be said—one, De Cogitatione, is also in Hatton 115, and is therefore likely to belong to ¿Elfric’s “middle” period, and the other, Napier XXXI, in Hatton 113, cannot be dated. For convenience I group these three extracts together in my list below. Admonitio is another piece likely to belong to the same period: our only evidence is a reference in its preface, most likely to Skeat III.93 Putting together the various runs we have established, I would place the following texts between the publication of the Lives and that of TH I :DeDoctrinaApostolica\ Hexameron; Crawford Joshua] Crawford Numbers, chapters XIII-XXXI; Crawford Judges; Assmann VIII and IX; De Populo Israhel; the Vincent homily (Skeat XXXVII + Belfour VIII); Admonition Brotanek 1(1); Sermo de Die Iudicii\ Napier VII (Latin) and VIII; Wyrdwriteras. . . , De Cogitatione, and Napier XXXI;

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and the reissue of Skeat I as Belfour IX. The order here is intended to reflect in general a possible order of composition. After THI comes In Octavis Pentecosten before the reissue of CH I, and the Letter to Sigeweard before the issue of TH II. Other runs are: (a) Fehr 2a / Fehr 2 / Assmann II / Assmann I; reissue of CH I (Assmann III and expansion of CH 1.39); De Virginitate / Fehr II / Assmann IV, and (b) Fehr 2a / Fehr 3 / Letter to the Monks o f Eynsham / Fehr III; De Creatore et Creatura and De Sex JEtatibus Mundi. TH II, Junius 121 ’s homily (fols. 124-130v), and Vitellius C.v’s homily for the Assumption of the B.V. Mary are all later than the group Assmann I; reissue of CH I; De Virginitate. The same is probably true of the reissue of De Falsis Deis and Skeat XVII. Finally the recension of CH II, if it took place, is later than TH II. ¿Elfric’s most sustained achievement of this period was to complete his set of homilies expounding the pericopes appointed for the Proper of the Season, while continuing to use and develop his combined Temporale-Sanctorale series, and providing a useful supplement in his Old Testament narratives. The increased number of “occasional” pieces is a reflection of his established reputation. He was now under demand for help and advice from lay and cleric alike: from Sigefyrd, Wulfgeat, and Sigeweard, from Bishop Aithelwold II and Archbishop Wulfstan in his northern diocese, and from the community at Eynsham for whom he had become responsible. Yet on their account he did not sacrifice consistency: his “occasional” pieces gave him the opportunity to expand his instruction of parish priests, to state the essentials of the regular life of a monastic community, to furnish moral instruction, and, above all, to synthesize the theme of his more extended works, to set before his fellow-countrymen the Christian “world picture” of Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Judgement in its essential simplicity. Two principal dates divide iElfric’s work: 1002, if that was the year in which iEthelweard died,94 and 1005, when ^Elfric became abbot of Eynsham. We know that ¿Ethelweard was alive when iElfric wrote his preface to Crawford Genesis, the Lives, and Crawford Joshua, and that iElfric was abbot when he wrote the Letter to Sigeweard, the Letter to the Monks o f Eynsham, Assmann II and I, and Fehr II and III. In addition, if Fehr 2 and 3 preceded Fehr II and III by no more than a year

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(as we are told in ^ lfric ’s preface to the latter), it seems reasonable to place them in or after, rather than before, 1005, for otherwise we have to assume that JElfric completed Fehr II and III and all the texts that intervene between Fehr 2 and 3 and them in the very year of his arrival at Eynsham. Other texts that can be dated are CH I in 98995 and CH II in 992,96 the Letter for Wulfsige between 992 and 1002,97 Fehr 2a between 1002 and 1005,98 the composition of the Vita S. /Ethelwoldi 1005-06,99 and Assmann IV between 1006 and 1012.100 As a result, we can draw up this broad timetable: 989 992 992-1002101

1002-05

CHI. CH II. De Temporibus Anni / Pater Noster, etc. / Thorpe 2:602ff. / Thorpe 2:608; Letter for Wulfsige; Grammar, Glossary; preface to Crawford Genesis and Crawford Genesis, chaps. I—III, VI-IX, and XII-XXIV.22 / Colloquy; Interrogations; Skeat I / Skeat XVI and XVII; De Falsis Deis / Skeat XII and XIII; Müller; homilies for the five Fridays in Lent; Skeat XVIII; D eXIIAbusivis / completion and publication of the Lives / De Doctrina Apostólica; Hexameron; Crawford Joshua. Crawford Numbers, chaps. XIII-XXXI; Crawford Judges; Assmann VIII and IX; De Populo Israhel;\ht Vincent homily (Skeat XXXVII + Belfour VIII); Admonitio; Brotanek I (1); Sermo de Die Iudicii; Napier VII (Latin) and VIII; Wyrdwriteras . . . , De Cogitatione, and Napier XXXI; reissue of Skeat I as Belfour IX / TH I (Belfour VII [probably], homily for the third Sunday after Easter, homily for the fourth Sunday after Easter, Belfour II, homily for the Sunday after the Ascension, homily for Pentecost, Belfour I, and expansion of CH 1.16, of 1.17, and probably of the homily for Friday after the fourth Sunday in Lent); Fehr 2a / In Octavis Pentecosten.

The Chronology o f Æ lfric’s Works 1005 1005-06

1006 1006-

57

Fehr 2 and 3 / Letter to the Monks o f Eynsham. Letter to Sigeweard; Assmann II and I; reissue of CH I (Assmann III and expansion of CH 1.39); De Virginitate Vita S. AEthelwoldi. Fehr II and III; De Creatore et Creatura; and De Sex JEtatibus Mundi. TH II (De Sancta Trinitate et de Festis Diebus per Annum, homily for Christmas in Vitellius C.v, Assmann VI, homilies for the fifth, sixth, seventh, tenth, and thirteenth Sundays after Pentecost, Belfour III, Belfour IV, and expansion of the homily for the fourth Sunday after Easter, of CH 11.33, and of 11.36); Vitellius C.v’s homily for the Assumption of the B.V. Mary; Junius 121’shomily onfols. 124-130v; reissue of De Falsis Deis and Skeat XVII; Assmann IV / (?) reissue of CH II.

Assmann IV must have been written by 1012. No other work need necessarily follow it, nor, as Professor Whitelock has pointed out,102 does any charter or other documentary evidence prove that ^Elfric must still have been alive in any given year. If we assume an output at the same rate after 1006 as before it, his flow of works may have ceased about 1010. If he died then, he was fifty-three or a little more. Our records are remarkably full. Though almost certainly we have lost a few homilies—and no doubt some “occasional” pieces—there is probably little that we do not know about Ailfric’s plan as a whole. That it was a plan, consistently pursued, we can be certain from the way the parts take their place within the whole and because there is so little repetition. Moreover, in spite of repeated misgivings, unlike many another literary enterprise the scheme was in all essentials carried to completion. Its controlling idea was universal history with Christ’s redemption of man at its center. The conception that molded Ailfric’s writings was in fact that which molded the Gothic cathedral later. His main structure, as it were, consisted of two series of homilies combining Temporale and Sanctorale, later extended and completed with more Temporale homilies. De Temporibus Anni, the Grammar and Colloquy,

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and his letters for Wulfsige and Wulfstan and to the monks of Eynsham buttressed this edifice; Lives and Old Testament narratives enriched it with stained glass windows; “occasional” pieces such as the Letter to Sigeweard gave it the synthesis of sculpture on the West Front. The master-mason of this cathedral was the best educated man of his time, who had the creative vitality to be his country’s foremost teacher.

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n d ix

TEXTS USED BY ^ELFRIC MORE THAN ONCE103 CH I English preface, Thorpe, vol. 1, p. 2, line 28-p. 6, line 34 as addition to CH 1.39 in CCCC 188 and other manuscripts CH 11.27 in homily for the thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost in Vitellius C.v Portion of De Virginitate in CCCC 419 as addition to CH 11.33 in CCCC 178 Thorpe, vol. 2, p. 602-p. 604, line 8, and p. 604, lines 8-20 as Skeat XII.141-77 and 254-67, respectively Skeat XIII.68-86 as Letter for Wulfsige, sections 105-10 Skeat XXI.464-95 as part of addition to Skeat XVII in CCCC 178 and Hatton 116 De Doctrina Apostolica, exemplum in homily for the third Sunday after Easter in Faustina A.ix De Doctrina Apostolica, two short extracts in De Virginitate in CCCC 419 Hexameron, lines 32-38, 73-80, 85-95, 103-06, 306-19, 344-55, 360-404, and 413-end. in De Creatore et Creatura Napier VIII, p. 58, line 1 (beginning imperfectly)-end in homily for the third Sunday after Easter in Faustina A.ix Belfour IX, p. 80, line 28 (beginning imperfectly)-p. 82, line 29 in De Creatore et Creatura In Octavis Pentecosten, portion on festivals from Christmas to Pentecost in De Sancte Trinitate et de Festis Diebus per Annum Assmann 1.8-49 and 51-61 in De Sancta Trinitate Assmann 1.92-end in Junius 121 ’s homily on fols. 124-130v Assmann 11.13-224 in Vitellius C.v’s homily for the Assumption of the B.V. Mary Assmann 11.133-88 in De Virginitate in CCCC 419 Assmann III.505-97 in Vitellius C.v’s homily for the Assumption of the B.V. Mary

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Notes 1. Originally published in The Anglo-Saxons: Studies in Some Aspects o f their History and Culture presented to Bruce Dickins (London, 1959). Reprinted with the kind permission of the Author: OEN Subsidia 5 (1980). EDITOR’S NOTE: Since the original publication of this essay, John Collins Pope has edited Homilies o f JElfric: A Supplementary Collection, EETS OS 259-60 (London, 1967-68). Readers should consult the Pope edition for homilies listed as “unpublished” herein on pp. 31-35. 2. Dorothy Whitelock, Changing Currents in Anglo-Saxon Studies: An Inaugural Lecture (Cambridge, 1958), p. 10. I am grateful to Professor Whitelock for some most helpful criticisms when she read this article in proof. 3. Sisam, Studies, p. 301. Dietrich’s was the pioneering study of iElffic’s canon and chronology (Franz E. Dietrich, “Abt Aelfrik,” Zeitschrift fur die historische Theologie 25 [1855]: 487ff., and 26 [1856]: 163 ff.), but we owe a sound knowledge of Ailffic’s early works to Dr. Sisam’s articles {Studies, pp. 148 ff., reprinted from Review o f English Studies). They offer a priceless model of method and accuracy to anyone coming after. I am grateful to Dr. Sisam for reading and criticizing this article, though, of course, the responsibility for all its conclusions is entirely mine. 4. It is hoped that readers interested in the details will be able to consult the printed texts. 5. In drawing it up I owe a very great deal to Mr. Neil Ker, both for help on many occasions and for all the invaluable information in his published Catalogue. 6. In Belfour VII; Belfour II; the homily for Sunday after the Ascension; the pericope homily for Pentecost; Belfour I; De Populo Israheh; and Oxford, Bodleian Library, Hatton 115’s extract beginning Wyrdwriteras. . . . 1. Professor J.C. Pope was the first to list these items and I am indebted to him for much information included in Ker, Catalogue

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(p. lxiv), for pointing out that London, BL, Cotton Vitellius C.v’s homily for the thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost contains an adaptation of CH 11.27, and for some of the references under De Falsis Deis. An edition is awaited from him of all the unpublished items mentioned [= Homilies o f jElfric, A Supplementary Collection, 2 vols., EETS OS 259-60 (London, 1967-68)], except for De Creatore et Creatura and De Sex JEtatibus Mundi that I intend to publish myself in the near future. 8. Expositions of pericopes, i.e., the portions of the Gospels appointed to be read in the Mass, are marked by a (P). 9. iElfric did not begin his liturgical year with Advent, but with Christmas. 10. Printed collections of homilies or saints’ lives are cited throughout by item number. I have retained Thorpe’s numbering of CH I and II homilies. 11. Friedrich Kluge, Angelsächsisches Lesebuch, 4th ed. (Halle, 1915), XIV (3); Max Förster, Altenglisches Lesebuch, 6th ed. (Heidelberg, 1957), pp. 35 ff.; R.D-N. Warner, ed., Early English Homilies from the Twelfth Century MS Vespasian D xiv, vol. 1, EETS OS 152 (London, 1917), pp. 38ff.; J.M. Kemble, ed., Anglo-Saxon Dialogues o f Salomon and Saturn, vol. 2 (London, 1847), pp. 120ff; C.R. Unger, Annaler for nordisk Oldkyndighed og Historie (Copenhagen, 1846), pp. 67 ff; Karl Müllenhoff, Zeitschrift für deutsches Alterum 12 (1865): 407ff.; M.M. Dubois, JElfric (Paris, 1943), plate 2 and p. 363. 12. Several of these pieces lack any formal distinction to show whether they were intended to be homilies or non-liturgical readingpieces (cf. below, n. 19). 13. See below, n. 38. 14. See below, n. 88. 15. Angus McIntosh ( Wulfstan 's Prose, Gollancz Lecture, Proceedings of the British Academy 35 [1949]) pointed out that Napier XXXI

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is TElfrician. But I exclude from my list the Old English version of the Ely charter that (n. 8) he suggested should also be attributed to ¿Elfric, as this is altogether doubtful. The other piece mentioned by McIntosh (n. 9) is Warner’s extract from De Falsis Deis (see above, n. 11). 16. It is very likely that XXIII and XXIIIB became associated with the set for the first time in Julius. The main scribe included XXIII, but not XXIIIB, in his list of the manuscript’s contents. When he had finished copying XXII there was part of a page and one more leaf of quire 14 left over. He began XXIV on a new quire. Another scribe began XXIII on the remainder of quire 14 and continued it on quire 15. A third scribe concluded it on the first six leaves of quire 16. When he had finished there were still two leaves of the quire left. On these and on quires 17 and 18 he copied XXIIIB, rather more than a page being left blank at the end. Ker (Catalogue, p. 210) suggests that this third hand may be a more compressed version of the main hand, but I do not think this can be so: the main scribe’s characteristic r is almost entirely absent and there was no need for compression when more than a page was to remain blank at the end. In any case the main argument is not affected: XXIIIB must have been an afterthought. I take the sequence of events to have been this: after copying XXII, the main scribe left the remainder of quire 14 for XXIII to be copied in from another source; as two leaves of quire 16 were left over when this had been done, XXIIIB was copied in as well to get a more economical fit. In Queens’ College, Cambridge, (Home) 75 we have extant fragments of a manuscript in which almost certainly XXIII and XXIIIB did not come between XXII and XXIV. On this manuscript see below, pp. 50f. 17. XXV includes the whole of Maccabees I and much of Maccabees II in its scope. 18. As we are told in a note in Latin verse run on at the end of XXXI in Julius. The note is in the hand of the manuscript’s main scribe, but is in insular script in contrast to the Caroline script he used for the Latin preface. 19. A formal distinction is carefully observed between a readingpiece of this kind and a liturgical homily: in the latter there is always a

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reference to the anniversary today. Compare, e.g., Thorpe 1:434, lines 34-35, with Skeat XXV.200. 20. All this manuscript’s contents by ¿Elfric (apart from his preface to Crawford Genesis and Crawford Genesis, chaps. I-XXIV.22, which clearly have a different line of transmission from the rest of the manuscript) are drawn from CHI anbd II, a Lives set of the Julius type, and Ailfric’s St. Vincent homily. On this last see above, p. 49 and below n. 75. 21. Opening words only. Ker (Catalogue, p. 53) reports only the rubric and the first words of the Latin pericope. But also, after a space for a capital, N has been erased. In other copies the homily begins On. . . . 22. This can be best illustrated from two portions of Skeat XII (lines 141-77 and254-67), which Ailfric took over from a piece he had issued previously at the end of CH II, printed Thorpe 2:602ff. Conjunctive readings are found, e.g., in CUL Gg.3.28 and CCCC 198 at Skeat lines 172 and 258, and in Julius E.vii, Ii.4.6, and CCCC 302 and 303 at Skeat lines 168 and 173. They show that Gg.3.28 and CCCC 198 represent one stage; CCCC 162 and an extract in London, Lambeth Palace Library 489 a second (it was at this stage that the passages were first incorporated in Skeat XII); and Julius, Ii.4.6, and CCCC 302 and 303 a third (it was at this stage that the Lives set was compiled). An extract in CCCC 320 belongs to either the first stage or the second. 23. It does not reappear in ¿Elfric’s subsequent series of Temporale homilies. 24. Its warnings against various abuses seem to have very little to do with what precedes, though it begins Is nu eac to witenne.... Of the other short pieces appended to Lives (Skeat XXI.464-95, XXIV.81-191, and XXV.812-62), the second seems to me certainly written for its present context and the first and third probably so, though the first appears to have been inserted between lines 463 and 496 as an afterthought. 25. It has no authentic homiletic conclusion; Julius and Ii.1.33 supply one independently of one another.

Old English Prose: Basic Readings

64

26. Cf. the rubrics of the prefaces and first homilies of CHI and II in Gg.3.28 and other manuscripts. 27. In many points ^ lfric ’s linguistic usage never settled down at all. 28. This and the preceding item read to me like extracts from letters excerpted for general circulation as admonitions for Lent. The reuse of material from the latter in Skeat XII is in line with this hypothesis: it was c itr ic ’s normal practice to quarry his letters for homiletic matter. 29. If Jost (“Unechte jElfrictexte,” Anglia 51 [1927]: 177ff.) is right in thinking that the explicit preserved by Wanley from London, BL, Cotton Otho B.x’s now largely destroyed version of Genesis, chaps. XXXVII-L, is genuinely by ¿Elffic, then it should be noticed that this, too, is not in the rhythmical style. 30. See above, p. 36, under Letters. 31. This assumption is bound up, of course, with the question of the purpose for which iElffic began to use his rhythmical style. On this I am not yet ready to pass an opinion, though I suspect that its origin is connected with such pieces as CH 11.14 (the narrative of the Passion), which TElfric would want to “write up.” He begins this homily: “Drihtnes drowunge we willad gedafenlice eow secgan on Engliscum gereorde, and da gerynu sam od.. . . ” In the meantime I take this to be a strictly applicable chronological test though it may well not be. 32. It is unlikely that any other item formerly followed Letter for Wulfsige in this manuscript, where it now stands last, ending imperfectly. It breaks off after two leaves of quire 33; the remainder of the text (as in Junius 121) would account for a further leaf. It seems more likely that the last leaf of a quire of three separate leaves has been lost than the last six leaves of a normal quire. 33. Sisam, Studies, p. 168. 34. In De Temporibus Anni as Sisam, Studies, p. 184. But alsopurh dinum euenecum Wisdome in the prayer De Sapientia, and gelyfan on da Halgan Drynnysse and sodre Annysse, Thorpe 2:604, lines 23-24. 35. The second of two passages (sections 73 and 105-10, respectively) occurring in Gg.3.28’s and Junius 121 ’s text of Letter for

The Chronology o f Æ lfric’s Works

65

Wulfsige, but not in CCCC 190’s, corresponds to Skeat XIII.68-86. There are several possibilities; but the most economical hypothesis seems to me to be that JEline took this passage over from Skeat XIII and added it to the Letter. If so, the Letter was not added to the CH codex represented by Gg.3.28 until Skeat XIII had been written. 36. The order in which items occur in Julius’s “appendix” may reflect their order of composition like that of the items at the end of Gg.3.28. 37. Or possibly to Skeat XVIII. Of Beelzebub Ailfric says, “Hwilum aer we saedon be trisum scandlican deofle. Da haej)enan leoda gelyfdon on hine, and heton hine Beel, sume B aal.. . .” 38. Jost, “Unechte Arifrictexte,” pp. 177ff.; Crawford, pp. 424 ff; Josef Raith, “Ailfric’s Share in the Old English Pentateuch,” Review o f English Studies, n.s., 3 (1952): 305 ff. I take as my working basis that in Ii.1.33 we have a version by Arifric of chaps. I—III, VI-IX, and XII-XXIV.22. 39. Sisam, Studies, pp. 298ff.; De Temporibus Anni, p. 1; A.A. Prins, “Some Remarks on Arifric’s Lives of Saints and His Translations from the Old Testament,” Neophilologus 25 (1940): 112 ff. All that I want to add to the discussion is that we have evidence that Ailfric used the term hoc in two ways: (1) for any volume of his own works, and (2) for any book of the Old or New Testament (even an Epistle), and, by extension, for his own translation of it, e.g., in his Letter to Sigeweard, lines 442-43, of Crawford Judges, and lines 507-08 of Skeat XVIII. Indeed, in his very preface to Crawford Genesis he says, “gyf hwa Sas boc awritan w ille.. . . ” 40. Post tertium librum would fit the context more naturally, for then we should suppose that Arifric was referring to the Lives as his third codex, CH I and II being his first two. There is the outside possibility (as my colleague, Mr. R.D. Williams, has suggested to me) that an original “IIIum” has become “IIIIum” and then “quartum” in the course of transmission. Julius is our only authority for this number, and it is a manuscript with many corruptions of detail. 4 \. Interrogations, nos. XXII, XXVI, and XLIV.

Old English Prose: Basic Readings

66

42. See Appendix above. Cf. above, n. 28. JElfric borrowed from one homily to another only exceptionally. 43. On this distinction see M.W. Bloomfield, The Seven Deadly Sins (East Lansing, Mich., 1952), p. 113. 44. Colloquy, p. 7. 4 5 .1 take the composition of Skeat XVI to mark the beginning of ¿Elfric’s plan to compile a volume of Lives. Skeat XXXII must therefore be earlier (see above, p. 38), but how much earlier it is impossible to say. 46. In Gg.3.28, at the end of the English preface to CH I, is run on in the main text hand the note: “Quid necesse est in hoc codice capitula ordinare, cum prediximus quod XL sententias in se contineat, excepto quod iEJ)elwerdus dux vellet habere XL quattuor in suo libro?” 47. See above, p. 39. 48. Sisam, Studies, p. 163, n. 1. 49. That they were later than the issue of the Lives is shown by a reference to De Falsis Deis in one of the new homilies, Belfour II. 50. In addition, the new TH I homily for the Sunday after the Ascension is in Junius 121, while London, BL, Cotton Cleopatra B.xiii contains an extract from Belfour II. 51. CCCC 302’s version of CH 1.39 and 40 for the first and second Sundays of Advent is of a different type textually from that of all other CH I items in TH I manuscripts and so must be excluded. JElfhc himself, so far as we know, never began his liturgical year with Advent. 52. If iElfric himself included in his Temporale the saints’ days of Christmastide, CH II.2 (Stephen) and 1.5 (Innocents) also have to be reckoned among the absentees. CCCC 302 has 1.3 (Stephen) and 1.4 (John the Evangelist). 53. The homily for the third Sunday consists of Napier VIII (beginning imperfectly in our only copy, Faustina A.ix), a portion o f De Doctrina Apostolica, and a conclusion not appearing elsewhere.

The Chronology o f Æ lfric’s Works

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54. CH II.3 may have been transferred to the Sunday after Epiphany for which we have no homily extant. 55. And for the fourth there was only CH 11.27, a brief exposition of the pericope, which had been formerly a pendant to 11.26 (third Sunday after Pentecost) and which in TH II was to be worked into a homily for the thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost. Probably Ailfric himself never intended this piece to be a homily in its own right. Faustina A.ix has Assmann 11.13-225 for the fourth Sunday after Epiphany, but as this extract shows none of the homiletic adaptations of Vitellius C.v’s version (see above, p. 51), it must be regarded as an unofficial ad hoc homily formed by simply cutting out the introductory portion of the letter. It follows that the letter need not be as early as TH I. 56. Dom Gregory Dix, The Shape o f the Liturgy (London, 1945), pp. 358 and 585. 57. The unpublished homily in CCCC 178 and other manuscripts. 58. See above, p. 35, under Liturgical Homilies, ( d ) U n s p e c i f i e d OCCASIONS.

59. On the rubrics of first items see above, p. 39 and n. 26. On the difference between the rubrics of items issued within the body of an organized set and those of homilies issued on their own, note, e.g., that the word Sermo does not occur in the rubric of any copy of CH 11.43, but does occur in the rubric of three copies of Assmann IV (both homilies for the Common of a Confessor). In Julius E.vii sermo serves to distinguish those items that are homilies from those that are not. 60. Assmann 1.8^49 and 51-61. 61. It occurs also at the end of Interrogationes in CCCC 178 and Oxford, Bodleian Library, Hatton 116 only, two manuscripts that are linked textually, and it is printed thence by Maclean (lines 511-45). The passage contains the phrase Pees we him panciad on urum peowdome (.Interrogationes, lines 541-42), concerning Christ’s Incarnation and Redemption of Man. As there is every point in this reference to the Church’s services in De Sancta Trinitate, coming, as it does, after the

Old English Prose: Basic Readings

68

summary of the liturgical celebrations from Christmas to Pentecost, but no point in it at all in Interrogationes, it seems to me clear that the passage in question was written for De Sancta Trinitate and transferred from there (not necessarily by iElfric; see below, n. 86) to the version of Interrogationes represented by CCCC 178 and Hatton 116. 62. See above, n. 53. 63. That their references are to the homily and not merely to Napier VIII is clear from the wording. Equally clearly the reference in Letter to Sigeweard(lines 48-50) is to Napier VIII. Napier VIII was not written as a homily; it was Wulfstan’s source for Bethurum IX, and more likely than not iElfric composed it for him. 64. Possibly the total was made up to eighty, so that each volume contained forty items, AHfric’s usual number. 65. Letter to Sigeweard, lines 922-23. 66. Thirty-four (thirty-two) in TH I itself, and eleven CH I and II homilies for the period from the second Sunday after Pentecost to the fourth Sunday of Advent, not covered by TH I. 67. The evidence will be set out fully in my forthcoming edition of CHI [= ALlfric's Catholic Homilies: The First Series, Text, EETS SS 17 (Oxford, 1997)]. 68. Not, as Dr. Sisam assumed (Studies, p. 176), replacing 1.1, but more likely supplementing it. CCCC 188 begins imperfectly at Hexameron, line 77; a quire has been lost at the beginning. On calculations of space it is unlikely that the manuscript ever contained any prefaces. 69. Above, p. 38. 70. Above, p. 44. 71. See above, p. 51. 72. Actually a confessor bishop. This may give a hint of the sort of occasion for which the homily was requested.

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69

73. The original, short, version occurs on fols. 153—155v (main hand of manuscript; third quarter of eleventh century). The new opening is on a quire inserted at the beginning of the manuscript subsequently, but before the end of the century. 74. See above, p. 52. 75. Ii.1.33 has the Passio (Skeat XXXVII) and Bodley 343 the pericope exposition (Belfour VIII). The pericope is for the Common of a Martyr out of Paschaltide (St. Vincent’s day is 22 January), and in the exposition, which is far too short to stand alone as a homily in its own right, occurs the phrase “swa swa Uincencius dyde, be {)am J>e we eow saeden aer.” The Passio in Ii.1.33 is short too; and as it is Ii.l.33’s normal practice to excise the pericope exposition from its homilies (as in CH 1.26,1.27,1.38, and 11.37) there can be no doubt that these two parts belong together as a single homily. 76. These are the only two homilies for the Proper of the Saints between 21 January, St. Agnes (Skeat VII), and 5 February, St. Agatha (Skeat VIII). 77. CH 11.31 (with 32) is the only homily for the Proper of the Saints between 23 July, St. Apollinaris (Skeat XXII), and 30 July, SS Abdon and Sennen (Skeat XXIV). On Skeat XXIII and XXIIIB, which are not by ¿Elfric, see above, n. 16. 78. Professor Bruce Dickins has been good enough to check this for me, as well as to answer one or two other questions about Cambridge manuscripts. On the Queens’ fragments he reports: “the recto is in each case harder and more polished than the verso.” 79. There are also fragments extant of later additions: Skeat XXIIIB (mid-eleventh-century) and chapter four of the Rule of St. Benedict in Old English (“rather later”). 80. If it did, the correct order of the folios as at present numbered is 7, 1-6. 81. CH 1.27 is the only homily for the Proper of the Saints between 29 June, SS Peter and Paul (CH 11.28), and 2 July, St. Swithun

70

Old English Prose: Basic Readings

(Skeat XXI), and there is no Life of a saint whose anniversary falls within this period. 82.1 omit the homily for the Assumption of St. John the Evangelist (27 December) in Vitellius C.v and London, BL, Harley 3271, corresponding to Letter to Sigeweard, 1ines 1017—153. I think that this is simply an extract from the letter for two reasons: (1) it seems too slight to have been conceived as a homily in its own right, and (2) the summary of John’s life with which it opens omits any reference to the writing of the Apocalypse, which is referred to in the letter just before the passage in question begins. Furthermore it would be quite unlike TElfric to repeat in one homily a summary he had already given in another (CH 1.4). This is an obvious passage to excerpt and quite easily could have been extracted twice independently: there is no need to suppose that TElfric was himself responsible. 83. In all copies of the latter, and in two out of three copies of the former. (But never in any copy of CH 11.45, also for the dedication of a church.) 84. See above, p. 49. If, on account of their similarity of theme, De Virginitate and Assmann III are likely to have been composed at much the same time, while the addition to CH 11.33 in CCCC 178 was not made until after the issue of THII (see above, p. 49), it follows that the passage forming the addition in CCCC 178 probably was transferred from De Virginitate and not the other way about (cf. above, p. 55). 85. It was this expanded version that Wulfstan used as his source for Bethurum XII; see my review of Bethurum (Modern Language Review 54 [1959]: 81-82). 86. I exclude Interrogationes and De XII Abusivis from the reckoning of CCCC 178’s and Hatton 116’s authentically expanded texts. Their version of the former incorporates at the end a passage (lines 511-45) that, as I have explained above (p. 44 and n. 61), I believe was transferred here from De Sancta Trinitate et de Festis Diebus per Annum. But as the junction in Interrogationes involves no new material by JElfric we lack any proof that he himself was responsible for making it. Similarly I disregard, as a compilation

The Chronology o f Æ lfric's Works

71

possibly not by A^lfric, the version of De XII Abusivis that (as printed Morris, pp. lOOff. and 296 ffi), in the same two manuscripts and London, Lambeth Palace Library 487, is preceded by Skeat XVI.267-381, for its introductory lines (incorporating Skeat XIII.98-101) are not in TElfric’s rhythmical style and so cannot be regarded as certainly genuine. 87. On this manuscript see above, p. 51. 88. It follows that their text has been subject to interference (just like that of Crawford Genesis). I reject Numbers, chap. XIII.5 and 17 (and de is genemned Pharan in 4), and Joshua, chap. XII, as interpolations, and I suspect Joshua, chap. 1.1-10, non-rhythmical, as a substitution for a summary by iElfric. 89. Letter to Sigeweard, lines 405-07. 90. Fehr, pp. xlix-lii. 91. Fehr, p. xlvii. 92. Consisting of part of Belfour IX, portions of Hexameron (as first pointed out by Dr. Sisam, Studies, p. 205, repr. from Modern Language Review), and new material by ¿Elfric. 93. Possibly to CH 1.30. 94. For this date see Anglo-Saxon Wills, ed. Dorothy Whitelock (Cambridge, 1930), pp. 144-45, and Anglo-Saxon Charters, ed. A.J. Robertson (Cambridge, 1939), pp. 386-87. Dr. Sisam {Studies, p. 171, n. 1) worked on the basis of 998. 95. The evidence for this date will be set out in full in my forthcoming edition of CH I, but briefly the argument runs as follows. Dr. Sisam has shown that (1) it was probably during the first half of 991 that the set was dedicated to Archbishop Sigeric {Studies, p. 159), and that (2) the relative order of fixed and mobile feasts in the set’s contents corresponds to the calendar o f989 or that of 991, but not to that o f990 {Studies, p. 160, n. 1). As London, BL, Royal 7 C.xii can be proved to be earlier than the dedication to Sigeric, its production and extensive correction must belong to 990, and the composition of the series is to be dated 989.

72

Old English Prose: Basic Readings 96. On the evidence see Sisam, Studies, pp. 156ff. 97. While Wulfsige III was bishop of Sherborne.

98. ¿Elfric refers to Wulfstan as archiepiscopus but to himself as frater. On 1002 as the date of Wulfstan’s translation to the see of York see Dorothy Whitelock, “A Note on the Career of Wulfstan the Homilist,” English Historical Review 52 (1937): 460 ff. 99. On the evidence see Sisam, Studies, p. 171, n. 2. 100. While Aithelwold II was bishop of Winchester. 101. Crawford Joshua is the last text that we know was written in or before 1002 if that was the year in which Aithelweard died; and Fehr 2a is the first text that we know was written in or after 1002. If iEthelweard died in 998, and even spacing is assumed, probably the texts from Crawford Numbers to the reissue of Skeat I as Belfour IX, inclusive, should be assigned to the years 998-1002, and only TH I, Fehr 2a, and In Octavis Pentecosten should be dated 1002-05. 102. Dorothy Whitelock, “Two Notes on Ailfric and Wulfstan,” Modern Language Review 38 (1943): 122 ff, 103.1 have listed only those pieces that occur in a recension that is proved to be TElfric’s by the presence of authentic new material.

Addenda Page 46: after “(CH 1.18)” add ", and CH 1.22” Page 48: after “20” add “21”

The Corpus o f Vernacular Homilies and Prose Saints’ Lives before /Elfric D.G. Scragg During the last three decades the corpus and text of the late Old English homilies of iElfric and Wulfstan have become established with ever greater certainty. The scholars who have made this advance have naturally needed to examine much of the anonymous writing that is associated with the works of these authors in the manuscripts, so that it is now possible to attempt an investigation of the whole corpus of anonymous homilies in the vernacular and, in particular, to begin to isolate that part that antedates Ailfric.1 Since no manuscript containing Old English homilies has survived from before the end of the tenth century, our knowledge of the early development of the homily in English is limited. Although there have been attempts to show that individual pieces were composed in the ninth century,2we still have no sure means of distinguishing between homilies of the tenth century and any that are earlier. Accordingly homiletic writing described in this article as early is that which may be confidently ascribed to a date up to the last decade of the tenth century. Our most important sources of information on the early tradition are the collections of anonymous homilies in the Vercelli and Blickling manuscripts, which are in script of the end of the tenth century. A few other manuscripts dating from the very beginning of the eleventh—Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley 340 and 342, CCCC 162, and London, BL, Cotton Julius E.vii—consist for the most part of items by jElfric but have some non-^Elfrician pieces interspersed. The date of these manuscripts is sufficient indication of the early nature of their contents. Otherwise we must rely on later manuscripts that mingle 73

74

Old English Prose: Basic Readings

anonymous items with those by Ailfric and Wulfstan; proof of the early composition of any of their items, if a copy of it does not survive also in one of the early manuscripts I have mentioned, must rest on linguistic and stylistic analysis, evidence for which is not yet very full. The procedure adopted in this article is therefore to survey, manuscript by manuscript, all homiletic prose in Old English that has not been attributed to a named writer, to establish all textual parallels, and to conclude with an assessment of the present state of our knowledge of the early tradition. Included are homilies, sermons, lives of saints, exhortatory pieces of a homiletic nature, and calls to confession addressed either to a congregation or to an individual.3 Translations of apocrypha that are similar to anonymous homilies and saints’ lives in tone or content are also noted. The manuscript sigla used in this survey are new. The imposition of yet another set of sigla on the many that have been used in the past is necessary primarily because no existing set takes proper account of the most important collections of anonymous homilies, those in the Vercelli and Blickling manuscripts. The new sigla are designed to show both the relations between manuscripts in respect of their anonymous content and the importance of individual manuscripts in the information they offer on the early tradition. Sigla A to Z (except X) are given to manuscripts that contain primary evidence of early homilies. Related manuscripts are grouped together, a higher siglum indicating a more conservative text.4 The same siglum is given to more than one manuscript where there is evidence that the manuscripts concerned are complementary parts of a single scribal project. The siglum X with a suprascript letter is given to any manuscript that offers only secondary evidence of the early tradition, in the form of late Old English composite homilies or of translations related to the homiletic tradition but not themselves homilies. A manuscript whose relevant items are fragmentary is indicated by the siglum f with a suprascript letter. X and f manuscripts follow the order they have in Ker’s Catalogue.5 It is hoped that the sigla are sufficiently comprehensive for all future editors of anonymous homilies to make use of them. The table below, pp. 75-77, facilitates comparison with earlier sets.

Manuscript

}33i{

K*

E F

G

A ì

B 1

K

D

H

b

N/B*

rT?

B

Q

O S T P H

V

F*

E

F D B

c

s*

*K = Ker; N /B = Napier/Bethurum; F = Forster; S = Skeat; A = Assmann; C/P/G = Clemoes/Pope/Godden. (See note 1)

Vercelli, Biblioteca Capitolare CXVII, The Vercelli Book 394 Princeton University Library, W.H. Scheide Collection, The Blickling Homilies 382(S) C Oxford, Bodleian Library, Junius 85 and 86 336 D Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 41 32 E Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley 340 and 342 309 F Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 198 48 G Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 162 38 H Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 303 57 I Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley 343 310 J London, British Library, Cotton Faustina A.ix 153 K Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 302 56 L Oxford, Bodleian Library, Flatton 115, fols. 140-147 332 item 34 M London, British Library, Cotton Tiberius A .iii, fols. 2-173 186 N (419) Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 419 68 N (421) Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 421 69 O(Junius) Oxford, Bodleian Library, Junius 121 338 f Oxford, Bodleian Library, Hatton 113 O(Hatton) -j t Oxford, Bodleian Library, Hatton 114

A B

Siglum

TABLE

J

e

N F S/S(2)

N S/S*1*

A*

iT )

v

xe

D E F C B N O

fP

C/P/G*

Manuscript

xf xê

Xe

xd

Xe

xa xb

Cambridge, University Library, Ii.2.11 Cambridge, University Library, Ii.4.6 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 190 Cambridge, Corpus Christi C ollege 201, pp. 1-178, Part B Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 320, fols. 117-170 London, British Library, Cotton Tiberius A.xiii London, British Library, Cotton Tiberius C.i, fols. 43-203

P(Cleopatra) London, British Library, Cotton Cleopatra B.xiii P(Lambeth) London, Lambeth Palace Library, 489 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Lat. 943 Q R (191) Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 191 R(196) Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 196 R(201) Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 201, pp. 179-272 S Cambridge, University Library, Ii.1.33 T Oxford, Bodleian Library, Hatton 116 U Oxford, Bodleian Library, Auct. F.4.32 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 140 V W London, British Library, Cotton Julius E.vii Y London, British Library, Cotton Otho C.i, vol. 2 Oxford, Bodleian Library, Laud Mise. 509 z X London, British Library, Cotton Vespasian D.xxi, fols. 18-40

Siglum

TABLE ( c o n tin u e d )

20 21 45 49 58 190 197

}344{

144 283 364 46 47 50 18 333 297 35 162 182

K

L

c

w

s

Z

N

N/B

C

N

F

W

A

u

S

U

A

M

xa

W

xd z

L S

}J

C/P/G

xh

fk f1

fh f' fj

fg

fe ff

fd

f®

fb

fa

xk

Xs X)

209 220 288 332 items 18 and 19

Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 367, Part 11, fols. 3 -6 and 11-29 63 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 557, and Lawrence, Kansas, Kenneth Spencer Research Library, Univ. o f Kansas, C2, item 1 73(S) Collection o f Mr. Albert Ehrman, Clobb Close, Beaulieu, Hampshire, no. 888 (now missing) ]l 12(S) Gloucester, Cathedral Library, 35 117 London, British Library, Cotton Caligula A .xiv, fols. 93 -1 3 0 138 London, British Library, Cotton Otho A .viii, fols. 7-3 4 , and Cotton Otho B.x, fol. 66 168 London, British Library, Cotton Otho B.x, fols. 1-28, 31-50, 5 2 -5 4 , 5 6 -5 7 , 59 -6 0, 65, and 67, and Oxford, Bodleian Library, Rawlinson Q.e.20 177 London, British Library, Cotton Otho B.x, fols. 29 and 30 178 London, British Library, Cotton Vitellius A.xv, fols. 4-9 3 215 London, British Library, Cotton Vitellius A.xv, fols. 9 4 -209, The B e o w u l f Manuscript 216 London, British Library, Cotton Vitellius D .xvii, fols. 4 -9 2 222 London, Lambeth Palace Library, 427, fols. 210-211 281

London, British Library, Cotton Vespasian D.xiv London, British Library, Cotton Vitellius C.v Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ashmole 328 Oxford, Bodleian Library, Hatton 115, fol. 65

M

U R

V

O

G

J

V

fk

f1

fO

fa

P

SC O

78

Old English Prose: Basic Readings

SURVEY OF MANUSCRIPTS A. Vercelli, Biblioteca Capitolare CXVII, The VercelliBook

Ker 3946 s. x(2)7 This is the earliest and most important collection of anonymous homilies extant,8containing twenty-three such pieces, none of which is attributable to a named writer, together with six religious poems. The collection is in random order and appears to have been put together over a period of time.9 Nine of the homilies are unique: Vercelli VI (Ker 8, B.3.4.1010), VII (Ker 9, B.3.4.11), XI (Ker 13, B.3.2.36), XII (Ker 14, B.3.2.39), XIII (Ker 15, B.3.2.43), XIV (Ker 16, B.3.5.11), XVI (Ker 18, B.3.2.2), XVII (Ker 19, B.3.3.19), and XXII (Ker 27, B.3.4.7). The others are: V e rc e l l i I (Ker 1, B.3.2.24). Also in E, F, G, and H. A has the earlier version, the one in the other manuscripts being extensively revised and expanded [see below, p. 88]. Brief quotations from the homily inserted into an iElfric piece in M seem to be drawn from the revised version [see below, n. 112]. V e rc e ll i II (Ker 2, B.3.4.8). No other copy of it as an independent homily survives, but most of it is incorporated into the composite Vercelli XXI (which is found only in A) and almost as much occurs in combination with Wulfstan material in Napier XL in N, O, P, and Xd. A single paragraph from Vercelli II (apparently from a slightly fuller version than that in A [see below, p. 96]) is inserted into the copy of Vercelli IX in L. A few sentences of Napier XLII seem to derive ultimately from Vercelli II, perhaps via Napier XL [see below, p. 98]. V e r ce ll i III (K e r 3 ) / B el four V (B.3.2.11). Also in E, F, G, and I. The latter copies are a closely related group, while A is nearer to the original,11 although the differences are not as marked as in Vercelli I. The Latin source (which has not been identified12) is independently translated in Belfour VI [see below, p. 88]. V e r ce ll i IV (K e r 4, B.3.4.9). Also in D, while a single-page fragment of it is in f3. All three versions derive independently from the archetype. Extracts from A’s version appear in Napier XXX in O and are taken thence to another piece in Xb. Passages different from, although overlapping with, O’s are adapted rather more freely by the compiler of another

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composite piece in R. There is a slight indication that he used a copy in the D line of transmission rather than that represented by A.13 R’s homily was in turn used by the compiler of Napier XXIX in O. The appearance of material ultimately belonging to Vercelli IV in Napier XXIX and XXX, contiguous items in O, is thus coincidental.14 Finally the opening formula of Vercelli IV also opens a brief Lenten homily in X8. V erc elli V (K e r 5, B.3.2.1, f o r Ch r i s t m a s ). Also in E and F, where it is the first item of an ordered homiliary [see below, p. 87]. There are signs that in A too this piece was once intended to open the collection.15 All three versions are close, having numerous errors and corruptions in common.16 V e rc e ll i V ili (K e r 10, B.3.2.3). Also, in slightly reduced form, in E and F [see below, n. 30]. V e rc e ll i IX (K e r 11, B.3.2.4). Also in E, a copy that lacks two paragraphs, and in L, where it has been freely adapted with a new introduction and conclusion and an inserted paragraph from Vercelli II. The versions in A and E are fairly close, but that in L, although it does not preserve as much of the original homily, belongs to another and, in some minor instances, better line of transmission [see below, p. 96]. Extracts from Vercelli IX appear in three other homilies: Napier XXX in O, Napier XLIII in N, and Napier XLIV in M. The description of hell given by a devil to an anchorite, which forms part of Vercelli IX, appears in an independent and slightly fuller version in M, and a brief resumé of it fills some space at the end of a quire in H. Of these related texts Napier XXX and the short extract in H are closest to A [see below, pp. 81 and 92], while Napier XLIV and the devil and anchorite story in M are nearer to L [see below, n. 115]. The extracts in Napier XLIII are too altered for their lineage to be determined with certainty, but probably they too are from the tradition represented in L. V e rc e l l i X (K e r 12) / B lic kli ng IX / N apier XLIX (B.3.2.40). Survives in many forms other than that in A. Complete versions occur in K and N and fragments in B and C. The second half is preserved as an independent homily in J and K (the latter thus having two versions). Two composite homilies, Belfour XII in I and Napier XXX in O, have extracts. Of the full versions A’s is the most conservative generally, as

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might be expected from its much earlier date, but K occasionally preserves a better reading. The analogies of B are with K and N rather than with A; C is too short a fragment to be placed.17 Napier XXX is textually close to A [see below, p. 81], Belfour XII to the full version in K;18N and the shortened homily in J and K derive from a copy with numerous minor alterations.19 Only A has an introductory preamble (unrelated to what follows) on the importance of reading and listening to the gospel. This closely parallels a passage in Napier XLIV in M. The comparable section of N ’s Napier XLIII (another version of Napier XLIV) has the same passage much reduced, and a sentence added to the version of Vercelli IX in L perhaps has the same source.20 V e r c e l l i XV (Ker 17, B.3.4.6). No other copy survives, but very probably part of it (in another, now lost, copy) was drawn on for Assmann XIV, in J and K. The first half is one of four independent translations of an Apocalypse of Thomas in anonymous homilies, the others being the second half of Blickling VII in B, the first half of a homily in D, and the first half of one in G and T.21 The second half of Vercelli XV is a translation of an unidentified source that was used also, independently, as the source for the end of a judgement homily in D22—a homily that is the item next after the Apocalypse of Thomas homily. There is a second copy of the D judgement homily in H. In this DH homily a description of the harrowing of hell is followed by a judgement scene in which Christ addresses the sinful souls in the words attributed to him by Caesarius’s sermon 57 (beginning Ego te, o homo); the Virgin, St. Michael, and St. Peter in turn plead for the damned souls and some are reprieved; the rest are led to hell and locked in by St. Peter who throws away the key; and Christ and the saved ascend to heaven. In Vercelli XV the loss of a leaf has robbed us of the transition from the Thomas Apocalypse to judgement and we come into the latter at the point at which the Virgin, St. Michael, and St. Peter are pleading with Christ; the locking of hell and ascent to heaven follow, each episode being dealt with rather more fully than in the DH homily.23Probably the lost text included an Ego te, o homo section. A third homily in Old English, the composite Assmann XIV in J and K, depicts St. Peter locking the damned in hell and throwing away the key in a form verbally close to the version in Vercelli XV. Very probably Assmann XIV is

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here drawing on Vercelli XV (although not on the copy in A) [see below, n. 102]. Immediately before this, Assmann XIV has an abbreviated Ego te, o homo. The fact that so much of this composite homily is drawn from surviving vernacular homilies [see below, p. 94] leads us to expect that this passage likewise had a vernacular source, but, brief as it is, its wording argues against its having been taken from any version that has survived.24 Probably it too came from Vercelli XV. V e r ce ll i XVIII /B l ick li ng XVII (Ke r 20, B.3.3.17). Also in B and C. The latter copies are closer to each other textually than either is to A.25 V e rc e l l i XIX (K e r 24, B.3.2.34). Also in G and, derived from it, H [see below, p. 92]. A further copy in P, independent of both A and G, has incorporated a number of short passages from an ¿Elfric homily.26 The opening of a unique composite homily in S is identical with part of the conclusion of Vercelli XIX. V er ce ll i XX (Ker 25, B.3.2.38). Follows Vercelli XIX in G and H. Again H is derived from G. Joan Turville-Petre27 has shown that Vercelli XX is partly dependent on the lost Latin source of Vercelli III and Belfour VI. V e rc e l l i XXI (K e r 26, B.3.5.13). A compilation of which no other copy survives. Its second half is a slightly modernized version of Vercelli II,28 drawn from a copy without some of the errors and omissions of the latter in A. A long extract from the first half of Vercelli XXI is in the composite Napier XXX in O. V e r c e ll i XXIII (Ke r 29, B.3.3.10). Consists of most of chapters four and five of the Old English prose life of St. Guthlac. A textually different version of the whole life survives in the later Z. It is apparent from this analysis that copies of Vercelli homilies or extracts from them appear in a wide range of Old English manuscripts but that some versions are closer to A than others. Closest of all are extracts from four homilies—Vercelli IV, IX, X, and XXI—in the composite homily Napier XXX in O. These are drawn from copies identical (except in very minor details of transcription) with those in A.29Less close, but clearly in the same textual tradition, are manuscripts of the south-eastern group E, F Part 1, G, and related parts of H and I. Five Vercelli homilies are in E—I, III, V, VIII, and IX—the first four of these being in F as well. In each case A and E(F) are close, although the version in E(F) is later and either slightly briefer (with some corrupt

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passages omitted) or, in the case of Vercelli I, revised and expanded (though even here what remains of the original homily is of the same textual tradition as that of A, with no indication of access to a better text). G has Vercelli I and III in the E version, and also XIX and XX in a text very similar to A ’s. No other complete copy of a homily in A is as close to A’s version as are the homilies in this group of manuscripts. As to the authority of the texts, while A and E have a common ancestor at not too great a distance, A is invariably more faithful to it, apart from scribal error.30 This is not true of the other parallels. L has some better readings in Vercelli IX (and in its extract from Vercelli II) and IK have in Vercelli X. But L is in other respects a much-altered form of Vercelli IX, as its incorporation of part of Vercelli II shows, and I and K are both twelfth-century manuscripts that are unlikely to preserve invariably readings that are more authoritative than those of a tenth-century copy. Even in comparison with B, A preserves a better text, for of the two homilies that survive in both, Vercelli X and XVIII, B is in each case made defective by loss of leaves, while A contains passages found nowhere else. Thus the antiquity of its texts and the archaism of its language combine to make A a principal, perhaps the central, source for the study of the vernacular homily before jElfric. I have shown elsewhere31 that A is an original collection, not one copied continuously from an earlier manuscript, since, for example, homily V was written out before homily IV. Among its sources were a numbered sequence of homilies (now VI-X), a sequence with linking rubrics (XI-XIV), and two sequences each with internal linguistic consistency (XV-XVIII and XIX-XXI). I have also suggested that A is a Canterbury book, and this has been confirmed, on the basis of a rather different argument, by Celia Sisam.32 The links with E, F Part I, and G offer further proof.

B. Princeton University Library, W.H. Scheide Collection, The Blickling Homilies Ker 382 (S)33 s. x/xi This is the second largest collection of anonymous homilies, which, despite the loss of four quires at the beginning and another after quire nine, remains very significant in the study of the tenth-century tradition. Eighteen homilies survive,34 following the order of the church year.

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Eight items are unique: Bückling I (Ker 1, B.3.4.18), II (Ker 2, B.3.2.8), III (Ker 3, B.3.2.10), XI (Ker 11, B.3.2.46), XII (Ker 12, B.3.2.47), XIV (Ker 14, B.3.3.12), XV (Ker 15, B.3.3.32), and XVI (Ker 16, B.3.3.25). The others are: B u c k l i n g IV (Ker 4, B.3.2.14). Also in C. B lic kling V (K e r 5, B.3.2.17). Unique except that a few lines of the

conclusion appear at the end of the composite Napier XXIX in O [see below, n. 144]. B lic kling VI (K e r 6, B.3.2.21). An abridged form occurs in J. B lic kling VII (Ker 7, B.3.2.26). Unique except that part of it is adapted in a composite homily added to 0(Junius) [see below, p. 103; on the source, see above, p. 80]. B lic kling VIII (Ke r 8, B.3.4.19). An abridged form occurs as the first half of Assmann XIV in J and K. B l ic k l in g IX (Ke r 9) / Ve r c e l l i X / N a pie r XLIX (B.3.2.40). Only the beginning and end survive in B. See further, above, p. 79, under Vercelli X. B lickl ing X (Ker 10, B.3.4.20). Unique except that the second half is added to iElfric material in a homily in F Part II. B lickl ing XIII (Ke r 13, B.3.3.20). Also in F Part II. B lic kli ng XVII (Ke r 17) / V e r c e l l i XVIII (B.3.3.17). See above, p.

81, under Vercelli XVIII. ing XVIII (Ker 18, B.3.3.1). Also in F Part II. The connections of B with other manuscripts are much fewer than those of A. Its closest links are with the fragmentary C, but F Part II (a section that has a derivation different from that of F Part I, which is associated with E and G [see below, p. 90]) has two Blickling homilies and part of a third; the parallels between the full homilies are sufficiently close for Willard to assume that the two copies come from a common exemplar.35There is also a more distant connection between B and the homiliary represented by J and K, which includes part of Blickling VIII in its Assmann XIV and which has a shortened version of Vercelli X (Blickling IX), although little of the relevant part of Vercelli X now survives in B. Also each copy of the JK homiliary has an extra item in common with B amongst its independent additions, Blickling VI in J and an earlier, full version of Vercelli X in K. B lickl

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B has not been localized, and no response has yet been made to Peter Clemoes’ call for “a stylistic, linguistic and textual investigation that starts by supposing that the items which Blickling shares with other manuscripts are accretions to a core of earlier material.”36 Such an investigation perhaps ought to be made in conjunction with a similar one of C, for although the latter is very fragmentary, it has four links with B: in Vercelli X, where loss of leaves in both manuscripts means, however, that there is almost no point of comparison; in Blickling IV, which, as Clemoes pointed out, was written out in B before Blickling III; in Vercelli XVIII where B and C are closer to each other than either is to A; and in Assmann XIV, which was made by a compiler who had available together copies of Blickling VIII, Vercelli XV, and a homily now only in C [see below, p. 94]. It is worth noting that, while there is no evidence of any close connection between A and B, the scribe of A drew four of his homilies, Vercelli XV-XVIII, from a single source that has some distant connection with B and C, through its last item, which is also in B and C, and through its first, which is linked with them through Assmann XIV. C. Oxford \ Bodleian Library, Junius 85 and 86 Ker 336 s. xi med. This homiliary, divided into two volumes in the post-medieval period, survives in a fragmentary state but is given a high siglum since there are signs that it reflects an anonymous collection comparable with A and B. Loss of one or more quires at the beginning and of leaves or quires before and after Ker 4 and after Ker 7, together with loss of a leaf at a point within Ker 2, means that only seven homilies survive, of which no more than three are complete. One of the latter (Ker 5), a homily for Lent from Aflfric’s Second Series of Catholic Homilies, was not intended originally for this collection: although it is written by one of the principal scribes of the manuscript, it is on a separate quire that has been cut down for inclusion in this book, the last letters of each line being “erased and written again in the inner margin, apparently by the main hand.”37 The six anonymous homilies are: V e r c e l l i X / B lickl ing IX / N apier XLIX (K e r 1, B.3.2.40). Conclusion only, beginning imperfect. See above, p. 79, under Vercelli X.

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K e r 2, B.3.5.14. Imperfect. Unique except that a part occurs in the composite Assmann XIV in J and K. Ke r 4, B.3.5.1. Beginning and end imperfect. A unique translation of a Visio Pauli. K e r 6, B.3.5.5. A unique homily for Lent, although comparable in parts with other anonymous pieces for that season.38 B u c k l in g IV (Ke r 7, B.3.2.14). End imperfect. Minor verbal differences from the text in B. V e r c e l l i XVIII /B l i c k l i n g XVII (K e r 8, B.3.3.17). See above, p. 81, under Vercelli XVIII. In the manuscript as it now stands, Ker 2 and 4 are confused: Ker 2 begins on the verso of the first surviving original leaf, fol. 2; then follows one quire (originally of ten leaves, now lacking the final one, fols. 3-11) that contains all that remains of Ker 4; Ker 2 then continues on what is now 12r. The misplacing of the quire is apparently medieval and may have been deliberate. The last few words of 2v (Ker 2) have been erased, so that it is not possible to be sure that the text once continued on 12r without a break. In place of the erased words an eleventhcentury hand (perhaps that of the inserted quire 2) added a few sentences (continued in the margin and at the foot of 3r) to provide a link with the incomplete Ker 4 on the inserted quire.39Again at the end of Ker 4 the text is run on into the bottom margin, the final sentence being “And hie hiñe óanne gegretaó ‘óaes synfullan mannes’ ” that fortuitously links with the opening of 12r: “sawl 7 6us cweó.” The exact sequence of events is no longer recoverable, but it is a reasonable assumption that the scribe of quire 2 (hand B) placed his fragmentary translation of the Visio Pauli between fols. 2 and 12 (by hand A) and provided brief textual links. Elsewhere hand B concluded the work of hand A by finishing the copying of Ker 2 and 6, and he is solely responsible for all the other items. It appears that he also cut down his own copy of the iElfric item for inclusion in the book. In other words he seems to have made a book by taking over incomplete material by hand A and adding to it two pieces he already had by him (Ker 4 and 5) and new material at the end. He runs on from his completion of Ker 6 to Ker 7 and 8, and so, clearly, these are later additions. But the Ailffic item was adapted for inclusion, and the quire containing the Visio Pauli was

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in existence before he decided to add it to Ker 2, since the link at the beginning had to be squeezed in, while the running of the end into the margin and the loss of the last leaf show adaptation of an existing text. He also appears to have removed an item after Ker 2, when he wrote Ker 3 (four Latin charms) partly on palimpsest. Both scribes of C had access to a collection of tenth-century homilies comparable with those reflected in A and B. The work of hand B exhibits unusual palaeographic and linguistic features.40 C has not been firmly localized, although non-West Saxon spellings and the association of the text of the AHfric item with a south-eastern tradition41 point towards that area. Firmer conclusions must await a more detailed examination of the manuscript and its analogues.

D. Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 41

Ker 32 s. xi(,) or xi med. A copy of the Old English Bede with additional entries in a single, nearcontemporary hand42 in blank spaces and in the margins. Among these are six homilies, all anonymous. Four, Ker 9 and 11-13, occur as a group, written consecutively since Ker 10 is a Latin charm in the middle of 9 and had been entered already when 9 was written. The other two, Ker 17 and 18, are written separately from one another much further on in the manuscript. Four of the homilies are unique: Ker 11 (B.3.3.21), 12 (B.3.4.12), 17 (B.3.3.24), and 18 (B.3.2.19). Ker 9 is Vercelli IV (B.3.4.9) and Ker 13 (B.3.2.29) is also in H. Three of the homilies are based on Latin sources used elsewhere in the anonymous tradition.43 The six items provide an interesting contrast with other anonymous collections. That they represent a different tradition is certain, but how far a quite independent one is less clear, since two items are recorded in the south-eastern manuscripts A and H, while spellings in some of the others have south-eastern features.44 D is one of the manuscripts presented to Exeter by Leofric.45 Whether the homilies in it were added at Exeter, as Forster assumed,46 or before it reached there is something that might be decided by a thorough linguistic investigation.

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E. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley 340 and 342

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Ker 309 s. xi in. A two-volume homiliary, containing homilies from the First and Second Series of ¿Elfric’s Catholic Homilies rearranged into a single annual cycle and supplemented by eleven early anonymous pieces. All these anonymous items are in Bodley 340, although a short, unique piece on Paulinus (Ker 75, B.3.3.31) was added to Bodley 342, probably at Rochester later in the eleventh century.47 E is not an original homiliary but a copy. Basically the same set of homilies, though incomplete and with occasional replacement, appears in F Part I, where it is drawn independently from the archetype. All E’s original anonymous items are in F except one.48 Parts of the same homiliary are also in G, including five of the anonymous items, and a number of later manuscripts have homilies that derive ultimately from the same collection, including anonymous items in H, I, J, K, M, and N. Joan Turville-Petre49has suggested that the anonymous items in this homiliary are “the residue of a miscellaneous collection similar to those of Vercelli and Blickling” (our A and B). Significantly there is no overlap in content with the set in B, although both B and E have anonymous pieces for the same occasions, e.g., Lent and Easter. But there are five items in common with A, including two not found outside A and the EFG group; in all except one the ancestor of A and E is at not too great a distance [see above, p. 81]. Since A is a collection that has drawn upon a number of sources, more than one of which involves the items A has in common with E, it follows that E’s anonymous items may well come from the same varied sources. In other words in E we are dealing not so much with the combination of an anonymous series with an ¿Elfric one as with the supplementation of iElfric with anonymous pieces drawn from various sources. The anonymous items occur at three points in the set in E, an arrangement that almost certainly reflects the sources used. The first is the opening item for Christmas, Vercelli V (Ker 1, B.3.2.1), which is unique to A, E, and F. This archaic homily, corrupt in many readings [see above, p. 79, and below, n. 16], is preferred to either of the Christmas homilies in iElfric’s First and Second Series. The next five items are successive pieces from iElfric’s First Series, following the proper order from St. Stephen to Epiphany, after which

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anonymous material appears for the second time: Vercelli VIII and IX (Ker 7 and 8, B.3.2.3 and B.3.2.4) for the first and second Sundays after Epiphany. The first is again unique to A, E, and F; the second is in A and E but not F [for details of parallels in other manuscripts, see above, p. 79]. That these two are not from the same source as that of Ker 1 is suggested by A, where the Christmas homily in the (numbered) series to which Vercelli VIII and IX belong is not Vercelli V but Vercelli VI.50 ¿Elfric made no provision for the Sundays following Epiphany in his First Series, but he included a piece for the second Sunday after Epiphany in the Second Series, and in F this replaces Vercelli IX. The set in E and F then continues with a mixture of items from iElfric’s First and Second Series (not always in the Adfrician order) until the first Sunday in Lent, after which the last group of anonymous items appears, eight items taking us through to Easter. Again the expansion of Ailfric is explicable in part. His series made insufficient provision for the Sundays in Lent, and he specifically proscribed sermons for the Thursday, Friday, and Saturday of Holy Week,51 for which provision is made here. But his Palm Sunday homilies are omitted in preference to an anonymous one, a fact that might suggest that these eight homilies were inserted en bloc, although linguistic and stylistic differences between them (and the fact that two of them have the same Latin source) argue against common authorship. The eight items are: V e r c e l l i III / B el four V (K e r 19, B.3.2.11). Also in A, F, G, and I. A s s m a n n XI (Ke r 20, B.3.2.13). Also in F andN. B elf our VI (K e r 21, B.3.2.15). Also in F, I, and N. An independent translation from the source of Vercelli III with some differences of selection. A s s m a n n XII (Ker 22, B.3.2.16). Unique to E and F. Ker 23, B.3.2.18. Also in F and G. The source, Matthew 26 and 27, is also that of an independent homily in D. A s s m a n n XIII (Ker 24, B.3.2.22). Also in F, G, J, and K. V e r c e ll i I (Ke r 25, B.3.2.24). Also in A, F, G, and H, with brief extracts in a homily in M. The version in A is older, for, whereas there it is a simple exegetical homily based on John 18 and 19, in E and related manuscripts it has a long preamble placing the gospel narrative in a wider context,52 a new conclusion with many verbal echoes of the

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preamble, and considerable adaptation of the main text, taking it further from its biblical source (e.g., in altering direct to indirect speech). Ke r 26, B.3.2.25. Also in F and G. An exegesis of Matthew 28:1-10. The age of these items differs considerably. Mrs. Turville-Petre53 suggests, on the basis of a “cumbrous and literal” translation and the choice of vocabulary, that Vercelli III belongs to the ninth century rather than the tenth. While I cannot agree that we have enough linguistic knowledge of either century for such a definite statement, I accept that comparison of Vercelli III and Belfour VI (facilitated by their common source) points to a late tenth-century origin for the latter and an earlier one for the former. Karl Jost54 suggested on grounds of style that Belfour VI, Assmann XI, and Assmann XII are by the same author, and although we have recently been warned that their similarities may be due to the reliance of each of them on Caesarius,55 it is notable that all three are written in a consistent late West Saxon language different from that in preceding and succeeding items. Rudolph Willard56 associates the other four homilies, Ker 23-26, on grounds of style. I feel that the first of these is rather different from the others, but the last three have significant links that have not hitherto been noted. The three are for the Thursday, Friday, and Saturday of Holy Week, and one might expect a reference forward or back in sermons preached so close together.57 Such a reference occurs, in general terms, at the end of the Thursday homily58 in a promise to relate Christ’s Passion on the following day. There is too an attempt to bind the three pieces together by theme, underscored by the verbal echoes of the opening of Thursday’s homily in the conclusion of Saturday’s.59But are the three the work of one author? Probably they are not, for the Good Friday homily is a revised version of Vercelli I, the revision involving addition of a long preamble, containing reminiscences of the piece for the previous day,60and replacement of the original conclusion with one that provides an improved transition to Saturday’s homily.61 Someone— perhaps the compiler of the set in E or perhaps an earlier redactor—took an old piece for Good Friday and developed it into a series for three successive days. Whether the Maundy Thursday homily or that for Holy Saturday was already in existence or was written by him, we cannot know. But two points are worth noting: one paragraph of A ’s text of Vercelli I is missing in the revised version but turns up with its two

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sentences reversed in the piece for Holy Saturday;62 and all three homilies have examples of unusual or otherwise unrecorded vocabulary.63 Since E’s main hand is dated very early in the eleventh century, the homiliary it contains must have been formed around the year 1000, and a date in the last decade of the tenth century is appropriate in view of the fact that the Ailfric parts display only the earliest published form of the Catholic Homilies.64Although E was in Rochester later in the eleventh century,65 it may have been made in Canterbury. That the collection it contains was originally compiled in one of these centers, probably Canterbury, seems certain in view of the number of manuscripts with south-eastern associations that draw upon it.66

F. Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 198

Ker 48 s. xi(1), xi(2) A large collection of homilies, mainly by ¿Elfric, considerably altered and added to during the eleventh century. The original collection, Part I (Ker 1-43), was shown by Sisam67 to be “a copy, with displacements and modifications, of the series found in” E. Hence F has, at the same points in the series, E’s anonymous items (Ker 1,7, and 19-26), but E’s Ker 8 is replaced with a homily from ¿Elfric’s Second Series. Though E and F Part I are drawn ultimately from the same set, at least one intervening stage can be proved in the transmission to F, as in some of the anonymous pieces found in E, F, and G (notably the three homilies for Holy Week), F and G have substantive errors not shared by E.68 Among additions in contemporary hands (Part II, Ker 44-64) are copies of three homilies found otherwise only in B : Bu c k l i n g XIII (K e r 54, B.3.3.20). Ke r 62. ^Elfric’s Lenten Admonition with the latter half of Blickling X (B.3.4.20) added. B lickl ing XVIII (Ker 64, B.3.3.1). Later additions (Part III, Ker 65-67) conclude with an anonymous homiletic account of the Phoenix (B.3.4.17), which is probably of eleventh-century composition since it is written in an alliterative style imitative of ¿Elfric. An abbreviated version occurs in Xh. Although there are signs that F was in the west of England in the second half of the eleventh century,69 Part I certainly derives from a

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south-eastern archetype. Since the scribes of Parts I and II overlap slightly, the two parts must have been written in the same scriptorium,70 although it is not yet clear where that scriptorium was. Although none of its anonymous pieces is unique, Ker 54 supplies part of the text of Blickling XIII lost from B, and the mechanical copying of much of the book increases its usefulness to a study of the early tradition.71

G. Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 162

Ker 38 s. xi in. An orderly collection drawing heavily upon the series in E and F Part I but different from them in its principle of selection.72 Five of the EF anonymous items reappear here (G’s Ker 19 and 28-31 are E’s 19 and 23-26). Seven more anonymous items occur: Ker 4, B.3.4.53. A Sunday letter homily similar to that in P.73 Ke r 32, B.3.2.27. A unique composite homily that includes extracts from TElfric towards the end, although much of the anonymous section is early.74 V e r c e l l i XIX (K e r 35, B.3.2.34). Also in A, H, and P. V e r c e l l i XX (K e r 36, B.3.2.38). Also in A and H. Ke r 37, B.3.2.33. Also in T, where it has frequent minor verbal differences. Ke r 38, B.3.2.45. Unique. Ker 55, B.3.3.2. The beginning of a unique homily on St. Augustine of Canterbury, added in a near-contemporary hand. There is also a pendant to an ¿Elfric homily (Ker 52) that is reported by Pope75 as not by TElfric. There are many alterations and additions in eleventh-century hands in the margins, including the word apocrifum opposite Ker 32 and 37. In Ker 35 and 36 the texts in H stem from those in G, while G and A are close enough to suggest a common ancestor at not too great a distance. In the items shared with E and F, G is closer textually to F, with which it shares substantive errors [see above, p. 90]. But G is linked with E in three respects. First, Godden76 has noted that some alterations that were made to E about the middle of the eleventh century at Rochester were copied into G at about the same time. Second, H draws homilies from both E and G, although probably in each case H is working at least one remove from E and G. Third, Ker77 notes

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similarities of script and decorated initials between the two, similarities that are shared, in the case of the initials, with a later eleventh-century manuscript from St. Augustine’s, Canterbury.78It appears that E and G are manuscripts that were made at the same center at about the same time, but whether that center was in Rochester, where E undoubtedly ended up, or in Canterbury, where G’s Ker 55 is most likely to have been added, is hard to say. The probability of frequent movement between the two sees makes it a relatively unimportant question.

H. Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 303

Ker 57 s. xii(,) A large, late collection of homilies and saints’ lives, mostly by iElfric but with eleven anonymous items. Five are unique: Assmann XV (Ker 23, B.3.3.14) and Ker 26 (B.3.3.9), 34 (B.3.3.29), 39 (B.3.2.48), and 45 (B.3.2.42). All these date from at least the eleventh century and perhaps earlier. The rest are all early pieces: V e rc e l l i I (Ker 15, B.3.2.24). Also in A, E, F, and G. H’s copy is probably drawn from a copy of that in E, but it lacks the introduction found there.79 Ker 17, B.3.2.29. Also inD . Ker 18, B.3.3.6. Also in U. Ker 40, B.3.5.9. Unique. A short description of hell given to an

anchorite by a devil, a story familiar in the many recensions of Vercelli IX and independently in M. In H the piece occupies only eighteen lines and was apparently added to fill a blank space at the end of a quire (the next quire being the work of a different scribe). It has signs that it was adapted for just the amount of space available.80 In consequence, perhaps, it is not very close to any other surviving version, but it is clearly drawn from the line of transmission represented by A, E, and Napier XXX rather than from that in L and M [see above, p. 79]. V e r c e l l i XIX a n d XX (Ker 43 a n d 44, B.3.2.34 a n d B.3.2.38). Both drawn from a copy of G.81 Ker82 was the first to notice H’s considerable debt to the second volume of E for items from iElfric’s Second Series, although Godden83 has shown more recently that H draws on a copy of E rather than directly upon it. Godden has also pointed to an jElfric item taken by H

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from G. On the basis of its script and of its dependence on E, Ker84 assumed that H was written at Rochester.

I. Oxford' Bodleian Library, Bodley 343

Ker 310 s. xii(2) Two scribes worked on this large, late collection. We are concerned only with the second, who was responsible for the greater part of the book. His is an assembly of homilies and homiletic pieces arranged in five sections, each of which begins a new quire.85 Most of the items are by iElfric, but there are also a few Wulfstan pieces and nine anonymous homilies, the latter found in four of the sections of the manuscript. All the anonymous homilies are Old English in origin and some belong to the tenth century, as parallel texts show. They are: Ke r 12, B.3.3.5. Arthur S. Napier’s History o f the Holy Rood-Tree,86 which survives elsewhere only fragmentarily in fb. A s s m a n n X (Ker 16, B.3.3.18). Also in O and f3 (where it lacks the conclusion). It is a translation of chapters 1-12 of the pseudo-Matthew Gospel. The fragmentary Vercelli VI is based in part on chapters 13-25 of the same apocryphal work, but none of the distinctive Anglian or archaic vocabulary of Vercelli VI87 appears in Assmann X, and the use of two halves of the same source in the two homilies is probably coincidental. (Assmann X is for the Assumption of the Virgin, Vercelli VI for Christmas.) B elfo ur V (K e r 28) /V e rc e ll i III (B.3.2.11). Also in A, E, F, and G. I’s text, although late, is related to that of EFG, and is perhaps derived from the same copy as that used by F and G.88 BELFOUR VI (K e r 29, B.3.2.15). Also in E, F, and N. Textually I is closer to E and F than to N. Possibly it descends, like the last item, from the copy used by F. N ap ier LVI (K e r 37, B.3.4.45). A unique exhortation of an individual to confession, based in part on the pseudo-Egbert Ordo Confessionis89 and elsewhere similar to the directions for a confessor in Oxford, Bodleian Library, Laud Misc. 482 (Ker 343, item 17). Compare the composite Napier XXIX in O and the exhortations to confession in Xe, which also parallel these two confessional texts. N a pi e r XLVI(K e r 64,B.3.4.37). A composite homily, also in N and in

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part in O. Short passages reappear in a number of other composite pieces [for details, see below, p. 99]. B e l f o u r X (Ker 78, B.3.4.1). Unique, although the conclusion is in the composite Napier LV in O.90 B elfour XI (Ke r 79, B.3.4.2). Unique. B elfour XII (Ke r 80, B.3.4.3). A unique composite homily. The first half, which has a source in part in common with Vercelli XIII,91 ends with the usual concluding formulae, a description of the bliss of heaven where God lives and rules with his angels for ever.92 The second half is the last section of Vercelli X / Blickling IX / Napier XLIX, in a version related to one in K [see below, n. 18], although Cross93 has suggested that in some respects I is independent of all other versions and perhaps more conservative. The language of I is fairly consistently modernized into transitional English, and its unique items cannot be dated until a more detailed analysis of their forms in relation to those of the rest of the book is attempted. (It is possible, e.g., that Ker 78-80 have a common, early source.) Where we have parallel texts it is clear that much of I’s anonymous material is both early and well preserved. In two anonymous items, as well as in some ¿Elfric pieces,94 I is linked with the southeastern group EFGH. But I is drawn from a variety of sources, not all of them south-eastern. It was in the west midlands in the thirteenth century95 and may have been written there.

J. London, British Library, Cotton Faustina A Ax

Ker 153 s. xii(1) This is a late copy of an ^Elfrician Temporale96 with additions that include five anonymous items. At least one quire has been lost from the beginning. The anonymous pieces are in two blocks, Ker 4-6 for the fifth, sixth, and seventh Sundays after Epiphany (or quando volueris) and Ker 23 and 24 for Holy Week. Another copy of the Temporale, with some of the same additions, survives in K, where all but Ker 23 of J’s anonymous items are repeated. Textually J and K are very close. The five anonymous items are: Ker 4, B.3.2.5. Unique to J and K but based in part on similar Latin sources to those for homilies in D and O.97 A ssma nn XIV (Ker 5, B.3.2.6). A composite homily unique to J and K,

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and made up almost entirely of abbreviated extracts from surviving vernacular homilies. The opening lines are reminiscent of the opening of the version of Napier XL in N and Xd.98 The rest of the first half of the homily" is a shortened version of Blickling VIII (which survives in full only in B). This is followed100 by an extract from an otherwise unique homily in C (B.3.5.14). The end of the homily,101 apart from the concluding formula, is verbally close to the end of Vercelli XV.102 It is probable that the section of Assmann XIV for which no immediate source can be found103 is taken from lost vernacular material [for the argument that some of it once formed part of Vercelli XV, see above, p. 80]. The homily is an important survival in that it shows that three homilies now found independently in A, B, and C were once available together, either in the same manuscript or in the same scriptorium. Ke r 6, B.3.2.7. The second half of Vercelli X / Blickling IX / Napier XLIX (B.3.2.40), textually close to the full version in N [see above, p. 79, and below, n. 19]. Ke r 23. An abridged version of Blickling VI (B.3.2.21). A s s m a n n XIII (K e r 24, B.3.2.22). The Maundy Thursday homily that opens the group of three homilies for the end of Holy Week in E, F, and G [see above, pp. 88-90]. J and K have a number of errors in common104 but nowhere show access to a reading better than EFG. Despite a sprinkling of late spellings, J is conservative linguistically, and there is no clear evidence of place of origin. It shares with K a number of spellings in both ^Elfrician and anonymous material that point to the south-east, so that it is reasonable to conclude that a southeastern manuscript formed part of their pedigree at not too great a distance from them.105 Proof that all the anonymous items in J and K were added to the Temporale in the south-eastern area would be very significant in linking items in B with that part of the country, but such proof awaits more detailed study of J and K.

K. Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 302

Ker 56 s. xi/xii This is a slightly earlier but in minor respects less accurate copy of the Temporale in J. In anonymous items, K’s Ker 10, 11, 12, and 27 are equivalent to J’s 4,5,6, and 24. Two additional anonymous items occur in K:

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Ke r 3 1, B.3.2.35. A unique composite homily with a passage containing the spiritual lamps metaphor that occurs more briefly in O [see below, p. 103]. N ap ier XLIX (Ke r 33) / V e r c e l l i X / B u c k l i n g IX (B.3.2.40). This complete version has been added to a collection that already contains much of the same piece in Ker 12 [see above, p. 95, under J, Ker 6]. Its text is much more conservative than the latter’s, however, with a few phrases found otherwise only in the partial text in I [see above, p. 79, and below, n. 18]. K’s spellings are much more erratic than those of J, with late features such as the frequent unhistoric doubling of consonants. Like J its manuscript connections are with the south-east, and the spelling byorhtnysse in an alteration in Ker 33106 suggests that the latest scribe is Kentish too.

L. O xfordB odleian Library, Hatton 115,fols. 140-147

Ker 332, item 34 s. xi(2) On a separate quire towards the end of Hatton 115, in a hand unrelated to those of the rest of the book (and perhaps slightly earlier than them107), this single item (B.3.4.15) is basically Vercelli IX with a new introduction and conclusion, some conflation of the main body of text, and a long interpolation from Vercelli II. The text of Vercelli IX is independent of that in other manuscripts, being in the main much shorter than that in A but preserving occasionally minor improvements upon it.108 The extract from Vercelli II is independent of both lines of transmission found elsewhere, that of Vercelli II itself in A and the related Vercelli XXI, and that of Napier XL [see above, p. 78]. It may preserve a text that is more authentic than either, for it contains sentences found separately in each of them but not in both.109 The age of the composite piece in L is hard to judge, but, even if it is eleventhcentury, it has great importance as a witness to a textual stratum of two tenth-century homilies earlier than any other that survives. Hatton 115 was at Worcester in the thirteenth century, although it cannot be shown to have been written there.110 That Ker 34 was not always part of the manuscript is clear from the pattern of wormholes and the signs of exposure on the outer pages of the quire.111 Nothing more is known of its history.

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M. London, British Library, Cotton Tiberius A.iii, fols. 2-173

K erl86 s. ximed. Much of the manuscript is in Latin, with continuous Old English glossing, but there are also translations (including some of Latin works popular with anonymous homilists: Ker 24, part of Isidore’s Synonyms [B.3.4.16], and Ker 26 and 27, chapters 14 and 26 of Alcuin’s Virtues and Vices), some penitential texts, and a group of homiletic pieces, partly anonymous. The six relevant items are: Ker 9h , B.l 1.10.3. An exhortation of an individual to confession in Lent. It is related to other confessional texts, notably the pseudo-Egbert Ordo Confessionis [see above, p. 93, and below, n. 89], but its penultimate paragraph is from Vercelli IX. Ker 15, B.3.3.16. Unique. Ker 16. The Palm Sunday homily from the Second Series of Ailfric’s Catholic Homilies, considerably adapted, with interpolated passages from a variety of sources including the revised form of Vercelli I (B.3.2.24) found in E, F, G, and H.112 N ap ier XLIV (K er 17, B.3.4.35). The Sunday letter homily in Njal’s version. This is similar to Napier XLIII in N, but it has been expanded with a number of interpolations, some of which can be traced to vernacular sources,113 and it also ends differently, for whereas N concludes with a reference to the anchorite and devil story that forms part of Vercelli IX, M does not, presumably because this is the subject of its next item. Instead M turns to the opening paragraph of Vercelli IX for its conclusion [for details, see below, p.99]. Ker 18. A description of hell given by a devil to an anchorite. This is not strictly a homily, although it has a brief homiletic injunction at its close.114 Textually it is most like the relevant section of L’s version of Vercelli IX (B.3.4.15) but has elements independent of all other versions.115 N ap ier XXXVI (Ke r 19e , B.3.4.29). A version of Napier XXXV in O and Xd. It is heavily dependent upon Wulfstan [see below, p. 103]. The most valuable parts of M in a study of the early homiletic tradition are Ker 15-18. Of these, the first is unique, the last is independent of similar material elsewhere and the other two are unique adaptations of pieces found in other manuscripts. It would be useful to

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know something of the antecedents of these items, whether they have linguistic traits in common, and how they relate to the rest of the collection in M. Such information would be especially valuable in that the provenance of M is known: it is “almost certainly a manuscript described in the medieval catalogue of Christ Church, Canterbury.”116

N. Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 419 and 421

Ker 68 and 69 s. xi(1) Companion volumes in one hand, the first containing fifteen homilies (plus a pendant added early), the second containing a further eight homilies, with another seven added later in the eleventh century at Exeter. The Exeter additions are all by /Elfric and Wulfstan, but ten of the original pieces are anonymous, although some are composite and contain the work of named writers. The ten items concerned are: N a pie r XLII (Ke r 68, ite m 1; B.3.4.34). Also in O. An anonymous translation of Adso’s De Antichristo with additions. Dorothy Bethurum117has suggested that the translation of Adso may have been commissioned by Wulfstan, but this can hardly be true of the homily, which has not only the quotations from Wulfstan that she cites but also a few lines from the composite Napier XL, some of which derive ultimately from Vercelli II.118 The similarities are so marked, but the actual parallels so short, that we may be dealing not so much with quotation from one composite homily to another as with two homilies put together by the same compiler. N a pi er XLIII (K e r 68, it e m 2; B.3.4.35). Njal’s account of the Sunday letter found in parallel form in M (Napier XLIV). Each version has a number of unique passages. Those in N include a long section on church dues from two homilies by Wulfstan119 and a reference to a devil’s account of hell to an anchorite found in Vercelli IX.120 Both of the Wulfstan homilies used occur later in N, in copies textually close to the extracts here.121It looks as if Napier XLIII was created by someone with access to the Wulfstan sources available to the scribe of N himself. The reference to the anchorite and devil story is interesting in that it repeats not what the devil actually told the anchorite about hell in any recorded version of the tale but the fact that no one could describe the torments of hell, not even seven men, each with seven heads, each with seven

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tongues made of iron, using all seventy-two languages of the world. This is a quotation from a section of Vercelli IX before the anchorite and devil story is introduced.122Napier XLIII is then rounded off with a sentence or two of exhortation that includes a quotation from the opening paragraph of Vercelli IX, but curiously it picks one that occurs between those used in the alternative ending of the same homily in M.123 We can be sure that a copy of Vercelli IX (in the version in L rather than that in A) lies behind both Napier XLIII and Napier XLIV, but the order of composition of XLIII and XLIV is probably now beyond recovery. N a p i e r XLV ( K e r 68, i t e m 3; B.3.4.36). Another, unrelated Sunday letter, similar to but not identical with that in V.124 N a p i e r XL ( K e r 68, i t e m 8; B.3.4.32). Vercelli II with additions, mainly from Wulfstan. Napier XL survives in four copies, the others being in O, P, and Xd. Their relations are complicated. All four have sentences in common inserted into the Vercelli II material, so that presumably all four derive from the same expanded version of Vercelli II. But N and Xd are different in some respects from O and P, in particular in having an opening found also in Assmann XIV [see above, p. 94], while O and P use a Wulfstan incipit, and in having minor readings closer to Vercelli II than those of O and P.125N is also closer to Vercelli II in having a few lines more of it than are found in O, P, and Xd i26 But a maj or difference between N and OPXd occurs in the conclusion. At Napier 188.11 all four copies of Napier XL leave Vercelli II127for a series of extracts from Wulfstan, but after a few lines N parts company with the other three and thereafter has different Wulfstan passages. O, P, and Xd remain parallel, returning in the last few lines to Vercelli II. N ’s ending is from Bethurum Xc, lines 62-71 (slightly modified), and Bethurum IX, lines 107-50. The latter is bounded by sentences not otherwise found in Wulfstan’s work, although they have an authentic ring. The result of the changed ending in N is that, against other versions of Napier XL that end with a series of disjointed injunctions and warnings, we have an organized passage containing a severe reminder of the wiles of Antichrist, an appropriate conclusion to the eschatalogical material of Vercelli II. N a pi er XLVI (K e r 68, it e m 11; B.3.4.37). A composite homily also in I. The first half is a translation from a Visio Pauli, the second a piece

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that survives independently in O as one of a number of texts inserted into a copy of Polity. Parts of the homily reappear in other composite pieces: Napier LVIII in f8, Pope XXVII in X1, Napier XXX in O, and Napier XL.128 B e l f o u r VI ( K e r 68, i t e m 13; B.3.2.15). Also in E, F, and I. Slight textual differences mark N ’s copy off from those of the other manuscripts. A s s m a n n XI (K e r 68, i t e m 14; B.3.2.13). Also in E and F, in both of which it precedes the last item. Again minor textual differences distinguish N’s text. N a p i e r XL VII (K e r 69, i t e m 7; B.3.4.3 8). A unique composite homily. It opens with a unique paragraph from Wulfstan, perhaps, as Jost suggests,129from a lost Wulfstan homily. The second half is the conclusion of Byrhtferth’s Manual [see below, p. 110]. N a p i e r XLVIII (K e r 69, i t e m 8; B.3.4.39). Follows Byrhtferth’s Manual in Xj and is probably by him [see below, p. 111]. Here it is addressed to a congregation rather than to an individual as in Xj, and a short section on Lenten observances is omitted. N a p i e r XLIX (K e r 69, i t e m 9) / V e r c e l l i X / B u c k l i n g IX (B .3.2.40). Textually N ’s copy of this popular homily [see above, p. 79] is late and closest to the extract that occurs as an independent homily in J and K. N occupies a significant position in this survey of homilies before ¿Elfric, both in the range of its items and in the links with other manuscripts. It has two homilies from the EF group, Belfour VI and Assmann XI, although no very close similarity with any member of that group. In its copy of Vercelli X it shows affinity with the tradition represented by J and K, although again there is no direct link between it and either J or K. In two composite homilies, Napier XLIII and XL, it has links with M and Xd, respectively, but in each case the adaptation of an anonymous homily with Wulfstan material is unique to N. It has two items in common with I, Napier XLVI and Belfour VI, and two with O, Napier XLII and XL, but there is no sign of close association with either manuscript. In its authentic Wulfstan and iElfric items N has pieces found in many manuscripts, including some of those containing parallel anonymous homilies. Pope and Clemoes have shown130that in some of its ^Elfric items N (their V) is closely linked with Cambridge, Trinity College B. 15.34, which has no anonymous items. Miss

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Bethurum131lists analogies between N and I (her AB and H) in Wulfstan homilies, but this is in order to distinguish the tradition they represent from that of the other principal Wulfstan manuscripts Xd and O (her C and E), rather than to show any particularly close link between N and I. Leaving aside the correspondences with Trinity B. 15.34 in a few ¿Elfric homilies, the most remarkable feature of N, textually, is its independence. Pope’s introduction to his edition of parts of the iElfric compilation known as De Virginitate (Pope XXX, unique to N) notes132the wide range of Ailfric’s work that the compiler (probably not ¿Elfric himself) had access to, including some that has not survived elsewhere. It has been observed above that the same is true of Wulfstan, parts of apparently authentic but unique Wulfstan being incorporated into N ’s copy ofNapier XL and XLVII. Only one ofN’s anonymous homilies is entirely unique, but three more are compilations that are organized independently of other surviving versions. Throughout the anonymous pieces N shows a textual independence in the intelligent addition or omission of words or phrases. This freedom and the range of items included suggest that the collection was put together with care and authority. Pope, building on the analogy with Trinity B.15.34 and linguistic minutiae in the iElfric items, suggests133that N originated in the southeast (before, that is, it moved westwards for the Exeter additions). Some support for this assumption is given by the anonymous items, for the overlap in content with EF, with JK, and with M all point in the same south-eastern direction. The Wulfstan and anonymous items’ links with I are not conclusive, since I, although itself a western manuscript, draws on south-eastern sources for some of its items. N ’s links with known western manuscripts such as O are not close. But linguistically there is no tangible support for Pope’s contention. There are one or two nonWest Saxon spellings to add to those he cites,134 but there is none that gives specific indication of the area of origin. The very eclectic character of the collection argues against too much reliance being placed on the textual analogies of only one group of the homilies included. The place of origin of N has yet to be proved.

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O. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Junius 121 and Hatton 113 and 114 Ker 338 and 331 s. xi 3rd quarter These three Worcester manuscripts, originally the work of a single scribe and intended to form a set, consist for the most part of the works of jElfric and Wulfstan, but each has a number of items related to an earlier tradition. In the original arrangement, Junius 121 contained ecclesiastical institutes, confessional and penitential texts, and Hatton 113 and 114 contained homilies.135The following thirteen items belong in the present survey, though it is doubtful if many of them were composed before the eleventh century: Ke r 338, it e m 10. A series of injunctions to perform good works and avoid evil among a number of texts inserted into Polity. It occurs as the second half of Napier XLVI (B.3.4.37) in I and N. Parts of it reappear in Napier XL and XXX [see above, p. 99]. Ke r 338, it e m 17; B.3.5.10. A brief, unique, homiletic exhortation of an individual, following part of the pseudo-Egbert Confessional.136 N ap ier I (K e r 331, it e m 1; B.3.4.21). An anonymous translation of book IV, chapter 1 of Gregory’s Dialogues, independent of Werferth’s translation. A homiletic conclusion has been added twice, first in the form that survives here, using a passage that Wulfstan often used,137and second, in Xd and Xf, using a Wulfstanian translation of book IV, chapter 6 of the Dialogues. The fact that some words and phrases added to the copy in Xf are in Wulfstan’s hand138 suggests that he may have been responsible for one or both versions. N a p i e r XXIX (K e r 331, ITEM 22; B.3.4.26). A unique composite homily drawn from a variety of vernacular sources. Among these are the directions for a confessor in Laud Misc. 482 (Ker 343, item 17),139 an exhortation to confession commonly found,140 the poem Be domes dcege,]4] a composite homily in R, part of which stems from Vercelli IV,142 a homily by TElfric,143 and Blickling V.144 N a p i e r XXX (K e r 331, i t e m 23; B.3.4.27). Another unique composite homily again drawn entirely from vernacular sources. Within a context of extracts from Wulfstan are passages from four Vercelli homilies, IV, IX, X, and XXL The analogies with A are so close that the compiler must have had access to the sources used by A or a copy made from

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them.145 Parallels with Napier XXX occur in other composite homilies, Pope XXVII and Napier XLVI, where the parallels are too short to be certain which way the borrowing went,146 and Napier LVIII and a homily in Xb, where it is likely that Napier XXX is the source since the passages borrowed include material in it taken from more than one of its own sources.147 N a p i e r XXXV ( K e r 331, i t e m 29; B.3.4.29). Also in Xd and slightly differently (Napier XXXVI) in M. If not by Wulfstan himself, this piece is heavily dependent upon him.148 N a p i e r LV (K e r 331, i t e m 43; B.3.4.44). A composite homily, mainly from TElfric and Wulfstan but with a passage that parallels the conclusion of the anonymous Belfour X [see above, p. 94]. Ke r 331, it e m 44; B.3.2.12. Unique. K e r 331, i t e m 52; B.3.2.30. A unique composite homily, mainly an adaptation of ¿Elfric but with extracts from Wulfstan149 and from an anonymous homily in K [see above, p. 96]. K e r 331, i t e m 53; B.3.2.31. A short unique piece, perhaps part of the preceding item.150 K e r 331, i t e m 54; B.3.2.32. Unique. Ke r 331,

it e m

55; B.3.2.37. Unique.

XLII (K e r 331, i t e m 56; B.3.4.34). Also in N. Among additions made to Junius 121 and Hatton 114 in contemporary hands there are four more anonymous or partly anonymous homilies: Ke r 338, it e m 33; B.3.2.28. A unique composite homily. Tone and style suggest that much of it is drawn from tenth-century anonymous homilies, although there is one paragraph from Adfric.151 A description of the harrowing of hell parallels the one in Blickling VII but is fuller. The verbal echoes are sufficient to indicate descent from a common source rather than independent translation, but the piece merits further investigation. A s s m a n n X (K e r 331, it e m 72; B.3.3.18). Also in I and f*. K e r 331, i t e m 78.152 A largely anonymous homily on the dedication of a church. N a p i e r XL (K e r 331, i t e m 82; B.3.4.32). See above, p. 99. Most of the anonymous writing in O is found in composite homilies alongside the work of JElfric and Wulfstan, and much of it, if not original to the eleventh-century compilers, is so adapted that it is of little N

a pie r

104

Old English Prose: Basic Readings

value in a study of the earlier tradition. But a few homilies, in particular the unique items in Hatton, some of which are dependent on sources used elsewhere in the anonymous tradition,153 may prove to be more faithful reflections of the tenth century.

P. London, British Library, Cotton Cleopatra B.xiii and London, Lambeth Palace Library, 489 Ker 144 and 283 s. xi 3rd quarter A single siglum is assigned to these two manuscripts on the assumption that Ker is right in supposing that they once formed part of the same manuscript.154 Both contain homilies by Ælfric and Wulfstan, but both also contain anonymous material, ultimately early. The six relevant items are: N a p i e r XL (K e r 144, i t e m 1; B.3.4.32). See above, p. 99. K e r 144, i t e m 6. Vercelli XIX (B.3.2.34) with sentences from an Ælfric homily that depends on the same sources worked in at appropriate points.155 Vercelli XIX is also in A, G, and H, but P’s copy is independent of them. N a p i e r LVII (K e r 283, i t e m 4; B.3.4.46). A Sunday letter homily similar to that in G. Ke r 283, it e m 5. A homily from the First Series of Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies, considerably adapted, with interpolations from Ælfric and Wulfstan and with a paragraph from the preceding item.156 Ke r 283, it e m 6. Another unique composite item, mainly from Ælfric but with passages from the next item.157 B ro ta n ek II (Ker 283, it e m 7; B.3.2.49). Also in Q. P is a relatively poor witness to the pre-Ælfrician tradition, since most of its anonymous material has been modified during the eleventh century. It was written at Exeter.

Q. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Lat. 943

Ker 364 s. xi in. Among additions at the end of a pontifical is an early copy of Brotanek II (Ker c., B.3.2.49), also in P. The item was added perhaps at Sherborne.158

Vernacular Homilies and Prose Saints ’Lives before Ælfric

105

R. Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 191, 196, and 201, pp. 179-272

Ker 46, 47, and 50 s. xi 3rd quarter The three manuscripts were once bound together; script, format, and number of lines are the same.159Their contents are complementary and they were no doubt intended as companion volumes. Apart from a translation of the apocryphal Vindicta Saluatoris in CCCC 196 (cf. Xa and Xh), there is only one piece connected with the homiletic tradition: Ker 50, item 2; B.3.4.55. A composite homily, it begins with passages drawn from Vercelli IV (close to but not derived from the version in D [see above, p. 78]), continues with a passage on the ubi sunt theme,160 and concludes with the vision of Macarius.161 The composite homily Napier XXIX in O draws upon this piece, taking material gathered here from more than one source.162 The three parts of R were written at Exeter. Like D they were probably amongst Leofric’s bequest.163

S. Cambridge, University Library, Ii.1.33

Ker 18 s. xii(2) A late collection of homilies and saints’ lives, mostly by iElfric, written, according to Ker,164“at several intervals.” Three anonymous items near the end are linked by hand and quiring to preceding and succeeding items by TElfric. Pope165 suggests that the whole block constitutes “a kind of moralizing and admonitory appendix” to the rest of the manuscript. The three items are: K er 40, B.3.5.8. Unique. Ke r 41. A translation of chapters 1-13 of Alcuin’s Virtues and Vices [see also above, p. 97, and below, p. 110]. Ker 42, B. 13.1.2. A unique composite homily that opens with a sentence from the end of Vercelli XIX and concludes with part of the Canons of Edgar. The three items are very different from one another in kind and probably in origin. While the first is a conservative text of an early homily, the last is a later compilation, although it does draw on some early material. Pope166has already called for a thorough linguistic examination of the manuscript, which has not been localized.

Old English Prose: Basic Readings

106

T. Oxford' Bodleian Library, Hatton 116

Ker 333 s. xii(1) A late, mainly Ælfrician collection of homilies with two early anonymous pieces: Ke r 1, B.3.3.3. Unique.

26, B.3.2.33. Also in G. Both items are linguistically conservative.167Glosses by the tremulous hand show that the manuscript was in Worcester in the thirteenth century, and probably it was written there.168

Ke

r

U. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Auct. F.4.32

Ker 297 s. xi(2) Bound into a manuscript of the ninth and tenth centuries is a quire plus one leaf containing a homily on the Invention of the Cross (Ker a, B.3.3.6), which is also in H. There is no way of knowing when the homily was added to the earlier manuscript, although it was probably during the medieval period when it was in Glastonbury.169

V. Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 140

Ker 35 s. xi(2) At the end of a quire in a copy of the West Saxon Gospels is added a version of the Sunday letter homily (Ker 4, B.3.4.54) similar to that in N (Ker 68, item 3).

W. London, British Library, Cotton Julius E.vii

Ker 162 s. xi in. The earliest manuscript of Ælfric’s Lives of Saints, this collection includes in the original set two lives not by Ælfric, and two further items that were added early are not by him either. The four items are: S k e a t XXIII ( K e r 30, B.3.3.34). A ls o in f g. S k e a t XXIIIB ( K e r 31, B.3.3.23). Also in f da n d fg. S keat Skeat

XXX (K e r 41, B.3.3.8). Also in f k.

XXXIII (K e r 44, B.3.3.7). Also in f g. The date of these items is hard to establish, although it appears that they were available at the time of or soon after the initial circulation of Ælfric’s set. Since so many of the anonymous saints’ lives that have

Vernacular Homilies and Prose Saints ’Lives before Ælfric

107

survived are fragmentary (as the parallel texts here suggest), we have little evidence about how numerous or widespread they were before ifdfric, and this manuscript, though itself relatively early, is given a low siglum because it has no point of contact with any of the important witnesses to the pre-^Elfrician tradition.

Y. London, British Library, Cotton Otho C.i, vol. 2 Ker 182 s. ximed. A copy of the first two books of Werferth’s translation of Gregory’s Dialogues (written in the first half of the eleventh century) was added to by a number of scribes. The first added book III and part of book IV, leaving this abruptly to write two short lives from the Vitas patrum (Assmann XVIII, Ker 2a and b, B.3.3.35). Another added a longer third life (Assmann XVIII, Ker 2c, B.3.3.35), a translation of a letter from Boniface to Eadburga (Ker 3), and a unique homily called Evil Tongues by Sisam (Ker 4, B.3.5.4).170Much of the homily is damaged by fire. A final scribe wrote three pieces by jElfric. Sisam’s study of the language of the items copied by scribe 3 (Ker 2c, 3, and 4) concludes that they “were composed in territory once Mercian,” and suggests that the first two, and possibly the homily as well, are perhaps the work of one man. He assumes from internal references that the homily was composed after the tenth-century Benedictine reform. Ker 2a and b are in uniformly late West Saxon. All the additions were made at Worcester.

Z. Oxford\ Bodleian Library, Laud Misc. 509 and London, British Library, Cotton Vespasian D.xxi, fols. 18-40

Ker 344 s. xi(2) The two parts of the manuscript became separated under Cotton’s ownership.171The Oxford portion contains the Old English Hexateuch172 and pieces by ¿Elfric; the London portion contains only the life of St. Guthlac (Ker 5, B.3.3.10), part of which reappears, in a textually different version and within brief homiletic formulae, as Vercelli XXIII in A.

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Old English Prose: Basic Readings

X a. Cambridge, University Library, 112.11

Ker 20 s. xi 3rd quarter Following a copy of the West Saxon Gospels are two apocryphal translations, the Gospel of Nicodemus (also in f and in a much reduced form in Xh), and the Vindicta Saluatoris (also in R and again in reduced form in Xh). Although these cannot be classified as homilies or saints’ lives, they are probably to be associated with the interest in apocryphal literature witnessed by many tenth-century homilies. The manuscript was written at Exeter.

X*. Cambridge, University Library, Ii.4.6

Ker 21 s. xi med. Included in this mainly iElfrician collection are two composite homilies, Ker 27 and 28, apparently put together by the scribe of the manuscript.173 The first consists almost entirely of extracts from ¿Elfric, but the second, B.3.2.41, has a passage drawn from Napier XXX, which is itself composite.174 Most of the Napier XXX material used is from Wulfstan but a few sentences are from Vercelli IV. The manuscript was written at Winchester.175

Xo. Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 190

Ker 45 s. xi(2) Among a number of additions to a copy of Wulfstan’s commonplace book are a confessor’s exhortation to penitence (Ker 11, B.l 1.10.1) and two homilies, translations of Latin pieces that are included in the commonplace book: Ker 20, B.3.2.9, a general exhortation to repentance during Lent, and Ker 21, B.3.2.23, from a Latin sermon by Abbo of St. Germain. The Latin versions occur in other copies of the commonplace book,176 but no other copy of the translations survives. Both Latin and English versions of the Abbo sermon were used by Wulfstan in a homily of his own.177 All the additions to the manuscript were made at Exeter.

Xd. Cambridge, Corpus Chris ti College 201, pp. 1-178, Part B Ker 49 s. xi med. A collection of material associated with Wulfstan, including some pieces not actually by him. The four relevant items are:

Vernacular Homilies and Prose Saints ’ Lives before Ælfric

109

N a pi er I (Ker 1, B.3.4.21). An anonymous translation of part of

Gregory’s Dialogues with a homiletic conclusion. Also in Xf and, with a different conclusion, in O [see above, p. 102]. N a pi er XXXV (Ker 14, B.3.4.29). Heavily dependent upon Wulfstan [see above, p. 103]. N ap ier XL (Ker 37, B.3.4.32). A version that sits midway between those of N and OP and derives much of its material from Vercelli II [see above, p. 99]. N a p i e r XLI (K e r 39, B.3.4.33). Miss Bethurum accepts all this item as Wulfstan’s (her XVIb) except for the last four lines of Napier’s text, which occur independently in Xk.178

Xe. Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 320,fols. 117-170

Ker 58 s. x/xi Added on blank leaves, the first and last of a Latin penitential, are two short homiletic exhortations addressed to individuals (Ker a and b, B. 11.10.2 and B. 11.1.2). The first includes an extract from jElfric, but both contain material related to the pseudo-Egbert Ordo Confessionis, Penitential, and Confessional, and to directions for a confessor in Laud Misc. 482 (Ker 343, item 17). Similar material is found also in two homilies, Napier XXIX in O and Napier LVI in I.

Xf. London, British Library, Cotton Tiberius A.xiii

Ker 190 s. xi(1) Among additions to a cartulary is a copy of Napier I (Ker A (¿), B.3.4.21) in the version found in Xd[see above, p. 102]. The manuscript was written at Worcester.

Xg. London, British Library, Cotton Tiberius C.i,fols. 43-203

Ker 197 s. xi(2) Among additions to a probably continental pontifical are three brief unique texts: KER/i, B.3.2.50. A homily for the dedication of a church. Ke r G, B.3.5.7. A Lenten address, with an opening found also in Vercelli IV.179 K e r //, B.l 1.10.4. An exhortation of an individual to confession.

110

Old English Prose: Basic Readings

The first and last items are in one hand, but differences of language point to their having different origins. Apart from a number of unusual spellings,180 the first piece has the exceptional dative singular manne three times.181All three additions were made apparently at Sherborne.182

Xh. London, British Library, Cotton Vespasian D.xiv

Ker 209 s. xii med. A late collection of homiletic pieces in a consistently normalized language. Many of the pieces derive from ¿Elfric, but a number are anonymous. Some of the latter are of twelfth-century origin, since they are translations of works by Latin authors of that century.183 Among others that are likely to be post-Ailfric is Ker 51, B.3.4.17 [see above, p. 90]. But some pieces may belong to the pre-;Elfrician tradition, including Ker 31, the Gospel of Nicodemus, Ker 32, the Embassy of Nathan, Ker 35, from chapters 1-16 of Alcuin’s Virtues and Vices, and three unique homilies: Ker 11 (B.3.3.11), Ker 43 (B.3.3.28), and Ker 46 and 47 (B.3.4.57). Rima Handley’s detailed account of the manuscript184shows it to be an orderly collection of material carefully selected and reduced from a variety of sources, made in the south-east, perhaps in Christ Church, Canterbury. But there is no evidence of indebtedness to other southeastern manuscripts, and its selectivity with regard to subject matter and the modernization of its language mean that it has limited value in a study of the early prose tradition.

X . London, British Library, Cotton Vitellius C.v

Ker 220 s. xi(,) Among the texts added to this important iElfric manuscript is Pope XXVII, the beginning and end of which are not by JElfric. The opening is from Wulfstan185 and the close has sentences comparable with Vercelli VIII186and the composite homilies Napier XL VI187and XXX.188

X . Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ashmole 328

Ker 288 s. xi med. Following Byrhtferth’s Manual are two items printed by Napier, XLVII second half (Ker 2, B.3.4.38) and XLVIII (Ker 3, B.3.4.39). They occur

Vernacular Homilies and Prose Saints ’ Lives before Ælfric

111

together also in N, where the first is introduced by a paragraph from Wulfstan and the second is addressed to a congregation rather than an individual. In their modified form in N they may properly be described as homilies, but the term is more dubious when applied to the pieces in their, presumably original, form in Xj. Jost189has shown that the first is an appropriate conclusion to the Manual, while the language of the second is consistent with that of the Manual.19° It is reasonable to attribute both pieces to Byrhtferth.

A*. Oxford', Bodleian Library, Hatton 115, fol. 65

Ker 332, items 18 and 19 s. xi ex. A single leaf inserted into an ¿Elfric manuscript contains these items in two hands not found elsewhere in the volume. Ker 18 (B.3.5.2) draws heavily upon passages by ^ lfric .191 Ker 19 consists of a few lines in Wulfstan’s style found also in Xd at the end of Napier XLI (B.3.4.33) and considered by Miss Bethurum to be Wulfstan’s [see above, p. 109].

f 1. Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 367, Part II, fols. 3 -6 and 11-29 Ker 63 s. xii Extensive fragments of a collection of homilies, two of which are anonymous: K e r 6 . Part of Assmann X (B.3.3.18), lacking the contents of not more than one leaf. K e r 10. Part of Vercelli IV (B.3.4.9) on a single leaf. The text is conservative, with some readings better than those of A and D. The manuscript has some connections with the south-east.192

/*. Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 557 and Lawrence, Kansas, Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University o f Kansas, C2, item 1 Ker 73 (S) s. xi med. Fragments of two leaves containing parts of B.3.3.5 (Napier’s History o f the Holy Rood-Tree) found in I.

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Old English Prose: Basic Readings

f . Collection o f Mr. Albert Ehrman, Clobb Close, Beaulieu, Hampshire, no. 888 (now missing) Ker 112 (S) s. xi A strip from a leaf containing a homily (B.3.2.20) comparable with either B.3.2.18 in EFG or B.3.2.19 in D.

f . Gloucester, Cathedral Library, 35

Ker 117 s. xi med. Fragments from bindings, including (Ker 2) part of Skeat XXIIIB (B.3.3.23), which survives in W.

f . London, British Library, Cotton Caligula A.xivffols. 93-130

Ker 138 s. xi med. Extensive fragments of a collection of saints’ lives, including (Ker 3) part of a unique life, B.3.3.26.

/ . London, British Library, Cotton Otho A.viii, fols. 7-34, Cotton Otho B.x, fol. 66

Ker 168 s. xi in. Fragments of a burnt manuscript containing a unique anonymous life, B.3.3.13.

London, British Library, Cotton Otho B.x, yb/s. 7-25, 31-50, 52-54, 56-57, 59-60, 65, and 67, and Oxford, Bodleian Library, Rawlinson Q.e.20

Ker 177 s. xi(,) Individual leaves, damaged and disordered, are all that have remained of this manuscript since the Cotton fire. As well as many TElfric pieces the manuscript contained some anonymous homilies and saints’ lives: S k e a t XXXIII (K e r 10, B.3.3.7). Also in W. Ker 11, B.3.3.4. Also in fj. S k e a t XXIIIB (K e r 12, B.3.3.23). Also in W. S k e a t XXIII ( K e r 13, B.3.3.34). Also in W. Ke r 16-18. Composite homilies, the legible text printed as Napier LVIII (B.3.4.47). Much of this is from Wulfstan, but there are some links with other composite homilies, including a passage found in

Vernacular Homilies and Prose Saints ’Lives before Ælfric

113

Napier XXX [see above, p. 102]. Ker193puts all of Napier LVIII into his item 18, but notes that his 16 ended as Napier XXX. Also in one of the three items was a reference to the anchorite and devil story, which is in Napier XXX as well as in other anonymous homilies [see above, p. 79]. Part C of the manuscript once contained B.3.3.15.

/ . London, British Library, Cotton Otho B.x,fols. 29 and 30

Ker 178 s. xi med. The second item (now lost) was a Sunday letter, B.3.5.6. Wanley gives the incipit and explicit.194

f . London, British Library, Cotton Vitellius A.xv,fols. 4-93

Ker 215 s. xii med. A late manuscript suffering from loss of leaves and damage by fire. More than half of it is taken up by Alfred’s translation of the Soliloquies, but there are also three other items to link the manuscript with the tenth-century prose tradition: K er 2. A translation of the Gospel of Nicodemus, also in Xa. K e r 3. A prose debate of Solomon and Saturn. K e r 4, B.3.3.33. Unique. Only the beginning survives.

f . London, British Library, Cotton Vitellius A.xv, fols. 94-209, The Beowulf Manuscript

Ker 216 s. x/xi The fragmentary opening item (Ker 1) is B.3.3.4, lacking more than half the text. Another copy was once in f8.

j k. London, British Library, Cotton Vitellius D.xvii, fols. 4-92

Ker 222 s. xi med. A collection of saints’ lives, mainly by Ailfric and much damaged by fire. Two items are anonymous: Ker 14, B.3.3.30, unique, and Ker 29, B.3.3.8, also in W.

f . London, Lambeth Palace Library, 427, fols. 210-211

Ker 281 s. xi(2) Two non-adjacent leaves of a history of St. Mildred (B.3.3.27) with references to other Kentish royal saints.

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THE EARLY TRADITION A great many questions remain to be answered before we have a reasonable estimation of the corpus of vernacular homiletic literature before ¿Elfric. Most importantly we need extensive studies of many of the manuscripts listed above, distinguishing where possible the linguistic preferences of the latest scribes from those of earlier ones so that we may establish the nature and number of the components in the material drawn on in the compilation of the collections. By comparing the components used by various compilers it may be possible to determine more about the dissemination pattern of the homilies. For example, it has already been shown that some of the components that were used by the compiler of A were used again by the compiler of the homiliary in E and a third time by the author of the composite homily Napier XXX in O [see above, pp. 81, 87, and 102]. The way in which A was compiled argues against these components being available in a single manuscript in any logical order, but they must all have been in one place, presumably in Canterbury, for a perhaps considerable period of time. Stylistic and lexical studies could reveal something of the preferences of individual homilists or schools, especially if these can be linked to source studies.195A relatively simple approach might be to see how far homilies with the same incipits have either comparable linguistic forms or similarities of style.196 Ultimately only the accumulation of information on the style and language of known early homilies can enable us to distinguish other early pieces that survive in late copies from those composed in the eleventh century or later. A pertinent warning about the difficulties of crediting a text recorded in a late manuscript with having been composed in an early or Anglian dialect has come recently from Hans Schabram.197Although we have a few reliable lexical studies relating particular words to dialects or periods198 there remains a great deal of work to be done on linguistic strata in late Old English manuscripts. It is to be hoped that Helmut Gneuss’s work on the Winchester dialect199may be followed by studies of the language of other centers. As far as anonymous homilies are concerned Canterbury offers itself as an obvious possibility.200

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However, the information already assembled is sufficient to enable one important statement to be made about the homiletic tradition before iElfric: either our knowledge is very partial or the tradition was an extraordinarily narrow one. Accident of transmission is the most likely explanation for our lack of texts of saints’ lives, since most of those that we have are in unique copies, many of them in fragments only [see above, p. 106]. But it is in viewing the homilies that we find the paucity of material more surprising, for here, although we are involved with a large number of manuscripts, we have relatively few homilies. The frequency of overlap of content between manuscripts is remarkable. A alone has material found in all but six of the other principal manuscripts as well as in some of those listed under X and f. The contents of Vercelli II, IX, and X seem to have been especially popular with scribes and compilers of composite homilies. A further point is that within this limited body of homilies there are many that include independent translations of the same Latin sources. There are frequent examples of the same Latin work being used in two, three, or even more contexts [see, e.g., above, p. 80]. Finally, although we have quite full information about the homiletic tradition in Canterbury before Aflfric, we have almost none about the body of preaching material in any other center. We know nothing of Winchester, and the only manuscripts of significance known to have been written in Worcester (the three manuscripts with the siglum O) are of too late a date for their contents to be a true reflection of the tenth century there. We have a number of manuscripts either located in Exeter in the second half of the eleventh century (D) or written there at that time (P and R), but it is far from certain that they reflect the tenth-century tradition in that area. At the same time we do have evidence of more than one tenth-century tradition. The common ground of A, E, and G seems certainly to represent what was available in Canterbury when ¿Elfric’s work first arrived there, whereas different traditions seem reflected in B and C on the one hand and D on the other. But if these manuscripts do represent different traditions there are links between them. Although it has been shown above [p. 86] that the six homilies of D provide a contrast with other major collections, one of the six is found in A and another in H, both of which were written in the south-east. And although B and C

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have no overlap of content with the south-eastern group E, F Part I, and G, they do have such overlap with A and with F Part II, and through Assmann XIV in J and K they seem to have a further connection with the south-east. Even the spellings of B, C, and D point either to the use of south-eastern exemplars or to south-eastern scribes being in part responsible for them. Could it be that the limitations noticed in the early homiletic tradition as a whole—of material, of sources used, and of connections with a known center—are related to the fact that a great deal of our knowledge of homiletic writing before iElfric stems ultimately from the south-eastern area alone? Further research might usefully begin by testing this hypothesis.

Vernacular Homilies and Prose Saints ’Lives before Ælfric A ppe

111

n d ix

TABULAR SUMMARY OF ANONYMOUS HOMILIES The table below, pp. 121-128, summarizes the information on the foregoing pages and facilitates cross-reference. The entries utilize Cameron’s identification (plus, where appropriate, a generally familiar title such as Vercelli I) and follow his order, namely: homilies for specified occasions, Temporale, beginning with Christmas (B.3.2), and Sanctorale, alphabetically (B.3.3), and homilies for unspecified occasions, published, alphabetically by the editor’s name (B.3.4), and unpublished, alphabetically by the first word (B.3.5). Cameron lists confessional and penitential texts under B. 11 and ecclesiastical laws and institutes under B.13.1 have omitted those entries in Cameron’s list that are by Ailfric or Wulfstan and have corrected some errors. The manuscripts are referred to by the sigla listed in the table, above, pp. 75-77, and the numbers are those of the items in Ker’s Catalogue. An italicized number refers to a text with only a partial overlap with other entries on the same line; in some cases this supplements the information given by Cameron and in others it clarifies it, since Cameron occasionally puts together two texts that are not parallel throughout. A cross-reference in the final column is to a source of an adapted homily. An entry in the third column indicates where the item concerned has been published. I have ignored editions that are not readily available, such as those in dissertations. When an editor has not used all the extant copies the text (or texts) he has used is specified in brackets. The editions are as follows: Bruno Assmann, ed., Angelsächsische Homilien Assmann (see below, n. 1) A.O. Belfour , ed., Twelfth-Century Homilies Belfour (see below, n. 1) Rudolf Brotanek, Texte und Untersuchungen (see Brotanek below, n. 1 ) T.O. Cockayne, Narratiunculae Anglice ConCockayne(1) scriptae (London, 1861) ---------, Leechdoms, Wortcunning and Starcraft Cockayne(2) o f Early England, Rolls Series 35 (1864-66)

118 Colgrave and Hyde

Crawford Fadda(1)

Fadda(2)

Fadda(3)

Förster(,)

Förster(2) Förster(3) Förster(4) Godden Gonser

Hulme Ker(1)

Ker(2)

Old English Prose: Basic Readings Bertram Colgrave and Ann Hyde, “Two Recently Discovered Leaves from Old English Manuscripts,” Speculum 37 (1962): 60-78. S.J. Crawford, ed., Byrhtferth’s Manual, EETS OS 177 (London, 1929) A.M. Luiselli Fadda, “ ‘De descensu Christi ad inferos’: una inedita omelia anglosassone,” Studi Medievali 13 (1972): 989-1011 ---------, “Una inedita traduzione anglosassone della ‘Visio Pauli,’ ” Studi Medievali 15 (1974): 482-95 ---------, ed., Nuove olemie anglosassoni della rinascenza benedettina, Filologia Germanica Testi e Studi 1 (Florence, 1977) Max Förster, “Zur altenglischen QuintinusLegende,” Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen 106 (1901): 258-59 ---------, “Der Vercelli-Codex CXVII” (see below, n. 108) ---------, Die Vercelli-Homilien (see below, n. 1) ---------, “Apocalypse of Thomas” (see below, n. 21) Malcolm Godden, ed., AHfric 's Catholic Homilies: The Second Series (see below, n.l) Paul Gonser, ed., Das angelsächsische ProsaLeben des hl. Guthlac, Anglistische Forschungen 27 (Heidelberg, 1909; repr., Amsterdam, 1966) William H. Hulme, “Gospel of Nicodemus” (see below, n. 22) N.R. Ker, “An Eleventh-Century Old English Legend of the Cross before Christ,” Medium AEvum 9 (1940): 84-85 ---------, “Three Old English Texts” (see below, n. 180)

Vernacular Homilies and Prose Saints ’ Lives before Ælfric Ker(3) Kluge Logeman Morris(1) Morris(2)

Napier(1) Napier(2) Napier(3)

Napier(4) Priebsch

Robinson Rypins Sisam Skeat Szarmach(1) Szarmach(2) Thorpe

119

---------, Catalogue (see below, n. 1) Friedrich Kluge, “Zu altenglischen Dichtungen,” Englische Studien 8 (1885): 472-74 Henri Logeman, “Anglo-Saxonica Minora,” Anglia 12(1889): 499-518 Richard Morris, ed., Legends o f the Holy Rood, EETS OS 46 (London, 1871) ---------, The Bückling Homilies (see below, n. 34; Bückling IV = Morris IV + XVI and Bückling XVI-XVIII = Morris XVII-XIX) Arthur S. Napier, Wulfstan (see below, n. 1) --------- , ed., History o f the Holy Rood-tree, EETS OS 103 (London, 1894) --------- , “Contributions to Old English Literature I, An Old English Homily on the Observance of Sunday,” in An English Miscellany presented to Dr. Furnivall (Oxford, 1901), pp. 355-62 --------- , “Notes on the Bückling Homilies” (see below, n. 25) Robert Priebsch, “The Chief Sources of some Anglo-Saxon Homilies,” Otia Mersiana 1 (1899): 129-38 Fred C. Robinson, “The Devil’s Account” (see below, n. 114) Stanley Rypins, ed. Three Old English Prose Texts, EETS OS 161 (London, 1924) Kenneth Sisam, Studies (see below, n. 47) Walter W. Skeat, AElfric 's Lives o f Saints (see below, n. 1) Paul E. Szarmach, “Vercelli Homily XX,” Mediaeval Studies 35 (1973): 1-26 --------- , “MS. Junius 85 f. 2r and Napier 49,” English Language Notes 14 (1977): 241-46 Benjamin Thorpe, ed. Ancient Laws and Institutes o f England (London, 1840)

120 Vleeskruyer Warner

Willard(1) Willard(2) Willard(3) Willard(4)

Willard(5) Wiilcker

Old English Prose: Basic Readings R. Vleeskruyer, St. Chad (see below, n. 2) Rubie D.-N. Warner, ed., Early English Homilies from the Twelfth Century MS. Vesp. D.xiv, EETS OS 152 (London, 1917) Rudolph Willard, Two Apocrypha (see below, n. 38) ---------, “The Address of the Soul to the Body” (see below, n. 39) ---------, “On Blickling Homily XIII” (see below, n. 35) ---------, “The Blickling-Junius Tithing Homily and Caesarius of Arles,” in Philologica: The Malone Anniversary Studies (Baltimore, 1949), pp. 65-78 ---------, “Vercelli Homily XI” (see below, n. 8) R.P. Wiilcker, “Uber das Vercellibuch,” ^«g//a 5 (1882): 451-65

3.2.15 3.2.16 3.2.17 3.2.18

3.2.12 3.2.13 3.2.14

3.2.7 3.2.8 3.2.9 3.2.10 3.2.11

Morris^2) Förster^3) Belfour (I) Fadda^3) Assmann Morris^2) (B), Willard^4) (part) Belfour (I) Assmann Morris^2) (B)

Bückling III V ercelli III / Belfour V

Belfour VI Assmann XII B ückling V

Assmann XI Bückling IV

Morris^2)

Bückling II

Willard^1) (part) Assmann

3

Assmann XIV

3.2.5 3.2.6

Förster^3) Förster^) (A, E)

F örster^

5 18 10 11

V XVI V ili IX

Vercelli Vercelli Vercelli Vercelli

3.2.1 3.2.2 3.2.3 3.2.4

E d itio n (s )

A

H o m ily r e f

B. no.

C am eron

5

4

3

2

B

7

C

D

23

21 22

20

23

21 22

20

19

7

7 8

19

1

1

6

F

E

28

19

G

H

40

M S d is tr ib u tio n

29

28

I

4 5

J

12

10 11

K

O(Hatton) 2 2

N (419) 13

O(Hatton) 44 N (419) 14

Xc 20

see B.3.4.19, B .3.5.14, and B.3.4.6 see B.3.2.40

L, 3 4 ‘ M 9 h J 7 , 1 8 \ N (419) 2; O(Hatton) 2 3

O th e rs

3.2.25 Bückling VII 3.2.26 3.2.27 3.2.28 3.2.29 3.2.30 3.2.31 3.2.32 3.2.33/44 3.2.34 Vercelli XIX 3.2.35 3.2.36 Vercelli XI 3.2.37 3.2.38 Vercelli XX

Willard(5) Fadda^3) Szarmach^)

Fadda(l) Hulme (D) Willard^1) (part) Willard^1) (part) F ad d a^ F örster^ (T) Fadda*3*

M o rris^ (B)

Förster^3 ) (A, E, F, G, H), Godden (M)

Vercelli I

25

13

24

1

Morris^2) (B) Assmann (E, F, J, K)

Bückling VI Assmann XIII

3.2.19 3.2.20 3.2.21 3.2.22 3.2.23 3.2.24

E d itio n (s )

A

H o m ily re f.

B. no.

C am eron

7

6

B C

13

18

D

26

25

24

E

G

31

32

26

36

37 35

31

24 29 X c 21 25 30

F

H

44

43

17

15

M S d is tr ib u tio n

I

23 24

J

27

K

O(Hatton) 55

O(Hatton) 52 O(Hatton) 53 O(Hatton) 54 T 26 P(Cleopatra) 6; S 4 2

O(Junius) 33; see B.3.2.26

O(Junius) 3 3

M 16

fc

O th e rs

3.3.6 3.3.7

3.3.1 3.3.2 3.3.3 3.3.4 3.3.5

—

3.2.41 3.2.42 3.2.43 3.2.45 3.2.46 3.2.47 3.2.48 3.2.49 3.2.50

3.2.39 3.2.40

Brotanek Ker(2)

Morris(2) (B)

Brotanek II

Bückling XVIII

Skeat XXXIII

M orris^ Morris^2)

Bückling XI Bückling XII

15

14 12

Vleeskruyer Rypins (fi) N a p ier2 ' (I), Colgrave and Hyde ( f b), K erO ( f b) M o r r is^ (U ) Skeat

Wülcker

Napier^1) (B, K(1), N), Morris(2) (B), S zarm ach ^ (C), Belfour (I)

Vercelli XIII

Vercelli XII Vercelli X / Bückling IX / Napier XLIX

18

11 12

9

1

64 55

38

18

39

45

12

80

6

Ua W 44; f g 10

T 1 f g 11; f) 1 fb

P(Lambeth), 6, 7; Q c Xg a O(Hatton) 78; cf. B .2.3.6

X b 28; see B.3.4.27

O(Hatton) 2 3

3 3 /1 2 N (421) 9;

3.3.21 3.3.23 3.3.24 3.3.25 3.3.26 3.3.27 3.3.28

3.3.18 3.3.19 3.3.20

3.3.8 3.3.9 3.3.10 3.3.11 3.3.12 3.3.13 3.3.14 3.3.15 3.3.16 3.3.17

B . no.

C am eron

Assmann Keraet halige husul, t>aette \>xt waes aerest on dysum daege gehalgod mancynne eces lifes to wedde, fordan aeghwylc [>aera manna, se de ]3am rihtlice onfehd, aeghwylc J)aera onfehd eces lifes wed” with Ker 26 (152r, lines 2-7): “7 J?aer [at the altar] J)am halgan husle onfon, J)aet us is her on middanearde gesealde eces lifes to wedde . .. fordan aeghwylc [>ara manna se de J>am rihtlice onfehd aele J)aera onfehd eces lifes wed.” 60. The links here are slight, but echoes of the opening and close of Assmann XIII (lines 9-10: “he to manna fotum onhnah 7 his J)egna fet J)woh” and lines 258-61: “})a ongan he drihten heom endleofenum openlice his })a halgan J)rowunge secgan 7 eall J)a J)ing, J)e he wolde 7 geteohhad haefde, f>aet be him geweordan sceolde. Saeged man eft to merigenne, hu f>aet geworden waere”) may be intended in the (unpublished) preamble to Ker 25 (136r, lines 1-8: “7 he J)a georstandaeg to manna fotum onhnah 7 his discipula fet })woh. 7 he hi aefter J)an god faeder bebead swylce he him eac his }?a halgan [)rowunge

Old English Prose: Basic Readings

136

1 J>a wundorlican aerist 7 J)a eadigan upastigennysse. 7 ealle J)a J)ing J)e he wolde 7 geteohhod haefde, J)aet be him geweoröan sceolde, ealle he öa sweotolum wordum saede 7 mynegade”). 61. Note the reference to the closing of Christ’s tomb with a stone (Förster, p. 42, n. 197) added from Matthew to John’s account of the Passion. The Good Friday homily is based on the St. John Gospel, but Saturday’s sermon gives Matthew’s account of the resurrection, where the rolling back of the stone is significant. 62. Förster, pp. 35-36, lines 300-05 is in E, 147v-48r. 63. Noted by Arthur S. Napier, Contributions to Old English Lexicography, repr. from Transactions o f the Philological Society 1903-06; Förster; and Rudolph Willard, “Gleanings in Old English Lexicography,” Anglia 54 (1930): 8-24. 64. See K. Sisam, Studies. 6 5 .Ibid. 66. See Godden. 67. K. Sisam, Studies, p. 155. 68. Godden (p. xxxiii and n. 2) reports a similar situation in some iElfric items. Förster (p. 1), on the other hand, paired E and F against G in Vercelli I but was wrong to do so in that FG have in that homily alone fifty-six readings in common that are not shared by E. Where G departs from E and F is in minor details of spelling and syntax on which the scribe of G (or a predecessor) had independent views. A similar position in the Holy Saturday homily is reported by Ruth Evans in her unpublished Manchester M.A. thesis, an edition of that homily. 69. See Ker, p. 82, for details of western spellings in Part III; the book was later annotated by the tremulous hand. 70. One of the Part II scribes is the rubricator of Part I and another completed the last item in Part I; see Ker, ibid. 71. This usefulness is diminished slightly in that F and G lack some of the archaism of E because a common antecedent of F Part I and G underwent partial modernization.

Vernacular Homilies and Prose Saints ’Lives before Ælfric

137

72. See Pope, pp. 22-23. 73. Karl Jost ( Wulfstanstudien, pp. 221-36) considers their relationship. 74. The style and language of the anonymous section are typical of many early pieces and the date of the manuscript suggests composition no later than the tenth century. The piece is worthy of further linguistic study. 75. Pope, p. 23. 76. Godden, p. xxxii. 77. Ker, p. 56. 78. London, BL, Royal 6.C.i. 79. Forster’s stemma (p. 1) shows the relationship very differently, but he was relying on the fact that H, like A, lacks the preamble found in E (see above, p. 88). This does not mean, however, that H and A derive from a common source not shared by E, for H and A have different opening formulae (Forster did not have available Maier’s transcript of the opening in A that is now obscured in the manuscript; see C. Sisam, The Vercelli Book, pi. iv) and H throughout has readings in common with E where E and A diverge. Also some alterations and marginal additions in E by hands of the later eleventh century are incorporated into the text of H, a fact that leads me to assume that H derives from E. There is also evidence that H has attempted to make sense of part of the text corrupted by an intermediary between E and H. 80.1.e., it has a unique introduction and conclusion and is a muchconflated account compared with that of all other versions. It also has some significant spellings, e.g., three instances of ch within eighteen lines, which, in the context of relative conservatism in the manuscript as a whole, may point to a scribe writing more freely than usual (although it may simply indicate a different exemplar). 81. Godden (p. xxxv, n. 3) has suggested this, noting that other scholars at work on Vercelli XIX and XX disagree. I reached Godden’s conclusion independently, but a detailed examination of the evidence

Old English Prose: Basic Readings

138

(as for a number of statements made in this article) must await publication of my edition of the Vercelli homilies [= The Vercelli Homilies, EETS OS 300 (Oxford, 1992)]. 82. Ker, p. 99. 83. Godden, p. xxxvi. 84. Ker, p. 105. 85. For the details, see Godden, pp. xxxvii-xxxviii. 86. Arthur S. Napier, History o f the Holy Rood-Tree, EETS OS 103 (London, 1894). 87. See Scragg, “Compilation,” p. 201. 88. See Förster, line 109, AE leahtras, FGI (ge)öohtas (I-ces). There are other examples. 89. See the reprint of Die altenglische Version des Halitgar ’sehen Bussbucbes (sog. Poenitentiale Pseudo-Ecgberti), ed. Josef Raith, Bibliothek der angelsächsischen Prosa 13 (1933; repr., Darmstadt, 1964), pp. xli-xlvi. 90. Belfour 104.32-106.24 = Napier 283.18-284.17. (The references to Belfour are by page and line.) 91. See J.E. Cross, “The Dry Bones Speak—a Theme in some Old English Homilies,” Journal o f English and German Philology 57 (1957): 434-39. 92. Belfour 128.29. 93. J.E. Cross, “‘Ubi sunt’ Passages in Old English—Sources and Relationships,” Vetenskaps-Societeten i Lund Arsbok (1956): 25-44, esp. pp. 30-31. 94. See Pope, p. 18. 95. See Ker, p.374. 96. See Pope, pp. 48-52.

Vernacular Homilies and Prose Saints ’ Lives before Ælfric

139

97. See Willard, Two Apocrypha, pp. 31 ff. 98. Napier XL (182.2 variant reading): “ure drihten aelmihtig god us {ms singallice manaö and laereö jsurh his öa halgan bee, J)aet we soö and riht (N riht and soö) don her on worulde in urum life. . . .” Assmann XIV, lines 1-4: “ure drihten aelmihtig god us singalice mynegaö J)urh his halgan bee mid Ipam gastlicuw worduw, f>e he sylf mid his muöe bebead, pcet we synna and mandaeda forleton and soö and riht dydon J)a hwile, f>e we on {)yssu/w laenan life beon.” 99. Assmann XIV, lines 7-76. 100. Ibid., lines 76-112. 101. Ibid., lines 130-39. 102. The likelihood that it comes from a copy of Vercelli XV, rather than from a different translation of the Latin source, such as that in D and H (see above, p. 80), is strengthened by the fact that Vercelli XV in A is from the same source as that of Vercelli XVIII, which survives not only in A but also in B and C. 103. Assmann XIV, lines 112-30. 104. E.g., homoeoteleuton at Assmann XIII, lines 20-21. 105. Pope (pp. 42-48) shows how J and K (his N and O) are related to Xb (his M) that is from Winchester, but it is clear that J and K have a common ancestor not shared by the Winchester manuscript. Clemoes and Godden believe this to be a Canterbury or perhaps Rochester manuscript; see Godden, pp. 1-li. 106. Napier XLIX 252.19, variant reading. 107. See Ker, p. 403. 108. E.g., it supplies a phrase omitted by homoeoteleuton from the AE version. Compare Max Förster, “Der Vercelli-Codex CXVII nebst Abdruck einiger altenglischer Homilien der Handschrift,” Studien zur englischen Philologie 50 (1913): 21-179, esp. p. 109, line 1 (from A): “hasbbe aeghwylc siofon tungan” with L (not cited by Förster): “aeghwylc haebbe seofun heafdu f>ara aelc seofun tungan.”

Old English Prose: Basic Readings

140

109. The interpolation in L is parallel to Napier XL, 187.7-188.10. A ’s Vercelli II parallel with Napier XL ends at 188.2 (cf. Förster, p. 51, line 90). But after leaving Napier XL, L’s interpolation continues briefly with A’s Vercelli II (equivalent to Förster, lines 95-99). In other words L’s text appears to derive either from a fuller version of Vercelli II than survives in A or from a version of Napier XL that had more of the original Vercelli II homily in it than surviving copies show. 110. See Ker, p. 403. 111. See ibid., p. 399. On this quire as a “folded booklet,” see P.R. Robinson, “Self-Contained Units in Composite Manuscripts of the Anglo-Saxon Period,” ASE 7 (1978): 231-38. 112. On 81 v M has a sequence that parallels Vercelli I (Förster, pp. 32-34), lines 277-87. The account of the Passion in Vercelli I follows St. John’s Gospel closely, but at this point, where John misquotes a prophecy in Psalm 21:19 as Partiti su n t. . . , A is faithful to John while EFG correct to Diviserunt s ib i. . . , the reading of the psalm and of Matthew 27:35. M has this correction. If this is an indication that M is following the EFG revision of Vercelli I here, it is important to note that in the translation of the previous verse the Vulgate’s description of each soldier taking his share of Christ’s garments, unicuique militipartem, is represented in A as “aelcum hiora feowora his dael,” but in EFG the sense is clarified in “feng aelc to his daele.” M has “hiora aelcum his dael.” The relationship of the texts will be examined more fully in my edition of Vercelli I, but it is apparent here that M is drawing upon a text somewhere between those of A and EFG. 113. Napier 219.12-21 is from the unique introductory paragraph in A’s copy of Vercelli X (see above, p. 80 and n. 20). The other principal expansions are 217.31 -218.16,219.25-28,220.1 -6,9-20, and 25-29, and 221.7-223.16. M lacks a long section in N (Napier XLIII, 207.12-210.10) that is a series of sentences from Wulfstan on church dues (see above, p. 98). 114. See Fred C. Robinson, “The Devil’s Account of the Next World,” Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 73 (1972): 362-71.

Vernacular Homilies and Prose Saints ’ Lives before Ælfric

141

115. E.g., the introduction that defines the anchorite as living “on bebeigdan lande.” It should be noted that M ’s quotations from the opening of Vercelli IX at the end of its Ker 17 are not in L, which has a different opening from that of Vercelli IX in A and E. Probably M is closest to L because in the parts of the homily that are original to Vercelli IX, L’s text is more reliable than that in A and E (see above, p. 96). 116. Ker, p. 248. 117. Bethurum, p. 42. 118. Compare Napier XLII (202.15-19): “La hwaet, we nu ungesaelige syn, J)aet we us bet ne wamiaö wiö })one egsan, Jse toweard is, and Ipxt we us ne ondraedaö J)one toweardan daeg J)aes miclan domes. Se is yrmöa daeg and ealra earfoöa daeg” with Napier XL (187.7-9): “La hwaet, we nu ungesaelige syndon, J>aet we us bet ne wamiaö, and f>aet we ne ondraedaö us J>e swyöor . . .” and earlier (185.17-19): “La, hwaet J)enee we, J)aet we us ne ondraedaö J)one toweardan daeg j)aes micclan domes? Se is yrmöa daeg and ealra earfoöa daeg.” Napier XL is adapting Vercelli II here; see Förster, lines 43-44 and 78. Also compare Napier XLII (204.23-205.3): “Daer naefre leofe ne gedaelaö, ne laöe ne gemetaö, ne naefre daeg aefter daege, ne niht aefter nihte, ac J)aer biö ece bliss and ece wuldor and ece gefea mid urum drihtne and mid his {3am halgum heapum a on worulda woruld a butan ende” with Napier XL (190.1-6): “öaer naefre leofe ne todaelaö ne laöe ne gemetaö, ac t>ar halige heapas symle wuniaö on wlite and on wuldre and on wynsumnesse aefre. bar byö maerö and myrhö and ece blis mid gode sylfum and mid his halgum in ealra worulda woruld a butan ende” and with Vercelli II (Förster, p. 53, lines 145-48): “baer hie naefre leofe gedalaj) ne la{)e gesamniaj), ne naefre daeg ne cymeö aefter daege, ne niht aefter nihte. Ac t>aer biö ece leoht 7 blis 7 ece wuldor 7 ece gefea mid urum Dryhtne. . . .” 119. Napier 207.29-209.25 is from Napier XXIII (Cnut’s laws) and Napier XXII / Bethurum XIII. 120. Napier 214.12-13,214.21-215.3, and 215.9-12 are quotations from Vercelli IX.

Old English Prose: Basic Readings

142

121. See Bethurum XIII, line 86, where only N (Miss Bethurum’s B) is recorded as having the additional sentence “Baer is benda bite 7 dynta dyne; öaer is wyrma slite 7 ealra waedla gripe,” which corresponds exactly to Napier XLIII209.17-18. Similar unique correspondences can be found between Napier XLIII and Napier XXIII. 122. See Förster, “Der Vercelli-CodexCXVII,” p. 108, line 11-p. 109, line 3. 123. Napier XLIII 215.9-12 corresponds to Förster, “Der VercelliCodex CX VII,” p. 101, lines 10-14. Napier XLIV 225.13-226.8 corresponds to Förster, “Der Vercelli-Codex CXVII,” p. 100, line 20-p. 101, line 7 and p. 101, line 18-p. 102, line 10. 124. For details, see Jost, Wulfstanstudien, pp. 226-27. 125. E.g., Napier 185.2: NXd moege, OP mihte, Vercelli II moege\ Napier 185.15: NXd/>£FS willan ne (ge)wyrcan, OP nelladpees willan gewyrean. Vercelli II pees willan ne wyreeap. 126. See Napier 182.15 n. 127. The parallel between Napier XL and A’s copy of Vercelli II ends at Napier 188.2, but the paragraph from Vercelli II in L indicates that Napier XL as far as 188.10 is from Vercelli II as it originally existed. See above, p. 96. 128. Napier XLVI 232.23-233.1 and 239.9-12 = Napier LVIII 302.29-303.2 and 303.8-12; Napier XLVI 238.10-18 = Pope lines 114-21; Napier XLVI 241.13-242.1 = Napier XXX 151,15-27; Napier XLVI 241.8-13 = Napier XL 187.11-188.10. 129. Jost, Wulfstanstudien, pp. 240-41. 130. See Pope, p. 82. 131. Bethurum, pp. 9-11. 132. Pope, pp. 799-803. 133. Ibid., pp. 82-83. 134. E.g., in Napier XLIX: scecgan, acerdan (WS y), welm.

Vernacular Homilies and Prose Saints ’ Lives before Ælfric

143

135. Ker numbers the items in the two Hatton manuscripts in a single series. 136. The phrase oft 7gelome, typical of Wulfstan, occurs once, but the piece is not Wulfstan’s. 137. See Sermo Lupi ad Anglos, ed. Dorothy Whitelock, 3rd ed. (London, 1963), p. 22. 138. See Neil Ker, “The Handwriting of Archbishop Wulfstan,” in England before the Conquest: Studies in Primary Sources presented to Dorothy Whitelock, ed. Peter Clemoes and Kathleen Hughes (Cambridge, 1971), pp. 315-31. 139. Napier 134.12-135.25. See also above, p. 93, under Napier LVI in I, and above, p. 109, under the exhortation to confession in Xe. 140. Napier 136.1-5; see M.R. Godden, “An Old English Penitential Motif,” ASE 2 (1973): 221-39, esp. p. 226. 141. Napier 136.28-140.2. 142. Napier 140.3-141.25. 143. Napier 141.32-142.9 from Skeat XII. 144. Napier 142.26-143.2. 145. See Scragg, “Napier’s ‘Wulfstan’ Homily XXX.” 146. See ibid., pp. 204-05 and 207, n. 4. 147. Napier XXX 150.21-22 and 151.9-14 = Napier LVIII 306.8-14. On Xb see above, p. 108. 148. See Bethurum, p. 38. 149. See Sermo Lupi, ed. Whitelock, pp. 22-23. 150. Similar material, in independent translations, appears in homilies in C and JK. 151. See Ker, p.416.

144

Old English Prose: Basic Readings

152. Cameron B.2.3.6, ascribed to Wulfstan, but wrongly, since he was responsible only for the last paragraph. Placed after B.3.2.50 in app., above, p. 123. 153. See Willard, Two Apocrypha, and Trahem, “Caesarius of Arles,” p. 116. 154. Ker, p. 182. 155. See Paul E. Szarmach, “Three Versions of the Jonah Story: An Investigation of Narrative Technique in Old English Homilies,” ASE 1 (1972): 183-92. 156. For details, see Ker, p. 344. 157. For details, see ibid., p. 345. 158. See ibid., p. 438. 159. See ibid., p. 76. 160. See Cross, “ ‘Ubi sunt’ Passages,” pp. 32-33. 161. See Julius Zupitza, “Zu ‘Seele und Leib,’ ” Archivfiir das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen 91 (1893): 369-404. 162. See above, p. 102. Napier XXIX is not drawn independently from Macarius as Zupitza suggests, nor is it directly dependent on Vercelli IV as L. Whitbread supposed in “‘Wulfstan’ Homilies XXIX, XXX and some Related Texts,” Anglia 81 (1963): 347-64. 163. See Ker, p. 76. 164. Ibid., p. 23. 165. Pope, p. 38. 166. Ibid., pp. 38-39. 167. See St. Chad, ed. Vleeskruyer. 168. See Ker, p. 406. 169. See ibid., p. 355.

Vernacular Homilies and Prose Saints ’ Lives before Ælfric

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170. For a full discussion of the manuscript, see K. Sisam, Studies, pp. 199-224. 171. See Ker, p. 424. 172. See the introduction to the facsimile of London, BL, Cotton Claudius B.iv (The Old English Illustrated Hexateuch, ed. C.R. Dodwell and Peter Clemoes, EEMF 18 [Copenhagen, 1974]). 173. See M.R. Godden, “Old English Composite Homilies from Winchester,” ASE 4 (1975): 57-65. 174. Napier XXX 149.14-152.5. 175. See T.A.M. Bishop, English Caroline Minuscule (Oxford, 1971), p. xv, n. 2. 176. London, BL, Cotton Vitellius A.vii and Cotton Nero A.i. 177. Bethurum XV. Miss Bethurum (p. 346) postulates that Wulfstan did not translate the homily himself but “assigned the translation partly as an educational exercise to some member of his familia.” 178. But see also Bethurum, pp. 33-34. 179. “Ic eow bidde 7 eadmodlice laere. . . . ” 180. See N.R. Ker, “Three Old English Texts in a Salisbury Pontifical, Cotton Tiberius C i,” in The Anglo-Saxons: Studies in their History and Culture presented to Bruce Dickins, ed. Peter Clemoes (London, 1959), pp. 262-79, esp. 270. 181. Cf. Eduard Sievers, Karl Brunner, Altenglische Grammatik, 2nd ed. (Halle, 1951), §281.1, Anm. 3. 182. See Ker, p. 261, and “Three Old English Texts.” 183. E.g., Ker 44, Ralph d’Escures, and Ker 48 and 49, Honorius of Autun. 184. Rima Handley, “British Museum MS. Cotton Vespasian D. xiv,” Notes & Queries 21 (1974): 243-50.

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185. Napier XXII / Bethurum XIII, but slightly closer to the extract from this in the anonymous Sunday letter homily, Napier XLIII 186. See Godden, “Penitential Motif,” pp. 231-32. The parallel with iElfric’s De Penitentia cited by Pope (p. 772) is not so close, as Godden shows. 187. Godden (“Penitential Motif,” p. 237) suggests that the sentence shared by Napier XL VI and Pope XXVII may stem ultimately from JElfric. 188. The sentence common to Napier XXX and Pope XXVII may be from part of Vercelli IX now lost; see Scragg, “Napier’s ‘Wulfstan’ Homily XXX,” p. 204. 189. Jost, Wulfstanstudien, pp. 240-43 190. E.g., typical vocative phrases, such as pu wynsuma man, pu cedela wer, occur throughout. 191. See Pope, pp. 58-59. 192. See Godden, p. lvii. 193. Ker, pp. 226-27. 194. Repr. Ker, p. 229. 195. The importance of source studies is emphasized by a point made by Paul E. Szarmach, “Caesarius of Arles and the Vercelli Homilies,” Traditio 26 (1970): 315-23. He shows that Vercelli XI and XIV, which are linked by rubrics in the manuscript so that one is led to assume that they have been associated for some time, at one point translate the same Caesarian passage quite differently and are therefore unlikely to be by the same author. 196. E.g., Vercelli XVI, Vercelli XVIII / Blickling XVII, Blickling XI, and B.3.2.25 (in EFG) have variations upon the incipit “Magon we nu hwylcumhwego wordum secgan be. . . .” While undoubtedly there are links between these four pieces, both in terms of their language and of their manuscript associations, it has yet to be shown that they share linguistic or stylistic features found nowhere else.

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197. Hans Schabram, “Das altenglische superbia-Wortgut: eine Nachlese,” in Festschrift Prof Dr. Herbert Koziol zum siebzigsten Geburtstag (Vienna, 1973), pp. 272-79. esp. 273-75. 198. Undoubtedly the most useful is Hans Schabram, Superbia: Studien zum altenglischen Wortschatz (Munich, 1965). For further studies see Otto Funke, “Altenglische Wortgeographie (Eine bibliographische Überschau),” in Anglistische Studien. Festschrift zum 70. Geburtstag von Prof. Dr. Friedrich Wild (Vienna, 1958), pp. 39-51. 199. Helmut Gneuss, “The Origin of Standard Old English and iEthelwold’s School at Winchester,” ASE 1 (1972): 63-83. Gneuss is tantalizingly reticent when it comes to listing iEtheiwold’s lexical preferences because he is unwilling to anticipate the work of his students. Cf. further the theses he cites, p. 75, n. 4, and Mechthild Gretsch, ‘VEthelwold’s Translation of the Regula Sancti Benedicti and its Latin Exemplar,” ASE 3 (1974): 125-51. 200. While it is unlikely that Canterbury scribes had the sort of strict training postulated for those at Winchester under AThelwold, they may have had preferences suggested to them, and an analysis of a range of known Canterbury texts from the tenth and eleventh centuries might reveal these.

Addenda Many advances have been made in the scholarship of anonymous vernacular homilies since the above essay was published twenty years ago, notably developments in source study and the printing or re-editing of some items. In what follows, I have made no attempt to bring the overall bibliography of the subject up-to-date (for which see Janet Bately, Anonymous Old English Homilies: A Preliminary Bibliography o f Source Studies (Binghamton, N.Y., 1993), now corrected on-line at http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/rawl/batelyl/index.html. I merely correct in the text the few errors that I have detected and here add details that make the coverage of the original article more complete.

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Pages 75-77: Table. Add X1 Oxford, Bodleian Library, Hatton 115, fols. 148-155 f" London, British Library, Cotton Otho A.xiii, fols. 202-216 f 1 London, British Library, Cotton Otho C.i, vol. 2 f° London, Westminster Abbey, Muniment 67209 Page 78: V e r c e l l i III. For the source, see now James E. Cross, Cambridge Pembroke College MS. 25: A Carolingian Sermonary used by Anglo-Saxon Preachers (London, 1987) Page 78: V e r c e l l i IV (Ke r 4, B.3.4.9). It is now clear that R does not borrow material from Vercelli IV but that both are derived from a common ancestor, a translation of De Penitentia sometimes attributed to Ephrem the Syrian. The material in Vercelli IV, far from being the ultimate source of that in R, is a considerably expanded version of the translation. See Charles D. Wright, “The Old English ‘Macarius’ Homily, Vercelli Homily IV, and Ephrem Latinus, De Paenitentia,” forthcoming in a volume of essays in memory of J.E. Cross, ed. Thomas N. Hall, Thomas D. Hill, and Charles D. Wright; and D.G. Scragg, Dating and Style in Old English Composite Homilies, H.M. Chadwick Memorial Lecture 9 (Cambridge, 1999). Page 91: In G item 16, ^Elfric’s Second Series homily for the first Sunday in Lent, there is an anonymous pendant printed by Godden, p. 353. G item 38 has textual links with Vercelli homilies XIX, XX, and XXI. See D.G. Scragg, “An Old English homilist of Archbishop Dunstan’s day,” in Words, Texts and Manuscripts, ed. Michael Korhammer (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 181-92. G item 52 is again seen by Ker, p. 55, as a pendant to an Ailfric homily, but by its latest editor, Franz Wenisch, ‘Ww bidde we eowfor Godes lufon: A Hitherto Unpublished Old English Homiletic Text in CCCC 162,” in Words, Texts and Manuscripts, ed. Korhammer, pp. 43-52, as an independent piece. The opening six lines in Wenisch’s edition parallel part of Vercelli IX in L. Page 92: H item 45, which is printed in Eleven Old English Rogationtide Homilies, ed. Joyce Bazire and J.E. Cross (Toronto, 1982) as their no. 4, has similarities with a number of anonymous

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pieces, especially Vercelli IX (cf. lines 84-97), but cannot be shown to be related textually to any. Perhaps, like other twelfthcentury pieces, it represents a memorial reconstruction. Page 97: Ker 18. A fuller account of the composite nature of this piece is in my “ ‘The Devil’s Account of the Next World’ Revisited,” American Notes and Queries 24 (1986): 107-10, where it is shown that its author drew not only upon a version of Vercelli IX but on Vercelli XIX too. Page 106: MS U. The homily as it survives is post-iElfrician as it incorporates quotations from .Elfric; see The Old English Finding o f the True Cross, ed. and trans. Mary-Catherine Bodden (Cambridge, 1987), pp. 48-49. Page 111: Add:

X1. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Hatton 115,fols. 148-155

Ker 332, items 35-37 s. xii A series of notes on leaves added in two four-leaf quires that are independent of the rest of the manuscript. More than one twelfthcentury hand is involved, and there are three lines by the Worcester tremulous hand. The last of the notes (Ker 37) at the top of the recto of the last leaf, added in the late twelfth century, details the years spent by Adam on earth and in hell, which is taken ultimately from Vercelli homily XIX. Page 113: Add:

f . London, fo ls. 202-216

British

Library,

Cotton

Otho

A.xiii,

Ker 173 A manuscript destroyed in the Cotton fire that had, according to Wanley, thirteen homilies, one of them being a version of Vercelli III. Page 113: Add:

f . London, British Library, Cotton Otho C.i, vol. 2

Ker 182 s. ximed. Among eleventh-century additions to the translation to Gregory’s dialogues are homilies by ¿Elfric and one anonymous item, Ker 4, printed in David and Ian McDougall, “ ‘Evil Tongues’: A Previously Unedited Old English Sermon,” ASE 26 (1997): 209-29. The piece has non-West Saxon linguistic traits.

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Page 113: Add:

f°. London, Westminster Abbey, Muniment 67209

Not in Ker xi1 A narrow strip of parchment described in R.I. Page, “An Old English Fragment from Westminster Abbey,” ASE 25 (1996): 201-07. Only a word or two of each line can be read, but there is enough to recognize an otherwise unknown composite homily derived in part from Vercelli II / Napier XL and in part from B.3.2.29 in D and H. That which parallels Vercelli II / Napier XL is generally closer to the four surviving copies of Napier XL, but it has one phrase found only in Vercelli II, and in other details is independent of all surviving copies. The text that parallels B.3.2.29 is closer to the version in H than to that in D.

Homiliaries and Preaching in Anglo-Saxon England Mary Clayton Until recently the question of the uses and audiences of the Old English homiletic collections had not been discussed in any detail and had not even been recognized as a problem area. It was assumed that the Anglo-Saxon collections were intended for the use of priests preaching to their lay congregations on Sundays and feastdays. In his recent study of Anglo-Saxon preaching and theology, however, Gatch raised the question of “in what settings and by whom the sermon literature of the Anglo-Saxon church was used” and he showed that this neglected area was a complex one that required detailed consideration.1Gatch looked at the development of Latin homiliaries and at continental legislation concerning preaching, comparing them to Anglo-Saxon ecclesiastical legislation and homiletic collections. Since the appearance of his work, Rosamund McKitterick’s study of the Frankish church and the Carolingian reforms, in which an important chapter is devoted to Carolingian preaching, has considerably deepened our understanding of the issues involved.2Both Gatch and McKitterick show clearly that the surviving homiliaries cannot be regarded as homogeneous and that distinctions must be drawn between different types of collection. They disagree in detail, however, in the kinds of homiliaries they distinguish and in their views on the functions of the different types. In this article I should like to review these two studies and to look more closely at the Anglo-Saxon homiletic collections, the ways in which they were used, and the readers and listeners for whom they were intended. As a complete survey of all manuscripts containing AngloSaxon homilies would involve much repetition, I have chosen to 151

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concentrate on the three principal early collections, the Blickling Homilies, the Vercelli Book, and the two series of Catholic Homilies by JElfric.3Some consideration of the continental development of the genre is, however, first necessary. A homiliary can be defined as a collection of homilies, or texts commenting on passages from the Bible, that follows the order of the pericopes for the liturgical year.4 Homiliaries often include sermons (i.e., texts that treat of a doctrinal or moral theme, or comment on the significance of a feastday, instead of expounding a biblical text), but the principle of arrangement, the cycle of the liturgical year, remains the same. While preaching on the Bible was, of course, a patristic practice, largely the function of bishops, homilies were not originally collected into liturgically-arranged homiliaries. The first homiletic compilations were probably made in Africa, where Augustine’s homilies were collected and imitated, and by the fifth century these collections were being arranged in liturgical order. These homiliaries were then disseminated in the West, chiefly through Arles and Naples.5Hilarius, bishop of Arles from 429 to 440, and one of his successors, Caesarius (ob. 542), also composed homiliaries. Caesarius’ collection was innovative in that it was intended for the use of secular clergy in preaching to the people, thus reflecting a movement away from the episcopal monopoly on preaching to the laity. Another collection of homilies, which was of great influence upon later writers, was that of Pope Gregory the Great, who composed forty homilies on readings from the Gospels.6 By the sixth century, homiliaries were being employed in a new function, as readings in the monastic Office, as is evident from the Rule of St. Benedict.7The use of homiliaries in the Office, both in that of the monks and in that of the secular clergy, was probably the principal function of these collections throughout the Middle Ages. Readings from them formed part of the night Office on Sundays and feastdays, when the night Office consisted of three noctums rather than the one noctum of ordinary days. In secular usage there were three readings in each noctum, in monastic usage four. In St. Benedict’s time the readings of the first noctum appear to have been taken from the Old Testament, of the second from scriptural commentaries or homilies, and of the third from the New Testament (Acts of the Apostles, Epistles, and

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Revelations). The Gospel for the day was read after the Te Deum, which was sung after the third noctum. Because of the shortness of the New Testament readings in comparison to the readings of the other two noctums, they had to be repeated several times in the course of the liturgical year, and by the Carolingian period we find a new system, with the Old Testament in the first noctum and sermons and homilies in the second and third noctums. The New Testament took the place of the Old Testament in the first noctum at certain periods of the year, largely in the Easter season. Some collections strictly distinguish the sermons of the second noctum from the homilies of the third, but the distinction was not always maintained, perhaps not even always recognized. Paul the Deacon provided both a sermon and a homily for many of the occasions included in his homiliary, with rubrics distinguishing sermo and omelia.8 Ailfric, however, in his letter to the monks at Eynsham, directs that a homily on the Gospel should always form the reading of the third noctum (“in IIItiasede legimus de tractu euuangelii sicut in toto anno facimus”),9 but it is not at all clear whether the second noctum always consists of a sermon. The two are clearly distinguished only in the case of the feasts of saints, where the vita or an appropriate sermon was read in the first two noctums and a homily in the third: Omnibus uero festuitatibus sanctorum in toto anno legimus uitas aut passiones ipsorum sanctorum siue sermones congruentes ipsi sollempnitati & responsoria propria si habeantur, sin alias, alia congruentia canimus, & m tiam sedem de tractu euuangelii, sicut & ubique semper sum im us.^

Most of the early homiliaries show a marked African and Caesarian influence (Caesarius himself having been influenced by Augustine): the sixth-century homiliary of St. Peter’s in Rome, which was the main source for the homiliary of Alan of Farfa, compiled ca. 750; the homiliary of Agimond, from the beginning of the eighth century; the homiliary of Vienne, probably from the end of the eighth century; and the collection preserved in the tenth-century manuscript Vatican, MS lat. 3828.11 These and many later homiliaries make extensive use of earlier works, and they consist in the main of collections of patristic texts, arranged in liturgical order.

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A different method of composition was followed by Bede, who composed a collection of fifty homilies designed for use in the night Office.12Instead of including whole patristic homilies, Bede composed a single text for each occasion, using a variety of patristic sources. Bede’s collection and the other early homiliaries were to some degree superseded by the collection of Paul the Deacon, specially commissioned by Charlemagne for reading in the night Office. Charlemagne’s aims are obvious from his prefatory letter: Denique quia ad nocturnale officium compilatas quorundam casso labore, licet recto intuitu, minus tamen idonee reperrimus lectiones, quippe quae et sine auctorum suorum vocabulis essent positae et infinitis vitiorum anfractibus scaterent, non sumus passi nostris in diebus in divinis lectionibus inter sacra officia inconsonantes perstrepere soloecism os, atque earundem lectionum in melius reformare tramitem mentem intendimus. Idque opus Paulo diácono, familiari clientulo nostro, eliminandum iniunximus, scilicet ut, studiose catholicorum patrum dicta percurrens, veluti e latissimis eorum pratis certos quosque flosculos legeret, et in unum quaeque essent utilia quasi sertum aptaret.13

Paul did not attempt to emulate Bede’s independence, but instead chose whole texts from orthodox patristic authors, often offering several texts for one day. Most of the seventh- and eighth-century homiliaries, up to and including that of Paul the Deacon, seem to have been intended for use in the night Office and, apart from that of Bede, they incorporated whole patristic texts. The compilers of these homiliaries were responsible only for the choice of texts and of occasions to be covered. Many of the homilies of the fathers, as Barré points out, did not follow the text of the Gospel very closely: “les dicta patrum, hormis ceux de saint Grégoire et du vénérable Béde, ne suivaient pas de très près les passages de l’Écriture assignés à chaque jour liturgique.”14The early ninth century, however, saw the development of new collections. Barré has pointed to a type of collection that he, somewhat confusingly in view of Charlemagne’s responsibility for the homilary of Paul the Deacon, termed “Carolingian.”15By “Carolingian,” Barré seems to have meant primarily

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the homiliaries of the school of St. Germain of Auxerre, where Haymo, Heiric, and Remigius worked in succession, spanning a large part of the ninth century. The distinguishing feature of their work was the strictness with which they adhered to the genre of the homily: “L’originalité propre et la charactéristique principale des Homéliaires proprement ‘carolingiens’ est d’être en totalité constitués par des ‘homélies’ proprement dites, qui suivent, verset par verset et presque mot par mot, les lectures scripturaires de l’Office aux fins de leur intelligence spirituelle.”16 Barré regards these works as a manifestation of the Carolingian renaissance because of the originality and independence that mark the collections from Auxerre. They were composed using a variety of patristic sources, which were freely combined and abbreviated and to which original comments were added. The Auxerre homiliaries consist of liturgically-arranged, systematic, and sophisticated exegesis of the Gospel pericopes, with no sermon content. According to Barré, they were intended, not for use in the night Office, as their adherence to the Office readings would suggest, but for private devotional reading: “ils sont d’abord destinés à l’usage privé.”17Yet there seems to be no compelling reason why these homiliaries should not have been used in the Office in their original form. The homiliary of Haymo of Auxerre, for example, is not unlike Bede’s homiliary, which seems to have been composed for the monastic Office. The contents of Haymo’s homiliary conform exactly to what would have been required for reading in the night Office, even to the extent of supplying a homily for each day in the week after Easter. Although homilies were normally used only on occasions with three noctums, they were read in the single noctum of the week after Easter, as Ælfric explained to his monks: “In dominica pasee & in tota ebdomada illa legimus tres lectiones de tractibus euuangeliorum ipsius festiuitatis.”18Six of Haymo’s homilies and thirty-nine of Heiric’s were incorporated in the Migne version of Paul the Deacon,19 proving that there was nothing about these texts that rendered them unsuited to use in the night Office. It could even be argued that these collections could have developed partly as a result of the division of patristic readings into sermons for the second noctum and homilies for the third. This could well have given rise to an awareness of need for work that would faithfully interpret each part of the pericope. The later collection in

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which the works of Haymo and Heiric were combined with homilies on the Epistles is much more likely to have been used for private devotion.20The structure of that collection, however, is totally different from that of the original homiliaries of Auxerre and I would argue that those original homiliaries might very well have been used for the night Office. As well as these fully-fledged “Carolingian” homiliaries, there were other collections that were also composed in the Carolingian period and that can be seen as part of the movement towards the independent procedure of the Auxerre school. Some of these collections were equally scrupulous in restricting themselves to the interpretation of the biblical texts, but lack the degree of originality that is the hall-mark of the Auxerre school. The homiliary of Smaragdus (ca. 820) contains a homily on the Epistle and one on the Gospel for the principal occasions of the liturgical year, and in composing them he combined several different sources in each homily, assembling texts jig-saw fashion.21 Smaragdus was much freer in his method of composition than was Hrabanus Maurus in his otherwise similar homiliary, which he compiled ca. 855 at the request of the emperor Lothar.22Lothar requested a volume with suitable devotional reading for the liturgical year and Hrabanus’ work, which was probably never completed, provides a homily on the Epistle and one on the Gospel for each occasion. In its method of composition, it was like the collection of Paul the Deacon, rather than the “Carolingian” homiliaries: Hrabanus followed patristic sources very closely, usually simply transcribing them, and only sometimes adding “un mot d’introduction, quelques lignes supplémentaires ou un petit ‘fervorino’ final.”23 With its inclusion of homilies on the Epistles from the beginning and its provision of homilies for many weekdays, this homiliary, like that of Smaragdus, can hardly be intended for the night Office: it was primarily for Lothar’s personal use. The correspondence between Hrabanus and Lothar relates the collection to the Mass, not the night Office: Epístola vestra, quam mihi misistis conquerentes, quod non haberitis idoneam expositionem lectionum divinarum atque evangelicorum capitulorum, quae per totum annum in missarum celebrationibus in ecclesiis Dei leguntur, exhortantes parvitatem meam, utdediversorum patrum opusculis eolligerem ea, que ipsi inde tractando ediderunt, atque in unum volumen eolligerem. . .

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It would seem, then, that the volume was intended largely for private devotional reading. Besides collections for the night Office and collections for private devotion, there were other ninth-century continental homiliaries aimed to a much greater extent at the laity. Such collections of texts for preaching to the laity are the first homiliary of Hrabanus Maurus, compiled between 814 and 826 and dedicated to Haistulf, archbishop of Mainz;25the homiliary of St. Père de Chartres, so-called after its earliest manuscript (a tenth-century one), written after 820;26and the homiliary of Landpertus of Mondsee, composed between 811 and 813 and dedicated to Hildebald, archbishop of Cologne.27 The homiliary of Würzburg, copied in the second quarter of the ninth century and originally consisting only of works by Caesarius of Arles, belongs to a much older type of collection and I therefore leave it out of consideration here.28 The homiliaries of Hrabanus, St. Père, and Landpertus are all in some degree akin to the “Carolingian” homiliaries in that the compilers did not simply transcribe patristic texts, but combined different sources in most of their homilies. The same independence, then, manifests itself in homiletic collections intended for different types of audience, although these collections have much more sermon material in them. Hrabanus Maurus’ collection consists of seventy texts, the first forty covering the church year and the other thirty on general subjects, suitable for delivery at any time. The St. Père homiliary covers the church year and a commune sanctorum: Barré thought that it originally consisted of the first seventy-seven texts in the earliest complete manuscript, Cambridge, Pembroke College, MS 25 (of which items 56-63 are sections of the same text);29 Cross thinks that all ninety-six texts in the manuscript belonged to the collection from the beginning.30The disputed texts consist of extracts from Hrabanus’ De clericorum institutione and general sermons. Some of the texts in the homiliary are copies or abbreviations of earlier works; many are compiled from different sources: “Rarement, l’auteur pratique la citation continue. D’ordinaire, il combine entre eux les textes qu’il emprunte ici et là, et il y insère volontiers des passages de l’Ecriture, des Antiennes liturgiques, des rappels doctrinaux ou des exhortations pratiques.”31 The Mondsee collection, of

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which about half is lost, originally contained one hundred forty homilies, covering the temporale and sanctorale. The collections appear to have been designed as a practical help to the preacher and contain much pastoral advice. They are presumably the results of the well-documented Carolingian attempts to ensure adequate preaching throughout the empire; the councils, in imitation of Caesarius of Arles, explicitly decreed that this should be undertaken by ordinary priests and not only by bishops, and that it should be comprehensible to the people. These collections, therefore, appear to contain the written equivalent of what would have been preached to the people in the vernacular.32 Hrabanus’ collection and that of St. Père are characterized by a high sermon content, by limiting themselves to the most important occasions of the church year, and by the relatively unsophisticated level of exegesis they include. It is impossible to read Hrabanus’ homiliary and doubt that it was intended for the laity. Homily XIX, for instance, begins: “Oportet, fratres charissimi, ut convenais istius causam non ignoretis, quo, secundum patrum præcedentium constituta, omnes in unum viri et feminæ, pueri et senes, convenistis.”33 It was clearly used in connection with the Mass as some homilies contain a reference to the prior reading of the Gospel or to the Mass: Hodiemæ celebritatis observatio quid nobis innuas, non incongruum videtur, fratres charissimi, inter hæc sacra missarum solemnia vobis breviter exponere, quia aliqui vestrum hujus festi rationem sciunt.34 . . . Sacratissimæ festivitatis, fratres, charissimi, quam hodie celebramus, lectiones sacræ quæ inter hæc missarum solemnia recitatæ sunt, pandunt exordium.35

Gatch has suggested that preaching to the people took place in the context of the Prone, a vernacular Office usually placed after the Gospel.36 Although he adduces no evidence for its existence in this period, it must have been in this context or in one like it that texts such as Hrabanus’ were preached. Hrabanus’ exegesis is fairly basic and by no means all of his forty homilies for specific occasions are exegetical, but he does set out to explain the Gospel as well as offering general moral advice and explanation of the Christian faith, as in his commentaries on the Pater noster and the creed. His preface sets forth his intentions:

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Jussionibus tuis obtemperans, beatissime Pater, sermonem confeci ad prædicandum populo, de omnibus quæ necessaria eis credidi; hoc est, primum qualem observantiam deberent habere in festivitatibus præcipuis quæ sunt in anni circulo, ut vacantes ab opere mundano, non vacui fierent a verbo divino, sed cognoscentes Dei voluntatem, factis earn implere studerent. . .

The homiliary of St. Père seems to have been compiled with similar aims; Barré considers that “cet homéliaire entend fournir aux prêtres des modèles et des suggestions pour leurs allocutions au peuple chrétien; de là, enseignements doctrinaux, exhortations morales, explications d’ordre liturgique et récits édifiants sur la vie des Saints.”38 The unpublished collection of Landpertus of Mondsee, like that of Hrabanus, was dedicated to his archbishop qui doit sans cesse exhorter ses fidèles et ses prêtres. Aux uns et aux autres, il prêche la fuite du péché, la pénitence, les vertus chrétiennes, l’amour de Dieu et du prochain, la prière, l’aumône et le désir confiant de la récompense éternelle. Aux prêtres, coopérateurs de Dieu et médecins des âmes, il rappelle la grandeur et les devoirs de leur charge, leur recommandant, avec instance, le détachement du monde, l’humilité, la chasteté, l’hospitalité, la concorde et la paix.

This homiliary differs from those of Hrabanus and St. Père in its emphasis on the instruction of the clergy as well as the laity, thus providing for both aspects of the archbishop’s role as pastoral guide. The texts in this collection follow the pericopes much more closely than those in the homiliaries of St. Père and of Hrabanus. The scope of this collection is also much larger than that of the other two and it covers days on which one would not normally expect the laity to be preached to, including some week-days (and probably all the week-days in Lent), vigils, and feasts not usually kept by the people. The homiliary ends with two sermons, In conventu sacerdotum (138,139) and one headed Item unde supra vel ad sanctae (sic) moniales. Landpertus composed his texts by drawing on Gregory, Bede, Ambrose, Jerome, Pseudo-Chrysostom, Augustine, Chromatius of Aquileia, Caesarius of Arles, Eusebius of Gaul, and some others. Almost all of the texts seem to be exegetical, but with much moral teaching interspersed. As these homilies have not yet been

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published, it is difficult to be certain about their intended function and audience. We do not know whether only a limited number of the texts in this sophisticated collection was intended for the laity, with others intended for the priests, or whether the entire collection was intended for a mixed audience of lay people and clerics. If this is so, then many of our opinions about Carolingian preaching would have to be revised. Within the corpus of Carolingian homiliaries, therefore, it is possible to distinguish collections for use in the night Office; collections for private devotional reading by monks, secular clergy, and, presumably, devout and literate lay people; and collections for use in preaching to the ordinary (and, one gets the impression, not very devout) laity. It is important, I think, to realize that these three types of homiliary existed, a fact that is obscured in the analyses of both McKitterick and Gatch. McKitterick distinguishes two types: one for private devotion and a second, designed to be read in the Office, that was “an intrinsic part of the liturgy and potentially therefore an important means of instructing the people.”40She regards collections like that of Hrabanus Maurus as freer versions of these homiliaries for the Office and does not differentiate them sufficiently from, for example, Paul the Deacon, arguing that “it is unlikely that the Frankish clergy failed to make full use of this collection made by Paul the Deacon for public preaching, even though the content of the sermons in the collection must have made paraphrase, summarization and simplification for the benefit of a lay audience necessary in many instances.”41 Gatch, on the other hand, is extremely skeptical concerning any use of exegetical homilies for preaching to the people: the legislators seem to have in mind catechetical rather than exegetical preaching— s e r m o n e s not h o m ilice , to make a terminological distinction which seems not to have been made by the framers o f Carolingian legislation. By “catechetical preaching” I mean general instruction on fundamentals o f the faith which, like missionary preaching, need not have a liturgical setting. The directives o f the canons on preaching put relatively little emphasis on biblical exposition but do stress precisely the subject matter o f catechesis: the interpretation o f the Creed and the Lord’s prayer, morality and its eschatological sanctions, and explanation o f the liturgy.42

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While Gatch mentions collections like that of Hrabanus and St. Pere, he never explores their importance as evidence of preaching to the laity and thereby neglects their chief function. Both these views ignore the existence of a distinct genre of ninth-century collections for preaching to the laity, which combines exegesis with strong moral prescription. The distinctions between these three different types of homiliaries were clearly not rigid, however, and texts could be used for purposes other than those for which they were originally written. The boundaries between genres must have been quite fluid. When we turn to England, it is clear from the vernacular texts that a range of Latin homiliaries must have been available before the Conquest. Homilies are among the sources used by the compiler of the Old English Martyrology, probably in the ninth century.43 The circulation of the early, African-influenced homilies can be deduced from such texts as Blickling I, which translates an African Christmas homily.44 The works of Caesarius of Arles are prominent among the sources for Old English homilies.45Source studies have established that Ailfric made extensive use of Paul the Deacon’s homiliary46 and he himself acknowledges his debt to Haymo and Smaragdus.47 Only three or four Latin homiliaries written in England survive from before the year 1000, but a considerable number survives from the eleventh century;48 some of these may reflect post-Conquest importations, but they probably reflect, on the whole, the kind of collection available to the Anglo-Saxon church. Among these Latin homiliaries written in England, the prominence of Paul the Deacon is striking. These eleventh-century copies of Paul are in general fairly like the original, but, like almost all later versions of this homiliary, they have been expanded. The version of Paul the Deacon to which jElfric had access seems to have been an augmented one also, not dissimilar to some of the eleventh-century manuscripts written in England. There is no trace of Smaragdus,* although we know JElfvic used him, or of either of Hrabanus Maurus’ collections, and the Carolingian homiliaries for preaching to the laity are represented only by the homiliary of St. Pere de Chartres, of which we have one complete copy, one fragment, and a collection of twelve texts excerpted from it. The homilies of Gregory the Great are well represented among the surviving

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collections. There are two Haymo manuscripts, one of which is merely a fragment. I include here a list of the Latin homiliaries written in England, taking manuscripts up to the late eleventh century into account. Manuscripts with texts for feasts of saints only have been excluded, except where they are culled from Paul the Deacon and reflect the reorganization of his homiliary into a temporale and a sanctorale. Collections of sermons not arranged in liturgical order, such as Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley 229, which consists of sixty-six sermons de verbis Domini by Augustine, or the homilies on the Old Testament by Origen in Durham, Cathedral Library, B.III. 1, have not been taken into account. CUL, Ii.2.19 and Kk.4.13 are companion volumes from Norwich from the end of the eleventh century. They contain the homiliary of Paul the Deacon, rearranged into a temporale and sanctorale. The first volume covers the temporale from Easter Saturday to the fourth Sunday after Epiphany, the second from Septuagésima to Easter Saturday, with the sanctorale from the feast of St. Stephen (26 December) to that of St. Andrew, followed by a commune sanctorum. CCCC 69 is a late eighth- or early ninth-century copy of Gregory’s homilies on the Gospels, perhaps from Northumbria. Cambridge, Pembroke College, 23 and 24 are companion volumes of the second half of the eleventh century from Bury St. Edmunds. A large number of the texts comes from Paul the Deacon, whose homiliary is rearranged here into a temporale and sanctorale. The temporale (MS 23) covers from Easter to Advent, the sanctorale (MS 24) from Philip (3 May) to Andrew (30 November), followed by a commune sanctorum. Cambridge, Pembroke College, 25 contains a copy of the homiliary of St. Pére de Chartres, written in Bury in the second half of the eleventh century. It covers from Advent to the feast of St. Andrew, followed by a commune sanctorum. Canterbury, Cathedral Library, Add. 127/1 is a fragmentary copy of the pars aestiva of Paul the Deacon, with some other texts, from the

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first half of the eleventh century. It contains homilies for the Decollation of St. John the Baptist, the Nativity of the Virgin, the feasts of Matthew, Michael, All Saints, and a confessor, and three texts for the dedication of a church. Ker suggests that two leaves in Kent Co. Archives, Maidstone PRC 49/2, are probably part of the same manuscript, and they contain one complete homily and parts of two others, for the fifth Sunday after Easter and for Rogationtide, from the homiliary of Haymo of Auxerre.49 Canterbury, Cathedral Library, Add. 127/12 is an early eleventhcentury fragment with a complete text for the Purification of the Virgin and part of a homily for Septuagésima. The Purification homily is that beginning “Conveniendum e s t. . . ” from the homiliary of St. Pére de Chartres and, as the Septuagésima text is the homily that follows the Purification text in this collection, Ker suggests that the whole homiliary was a copy of that of St. Pére de Chartres.50 Durham, Cathedral Library, A.III.29 is an eleventh-century homiliary based on Paul the Deacon, divided into a temporale and a sanctorale, that covers from Easter to the twenty-fifth Sunday after Pentecost and saints’ days from Philip and James (3 May) to Birinus (5 December), with texts for the commune sanctorum also. Either it or its exemplar probably comes from Winchester, as it has texts for the two feasts of St. Swithun, one for Birinus and one for iEJjel^ryJ). Durham, Cathedral Library, B.II.2 is an eleventh-century, very faithful copy of Paul the Deacon that originally covered Sundays and feastdays from Advent to Easter but is now incomplete at each end, covering from Christmas to Good Friday only. Durham, Cathedral Library, B.II. 11 is a late eleventh-century homiliary, containing the Homiliae in Evangelio of Gregory the Great and thirty other homilies, many of which are by Haymo of Auxerre and which cover the period from the second weekday after Pentecost to the twenty-sixth Sunday after Pentecost.

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Old English Prose: Basic Readings Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland, Advocates 18.7.8 is a late eighth-century palimpsest with fragments of Gregory’s homilies. Lincoln, Cathedral Library, 158 is a late eleventh-century copy of Paul the Deacon that covers from the beginning of Lent to the Saturday of Holy Week and saints’ days from the feast of the Conversion of St. Paul (25 January) to the feast of St. Andrew (30 November), followed by a commune sanctorum. Lincoln, Cathedral Library, 182 is a late tenth- or early eleventhcentury copy of Bede’s homiliary, which lacks three of the texts. It comes from Abingdon. London, BL, Cotton Vespasian D.ii is a late eleventh- or early twelfth-century manuscript containing penitentials, canons, Adso’s DeAntichristo, and a collection of sermons. The sermons are in liturgical order: one each for Advent, for Christmas, for Epiphany; three for Quadragesima; one each for Palm Sunday, for Holy Thursday, for Good Friday; two for Easter; one each for Rogation, for Pentecost, for the September Ember Days; and a series of general sermons. London, BL, Harley 652 is a late eleventh- or early twelfth-century homiliary from St. Augustine’s, Canterbury. Many of the texts are from Paul the Deacon, who provided the basic structure of the collection, but there are many additions and departures. It covers the temporale from Easter Saturday to the fourth Sunday after Epiphany, followed by texts for feasts of saints and archbishops of Canterbury. London, BL, Royal 2 C.iii is a late eleventh-century copy of Paul the Deacon from Rochester, covering the temporale from Septuagésima to Easter and the sanctorale from St. Stephen to Andrew, followed by a commune sanctorum. London, BL, Royal 5 E.xix is a late eleventh-century manuscript from Salisbury, containing the Liber sinonomi of Isidore of Seville, fourteen homilies, twelve of which are in the homiliary of St. Père

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de Chartres, though in a different order, and two commentaries on the Song of Songs. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley 314 is a late eleventh- or early twelfth-century copy of the homilies of Gregory the Great, from Exeter. Salisbury, Cathedral Library, 132 is a late eleventh-century copy of Gregory’s homilies. Salisbury, Cathedral Library, 179 is a late eleventh-century version of Paul the Deacon, covering the temporale from Easter to the Sunday after Ascension Thursday, followed by the Commune Sanctorum and homiles for the season from Rogationtide to the feast of All Saints. Worcester, Cathedral Library, 92, 93, and 94 are companion volumes, the first covering the temporale of Paul the Deacon from Advent to Easter, the second from Easter to Advent and the third the sanctorale from the feast of St. Philip and James the Less (3 May) to St. Andrew (30 November), followed by a commune sanctorum. Worcester, Cathedral Library, Q.21 is a tenth-century copy of Gregory the Great’s homilies on the Gospels, from Worcester. Old English homiletic manuscripts survive from a period only slightly earlier than the bulk of the Latin homiliaries copied in England, the earliest dating from the end of the tenth and the beginning of the eleventh centuries. They were written in a period when we have evidence, very similar to that of the Carolingian decrees, of a concern with the teaching function of the clergy. Pastoral letters written by Ailfric and Wulfstan and the homilies themselves show that great stress was placed on the necessity of teaching the people.51 As in Carolingian Gaul, this teaching was not the function of the bishops only but also of the priests, although the story about a foreign monk rebuking Wulfstan of Worcester for preaching before he became a bishop shows that not

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even this could be taken for granted everywhere at this period.52 In Fehr IV, the first Old English letter for Wulfstan, TElfric draws no distinction between the teaching function of the bishop and of the priest: “Begen hi maessiad and mannum bodiaó.”53 In the homilies also TElfric defines the teachers of the people thus: “Ac óam lareowum J)aet is biscopum. and maessepreostum. and gehwilcum godes óeowum . . (CH 11.36, p. 308, lines 120-21). The importance of preaching to the laity is stressed in Blickling IV (p. 47), which declares that the people must come to church and implies that the instruction they will receive there includes the Gospel (presumably in the vernacular): & baer ba godcundan lare lustlice gehyran. Ne sceolan ba lareowas agimeleasian ba lare, ne J^aet folc ne sceal forhycggan \>xt hi to him hi geeaf)medon, g if hi willon Godes forgifnesse habban; forbon baer mon baet godspel saegb, maniges mannes heorte bib onbryrded. . . .

TElfric, in his letter to Bishop Wulfsige, says that Se maessepreost sceal secgan sunnandagum and maessedagum \)&s godspelles angyt on englisc bam folce. And be bam pater nostre and be bam credan eac, swa he oftost mage, bam mannum to onbryrdnysse, b^t hi cunnon geleafan and heora cristendom gehealdan.^4

It is evident that priests did preach to the people, therefore, but what is less certain is whether the collections of vernacular homilies that survive represent this preaching or whether there was differentiation within the vernacular texts comparable to that which can be seen in the Carolingian Latin texts. The three earliest surviving collections of vernacular homilies are three from the end of the tenth century, the Vercelli Book, the Blickling manuscript, and the so-called Catholic Homilies of iElfric. The first two collections seem to have been assembled from a variety of sources, and contain anonymous homilies whose date and place of origin are uncertain. We still lack the evidence to determine whether the majority of these texts are early and date from the pre-reform period or, like the work of iElfric, were the product of the Benedictine reform. After these collections, we have a variety of manuscripts from the eleventh and twelfth centuries, mixing works by

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iElfric with those of the anonymous tradition. As the three principal collections present different problems, I should like to consider the function and audience of each separately. The Blickling Homilies are a collection of eighteen homilies, or fragments of homilies, preserved in a manuscript of the end of the tenth or the beginning of the eleventh century, which is the work of two scribes. Eight of these texts are unique; the other ten, or fragments of them that were incorporated in composite homilies, occur elsewhere, most notably in Oxford, Bodleian Library, Junius 85 and 86 and CCCC 198, part II.55 The homilies are not the work of one person: Clemoes observes that “single authorship can be ruled out from the start on stylistic grounds.”56 The texts themselves are difficult to date and the only reference point offered by the manuscript is the year 971, mentioned in homily XI.57This proves only that this homily was copied in that year into a different manuscript, which may or may not have been the original, and that the Blickling scribe did not update his text as he copied, although an earlier scribe may have done so. Attempts have been made to date the collection very early and Vleeskruyer, for example, wished to date the homilies before 900, on the grounds of the “archaic vocabulary shared by all the homilies.”58 Such a judgement cannot be accepted, however, without a fuller examination of the language of the texts and the reviews of Celia Sisam and Alastair Campbell show that greater caution is required.59Schabram also points out that the homilies cannot be dated by vocabulary alone, but he agrees that Vleeskruyer’s arguments demonstrate, at least partly, that the homilies are not much later than 950.60He concludes that the texts were probably composed ca. 875 to 925. Even this should be treated with circumspection, however, as it is extremely difficult to date developments in nonWest-Saxon dialects and, as the homilies have different authors, they may well have been composed over quite a long period of time. The provenance of the homilies is generally thought to be Mercian, again mainly on the basis of vocabulary studies. Menner, for example, gives a list of generally accepted Anglian words and concludes that they prove that the homilies were composed in Anglian, with a few possible exceptions.61 Schabram’s deductions from the words for superbia are similar to Menner’s: “Die Geschichte der BH von den postulierten anglischen

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Originalen über mehr oder weniger friihe westsáchsische Zwischenstufen bis zur überlieferten Aufzeichnung um die Jahrtausendwende spiegelt sich in der Zusammensetzung ihres superbia-VJoriguXs wider.”62 The Blickling collection begins and ends imperfectly (probably five quires are missing at the beginning). Its complete scope cannot therefore be assessed, but Clemoes suggests that “it is reasonable to assume that [the lost beginning] contained homilies for any, or all, of Advent, Christmas or Epiphany.”63 The collection as a whole is a mixture of Gospel exegesis, sermon, and saint’s life. The manuscript as we now have it contains homilies assigned by Willard to the Annunciation, Quinquagesima, the first, third, fifth, and sixth Sundays in Lent, Easter, Rogation Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, Ascension, Pentecost, the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, the Nativity of John the Baptist, and the feasts of SS Peter and Paul, of Michael, Martin, and Andrew. Of these, items two to seven and the homilies for Michael and Andrew have contemporary rubrics. The sources for the homilies, not all of which are known, include Gregory the Great, Caesarius of Arles, Sulpicius Severus, Paulinus of Aquileia, some pseudo-Augustinian homilies, and apocryphal acts.64 Gatch could point to no Carolingian collection analogous to the Blickling homilies, although he recognized that “if more were known of Carolingian and pre-Carolingian homiliaries, one might expect from the organization and consistency of the document at hand to discover that it had its analogue in Latin.”65 The Carolingian homiliaries written for preaching to the laity, which Gatch unaccountably neglects in his consideration of Carolingian preaching, do, however, provide such analogous collections; and it is useful to compare the homiliary of St. Pére de Chartres and that of Hrabanus Maurus with Blickling. Both in liturgical structure and in their choice of texts, these two collections, particularly St. Pére, are very similar to the Blickling homilies. Although like Blickling in arrangement, St. Pére is a larger collection: partly because it is complete and includes items for Advent, Christmas, St. Stephen, John the Evangelist, the Nativity of the Innocents, Circumcision, Epiphany, Purification, Septuagésima, and Sexagésima, some of which were probably contained in the lost beginning of Blickling, and partly because it covers more occasions. It begins with the

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texts just listed, then covers Lent, Easter, Octave of Easter, Rogation Days, Ascension, Pentecost; then comes a series for saints’ days, beginning with the Nativity of John the Baptist and covering all the feasts for which there are homilies in Blickling, as well as some other saints’ days. After Andrew, where Blickling ends abruptly, St. Père has a series for the common of saints. Both homiliaries, therefore, cover what Barré calls “un cadre liturgique assez réduit.”66 They agree in covering the major feasts of the temporale until Pentecost, followed by a series for saints’ days. Neither includes the Sundays after Pentecost or (except for the Octave of Easter in the Carolingian homiliary) after Easter. The Annunciation homily in Blickling is the only text in either collection for a saint’s day in Lent. The two seasons after Easter and Pentecost were represented only by a homily for the Octave of Easter in the first homiliary of Hrabanus Maurus also, although his later collection, dedicated to the emperor Lothar and intended primarily for private devotion, covers many of the occasions excluded from the first homiliary. In contrast, Paul the Deacon and Haymo cover all the Sundays after Easter and Pentecost. St. Père and Blickling are similar, too, in the type of texts on which they draw. Both collections contain a large amount of sermon material, as does that of Hrabanus. St. Père uses Gregory the Great, the apocryphal acts of the saints, and, especially, Caesarius of Arles and texts like those of Caesarius that circulated under the name of Augustine.67 Blickling also uses Gregory (for homilies II and III) and it favors the type of moral exegetical sermon that circulated under Augustine’s name, rather than those with purely exegetical and more sophisticated theological commentary. Again, this choice of source material is very similar to that of Hrabanus’s first homiliary. Related to this question of source material is the function of Rogationtide in these collections. Gatch has suggested that if one examines as well the non-Ælfrician sermons in le ta n ía m a io r e , he has the impression that this season became in the late-Saxon church a conventional collecting-place for general catechetical and parenetic or hortatory sermons— a stress which is not, so far as I can z:o discover, discernible in continental homiliaries.

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It is true that this stress is not marked in collections like that of Paul the Deacon or Haymo, but both St. Père and Hrabanus, largely because of their extensive use of Caesarius, are similar in this respect to Blickling and the other anonymous homilies and Ælfric. This emphasis on “general catechetical and parenetic or hortatory sermons” is natural for the penitential season of Rogationtide, and the same type of material is used in these collections for Lent, the other major penitential season. Another characteristic feature of St. Père is the extensive use it makes of narrative texts for feasts of the saints. Hrabanus also uses them to a certain extent: the homilies for the feasts of St. Michael and St. Martin are almost all narrative and his other texts for saints’ days use narrative to a lesser degree. In contrast, Paul the Deacon employs either sermons on the saint or homilies on the pericope (or, very often, both) and the “Carolingian” homiliaries employ homilies on the pericope when they include saints’ days, but neither uses narrative. This use of saints’ lives orpassiones mainly in homiliaries for preaching to the laity is presumably due to the fact that the monks, although they read such texts in the night Office and in the refectory, read them principally from legendaries or passionals, not homiliaries. We do have some homiliarylegendaries, which incorporate both genres,69 but they appear to have been kept separate in most cases. As the Mass was probably the only context in which the people received regular religious instruction and as all the necessary texts appear to have been contained in the homiliary, these collections for preaching to the laity contained a mixture of homilies and saints’ lives. This use of narrative is again a feature that links Blickling with St. Père and Hrabanus Maurus. St. Père is even more similar to Blickling in that the narrative texts it includes are often the apocryphal acts or lives of the saints. Although it is possible to trace the gradual addition of such apocrypha to collections that did not originally contain them, St. Père is very unusual in its inclusion of them from the beginning. For the feast of the Assumption, for example, St. Père employs the apocryphal account known as Transitus C, one of the two accounts combined in Blickling; for the feast of the Nativity of the Virgin, an occasion not covered in Blickling, it uses a translation of the Greek Protevangelium Jacobi. It would seem, therefore, that the compiler of Blickling had a model similar to the homiliary of St. Père in mind. The Carolingian homiliary

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is not a source of Blickling, the individual texts of which are, in any case, by different authors. It is significant that the closest analogues are collections specifically designed for the laity; the texts in Blickling suggest that they were also composed with a lay congregation in view. Homily X, for example, begins with what must be an address to a general congregation: “Men 6a leofostan, hwast nu anra manna gehwylcne ic myngie & laere, ge weras ge wif, ge geonge ge ealde, ge snottre ge unwise, ge f>a welegan ge {>a Jsearfan. . . ” (107). Homily V treats of evil judges and the crimes of what are obviously lay people. An interesting text from this point of view is homily IV: this deals with the necessity to pay tithes to the poor and “to Godes cyrican, J>aem earmestan Godes J)eowum J>e J>a cyrican mid godcundum dreamum weorf>ia6” (41). The homilist’s insistence that tithes should be given only to those who “heora hadas mid claennesse healdan, & Godes lof mid rihte began willaj)” (43) leads on to a disquisition on the duties of bishops and priests, drawing on the Apocalypse o f Paul to describe the punishments reserved for the ministers of God who fail to guide the people correctly. This text, therefore, appears to address all sections of society, ecclesiastics and lay people. Although they seem to have been written as preaching texts, these homilies could, of course, also have been used for devotional reading. It would appear, then, that we have in Blickling a collection of homilies for preaching to the people, probably in connection with the Mass, similar in general outline to continental collections. Vercelli, Biblioteca Capitolare, CXVII, or the Vercelli Book, is a manuscript containing a mixture of religous prose and poetry, which seems to have been compiled in the south-east of England. It was written by a single scribe, who drew on a number of earlier manuscripts that probably also came from the south-east.70 As Celia Sisam points out, the physical make-up of the book shows that it was not copied consecutively, but that texts were transcribed piecemeal as they became available.71 Ker dated the book to the second half of the tenth century, and Celia Sisam has attempted to narrow down this date further, wishing to push it forward to the very end of the tenth century or even the beginning of the eleventh.72 She bases her argument on a passage from homily XI describing the spoliation of churches by kings, bishops, and ealdormen, which she considers could not have been written before the anti-monastic reaction that began after Edgar’s death in 975. Scragg

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does not take the precise nature of the accusation in homily XI into account, but he has again upheld the usually accepted earlier date, arguing that it is supported by paleographical evidence in particular.73 However, even if we assign a date as late as the millennium to the manuscript, it is evident that older sources were used in its compilation. The manuscript contains six poems and twenty-three homilies: homily I is on the passion and could have been originally intended for Good Friday (to which it is assigned in CCCC 162, CCCC 198, and Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley 340); II is a general penitential sermon, dealing with Judgement Day; III is for Lent; IV is another penitential and Judgement Day text; V and VI are for Christmas; VII is a general sermon; VIII, IX, and X are penitential and Judgement Day texts (VIII and IX are found elsewhere for the first and second Sunday after Epiphany and X for Rogation Tuesday); XI, XII, and XIII are for Rogation Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday; XIV is a general sermon, perhaps also for Rogationtide; XV is on Judgement Day; XVI for Epiphany; XVII for the Purification; XVIII for the feast of St. Martin; XIX and XX for Rogationtide; XXI is a penitential and Judgement Day sermon; XXII is a general sermon; and XXIII is on St. Guthlac. The Vercelli Book itself is not a homiliary: the manuscript as a whole is not arranged in the order of the liturgical year, which it makes no systematic attempt to cover, and it would, therefore, have been difficult to use for reading matter on liturgical occasions. Kenneth Sisam aptly characterizes it as “essentially a reading book,”74 and it seems to reflect the personal interests of the compiler in its emphasis on “penitential and eschatological themes,”75texts being chosen as a result of the compiler’s interest in their subject matter rather than a need to cover particular feast days. While some items (V, VI, XI-XVIII) have rubrics, many more do not, and what rubrics there are seem to have been taken over from the exemplars, in accordance with the scribe’s normal habit of slavish copying. Gatch’s view that “among other survivors of the Anglo-Saxon age, the book is sui generis”16 is undoubtedly correct, and this estimate could be extended to include the Carolingian collections, as even those intended for private reading follow the order of the church year. His further tentative suggestion that the book is similar to the tradition of the florilegium, or commonplace book,77since developed in 6 Carragain’s attribution of it to the genre of the ascetic

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florilegium, seems the most satisfactory means of explaining the origins of the collection.78 6 Carragain has shown that the compiler collected texts which had a clear ascetic significance, and he ensured throughout his collection a regular recurrence o f texts describing the Last Judgement. These two classes o f items in fact are different facets o f the same preoccupation: the Last Judgement items provided the strongest possible motivation for responding to the advice to be found in the intervening ascetic material.79

The Vercelli Book can be divided into distinct sections, with texts, that, at least in some cases, came from the same exemplar, being copied into the manuscript in blocks. The clearest cases of groups from a single exemplar are those distinguished by Scragg, who argues that homilies VI-X came from a south-eastern collection of the second half of the tenth century, homilies XV-XVIII from a Mercian collection, and homilies XIX-XXI from a late West-Saxon one. Homilies XI-XIV, too, came from one exemplar.80It is difficult to know what kinds of collections were drawn on by the Vercelli compiler. 6 Carragain has suggested that many of the items could have previously circulated in booklets, and this theory seems a plausible one for many of the items in the manuscript.81 It is, however, perhaps unlikely that exegetical homilies would have circulated in this manner; a priest was much more likely to build up a small booklet collection of general sermons that could be used at will, like the many penitential texts in the manuscript, than one consisting of homilies restricted to one occasion in the year. Even when the source texts circulated in larger collections, at least some of these were clearly not homiliaries following the church year. The Vercelli numeration indicates that homilies VI-X, for example, followed each other directly in the exemplar from which they were copied:82 of these, only VI is rubricated (one would expect rubrication of all items in a homiliary) and, while homilies VIII-X are liturgically assigned in other manuscripts, they are presented here as general sermons, for no specific occasion. Even if they were originally intended for the occasion to which they are assigned in other manuscripts, they could not have followed each other directly in a homiliary (a gap from the second Sunday after Epiphany to Rogationtide would be inconceivable). Not

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one of these texts is a homily expounding a pericope: all are sermons, apart from VI, which recounts the miracles at the time of Christ’s birth. Although the two sets of Rogationtide items in the Vercelli Book could have come from homiliaries, they could probably also have circulated independently. Had homilies XI-XIV circulated as part of a larger collection one would have expected the Vercelli compiler to have copied other items, but this block of texts includes only Rogationtide items (if one accepts Celia Sisam’s convincing suggestion that homily XIV was also for Rogationtide as, despite its general rubric, it opens with a Rogationtide formula).83 The group XIX-XXI consists of two Rogationtide sermons and one general sermon, all without rubrics, and it is unlikely for that reason to have been copied from a homiliary. The source collection behind homilies XV-XVII, however, does seem to have been a liturgically-arranged homiliary, containing a familiar mixture of exegesis, sermon, and saints’ lives. These texts are all rubricated in the Vercelli Book, which suggests that they could have come from a homiliary, and they are headed: “alia omelia de die iudicii, omelia epiffania domini, de purificatione sancta maria” and “de sancto martino confessore.” They share features of layout and language.84 The first rubric clearly refers to a preceding homily on the Last Judgement, but this is not homily XIV, headed “larspel to swylcre tide swa man wile.” The reference is presumably to a Last Judgement homily that preceded this one in the exemplar. As the other three homilies are all designed for particular occasions in the church year, arranged in the correct order, it seems likely that this reflects the nature of the source. If so, the three homilies were probably not grouped together there, but were separated by other texts. While the homilies for the Epiphany and the Purification could have followed each other directly, it is unlikely that they would have been followed by a text for the feast of St. Martin on 11 November. The best Anglo-Saxon parallel for the structure of this hypothetical source is probably CCCC 178, of the first half of the eleventh century, which has miscellaneous homilies, including one on the Last Judgement, followed by a set of homilies for particular occasions, in liturgical order, as the scribe points out in his colophon: Her geendaò seo forme boc.7 her æfter onginö seo oöer boc. on aegöer para boca synd tw elf spell, unleaslice; Das spell stondaö on

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jnssere forman bee. J)a man maeg seegan loca hwaenne man wylle. ac J>a spell \>e standad on (jissere aefteran bee. man sceal seegan on t>am dagum Ipe hy to gesette synd.85

Hrabanus Maurus’ homiliary, with forty homilies for the church year, followed by thirty that could be delivered at any time, also springs to mind. The homiliary that lies behind this part of Vercelli seems, like most of the Vercelli homilies, to have been written for a lay audience that is exhorted to give alms and pay tithes: burh has lare, brodor mine, 7 hurh das daeda, ha he ure maessepreostas us taecah 7 laerad, [x>nne sceolon we hone w eg eft gefaran to heofonarice 7 to ham heofonlican ham. Ac uton we nu forhan, men, ure sylfra lif mid mycle egesan 7 mid mycle behygdnesse geseon, 7 sceawian ure sylfra lif, 7 geearnian we mid godum daedum, \ ) x t is honne mid claene aelmessan 7 mid leohte to urum ciricean 7 to urum maessesteallum 7 mid urum rihtum teodum daelum 7 mid godum gehohtum 7 mid hyllicum daedum we magon ha heofonlican rice begitan.86

The homiliary behind Vercelli XV-XVIII contained, therefore, exegetical homilies written for a lay audience. Of the other Vercelli homilies only I (on the Passion) and V (a homily To middan wintre based on Gregory) are also exegetical. Most of the anonymous texts avoid biblical exegesis but these three, together with some of the Blickling homilies (I, II, III, VI, XI, XII, and XIV) are exegetical or at least combine exegesis with the type of moral exhortation typical of most of the anonymous homilies. As the Vercelli and Blickling texts almost certainly predate ¿Elfric, Gatch’s argument that Ailfric was doing something new in using biblical exegesis in preaching to a lay audience needs qualification.87 Although there are obvious differences in the quantity and quality of Ailfric’s homilies, the conception of a homiliary in the vernacular was not a new one in the 990s. Anonymous AngloSaxon collections, themselves probably influenced by earlier Latin homiliaries, anticipated JEIfric in this respect. These anonymous Anglo-Saxon collections probably provide the best context in which to view Aslfric’s work, produced between about 990 and 1010. ¿Elfric, who was trained as a monk and priest in the Old

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Minster at Winchester, the center of the Benedictine reform, under ^EJ>elwold, went to the monastery of Ceme Abbas in Dorset ca. 987 and became abbot of another new monastery, Eynsham, in 1005. His first work seems to have been the two series of Catholic Homilies, and he then wrote or translated De temporibus anni, the Grammar, parts of Genesis, the Colloquy, the Interrogations, the Lives of the Saints (a collection that included some sermons and Old Testament homilies), the Hexameron and other parts of the Old Testament, homilies for occasions not covered by the Catholic Homilies, and pastoral and other letters.88 I shall be mainly concerned here with the two series of Catholic Homilies. The first series was probably written in 989 and sent to archbishop Sigeric of Canterbury in 992 or, at least, by 994; the second series was sent to Sigeric in 995.89 The collections were to be read in alternate years or, “si alicui melius placet” (CH I [Preface], p. 2), both series could be rearranged to form one book, to be read in the course of one year. iElfric himself describes the two collections in his English and Latin prefaces to both series; in his first preface he describes this homiliary and the planned second one thus: Quadraginta sententias in isto libro posuimus, credentes hoc sufficere posse per annum fidelibus, si integre eis a ministris Dei recitentur in ecclesia. Alterum vero librum modo dictando habemus in manibus, qui illos tractatus vel passiones continet quos iste omisit; nec tamen omnia Evangelia tangimus per circulum anni, sed ilia tantummodo quibus speramus sufficere posse simplicibus ad animarum emendationem, quia seculares omnia nequeunt capere, quamvis ex ore doctorum audiant (CH I [Preface], pp. 1-2).

Each series, therefore, contains forty texts, some of which are divided into two parts, and includes homilies on the Gospel (and, although ¿Elfric does not say so, sometimes the Epistle) pericopes, saints’ lives, and sermons. The saints’ lives are the “passiones uel uitas sanctorum ipsorum, quos gens ista caelebre colit cum ueneratione festi diei,” as iElfric says in the preface to the Lives of the Saints,90 in describing the Catholic Homilies. It should be pointed out that iElffic clearly regards his works as two separate homiliaries. Gatch tends to view them as one homiliary with an arrangement that “running from Christmas to Advent

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in two cycles of pieces for the Temporale and the Sanctorale seems to be uncommon, if not unique,”91 but in fact iElfric’s arrangement is similar to Blickling and many other homiliaries. iElfric seems to envisage two uses for his work: one is reading aloud in church, the other private reading. A private reader is implied in, for example, the remark in the homily on Job: “Gif hwilc gelaered man })as race oferraedde, odde raedan gehyre.. . ” (CH 11.30, p. 267) or in the note inadvertently preserved in a First Series manuscript: “Quidnecesse est in hoc codice capitula ordinare, cum prediximus quod xl. sententias in se contineat? excepto quod ^ e lw e rd u s dux vellet habere xl. quattor in suo libro” (CH I [Preface], p. 8). Atyelweardus dux, iElfric’s literate lay patron, presumably wanted his copy for private devotional reading, just as later he and his son were foremost among those who requested that Ailfric should translate some of the lives of the saints for their use. The “legentium vel audientium” of the preface also suggests private reading (CH I [Preface], p. 1). Some of these readers could probably read only English, as the preface’s reference to those who understand only English seems to apply to both readers and listeners. The second, and more important, function is reading to a lay audience (“seculares”) that would not understand any language but English: “quo facilius possit ad cor pervenire legentium vel audientium, ad utilitatem animarum suarum, quia alia lingua nesciunt erudiri, quam in qua nati sunt” (CH I [Preface], p. 1). The laity is clearly implied in the exhortations to pay tithes, to come to confession and to Mass, to follow the church’s teaching on sexual behavior. The context in which iElfric envisages this happening is the Mass or something intimately connected with the Mass: the preface says “in ecclesia” and the homilies themselves contain several references to the Mass: “Micel magon gebedu. mannum fremian. be dam sprasc se pistol x t dyssere maessan. J>aet we sceolon andettan. ure synna gelome. . . ” (C H II.l9, pp. 188-89, lines 274-76); “Nu wylle we eow gereccan be dam halgum godspelle J)e man aet dyssere maessan eow aetforan raedde” (CH 11.29, p. 255, lines 4-6). Gatch suggests that even iElfric’s own title Liber sermonum catholicorum indicates that he regarded his works as sermons for a general congregation and he argues, because of his reluctance to believe in largescale exegetical preaching to the laity, that “perhaps it may also be said

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that the exegetical homilies are in fact sermons.”92 The title, however, cannot be seen as evidence of ^Elfric’s intentions: he does not appear to use the term homilía at all and in the preface to the Catholic Homilies he terms his exegetical texts “Evangeliorum tractatus,” which is exactly how he describes the homilies read in the night Office in his letter to the monks of Eynsham: “in IIItia sede legimus de tractu euuangelii sicut in toto anno facimus.”93 In that letter, too, he terms the night Office readings “sermones.”94In sending his two collections to the archbishop of Canterbury, however, iElfric was following a practice well attested on the continent in connection with pastorally oriented homiliaries; Hrabanus Maurus, for example, dedicated his collection to his archbishop who was, one assumes, intended to disseminate it as well as to give it his approval, as did Lantpertus with his homiliary. This dedication, therefore, places ^Elfric’s homiliaries in the context of general preaching to the people, rather than the monastic one of the night Office. The limited number of texts in each series, with the omission of many Sundays, and the often-expressed wish to simplify the content of the exegesis likewise indicate that ¿Elfric’s two homiliaries are analogous to the continental collections for preaching to the laity. The inclusion of the lives and passions of the saints is a further trait that connects the Catholic Homilies with collections like St. Pére de Chartres and Blickling; ¿Elfric’s own description of the Catholic Homilies in the preface suggests his own awareness that such narratives were not a selfevident part of a homiliary: “Nec solum Evangeliorum tractatus in isto libello exposuimus, verum etiam sanctorum passiones vel vitas, ad utilitatem idiotarum istius gentis” (CH I [Preface], p. 1). In thus combining these two different genres in one collection, yElfric was departing from the procedure of his source-collections: Paul the Deacon, Haymo, and Smaragdus, the homiliaries he used, all exclude saints’ lives. For these, ¿Elfric turned to a legendary, identified by Zettel as the collection that he terms the Cotton-Corpus legendary.95 Godden has suggested that /Elfric’s incorporation of saints’ lives in the Catholic Homilies was due to his knowledge of the earlier vernacular collections such as Blickling and has demonstrated that JElfric very probably knew such collections,96but Latin homiliaries for preaching to the laity, rather than to the monks, may also have influenced him in this. It is also, of

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course, possible that these different collections were responding more or less independently to the same needs. All of these features, then, suggest that iElfric’s two homiliaries were intended for preaching to the laity, and this corresponds to the standard view among literary historians of the context in which the Catholic Homilies were used. Kenneth Sisam, for example, says that Adffic “wanted to supply the English clergy with a foundational book which would cover the principal occasions for preaching”97and “as a masspriest it would be |7Elfric’s] duty to preach to an ordinary congregation; and we should think of the Catholic Homilies not as literary exercises but as, in the main, a two years’ course of sermons actually preached by iElfric, and later revised and made available for other priests.”98 Sisam’s assumption that a priest was allowed to preach is certainly justified; but the question of whether or not monks preached to a lay congregation is much more problematic, since in theory monks were totally enclosed. Monks were undoubtedly ordained, originally in small numbers, as is obvious from the Rule of St. Benedict, which clearly envisages a tiny minority of ordained monks. The practice became increasingly common, however, and by the Anglo-Saxon period it is probable that most oblates, at least, would proceed to the priesthood.99 In theory, these monastic priests should serve only their own monasteries, and they should remain cloistered and separate from the outside world. JElfric himself is very definite about the necessity for monks to live apart: “Mynstermannum gedafenad. J>aet hi on stilnysse heora lif adreogon” (CH 11.20, p. 195, lines 186-87), occupied by a life of prayer “se godes |?eowa sceall symle for us gebiddan.”100 Knowles states categorically that the monks in England did not engage in pastoral work: Whatever may have been the case in the early days o f the conversion o f England, and again during the Celtic monastic missions in Northumbria, it may be taken as a principle throughout the centuries covered by these chapters that the monks o f England took no share whatever in the work o f preaching or administering the sacraments to layfolk outside the walls o f the monastery. Although the distinction between priests who were also monks and the secular clergy was less emphasized in pre-Conquest England than in later times, and although it is probable that isolated monks, and in particular the priors o f

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Old English Prose: Basic Readings cathedral or pilgrimage churches, took a share in administering the sacraments on occasion to visitors, especially before the Conquest, the normal abbey church and cathedral monastery was intended primarily for the use o f monks, and was in no sense a parish church.101

Knowles’ views are, however, open to question and it is probable that they are over-influenced by the theory of the period. The practice may have diverged considerably from the contemporary ideal and recent historians have moved away somewhat from Knowles. Barlow, for example, say that “it became not unusual for monasteries to supplement the parochial work of a sparse and sometimes remiss priesthood.”102The monks may not have undertaken much pastoral work outside the monasteries (monastic bishops are obviously an exception to this), but there is evidence of the laity invading the monastic churches to a much greater degree than Knowles thinks probable. Many monastic churches seem to have functioned as parish churches and cathedrals (in many cases this was, of course, the original function of these buildings). Knowles quotes Canterbury as an instance of a cathedral without a font, implying that it could not, therefore, have been used as a parish church,103 but even here the church of St. John, where baptisms took place, must also have been served by the monks of the cathedral monastery. The two buildings seem to have been connected by a covered way and St. John’s contained the bodies of the archbishops, which the monks would not have allowed to be alienated.104 The Regular is concordia takes for granted that the laity will be present at the chief Mass in the monastic church on Sundays and feasts: chapter 23 says that on Sundays “Tertia peracta, mox signorum motu fidelem aduocantes plebem missam incohent”105 and on Good Friday the people, as well as the monks, venerate the cross: “Nam salutata ab abbate uel omnibus cruce, redeat ipse abbas ad sedem suam usque dum omnis clerus ac populus hoc idem faciat.”106 ^Elfric’s letter to the monks of Eynsham indicates that the people will communicate with the monks on Holy Thursday (one of the three swigdagas before Easter when the people were allowed to receive communion): “Postquam salutent ipsa uascula sancta, communicet omnis populus. . . .”107 His Life of Swithun, too, shows how closely linked the lives of the monks were with those of the laity and the extent to which the laity used the monastic church, in this

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case the Old Minster.108 TElfric describes it as full of the sick seeking cures and the walls as being entirely covered with the crutches and chairs of the cured cripples. The monks, TElfric among them, were repeatedly roused from their beds to sing a Te Deum whenever a miraculous cure took place, sometimes as many as four times in the one night. As well as having their churches sought by the laity, the English monasteries also owned secular churches, for the appointment of whose priests they were responsible,109 and this would, of course, have added to their close contact with the pastoral care of the ordinary people. With such a degree of contact with the lay people, it is hard to believe that the monks would not have made any attempt to instruct them or to preach to them. Although the Libellus de diversis ordinibus et professionibus qui sunt in aecclesia is a twelfth-century continental production, its picture of the monastic church full of lay people, whether or not the monks like it, seems also to fit the evidence from Anglo-Saxon England: Video enim aecclesias illorum [o f the monks] uelint nolint a fidelibus frequentari, assidue eos missas cantare, frequenter euangelium predicare, ad sermonem faciendum in aecclesia cogi, peccata populi de carbone diuini altaris tangere, et annuntiare “populo scelera” sua-----110

Although Sisam’s views fit badly with the theory of the period, it seems probable, therefore, that they are close to the practice. The English monks seem to have been far more in touch with and concerned about the spiritual state of the laity than might be expected from their monastic state. It would seem, then, that JElfric intended his homilies to be read at Mass by bishops and priests, both secular and monastic. Yet, as Gatch demonstrates, there are distinctly monastic elements in the homiliaries, leading Gatch himself to argue that the Catholic Homilies may originally have been written for a monastic audience and only afterwards adapted for a lay congregation.111 Gatch himself points primarily to the exegetical content, which is not enough in itself to indicate a monastic audience, but it is evident from the homilies themselves that the audience was not intended to be limited to the laity. An obvious instance of a text that is aimed chiefly at monks is the second part of the two-part homily for the Nativity of Paul in Catholic Homilies I. This is a translation and short exposition of Matthew 19:27-29, on the apostles’

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renunciation of everything to follow Christ and the rewards they would receive for this. Monks, for AHfric, are like the apostles: Des cwyde belimpd swyde to munuchades mannum, da 6e for heofenan rices myrhde forlaetad faeder, and moder, and flaesclice siblingas. Hi underfod manega gastlice faederas and gastlice gebrodru, fordan de ealle J3aes hades menn, de regollice lybbad, beod him to faederum and to gebrodrum getealde, and haer-to-eacen hi beod mid edleane Ipxs ecan lifes gewelgode. ha de ealle woruldding be Godes haese forseod, and on gemaenum dingum bigwiste habbad, hi beod fulfremede, and to dam apostolum geendebyrde. (CH 1.27, p. 398)

AHfric goes on to discuss the case of a monk who “on mynstres aehtum mid facne swicad,” of one who “mid twyfealdum gedance to mynsterlicre drohtnunge gecyrd” and of one who “on muneclicere drohtnunge earfodhylde bid” (CH 1.27, pp. 398-400). The homily ends: “Is nu fordi munuchades mannum mid micelre gecnyrdnysse to forbugenne das yfelan gebysnunga, and geefenlaecan ham apostolum, \>xt hi, mid him and mid Gode, J^set ece lif habban moton” (CH 1.27, p. 400). AHfric therefore turns the exposition into a sermon directed largely at the monks and the text seems to imply a monastic audience. It is striking, particularly in the First Series, how often AHfric addresses himself to the monks in one half of one of his two-part homilies; the example of the text for the Nativity of St. Paul has already been mentioned, and the Gospel exegesis in the homilies for the feasts of St. Michael and All Saints also contains passages directed exclusively at the monks: Se de genealaehd halgum hade on Godes geladunge, and siddan mid yfelre tihtinge ohhe mid leahterfullre drohtnunge odrum yfele bysnad, and heora ingehyd towyrpd, honne waere him selre J^aet he on woruldlicere drohtnunge ana losode, honne he on halgum hiwe odre mid him f)urh his dwyrlican Jjeawas to forwyrde getuge. (CH 1.34, p. 514) i>urh hafenleaste and on gaste synd hearfan da fullfremedan munecas, J)e for Gode ealle ding forlaetad to dan swide, haet hi nellad habban heora agenne lichaman on heora anwealde, ac lybbad be heora gastlican lareowas wissunge; and fordi swa micclum swa hi her for

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Gode on hafenleaste wuniad, swa micclum hi beod eft on dam toweardan wuldre gewelgode. (CH 1.36, p. 550)

These passages are not typical of the Catholic Homilies as a whole and ¿Elfric seems to have felt that in one part of a two-part homily he was free to address himself to a greater degree than usual to the monks in the congregation. Some of the texts also seem to have been aimed at the secular clergy: Godden has pointed out that the Second Series homily In natale plurimorum apostolorum “is concerned almost entirely with the duties of the clergy and is presumably aimed at the clergy therefore.”112iElff ic seems to have had the secular clergy specifically in mind; the word sacerd is used of them and it appears from a passage in CH 11.20 that by this he meant primarily a secular priest: Biscopum and sacerdum gedafenad. \>&t hi heora lare gymon. and dam folce heora dearfe secgan; Mynstermannum gedafenad. Ip&t hi on stilnysse heora lif adreogon. (CH 11.20, p. 195, lines 186-88)

(CH 11.20 is itself composed of an admonitory vision—a warning to priests not to accept gifts from the sinful—of particular concern to the sacerdos.) This aspect of the Catholic Homilies may be associated especially with their use by bishops, who were responsible for the secular clergy. Fehr IV, ¿Elfric’s first Old English letter for Wulfstan, begins with a statement of the necessity for all bishops to preach in English to their clerics: Vs bisceopum gedafenad, J^aet we \>a boclican lare be ure canon us taecd and eac seo Cristes boc, eow preostum geopenigan on engliscum gereorde; forbon-be ge ealle ne cunnon bast ledan understandan.113

¿Elfric was extremely aware of the shortcomings of these clerics: “Efne nu bes middangeard is mid sacerdum afylled. ac swa deah on godes geripe feawa heora beod wyrcende” (CH 11.36, p. 305, lines 34-36), and he insists that they should at least teach by example, if they cannot instruct in doctrine: “Gif se sacerd ne maeg dam laewedum mannum larspel secgan. huru he sceal burh his lifes unsceddignysse him wel bysnian” (CH 11.36, p. 306, lines 66-68). It is obvious, too, from the

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condescending remarks of Byrhtferd of Ramsey about the clerics who spend their time playing dice and have no knowledge of Latin or even the basics of computistics that they were badly in need of instruction.114 Although, therefore, iElffic’s primary concern in the Catholic Homilies appears to be the lay congregation, it is easy to find passages directed at either the monks or the secular clergy. This aspect of the Catholic Homilies is readily understandable if we bear the English situation of the monastic bishop in mind: Sigeric, after all, was such an archbishop and Winchester had monastic bishops throughout ^Elfric’s time. Such bishops would rule over secular clerics and monks. But it is not only occasional passages in the Catholic Homilies that connect them with the monks; certain aspects of their structure also point in this direction. Despite all the features that link iElfric’s work with the homiliaries for preaching to the laity, there are others that seem to draw on monastic homiletic traditions. We know that iElfric was acquainted with the monastic homiliary of Paul the Deacon because he used it as his main source for the Catholic Homilies. The inclusion in Catholic Homilies II of two homilies (one of them two-part) dealing with the Old Testament is a characteristic of monastic homiliaries, as the Old Testament was read during the night Office, not at the Mass. Paul the Deacon, for example, includes an Old Testament homily for each of the Sundays of Lent. Ailfric’s homilies are on the books of Exodus and Job, Exodus for the Sunday in mid-Lent and Job in September. In his letter to the monks of Eynsham, Ailffic points out that, following monastic custom: “Media uero quadragessima, legimus exodum” and “in kalendis septembris legimus iob duobus ebdomadibus.”115Even the non-liturgical rubric to his Job homily shows that it falls outside the liturgical arrangement of the Sundays after Pentecost: “Dominica.I. in mense septembri. quando legitur lob.” The beginnings of both Old Testament homilies, distinguishing between the monastic “we” and the lay “ge,” imply that JElfric was more than usually hesitant about making this material available to the laity: Mine gebrodra. We raedad nu aet godes denungum be dan eadigan were IOB. nu wille we eow hwast lytles be him gereccan. for dan J>e seo deopnys daere race oferstihd ure andgit. and eac swidor \>xra ungelaeredra; Man sceal laewedum mannum secgan be heora andgites rnaede. swa b®t hi ne beon durh da deopnysse aemode. ne durh da langsumnysse geaedrytte. (CH 11.30, p. 260, lines 1-6)

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MEN DA LEOFOSTAN we rædaô nu æt godes ôenungum ymbe gesetnysse (îære ealdan .æ. Nu wylle we eow sume geswutelunge be ôære gecyônysse sceortlice secgan. Jjæt ge eallunge \>æs andgites orhlyte ne syn. for ôan ôe ure mæô nys. J)æt we eow be fullum andgite hi geopenian magon. ne ge eac nateshwon hire deopan digelnysse fulfremedlice understandan ne magon. (CH 11.12, p. 110, lines 1-6)

Both of these homilies, for which the prefaces to the Catholic Homilies in no way prepare us, go beyond the normal scope of a homiliary for preaching to the laity and cover material related to the Office, rather than to the Mass. Two of the two-part homilies in the Second Series devote one part to a feast not normally celebrated by the laity: XVIII has a short text for the feast of the invention of the Cross and one for the secondary feast of Alexander, Eventius, and Theodolus; XXVII provides texts for James the Apostle and for the feast of the Seven Sleepers, kept two days later by the monks only. Here again, therefore, Ælfric is going beyond the limits of a homiliary for preaching to the laity, and beyond his own description of his collections in the prefaces. Another feature that is not characteristic of homiliaries for preaching to the laity is the occasional treatment of the Epistles: the First Series homilies for the first Sunday in Advent and for Pentecost are devoted entirely to the Epistle, for example, and half of the two-part homilies for the Nativity of Paul in Catholic Homilies I and for the feast of Peter in Catholic Homilies II expound the Epistle. Despite the restricted scope of each series, Ælfric covers two of the Sundays after Easter in Catholic Homilies I and he covers some of the Sundays after Pentecost in each series, unlike St. Père, Hrabanus, and Blickling. These “monastic” features, which are in general more marked in the Second Series than in the First Series, are included in two homiliaries whose scope and most of whose contents associate them with preaching to the laity. What Ælfric appears to be doing, therefore, is combining some of the characteristics of two different homiletic traditions. The most plausible explanation for this is that Ælfric, when writing, had the Winchester or Ceme type situation in mind, where the laity would have been preached to in the monastic church, with the monks also present. The milieu of the Catholic Homilies does not seem to be either monastic

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or lay, as Gatch thinks, but both together, and the texts quoted earlier show that such a situation must have been relatively common after the Benedictine Reform. If we assume that the Catholic Homilies are texts that would have been used to preach to the laity and the monks together, then many of the seeming anomalies disappear. This allows for the discussion of the duties of the monks and clerics, as well as admonitions on such matters as tithes, which are appropriate only to the laity. It also explains the non-exclusive character of homilies directed chiefly at one section of his audience but which never exclude the other sections. Although Ailfric himself seems to have hoped to provide a homiliary for use by ordinary parish priests and clearly thought that they would own books,116 it seems probable that his homiliaries were used mainly in contexts similar to the one in which they originated. The localizable manuscripts of the Catholic Homilies come from large centers such as Rochester, Canterbury, Worcester, and Exeter. Probably few parish priests could have afforded such substantial and expensive books. iElfric seems to have revised and reissued the Catholic Homilies at later stages of his life and, so far as one can tell, the function remained unchanged. The homily for the Nativity of Mary, added to Catholic Homilies I at a later date, shows that iElfric still had a mixed audience in mind here; although this homily is addressed almost entirely to a celibate monastic audience and ends with an explicit appeal to “eow maedenum,” it nevertheless contains a short passage, on offering one’s old clothes, or one’s worst child, to God and this must be intended for the laity.117 Before this, however, he had also developed and issued collections of a rather different kind. The Lives of the Saints is a collection of saints’ lives, mixed with some sermons, homilies, and Old Testament pieces. In both the Latin and the English prefaces ¿Elfric explicitly says that the saints whose lives are narrated in the Lives of the Saints are those “J)e mynstermenn mid heora J)enungum betwux him wurdiad.”118 Instead of being preaching texts, therefore, these are reading texts, which could be used privately by the devout laity (they are dedicated to A^elweard) and, presumably, by the monks. iElfric also seems to have been responsible for issuing two further collections made up of homilies from the Catholic Homilies and later texts for the Proper, but not including

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saints’ lives (termed Temporale Homilies I and II by Clemoes).119 The first of these is a collection of about forty homilies for the Proper from, perhaps, Advent or Christmas to Easter,120the second a set of pericope expositions for the whole year. There is a marked change in the character of ^Elfric’s later homilies for the Temporale: like the Lives of the Saints, they do not give the impression of being texts intended to be delivered to an ordinary lay congregation. They are pure homilies, consisting of exegesis only and lacking the sermon material found in the Catholic Homilies. There are, for example, none of the admonitions to the laity on subjects like tithes and sexual behavior that are such marked characteristics of the Catholic Homilies. These later collections differ in their organization from any surviving homiliary for preaching to the laity, as they do not cater for the sanctorale, and they also provide texts for a much larger number of occasions in the Proper. The Temporale Homilies include homilies for all of the Sundays after Easter and most of those after Pentecost, for the five Fridays in Lent, and for other occasions. It is unlikely that iElfric would have considered that the laity should be preached to with such frequency. At the beginning of his career he thought that forty homilies a year was sufficient for them: “Quadraginta sententias in isto libro posuimus, credentes hoc sufficere posse per annum fidelibus, si integre eis a ministris Dei recitentur in ecclesia” (CHI [Preface], p. 1). The Blickling collection for preaching to the laity is even smaller and the Rule of Chrodegang enjoins that the laity should be preached to every two weeks.121 All of these features suggest that Ailfric’s own conception of the function of his work had changed and that the Temporale Homilies were intended largely for the religious element in his audience, who did not need the kind of basic moral teaching that he had considered necessary in the Catholic Homilies. The same context, that of reading in connection with the Mass, is likely, as some of these later texts for the Temporale contain the same kind of reference to the prior reading of the Gospel as do some of the Catholic Homilies. As well as this, they could, of course, be used for private reading. What ¿Elfric is doing to an ever-increasing degree, therefore, is rendering “monastic” material into the vernacular. Gatch toys with the idea that vernacular texts may have been used in the liturgy,122but this

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is unlikely. It is inconceivable that any language but Latin would have been used in the monastic liturgy. ¿Elfric in his letter to the monks of Eynsham (itself in Latin) outlines the readings for the Offices and it is clear that he takes for granted that these were in Latin.123Even readings at meals, a much less official context, seem also to have been in Latin, as ¿Elffic explicitly says that they should be a continuation of the readings of the night Office. However, it is very probable that, although all of the monks were in theory literate and able to follow the reading at the night Office, many of them had a very limited command of Latin. JElfric himself never mentions the possibility of monks who would not know Latin well (and compare Byrhtferd of Ramsey, who even delights in contrasting the ignorant “uplendisc” clerks with “bam iungum munecum be heora cildhad habbad abisgod on craeftigum bocum”),124 but his work seems to suggest the existence of such a group. Moreover, although Byrhtferd’s busy young monks may have been fluent in Latin, there were also old monks, many of whom might have entered the monastery only in middle or old age; iE})elwold himself envisaged such an audience for his translation of the Rule o f St. Benedict: J)eah ba scearpbanclan witan be bone twydaeledan wisdom hlutorlice tocnawab \>&t is andweardra binga 7 gastlica wisdom 7 bara aegper eft on brim todalum gelyfedlice wunab- bisse engliscan gebeodnesse ne behofien. is beah niedbehefe ungelaeredum woroldmonnum by for belle wites ogan 7 for cristes lufan bis earmfulle lif forlaetab- 7 to hyra drihtne gecyrrad 7 bone halgan beowdom bises regules geceorab, by laes be aenig ungecyrred woroldman mid nytenesse 7 ungewitte regules geboda abraece, 7 baene tale bruce \) x t he by daege misfenge. by he hit selre nyste; Ic ba [bas] gebeoda to micclan gesceade telede; well maeg dug[an hit naht] mid hwylcan gereorde mon sy gestryned 7 to ban soban geleafan gewasmed butan baet an sy baet he gode gegange; Haebben for bi ba ungelasredan inlendisce baes halgan regules cybbe burh agenes gereordes anwrigennesse. bast hy be geornlicor gode beowien and nane tale naebben baet hi burh nytennesse misfon burfen.125

Because the use of the vernacular in the liturgy itself was unacceptable, preaching in English could only take place in the rather extra-liturgical context of preaching to the people; and ¿Elfric appears to have exploited this situation by providing monastic material while still ostensibly addressing the people. The later homilies, saints’ lives, and Old

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Testament texts, I would suggest, are reading pieces for those monks who had been in need of the kind of material with which the Catholic Homilies had provided them, as well as for the devout literate laity, who can always only have been a very small group. On the continent, then, the Carolingian period saw the development of homiliaries of several different kinds: some designed for recitation in the monastic Night Office, others for private reading, others as a basis for preaching to the laity. All three types spread to Anglo-Saxon England, although it is primarily the first type that is known from surviving manuscripts. The vernacular homiliaries that came into being by the second half of the tenth century in England (the Blickling Homilies, the sources of the Vercelli Book, and ^Elfric’s Catholic Homilies) seem to have been designed for preaching to the laity at Mass and resemble in many ways the Latin homiliaries of this type, such as St. Pére de Chartres and that of Hrabanus Maurus, although the Vercelli Book itself is intended for private reading and the Catholic Homilies had a similar function as well as preaching. But if preaching to the laity was the primary function it was not the only one. iElfric’s texts, written by him as a “munuc and maessepreost” in a monastic church that cared also for the laity, must be understood, I think, in terms of this context and the possibilities it opened up. It allowed Ailfric to write for a mixed audience and, while still aiming primarily at instructing the lay people, to include passages and sometimes whole texts that relate more to the religious elements in the congregation. His developing conception of his work, testified to by the direction it takes in the Lives of the Saints and the Temporale Homilies, shows an increasing emphasis on providing instruction for this element in his audience. It is perhaps here that iElfric’s originality lies and not, as Gatch suggests, in his composition of exegetical homilies for a lay audience.

Notes This reprint from Peritia 4 (1985): 207-42 also includes corrections of typographical and other errors.

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1. M.McC. Gatch, Preaching and Theology in Anglo-Saxon England: Ælfric and Wulfstan (Toronto, 1977), p. 25. 2. Rosamund McKitterick, The Frankish Church and the Carolingian Reforms, 789-895 (London, 1977). 3. There is a facsimile ofthe Bückling Homilies in Rudoph Willard, ed., The Bückling Homilies, EEMF 10 (Copenhagen, 1960). The manuscript is described by Ker, Catalogue, no. 382, pp. 451-55, and the homilies are edited by Richard Morris, The Bückling Homilies o f the Tenth Century, EETS OS 58, 63, 73 (London, 1874-88; repr. as one volume, 1967). All quotations are from this edition, which will be cited as Bückling. The facsimile of the Vercelli Book is edited by Celia Sisam, The Vercelli Book, EEMF 19 (Copenhagen, 1976). The manuscript is described by Ker, Catalogue, pp. 60-64. The first eight homilies are edited by Max Förster, Die Vercelli-Homilien. I - VIII Homilie, Bibliothek der angelsächsischen Prosa 12 (Hamburg, 1932) and homilies IX-XXIII by Paul E. Szarmach, Vercelli Homilies IX-XXIII (Toronto, 1981). Ælfric’s First Series is edited by Benjamin Thorpe, The Homilies o f the Anglo-Saxon Church: The First Part, Containing the Sermones Catholici, or Homilies o f Ælfric, vol. 1 (London, 1844). All quotations from the First Series are from this edition, which will be cited as CH I. The Second Series is edited by Malcolm Godden, Ælfric ’s Catholic Homilies: The Second Series: Text, EETS SS 5 (London, 1979). All quotations from the Second Series are from this edition, which will be cited as CH II. 4. On homiliaries in general, see the entry “Homéliaires” by Henri Barré, Dictionnaire de spiritualité, vol. 7 (Paris, 1969), pp. 597-606; Réginald Grégoire, Les homéliaires du moyen âge (Rome, 1956), pp. 1-11; Gatch, Preaching and Theology, pp. 25-39. 5. Barré, “Homéliaires,” p. 600. 6. PL 76, 1077-1312. 7. On the use of homiliaries in the Office see Suitbert Bäumer, Histoire du bréviaire, trans. Réginald Biron, 2nd ed. (Paris, 1905), 1:391 -92; Jules Baudot, The Roman Breviary: Its Sources and History,

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trans. a priest of the diocese of Westminster (London, 1909),pp. 74-78, 89-90. The information in this paragraph is based on these two books. 8. Edited imperfectly in PL 95, 1159-1566; the rubrics, incipits, and explicits are edited by F. Wiegand, Das Homilarium Karls des Grossen aufseine ursprüngliche Gestalt hin untersucht (Leipzig, 1897), and by Grégoire, Homéliaires; Paul E. Szarmach and Bernard F. Huppé, eds., The Old English Homily and Its Backgrounds (Albany, 1978), pp. 75-97, esp. 78-79. 9. Mary Bateson, ed., “Excerpta ex Institutionibus monasticis TEthelwoldi Episcopi Wintoniensis compilata in usum fratrum iEgneshamnensium per iElfricum abbatem,” appendix VII of G.W. Kitchin, ed., Compotus Rolls o f the Obedientiaries o f St. Swithun ’s Priory, Winchester (London, 1892), pp. 171-98 at 194. 10. Bateson, “Excerpta,” p. 195. 11. Barré, “Homéliaires,” pp. 600 ff; see Réginald Grégoire, Homéliaires liturgiques médiévaux: analyse des manuscrits (Spoleto, 1980), for a list and a short analysis of the contents of these collections. 12. David Hurst, ed., Bedae Venerabilis Opera homiletica, CCSL 122 (Tumhout, 1955). 13. Wiegand, Homilarium, pp. 15-16. 14. Henri Barré, Les homéliaires carolingiens de I ’école d ’Auxerre, Studi e Testi 225 (Rome, 1962), p. 4. 15.Ibid. 16. Ibid., p. 140. 17. Ibid. I am grateful to Professor Cross for discussing this with me. 18. Bateson, “Excerpta,” p. 194. 19. Barré, Homéliaires carolingiens, pp. 64, 77. 20. For a discussion of this collection see ibid., pp. 94-112.

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21. PL 102, 14-552; see Barré, Homèliaires carolingiens, pp. 12-13. 22. PL 110, 135-468; see Barré, Homèliaires carolingiens, pp. 13-17. 23. Barré, Homèliaires carolingiens, p. 15. 24. Ernst Dümmler, ed., MGH, Epistolae Karolini Ævi 3 (Berlin, 1899), p. 504. 25. PL 110, 9-134; discussed by McKitterick, Frankish Church, pp. 97-102. 26. Discussed and partly edited by Barré, Homèliaires carolingiens, pp. 17-25; McKitterick, Frankish Church, pp. 107-09. 27. Henri Barré, “L’homéliaire carolingien de Mondsee,” Revue Bénédictine 71 (1961): 71-107. 28. Germanus Morin, “L’homéliaire de Burchard de Würzburg: contribution à la critique des sermons de St. Césaire d’Arles,” Revue Bénédictine 13 (1896): 97-111. 29. Barré, Homèliaires carolingiens, p. 18. 30. In an unpublished paper delivered at Leeds, 24 March 1984. 31. Barré, Homèliaires carolingiens, pp. 24-25. 32. McKitterick, Frankish Church, chap. 3 on the councils. In the German-speaking areas these Latin homiliaries would have had to be translated; in the Romance areas the councils, according to Roger Wright, Late Latin and Early Romance in Spain and Carolingian France (Liverpool, 1982), were decreeing that the homilies should be read according to the vernacular pronunciation, while the rest of the liturgy was read, from the Carolingian period onwards, in the “new method of litterae, pronouncing one sound for each written letter” (p. 261). This would not have been comprehensible to the bulk of the population. 33. PL 110,37.

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34. Ibid., 29. 35. Ibid., 42. 36. Gatch, Preaching and Theology, p. 37. 37. PL 110, 9. 38. Barré, Homéliaires carolingiens, p. 24. 39. Barré, “Homéliaire carolingien de Mondsee,” p. 80. 40. McKitterick, Frankish Church, p. 92. 41. Ibid., p. 102. 42. Gatch, Preaching and Theology, p. 37. 43. J.E. Cross, “The Composer of the Old English Martyrology—A Ninth-Century English Scholar,” unpub. paper delivered in Oxford (1979). 44. On the source see H.G. Fiedler, “The Sources of the First Blickling Homily,” Modern Language Quarterly 6 (1903): 122-24. 45. J.B. Trahem, Jr., “Caesarius of Arles and Old English Literature,” ASE 5 (1976): 105-19. 46. C.L. Smetana, ‘TElfric and the Early Medieval Homiliary,” Traditio 15 (1959): 163-204. 47. CH I,p. 1. 48. For a list of manuscripts written in England see Helmut Gneuss, “A Preliminary List of Manuscripts Written or Owned in England up to 1100,” ASE 9 (1981): 1-60. The list of homiliaries that follows would not have been possible without Gneuss’s work. *. This is not correct: there are two manuscripts from Anglo-Saxon England that preserve Smaragdus’ Expositio libri comitis. See Joyce Hill, “iElfric and Smaragdus,” ASE 21 (1992): 203-37. 49. N.R. Ker, Medieval Manuscripts in British Libraries, vol. 2: Abbotsford-Keele (Oxford, 1977), pp. 315-16.

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52. R.R. Darlington, ed., The Vita Wulfstani o f William o f Malmesbury (London, 1928), chap. 8; this story is quoted by Gatch, Preaching and Theology, p. 47. 53. Bernhard Fehr, ed., Die Hirtenbriefe JElfrics, Bibliothek der angelsächsischen Prosa 9, repr. with a supplementary introduction by P.A.M. Clemoes (Darmstadt, 1966), p. 110. 54. Fehr, Die Hirtenbriefe JElfrics, pp. 14-15. 55. For a survey of the anonymous Anglo-Saxon homilies and the manuscripts in which they occur see D.G. Scragg, “The Corpus of Vernacular Homilies and Prose Saints’ Lives before Ailfric,” ASE 8 (1979): 223-77 [repr. in this volume, pp. 73-150]. 56. P.A.M. Clemoes, [review of Willard, The Blickling Homilies], Medium JEvum 31 (1962): 60-63, at p. 61. 57. Bückling, p. 119. 58. R. Vleeskruyer, ed., The Life o f St Chad: An Old English Homily (Amsterdam, 1953), p. 56. 59. Celia Sisam, [review of Vleeskruyer], Review o f English Studies, n.s., 6 (1955): 302-03; Alastair Campbell, [review of Vleeskruyer], Medium JEvum 24 (1955): 52-56. 60. Hans Schabram, Superbia: Studien zum altenglischen Wortschatz, vol. 1 (Munich, 1965), p. 75. 61. R.J. Menner, “The Anglian Vocabulary of the Bückling Homilies,” in Philologica: The Malone Anniversary Studies, ed. T.A. Kirby and H.B. Woolf (Baltimore, 1949), pp. 56-64, at p. 64. 62. Schabram, Super bia, p. 75. 63. Clemoes, [review of Bückling Homilies], p. 62.

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64. M.McC. Gatch, “Eschatology in the Anonymous Old English Homilies,” Traditio 21 (1965): 117-65, at pp. 119-22. 65. Ibid., p. 119. 66. Barré, Homéliaires carolingiens, p. 24. 67. Ibid, for the sources of St. Père. 68. Gatch, Preaching and Theology, p. 51. 69. Baudouin de Gaiffier, “L’homiliaire-legendier de Valére (Sion, Suisse),” Analecta Bollandiana 73 (1955): 119-39. 70. D.G. Scragg, “The Compilation of the Vercelli Book,” ASE 2 (1973): 189-207, esp. pp. 206-07; C. Sisam, Vercelli Book, p. 35. 71. C. Sisam, Vercelli Book, p. 37. 72. Ker, Catalogue, p. 460; C. Sisam, Vercelli Book, p. 36. 73. Scragg, “Corpus,” p. 225, n. 4. 74. Kenneth Sisam, “Marginalia in the Vercelli Book,” in Studies in the History o f Old English Literature (Oxford, 1953), pp. 109-18, at p. 118. 75. Gatch, “Eschatology,” pp. 143—44. 76. Gatch, Preaching and Theology, p. 57. 77. Gatch, “Eschatology,” p. 144, and Preaching and Theology, p. 103. 78. Éamonn Ó Carragáin, “The Vercelli Book as an Ascetic Florilegium” (unpub. Ph.D. thesis, Queen’s Univ. Belfast, 1975). 79. Éamonn Ó Carragáin, “How Did the Vercelli Collector Interpret ‘The Dream of the Rood’?” in Studies in English Language and Early Literature in Honour o f Paut Cristophersen, ed. P.M. Tilling (Coleraine, 1981), pp. 63-104, at 66-67. 80. Scragg, “Compilation,” p. 194.

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8 1 .6 Carragain, “Vercelli Collector,” p. 65; on booklets see P.R. Robinson, “Self-Contained Units in Composite Manuscripts of the Anglo-Saxon Period,” ASE 7 (1978): 231-38. 82. Scragg, “Compilation,” pp. 192-93; C. Sisam, Vercelli Book, p. 42. 83. C. Sisam, Vercelli Book, p. 15. 84. Scragg, “Compilation,” pp. 194, 202-03; C. Sisam, Vercelli Book, pp. 42-43. 85. Ker, Catalogue, p. 62. 86. Szarmach, Vercelli Homilies, p. 46. 87. Gatch, Preaching and Theology, p. 51. 88. For a general introduction to the work of Ailfric see P.A.M. Clemoes, ‘TElfric,” in Continuations and Beginnings, ed. E.G. Stanley (London, 1966), pp. 176-209; idem, “The Chronology of iElfric’s work,” in The Anglo-Saxons: Studies in Some Aspects o f Their History and Culture Presented to Bruce Dickins, ed. P.A.M. Clemoes (London, 1959), pp. 212-47 [repr. in this volume, pp. ?-?]; John Pope, ed., Homilies o f AElfric: A Supplementary Collection, EETS OS 259-60 (London, 1967-68), 1:1-190. 89. CH II, pp. xci-xciii. 90. W.W. Skeat, ed., JElfrics Lives o f Saints, EETS OS 76, 82 (repr. as one volume London, 1966); 94 and 114 (repr. as one volume London, 1966), 1:2. 91. Gatch, Preaching and Theology, p. 53. 92. Gatch, Preaching and Theology, p. 51. In his “Achievement of Adfric and His Colleagues in European Perspective,” in Old English Homily and Its Backgrounds, pp. 43-73, Gatch even argues that TElfric “himself shunned the term [sermo] in reference to his own writing because it had a special meaning which, however applicable to his sources, was not appropriate to his own adaptations” (p. 45).

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93. CH I [Preface], p. 1; Bateson, “Excerpta,” p. 194. 94. Bateson, “Excerpta,” p. 195. 95. Patrick Zettel, “Saints’ Lives in Old English: Latin Manuscripts and Vernacular Accounts: iElffic,” Peritia 1 (1982): 17-37. 96. Malcolm Godden, “iElffic and the Vernacular Prose Tradition,” in Old English Homily and Its Backgrounds, pp. 99-118. 97. Kenneth Sisam, “MSS Bodley 340 and 342: iElfric’s Catholic Homilies,” Review o f English Studies 1 (1931): 7-22, 8 (1932): 51-68, 9 (1933): 1-12, repr. in Studies in the History o f Old English Literature, pp. 148-98, at 164. 98. Ibid., p. 175. 99. Frank Barlow, The English Church, 1000-1066, 2nd ed. (London and New York, 1979), p. 334. 100. Skeat, AElfric ’s Lives o f Saints, 2:212. 101. David Knowles, The Monastic Order in England: A History o f Its Developmentfrom the Times o f St. Dunstan to the Fourth Lateran Council, 940-1216, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 1963), p. 595. 102. Barlow, English Church, p. 334. 103. Knowles, Monastic Order, p. 595. 104. H.M. Taylor, “Tenth-Century Church Building in England and the Continent,” in Tenth-Century Studies, ed. David Parsons (London, 1975), pp. 141-68, at 158. 105. Thomas Symons, ed., Regularis concordia (London, 1953), p. 19. 106. Ibid., p. 44. 107. Bateson, “Excerpta,” p. 186. 108. Skeat, AElfric ’s Lives o f Saints, pp. 1440-70. 109. Knowles, Monastic Order, pp. 595-96; Barlow, English Church, pp. 334-35.

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110. Giles Constable and B. Smith, eds., Libellus de diversis ordinibus etprofessionibus qui sunt in aecclesia (Oxford, 1972), p. 27. 111. Gatch, Preaching and Theology, pp. 53-54. 112. Malcolm Godden, “The Development of Ailfric’s Second Series of Catholic Homilies,” English Studies 54 (1973): 209-16, at p. 216. 113. Fehr, Die Hirtenbriefe JElfrics, p. 68. 114. S.J. Crawford, ed., Byrhtferth’s Manual, EETS OS 177 (London, 1929), p. 58. 115. Bateson, “Excerpta,” pp. 194, 195. 116. See Gatch, Preaching and Theology, pp. 42-45. 117. Bruno Assmann, ed., Angelsächsische Homilien und Heiligenleben, Bibliothek der angelsächsischen Prosa 3, repr. with a supplementary introduction by P.A.M. Clemoes (Darmstadt, 1964), pp. 24-48. For ^Elffic’s reissue of CH I see Clemoes, “Chronology of TElfric’s work,” pp. 233-35. 118. Skeat, ALlfric ’s Lives o f Saints, p. 14. 119. Clemoes, “Chronology of ¿Elfric’s Work,” pp. 227-33. 120. Ibid., p. 228, argues that it began at Christmas or perhaps Advent, but Pope (Homilies ofAHfric, pp. 39-48) thinks that it began at Septuagésima; see also CH II, pp. lxxxvi-lxxxvii. 121. A.S. Napier, ed., The Old English Version o f the Enlarged Rule o f Chrodegang, Together with the Latin Original, EETS OS 150 (1916), chap. 42, p. 50. 122. Gatch, Preaching and Theology, pp. 40-41. 123. Bateson, “Excerpta,” pp. 194-96. 124. Crawford, Byrhtferth ’s Manual, p. 132. 125. T.O. Cockayne, ed., Leechdoms, Wortcunning and Starcraft in Early England, 3 vols, Rolls Series 35 (London, 1864-66), 3:440.

King Alfred’s Version o f Augustine’s S o lilo q u ia : Some Suggestions on Its Rationale and Unity Milton McC. Gatch King Alfred’s version of St. Augustine’s Soliloquia1is surely the most problematical of the works associated with the great West Saxon king. The only complete manuscript is the twelfth-century London, BL, Cotton Vitellius A.xv, fols. 4-59, in which the very great conceptual and source difficulties inherent in the Old English text are linguistically compounded by late orthography and morphology. The opening of the preface of the Old English Soliloquies is either incomplete or uncommonly abrupt. Although Alfred’s first book can be regarded as a free paraphrase of the Latin original, the second book is more remotely linked to Augustine’s text, and the third (for which there is no equivalent in the Latin Soliloquia) seems to depart absolutely both from Augustine’s argument and from the issue he had posed. Perhaps because of these kinds of difficulties, students of the Soliloquies have given inadequate attention to the intellectual or cultural milieu in which Alfred attempted to come to terms with this difficult work of Augustine of Hippo. In this paper Alfred’s Soliloquies will be examined anew in light of the educational and intellectual history of his time. Although the ruler’s rendering of the fourth-century Latin document seems from our historical perspective to depart radically from its purported source, it will be argued in these pages that Alfred’s reading of Augustine was probably the kind of understanding of Soliloquia that would be expected in the ninth century. Alfred did not willfully alter Augustine, in other words, but read him in the light of his own learning and experience.

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I Alfred was remarkable as a man and as a ruler.2 In military, political, and educational or intellectual achievement, he is surely the Anglo-Saxon equivalent to Charlemagne, on whom, in some respects, he may have modeled himself. This is not the place to rehearse the military feats of the apparently sickly and certainly sensitive man who became king of a people all-but-overrun by the Vikings.3 Suffice it to say that these achievements were aided by the assembling of a remarkable group of scholarly ecclesiastical advisers from Wales, Mercia, and the Continent and resulted in a program (to which no one contributed more than the king himself) to make a library of basic books available in English translation. Looking back on the history of his people, Alfred recalled the glorious age when Anglo-Saxons had nurtured the greatest of European scholars and had led the effort to convert the barbarians beyond the borders of the old Roman imperium. He was distressed that wisdom had decayed and believed at least one visible result of the decay was the Viking onslaught. When he became king, he says in the preface to the translation of Gregory’s Pastoral Care, Swae claene hio waes odfeallenu on Angelcynne daet swide feawa waeron behionan Humbre de hiora deninga cuden understondan on Englisc odde furdum an aerendgewrit o f Laedene on Englisc areccean; ond ic wene daette noht monige begiondan Humbre naeren. Swae feawa hiora waeron daet ic furdum anne anlepne ne maeg gedencean be Sudan Temese da da ic to rice feng.4

One suspects rhetorical hyperbole in these remarks, but not general inaccuracy. Alfred took it upon himself to reverse the decay, to revive knowledge of Latin and make himself literate in that tongue, and to create as well a learned prose literature in the native tongue. The boldness and innovativeness of this policy deserves emphasis. The works that can be associated with Alfred’s court range from laws, civil and ecclesiastical, to medical texts (Bald’s Leechbook), to the Chronicles and works of history (translations of Bede and Orosius), to practical theology (Gregory’s Regula Pastoralis), to more purely theological and philosophical classics

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(Gregory’s Dialogues, Boethius’ De Consolatione Philosophiae, and the Soliloquia of Augustine), and a translation of a large portion of the Psalter. Of these, it is the current scholarly consensus that the monarch himself was responsible for the Regula Pastoralis, the Boethius, the Soliloquies, and (perhaps) Psalms 1-50.5 (I accept and agree with this consensus in spite of interesting, recent revisionist arguments that would greatly reduce the king’s role in the work of translation.6) Boethius’ Consolatio and Augustine’s Soliloquia are both works that might have been of general interest—if one can assume the existence of lay persons and clergy of a philosophical, reflective turn of mind. The Cura Pastoralis is more specialized: a handbook for pastors, it was so highly valued that some archbishops—notably Hincmar of Rheims— gave it to bishops at their ordinations along with the Gospels and canon law.7William of Malmesbury in the twelfth century mentioned another work of Alfred’s, an Enchiridion. This may have been the commonplace book (handbook, florilegium) alluded to by Alfred’s biographer Asser or even (some have thought) the Soliloquies.8 That Alfred thought the historical woes and weals of his realm were influenced by its attitude toward education, and that he contributed to the library of classics in translation are all quite remarkable facts. That the king himself apparently translated such works as Boethius’ De Consolatione and Augustine’s Soliloquia is astounding. The word “astounding” is used advisedly, for the age was one in which interest in speculative, metaphysical philosophy was extremely rare. It is now generally conceded that “Between the death of Boethius [ca. 524] and the time of Alcuin (obit. 804), there is no evidence of any . . . active philosophical speculation” similar to that in the work of Boethius.9 Among the great Anglo-Saxon scholars none can be classed as philosophers, save perhaps Alcuin, who may first have encountered basic philosophical texts in the library at York, but whose development as a philosopher took place on the Continent at the court school of Charlemagne.10 The chief philosophers of the period who interested themselves in “the problems of essence, the Categories and the Universals” were John Scotus (d. ca. 877) and a small number of contemporary “colleagues and pupils,” especially at Corbie (where Ratramnus had taught) and at Auxerre.11 Except in this rather special circle, however,

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classical culture and the classical education had disappeared long before the age of Alfred the Great and had been replaced by the narrower curriculum of schools sponsored by the church (usually, indeed, by monastic churches) so that there developed “une culture uniquement religieuse.”12 Dialectics, in particular, was studied only rarely in a curriculum organized around the study of grammar (including some aspects of rhetoric) and of music and computistics, in so far as these subjects were needed for the performance of the liturgy. Although there is a later tradition that John Scotus Eriugena spent his last years in Britain and although there was undoubtedly some literary contact between the Carolingian scholars and the court of Alfred, both directly and via Welsh churches, there are no strong arguments to suggest that Alfred and his advisers knew the work of Eriugena in dialectics or metaphysics or that they knew the colleagues of John Scotus.13 These general assumptions about the state of education in Alfred’s time might seem, at first blush, to be challenged by the fact that the king himself was evidently personally responsible for the English adaptations of Boethius’ De Consolatione Philosophiae and Augustine’s Soliloquia. Boethius’ great dialogue is a moving consideration of the problem of evil and the seemingly meaningless changes of fortune to which even the most noble-minded are subject, and it has not infrequently been assumed that Alfred was attracted to the Consolation by the “striking similarities between [his] own recent calamities at the hands of the Danish invaders and the initial picture which he gives of Boethius and the Romans suffering at the hands of other barbarian invaders.”14 The Consolation was only read in early medieval intellectual circles after the time of Alcuin.15 Writers of commentaries and glosses attempted to make its philosophical assumptions accessible and to draw out its Christian implications.16Although it is quite certain that Alfred did not know Boethius’ more basic works in technical philosophy, especially the commentaries on Aristotle, there is, then, some context in which he might have studied the De Consolatione—even though the nature and extent of his reliance on the commentators and glossators are disputed.17 If one can show that there may have been a tradition within which Alfred could study Boethius, however, it remains almost impossible to understand how he became attracted to the Soliloquia of Augustine, the adaptation of which was evidently his last literary project.18

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The authority of the very name of Augustine, one of the great doctors of the church, of course commands respect for all his work. Yet the Soliloquia seems in many ways one of the least congenial of Augustine’s works to the reader of the age of Alfred. At the time of the famous conversion described in the Confessions, Augustine was a professor of rhetoric at Milan and an adherent of Neoplatonist philosophy. After his conversion, with a group of friends, he spent several winter months in retreat at a country villa at Cassiciacum before his baptism by Ambrose, the bishop of Milan, at the Easter Vigil in 387. This retreat was in the tradition of “the ancient ideal of otium liberate, of a ‘cultured retirement’—Augustine later called it a ‘Christian otium.’”19 A person or group of persons would retire to a secluded estate to read or even edit the classics and to discuss philosophical issues. For Augustine, the otium at Cassiciacum, perhaps also a step in the direction of monasticism, was the transition from aspiring intellectual and civil servant to Christian intellectual. (At this time he could hardly have envisaged his later career as ecclesiastical administrator, public preacher, and controversialist theologian.) The Cassiciacum otium was a self-consciously literary and philosophical event. From it came three dialogues (Contra Academicos, De Beata Vita, and De Ordine) that are purportedly edited versions of a notary’s transcriptions of discussions held amongst the inmates of the villa.20And from it, too, came the Soliloquia. There was precedent for this genre, but Augustine apparently coined the title word (see Solil. II. vii. 14), not for the kind of interior monologue we associate with Shakespeare but for an interior dialogue—a talking with oneself (solus-loquor)—between himself and his own Reason (Ratio). The book, Augustine says, is the record of his own reflections in moments of solitude at Cassiciacum. Published but not completed, the Soliloquia is a rigorous, largely dialectical or philosophical examination of questions concerning the soul. Although study of the work reveals the depth and ubiquity of its biblical (in particular, Pauline) allusions, the general scholarly consensus concerning this writing of Augustine’s remains true: the Soliloquia is more a philosophical than a theological exercise, a Neoplatonist discussion of the doctrine of the soul that need not have had a Christian context or author. The Soliloquia was in circulation in the early Middle Ages, but it was not very frequently copied or read. It is the sort of book one would

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think almost no one in the age of Alfred was equipped to understand, if twentieth-century scholarly beliefs about the nature of learning in that age are correct. The one surviving copy that was in England in the lateSaxon period, Salisbury Cathedral 173, almost certainly was written on the Continent some years after Alfred’s time.21 Moreover, there are in print no studies of the manuscript tradition of the Soliloquia. Thus we can know nothing about the kind of text of Augustine Alfred had, about what other texts might commonly have been included in manuscripts with the Soliloquies, or about commentaries, glosses, or Scholia to which Alfred and his court scholars might have had access.22 With these observations in mind, one may frame more precisely the issues this paper is to explore. The chief questions are how Alfred understood the Soliloquia and what he attempted to do with the work. This inquiry takes its context from a disagreement in modem scholarship about the nature of Alfred’s version of the De Consolatione Philosophiae. F. Anne Payne in a monograph published in 1968 detailed with great care and sensitivity the changes made by Alfred from the original.23She concluded that Alfred understood Boethius well but knowingly rejected certain of his major premises and constructed a work in which he expressed his own beliefs on a Boethian skeleton. A slightly earlier and more historically oriented study, König Alfreds Boethius by Kurt Otten, had reached somewhat different conclusions.24 Otten, who devoted a great deal of attention to the early medieval commentaries on Boethius, largely ignored by Payne, agrees that Alfred’s development of the argument is highly original and that the influence of other medieval interpreters was limited. What is most interesting is what Alfred leaves out from both Boethius and the commentators. In particular, he was uninterested in theological and Neoplatonic speculation. His interpretation of Boethius, heavily influenced by his reading in Augustine and Gregory the Great, was in Otten’s view not consciously opposed to Boethius’ argument: Alfred has read his own thoughts into the original without being really aware o f the difference. He wanted to understand Boethius as best he could, but he could only understand him in the light o f his own experience and ability, (p. 286)

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Payne sees Alfred as a conscious reviser of his source and implies that some of his revisions are based in the Germanic world-view, particularly in the concept of wyrd or fate. Otten, on the other hand, thinks the revisions are not conscious but part of a genuine effort to understand Boethius within the limitations of Alfred’s own experience and of the habits of mind in the age. It may be that a new study of the Old English Soliloquies adaptation can help to resolve the difference of opinion between Payne and Otten. There are, however, grave textual problems that make the approach to the Old English Soliloquies more perilous than study of the Consolation or the Pastoral Care. The Latin text of Soliloquia has not been edited since the Maurist edition of the seventeenth century.25Not only, as already noted, is it impossible in the present state of studies to know the medieval history of the text, but also there is no critical edition that attempts to ascertain the original text. Furthermore, there is only a single complete manuscript of the Old English Soliloquies. This copy, usually dated in the mid-twelfth century, is included in a manuscript designated as No. 215 in Ker’s Catalogue: a collection containing also the Old English Gospel ofNicodemus, the debate of Solomon and Saturn, and a fragment of a sermon on St. Quentin.26 The manuscript belonged at one time to the Augustinian priory of St. Mary, Southwick, Hampshire, and if it was made for that house, it might well have been copied from an exemplar at Winchester.27 Somehow the Old English Soliloquies manuscript came to be bound up with Beowulf and other material in the famous Nowell codex (BL, Cotton Vitellius A.xv; Ker 216), with which it suffered some damage in the Ashbumham House fire of 1731.28 The manuscript is distant in its language and spelling conventions from Alfred, and the scribe seems to have been copying from an exemplar that was itself gravely deficient. None of the three modem critical editions is completely satisfactory.29 In view of the state of textual studies of both the source text and the Old English adaptation, therefore, this exploration is a tentative one. Its conclusions should be regarded as hypothetical until a better text of the Latin Soliloquia and the history of its medieval transmission are in hand, but the effort will have been justified if it raises queries for future students of the Latin and English texts to address.

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A reconsideration of the problems raised by the Old English Soliloquies must begin with an examination of the preface and the incipits and explicits of its three books, for these cumulatively have undergirded the conclusion of many critics that the volume is a kind of florilegium of disparate materials. This notion was initially and most radically stated by Wulker and it rests ultimately on Asser’s reference (chap. 89) to a disorganized collection of translatedjlosculos or excerpts kept by the king in a handbook (aere aeftran bee J)e we hatad SoliloquiorunT (II, explicit, 92.13). The final book begins and ends with similar statements but drops the floral metaphor to speak more prosaically of “sayings”: “J)a cwydas . . . J>e J>u . . . alese” (III, incipit, 92.14-15, and, similarly, explicit, 97.17-18).36 The fact that the preface and the opening and closing statements of the books themselves use different metaphors from the preface raises the possibility that the lumber and flower-gathering images have distinct, not identical, meanings. In the passage that follows the lines already quoted from the preface, Alfred speaks of a spiritual guide, to whom reference had apparently already been made in the now lost opening of the preface and who is probably God, since he seems to be the one who may bring the king to eternal salvation.37Alfred seems to be saying that the wood gathered from the writings of the Fathers may be used to construct a roadside dwelling—a place of comfort and rest—in the present, transitory life, and also help him to find his way along the road to an eternal habitation. In other words, Alfred concentrates primarily not upon the act of gathering from the Fathers but upon the use to which the building materials

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are put. He has constructed, I think, a variant upon a rhetorical topic that might be called “feathering one’s nest” or “preparing one’s dwelling in the heavenly homeland.” This topic is most clearly seen in the Old English Phoenix and in a passage of jElfric.38At any rate, the author of the preface speaks of Augustine, Gregory, Jerome, and other ecclesiastical writers as the conveyors of the promise of an eternal dwelling. Perhaps shifting the metaphor, he further states his faith that the road to the eternal home will be made easier than it had been in past ages and that he himself might find the road. The preface continues with a statement that one who has been leased or allowed the use of land by a lord will work hard to turn the loan into full title (bocland: “fee simple” or “absolute title,” 48.9) through the mercy of the landlord. God is the landlord of both “Jnssa laenena stoclife ge J)ara ecena hama” (“the transitory habitations and the eternal mansions,” 48.10), and he will be merciful if we are industrious tenants in the transitory state. The rich images of the preface anticipate those of the body of Alfred’s text, many of which are apparently based on royal experience.39 The preface concludes with a description of Augustine’s Soliloquia as twa bee be his agnum ingej)ance;

bee sint gehatene Soliloquiorum,

Jjat is, be hys modis smeaunge and tweounga, hu hys gesceadwisnes answarode hys mode bonne \ ) x t mod ymbe hwast tweonode, o5J)e hit hwaes wilnode to witanne baes \>c hit aer for sweotole ongytan ne meahte. (4 8 .1 3 -1 7)40

Most scholars have taken the reference in the preface to Augustine, Gregory, and Jerome, and other Fathers as an announcement of the sources of this adaptation of Soliloquia—a conclusion that seems to me questionable. There is no direct, necessary connection between this list of Western Fathers and the text that follows. The Fathers may simply be the most authoritative guides to the seeker for salvation. If this is so, the writing of a vernacular version of the Soliloquies is but one instance of the gathering of material from the forest of Christian knowledge for the building of one’s heavenly habitation. Thus in the preface one metaphor is used for the studies of the Christian seeker of wisdom, and the incipits and explicits of the books of the translation or adaptation itself

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use the blostman or florilegium topic to indicate that the work is free or selective in its method of translation or adaptation of the ideas set forth in the Latin Soliloquia. In what follows, it will be argued that Alfred attempted to use the Augustinian wood to build a unified structure that would help man and his soul in the quest for salvation. In doing so, however, because of the difficulties raised by the great doctor’s form of reasoning for the ninthcentury audience, he had to be selective in his translations of Augustine and to add materially to the argument. Furthermore, because Augustine had not completed what he set out to do in the Soliloquia, Alfred had to invent a third book to say what he thought Augustine would have said. Thus the work is at once an integral structure made of materials gathered from the forest of patrology and a collection of flowers and sayings.

Ill Ruth Waterhouse has studied Alfred’s literary strategies. In his use of questions in the interior dialogue of the Soliloquies, he alters the relationship of the two protagonists as established by Augustine and also the relationship between writer and audience. In his expansions and inventions of metaphors, he creates a stronger emotive and sensory response, a greater immediacy for his audience. Waterhouse’s is a very useful form of literary or rhetorical analysis, and she has made a considerable advance in our understanding of the Soliloquies as a literary work. Here, we shall now begin to consider Soliloquies as a philosophical work, or as an effort to understand and explain a philosophical work of some antiquity, the Soliloquia. In considering Book I of Soliloquies, the method of this study is quite like that of Waterhouse: it concentrates on departures from the source. The method and contents of the first of the two books of the Soliloquia were described by Augustine in the Retractiones near the end of his career (Retr.l.xwA) as follows: . . . [quaeritur]. . . qualis esse debeat qui vult percipere sapientiam, quae utique non sensu corporis, sed mente percipitur; et quadam ratiocinatione in libri fine colligitur, ea quae vere sunt immortalia esse. In secundo autem, de immortalitate animae diu res agitur, et non peragitur.41

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This is quite accurate, though it may perhaps be helpful to observe that the main question has two divisions that address, first, the nature of the knowledge of God and the soul (I.ii.7—vii. 15) and, second, elements of the moral state of the soul that may aid or hinder the quest for the knowledge or vision of God (Lix.16-xiv.26). But the quest of the whole book is to know God and the soul (“Deum et animam scire cupio” [I.ii.7]; “god ic wold(e) ongytan, and mine agene saule ic wolde witan” [56.18-19]). The first book of the Alfredian Soliloquies, despite the assertion of the explicit that it is pa blostman or a selection of the flowers or striking passages of the Augustinian book, is, in fact, a quite conscientious translation of Augustine’s argument. This is not to say, however, that the Old English version is a slavish adaptation. It abounds in major additions and minor deviations, some of which must be mentioned as an aid to understanding the translator’s proclivities when his purpose is to follow his source quite closely. That Alfred’s method of translation is not ad litteram but is more like what we should call free adaptation or paraphrase will not surprise those who are acquainted with his other work or with Old English prose literature in general. The aim, especially when treating non-biblical texts, was to render the sense, not the letter; and it was not uncommon to introduce new authorities and new arguments where the adapter thought this best served his basic authority.42 In this, Alfred was a thinker of his own age, for even the few advanced, speculative theologians of the period on the Continent did their philosophical task by excerpting from sources and gathering their excerpts into new volumes or by commenting on texts in glosses. Intellectual advances were made by means of advances in understanding authoritative texts from the tradition of theology or (more rarely) philosophy. Alfred, like scholars of his time, worked from text to explanation of the text. Perhaps his work is different chiefly in that he paraphrases or translates his texts in a new language and concurrently glosses or explains them.43 There are some minor kinds of changes on which there is not space here to dwell. Old English does not have an equivalent for the Latin sensus, and Alfred must resort to circumlocution, usually involving physical perception (andgit) when the term and concepts crop up, as they do frequently, in Augustine.44 Other explanatory metaphors reflecting the ruler’s experience are added, and a few biblical references are introduced.

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Augustine’s typically Neoplatonic attitude towards marriage is that it is a distraction for the philosopher or seeker of truth (I.x. 17). The Old English writer apparently takes Augustine as alluding to clerical celibacy and mitigates the passage to allow for lay marriage (72.25-73.2). A full study of these kinds of changes will be necessary when the medieval texts of the Latin have been established and a new edition of the Old English is made. For the moment, we must be content with a selection of instances that seem to betray the intentions of the adapter. The Soliloquies begins with a long prayer in which Augustine, at the behest of RatiolGesceadwisnes, pours out his desire for knowledge of and aid from God. The Latin prayer contains a number of biblical allusions—mostly Pauline and Johannine—more, in fact, than the rest of the work. Yet the relation of man to the godhead is conceived primarily in the Latin prayer in terms derived from the tradition of Plotinus, who taught, mystically and religiously, that “the final activity of the soul [is] a union of knowledge and love with the One beyond being, which can be attained partially and fleetingly even in this life.”45 The Old English translation of this prayer is quite faithful to the Latin, but the few touches added transform the Neoplatonic deity into the God of history of the Judeo-Christian tradition. Thus in the very first paragraph (I.i.2) the petition that Augustine may be rendered worthy of having his prayer heard (“ut me again dignum quern exaudias”) is changed by the intrusion of the notion that worthiness is made possible by grace (“for 6inre mildheortnesse” [50.12]). The change is minor, but it clearly moves in the direction of a more historical and ecclesiastical theology than the early Augustine was expressing. Shortly afterwards, Augustine’s address to God as “Father of our awakening and of our illumination, of the sign by which we are admonished to return to thee” (“pater evigilationis atque illuminationis nostrae, pater pignoris quo admonemur redire ad te” [I.i.2]) is historicized and moralized so that the sign is explicitly Christ who wakens man from the sleep of sin (“6u J?e aert feder J)ass suna us awehte and gyt wrehd of J>am slepe ure synna, and us mannaS Ipxt we to [)e becumen” [50.29-51.2; also 51.20]). An allusion to I Corinthians 15:54 (“Deus per quern mors absorbetur in victoriam”) is expanded so that in Old English there is specific reference to the resurrection of Christ, to the general resurrection, and

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to the forgiveness of sins (52.12ff). Just before this, Alfred adds a reference to the rulership of God (52.4-5). To a list of the attributes of the Plotinian One (I.i.4) the names of the Trinity are added (53.1, 7). One of the longest and most interesting additions to the prayer comes in a passage in which Augustine speaks of the fact that God’s laws of creation provide stability or predictable continuity in a mutable nature: the heavens rotate, the seasons succeed each other, and so forth. To this Alfred adds an observation that there is divinely-ruled continuity in nature even though sometimes one object passes away to be replaced by another, similar one. Augustine speaks of the stars’ return in revolution and of the return of seasons. Alfred adds that a leaf dies and is replaced by a new one, a bird by another; the same is true of man, who differs, however, because he is assured of resurrection on the last day (53.17-27). Camicelli in his edition of the Old English version argues the Old English is reflecting Boethius here. He is probably correct, but the allusion is also enriched by a recollection of the tradition, descending from I Corinthians 15, of assembling natural proofs of or parallels to the resurrection.46 One last instance of the changes made in the Old English adaptation of Augustine’s opening prayer may be cited: Augustine speaks of the soul as fugitive from God (I.i.5). He has served God’s enemies and begs to be received again by God. The Old English makes explicit the connection of this with the notion of the fall: man (ic) was once God’s but fled to the service of the devil and suffered great hardship (54.23-24). Thus we are carried from the Neoplatonic notion of spiritual entrapment in the physical body to the early medieval doctrine of man as a vassal of Satan who is rescued by Christ in history.47 If one thinks back on the changes documented in the opening pages of the Old English Soliloquies, one has a representative catalogue of certain kinds of alterations made in the first book. The abstract is made explicit by reference to events of salvation history. Moral implications are made more explicit, more clearly related to life, and less dependent on metaphysical abstraction. One moves from the abstract intellectualism that characterizes Augustine in Soliloquia to more explicitly historical, this-worldly, and moral kinds of language that were common in early medieval thought. The implications of Augustine’s language

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are, on the whole, understood, but there are times when it seems better to the Old English writer to spell out those implications. The more one reads Augustine’s prayer, the more one sees that it is as profoundly but allusively biblical as it is profoundly Plotinian. The Old English, in the main, reinforces the biblicism of the source. A connected series of alterations of or excurses from the Augustinian original in the Old English Soliloquies may next be considered. It begins with a point Augustine makes by way of an analogy with geometry. Augustine and Reason have been discussing the kind of knowledge for which Augustine yearns: knowledge of God and the soul. Augustine knows his friend Alypius—one of his colleagues at Cassiciacum—only by sensual perception but wants “to reach by intellect a knowledge of that part of him, namely, his mind, where he is truly my friend” (“illam veto partem qua mihi amicus est, id est ipsum animum, intellectu assequi cupio” [I.iii.8]) and adds that the true law of friendship is to know one’s neighbor as oneself. Augustine and Ratio next agree that Plato and Plotinus may make true assertions concerning the nature of God but do not necessarily know God; nor is their knowledge sufficient. The knowledge of lines and spheres in geometry is now introduced: they are known; they are known to be different, although knowledge of them both belongs to the same branch of science; but this kind of knowledge is different from knowledge of God, which is of entirely different character and brings great joy. In the Old English, approximately the same line of argument is followed to the point of the introduction of the example of geometry. When the discipline or creft (60.15) of geometry is introduced, however, some explanation is needed. It is the area of education in which pu leornodest onn anum bodere odj)e on aepple odde on aege atefred bad bu meahtest beo baere tefrunge ongytan bises rodores ymbehwirft and bara tungla, faereld (“You learned on a ball, an apple, or a painted egg that you might by means o f that picture [o r example] perceive the rotation o f the heavens and the path o f the stars.” [60.16-18])

Then in the Old English, Augustine is asked whether he remembers learning about a line drawn on the sphere, by means of which he evidently learned something about the position of the stars and the path

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of the sun. Alfred obviously misses the point; indeed, he does not know what is meant by the bisection of a line, and he cannot conceive of the line other than as a marking of the paths of heavenly bodies on the sphere. He manages, nonetheless, to keep to the proper point of the comparison, in spite of the paucity of Anglo-Saxon knowledge of geometrica in matters other than basic astronomical computation.481 know of no English word for the crceft, and this is the only surviving text in which geometrica is used in Old English.49 Alfred may have recognized its etymology and assumed it must be taken literally He may also have had some of the information he has about geometry from a gloss in his copy of the Latin Soliloquies. At any rate, he proceeds here to adapt Reason’s question to Augustine, whether he has fallen into the doctrines of the Academics (i.e., the post-Platonists) who avoided error by denying the possibility of certainty. Alfred glosses “AcaJ^emicos” as “6a udwitan, 6e saedon f>aet naefre nanwiht gewisses naere buton twaeasonunga” (“the philosophers, who said that never was anything certain without doubts” [60.22-23]). One might have made this point out from the Latin dialogue, but it is possible that a helpful glossator was followed here and at a number of other junctures. The Old English dialogue moves at this point to the problem of the nature of the knowledge one has of the facts of geometry: does it come by the senses or the intellect (“myd J)am eagum, f>e mid })am ingej)ance” [61.11-12])? In the original, Augustine answers with a simile: Imo sensus in hoc negotio quasi navim sum expertus. Nam cum ipsi me ad locum quo tendebam pervexerint, ubi eos dimisi, etjam velut in solo positus coepi cogitatione ista volvere, diu mihi vestigia titubarunt. Quare citius mihi videtur in terra posse navigari, quam geometricam sensibus percipi, quamvis primo discentes aliquantum adjuvare videantur. (I.iv.9)50

The Old English follows this quite exactly, adding a helpful dilation: it seems one can consider a broader range of concepts intellectually, but one must first get the concept in the mind with the aid of the eyes or senses (61.16-17). In the Latin, Augustine and his Reason go on to consider further these issues of epistemology. Allusion is made to the Stoics, and there is return to geometry: one has sure knowledge of the line and the sphere,

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which are different but known in the same way. This raises the question whether it suffices to know God as one knows line and sphere. Augustine thinks not: “if knowledge of God were the same as knowledge of mathematical figures, I would rejoice as much in them as I expect to rejoice when I come to know God” (“si Dei et istarum rerum scientia par esset, tantum gauderem quod ista novi, quantum me Deo cognito gravisurum esse praesumo” [I.iv.l 1]). When I come to know God, I expect geometry to pale. (One has some sense Augustine was a reluctant geometrician.) The difference has to do not with the nature of knowing but with the objects known: one knows earth and sky, but contemplating the sky gives greater pleasure. “As the sky is superior to the earth in its peculiar beauty, so is the intelligible beauty of God superior to certain truths of mathematics” (“quantum in suo genere a coelo terram, tantum ab intelligibili Dei majestate spectamina ilia disciplinarum vera et certa differe” [I.iv.l 1]). Faced with the reference to Stoicism and the return of the Latin text to the geometrical example, Alfred reverts to the ship simile, seizes the anchor line, and holds on for dear life. The mind’s eye (a notion for intellect he probably gets from a later passage in Soliloquia) must look on God, just as a ship’s anchor must run from the earth to the vessel it secures and makes safe (61.23-62.3 and Camicelli’s note). With reason and the other virtues as anchors, one can fasten his line on God to hold safe the ship of the mind’s eye (62.11-12). But in the Old English Augustine asks, how is one to gain or fasten these anchors (62.11-12)? You have as many anchors, he is answered, as you have renounced worldly joys (lusta). When Augustine objects that this renunciation is demanded on the basis of things he knows only by hearsay, Reason introduces a new analogy. Suppose you have received a sealed letter from your lord, would you recognize it as an expression of his will?51 Is it better to observe this expression of the lord’s will or to cleave to the wealth (the worldly joys) he has given you in addition to his friendship (62.22-27)? In the Old English Augustine would like to have both but recognizes it is better to follow the lord’s will. The wealth, after all, is temporal; but the lord’s anchors or virtues are eternal. “Augustine” confesses to a yearning for the eternal and is told that, to fulfill this yearning, he must follow the eternal Lord’s commandments as he would those of an earthly lord. Camicelli characterizes this excursus as “a long Christian homily” (p. 100) and implies its explicit allegory of the letter as Scripture does

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violence to St. Augustine’s original argument. One may disagree on several grounds. In the first place, the argument is not homiletic: it retains the form and spirit of the lively Augustinian dialogue. In the second place, Alfred probably could not make much of the allusion to Stoicism and, as we have already seen, had exhausted his ability to deal with the analogies from geometry. Picking up earlier and later passages in Augustine that warranted the development of the notion of reason as the mind’s eye and picking up the ship simile, he makes his way as best he can. He knew from Gregory the Great’s Dialogues and perhaps also from other passages in Augustine the tradition of the ship at anchor as a metaphor for the blessed or saved soul, and he works out here a rather original (though slightly clumsy and not always logically coherent) adaptation of it. The parable of the lord’s letter or Scripture as the expression of the divine will does, it is true, abandon metaphysical demonstration for the doctrine of authority: God has told you what to do, do it. But in the early Middle Ages, that is true which is vouched by authority, by God’s word and that of his messengers.52 That a thing is true that can be demonstrated by reason or by logic was an idea basically foreign in the age of Alfred—so foreign that we can wonder Alfred picked up Augustine’s tightly argued, dialectical treatise at all. Alfred was unequipped to appropriate or adapt literally the argument of Augustine in this passage, and it is remarkable he could follow the Augustinian argument as far as he did. He realized he had at this point to conclude the first section of the argument of Book I of Soliloquia (his manuscript may even have marked the division in some way). Extending the ship metaphor and inventing the allegory of the lord’s letter, he turned naturally—inevitably, one might even say—to the doctrine of authority: knowledge or the vision of the eternal God is granted the soul firmly anchored by the virtues, which virtues are eternal and which virtues are communicated to us by the eternal Lord in Scripture and the teaching of the church. The quest in the first part of Book I of the dialogue was, after all, to perceive God and know the soul and that is what, in the terms of his own time and in terms his audience was equipped to understand, Alfred had done. The next section of the Soliloquies (I.vi. 12—vii. 15) draws an analogy between sensual and intelligible vision. The Old English

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version treats this passage quite freely. It adds a number of metaphors. Twice it reverts to the ship and anchor imagery (67.9, 68.3). There is a metaphor of the sun’s light as knowledge of God, to which is added an observation from Boethius that we cannot in this life have perfect knowledge of God (69.19-70.5)—this latter replaces a passage in the Latin in which a comparison is made between knowledge of mathematical symbols and knowledge of God (I.viii.15). Augustine moved next (Lix.16-xiv.26) to the problem of self knowledge (“Amasne aliquid praeter tui Deique scientiam?” [I.ix. 16]; “J)aet {)u ongyte god and t>e silfne” [70.10, see also 71.21]). Ratio, in effect, examines Augustine on the state of his soul. Is it free from or attached to the things of this world (friendship, money, women)? Is it detached so it can love God or is it the prisoner of the body? There are passages in erotic language on what it means to be the lover of Wisdom, which amplify Augustine in quite remarkable ways.53 And yet at the end (on the second day of the conversation with Reason), Reason says it had been easy to say the day before that sexuality had no hold on him but points out that in bed last night, “imagined fondlings and bitter sweetness tickled [Augustine’s] fancy” (“imaginatae illae blanditiae et amara suavitas titillaverit” [I.xiv.25])—a passage sidestepped in Old English with the observation, “nis nanwiht wyrse on bam men, J>onne wene he [>aet he si J)aes wyrbe f>e he nis” (“there is nothing worse in a person than that he think himself worthy of what he is not” [79.25-26]). Augustine concludes Book I with an elegant little logical discussion of the proposition that “things which truly are, are immortal” (RetrAAv. 1). Because, perhaps, of its rigorously logical form, the Old English abandons this argument midway. But Alfred follows far enough to show he understands the distinction between the specific instance (verum, castum [I.xv.27]; “Jsaet [>er wis byd” or “the wise man” [81.15]) and the general principle (veritas, castitas; wisdom). The former is not eternal, but the latter is. Alfred does not follow through the full demonstration that the principle exists but not in space or in the material (I.xv.29), by which Augustine comes to the conclusions that “Sunt igitur res immortales” (“only immortal things are true”) and “Nulla igitur recte ducuntur esse, nisi immortalia” (“Nothing which is not immortal can be said truly to be”). Rather Alfred again has recourse to argument from authority.

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He has cited John 14:6: “Crist cwaede J)aet he were weig and sodfasnes and life” (81.11). When he comes to the conclusion that the immortal or true can exist in the mortal, therefore, he returns to the notion that God is truth. He made two eternal things, the souls of men and angels. (There is a hint in this of the doctrine of the pre-existence of souls.) And to these he gave the eternal gifts of wisdom, righteousness, and the like. In addition, he gave to men the transient gifts of this world. One suspects this conclusion not only (as Camicelli argues) anticipates the kind of argument that will characterize Book II, but also presents a conclusion to what has preceded that makes far more sense to Alfred and his audience than the elegant but abstruse logical statement with which Augustine concluded. It seems clear in the text that Alfred was remarkably sensitive to the general drift of Augustine’s argument— perhaps it is this sort of phenomenon that leads F. Anne Payne to say in her study of Alfred’s Boethius that Alfred at points in the Boethius knowingly rejected aspects of Boethius’ argument and substituted a new doctrine. But I think it is still fair to say Payne does not fully appreciate early medieval habits of intellect or the procedural presuppositions under which Alfred was working and that, in consequence, she may not have fully recognized the reasons for his development of new arguments in the Boethius, as in the Soliloquies.

IV Books II and III of the Old English Soliloquies must be treated even more summarily than the first book has been. In Book I, as has always been recognized, Alfred is closer to Augustine than in II; in III he adds totally new material to complete what Augustine himself had not finished. The text seems to note this fact, for I and II are referred to in the incipits and explicits as blostman from Augustine, whereas the materials of III are characterized more generally and prosaically as cwidas. It has been argued in this paper that Alfred tried to keep to the subject and basic development of the opening book but that he had to alter its dialectical method and its content in line with his own intellectual habits and those of his audience. Although the textual and source problems concerning the two latter books of the Soliloquies cannot be resolved,

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it is valid to suggest he attempted in these as in the former to be faithful to the authority and the argument of Augustine so far as the lights of ninth-century English and continental learning allowed. In the Retractions, Augustine characterized Book II of the Soliloquia by saying it contains “a long argument about the immortality of the soul, but the subject is not fully dealt with” (Retr.l.ivA). The argument is densely dialectical or logical; it hinges on the metaphysical notion that truth is eternal and is of the essence of being. If one admits the best way to arrive at truth is the method or discipline of dialectics, the book is convincing and useful. But this was not the modus operandi of early medieval intellectual argument except in a very small and special circle of the Carolingian scholars.54 Traditional authority was regarded by the vast majority of early medieval ecclesiastical writers as the usual and most persuasive evidence of truth. Not until the revival of dialectics by Gerbert and others were many scholars equipped to follow the logical demonstration of immortality of Augustine in the Soliloquia. Alfred is, therefore, faced with the problem of arriving at Augustine’s goal by another road. What has not been observed in earlier studies of the Old English Soliloquies is that the English adaptation—though it ceases in Book II to follow the letter of Augustine—is scrupulously careful to establish the same points by its own methods. Camicelli finds some possible parallels with the Old English Boethius and Waerferth’s version of Gregory’s Dialogues, scattered allusions to the Soliloquia, and a passage reminiscent of Augustine’s Epistle 147, which also circulated independently under the title De Videndo Deo (chaps. 5, 39, 40, and esp. 44). To these parallels I have little to add. Camicelli observes that the end of Book II in the Old English is closely related to the end of Soliloquia II—an observation that can be used to underline the fact that Alfred uses the frame of Augustine’s Book II but alters the basic argument so as to have something more immediate, compelling, or sensible for his audience. He touches base with Augustine at several points, however, and these correspondences—however remote they may be in terms of phraseology—seem to show he is trying to translate Augustine’s metaphysical argument in authoritarian terms more familiar to his audience. The most striking of these correspondences is the reference to the platonic doctrine of reminiscence (91.1 -4), actually an

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heretical notion to most Christian theologians, since it implies the preexistence of the soul, and stronger in the Old English than in the Latin (II.xx.35), but (as Camicelli notes) also familiar to Alfred from Boethius. There are also several arguments from analogy with kingship that have many parallels in the other two books of the Old English and that are explained by Camicelli as having been derived from Alfred’s own experience. It would be unwise to say very much more before one has spent some more time searching for sources for the argument Alfred substitutes for Augustine’s. He may have developed it himself from notions picked up in his reading and recalled—the kinds of things both Camicelli and Karl Jost have noted; he may have had one or more specific sources that have, simply, not been discovered; the job of substituting for Augustine’s logical argument may already have been done for him by the version of the Latin Soliloquia he possessed, perhaps in the form of a commentary on the text. One had best only conclude at the present juncture that, within a frame derived from Augustine, the Old English substitutes an argument from authority for the Augustinian logical and metaphysical demonstration of the immortality of the soul. There is one interesting point that might provide a source for at least part of what is added to Book II. It is a reference to the emperor Theodosius I and his son Honorius, the emperors during Augustine’s lifetime (88.12): in the Old English, the Father and the Son of the Trinity are to be preferred to these, however admirable they may be as emperors go. Although it misses the mark chronologically since Honorius was not yet the ruler when Augustine wrote the Soliloquia, Camicelli (p. 103) regards this passage as an unusual and learned attempt at historical verisimilitude, for which there is no warrant in the histories of Orosius and Bede, both of which Alfred almost certainly knew, in the early annals of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, or in the Historia Tripartita. Janet Bately points out that Isidore, in Etymologies V.xxxix.38, refers to Theodosius and Honorius. But, she also remarks, Alfred’s knowledge that the father was the better ruler than the son (himself “swióe god” 88.15) cannot be based on Etymologies, which was not otherwise a source of the Soliloquies.55 The source of the passage on Theodosius and Honorius is likely to have been not simply historical but theological, and its author was perhaps making an historical analogy.

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Augustine never continued beyond Book II of Soliloquia, although the work is manifestly incomplete. When he returned to Milan from Cassiciacum, he began another book, published without his permission as DelmmortalitateAnimae. Premature publication may have prevented him from developing De Immortalitate as the final book of the Soliloquian but the tract as it stands does not seem to develop the issue at which Augustine hints at the end of Soliloquia II. Augustine himself in the Retractions found the argument of De Immortalitate so dense he could hardly follow it himself. This work seems not to have been known in Anglo-Saxon England,56and Alfred, who wanted to go on to the issue of the nature of the soul’s knowledge after death (an issue to which he makes the ic of his dialogue refer almost from the outset), had to turn elsewhere for a source. At the end of the Old English Book II, there are two references to Augustine’s De Videndo Deo as a work that clarifies the issues under discussion. Reason tells Augustine that if he wants to know more about the Soul’s knowledge of God he will find it in De Videndo Deo (92.4-6). God has promised, however, to help those who rely on him and do well in the world and to give them thereafter full knowledge of wisdom and truth, as one may learn from the aforesaid work of Augustine (92.6-12). This statement seems to imply the translator is turning his attention to this second Augustinian treatise, although the reference might be construed as merely bibliographical. The relationship has seemed remote to earlier critics: there is only one direct quotation of De Videndo (97.4-11; DvD v) a passage in which Augustine says he knows and accepts certain things on good report without having actually experienced them. One example is the identity of his parents; another (less fortunate) is that Romulus founded Rome. There are two possible explanations of the relation of the allusion to De Videndo Deo in Book III of the Soliloquies. The first would be an argument that the frame of book III is from Augustine. Book III in the Old English begins with a discussion of the spiritual vision—a topic on which Alfred had dilated from Augustine in the earlier books. It seems possible that the frame could be derived from only chapters ii-v of De Videndo, although there is warrant in the later parts of Augustine ’s letter for arguing from Scriptural authority to prove the point under review, and there are probably some allusions to later chapters (e.g., at 93.18ff).

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But Augustine does not address the principal biblical text relied on in the English Book III, the parable of Dives and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31), most of the Old English exposition of which is based on a homily of Gregory the Great.57 By means of the Gregorian exegesis of Luke 16 Alfred, incidentally, shifted the emphasis in his discussion of the soul’s post-mortem knowledge from the period between the individual’s death and the Last Times to the aeon after the general resurrection—a shift to be expected in early medieval theology but not in Neoplatonic philosophical speculation and one that is also to be seen in Augustine’s later writing. It concludes, naturally, that the blessed soul’s knowledge is immeasurably increased in the afterlife. The second explanation of the reference to De Videndo Deo in the concluding part of Soliloquies involves admission that the two works are so tenuously and superficially related that there is no structural reliance on this letter of Augustine in the Alfredian text. Dorothy Whitelock has suggested that Alfred was misled by the title of De Videndo Deo and imagined Augustine’s subject was the same as his own. In fact, however, Augustine tries in De Videndo to reconcile “the appearances of God in the Old Testament with the statement that no man has seen God,” as Whitelock puts it. Alfred may have started Book III thinking— as he had said at 92.4-6—that Augustine would resolve his problem. When he was disappointed in this expectation, he turned silently “to other writers concerned with the afterlife.”58 Gregory the Great, other sources, and King Alfred’s own invention, thus, were drawn upon to complete the argument of the book, which now proceeds straightforwardly not as a two-voiced soliloquy but as a treatise.

V It should be repeated that the preceding analysis of the Alfredian Soliloquies is cursory. One may plead not only the limitation of space but also the present state of the Latin and Old English texts, in view of which one can only offer an hypothesis as to a possible rationale of the Old English version. There is confusion in critical literature about the nature of Alfred’s Soliloquies. Because of the metaphor at the opening of the preface about the gathering of building materials and the references in the explicits to the three books as blostman or selections

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from Soliloquia and De Videndo Deo, some have thought this Alfred’s commonplace book. This assumption and the manifest problems raised by the divergence of Soliloquies from its ostensible source and the addition of an entire new book have encouraged critics to abandon any effort to see the work as a unified whole. Some have seen little or no reason for Alfred’s departures from his sources. Others have thought Alfred announced his major sources at the outset: Augustine, Gregory, and Jerome; yet there has been no satisfactory demonstration that any passage of the Soliloquies is long enough or important enough to justify listing Jerome as a major source.59 The thesis of this paper ought by now to be reasonably clear. It is that Alfred does indeed think of himself as a faithful follower and interpreter of Augustine’s Soliloquia. This is quite clear in Book I, significantly though it diverges from its source. Book II treats the same issues as Augustine’s Book II but in terms comprehensible to Alfred and his audience, who were not equipped to follow or to understand the dialectical and metaphysical form of the Augustinian argument or some of its analogies. Book III in the Old English goes to what would doubtless have been the subject of Augustine’s third book had he written it. For this, Alfred went to another work of the bishop of Hippo, De Videndo Deo. From De Videndo, following the procedures he also used in Book II, either he took only the frame of his argument, or he was disappointed that De Videndo did not really answer his primary question and abandoned it. In any case, he derived the body of the argument in Book III from Gregory the Great’s sermon on the Lucan parable of Dives and Lazarus, which in fact answered Alfred’s question about the nature of post-mortem existence and knowledge of the godhead. The book as written by Alfred has, thus, greater unity and completeness than its chief original source. If the Old English is radically different from the early, Neoplatonist writing of Augustine in its intellectual methods and actual content, the disparity is quite understandable given the differences in education and scholarly method in the ages of Augustine and Alfred. The most important observation in the light of the difference of opinion about the nature of Alfred’s radical changes in his sources, whether Boethius or Augustine, is that Alfred seems to have been engaged exclusively with the aim of appropriating at least in spirit the wisdom of his authorities. He may to some extent be influenced by folk

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wisdom; he certainly seems to have been influenced by his own experience as a king. But it is the theological tradition as received in his own age he primarily brings to bear. This may well be true even of the kingly metaphors, for Christ in this age was spoken of as the paradigm of kingship and lordship and was almost exclusively treated in terms of this metaphor. When one reflects on the different Augustine seen by Aquinas, Luther, and Calvin or the different Paul as understood by Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, and Calvin (not to mention modem theologians), perhaps one should not be so surprised that Alfred’s Augustine is not the Augustine of the fourth century or of modem intellectual historians but the Augustine of the early Middle Ages. Perhaps most of all, one ought to be grateful that Alfred made the effort to read in the manner of his age one of the most difficult of Augustine’s works to appreciate in the ninth century, for, both in its shortcomings and in its remarkable range of additions to its sources, he has thereby given us a valuable document to use in assessing the intellectual temper of his times.60

Notes This essay originally appeared in Studies in Earlier Old English Prose, ed. Paul E. Szarmach (Albany, 1986), pp. 17-45. 1. Throughout this paper, I shall use Soliloquia to refer to Augustine’s Latin and Soliloquies for Alfred’s Old English text. Editions of Soliloquies are discussed below in n. 29; for Soliloquia, see n. 25. 2. The best survey of the literary work of Alfred and his circle is Dorothy Whitelock, “The Prose of Alfred’s Reign,” in Continuations and Beginnings: Studies in Old English Literature, ed. Eric G. Stanley (London, 1966), pp. 67-103. On the reign of Alfred see R.H. Hodgkin, A History o f the Anglo-Saxons, 3rd ed. (London, 1952), 2:537-695; F.M. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford, 1943), pp. 246-78; Eleanor Shipley Duckett, Alfred the Great (Chicago, 1956). Among more recent studies of literary activity in Alfred’s court, see Malcolm B. Parkes, “The Palaeography of the Parker Manuscript of the Chronicle, Laws and Sedulius, and Historiography at Winchester in the

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Late Ninth and Tenth Centuries,” ASE 5 (1976): 149-71, and Audrey Meaney, “King Alfred and his Secretariat,” Paregon 11 (1975): 16-23. No effort is made here to survey the secondary literature on Soliloquies exhaustively; for further citations, see the Whitelock survey and Stanley B. Greenfield and Fred C. Robinson, A Bibliography o f Publications on Old English Literature to the End o f 1972 (Toronto, 1980). 3. For an uncompleted, contemporary biography see Asser ’s Life o f King Alfred, ed. William Henry Stevenson (1904; new ed. with very important “Article on Recent Work” by Dorothy Whitelock, Oxford, 1959). On Asser’s use of Einhard’s Life o f Charlemagne see pp. lxxxi-lxxxii. Portions of Asser are translated by Whitelock in her vol. 1 (ca. 500-1042) of English Historical Documents, 2nd ed. (London, 1979), pp. 289-303. In an article I had not seen when this paper was first drafted, David Kirby also underlines the importance of “Carolingian political and religious thought” for “the ideas and concepts of the king of Wessex and his court circle” and calls for further research: “Asser and His Life of King Alfred,” Studia Celtica 6 (1971): 12-35 at pp. 34-35. 4. The best edition of the preface, from which this quotation is taken, is now Sweet's Anglo-Saxon Reader in Prose and Verse, rev. Dorothy Whitelock, 15th ed. (Oxford, 1967), pp. 4-7. Trans. Whitelock, English Historical Documents, 1:888: “So completely had learning decayed in England that there were very few men on this side the Humber who could apprehend their services in English or even translate a letter from Latin into English, and I think that there were not many beyond the Humber. There were so few of them that I cannot recollect a single one south of the Thames when I succeeded to the kingdom.” The standard edition is King Alfred's West-Saxon Version o f Gregory's Pastoral Care, ed. Henry Sweet, EETS OS 45, 50 (London, 1871, 1872). Two basic articles by Francis P. Magoun, Jr., are also to be consulted: “Some Notes on King Alfred’s Circular Letter on Educational Policy Addressed to His Bishops,” Mediaeval Studies 10(1948): 93-108, and “King Alfred’s Letter on Educational Policy According to the Cambridge Manuscripts,” ibid. 11 (1949): 113-22. T.A. Shippey, “Wealth and Wisdom in King Alfred’s Preface to the Old English

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Pastoral Care,” English Historical Review 94 (1979): 346-55, suggests an emendation of the text and argues for a more functional (or less scholarly) understanding of wisdom in the Preface. 5. Since Whitelock published “Prose of Alfred’s Reign,” Janet M. Bately has shown that Alfred was not himself the translator of Orosius’ Historia adversus paganos. See her “King Alfred and the Old English Translation of Orosius,” Anglia 88 (1970): 433-60; also Elizabeth M. Liggins, “The Authorship of the Old English Orosius,” ibid., pp. 289-322; and Bately’s edition of the OE Orosius EETS SS 6 (London, 1980). Bately has also recently revived the claim that Alfred may be the translator of the prose version of the first fifty Psalms in the Paris Psalter in her inaugural lecture at University of London. King’s College, The Literary Prose o f King Alfred’s Reign: Translation or Transformation? (London, 1980) [repr. in this volume, pp. 3-27] and “Lexical Evidence for the Authorship of the Prose Psalms in the Paris Psalter,” ASE 10 (1982): 69-95. 6. See the article by Kirby cited above, n. 3. Janet M. Bately and Simon Keynes are now preparing for the press a monograph by the late Professor Whitelock on Alfred, which is expected to address the issue of Alfred’s participation authoritatively. 7. Alfred intended every bishop in his realm to have a copy of the OE version of Regulapastoralis. See Kenneth Sisam, “The Publication of Alfred’s Pastoral C aref in Studies in the History o f Old English Literature (Oxford, 1953), pp. 140-47. As Stanley B. Greenfield notes in A Critical History o f Old English Literature (New York, 1965),p. 30, the work had achieved a very special status, and Hincmar (845-82) apparently made it an instrument of the ordination of bishops. Knowledge of Hincmar’s custom may have come to England through Grimbald, one of the scholarly assistants mentioned in the preface to the OE version. Grimbald was trained at Rheims and sent to Alfred’s court by Hincmar’s successor, Fulk. On Grimbald see Philip Grierson, “Grimbald of St. Bertin’s,” English Historical Review 55 (1940): 529-61, and Parkes, “Palaeography of the Parker Manuscript,” pp. 164-66.

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8. Whitelock, “Prose of Alfred’s Reign,” pp. 71-73, and “William of Malmesbury on the Works of King Alfred,” in Medieval Literature and Civilization: Studies in Memory o f G.N. Garmons way, ed. D.A. Pearsall andR.A. Waldron (London, 1969), pp. 78-93, esp. 85,91. The pertinent passage of William is De gestis regum Anglorum 11.123, ed. William Stubbs, Rolls Series 90/1 (London, 1887), p. 132. 9. John Marenbon, From the Circle o f Alcuin to the School o f Auxerre: Logic, Theology and Philosophy in the Early Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1981 ), p. 2. Marenbon’s work is a major contribution to the history of early medieval philosophy and is a corrective to almost all earlier studies of Eriugena and his contemporaries. 10. Ibid., pp. 3-5. 11. Ibid., p. 142. 12. Pierre Riché, Education et culture dans l'occident barbare, VIe-VIIIe siècles (Paris, 1962),p. 135; English trans. of 3rd ed. of 1972 by John J. Contreni, Education and Culture in the Barbarian West (Columbia, S.C., 1976). See also Riché’s more recent Les Écoles et l 'enseignement dans I 'occident chrétien de lafin du Ve siècle au milieu du Xle siècle (Paris, 1979). 13. Marenbon, pp. 177-78, on Eriugena in Wales. On possible knowledge of pseudo-Dionysius via Scotus in England see Jean RitzkeRutherford, “Anglo-Saxon Antecedents of the Middle English Mystics,” in The Medieval Mystical Tradition in England, ed. Marion Glasscoe (Exeter, 1980), pp. 216-33. I have not been able to see RitzkeRutherford’s Light and Darkness in Anglo-Saxon Thought and Writing (Frankfort, 1979), which is cited in Valerie Marie Lagorio and Ritamary Bradley, The 14th-Century English Mystics: A Comprehensive Annotated Bibliography (New York, 1981). 14. Malcolm Godden, “King Alfred’s Boethius,” in Boethius: His Life, Thought and Influence, ed. Margaret Gibson (Oxford, 1981), pp. 419-24 at 419. 15 .De Consolatione Philosophiae was unknown to Bede, but there is some reason to think it was known at York in Alcuin’s day: Peter

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Hunter Blair, “From Bede to Alcuin,” in Famulus Christi: Essays in Commemoration o f the Thirteenth Centenary o f the Birth o f the Venerable Bede, ed. Gerald Bonner (London, 1976), pp. 239-60 at 253-54. See also the essay by Whitney F. Bolton below. 16. See Pierre Courcelle, La Consolation de Philosophie dans la tradition littéraire: antécedents etposterité de Boéce (Paris, 1967). Recently attention has been directed to a commentary that might be connected with Wales and, therefore, Asser: Malcolm B. Parkes, “A Note on MS Vatican Bibl. Apost., lat. 3363,” in Boethius, ed. Gibson, pp. 425-27. 17. The most recent doubts, about the importance of Vat. lat. 3363, are expressed by Janet M. Bately at pp. 16 and 25 of the inaugural lecture, cited above n. 5. In the eleventh century and later, Boethius was most highly valued for his logical treatises and commentaries on the dialectical works of Aristotle; see R.W. Southern, The Making o f the Middle Ages (London, 1953), pp. 175-79. 18. The question of the chronology of Alfred’s work is a vexed one. Soliloquies has verbal parallels with the Boethius, but as Miss Whitelock and others have recognized, Alfred at least knew the Latin Soliloquia when he made the OE Boethius. Thus the priority of Boethius is “probable rather than certain” (“Prose of Alfred’s Reign,” pp. 76-77). Thomas A. Camicelli overstates the case for the priority of Soliloquies in his edition, King Afred's Version o f St. Augustine's Soliloquies (Cambridge, Mass., 1969), pp. 20-40. The edition of Boethius is Walter John Sedgefield, King Alfred's Old English Version o f Boethius De Consolatione Philosophiae (Oxford, 1899). 19. Peter Brown, Augustine o f Hippo: A Biography (Berkeley, 1967), p. 115.1 rely on Brown and the work of O’Meara, cited in n. 20, for my account of the setting of the composition of Soliloquia. 20. John O’Meara, “The Historicity of the Early Dialogues of Saint Augustine,” Vigiliae Christianae 5 (1951): 150-78. 21. For descriptions see Franz Römer, Die handschriftliche Überlieferung der Werke des heiligen Augustinus, Band II. 1-2: Grossbrittanien und Irland (Vienna, 1972), Part l,pp. 169-71, and Part 2, p. 314;

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the earlier work of Heinrich Schenkl, Bibliotheca Patrum Latinorum Britannica, III. 1 (Vienna, 1894), p. 42. See also Helmut Gneuss, “A Preliminary List of Manuscripts Written or Owned in England up to 1100,” ASE 9 (1981): 1-60, no. 752 at p. 47; and F.A. Rella, “Continental Manuscripts Acquired for English Centers in the Tenth and Early Eleventh Centuries: A Preliminary Checklist,” Anglia 98 (1980): 107-16,no. 33atp. 115. The Ai{)elmaer whose name appears on fol. 141 v of Salisbury Cathedral 173 is probably the patron of iElfric. Fols. 70ff. contain Isidore’s Synonyma (sometimes called Soliloquia, whence perhaps it came to be bound with Augustine’s Soliloquia—though in this manuscript the author is identified and the work is called Sinonima). Since fol. 70 begins a fresh gathering and seems to be in a new hand, the two works need not have been bound together when both texts were copied, probably in the late tenth century. I have collated Sarum 173, fols. 1-69, with the Maurist edition of Soliloquia, on which see below, n. 25. The copying is rather mechanical, and the scribe has sometimes misconstrued such terms and concepts as otium, but there are no significant departures from the printed text and no glosses or scholia. The “Augustine” [A] who discourses with “Ratio” [R] in the Maurist text (and presumably most manuscripts) is designated “Homo” [H] in Sarum 173. 22. It might, however, be worthwhile to look to Rheims as a possible source for Alfred’s text, for the king’s associate, Grimbald, was trained at Rheims, and it was to that cathedral’s library that Gerbert (later Pope Sylvester II) in the late tenth century went for texts that resembled the Augustine at least in their use of dialectical demonstration. On Grimbald see n. 7 above. On Gerbert and the books at Rheims see Southern, Making o f the Middle Ages, p. 175. See also Kurt Otten, König Alfreds Boethius (Tübingen, 1963), pp. 9-10. 23. F. Anne Payne, King A Ifred and Boethius: An Analysis ofthe Old English Version o f the Consolation o f Philosophy (Madison, Wis., 1968). 24. See n. 22 for full citation. The differences between Otten and Payne are nicely re-stated (with an effort to mediate) by Godden in “King Alfred’s Boethius,” p. 422. For a synoptic study of the Boethius

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and Soliloquies, see Ludwig Helbig, Altenglische Schliisselbegriffe in den Augustinus- und Boethius-Bearbeitungen Alfreds des Grossen (Frankfurt am Main, 1960). 25. On the modem history of the text, see Eligius Dekkers and Aemilius Gaar, Clavis Patrum Latinorum, ed. altera (Steenbrug, 1961), p. 67 (no. 252). The 1954 edition by H. Müller is an “improvement” on the Maurist text. The Maurist text is cited here parenthetically by book, chapter, and section; it is available in PL 32, 869-904, or with translation, introduction, and notes by Pierre de Labriolle in Oeuvres de Saint Augustin, lière Sér., 5, Dialogues Philosophiques, 2 (Brussels, 1948), pp. 7-148.1 quote from the Labriolle text. English translations are from John H.S. Burleigh in Augustine: Earlier Writings (Philadelphia, 1953), pp. 17-63. On the manuscript tradition, see above, n. 21. 26. Ker, Catalogue, pp. 279-81. Ker notes that the manuscript may also, according to a table of contents made by Humphrey Wanley for the Cotton library (but not according to Wanley’s Librorum Veterum Septentrionalium Catalogus [1705]), have contained some apocryphal material associated with the name of the apostle Thomas. 27. Meaney, “Alfred and his Secretariat,” p. 19. It is conceivable the copy was made before the community, founded in 1133, moved from Porchester to Southwick, ca. 1145; see David Knowles, C.N.L. Brooke, and Vera C.M. London, The Heads o f Religious Houses: England and Wales 940-1216 (Cambridge, 1972), p. 184. Camicelli (pp. 3ff.) believes the language of the text is late West Saxon with a strong “admixture” of Kentish and early Middle English southern forms. His conclusions are, however, flawed; see Eric G. Stanley’s review, Notes and Queries 215 (1970): 111. 28. The portion of the volume designated as no. 215 in Ker, Catalogue, is not included in the facsimile of The Nowell Codex, ed. Kemp Malone, EEMF 12 (Copenhagen, 1963). 29. H.L. Hargrove, ed., King Alfred’s Old English Version o f St. Augustine’s Soliloquies (New York, 1902); William Endter, ed., Kônig Alfreds des Grossen Bearbeitung der Soliloquien des Augustinus,

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Bibliothek der angelsächsischen Prosa 11 (1922; repr. Darmstadt, 1964); Camicelli, as cited above, n. 18. A translation was published by Hargrove as King Alfred's Old English Version o f St. Augustine's Soliloquies, Turned into Modern English (New York, 1904). Although Endter is in some ways to be preferred, quotations below are from Camicelli’s edition, cited parenthetically by page and line; translations, save for the preface, are mine. On the limitations of Camicelli, see esp. the reviews by Klaus R. Grinda, Anglia 90 (1972): 519-24, and Stanley as in n. 27. Camicelli, who had apparently not seen Cotton Vitellius A.xv at first hand, denigrates the Junius transcription (Oxford, Bodleian, Junius 70), which he feels “adds nothing to our knowledge of the text and may be safely ignored” (p. 1). He seems to have been unaware that his 50.10-18 and 54.22-56.9 occur as an independent prayer closer, linguistically, to Alfred than the Cotton MS—in a Canterbury collection of liturgical materials of the mid-eleventh century London, BL, Cotton Tiberius A.iii (Ker 186, art. 9[g]; first identified by Karl Jost, Wulfstanstudien [Bern, 1950], p. 208; ed. H. Logeman, “Anglo-Saxonica Minora,” Anglia 12 [1889]: 511-13). Still important for study of the text of the OE Soliloquies is an article by Karl Jost issued as a corrective to Hargrove: “Zur Textkritik der altenglischen Soliloquien-Bearbeitung,’’4«g//tf Beiblatt?* 1 (1920): 259-72,280-90, and 32 (1921): 8-16. Two earlier editions by Thomas Oswald Cockayne in The Shrine: A Collection o f Occasional Papers on Dry Subjects (London, 1864-70), pp. 163-205 and W.H. Hulme, “ ‘Blooms’ von König Aelfred,” Englische Studien 18(1893): 331-56; corrections in 19 (1894): 470, are dismissed by Camicelli (pp. 40-41) as “reprints.” Although neither is a critical edition, both are intelligent transcriptions. The Soliloquies is one of the most-edited OE prose texts, yet it remains intractable. 30. On William, see above, n. 8. Richard Paul Wiilker’s thesis is to be found in “Über die angelsächsische Bearbeitung der Soliloquien Augustins,” Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur 4 (Halle, 1887): 101-31. For a survey of the entire issue and of the problem of William’s knowledge of Asser, see Whitelock, “William of Malmesbury and the Works of King Alfred,” as cited in n. 8 above.

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32. Trans. Whitelock, English Historical Documents, 1:917: “Then I gathered for myself staves and props and tie-shafts, and handles for all the tools I knew how to use, and crossbars and beams for all the structures which I knew how to build, the fairest pieces of timber, as many as I could carry. Nor did I come home with a single load without wishing to bring home all the wood, if I could have carried it. In each tree I saw something that I required at home. For I advise each of those who is strong and has many wagons, to plan to go to the same wood where I cut these props, and fetch for himself more there, and load his wagons with fair rods, so that he can plait many a fine wall, and put up many a peerless building, and build a fair enclosure with them; and may dwell therein pleasantly and at his ease winter and summer, as I have not yet done.” Endter began his edition with ellipsis and Camicelli allows for the possibility that the beginning is incomplete. The presence of an ornamental capital (obscured by the results of the fire or deterioration) seems to indicate that, if the Preface is incomplete, it was already so in the Vitellius scribe’s exemplar. Simeon Potter, “King Alfred’s Last Preface,” in Philologica: The Malone Anniversary Studies, ed. Thomas A. Kirby and Henry Bosley Wolf (Baltimore, 1949), pp. 25-30, at 28-29, argues that the text begins at the beginning, but (as Professor Whitelock pointed out to me in a letter of 12 June 1978) Potter overlooked the ponne of the opening phrase. Furthermore, the prefaces to Pastoral Care and Boethius begin with identification of Alfred, and so does the preface the king supplied for Waerferth’s Dialogues of Gregory. There must also have been an earlier reference to the spiritual guide, “se f>e me laerde, J)am se wudu licode” (47.12). Stanley, review of Camicelli, p. I l l , wonders “if our beginning is not the second preface, following a more factual first preface as in the Cura pastoralis.” 33. Whitelock, English Historical Documents, 1:917. See also Ruth Waterhouse, “Tone in Alfred’s Version of Augustine’s Soliloquies,” in Studies in Earlier Old English Prose, ed. Paul E. Szarmach (Albany, 1986), pp. 47-85.

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34. See Walter Map, De nugis curialium, Il.xxxii, ed. Thomas Wright, Camden Society 50 (1850), p. 106. This metaphor is, however, undeveloped and does not seem to me so analogous to the Soliloquies preface as it does to Stanley, review of Camicelli, p. 111. 35. Potter, p. 27, made this observation without reference to Asser. For a later Winchester use of the topos, see Regular is concordia, chap. 5, ed. Thomas Symons (London, 1953), p. 3. 36. In the incipit of III the “ic” (Augustine) is addressing reason/ Gesceadwisnes and speaking of what has been selected from Soliloquia. The ending of III is imperfect and one cannot assume (as does Camicelli, following Wülker) that it named De Videndo Deo as the source. 37.1 have also been helped on this point by Professor Whitelock in her letter of 12 June 1978. 38. The TElfric passage is an unpublished addition to the 7a post Pascha of Sermones catholicae I. See my discussion in Preaching and Theology in Anglo-Saxon England: JElfric and Wulfstan (Toronto, 1977), pp. 86-88, esp. 87 and notes; see also the review of my work by John C. Pope, Speculum 54 (1979): 129-36 at pp. 134-35. 3 9 .1 am unable to give a full account here of the use of metaphor in the adaptation of Soliloquia. 40. “. . . two books concerning his thoughts; the books are called Soliloquies, that is concerning his mind’s reflections and doubts, how his reason answered his mind when his mind was in doubt or wanted to know something it had not formerly been able to perceive very clearly.” 41. PL 32,589; trans. Burleigh, Augustine: Earlier Writings, p. 17: “. . . the question was: What kind of man he ought to be who wishes to lay hold on wisdom, which is grasped by the mind and not by bodily sense; and the answer was in a measure made clear. At the end of the book it was concluded as the result of a logical proof that things which truly are, are immortal.”

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42. A suggestive paper on the subject is Harvey Minkoff, “Some Stylistic Consequences of Ælfric’s Theory of Translation,” Studies in Philology 73 (1976): 29-41. See also the inaugural address of Janet Bately, cited above, n. 5. 43. See Marenbon, pp. 140-41, on Carolingian philosophical method. On Alfred’s significance in the history of education, see D.A. Bullough, “The Educational Tradition in England from Alfred to Ælfric: Teaching utriusque linguae,” Centro Italiano di Studi sull’alto Medioevo, Settimane di Studio 19 (Spoleto, 1972), pp. 453-94. 44. See Otten, pp. 177-78. 45. David Knowles, The Evolution o f Medieval Thought (London, 1962), p. 23. 46. See n. 38, above, and Camicelli, p. 100, notes on 53.17-27. Alfred may also be reflecting here on Soliloquies I.xv.28, a passage he does not translate. 47. See Milton McC. Gatch, Loyalties and Traditions: Man and His World in Old English Literature (New York, 1971), pp. 21, 137-41. 48. A later tradition associating Boethius (who may have translated or commented on Euclid) and Alfred with a rendering of Euclid’s Elements has been shown by Marshall Clagett to be false; the versions in question are by Adelard of Bath (twelfth century): “King Alfred and the Elements of Euclid,” Isis 45 (1954): 269-77. 49. A Microfiche Concordance to Old English, comp. Richard L. Venezky and Antonette diPaolo Healey (Toronto, 1980). A reference to geometricians in De Consolatione Philosophiae, III. pr. 10, is apparently sidestepped in the OE version (XXXIV.iv-v). Save for limited practical applications, study of geometry was not pursued in the Anglo-Saxon period. Thus, as Riché remarks of Bede’s scientific and mathematical knowledge: “Comput, astronomie, cosmographie forment un tout qui compose le seul bagage scientifique des Anglo-Saxons. De la géométrie, il n’est pas question; de la médicine, très peu” (Education et Culture, p. 435). According to Knowles, Evolution o f Medieval Thought, p. 74, the recovery of geometry, like dialectics, is traced to Gerbert.

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50. “In this instance the senses are for me like a ship. Once they had led me to the place I wanted to reach, I dismissed them; and, on land, I began to roll over these questions in my thought, but for a long time staggered as though at sea. So I think one might as easily sail on dry land as learn geometry by the senses; although to an extent the senses seem to help beginners” (translation mine). 51. According to Whitelock, this reference to a letter under seal antedates by a century the earliest surviving sealed letters {English Historical Documents 1:917). 52. See Gatch, Preaching and Theology, pp. 4ff. On this “Autoritátenglauben” see also Jost, “Zur Textkritik der altenglischen SoliloquienBearbeitung,” 31:271. 53. Waterhouse, “Tone.” 54. As has already been remarked in n. 13, Jean Ritzke-Rutherford believes Alfred may have known Pseudo-Dionysius through Eriugena. I am not convinced by her evidence, but the possibility remains that Alfred was more closely tied to the Carolingian philosophical movement discussed by Marenbon than has been thought. 55. Janet Bately, “Evidence for Knowledge of Latin Literature in Old English,” in Sources o f Anglo-Saxon Culture, ed. Paul E. Szarmach (Kalamazoo, Mich., 1986). 56. See Gneuss, “A Preliminary List,” and J.D.A. Ogilvy, Books Known to the English, 597-1066 (Cambridge, Mass., 1967), p. 89. On De Immortalitate Animae as a completion of Soliloquia, see Retr. I.v. 1 and Labriolle’s introduction at p. 165 of the edition cited in n. 25. 57. This point was established by Jost,”Zur Textkritik der altenglischen Soliloquien-Bearbeitung,” 31:263. The homily is in PL 76,1301 -1312. 58. Letter from Professor Whitelock, 12 June 1978, and subsequent conversation. Professor Whitelock’s views on Soliloquies are spelled out in an unpublished monograph on King Alfred. Even posthumously Dorothy Whitelock still has much to teach us about Alfred. I am grateful to Professor Bately for allowing me to read the typescript of the section

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on the Old English Soliloquies, although I have resisted the temptation to incorporate further references to it. 59. See Whitelock, “Prose of Alfred’s Reign,” p. 88, and Camicelli’s note at p. 105 on 93.24ff, but the allusion is a very brief one. To imply, as does Camicelli at p. 29, that, in adapting passages of the Vulgate, Alfred thought himself indebted to Jerome seems to me unlikely. 60. A first draft of this paper was read at a symposium on “Wisdom and Learning in Medieval Literature” at the University of Iowa in February, 1977. It is a pleasure to record here my thanks to Professors Valerie M. Lagorio and Richard F. O’Gorman and to a host of other Iowans for their hospitality and helpful comments. My greatest debt, however, is to Professor Dorothy Whitelock, to whose memory this paper is dedicated.

Addenda Note 3:

For a new translation of Asser and related materials, see Simon Keynes and Michael Lapidge, eds., Alfred the Great: Asser’s Life o f King Alfred and Other contemporary Sources (Harmondsworth, 1983). The issue of the authenticity of Asser has recently been reopened by Alfred P. Smyth, King Alfred the Great (Oxford, 1995)—a work that should be read with great caution (see Simon Keynes, “On the Authenticity of Asser’s Life o f King Alfred,” Journal o f Ecclesiastical History 47 [1996]: 529-51). Notes 6 and 58: Professor Whitelock’s executors have abandoned the intent to publish her manuscript monograph on King Alfred. Note 25: A new critical edition of the Soliloquia by Wolfgang Hormann has appeared as CSEL 89 (Vienna, 1887). For Clavis Patrum Latinorum, consult now 3rd ed. in CCSL (Steenbrug, 1995).

The Myth o f Circe in King Alfred’s B o e th iu s * Klaus Grinda (trans. Paul Battles, Hanover College) King Alfred’s Old English translation1of Boethius’ Consolatio philosophiae2 briefly retells the myth of Odysseus and Circe in its paraphrase of the meter “VelaNeritii” (IV.3). Alfred’s departures from his source have been analyzed in a frequently cited study by Karl Otten. Otten rightly expresses his admiration for the skillful narration of the Old English prose paraphrase3and of the metrical version dependent on the former.4 However, elementary mistakes in interpreting the Old English have led Otten to misconstrue certain points of importance for the Circe material. The following discussion will correct these readings, and will then attempt to determine what the selection and function of the motifs in Alfred’s retelling of the Circe-myth reveal about its place within the mythographic tradition, about Alfred’s understanding of classical myth, and about the body of information concerning the Circemyth available to him. Unfortunately, Alfred’s immediate sources remain unknown, and have most likely been lost, although some may well be among the unedited early medieval Latin glosses and commentaries on Boethius. Only one such text, a manuscript of the roughly contemporary, anonymous commentary from St. Gall, will be used for comparative purposes in the present study. According to Otten, the distinguishing feature in Alfred’s depiction of Circe5 is his increased attention to her inner life.6 He argues that Circe is depicted not as a treacherous sorceress, but rather transforms Odysseus’ companions because of the “blandishments of deceitful persons”—in his translation, Otten refers to the “spells” of evil people. 237

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Circe the enchantress thus becomes enchanted herself, which “mitigates her culpability for her actions somewhat.” Likewise, Otten suggests that Alfred “eliminates the role of Mercury” because the love-motif “obviates the need for Hermes and the Moly.” Alfred’s transformation of Circe, as reconstructed by Otten, would indeed be a masterful touch, if the “blandishments of deceitful persons” or their “spells” actually had a textual basis. The relevant passage reads: “Da ongunnon lease men wyrcan spell, and saedon J>set hio sceolde mid hire drycraeft {>a men forbredan . . .” (116.3L). Otten’s rendition of these lines is directly or indirectly indebted to J.S. Cardale’s early nineteenth-century translation:7“Then began false men to work spells. And they said that she should by her sorcery overthrow the m en__ ” When translating other occurrences of leas spell in the Old English Boethius, Cardale more correctly renders them as “fable” or “fictitious speech”;8Otten, it should be noted, refers to these passages in discussing Alfred’s general attitude towards the fabula.9Cardale, in turn—who (unlike Otten) had to forgo the aid of the standard dictionaries, which were completed decades after his translation—was only transmitting an even older error: his source was LyeManning’s Dictionarium of 1772,10which translates the whole phrase as “Turn coeperunt mendaces homines excogitare incantamenta.” However, the Dictionarium glosses all other instances of spell as figmentum, fabula, and that is also how the spell of the leas men should be interpreted (Diane Bolton: “false tale”11). The passage could therefore be translated as follows: “Then deceitful people began to tell fables, and claimed___” At first glance, it might seem odd that Alfred only introduces the statement about “false tales” after the narrative has gotten well underway, that is, at the moment when Odysseus’ companions rebel against their leader. Yet Alfred is here simply signaling a transition from the portion of the story he considers credible to the part he regards as utter fantasy. Hence, this phrase marks a new unit in the narrative, and as such it could be paraphrased as: “Concerning the next matter, deceitful people began to tell false tales as follows.” Alfred’s use of the phrase leas spell reveals his attitude toward classical myth. Otten correctly argues that Alfred, as a Christian, emphatically distances himself from their veracity. With respect to both

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ideology and terminology, Alfred here partakes of a widespread Christian tradition. Orosius, for example, makes a very similar remark concerning the myth of Phaeton—“quidam ridiculam Phaetontis fabulam texuerunt”—which the Alfredian Old English translation paraphrases by stating that unwise menn invented this story him . . . to leasungspelle, i.e., “as a false tale.”12 Likewise, in his translation of Boethius, Alfred repeatedly dismisses the fall of the giants as leas spell or leasung}3 but nevertheless retains this pagan myth as a foil to the corresponding biblical sodspell,14the construction of Babel. Lest he be accused of cherishing the myths for their own sake (“for dara leasena spella lufan”15), Alfred calls attention to their didactic usefulness. So too in the next myth, the story of Orpheus; though he dismissively characterizes it as a leas spell, he includes it because he wishes for it to dinne ingedonc betan.16 Alfred most likely adopts these distancing strategies to fulfill his Christian duty, not—as D. Bolton has argued—to express his “exasperation” with the myths. Conversely, Alfred’s justification for preserving pagan myth derives from a tradition of didactic Homer-exegesis and allegoresis that predates Christianity and finds expression in the sententia of Pseudo-Acro: “per singulas fabulas monstrat et uirtutes et uitia Homerus.”17 Alfred’s posture toward classical myth is by no means always so guarded.18 When Hercules kills in self-defense, Alfred even interprets this in a positive light; it occurs be Godes dome}9 Alfred expressly characterizes mythological figures as “deceitful” only when rejecting the divine status or supernatural powers of pagan deities mentioned in his source. As Otten notes,20 the myth of Circe is placed in such a Christian context from the very beginning. By doing so, Alfred situates his much amplified discussion of Circe’s place in the pagan pantheon— background information necessary for a Christian audience unfamiliar with classical myth—within a moralizing, didactic framework. In fact, Boethius himself does not even call Circe by name, just as he identifies Hermes and Odysseus only periphrastically, for his well-educated audience would certainly grasp such allusions.21 Alfred divides his Circe-narrative into two parts. In addition to Circe’s genealogy, the first relates Odysseus’ arrival and his thegns’ rebellion; the second contains the kernel of the episode: the trans-

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formation of the thegns and the accompanying moral commentary. As already mentioned, this section is introduced by the statement, “Then deceitful people began to invent tales [or ‘a tale’], and said.”22Fourteen lines later, the narrative is again called leasungum, “falsehoods,” which represents Alffed’s customary way of warning the reader that the matter at hand is suspect and demands interpretation. After all, for a Christian audience it would be just as wrong to believe that Circe could change human beings into animals as to accept her divine origin. Alfred’s phrase “deceitful persons” refers not to characters within the narrative, as Otten believes, but rather to the mythological poets of classical antiquity, that is, Homer and the representatives of the literary tradition that derives from him. Alfred is not aware that Homer was the author of the myth of Circe. He considers its origin to be anonymous. Far from accusing Homer of deceitfulness, he praises him as a good scop—which the meter paraphrases as leoda crceftgast, “most skilled in song”—where Boethius calls him melliflui oris. Apparently following a commentary, Alfred considers Homer the freond and lareow (“teacher”) of Virgil23 (hardly in the sense of an intellectual antecedent, but in the naively literal belief that the two were contemporaries). However, the association of these celebrated names is traditional, and though Alfred’s statement betrays a certain lack of familiarity with classical literature, he is by no means unique in this respect.24Alfred believes that Homer pronounced “oft and gelome f>aere sunnan wlite . . . leodum and spellum,”25 considerably overestimating the significance of a Homeric verse fragment cited— with slight alteration—by Boethius (and glossed in Latin in the commentaries). Two centuries earlier, Aldhelm’s pedagogical treatise De Metris et Enigmatibus had already included Homer among the ranks of the disertitudinis facundia freti and Argolicae urbanitatis privilegio praediti writing prior to Virgil.26 Aldhelm’s contemporary, Bede, also mentions Homer when discussing poetics, following and sometimes citing older metrical treatises verbatim. Indeed, at one point he even mentions the titles of Homer’s poems; in order to illustrate the “mixed” (coenon vel micton) narrative mode—combining authorial commentary and direct discourse—he notes, “ut sunt scripta Ilias et Odyssea Homeri et /.Eneidos Virgilii.” In 1011, Byrhtferth translates this line into Old English, and comments: “Ilias, J)aet beod gewyn [‘war’], & Odissia beoS

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gedwyld [‘wandering’], swa Omerus on J)ære bec recô”—a didactic addition similar to Alfred’s genealogy of Circe and derived from Remigius of Auxerre.27 Bede compares Homer and Virgil in one other passage, borrowing from Flavius Mallius Theodorus.28In the alphabetic Marian hymn incorporated into his Ecclesiastical History, he mentions Virgil in the same breath with the proeliae Troiae.29 In the work modeled on the Eusebius-Jerome chronicle, Bede dates the two sacks of Troy, by Herakles (lines 5.638f.) and Agamemnon.30 Orosius calls Homer in primis clans, the Iliad a luculentissimum carmen and omnibus notum. The Alfredian Anglo-Saxon translator31attributes to Orosius the advice that he who is eager to know more about the Trojan war “ræde on his [i.e., Homer’s] bocum,” but then adds vaguely and anonymously, “swa mon on spellum sægô.” He augments Orosius’ catalogue of the horrors of war with on scipgebroce (“by shipwreck”), which most likely refers to the Odyssey and may derive from a gloss here incorporated into the text. Orosius, too, relates the events chronicled by the Aeneid immediately after the matter of Troy. As one would expect, none of this reflects a direct knowledge of Homer among the Anglo-Saxons—not even a familiarity with the Ilias latina,32which at any rate is irrelevant for the Circe-material. It is “pure rhétorique,”33 a clichéd homage to Homer’s name, which has been linked formulaically with that of Virgil since Ovid. Information concerning Homer and Homeric objects surfaces more frequently in technical prose than in poetry. Not only did the Moly find its way into the Anglo-Saxon Herbal,34but the Herbarium of Pseudo-Apuleius cites Homer on the origin of the peony, and apostrophizes him as sacerdos auctor (which the Anglo-Saxon Herbal renders as se mcere ealdor, here probably meaning “famous authority”).35 An early layer of Latin Aldhelm-glosses36for use in the classroom supplies the interlinear gloss rhetor (which is, in turn, glossed as wordsnotera in Old English, “one wise in words”) for homerum. It remains unclear, however, whether its intended pedagogical value lay in an explication of the word rhetor or in information concerning Homer, that is, whether the glossator knew anything about Homer beyond his occupation as “rhetor.” In this context, we must consider the “uncertain tradition” mentioned by W.F. Bolton (1967), according to which Theodore of Tarsus brought a manuscript of Homer to England in the seventh

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century,37 which however has left no trace during the Anglo-Saxon period. More concretely, the trail of this tradition leads from M. Roger (1905) to the Comte de Montalembert (1867), who has Theodore reading Homer “sans cesse,” and in turn cites F. Godwinus (1616)38 as his source. Godwin, however, was merely paraphrasing Archbishop Matthew Parker and Parker’s secretary Joscelyn (1572). Parker and Joscelyn not only suggest that Theodore owned a copy of the Homeric poems, but claim that this very manuscript is among those that apud nos manent.39 Indeed, a somewhat ambiguous clause shows that the great antiquarian and his assistant—himself a former lecturer in Greek—have a particular manuscript in mind: “volumen grande est, charta etiam antiquior.” It is difficult to avoid the suspicion that Parker and Joscelyn actually wish to date a paper manuscript to the seventh century (or earlier still), and this finds confirmation in MS CCCC 81, an Italian Renaissance-humanist paper manuscript of Homer from Parker’s collection, probably prepared for Theodoros Gaza; Parker and Joscelyn prefaced the codex with their notes. In them, they ascribe the manuscript to Theodore of Tarsus and relate a romantic story concerning a former baker of St. Augustine’s, Canterbury, who rescued the manuscript from scrap paper during the turmoil of the Reformation. The story may be true, or had at least been depicted as such to Parker. Nothing need be added to M.R. James’ comments concerning the attribution (1917).40 Since the persistent tradition about the existence of Homer’s poetry in England during the missionary period has managed to survive James’ remarks and to find its way into a later handbook, one scarcely dares to hope that the comments offered here will put an end to it.41 Alfred’s statement that Circe sceolde transform the companions— which Otten misinterprets—and that some sceolde become boars, reflects the same intention as his description of the Circe-myth as leas spell, etc.42 At least since Bosworth-Toller’s Old English dictionary, it has been recognized that the preterite forms of the modal verb sculan can also be used to describe second-hand information without truthclaim (dicitur). In their discussions on this point, Wulfmg, Standop, and Mitchell43 cite, among other passages, several examples from Alfred’s Circe-episode. Actually, these critics have by no means catalogued the relevant passages exhaustively.44 It is a common distancing device.

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Naturally, it occurs especially often in euhemeristic representations of pagan myth, as in the more than two dozen instances in Alfred’s Boethius;45 in a pseudo-Wulfstan homily;46 in Marvels o f the East;41 in the Old English translation of the Herbarium,48 which elucidates plant names (artemisia, dracontea, appollinaris, centaurea, gorgonion, achillaea) that have an obvious etymological relationship to mythological figures (Artemis, dragon, Apollo, centaurs, Gorgon, and Achilles). Also included are temolus / etmolum (probably derived from the Homeric Moly) and verbascum (because of its identification with this plant).49 With regard to the role of Hermes / Mercury and the Moly in the myth of Circe, the Christian Old English translator of the Herbarium employs sceolde to express the customary reservations concerning the pagan source. The same holds true for Alfred’s version of the Circe myth (which of course does not mention Hermes); as in other euhemeristic contexts, sceolde here expresses Alfred’s rejection of Circe’s divine status, which has been invented by the mythological poets, and also of the magic powers ascribed to her. Just as with spell,50 Otten misinterprets the function of sceolde within the mythological context by interpreting it as a deontic modal (“May Circe . . . ”). Most of Alfred’s additions to the Consolatio—especially the encyclopaedic additions—are obviously didactic. His omissions, on the other hand, do not always reflect a deliberate purpose. Boethius—like Homer—distinguishes between two separate transformations of human beings into animals. First, several people who remain anonymous are transformed into various wild beasts: boars, lions, wolves, and tigers. With the exception of the boars, these animals correspond to the fearsome but strikingly tame predators that Odysseus’ companions see wandering about before Circe’s houses in the Odyssey;51 it is implied (and openly suggested by Eurylochos) that these are transformed human beings.52 Boethius, too, mentions their tameness (mitis).53 In the Consolatio, the second, analogous transformation—where the companions are turned into pigs—comes immediately after this description. Boethius follows Homer here,54 but omits the remainder of the plot, compressing that large section of the Circe-episode to an allusion of how Hermes rescues Odysseus.55 Moreover, he inserts this detail as hysteron proteron between the two transformations, that is, before the

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transformation of Odysseus’ companions, whereas Homer relates it in its normal order. Boethius intends this allusive and terse narration for an audience steeped in Homer;56accordingly, he excerpts only the relevant parts of the Homeric narrative. While abridging the plot, Boethius does not change the sequence in which the events occur, only the order in which he relates them.57 Boethius’ motives for compressing and rearranging his material are obvious. In Homer, the suggestively erotic relationship between Odysseus and Circe, as well as the sensual delights following the disenchantment of the companions, stand in a contrasting and varying relationship to the later stay with Calypso.58 Within the Homeric episode, enchantment and disenchantment constitute a paired motif that helps to establish the relationship of the various figures (Odysseus, Circe, and Eurylochos) to one another, as well as to the companions who have been transformed. Boethius’ Circe-meter, by contrast, is “corollario della tesi dimostrata nella prosa precedente,” depicting wickedness as a subhuman force within human beings, and pairing individual vices with the animals traditionally associated with them.59 This animal symbolism places the metamorphosis within the context of a moral-philosophical argument. The episode becomes an exemplum60to illustrate the moral— mentioned parenthetically in the Odyssey, but repeatedly emphasized in the Latin tradition—that the vouq (or mens)61 cannot be affected by Circe’s magic. This allows Boethius to conclude that the “transformation” affected by vice is worse than Circe’s enchantment—a tenet consonant with the Christian doctrine of sin. Because the metamorphosis climaxes with this conclusion in Boethius, it comes last in the narrative. In order to make this possible, Boethius employs the ordo artificialis to relate the aid of Hermes beforehand. Alfred follows Boethius in the general structure of the episode, but does not reproduce his artful arrangement, perhaps out of misunderstanding. He no longer distinguishes between the two groups of transformed persons, but rather has Odysseus’ companions themselves transformed into various animals. Alfred’s metrical version even incorporates the animal symbolism of the preceding prose into the Circenarrative: Circe transforms each companion into the animal “swelcum he aeror on his lifdagum [i.e., in moral character] gelicost waes.”62

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Alfred’s conflation of the two transformations reveals his unawareness of the sequence of events in Homer, which is still preserved in the Consolatio. Of course, it would have been easy to misinterpret Boethius’ adroit restructuring of the Homeric episode; as already mentioned, he only alludes to the actual events and reverses the order in which they are narrated. The riddling style of the Latin meter is intended to appeal to the more sophisticated aesthetic sensibility of an audience well-read in classical literature. Yet Alfred’s interpretation need not derive from ignorance, but probably seeks to harmonize the cryptic text of Boethius with an equally traditional (if apocryphal) concept: even classical iconography63depicts Odysseus’ companions in varied animal guises. Literary texts—such as the roughly contemporary anonymous commentary of St. Gall—also document the currency of this idea.64 Alfred could have found apparent confirmation of this concept in a classical source probably known to him: Virgil’s Aeneid. During the nocturnal passage by the shores of Circeii, the roaring of transformed lions, boars, bears, and wolves can be heard.65 No mention is made of a separate group of pigs, since Aeneas’ journey obviously takes place after they have been disenchanted and have departed. Whereas the Odyssey evokes the demonic nature of these beasts by making them tame, Virgil—in whose narrative they are perceived only from afar— achieves the same effect by making them savage; the lions are vincula recusantes, meaning that they would endure no chains, or struggled against them, on account of their wildness. It is precisely this detail that Alfred adds to Boethius: he states that the transformed animals have been put on pa racentan & on cospas,66“into chains and fetters.” Alfred in all probability derived this detail directly or indirectly from the Aeneid. By contrast, he is not acquainted with (or at least he takes no note of) Servius’ opinion that the intended effect of the spells is that the victims “libidini et voluptatibus operam darent”—just as in Anonymous of St. Gall “luxuriosi illi remiges . .. versi (sunt).” Since Alfred did not derive the details of the Circe-myth from Homer, it is surprising that the relationship between Odysseus and Circe should figure as prominently in his version as it does in the Odyssey. Boethius, after all, makes no mention of their relationship. No doubt Alfred’s depiction of mutual love at first sight67 constitutes an indirect

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reflex of the erotic relationship described by Homer. Like Homer, Alfred also relates how Odysseus tarries in Circe’s arms, and that the companions’ eventually revolt because of this,68 details that he did not derive from Boethius. However, he interprets the function and sequence of these details in an unorthodox fashion. In the Old English version, the love affair, stay with Circe, and mutiny apparently precede the companions’ transformation. Hermes/Mercury, and his role in preventing Odysseus’ transformation (which Boethius preserves69), is no longer mentioned. To be sure, the reference to Hermes in the Consolatio is so periphrastic that it could be deciphered only by a familiarity with Homer’s story, or through an explanatory gloss. Alfred reveals neither—although the Latin Herbarium of Pseudo-Apuleius refers to Hermes’ aid in the context of describing one of the many plants identified with the fabulous Moly, a detail that made its way into the Old English translation of the Herbarium.70 It is possible that Alfred omits Hermes because he does not understand Boethius’ allusive reference, but the omission could also result from Alfred’s restructuring of the story. Boethius does not identify Hermes by name, but rather refers to him periphrastically as Areas ales, “winged Arcadian.”71It would be easy to misinterpret this, as the anonymous commentary of St. Gall also does, taking it as a reference to a crow, supposedly venerated in Arcadia; thus, in this text a warning auspicium replaces Hermes’ assistance.72 Remigius’ commentary, on the other hand, correctly identifies Hermes, but contains an unorthodox version of the aid he proffers: “Hinc enim Mercurius Ulixem promovit ne Circae adpropinquaret tactuque caducei sui restituit socios eius in pristinam formam___” Its reference to the Moly is quite vague: “Mercurius... ostendit ei herbas quasdam cuius beneficio pemiciem evasit.”73With respect to the assistance of Hermes, Alfred draws on neither of these views. But how can his silence be explained? One possibility is that Alfred might have confused two mythological personages: Horace, Ovid, Statius, and others refer to Cupid as “the winged one”—usually (Cythereae)puer ales, but sometimes more ambiguously as ales.74 If Alfred confused one ales with the other, he might simply have interpreted his presence as its psychological correlative, that is, the protagonists’ love for one another.

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Yet an alternative theory seems more plausible, namely that the narrative logic of the love-motif caused Alfred to restructure the episode and that Hermes was omitted because of this. Alfred does not depict the companions’ transformation at the very beginning of the episode, before Odysseus has met Circe. If these events had been narrated as in Homer, the Anglo-Saxon Odysseus would have been unable to later enter into a romantic relationship with Circe without violating the loyalty that he, as lord and king, owes to his retainers. Just as Alfred’s “King” Odysseus is not TïoÀutpoTioç, so his conception of mutual “love at first sight” does not correspond to the ambiguous erotic relationship (which does not preclude deception) described by Homer. Consequently, in Alfred’s version, the transformation occurs only when the thegns rebel at the excessive length of the affair, thus subordinating their loyalty to the king to their wish to return home. This disrupts the romantic relationship, and the transformation of the companions would seem to be motivated by this circumstance. Hence, Alfred’s restructuring of this episode is essentially driven by a Saxonizing reconception of its key themes, love and royal duty. Given this transformation, it would have been impossible to retain Hermes’ role in saving Odysseus. He might have been mentioned in the context of the companions’ disenchantment (as depicted in unorthodox fashion by Remigius, for example), but Alfred—like Boethius—does not mention their disenchantment. The myth concludes with the companions’ transformation and the moralizing commentary this occasions. Unlike for Boethius, whose artful compression and chiastic rearrangement of the narrative evokes the whole Homeric myth as a foil, in Alfred’s version Mercury is redundant, and it is therefore a moot point whether or not Alfred correctly interpreted the reference. In the English Boethius MS CCCC 214, dating from the first half of the eleventh century, a gloss accurately identifies archadis as Mercurii.15 In some respects, the behavior of Homer’s Circe is quite enigmatic, particularly her rapid, not clearly motivated change in attitude toward Odysseus and his men. In this context, some have viewed her as “singulièrement vivante par ses passions contraires.”76Conversely, it has been argued that her character remains one-dimensional.77Karl Reinhart sees her abrupt transformation from treacherous witch to ardent lover and

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confidante as a particularly challenging problem.78 In his view, this motif derives from “one of the many magic trials through which the fairy-tale hero proves himself.” He further suggests that the fairy-tale narrative incorporates an element of novelistic realism: Circe’s personal destiny is fulfilled in meeting the man “whom she acknowledges as her master,” which results in her own transformation: “Having recognized one another, they are free to love each other, and Odysseus can lose him self. . . in her charms.” Reinhart may be correct in arguing that a realistic, psychologizing element has been grafted onto the story, but fundamentally the myth of Circe articulates an archetypal folk tradition and, as H. Peterman has shown, “in some ways retains first and foremost the characteristics of a fairy-tale.”79 Uvo Holscher even goes so far as to call Circe a “fairy-tale sorceress” (Marchenfee).80 There is no contradiction in regarding the Greeks’ stay with Circe both (in her words) as an opportunity to restore their spirits81 and also as another fairy-tale test. Although Homer depicts the year-long stay summarily, it would seem that—like the transformation and the Lotuseaters episode—he intends it to represent “l’oblio della vita passata.”82 This is not contravened by Odysseus’ statement83 that her invitation contains a promise of assistance in guiding them home, for her guests must shake off the languor of sensual delights of their own will, and must regain their moral bearings.84 When the companions chide Odysseus and plead with him,85this reflects their awakening from the stupor. Although in Alfred’s narrative the thegns do not explicitly call for the departure, their transformation by Circe at precisely this moment suggests that Alfred interprets their actions both as an appeal to Odysseus and—from Circe’s perspective—a threat to the love-affair. After all, Old English poetry too at times portrays retainers reminding their lord of his moral duty.86Alfred here transposes a Homeric motif—making it more pointed by having the thegns even threaten to renounce their allegiance—to render it more familiar to an Anglo-Saxon audience. Alternatively, it would be possible to interpret the phrase discussed above, Da ongunnon—which marks the beginning of a new section and precedes the metamorphosis—as an indication that Alfred did not wish to establish a chronological relationship between rebellion and transformation. In this reading, Alfred would have considered the love-affair

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and the mutiny as the factual elements of the tale, while dismissing the transformation as a mythologizing misrepresentation of later tradition. However, while Alfred does use this phrase to signal a transition from the credible to the fabulous elements of the tale, it does not preclude a chronological relationship between the events depicted.87 Unless we assume that Alfred reduced the myth to a series of unrelated events, it is necessary to conclude that the transformation follows after, and implicitly because o f the companions’ rebellion. It remains unclear from what source Alfred derived the motif of the mutinous companions. Not even the most complete Latin versions of the story, Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Remedia Amoris, relate this detail. In fact, Ovid reverses the situation, for it is the companions who are resides et desuetudine tardi, and they are ordered to depart. It would be daring to conclude from this, however, that Ovid has Odysseus acting in the tradition of the “saggio stoico che saldamente resiste alle passioni,”88for Ovid does not comment upon his motives. If Homer means for the stay in Circe’s palace after the re-transformation to represent a continuation of the fairy-tale temptation to delay, then we cannot interpret the behavior of Homer’s protagonists as an indication of their mental state, as in Alfred’s version. While the relationship between Circe and Odysseus in Homer’s poem has a suggestively erotic-sensual component, it cannot be entirely explained along psychological or moral lines.89 Later tradition reduces the ambiguous relationship—which clearly stands in opposition to the ties of family and homeland—into simple formulas. Circe is summarily degraded to a figure of sexual excess, a meretrix or libidinosa mulier.90 In view of the sexual motive ascribed to her by Ovid for the transformation of Picus and Seylla, for example, this is hardly surprising. Nor would this pejoration necessarily be incompatible with the motif of love. Remigius’ commentary, for example, calls Circe a “meretrix . . . nobilissima atque pulcherrima” and continues: “Accedentes ad se dicitur vertisse in beluas, quia illius amore homines in amentiam vertebantur et propterea multa iurgia et prelia gesta sunt.. . .”91 Odysseus, however, apparently does not share this fate. Boethius would have found the idea that Circe’s love induces madness quite congenial, but he eliminates the erotic aspect of the relationship. By contrast, Alfred makes the love

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between the protagonists the focal point of the story, but without establishing a connection to its Boethian closing moral (which, as in Boethius, concerns the transformation, not the love affair). Yet Alfred does condemn the lack of moderation in their relationship (swide ungemetlice, in the metrical version mid úngemete). Hence both lovers become culpable: Odysseus neglects his obligations, while Circe— judging by the sequence of the events narrated—transforms the interfering companions on account of her love. Alfred’s translation of the Cura Pastoralis, too, follows Paul in condemning all (to) ungemetlic aspects of romantic relationships,92 but suggests that spontaneous involvement constitutes a less serious offense than one that is premeditated93 (and the love between Circe and Odysseus is explicitly described as spontaneous). To be sure, the narrator of the Circe episode speaks of lufu, not of the hcemed or unforhcefdness of the Pauline moralist in the Cura Pastoralis; the myth of Circe is depicted in an exemplary but not homiletic manner. Whereas Boethius—whose brilliant, elevated style assumes an audience intimately familiar with classical myth—narrates very few details of the story’s plot, Alfred accommodates the needs of his intensely anti-pagan readers (who would necessarily have had little acquaintance with classical myth) by retelling the events in a straightforward manner. This accords with the strategy that, according to the well-known assertion that William of Malmesbury repeats in several passages, was suggested to him by Asser: “sensum... planioribus verbis enodavit; Librum . . . planioribus verbis elucidavit”94—which would include the addition of vivid details from other sources, in so far as they fit within the existing framework. The Homeric love motif also falls into this category. Nothing suggests that Alfred thought of Circe as a meretrix. The question thus becomes from which tradition his treatment of the love motif derives. Virgil’s Aeneid makes no mention of love in connection with Circe. The same goes for Ovid’s Metamorphoses, where the Circe episode occupies over sixty verses, but which avoids references to the erotic aspects of the story wherever possible.95 In the Remedia Amor is, however, Ovid puts the myth of Circe to a radically different use. Love becomes the focal point. Circe exemplifies the impotence of the magic arts in the face of passion. In twenty-six verses she is depicted as a woman utterly at the mercy of love, who humiliates herself in order to

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persuade Odysseus, the unmoved callidus hospes, to remain with her. She acts the part of Dido (albeit a less regal Dido), while he remains in the background, depicted only from an external vantage as he mutely departs. Although his fuga could easily have been represented as an exemplary remedium amoris, this is not the case here (at least not explicitly).96Rather, all attention is focused on Circe, whose pleas falls on deaf ears and who finally resorts to her magic arts, but to no avail: “Nec tamen est illis adtenuatus amor.”97 This dilemma is expressed in analogous terms, though condensed into aphoristic form, in the Ars Amatoria: “Circe tenuisset Ulixem / Si modo servari carmine posset amor.”98 Despite Odysseus’ unyielding stance, Circe’s relationship to him can scarcely be reduced to the simple Stoic formula contrasting Odysseus’ sapientia to her libido, as the mythographer Fulgentius later extrapolates: “Hanc etiam Ulixes innocuus transit, quia sapientia libidinem contemnit.”99 At least Ovid provides no clear hint that a moralizing perspective is called for. It seems inappropriate to accuse this well-nigh tragic figure of remaining “fino all’ultimo crudelissima.”100Horace depicts her more sympathetically still, paradoxically even equating her to Penelope (who in Homer is very unlike her) in a vague reference to “laborantes [v.l. laborantis] in uno Penelopen vitreamque Circen.”101 In sum, Roman audiences must have thought of Circe not only as a meretrix, but also as a hapless lover. Theoretically, then, Alfred could have had recourse to at least one literary antecedent in which the motif of the love-smitten Circe was not dismissed with a simple conubium asciscere, in the words of the St. Gall commentary. As in Ovid’s Remedia, Alfred’s Circe apparently resorts to magic for the sake of love. The thematic emphasis, too, resembles that of the Remedia™2 Yet to date there is no evidence that precisely this poem—which does not shy away from explicitly sexual references—was known to the Anglo-Saxons, so presumably Alfred could not have been familiar with it. While the Stoic influence on Ovid’s Circe episode is debatable, it is inconceivable for Alfred’s version. Alfred’s Odysseus (mutatis mutandis like Homer’s) is himself a lover not without moral blemish, who is prepared to relinquish “his rice eall & his cynren” for Circe’s sake (in the metrical version, “to his earde aenige nyste modes mynlan”)—an echo of the Tiaipig (y )aia of which Odysseus’ companions remind their leader in Homer.

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Alfred’s encyclopedic references concerning Odysseus, the Trojan war, and Circe’s genealogy, which he inserts at the beginning of the narrative, give the impression of deriving from diverse sources (or from one syncretic source). To be sure, this would be quite consonant with the theory that Alfred did not draw on a particular commentary in embellishing the narrative proper.103 But from what source could he have derived the comparatively large number of Homeric details present in the story itself? The love affair initiated by Circe, which then becomes mutual; the protracted stay; the rebelliousness of the companions; the reference to Circe’s retinue (which is an echo of the Homeric maids, a blind motif in the Old English narrative)—Alfred could not have collected these motifs from the Latin literary versions of the myth, nor from the known commentaries. In principle, Alfred would certainly have been inclined to gather wood for his building from every tree (to use the metaphor of the Soliloquies,04). Yet, from our present vantage, the literary forest contains no trees suitable for producing the Homeric raw materials for Alfred’s Circe narrative. This suggests the influence of lost or as yet undiscovered sources. Furthermore, how could Alfred have extracted so many genuine details from the generally erroneous, contradictory, and frequently non-Homeric references found in diverse poems and commentaries? The comparatively large number of Homeric motifs implies that the actual narrative of the myth derives from a single, dominant source that preserved more Homeric details than the Latin texts surveyed above. It remains unclear whether this source also incorporated such non-Homeric elements as the unorthodox transformation of the companions and the Virgilian fettering of those who have been transformed, or whether these were added by Alfred. At any rate, Alfred’s thoroughly unorthodox way of combining these motifs into a narrative leaves no doubt that his source preserved the motifs individually (not in the form of a story), which is precisely what one would expect from a commentary. It becomes clear that Alfred’s purpose was not to affect a brilliant transformation of the story of Circe, but rather to narrate it more fully than Boethius, with the Christian-didactic purpose of rendering it factually and morally less ambiguous to an audience lacking a secularclassical education. Alfred’s ignorance concerning the organic

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relationship of these individual motifs in the classical story is far less remarkable than the fact that he had access to so many Homeric motifs in the first place, since he could not have been acquainted with them from Latin literary works or from the glosses discussed above. Barring evidence to the contrary from texts overlooked here or from other sources, it seems we must conclude that a collection of exegetical notes on Boethius of remarkably high quality was lost some time after Alfred. It would be tempting to speculate—though speculation it must remain— that the Welsh Asser might have given Alfred access to a source deriving from the enigmatic Irish/Celtic tradition of classical studies, a tradition that has not been directly verified, but whose existence seems implied by Aldhelm’s admonition to his pupil Wihtfrith.105

Notes [Footnotes 5, 47, 52, 71, and 87 are new to this essay.] *The German version appeared in Motive und Themen in englischsprachiger Literatur als Indikatoren literaturgeschichtlicher Prozesse. Festschrift zum 65. Geburtstag von Theodor Wolpers, ed. H.-J. Muellenbrock and Alfons Klein (Tübingen, 1990), pp. 1-23. 1. King Alfred's Old English Version o f Boethius' “De consolationephilosophiae, ” ed. W.J. Sedgefield (Oxford, 1899). Circe: pp. 11 f. (prose version) [cited by page and line numbers]; Met 26 (metrical version). Abbreviations for and (when possible) editions of Old English texts follow Antonette diPaolo Healey, A Microfiche Concordance to Old English: The List o f Texts and Index o f Editions (Toronto, 1980). For concise overviews of the Circe myth, see the essays “Kirke” (or “Circe”) in Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie, ed. W.H. Roscher, vol. 2 (Leipzig, 1890-97), cols. 1193-1204 (K. Seeliger); Thesaurus Linguae Latinae, Onomasticon, vol. 2 (Leipzig, 1907-13), cols. 454-455 (F. Reisch); Paulys RealEncyclopädie der Classischen Altertumswissenschaft, rev. G. Wissowa, ed. W. Kroll, fase. 21 (Stuttgart, 1921), cols. 501-505 (E. Bethe); and Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum, ed. T. Klauser, vol. 3 (Stuttgart, 1957), cols. 136-143 (A. Hermann).

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2. A.M.S. Boethius, Philosophiae consolatio, ed. Ludwig Bieler, CCSL 94 (Tumhout, 1957). Circe: IV m. 3. 3. Karl Otten, König Alfreds Boethius, Studien zur Englischen Philologie, n.s., 3 (Tübingen, 1964), p. 263. 4. Critics generally agree that the meters are based upon the prose version. However, G. Schepss, Archiv 94 ( 1895): 157f., has shown that the metrical version draws on an additional Boethius commentary. There is no evidence for this with respect to the Circe episode (Met 26). 5. See also Susan Irvine, “title?” in Papers in Honour o f E.G. Stanley, ed. M.J. Toswell and E.M. Tyler (London, 1996), pp. 387-401 passim. 6. For the following comments, see Otten, pp. 134 and 263. 7. J.S. Cardale, King Alfred’s Anglo-Saxon Version o f Boethius’ “De consolationephilosophiae ”(London, 1829), p. 303. Quoted almost verbatim in the edition of the same title by Samuel Fox (London, 1864), p. 195. 8. Cardale, pp. 253, 259, 261; Fox, pp. 163, 167. 9. Otten, p. 129. In the margin of MS Einsiedeln, Stiftsbibl., 179, p. 162, col. a (Anonymus of St. Gall), the Circe myth is similarly referred to as “fabula Ulixis et Circæ” (cited from microfilm). The OHG Boethius also renders fabula as spel\ P.W. Tax, Notkers des Deutschen, Die Werke, vol. 2, Altdeutsche Textbibliothek 100 (Tübingen, 1988), pp. 175, 181. Here too, spei designates a “.. . myth, and should hence not to be taken too seriously”: I. Schröbler, Notker III von St. Gallen als Übersetzer und Kommentator von Boethius “De consolatione philosophiae , "Hermaea 2 (Tübingen, 1953), p. 13. Bosworth-Toller correctly glosses spell in this passage as “a false or foolish story; a fable.” 10. E. Lye, Dictionarium Saxonico et Gothico-Latinum, ed. O. Manning, 2 vols. (London, 1772), s.v. spel. 11. Diane Bolton, “The Study of the Consolation of Philosophy in Anglo-Saxon England,” Archives d'histoire doctrinale et littéraire du moyen âge 52 (1977): 37.

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12. The Old English Orosius, ed. Janet Bately, EETS SS 6 (London, 1980), pp. 26, 33, and note. In Orosius, p. 53, line 17, leasspellung refers to classical poetry of false content. Contrary to the suggestion of the editor (Orosius, p. 245) the erring translation would not need to be inspired through an adduced source for it; the Anglo-Saxon translator has made the relative clause “quae tam facile, indigna etiam condicione, deposuerunt” refer to the assertions of ancient scops. In C1G1 1 (Stryker), No. C 576, the phrase leases spelles talu summarily condemns pagan astrology, rather than rendering the lemma nativitas, “nativity.” For leas spell cf. Joseph S. Wittig, “King Alfred's Boethius and its Latin Sources: A Reconsideration,” ASE 11 (1983): 167. 13. Alfred’s OE Boethius 98.27 (fabulis Boethius, pp. 61, 59); 99.4 ff. Cf. Otten, p. 129. 14. Alfred’s OE Boethius 99.5. 15. Alfred’s OE Boethius 101.11. 16. Alfred’s OE Boethius 101.22; 103.14; Met 23.8f. 17. Scholia HoratianaAcronis et Porphyrionis, ed. F. Hauthal, vol. 2 (Berlin, 1864-66), p. 375 (to Horace, Epist., I.ii.6-8). 18. Cf., e.g., Alfred’s OE Boethius 36.28; 70.25; 127.8. 19. Alfred’s OE Boethius 37.4. 20. Otten, pp. 129. For Circe, cf. HLGL (Oliphant) C 966. 21. Alfred’s encyclopedic additions (not discussed here) and their implications for the material available to him have been analyzed by K.H. Schmidt, “König Alfreds Boethius-Bearbeitung” (Ph.D Diss., Univ. of Göttingen, 1934), pp. 53 f. 22. Alfred’s OE Boethius 116.13. 23. Alfred’s OE Boethius 6.27; 141.11-13; Met 30.1-5. 24. A point that puts Janet Bately’s criticism in perspective. Cf, “Evidence for Knowledge of Latin Literature in Old English,” in Sources o f Anglo-Saxon Culture, ed. Paul E. Szarmach with the assistance of Virginia Darrow Oggins (Kalamazoo, Mich., 1986), p. 42.

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Old English Prose: Basic Readings 25. Met 26.5-8; Boethius, V m. 2 (incipit).

26. Aldhelmi Opera, ed. R. Ehwald, MGH AA 15 (Berlin, 1919), p. 202, lines 22f.; trans. W.F. Bolton, A History o f Anglo-Latin Literature 597-1066, vol. 1 (Princeton, 1967),p. 79. Further references to Homer in discussions of poetics: Ehwald, p. 83, line 4. Aldhelm mentions (drawing on Ovid) dirae... carmina Circae in the context of Scylla’s transformation: yEnigma 95.3. For Aldhelm’s hostility toward the auctores, see E.R. Curtius, Europäische Literatur und lateinisches Mittelalter, 2nd ed. (Bern, 1954), chap. 3, § 4. 27. Bede, “De arte metrica,” in Scriptores de Orthographia, ed. H. Keil, Grammatici latini, vol. 7 (Leipzig, 1880), pp. 259f. OE: Byrhtferth’s Enchiridion, ed. Peter S. Baker, Michael Lapidge, EETS SS 15 (Oxford, 1995), p. 162. For gewyn and gewyld as rendering of Remegius’ suhuersions and errores see Baker and Lapidge, pp. 328 f. 28. Bede, “De arte metrica,” p. 232. Again on p. 242 (similarly in Atilius Fortunatianus and Terentianus). 29. Bede, Ecclesiastical History o f the English People, ed. Bertram Colgrave and R. A.B. Mynors (Oxford, 1969), IV.20, lines 3-7. Charles Plummer outlines Bede’s attitude toward the classics in the introduction to his edition of the Historia Ecclesiastica (Oxford, 1896), 1:liii. 30. Bede, Opera, VI.2, ed. Charles W. Jones, CCSL 123B (Tumhout, 1977), pp. 473f: Chronica maiora, lines 335, 349f., 359f. 31. Paulus Orosius, H i s t o r i a r u m A d v e r s u s P a g a n o s L i b r i V II , ed. Carolus Zangemeister, CSEL 5 (Vienna, 1882), I.xvii.2. OE text: Orosius, pp. 31 f. A familiarity with the matter of Troy on spellum & on leopum (fabulis: Zangemeister I.xii) is noted early on (p. 28, line 1)—in both cases qualified by cwced Orosius. In the commentary, Bately mentions Dictys Cretensis and Dares Phrygius as supplementary sources for the Old English (p. 222). Neither is relevant for the Circe episode. 32. The Odusia of Livius Andronicus had already been lost. Helmut Gneuss records two English MSS of the Ilias latina (eleventh century or slightly later) in “A Preliminary List of Manuscripts Written or Owned in England up to 1100,” ASE 9 (1981): 1-60 (Nos. 535, 664).

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According to P.K. Marshall in Texts and Transmission, A Survey o f the Latin Classics, ed. L.D. Reynolds (Oxford, 1983), pp. 191 f., the Latin “Homer” was a “common school poet” early in the tenth century. No traces thereof have been found in Aldhelm or Bede. The Ilias latina was of “moderate popularity” according to B.M. Olsen in Medieval MSS o f the Latin Classics, ed. C.A. Chavannes-Mazel (London, 1996), p. 4. 33. Pierre Courcelle, LesLettresgrecques en Occident. De Macrobe a Cassiodore (Paris, 1948), p. 237. Association of the two names: Remedia Amoris 365-68. Such references still occur in the ME period, as for example in the anonymous vita of Oswald, Historians o f the Church o f York, ed. J. Raine, Rolls Series 71 (1879), 1:399; formulaic praise: pp. 412, 434; similarly Chronicon abbatice de Evesham, ed. W. Macray, Rolls Series 29 (1863), p. 2. 34. Lch I (Herb): The Old English Herbarium and Medicina de Quadrupedibus, ed. H.J. de Vriend, EETS OS 286 (London, 1984), p. 94, lines 15-17, with the corresponding Latin text of MS Ca on p. 95, contains a reference to Homer as authority. There is mention of the finding by Hermes, but without explicit details concerning the larger context of the Circe myth. The thirteenth-century MS Bodl., Ashmole 1462 contains a crude representation of Homer and Mercury holding the Moly plant (immolum). 35. Herbarium, p. 108, line 18, with the Latin text from MS Ca on p. 109. Its model was apparently Iliad 5.899ff. Medicinal literature contains many references to mythical characters, for it viewed “the Mediterranean gods of healing as mortal physicians par excellence, worthy of respect. . . ”: Linda E. Voigts, “One Anglo-Saxon View of the Classical Gods,” Studies in Iconography 3 (1978): 11. However, this genre contains much Greek vocabulary generally: Cf. Mary-Catherine Bodden, “The Preservation and Transmission of Greek in Early England,” in Sources o f Anglo-Saxon Culture, ed. Szarmach, pp. 59f. 36. AldV 1 (Goossens), No. 2379 and AldV 13.1 (Nap),No. 2426. 37. W.F. Bolton, History, p. 60. 38. M. Roger, LEinseignement des lettres classiques d ’Ausone a Alcuin (Paris, 1905), p. 287, n. 1; C.F.R. de Montalembert, Les Moines

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d'occident depuis saint Benoit jusqu'à saint Bernard, vol. 4 (Paris, 1867), p. 219; F. Godwinus, De Præsulibus Angliœ Commentarius (Londini, 1616), p. 60. 39. [Matthew Parker, John Joscelyn,] De antiquitate Britannicae ecclesiae . . . Historia (Hanoviae, 1605), p. 53 [first ed. 1572]: “Hie bibliothecam copiosam tam e Græcis quam Latinis libris secum in Angliam aduexit, quorum nonnulli Græco idiomate conscripti apud nos manent: videlicet, Opera Homeri Græco charactere ita eximie et exquisite descripta, vt librorum impressorum veritatem superent: volumen grande est, Charta etiam antiquior.” 40. Cf. M.R. James, A Descriptive Catalogue o f the Manuscripts in the Library o f Corpus Christi College Cambridge, vol. 1 (Cambridge, 1917), pp. 165f. Professor Gneuss has kindly pointed out to me that Wanley had already noted the late date of MS CCCC 81 {The Letters o f Humfrey Wanley, ed. P.L. Hey worth [Oxford, 1989], p. 132). 41. T.J. Brown rightly states that none of Theodore’s MSS have survived: “The Greek books which he [i.e., Theodore] presumably brought to England are lost,” in “An Historical Introduction to the Use of Classical Latin Authors in the British Isles from the Fifth to the Eleventh Century,” in La cultura antica nelToccidentale Latino dal VII alTXI secolo, I: Settimane di studio del Centro Italiano di studi sulTalto medioevo 22 (Spoleto, 1975), p. 256. See also Nicholas Brooks, The Early History ofthe Church o f Canterbury (Leicester, 1984), p. 95 : “the books of Theodore and of Hadrian have not survived, nor has any catalogue of the contents of their libraries.” See also Kenneth Sisam, Studies in the History o f Old English Literature (Oxford, 1953), p p .271 f 42. Alfred's OE Boethius 116.16T 43. E. Wülfing, Die Syntax in den Werken Alfreds des Großen, vol. 2 (Bonn, 1901), pp. 3 If.; E. Standop, Syntax und Semantik der modalen Hilfsverben im Altenglischen (Bochum-Langendreer, 1957), pp. 101 f.; Bruce Mitchell, Old English Syntax (Oxford, 1985), § 2037. Also cf. Wittig, “Reconsideration,” pp. 167, n. 32, and 174.1 have not been able to consult S. Endo’s essay concerning sculan in the OE

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Boethius, Journal o f English Language and Literature (Nihon University) 35 (1987): 137-60. 44. Cf. Orosius, glossary, p. 387. Homilies o f AHfric, ed. John Collins Pope, vol. 2, EETS OS 260 (1968), glossary, p. 907; AECHom I, 32: p. 486, line 5; ,ECHom II, 37: No. XXXII. 113; ¿ELS (Ash Wed): No. XII.182; AELS (Book of Kings): No. XVIII.197; LS 34 (Seven Sleepers): No. XXIII.613. 45. Alfred's OE Boethius 98.27-99.2; 102.1-33; 115.24-116.19. 46. HomU 34 (Nap 42), p. 197, line 17. 47. Marvels o f the East: gorgoneus: wcelkyrging, fol. 100, line 6. 48. Herbarium, pp. 58, line 14; 60, line 2=232, line 6; 70, line 6; 82, line 4; 94, line 16; 114, line 4; 220, line 9; 228, lines 6-9 (explained). 49. Odyssey 10.305. Herbarium, pp. 94, line 16; 114, line 4. On Homer’s Moly, cf. Heubeck’s commentary in Omero, Odissea, ed. A. Heubeck and G.A. Privitera, vol. 3 (Milano, 1983), p. 241. 50. Wrong, too, is Otten’s statement that Alfred’s Circe episode has Odysseus sailing to Troy with “several hundred ships” (p. 133), in which he follows Schmidt, p. 53. Otten considers this a contrast to the hundred ships mentioned in metrical version. Old English sume hundred {Alfred's OE Boethius 115.18) means “over one hundred; one hundred and many more”—cf., e.g., sume twa (preo) hund, AELS (Apollinaris): No. XXII. 121 and 134. Alfred’s metrical version does not change the count in any significant way, but simply rounds down. 51. Boethius, IV m. 3.8-16: Odyssey 10.212-19. 52. Theodulf of Orleans agrees on this point: “Dicitur et Circe socios insignis Ulyssis / Mutasse in varias carminis arte feras” {Carmen X 17f., ed. Ernst Duemmler, MGH PLAKI (Berlin, 1881), p. 464). So too the Liber Monstrorum: “Innumerosa quoque monstra in Circiae terrae finibus fuisse leguntur, leones et ursi, apri quoque ac lupi qui, cetero corpore in ferarum naturamanente, hominum facies habuerunt,” ed. F. Porsia (Bari, 1976), p. 194.

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53. Anonymous of St. Gall clarifies: “mitis, quia mentem hominis habuit”: MS Einsiedeln, Stiftsbibl., 179, p. 162 (from microfilm). On the authority of this MS, see Jacqueline Beaumont, “The Latin Tradition of the De Consolatione Philosophiae,” in Boethius, His Life, Thought and Influence, ed. Margaret Gibson (Oxford, 1981), p. 283. 54. Boethius IV m. 3.21-28; Odyssey 10.236-43. 55. Boethius IV m. 3.17-20; cf. Odyssey 10.277-88. 56. See Schmidt, p. 54. G.I. Hyginus (Fabula CXXV) and D.M. Ausonius (Periochae, 35) offer brief references for the uninitiated. Cf. C. Iulius Hyginus, rec. F. Serra (Pisa, 1976), p. 132; Ausonius, Opuscula, rec. C. Schenkl, MGH AA V.2 (Berlin, 1883), p. 238. 57. Cf. H. Scheible, Die Gedichte in der Consolatio Philosophiae des Boethius, Bibliothek der Klassischen Altertumswissenschaft, n. s., 46 (Heidelberg, 1972), p. 138. 58. On the contamination of the two episodes in Virgil, see G.N. Knauer, Die Aeneis und Homer, 2nd ed. (Göttingen, 1979), p. 138. 59. Cf. M. Galdi, Saggi Boeziani (Pisa, 1938), p. 256. For the affinity between character and animal see the source references in J. Gruber, Kommentar zu Boethius “De consolatione philosophiae, ” Texte und Kommentare 9 (Berlin, New York, 1978), pp. 336-38. 60. Collections of exempla from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries still use the episode from Boethius in this fashion; see, e.g., MSS BL, Harley 7322, fol. 112; Arundel 384, fols. 92f.; Royal 12 E.xxi, fol. 70. 61. Odyssey 10.240; nöos “is the one mental organ which animals never possess . . . what distinguishes man from beast”: E.L. Harrison, “Notes on Homeric Psychology,” The Phoenix 14 (1960): 74. This corresponds to mens in Boethius (IV m. 3.27); similarly Augustine, De Civitate Dei, ed. B. Dombart and A. Kalb, CCSL 47-48 (Tumhout, 1955), 48:xvii f Boethius’ emphasis on the contrast between the effects of Circe’s magic and of vice receives too little attention from H. Rahner in “Moly, das Seelenheilende Kraut des Hermes,” Eranos-Jahrbuch 12

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(1945): 159. In Ovid’s Remedia Amoris, 269f.—“Non poteras animi vertere iura tui”: Opera, rec. R. Merkel, ed. R. Ehwald, tom. 1 (Leipzig, 1888), p. 254—this notion is playfully applied to Circe herself. (Shortly thereafter, Plutarch’s Gryllus inverts the whole Circe episode in Sophistic fashion.) By contrast, in Horace, EpodiX 7.15-18—Opera, ed. S. Borzsâk (Leipzig, 1984), p. 148—the mens is affected by the retransformation (and thus by the transformation as well). Similarly, A. Ronconi interprets excors, the attribute of those who have been transformed {Epist. I.ii.22ff.: Opera, p. 235), as a reflex of Cynic concepts: “per Orazio il filtro di Circe fa perdere l’uso della ragione”: Interpreti Latini di Omero (Torino, 1973), pp. 69f. 62. Alfred's OE Boethius 116.16ff.; Met 26.86-88. 63. Cf. O. Touchefeu-Meynier, Thèmes Odysséens dans Tart antique (Paris, 1968), p. 124: The animalistic attributes of the transformed companions “appartiennent à des espèces domestiques et sauvages très variées.” A late reflex of this appears in a fifth-century Virgil manuscript; see Vergilius Vaticanus. Vollständige FaksimileAusgabe im Originalformat des Codex vaticanus latinus 3225, and D.H. Wright, Commentarium, Codices e vaticanis selecti XL (Graz, 1984), fol. LVIIIr, with Comment., pp. 86 f. This scene, which depicts the transformed companions eating (characteristic of Etruscan iconography, as Touchefeu-Meynier has shown)—here combined with the Virgilian scene showing Aeneas’ passing by—strikingly contradicts the accompanying text, Aeneid VII. 15-20: Opera, rec. G. Ianell, ed. maior iterum rec. (Leipzig, 1930), p. 236. 64. “socios eius [i.e., Ulixi] in feras mutauit; luxuriosi illi remiges .i. uersi in sues, et leones, et tygres”: MS Einsiedeln, Stiftsbibi., 179, l.c. Also cf., e.g., “Narrationes fabularum, quæ in P. Ovidii Nasonis libris XV Metamorphoseon occurrant,” in Mytographi latini, rec. T. Muncker (Amsterdam, 1681), 2:284: “a Circe . . . in varias figuras commutati sunt.” Additional material in Seeliger, “Kirke,” col. 1194. 65. Aeneid VII. 15-20; concerning Alfred’s knowledge of Virgil, see Wittig, “Reconsideration,” p. 185. 66. Alfred's OE Boethius 116.15.

262

Old English Prose: Basic Readings 67. Alfred's OE Boethius 116.6-9. 68. Alfred's OE Boethius 116.10-12. 69. Boethius IV m. 3.17-20.

70. Herbarium, § LXXIII (verbascum): “hanc herbam dicitur Mercurius Ulixi dedisse cum devenisset ad Circen et [?read: ut] nulla facta eius timuisset”; OE translation: p. 114, lines 3-6. 71. Notker interprets correctly: “ter in fogeles unis fligendo mercurius” (Schröbler, p. 199, line 26). 72. “Alitis: uolucris qui in archadia colitur ipsius Circæ. de archadia uolantis .i. comix, quæ Ulixi fortuna(m) in dextera parte præcinit, cuius rei fabula ignoratur”: MS Einsiedeln, Stiftsbibi., 179, l.c. 73. D. Bolton, “Study,” pp. 67f. (version R). More correctly in SaeculiNoni Auctoris in Boetii Consolationem Philosophiae Commentarius, ed. E. Silk (Rome, 1935), p. 237. 74. See Thesaurus Linguae Latinae, s.v. ales. 75. See W.C. Hale, ed., “An Edition and Codicological Study of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, MS 214” (unpub. Ph.D. Diss., Univ. of Pennsylvania, 1978), p. 382. 76. J.-F. Cerquand, Etudes de mythologie grecque: Ulysse et Circé, les Sirènes (Paris, 1873), p. 10. W.B. Stanford, The Ulysses Theme (Oxford, 1954), p. 46, also refers to Circe’s “two equally dangerous but quite dissimilar personalities.” 77. A. Stassinopoulou-Skiadas, “Der Kirke-Mythos. Dichterische Behandlung und allegorische Deutung” (Ph.D. Diss., Univ. of Kiel, 1962), p. 13. According to Stanford, p. 48, and E. Kaiser, “OdysseeSzenen als Topoi,” Museum Helveticum 21(1964): 197, her actions lack motivation and consistency—which in fact only reveals the critics’ inability to come to terms with her. 78. Karl Reinhart, “Die Abenteuer der Odyssee,” in Tradition und Geist, ed. Carl Becker (Göttingen, 1960), pp. 80-82.

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79. H. Peterman, “Homer und das Märchen,” Wiener Studien, n.s., 15 (1981): 63-67. 80. Uvo Hölscher, Die Odyssee. Epos zwischen Märchen und Roman (München, 1988), p. 104. 81. Odyssey 10.460-65. 82. Describing the effect of Circe’s magic potion: Omero, Odissea (Heubeck’s commentary to Odyssey 10.236). The parallel is noted by J.H. Finley in Homer’s Odyssey (Cambridge, Mass., 1978), p. 71. 83. Odyssey 10.483 f. 84. Odyssey 10.489. 85. Odyssey 10.473. 86. Beowulf lines 1142-44 (Finn-episode). 87. As Prof. Käsmann suggests, ongunnon might conceivably already be used—like ME gau!gönnen—not ingressively, but as a mere auxiliary of the past tense. 88. Ronconi, Interpreti latini, p. 48, to Metamorphoses, ed. W.S. Anderson (Leipzig, 1977), XIV.436. For references to the Stoic interpretation, see Seeliger, “Kirke,” col. 1196. 89. Like Circe’s offer to cohabit with Odysseus in Odyssey 10.335, the parallel gesture by Paris in Iliad 3.441 expresses a request for reconciliation. 90. Cf., e.g., Horace, Epist., I.ii.25; Serviigrammatici quiferuntur in Vergilii carmina commentarii, rec. G. Thilo and H. Hagen, vol. 2 (Leipzig, 1884), p. 127, on Aeneid VII. 19; Remigius’ commentary: D. Bolton, “Study,” p. 67; Saeculi Noni Auctoris . . . Commentarius, p. 236, line 31; libidinosa mulier: Fabius Planciades Fulgentius, Mitologiae, II.ix: Opera, ed. R. Helm (Leipzig, 1898), p. 49; Mythogr. Vat. II, No. 212, in Scriptores Rerum Mythicarum Latini Tres, rec. G.H. Bode, vol. 1 (Celle, 1834), p. 146. For additional material, see Stassinopoulou-Skiadas, pp. 70-72. Hence Odysseus’ relationship to her is depicted as more crude: cum ea rem habuit, concubuit, and so on,

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as for example in Mythographus Primus 1.15 in Scriptores Rerum Mythicarum Latini Tres 1:5; Hyginus, Fabula CXXV. 91. D. Bolton, “Study,” p. 67. As late as Benoit de Sainte-Maure, the victims of the love-potion retain neither “reison ne sen.” See Roman de Troie, ed. L. Constans (Paris, 1904-09), line 28725. 92. CP, p. 397, line 11 (Gregory: immoderata admixtio); p. 399, line 16 (incontinentia). 93. CP, chap. LII. 94. William of Malmesbury, De gestis pontif. Anglorum, ed. N. Hamilton, Rolls Series 52 (1870), p. 177; De gestis regum Anglorum, ed. William Stubbs, Rolls Series 90.1 (1887), p. 131. 95. Metam. XIV.297f.: “thalamoque receptus / coniugii dotem . . . poscit.” Cf. G.B. Riddehough, “Man-into-Beast Changes in Ovid,” Phoenix 13 (1959): 209. A different view is expressed by F. Bomer, (P. Ovidius Naso, Metamorphosen:) Kommentar, Buch XIV-XV (Heidelberg, 1986), p. 105. To be sure, even in the Metamorphoses Circe is generally “a woman doomed to unrequited love”: H. Frankel, Ovid, a Poet Between Two Worlds (Berkeley, 1945;repr. 1956),p. 104. 96. Contra Kaiser, “Topoi,” p. 199. Only the word fuga (lines 224 and 226) could be cited to support the argument that this is a remedium. 97. Remedia, lines 263 ff., at 288. Similarly, Benoit still has Circe unsuccessfully employing her magic powers to preserve Odysseus’ love. See Roman de Troie, lines 28755-81. 98. Ars amatoria II. 103 f.: Opera 1:207. 99. Mitologiae Il.ix, p. 50 (in the context of the Scylla episode). 100. E.S. Hatzantonis, “Le Amare Fortune di Circe nella letteratura latina,” Latomus 30 (1971): 19. 101. Carmen 17.19f.: Opera, p. 20. Cf. Hatzantonis, p. 6. 102. On the Ars (book I) in an insular MS of the ninth century: R. Tarrant in Texts and Transmission, p. 261. There are no references to

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the Remedia in Tarrant, nor in Gneuss, “Manuscripts,” or J.D.A. Ogilvy, Books Known to the English, 597-1066 (Cambridge, Mass., 1967) with addenda in Mediaevalia 7 (1981): 281 ff. Ehwald provides no evidence for Aldhelm’s acquaintance with either text. Likewise, W. Laistner finds no trace of Ovid in “The Library of the Venerable Bede,” in Bede, His Life, Times, and Writings, ed. A. Thompson (Oxford, 1935), pp. 237-66, esp. 24If. 103. Cf. W.F. Bolton, “How Boethian is Alfred's Boethius?” in Studies in Earlier Old English Prose, ed. Paul E. Szarmach (New Y ork, 1986), pp. 159f. (includes references). A recent survey of critical opinion follows Wittig in stating that the OE Boethius “does not seem to depend on Latin commentaries at all [sic],” finding that Alfred’s additions rather derive from his reading of classical authors: Allen J. Frantzen, “The Age of Alfred,” OEN Subsidia 9 (1983): 10. 104. SolilPref (Camicelli), p. 47, lines 5f. 105. Aldhelm, Opera, pp. 479f., (3rd Letter). Cf. Lapidge and Herren in Aldhelm, The Prose Works, trans. Michael Lapidge and Michael Herren (Ipswich, 1979), pp. 139f. Columbanus’ series of brief mythological exempla in Ad Fidolium dates from his Italian period: Opera, ed.G. Walker (Dublin, 1957),p. 192. It remains unclear whether Columbanus became acquainted with this material in Ireland.

Alfred and ¿Elfric: A Study o f Two Prefaces Bernard F. Huppe That ¿Elfric was indebted to Alfred seems placed beyond doubt by Professor Godden.* Although no further evidence need be educed to make the point, further study of the quality and depth of the indebtedness is called for, in particular of the influence of Alfred’s Preface to the Cura Pastoralis. The Preface provides an example of the prototypical struggle to achieve a style and to transform Latin rhetoric into an English rhetoric equal in power and effectiveness to Old English poetic rhetoric. Alfred’s Preface is all the more interesting because it would appear to mark a beginning, much as Caedmon’s Hymn marks a beginning. To read the Preface is to perceive that Alfred is doing something new; that he is, in fact, struggling to create an English prose style responsive to intellectual demands. JElfric read Alfred’s translation of the Cura; unless he ignored the Preface, he would certainly not have missed the drama of its composition or have failed to respond to Alfred’s problem and to his success.1 The Preface, for all its brevity, is a moving piece of literature. The image of one of the great men in history shines through it: Alfred’s intelligence, his humanity, his patience in adversity, his compelling vision of a peaceful, literate society, his persuasive power and capacity to evoke the desire to make dreams come true. Such matters jElfric would have noted as we should, but they are not the immediate concern of this study, which concentrates on the matter of style and stylistic example. What makes the Preface vital in any evaluation of Old English prose style is the fact that it is not a translation or development of an established style, but rather it appears to be the first piece of original English prose dealing not with narrative, but with intellectual concerns. It sets forth Alfred’s own reflections, problems, ideas, and ideology, and it 267

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presents dramatically the picture of a man’s mind at work, solving problems and presenting solutions. For what Alfred was doing, he had no direct model, although it would appear that he was working with a concept of effective and convincing presentation such as he would have gained from classical rhetoric, and in particular from a study of the rhetorical form of the epistle.2 The king’s message, however, he writes by himself, and he himself creates the vehicle; he does not simply use the formulas of the Latin epistle. Although the precedent of the Latin epistle is before him, Alfred is writing in English, creating a style that is not an imitation of Latin, but one suitable and responsive to Alfred’s own language. It appears also to be responsive to the modes of Old English poetry because this poetry appears to influence his style, particularly in its pattern of enlacement and progression, with premises leading to a conclusion. The logical argument is in turn supported by the persuasion of rhetoric: Alfred employs balanced constructions, and he makes use of paranomasia, polyptoton, antithesis, homeoteleuton, ethopopoeia. His conscious use of such devices as these provides a rich embroidery upon which he has woven his argument with care. In its basic form the Preface appears to be like the early papal epistle, which later developed into the standard form of the ars dictaminis: 1) Protocol, or Salutation; 2) Arenga, or Proem (Captatio Benevolentiae); 3) Narration, or Statement; 4) Disposition, or Petition; 5) Final Clauses, or Conclusion. Professor Poole has described the form of the early papal letter. The opening protocol gives the pope’s name and title, then the name of the addressee, followed by the salutation. The arenga enunciates “the obligation of the Pope’s duty or authority.” The statement describes “with greater or less detail the situation with which the Pope has to deal.” “When the statement is ended, the Pope makes his decision,” the disposition.3 In later practice the statement was in syllogistic form leading to a conclusion, the petition. This pattern is, in fact, what we find in Alfred’s Preface. In the final part, the Final Clauses, the pope provides for safeguards. Alfred’s conclusion includes such safeguards, but also has the form we find in model epistles of later date, the conclusion, which is the decision or enactment.4 The detailed analysis of Alfred’s epistolatory Preface must follow a presentation of the text that reveals its rhetorical structure. The text so

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presented gives the parts of the epistle by name and indicates subordinate parts in the margin and by punctuation as follows: small Roman numerials (i, ii) and indentation indicate paragraphs; small arabic numbers (1,2) and pointing designate periods; small italicized letters {a, b) and semicolons designate clausules,5that is, sets of clauses grouped and ordered for rhetorical effect; the constituent clauses of the clausules are indicated by subscript (al5 a2) and commas. To illustrate, the proem in the schematic presentation consists of two paragraphs (i and ii), each with two periods. Paragraph i is introduced with the request for understanding and is developed in three clausules, a containing two clauses, b and c, each containing three. In period 2 the completion of the introductory Swce clcene hio wees odfeallenu on Angelcynne is suspended until the end of the period, da da ic to ricefeng, a clause that also serves to complete the three clausules (aet we cwedad on Englisc, Gewuldorbeagod; fordan de he haefd })one ecan wuldorbeah, swa swa his nama him forwitegode.”23 Then, at the end of the homily, having once more named the saint as “Stephanus,” he elaborated rhetorically on the etymology of the name, as Fulgentius had not, emphasizing the glory of Stephen’s martyrdom by juxtaposing “gewuldorbeagod,” “wuldor,” and “wuldrad.” Striking as such instances are, it is the treatment of the image of “Christus medicus” and the use and interpretation of “Haelend” that most clearly illustrates iElfric’s awareness of the rhetorical and didactic value of etymologies. The image of Christ the physician, the savior who brings spiritual health to those wounded by sin, is well established in Christian teaching and was common in the Latin source texts available to Anglo-Saxon writers. Frequently, as in the second of Pope’s Homilies

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o f ALlfric, where ¿Elfric’s source for lines 98-114 was Augustine, the image was rhetorically developed by an interplay between “Salvator,” used for Christ, and the range of sickness and healing vocabulary used in the development of the image.24 The etymology of “Salvator” that is implied by the rhetorical context is in fact invalid, but it was generally accepted and often exploited by patristic writers, no doubt because of the aural similarity with salus and its adjective salvus. Following Augustine, iElfric produced an equivalent rhetorical etymology by reiterating “haelan” in a variety of forms alongside “Haelend” for “Salvator.” But whilst ^Elfric was often close to his source, he frequently clarified the etymological point and gave it greater emphasis. In this same homily, when retelling the story of the miracle of healing by the pool of Bethesda, from John 5, Ailfric called Jesus “Haelend” in order to draw attention, aurally, to his activity as the one who healed: the verb used is “haelan.”25 The biblical account used “Iesus” and “Dominus,” but Ailfric substituted “Haelend” in preparation for his rhetorically and didactically effective statement in the exegesis of the miracle that: “(Hys) nama is Haelend, for J)an J)e he gehaelj) (his folc, swa swa se eng)el cwaej) be him, aer f>an {)e he acenned (waere: He gehaelj) hys fol)c fram heora synnum.”26 It is true that Ailfric’s major sources for this homily, Alcuin, Bede, and Augustine, treated the miracle in terms of the image of “Christus medicus,” but there was no equivalent in them for Ailfric’s explanation of the savior’s name, an etymological statement for which he had carefully prepared by his independent use of “Haelend” in the retelling of the biblical narrative. The etymology of Jesus’ name as “ipse . . . salvum faciet populum suum a peccatis eorum” is given in Matthew 1:21 and was taken up by iElfric’s sources for homily VIII in Pope’s collection.27 Gregory and Haymo both made the rhetorical connection between “salus” and “Salvator,” and ¿Elfric, in explaining that Jesus means “Haelend” (which he substituted for “Salvator”), paralleled his sources’ rhetoric by associating “Haelend” with “haelu.” But, although in this instance iElfric did no more than his sources, there were other occasions, as with Pope’s homily II discussed above, where he was more deliberate than his source in highlighting the etymology by rhetorical association. Examples from Pope’s collection, which can easily be checked against the sources so conveniently provided, are to be found at homily V, line

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194, homily VII, lines 189-94, and homily XV, lines 188-90. In the homily for the Feast of the Annunciation in the First Series of Catholic Homilies (CH1.13)^Elfric interpreted Jesus as “Haelend” and explained that the name is appropriate “fordan 6e he gehaeld ealle da j)e on hine rihtlice gelyfad,”28 but the explanation was ¿Elfric’s own: the Bedan source simply interpreted Jesus as “Salvator,” without further elaboration.29 Similarly in CH 11.12, where he spelled out the equivalence between “Iesus,” “Saluator,” and “Haelend,” the comment that “he gehaeld his folc ffam heora synnum” was independent of the sources so far identified.30 A much fuller gloss on the etymology was provided in the Second Series homily for the Feast of St. Matthew (CH 11.32), prompted by Christ’s own reference to spiritual healing in his words to the pharisees and scribes, Matthew 9:12: Drihten him cwaed to. ne behofiad da halan nanes laeces. ac da untruman; He is haelend gehaten. for dan de he haeld aegder ge manna lichaman ge heora sawle. and for di he come to mancynne baet he wolde da synfullan gerihtla^can. and heora sawla gehaelan; Se de wend haet he hal sy. se is unhal; haet is. se de truwad on his agenre rihtwisnysse. ne hogad he be dam heofenlican lascedome;31

The healing imagery was present in the Bedan homily that was ¿Elfric’s source, but “Saluator” was not drawn into the image by rhetorical association with “salus” (which was not used), and there was no discussion of the etymology of “Saluator” as a name.32 In all these instances ¿Elfric showed an awareness of etymology and a willingness to exploit it as a teaching technique that set him apart from most other vernacular homilists. The imagery of Christ as healer of the wounds of sin is common enough in Old English homilies, as in the Christian tradition generally, but there are no other homilists who fix it in our minds by the exploitation of “Haelend,” either by rhetorical juxtaposition with “haelan,” “haelu,” and “hal” or by explicit etymologizing of the kind that ¿Elfric used. Indeed, other homilists made very little use of etymologies of any sort. In part this was because they were writing not exegetical homilies, which demanded a systematic interpretation of word and phrase, but moral homilies that appealed primarily to the emotions, so that etymologies were not particularly appropriate. But it is significant that even the non-^lfrician homilists who did produce

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biblical exegesis gave etymologies only occasionally and rarely exploited them in ways comparable to iElfric.33 The contrast can be illustrated most clearly by reference to Vercelli V, for Christmas Day, which used the same source as that employed for ¿Elfric’s Christmas Day homily in the First Series of Catholic Homilies (CH 1.2), and to Blickling homily II, for Quinquagesima Sunday, the source for which was also used by JElfric for his First Series Quinquagesima Sunday homily (CH 1.10). The pericope for Vercelli V34 was Luke 2:1-14 and the source, given by Gatch following Willard, was a homily by Gregory.35 The Vercelli homilist’s exegesis of the gospel narrative included the etymology of Bethlehem, “domus pañis, hlafes hus,” following Gregory, but that was the only etymology provided both in the Old English text and in the Latin source. By contrast, iElfric etymologized Bethlehem (“Hlaf-hus”), Augustus (“geycende his rice”), and Cyrenius (“Yrfenuma”), and adopted his common practice of weaving the interpretations into the exegesis.36 iElfric’s homily in fact had a longer pericope than Vercelli V, continuing as far as Luke 2:20, but for the exegesis of the first part (which included the proper names), one of his major sources was the same Gregorian homily.37 Gregory, however, as noted in connection with Vercelli V, gave an etymology only for Bethlehem. Forster suggested that iElffic also drew upon Bede’s commentary on Luke,38but there too only Bethlehem was given an etymology. Smetana, in demonstrating iElfric’s use of the homiliary of Paulus Diaconus (which included the Gregorian source), showed that iElfric certainly made use of one Bedan homily from the homiliary in addition, and perhaps even two,39 but again neither provided an etymology for Augustus or Cyrenius, although both interpreted Bethlehem. The additional etymologies given by ¿Elffic were orthodox, being the same as those in Jerome’s Liber interpretationis hebraicorum nominum.40 It may be that he took them from another homiletic source as yet unidentified, but their inclusion marks a significant contrast between iElfric and the Vercelli homilist. jElfric here, as elsewhere, made in his one homily more use of etymologies than did any one of his source texts; the Vercelli homilist simply repeated what his major source provided. The other contrastive example, Blickling II,41 an exegesis of the healing of the blind man on the way to Jericho (Luke 18:31-43),

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used the same Gregorian source as ¿Elfric for the same occasion,42 but whereas Ailfric, in making a point about the transience of human life, related it etymologically to the biblical text by giving the meaning of Jericho as “mona,” symbolic of mortality, following Gregory, and then underlined the point by repeatedly referring to the moon in his explanation (as Gregory had not),43the Blickling homilist failed to give the etymology and so introduced the subject of transience and its symbolic representation as a moon in an arbitrary way. Since the etymological connection was not made, there was no obvious reason why the story should generate a remark about transience, or why the homilist should feel it necessary to allude to the symbol of the moon. The unsatisfactory nature of the Blickling homily at this point indicates a possible reason why ¿Elfric was drawn to etymologies: they justified and articulated stages in the orthodox exegesis of a biblical text, and the preacher and teacher, by providing them, maintained a logical progression that might have helped at least some in his audience to remember what the text meant because they remembered why it was so. It is, of course, a sound pedagogical technique: arbitrary information, or information that seems arbitrary, is harder to recall than information that is, or seems to be, rational and logical. Evidence of ¿Elfric’s awareness of this fact, as a good teacher, is found throughout his Grammar, where the terminology was translated and explained using quasi-etymological techniques and techniques of rhetorical repetition that were akin to those used in the exegetical homilies. Other reasons for his use of etymologies must have been his familiarity with patristic tradition, his commitment to exegetical orthodoxy, and his thorough knowledge of Latin grammar, which included etymology.44 Ailfric’s definition of “ethimologia,” near the end of his Latin Grammar, is “namena ordfruma and gescead, hwi hi swa gehatene sind.”45 The examples that follow, “ rex cyning is gecweden A REGENDO, Ipxt is fram recendome . . . ” and “homo mann is gecweden fram HUMO, J>aet is fram moldan. . . , ” are those used by Isidore,46and they identity the tradition within which iElfric stood. His definition and practical application of what he understood to be etymology would not satisfy the modem lexicographer or philologist, but it is nevertheless appropriate for us to attempt to understand the interest that words could have for an AngloSaxon writer and above all to realize the extent to which this interest

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was one of the aspects of Ælfric’s approach to certain kinds of teaching that set him apart from most other vernacular homilists.

Notes This article originally appeared in ASE 17 (1988): 35-44. Reprinted with the permission of Cambridge University Press. 1. The Homilies o f the Anglo-Saxon Church: The First Part, containing the Sermones Catholici, or Homilies o f Ælfric, 2 vols., ed. Benjamin Thorpe (London, 1844-46), 1:1. 2. Isidori Hispalensis Episcopi Etymologiarum sive originum libri XX, ed. W.M. Lindsay, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1911), l:xxix. For discussion of Isidore’s definitions see Joseph Engels, “La Portée de l'étymologique isidorienne,” Studi Medievali, 3rd ser., 3 (1962): 99-128, and Guy de Poerck, “Etymologia et origo à travers la tradition latine,” in ANAMNHCIC: Gedenkboek Prof Dr. E.A. Leemans (Bruges, 1970), pp. 191-228, esp. 212-19. 3. Hanspeter Schelp, “Die Deutungstradition in Ælfrics Homiliae Catholicae,” Archiv fu r das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen 196 (1959): 273-95, andF.C. Robinson, “The Significance of Names in Old English Literature,” Anglia 86 (1968): 14-58, esp. pp. 16-24. The problem with the study by T.M. Pearce (“Name Patterns in Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies,” Names 14 [1966]: 150-56) is that it shows no awareness of Ælfric’s indebtedness to specific sources. 4. The point is clearly made in the Old English preface to the Catholic Homilies, throughout both series of homilies in Ælfric’s observations on what he regards as unreliable, sensational, or otherwise problematic material, and in the concluding prayer to the Second Series. For the First Series see Homilies o f the Anglo-Saxon Church, ed. Thorpe; for the Second Series see Æ lfric’s Catholic Homilies: The Second Series: Text, ed. Malcolm Godden, EETS SS 5 (London, 1979). A similar attitude is to be found elsewhere in Ælfric’s work. 5. The Homilies o f the Anglo-Saxon Church, ed. Thorpe, 1:210.

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6. Bedae Venerabilis opera. Pars III: Opera homiletica. ed. David Hurst, CCSL 122 (Tumhout, 1955), pp. 200-06, first identified by Max Förster, “Über die Quellen von TElfrics exegetischen Homiliae Catholicae,” Anglia 16(1894): 1-61, at pp. 21-22, and shown by C.L. Smetana to have been known to TElfric through its inclusion in the homiliary of Paulus Diaconus (“TElfric and the Early Medieval Homiliary,” Traditio 15 [1959]: 163-204, at pp. 188-89); and Haymo, Homiliae de Tempore, PL 118, 353-358, identified by C.L. Smetana, “Ailfric and the Homiliary of Haymo of Halberstadt,” Traditio 17 (1960): 457-69, at pp. 459-60, including brief comment on Haymo’s dependence on Bede. 7. Bede, Opera homiletica, ed. Hurst, pp. 14-20 and 21-31, identified by Förster, “Über de Quellen,” p. 20, and shown by Smetana, “iElfric and the Early Medieval Homiliary,” p. 188, to have been available through the homiliary of Paulus Diaconus (which, however, did not have the Feast of the Annunciation). 8. The Homilies o f the Anglo-Saxon Church, ed. Thorpe, 1:196 (Gabriel) and 198 (Israel and Jacob). 9. Robinson, “Names,” p. 18, n. 11. 10. The Homilies o f the Anglo-Saxon Church, ed. Thorpe, 1:199. The mistranslation is repeated, ibid., p. 587. 11. Jerome, Liber interpretationis hebraicorum nominum, ed. Paul de Lagarde, CCSL 72 (Tumhout, 1959), p. 67, “Iacob subplantator.” 12. Pearce, “Name Patterns,” p. 155. Thorpe’s second mistranslation (see above, n. 10) evidently prompted Pearce’s comment, although no reference is given. 13. Schelp, “Die Deutungstradition,” p. 291, n. 46. 14. Gregory, XL Homiliarum inevangelia, PL 76,1135-1138, identified by Förster, “Über die Quellen,” p. 11. Its availability in the homiliary of Paulus Diaconus was pointed out by Smetana, “TElfric and the Early Medieval Homiliary,” pp. 187-88. 15. Förster, “Über die Quellen,” p. 44.

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16. Smetana, “iElfric and the Homiliary of Haymo of Halberstadt,” p. 462. The homily is in PL 118 at 190-203. 17. The Homilies o f the Anglo-Saxon Church, ed. Thorpe, 1:172. ¿Elfrie brings together material from PL 118, 198 and 201-202. 18. For a list of the Latin notes in this manuscript, see Ker, Catalogue, p. 13. Their origin is discussed by Godden, AElfric’s Catholic Homilies, p. lxxxiii. 19. The source of ¿Elfric’s exegesis of the calling of Andrew has been identified by C.R. Davis, “Two New Sources for ¿Elfric’s Catholic Homilies,” Journal of English and Germanic Philology 41 (1942): 510-13, as a homily by Gregory, but it has no etymologies. TElfric’s comments on the apostles’ names stand as a postscript, introduced with the words, “We habbaó nu óyses godspelles traht be daele oferumen, nu wylle we eow secgan 6a getacnunge óaera feowera apostóla namena, J>e Crist aet fruman geceas” (The Homilies o f the Anglo-Saxon Church, ed. Thorpe, 1:586). The etymologies of Andrew (“óegenlic”) and John (“Godes gifu”) were standard. The etymologies of the other three names are not as strange as they at first appear: for Jacob/James (“forscrencend”), see above, p. 312 and nn. 8-13, and for Simon (“gehyrsum”) and Peter (“oncnawende”), see Robinson, “Names,” pp. 23-24 and 17-18. 20. ALlfric's Catholic Homilies, ed. Godden, pp. 30 (Cana and Galilee) and 37 (Babylon and Jerusalem). The Bedan source, identified by Forster, “Über die Quellen,” p. 22, is in Opera homiletica, ed. Hurst, at pp. 95-104. As Smetana noted (“TElfric and the Early Medieval Homiliary,” p. 196), it was available in the homiliary of Paulus Diaconus. The homily by Haymo, identified by Smetana, “^Elfric and the Homiliary of Haymo of Halberstadt,” pp. 463-64, is in PL 118 at 126-137. 21. The Homilies o f the Anglo-Saxon Church, ed. Thorpe, 1:224. The source, identified by Forster, “Über die Quellen,” p. 2, and shown by Smetana, “iElfric and the Early Medieval Homiliary,” p. 189, to have been available via the homiliary of Paulus Diaconus, is in PL 76, at 1169-1174.

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22. Sancti Fulgentii Episcopi Rupensis opera, ed. J. Fraipont, CCSL 91A (Tumhout, 1968), pp. 905-09, identified by Smetana, “jElfric and the Early Medieval Homiliary,” pp. 183-84. For further comment on the sources of this homily, see J.E. Cross, “Ailfric and the Medieval Homiliary—Objection and Contribution,” Scripta minora Regiae Societatis Litterarum Lundensis 4 (1961-62): 18-20. 23. The Homilies o f the Anglo-Saxon Church, ed. Thorpe, 1:50. “Stephanus is a Greek name, which is Coronatus [Crowned] in Latin, which we called Gewuldorbeagod [Crowned in Glory] in English, because he has the eternal crown of glory, just as his name predicted for him” (translation mine). 24. The Homilies o f AElfric: A Supplementary Collection, ed. J.C. Pope, 2 vols., EETS OS 259-60 (London, 1967-68), p. 234. For the frequency of this image in the writings of Augustine and its relationship to the broader Christian tradition, see Rudolph Arbesmann, “The Concept o f ‘Christus Medicus’ in St. Augustine,” Traditio 10 (1954): 1-28. It is striking how many of the instances cited by Arbesmann are in Augustine’s sermons, which indicate that he regarded it as a useful image for teaching the people. Christine Mohrmann (“Das Wortspiel in den Augustinischen Sermones,” Mnemosyne, 3rd ser., 3 [1935-36]: 33-61) has analyzed Augustine’s rhetorical devices in his sermons (which differ from those in such works as De civitate dei) and noted the extent to which a reader would be made aware of words as such. One of the devices she has discussed is the drawing together of words that have an apparently similar root. 25. The Homilies o f Ailfric, ed. Pope, pp. 230-32. 26. Ibid. p. 234, lines 95-97. “His name is Haelend [Healer, Savior] because he heals his people, just as the angel said of him before he was bom, ‘He will heal his people from their sins’” (translation mine). 27. Ibid. p. 359, with reference to lines 59-62. 28. The Homilies o f the Anglo-Saxon Church, ed. Thorpe, 1:198. 29. For details of the source, see above, pp. 312-313 and n. 7. Bede’s reference to Jesus’ name (“Nam manifestissime dominum lesum,

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id est saluatorem nostrum”) is in the first of the two homilies at Opera homiletica, ed. Hurst, p. 16. 30. AElfric’s Catholic Homilies, ed. Godden, p. 122. Possible sources for parts of the homily were proposed by Forster, “Uber die Quellen,” pp. 46-47, but further source identification is clearly needed. 31. AElfric ’s Catholic Homilies, ed. Godden, pp. 273-74. “The Lord said to them, ‘It is not the healthy who need a physician, but the sick.’ He is called Haeland [Healer, Savior] because he heals both the bodies of men and their souls. And thus he came to mankind because he wanted to direct the sinful and to heal their souls. He who thinks he is healthy is sick. That is, he who trusts in his own righteousness does not care about heavenly healing” (translation mine). 32. Bede, Opera homiletica, ed. Hurst, pp. 148-55 (p. 152 for the passage under discussion), identified as the source by C.R. Davis, “Two New Sources,” pp. 510-13. 33. The best non-^Elffician use of etymologies that I have found is Vercelli XVII, an exegetical homily structured in the same way as ¿Elfric’s, where Jerusalem is etymologized as “sybbe gesyhde” and where “sybbe” is then reiterated in the following sentences: Vercelli Homilies IX-XXIII, ed. Paul E. Szarmach (Toronto, 1981), p. 52. No specific source has yet been identified. Blickling VI also gives the standard etymology for Jerusalem {The Blickling Homilies, ed. Richard Morris, EETS OS 58, 63, 73 [London, 1874-80], p. 81), but no rhetorical or didactic use was made of it; it is, in any case, a muddled and unfocused homily, as will be shown in a forthcoming article in Leeds Studies in English by C.A. Lees (“The Blickling Palm Sunday Homily and Its Revised Version”). There is an unsatisfactory attempt at etymologizing in Blickling XII (ed. Morris, p. 135), where interpretations of Paraclete are offered without the name itself being present in the text (cf., e.g., iElfric’s retention of “Paraclitus” in The Homilies o f the Anglo-Saxon Church, ed. Thorpe, 1:322). In view of what we have seen of ^Elffic’s practices, it is interesting to note that neither Blickling XIV, on the birth and naming of John the Baptist, nor Vercelli XXIII, on St. Guthlac, takes the obvious opportunities to provide etymologies.

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34. Die Vercelli-Homilien: I-V III. Homilie, ed. Max Förster, Bibliothek der angelsächsischen Prosa 12 (Hamburg, 1932), pp. 107-31. The etymology of Bethlehem is on p. 121. 35. M.McC. Gatch, “Eschatology in the Anonymous Old English Homilies,” Traditio 2 1 (1965): 117-65, at p. 139. The Gregorian source (PL 76, 1103-1105) was first identified by Rudolph Willard, “The Vercelli Homilies, an Edition of Homilies I, IV, V, VII, VIII, XI, and XII” (unpub. Ph.D. diss., Yale Univ., 1925), p. 160. Gatch notes that it was a source “only in a general way,” but if something more precise is found, the contrast with JElfnc will remain. 36. The Homilies o f the Anglo-Saxon Church, ed. Thorpe, 1:32-34. 37. See above, n. 35. The homily was first identified as one of iElfrie’s sources by Förster, “Über die Quellen,” p. 13; its availability in the homiliary of Paulus Diaconus was pointed out by Smetana, “iElfric and the Early Medieval Homiliary,” p. 182. 38. Förster “Über die Quellen,” p. 13. Smetana, ‘VElfric and the Early Medieval Homiliary,” p. 182, in referring to Forster’s identification, cited it as “Smaragdus (PL 102, 24-25),” with the obvious implication that he considered ¿Elfric to have known this material as transmitted verbatim by Smaragdus. For Forster’s general comments on iElfrie’s use of the Smaragdus material in PL 102 see “Über die Quellen,” p. 39. 39. Smetana, ’TElfric and the Early Medieval Homiliary,” p. 182. The Bedan homily certainly used is in Opera homiletica, ed. Hurst, at pp. 37-45; the other is at pp. 46-51. 40. Liber interpretationis, ed. de Lagarde, p. 139. 41. The Bückling Homilies, ed. Morris, pp. 15-25, esp. 17. 42. The common source (PL 76, 1081-1086) was identified for Bückling II by Gatch, “Eschatology,” p. 120, and for Ailfric, CH 1.10, by Förster, “Über die Quellen,” p. 2. As Smetana has pointed out, (“iElfric and the Early Medieval Homiliary,” p. 187), it was also used for Quinquagesima Sunday in the homiliary of Paulus Diaconus.

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43. The Homilies o f the Anglo-Saxon Church, ed. Thorpe, 1:154. The corresponding passage in Gregory is PL 76,1082. For another use by iElfric of the “moon” etymology see M fric ’s Catholic Homilies, ed. Godden, p. 122. For comment on the sources of this homily see above, n. 30. 44. For comments on the relationship between etymology and grammar, see de Poerck, “Etymologia et origo.” 45. ¿Elfrics Grammatik und Glossar, ed. Julius Zupitza (Berlin, 1880), p. 293. 46. Etymologiarum sive originum libri XX, ed. Lindsay, I.xxix.3.

Addenda Note 20:

See the subsequent comment by Joyce Hill, “Ælfric and Smaragdus,” ASE 21 (1992): 203-37, at p. 219, n. 60.

Note 33:

The article by C.A. Lees was published—with title as given—in Leeds Studies in English, n.s., 19 (1988): 1-30.

¿Elfric, the Prose Vision, and the D r e a m o f th e R o o d Paul E. Szarmach In the last twenty years scholars and critics of Old English poetry have established that the Dream o f the Rood is one of the outstanding artistic triumphs of the Anglo-Saxon period. J.A. Burrow has given a sensitive reading of the whole poem that shows how the religious sensibility of the early Middle Ages serves as an organizing principle, while John Fleming has placed the poem in the context of Anglo-Saxon monasticism.1Using the analytical methods of close reading, Michael Swanton has discussed the functions of ambiguity and anticipation.2 Louis Leiter and Constance Hieatt have argued convincingly for the structural integrity of the poem that earlier textual critics denied.3These excellent and significant essays, among others, make their points without particular reference to the long tradition of the visio genre in Latin literature, and certainly without any consideration of the many examples of visio in Old English prose.4 Margaret Schlauch’s earlier essay on prosopopoeia in the Dream o f the Rood is an exception to the first part of this statement,5 but on the whole it is true to say that scholars have found it convenient to keep Latin distinct from the vernacular and poetry distinct from prose. It is not likely, however, that Anglo-Saxon writers observed such rigid distinctions as scholars have for, as Douglas Letson says, there is a “stylistic convergence” between prose and poetry in the literature of the period.6 The Old English prose vision, then, can provide an important context for the Dream o f the Rood. The aim of this paper is to suggest some of the characteristics of the neglected prose visio and to begin serious literary consideration of the art and variety of visio in its full dimension. These suggestions and 327

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preliminary observations here will serve as prologue to more detailed and wider ranging study elsewhere, it is hoped. Any consideration of the prose vision must begin with AHfric’s repudiation of the Visio Pauli in In Letania Maiore Feria Tertia, Sermones Catholici, Second Series.7 When jElfric characterizes this famous apocryphal story as da leasan gesetnysse, it would seem that the writer whom scholars praise for sobriety and restraint may be announcing that his plain style has no place for the excesses of visionary literature. Clemoes stresses that JElfric exhibits a characteristic concern for purity of doctrine and dogma here.8 Such a concern is certainly present, if on a somewhat narrow basis. Paul, ¿Elfric tells us, says that he heard the “archana verba, quae non licet homini loqui.”9Thus iElfric condemns the Visio Pauli because Paul himself said that any account of the third heaven was impermissible. His complaint is not with visions or even with what we now call “apocrypha”; his complaint is only with the Visio Pauli.10iElfric’s strategy for moral persuasion is in fact rather daring. At the outset he disqualifies a vision that some, no doubt, credulously associated with the Apostle of the Gentiles, but then he calls unleas a post-Apostolic, non-biblical vision of a Scottish monk, full of resurrections, soul-flying, disputes with devils, and other-world marvels. .¿Elfric’s distinctive introduction to his version of the story of Fursa, which is the substance of his sermo, validates the story and its moral meaning, while his detailed treatment in turn suggests that this prose vision merits special attention. The vision of Fursa is an account of Fursa’s experiences in the other world, the moral education he receives there, and his subsequently improved moral life on earth.11 ^ lfric ’s homiletic treatment has a recognizable four-part structure that gives a coherent order to the vision and its meaning. In fact the number “four” serves as a unifying rhetorical device throughout the entire sermon. The introduction is a short biography of Fursa that provides, like many saints’ lives, information about the central character’s lineage, family, and early life. Aslfric has few significant things to say except that Fursa was a man “on halgum maegnum daeghwomlice deonde” [Godden, p. 190] when he had his visionary experiences. The second part is a comparatively brief narration of Fursa’s first visionary experience. From his sick bed two angels

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take Fursa’s soul with the apparent aim of introducing him to celestial joys. JElfric tries to suggest what the fellowship of angels might be by describing the feathery angels as flying with white wings and shining in brightness; one angel carries a white shield and a shining sword. iElfric complements the light imagery with aural imagery for he tells how the angel feathers make music and how the angels sang such songs as “Ibunt sancti de virtute in virtutem; videbitur Deus deorum in Sion” and “Exierunt obviam Christo.”12These mystical delights end when without explanation a commanding angel orders the return of Fursa’s soul to his body. The angel at Fursa’s right side soothes his reluctance to enter the body by promising that the angels will take him again after his “carfulnysse godre fremmincge.” Through some mysterious process, evidently the efficacy of angelic song, Fursa’s soul reanimates his body. Those who had been carrying his corpse are astonished to find Fursa alive again. The significance of this first vision is not immediately clear because iElfric draws no overt moral or conclusion from it. Rather, this vision functions as an unelaborated, suggestive description of simple, ineffable, and inexpressible joys that prepares for the second vision of hellish terror.13 It thus offers the first term of a contrast that develops into a graphic moral choice by the end of the homily. The second term of this contrast, which constitutes the third structural unit, is a detailed description of Fursa’s encounter with infernal spirits and infernal punishments as three angels guide and protect him. The vision has an alternating pattern of struggle and explanation that allows for both narrative effect and moral teaching. When the angels begin to lead Fursa, horrid devils “scuton heora fyrenan flan” against the soul. These darts are accusations against Fursa that he consented to evil, practiced evil discourse, refused to forgive sins, and failed to be as meek as a child. It is obvious that the verbal attacks against Fursa contain moral injunctions for the audience expressed in vivid, dramatic form. The angels confound the devils through action or counterargument, but never by denying that Fursa is blameless. Twice they answer the devils’ charges by citing the final, merciful justice of God. Fursa thus survives a trial of the soul that is reminiscent of a similar narrative motif in the Visio Pauli.14 Description and explanation now follow dramatic confrontation. The angels take Fursa to four immense fires that will destroy

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the world and those souls who have not been true to the promises of baptism and confession. The fires are for the liars, the covetous, the sowers of discord, and the fraudulent. Ailfric now gives Fursa his first utterance in direct: “{)a2 t fyr genealaehS wid min,” he says in terror. Again the angels protect the chosen but imperfect monk. As the four make their way through the fire, another band of devils attempts to intercept Fursa’s soul. The new set of four charges seems more serious and more personal for they address more pointedly Fursa’s life as monk. The first of these new charges is that Fursa accepted clothing from a dying but unrepentant man. The daemon accusator and the angelus defensor exchange counterarguments until, as before, the angel appeals to the mysterious judgements of God.15The angel essentially denies the three remaining charges, namely, Fursa did not love his neighbor as himself, did not forsake worldly things, and did not correct the unrighteous. The tension created by dramatic conflict and vivid description ends with a demonstration of divine favor. Holy light surrounds Fursa as bright angels and two sanctified priests, Beanus and Meldanus, appear. The two priests represent the realization of human potential for membership in the fellowship of angels. As human links to the divine world, they have the authority to instruct Fursa. Heretofore moral instruction for the audience has been implicit in the accusations of the devils or in descriptive detail. The two priests, however, give straightforward instruction. They list the four sins that kill men’s souls, but particularly condemn slack pastoral care and urge unworldliness. Most importantly they bid Fursa make his vision known. The vision is now worthy for retelling because the moral-literary requirement to teach and to proclaim through visio has received heavenly approval. Yet ¿Elfric does not end this second vision with hortatory exposition. As Fursa returns to earth, the unrighteous, unrepentant soul from whom Fursa had taken a garment leaps out of the fire to bum Fursa on his shoulder and face. This assault links the temporal world and the other world in a terrifying, monitory way. The angel explains: “j3aet Ipxt 6u sylf on aeldest, f>aet bam on Se.” For Fursa the scar is the mark of his sin and the sign of his election to higher mysteries. The scar is also a narrative emblem for the real presence of the visionary world in the mundane. Since Fursa’s vision encompasses public revelation as well as private revelation, the fourth and final part is a logical conclusion. It is a

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reportorial account of Fursa’s life after his vision that stresses the impact of that vision on Christian society. Fursa preaches for twelve years among the Scots and the Irish during which he works miracles, exorcizes devils, comforts the poor, and lives an exemplary life. He builds a minster, and then goes to Frankland where he likewise receives great honor. His third death brings him the companionship of the saints. With the biographical introduction, this biographical ending forms a frame for Fursa’s two visions. His holy but imperfect life undergoes a perfective transformation in the most central, salutary experience of his life.16 Bede’s version of the vision of Fursa in Historia Ecclesiastica III. 19 provides a contrast to iElfric’s treatment that further illuminates iElfric’s craft.17 His chapter on Fursa comes after an account of King Sigebert and forms part of his discussion of East Anglian affairs. Bede reports that Fursa left Ireland to preach among the English and that he found favor with King Sigebert. Fursa then has a brief illness that induces a vision about the last things and inspires him to found a monastery. Practically none of this material appears in ¿Elfric’s homily. From this point on, however, JElfric and Bede develop their mutual source in a generally parallel way but with significantly different emphases, that is, the same narrative incidents are present in each but elaboration and detail vary. Bede’s account of Fursa’s taste of celestial joys, for example, is barely more than a sentence long. Bede introduces the equivalent of Part III in AHfric with a summary sentence on the vision and refers his audience to the Vita Fursei for more information. It appears that Bede ends his synoptic method when he comes to the vision of the torments in hell. He says: “In quibus tamen unum est, quod et nos in hac historia ponere multis commodum duximus.”18Nevertheless Bede is true to his general purposes in writing historia and not sermo or homilía. He gives the highlights of the vision, and in so doing omits the first and second sets of four accusations and their implicit moral teaching. This sentence, with its quick rhythm, exemplifies Bede’s treatment: “Sequuntur adversus ipsum accusationes malignorum defensiones spirituum bonorum, copiosior caelestium agminum visio.”19 Beanus and Meldanus receive no mention by name and the content of their teaching no elaboration. As befits an ecclesiastical history, Bede ends III. 19 with a comparatively extensive report of Fursa’s activities

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in Britain and on the continent. Bede has therefore produced a synopsis of the visions of Fursa that, though “(morally) helpful to many,” does not compromise the development of history. ¿Elfric, on the other hand, makes every effort to develop the narrative and moral effects of the vision within the constraints of the sermon form. His structural skill particularly contributes to the integration of moral and narrative details into a shaped and coherent sermon. How much of the literary excellence in iElfric’s Visio Fursei derives from the Latin source? Unfortunately there can be no direct answer to this question. The material on Fursa that Bruno Krusch has edited for the Monumenta Germaniae Histórica consists of a vita, a virtutes, and an additamentum.20While the vita and the virtutes contain some of the incidents found in Bede and iElfric—even Beanus and Meldanus are named—it is safe to say that what Krusch presents has neither the similar detail nor the structural coherence nor the moral meaning to serve as a direct source for Bede or iElfric. If Bede has at hand a libellus that, as he implies, he is following in close outline, and, as is likely, ^Elfric too has consulted this same libellus independently, then the direct source is not extant. Krusch, who surveyed many manuscripts, none of which is earlier than the ninth century, concludes that Bede is in effect a witness that the Vita Fursei has not come down uncorrupted.21Only Bede’s summary can be a valid point of comparison for iElfric. The extant evidence from the Latin, therefore, does not contravene the conclusion above that the shape of ^ lffic ’s Rogationtide sermon is his unique reaction to the potential of visio as sermo. In his sermon for Rogation Tuesday, then, iElfric presents a full, rounded visio whose structural clarity and both thematic and narrative detail are sufficient to suggest comparison with the Dream o f the Rood. Such a comparison need not tarry over some general similarities, for example, the obvious moral intention to teach and the dazzling or terrifying narrative effects present in both visions. Yet it is important to specify that the moral message for both is conversion or change of heart. Fursa and the dreamer undergo a moral regeneration and lead a more perfect life, just as their respective audiences should after the literary experience of the vision. The visions thus contain the complementary presence of private and public revelation implicit as well in the

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respective injunctions to make the vision known to all men. Each visionary has some talisman or relic of his rite du passage. For Fursa it is his scar; for the dreamer it is the cross in breostum. These visibilia in turn demonstrate the real presence of the transcendent in the mundane world that, one might venture to say, is a first principle of every vision. The structure of ¿Elfric’s visio yso much easier to explain than that of the Dream o f the Rood, moreover suggests that the final part of a vision relates the visionary’s life post visionem. Ailfric’s account of Fursa is therefore a proof by example for the integrity of the so-called epilogue of the Dream o f the Rood, for the last part of that poem concerns the dreamer’s life after moral conversion. All these similarities begin to describe a generic grammar of the visio shared by both prose and poetic forms. Here generic similarities should enhance appreciation for the relatively unconsidered prose visio and should place the Dream o f the Rood in context. They should not, of course, obliterate significant differences. Showing how the prose and poetic visions may differ is not the point of this essay, but it is worthwhile noting that the two examples under consideration have different narrative points of view. It is hard to see how iElfric the sermon-writer could tell his story in anything other than the third person, while the first person narration of the Dream o f the Rood is a poet’s option and masterstroke. iElfric’s sermon for Rogation Tuesday is extraordinary in that it is essentially a Visio Fursei. On a less ambitious scale, however, the visio may serve as an exemplum or an illustration in the main argument of a given sermo. ¿Elfric does not particularly rely on visions for such argumentative ends, but a few times he does use exemplary visions. On two occasions ¿Elfric borrows stories from Gregory. In his sermon on the Twenty-First Sunday after Pentecost ¿Elfric announces at the beginning that he is following Gregory’s exposition of the parable of the Marriage Feast (Matthew 22:1-13).22 iElfric is speaking loosely for, though he follows the order of topics in Gregory’s homily, he omits and shortens much while adding a few points of his own. Gregory uses the biblical text as a point of departure for moral digressions. iElfric, on the other hand, seems less wedded to the passage from Matthew, Gregory ends his homily with two anecdotes to support his interpretation of “Many are called, but few are chosen.” ¿Elfric omits the first, a lengthy account

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of three Roman sisters, Tharsilla, Gordiana, and Aemilliana, and concentrates on the story of Theodore (unnamed by iElfric). Despite a holy brother who had led him to a monastery, Theodore was not converted to a spiritual life until he had a death-bed vision of a devouring dragon that saved his body from the plague and his soul from perdition. TElfric tells the story simply and directly. He omits the introductory details used by Gregory to lend immediacy and validation to his telling, namely the location of the monastery and Gregory’s personal control over it. The vision functions as an unembellished narrative of moral regeneration through supernatural agency. Ailfric thus derives an optimistic interpretation from “Many are called, but few are chosen,” which is not Gregory’s conclusion: “Ne sceole we beon ormode,” ^Elfric says, because the number of the chosen will be manifold. Here Ailfric uses visio as a rhetorical device in a larger structure. TElfric shows even greater freedom in his rhetorical use of the visio in his sermon for the eleventh Sunday after Pentecost in Sermones Catholici I. For the Gospel passage, Luke 19:42-47, Christ’s Weeping over Jerusalem,23 ^Elfric has Gregory in mind, but he chooses his own structure and development. ¿Elfric begins with a history of Jerusalem from its destruction to the tenth century. TElfric easily changes the topic from the fate of Jerusalem to the fate of the soul and from Christ’s teaching in Jerusalem to Christ’s teaching the soul. Thus, when TElfric brings his sermon to an end, he takes the vision of Chrysarius from another homily in Gregory’s collection so as to join the two major thematic threads in an effective illustration. Chrysarius, a rich man who indulged his desires, lost his soul to a horde of demons, his dying cries for mercy to no avail. Chrysarius’ vision was not for him, but for other men. This exemplum, which, TElfric says, confirms that Christ reaches the minds of believing men daily and smeadan-cellice, is obviously more appropriate than Gregory’s anecdote of Martyrius’ compassion for a leper who is Christ in disguise. Gregory ends his homily with a statement about love for God and neighbor, ^ lfric remembers the Gregorian model of ending with an exemplum, but he is teaching a different moral. ¿Elffic’s use of visio as sermo and as exemplum, therefore, suggests a confident skill and a prose art. Such a conclusion should come as no

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surprise for visio, both as rhetorical device and structural form, develops over centuries from biblical and classical models through patristic sources. By the classical Old English period the vision had become a standard monastic genre with different rhetorical and structural forms and uses. The earliest important homiletic collections, Blickling and Vercelli, give witness to this flourishing genre by furnishing examples of visions of Judgement Day and of heaven and hell. When Aslfric therefore prepares his Sermones Catholici, he has behind him a long vernacular and Latin tradition from which he may draw. This tradition and its development clearly need more study. It is likely to be the case that the Dream o f the Rood will stand as the best-wrought visio, but its generic analogs in prose help demonstrate how such an achievement was possible.

Notes This essay was originally published in Studies in Honor o f René Derolez, ed. A.M. Simon-Vandenbergen (Gent, 1987), pp. 592-602. 1. J[ohn] A. Burrow, “An Approach to The Dream o f the Rood,” Neophilologus 43 (1959): 123-33, alsorepr. in Old English Literature, ed. Martin Stevens and Jerome Mandel (Lincoln, Neb., 1968), pp. 253-67; John V. Fleming, “The Dream o f the Rood and AngloSaxon Monasticism,” Traditio 22 (1966): 43-72. 2. Michael J. Swanton, “Ambiguity and Anticipation in The Dream o f the Rood,” Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 70 (1969): 407-25. 3. Louis H. Leiter, “The Dream o f the Rood: Patterns of Transformation,” in Old English Poetry: Fifteen Essays, ed. Robert P. Creed (Providence, 1967), pp. 93-127; Constance B. Hieatt, “Dream Frame and Verbal Echo in the Dream o f the Rood,” Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 72 (1971): 251-63. 4. These citations hardly exhaust the list of excellent studies on the poem. Of course, Stanley B. Greenfield and Fred C. Robinson give the bibliography through 1972 in their A Bibliography o f Publications on Old English Literature (Toronto and Buffalo, 1980), and the annual

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bibliographies in ASE and the OEN can keep the reader up to date. There are two useful editions of the Dream o f the Rood: Michael J. Swanton, ed., The Dream o f the Rood (Manchester, 1970), and Bruce Dickins and Alan S.C. Ross, eds., The Dream o f the Rood (London, 1934). There has been more interest in prose generally in the last decade, but the study of prose does not come near to the amount and extent of the research and criticism on poetry. A recent essay relevant to this present investigation is Donald K. Fry, “Bede Fortunate in His Translator: the Barking Nuns,” in Studies in Earlier Old English Prose, ed. Paul E. Szarmach (Albany, 1986), pp. 345-62. Fry analyzes light imagery in Bede’s His tor ia Ecclesiastica and the OE translation of it, but the passages he focuses on are visionary. 5. Margaret Schlauch, “The Dream o f the Rood as Prosopopoeia,” in Essays and Studies in Honor o f Carleton Brown, ed. P. W. Long (New York, 1940), pp. 23-34, and repr. in Essential Articles for the Study o f Old English Poetry, ed. Jess B. Bessinger, Jr., and Stanley J. Kahrl (Hamden, Conn., 1968), pp. 428— 41. 6. Douglas Letson, “The Poetic Content of the Revival Homily,” in The Old English Homily and Its Backgrounds, ed. Paul E. Szarmach and Bernard F. Huppé (Albany, 1978), p. 151. 7. Benjamin Thorpe, ed., The Homilies o f the Anglo-Saxon Church (London, 1843-46), 2:333-49, with facing translation. This edition has been superseded by Malcolm Godden’s Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies: The Second Series, EETS SS 5 (London, 1979). I follow Godden herein for the Second Series, Thorpe for the First Series. The Visio Pauli exists in both Latin and Old English. The editions are, respectively: Theodore Silverstein, ed., Visio Sancti Pauli: The History o f the Apocalypse in Latin together with Nine Texts (London, 1935); Antonette diPaolo Healey, ed., The Old English Vision o f St. Paul (Cambridge, Mass., 1978). 8. Peter Clemoes, “Ælfric,” in Continuations and Beginnings, ed. E.G. Stanley (London, 1966), p. 184. 9. Godden, p. 190.

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10. In his review of Milton McC. Gatch’s Preaching and Theology in Anglo-Saxon England: Ælfric and Wulfstan (Toronto and Buffalo, 1977) John C. Pope observes: “Ælfric rejected that particular vision [ Visio Pauli] because its veracity was denied on Paul’s own authority, but he accepted joyfully equally preposterous visions when they had not been questioned by his authorities” {Speculum 54 [1979]: 136). 11. For a succinct introduction to the study of Fursa, earlier scholarship, and the texts, see James F. Kenney, The Sources fo r the Early History o f Ireland (New York, 1929), pp. 501-03. 12. Godden, p. 191. 13. See Vercelli Homily IX, where motifs of terror, joy, and inexpressibility function similarly. I have edited this text in Vercelli Homilies IX-XXIII (Toronto and Buffalo, 1981), pp. 3-9, and have discussed it in “The Vercelli Homilies: Style and Structure,” in The Old English Homily and Its Backgrounds, ed. Szarmach and Huppé, pp. 241-44. 14. Healey, pp. 65-73. 15. Squabbling over the soul between angels and demons is rather common; see the Visio Pauli (Healey, pp. 67-69). See also Rudolph Willard’s discussion of the theme of “The Three Utterances of the Soul” in his monograph Two Apocrypha in Old English Homilies (Leipzig, 1935; repr. New York, 1967), pp. 31 ff. The devil has rights, after all: see Vercelli Homily X.42-91 (Szarmach, pp. 12-13). 16. Cf. the dreamer in the Dream o f the Rood. 17. I cite the edition by Bertram Colgrave and R.A.B. Mynors, Bede’s Ecclesiastical History o f the English People (Oxford, 1969; repr. 1979), pp. 268-77, with facing translation, but Charles Plummer’s edition, Baedae Historia Ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, in Venerabilis Baedae Opera Historica (Oxford, 1896), 1:163-68, with important notes in lines 169-74, is still very serviceable. The story of Fursa is one of those extracts from the Historia Ecclesiastica that had special distribution; see M.L. W. Laistner and H.H. King, A Hand-List o f Bede Manuscripts (Ithaca, 1943), pp. 103, 106,

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18. Colgrave and Mynors, p. 272. 19. Ibid. 20. Bruno Krusch, ed., “Vita Virtutesque Fursei Abbatis Latiniacensis” in MGH, Scriptorum Rerum Merovingicarum 4 (Hannover and Leipzig, 1902), pp. 423-49, considered the “best” edition by Kenney, p. 502. 21. Krusch, p. 429. 22. Thorpe 1:520-38. Gregory’s homily can be found in PL 76, 1281-1293. 23. Thorpe 1:402-15. Gregory’s homily can be found in PL 76, 1293-1301.

The Transmission and Structure of Archbishop Wulfstan’s “Commonplace Book” Hans Sauer I. INTRODUCTION: WULFSTAN’S LIFE AND WORKS; MANUSCRIPTS AND CONTENTS OF HIS COMMONPLACE BOOK1 Archbishop Wulfstan is one of the most prominent figures of the late Anglo-Saxon Church. The canon of his works, together with his importance for the ecclesiastical and political life of the time, have, however, been only established during the last fifty years.2Very little is known about Wulfstan’s background and his early years. The first definite record is that he was bishop of London from 996 to 1002 A.D. Subsequently he served simultaneously both as bishop of Worcester and archbishop of York. He remained archbishop of York until his death in 1023 A.D.; he assigned the diocese of Worcester to a suffragan bishop in 1016. Wulfstan was in the tradition of the English Benedictine Reform (Monastic Revival) of the second half of the tenth century. In an era overshadowed and demoralized by frequent Danish invasions, he could not, however, restrict himself to the promotion of monasteries and monasticism, rather he strove to reform church life on all levels, particularly on the level of secular priests. To help him in his spiritual and administrative duties he compiled a collection of canonical, liturgical, and homiletic writings, which is still preserved in several manuscripts. Its customary English title is “Wulfstan’s Commonplace Book.”3 Wulfstan’s own works are further proof of his interests and endeavors.4His homilies, predominantly written in Old English but partly also in Latin, can be classified into four groups: the first is concerned 339

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with eschatological topics, especially the coming of the Antichrist; the second deals with the basics of Christian belief; the third deals with the specific tasks of an (arch)bishop; the fourth, which includes Wulfstan’s best known homily Sermo Lupi ad Anglos, denounces the moral decline and crimes of the time and urges people to change their ways.5Wulfstan gives instructions for the secular clergy (parish priests) in what is known as the Canons o f Edgar. In the so-called Institutes o f Polity, he provides a kind of “mirror for the classes“ describing the tasks of all strata of society, ranging from the king and the bishops to the secular dignitaries and the clergy (priests, abbots, monks, nuns) down to and including the laity. Furthermore, he translated the prose sections of the so-called Old English Benedictine Office and revised some Old English texts, among them texts written by his contemporary abbot Ælfric (ca. 955-ca. 1012), with whom he maintained a close contact.6 Wulfstan exerted a great influence not only within the church, but also within the state. He was the advisor to two English kings; first to the weak Ethelred (978-1016) and afterwards to Cnut, a Dane and a Christian, who ruled England and Denmark simultaneously from 1017 to 1035. Wulfstan drafted both Ethelred’s later laws and Cnuf s laws (V-X Ethelred, written between 1008 and 1012; I—II Cnut). He also drafted what is called the peace treaty between Edgar and Guthrum as well as several other legal texts. Wulfstan’s Commonplace Book, which we will take a closer look at here, has come down to us in several manuscripts. They are partly contemporary manuscripts used by Wulfstan himself and partly later copies. The following manuscripts are usually mentioned in connection with Wulfstan’s Commonplace Book:7 1. Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale, 8558-63 (2498), fols. 80-131 and 132-153, s. xi1and xii1, written in England [Ker no. 10; here MS S]. /Gneuss, “List,” no. 808./ Description: Joseph van den Gheyn, Catalogue des Manuscrits de la Bibliothèque Royale de Belgique, vol. 4 (Brussels, 1904), no. 2498. 2. CCCC 190, pp. 1-294; s. xi1, written in England; was in Exeter s. xi [Ker no. 45; here MS O]. /Gneuss, “List,” no. 59./ Description: M.R. James, A Descriptive Catalogue o f the Manuscripts in the Library o f Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (Cambridge, 1912), 1:452-63.

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3. CCCC 265, pp. 1-268, s. ximedwritten in Worcester [Ker no. 53; here MS C]. /Gneuss, “List,” no. 73; Mordek, Bibliotheca, pp. 95-91J Description: James 2:14-21. 4. Kopenhagen, Kongelige Bibliotek, Gl. Kgl. Sam. 1595, s. xim, written in Worcester or York (before 1023); with entries in Wulfstan’s own hand [Ker no. 99; here MS K]. /Gneuss, “List,” no. 814./ Description: Ellen Jorgensen, Catalogus Codicum Latinorum Medii aevi Bibliothecae Regiae Hafniensis (Copenhagen, 1926), pp. 43-46. /J.E. Cross and Jennifer Morrish Tunberg, The Copenhagen Wulfstan: Copenhagen Kongelige Bibliothek GLKgl.Sam. 1595., EEMF 25 (Copenhagen, 1992)./ 5. London, BL, Cotton Nero A.i, fols. 70-177, s. xiin, written in Worcester or York (before 1023); with entries in Wulfstan’s own hand [Ker no. 146; here MS I]. /Gneuss, “List,” no. 341/ Description: H.R. Loyn, A Wulfstan Manuscript: British Museum Cotton Nero A.I, EEMF 17 (Copenhagen, 1971). 6. London, BL, Cotton Vespasian A.xiv, fols. 114-170, s. xiin, written in Worcester or York (before 1023); with entries in Wulfstan’s own hand [Ker no. 204; here MS V]. /Gneuss, “List,” no. 383./ Description: Colin Chase, ed., Two Alcuin Letter-Books (Toronto, 1975), esp. pp. 8-12. 7. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Barlow 37 (S.C. 6464), s. xiiexor xiiiin, written in England (Worcester?) [here MS D]. Description: see below section II. /Mordek, Bibliotheca, p. 96./ 8. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley 718 (S.C. 2632), s. xi1, written in England [here MS B]. /Gneuss, “List,” no. 592./ Description: Earl of Selbome (Roundell Palmer), Ancient Facts and Fictions Concerning Churches and Tithes, 2nd ed. (London, 1892), pp. 235-41, Appendix C, and F.-M. Bateson, “The Supposed Latin Penitential of Egbert and the Missing Work of Halitgar of Cambrai,” The English Historical Review 9 (1894): 320-26. /Kerff, Der Quadripartitus, pp. 20-24./ 9. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Junius 121 (S.C. 5232), fols. 9-1 lOv, s. xi3/4, written in Worcester [Ker no. 338; here MS J]. /Gneuss, “List,” no. 644./ Description: J.C. Pope, Homilies o f AElfric: A Supplementary Collection, EETS 259-60 (London, 1967-68), 1:70-77.

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10. Paris, BN, lat. 3182, s. x1or x2, written in Brittany by Maeloc, a Breton; s. xii in Fécamp [here MS P]. /Mordek, Bibliotheca, pp. 93, 433-35./ Description: Bibliothèque Nationale, Catalogue général des manuscrits latins, vol. 4 (Paris, 1958), pp. 304-17. The following manuscript must also be considered in this connection: 11. Rouen, Bibliothèque Municipale 1382 (U. 109), s. xi, fols. 1-183 (or -172?) probably written in Normandy; the folios relevant here (fols. 184r-198v) probably written in England [here MS R]. /Gneuss, “List,” no. 925; Mordek, Bibliotheca, pp. 643 f./ Description: Henri Omont, Catalogue général des manuscrits. Départements 1 (Paris, 1886), pp. 354-56; Aronstam, “Canonical Tradition,” pp. 22-24. /J.E. Cross, “A Newly-Identified Manuscript of Wulfstan’s ‘Commonplace Book’. Rouen, Bibliothèque Municipale, MS 1382 (U. 109),” The Journal o f Medieval Latin 2 (1992): 63-83; according to Cross fols. 173r-198v were written in England and transmit Wulfstan’s Commonplace Book./ The texts collected in Wulfstan’s Commonplace Book vary considerably with regard to age and origin.8They comprise excerpts from the Bible and from the Fathers of the Church (Jerome, Isidore), resolutions of synods and councils as well as papal decrees, which, in part, were incorporated into later collections. There are numerous pre-Carolingian and a great many Carolingian and post-Carolingian texts from the Frankish empire.9They include excerpts from Defensor’s Liber Scintillarum, from the Collectio Dionysio-Hadriana, from Charlemagne’s Admonitio generalis, from the 816 A.D. Aachen Council = Ps. Amalarius of Metz, De régula canonicorum, from Ansegis, Collectio capitularium\ four Carolingian episcopal capitularies, namely Theodulf of Orléans’ first capitulary and the short form of his second capitulary, Radulf of Bourges’ capitulary, and Ghaerbald of Liège’s first capitulary (= Capitula a sacerdotibus proposita = Capitulare episcoporum); furthermore, homilies by Abbo of St. Germain and excerpts from Hrabanus Maurus, De institutione clericorum, from Sedulius Scottus, Liber de rectoribus christianis, from Atto of Vercelli, De pressuris ecclesiasticis\ the Libellus Antichristi ad Gerbergam reginam by Adso of Montier-en-Der, and

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finally, the Poenitentiale Ps.-Theodori, which might be a Frankish compilation from the ninth century.10Insular (English, Welsh, and Irish) texts that were written before Wulfstan’s time and that he added to his collection include Alcuin’s letters, excerpts from the Regularis Concordia, and several penitentials:11the Poenitentiale Ecgberti, excerpts from the Dialogus Ecgberti, the Canones Wallici, excerpts from the Irish Collection o f Canons. Contemporary texts or compilations from the British Isles comprise the Excerptiones Ps.-Ecgberti, a collection of canonical texts (council resolutions, etc.), which was probably compiled in England around 1000 A.D.—perhaps at Wulfstan’s request12—as well as the Tres Canones Hibernici, which were also compiled around 1000 A.D. ¿Elfric contributed his Latin pastoral letters (Fehr, Hirtenbriefe, nos. 2 and 3), which may have been written in 1005 A.D., and probably some Isidore and Jerome excerpts as well as the Decalogus Moysi. Wulfstan included some of his own texts, namely his homily Villa De baptismo (ed. Bethurum, Homilies), which was written before 1008 A.D., and a collection of penitential letters, most of which were written by him or sent to him and largely date from the time when he was the Bishop of London.13Not all of the texts contained in the handbook have yet been identified.

II. DESCRIPTION OF MS D (OXFORD, BODLEIAN LIBRARY, BARLOW 37), FOLS. 1-47 Although Wulfstan’s Commonplace Book has been studied several times, by no means all of the questions connected with it have been settled. MS D (Barlow 37) in particular has received only little attention. This may be due to the fact that it is by far the latest written record of Wulfstan’s Commonplace Book. Apart from Walther Holtzmann, who offers a brief overview, nobody has ever tried to analyze the contents of MS D systematically;14 it is also not used in most of the editions of the texts that it contains. We shall therefore take a closer look at this manuscript. It consists of several main sections, the scope and contents of which cannot be delimited precisely until the whole manuscript has been thoroughly analyzed. Fols. lr-47r: Material that largely goes back to Wulfstan’s Commonplace Book; this section will be analyzed subsequently.

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Fols. 47r-62r: Liber penitentialis; contains among other things excerpts from: Poenitentiale Theodori, PoenitentialeBedae, Poenitentiale Ps.-Gregorii III, Burchard of Worms. Fols. 62r-97r: Excerpts from Burchard of Worms, Decretum, and Ivo of Chartres, Decretum. Fols. 97r-116r: Penitential canons and sentences of the church fathers (Augustine, Jerome, Isidore, Gregory, Bede, Origen, Cassiodorus). Fols. 116v—121 v: EXCERPTIONES DE LIBRIS MAGISTRIHUGONIS DE SANCTO VICTORE QUID SIT FIDES. Fols. 122r-124r: Quaestio de pueris ante baptismum defunctis. Fols. 124r-158r: Incipit de diversis sententiis; “a collection of works from the early period of scholasticism and canonicity“ (Holtzmann, p. 19); the rubrics mention, among others, Anselm of Canterbury, Bernard of Clairvaux, Hugo of St. Victor, and Lanfranc, and again and again, Augustine.15 The first section of D, which is of central interest here, has the following contents:16 1. Fols. 1r-7r: INCIPIUNT EXCERPTIONES DE LIBRIS CANONICIS. A URELIUSA UGUSTINUSEPISCOPUSDICIT. Nulli sacerdotum suos liceat canones ignorare . . . Ill annos penitet, I in pane et aqua. Approximately 120 pieces from the Excerptiones Ps.-Ecgberti; from the differing version in MS I ed. Benjamin Thorpe, Ancient Laws and Institutes o f England, folio ed. (London, 1840), pp. 326-42; PL 89, 379-400; ed. Aronstam, “Canonical Tradition,” pp. 55-129 (all with different numbering). /A new edition is forthcoming by J.E. Cross and Andrew Hamer, Wulfstan’s Canon Law Collection.! Also in MS C, pp. 22-35,60-62,69-71; the sections C, pp. 35-37, DE HOMICIDIA [sicl]. . . DE REMEDIO NEGLEGENTIE. . . and 71, DE VEXATISA DIABULO. Si homo vexatus a diabolo . . . , are missing in D. 2. (a) Fol. 7v: LIBRO PRIMO CAPITULORUM ECCLESIASTICORUM MAGNIIMPERATORIS KAROLI DE MANSIS UNIUSCUIUSQUE ECCLESIE. Sancitum est ut unicuique ecclesie unus mansus . . . ad easdem ecclesias conferantur. (b) Fol. 7v: LIBRO SECUNDO DE ANTIQUIS ECCLESIIS UT HONOREM SUUM HABEANT. Ecclesie antiquitus constitute... novis orator iis tribuantur.

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(a) Ansegis, Collectio capitularium 1.85-87; ed. Alfred Boretius, MGH Capit. 1, p. 407; chap. 85 also in Excerptiones Ps.-Ecgberti, chap. 25 (Thorpe), (b) Ansegis, Collectio capitularium 11.34; ed. Boretius, MGH Capit. 1, p. 422; also in Excerptiones Ps.-Ecgberti, chap. 24 (Thorpe). Also in C, pp. 71-72. 3. Fols. 7v-8r: CANONHYBERITANORUM. Siquisfuratusfuerit pecuniam . . . et manum redimat. Five Irish Canons, apparently not yet edited; but partly also in Excerptiones Ps.-Ecgberti, chaps. 74 and 79 (Thorpe). Also in C, pp. 96-97. 4. Fol. 8r: CANONBRITONUM. Si quis refugium crismalis.. . in penitentia probabili permaneant. Tres Canones Hibernici, ed. Bateson, “Worcester Cathedral Book,” pp. 721 f.; ed. Bieler, pp. 182f. (both from MS C). Also in C, pp. 97-98. 5. Fol. 8r-8v: (a) SINODUS NICENA DICIT. Qui episcopum Occident arma relinquat . . . in pane et aqua peniteat. (b) Sinodus Romana decrevit. . . non privetur communione. Poenitentiale Ps.-Theodori, chaps. III.5-8 and III.1-4; ed. Thorpe, p. 278; cf. below nos. 14b, 16, 19c. Also in C, pp. 98-99. 6. Fols. 8v-9r: INTERROGATIO. Si necessitas coegerit. . . in id ipsum sufficiat. INTERROGATIO. Quod si quis ex laicis . . . aut superiorem aut inferiorem iudicaverit. Dialogus Ecgberti, first and twelfth interrogalo and responsio; ed. Thorpe, pp. 320-25; PL 89,435-442; ed. Haddan and Stubbs 3:404 and 408f. Also in C, pp. 99-100. 7. Fols. 9r-10v: INCIPIUNT EXCERPTA DE LIBRIS ROMANORUM ET FRANCORUM. Si quis servus ingenuum O ccident. . . donee delictum emendet.

Excerpts from The Canones Wallici [A]; ed. Bieler, pp. 136-49. Also in C, pp. 100-04. C, pp. 104-05 DE TONSURA . . . = Excerptiones Ps.-Ecgberti, chaps. 152-53 (Thorpe) not in D.

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8. Fols. 10v-12r: EXEMPLA SAXONICA AD CASTIGA TIONEM HOMINUM. Germanie sane provincie mos e s t.. . deo propitio mitius iudicaberis. Twelve unidentified pieces, according to Bateson of continental origin; ed. Bateson, “Worcester Cathedral Book,” pp. 724-27. Also in C, pp. 105-10. The penultinate part, DE IMPROVISO IUDICIO [SECULARIUM]. Sunt namque his temporibus iudices . . . also in IO; ed. Fehr, Hirtenbriefe, pp. 245 f. (no. 38) = ExcerptionesPs.Ecgbertiy chap. 169 (Fehr, Hirtenbriefe, p. 250). 9. Fols. 12r-13v: ITEM EXEMPLUMPENITENCIE. Lupus Lundoniensis episcopus cunctis . . . per Jesum Christum dominum nostrum. Nine letters on penitence (penitential pilgrimage to Rome), the first three by Wulfstan, most of the others by popes (Gregory V, John XVIII, John XIX, Leo IX) to Wulfstan and other English archbishops (Ælfric of Canterbury, 995-1005, Eadsige of Canterbury); ed. Bateson, “Worcester Cathedral Book,” pp. 728-30; partly ed. Bethurum, Homilies, pp. 374-76; ed. R.A. Aronstam, “Penitential Pilgrimages to Rome in the Early Middle Ages,” Archivum Historiae Pontificae 13 (1975): 79-82; the ninth letter also ed. R.A. Aronstam, “Pope Leo IX and England: An Unknown Letter,” Speculum 49 (1974): 535-41. Except the last letter also in C, pp. 110-13. 10. Fols. 13v-14v: INCIPIUNT EXCERPTA DE CANONIBUS CATHOLICORUMPATRUM VEL PENITENTIALE AD REMEDIUM ANIMARUMECHBERTIARCHIEPISCOPIEBORACAE CIVITATIS. Institutio ilia quaefiebat in diebuspatrum... secundum canones ut alii timorem habeant. Prologue of the Poenitentiale Ecgberti; ed. Wasserschieben, Bußordnungen, pp. 231-33; PL 89, 443-445; ed. Haddan and Stubbs 3:416-18. Cf. below no. 14a. /Cf. Cross, “Newly-Identified Manuscript,” p. 71 (no. 10)./ Also in C, pp. 37-40. 11. Fols. 14v-15r: HEC SUNT IURA QUE SACERDOTES DEBENT HABERE. Ut unusquisque sacerdos ecclesiam suam . . . cum orationibus diligenter unguatur. Ghaerbald of Liège, first Capitulary (ed. Eckhardt, pp. 124-27) = Capitula a sacerdotibus proposita from 802 (ed. Boretius, MGH

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Capit. l,pp. 105-07)=ExcerptionesPs.-Ecgberti,chaps. 1-21 (Thorpe). /Now ed. Brommer, MGH Capit. Episcop. 1, pp. 3-21; cf. also Cross, “Newly-Identified Manuscript,” pp. 7If. (no. 11). The texts in D, fols. 13v-14v and 14v-15r (nos. 10-11 according to our numbering), occur in the same sequence in R, fols. 196v-198r and 198r-198v./ Also in C, pp. 20-22. 12. Fol. 15r: DE CONFESSIONIBUSFIDELIUMACCIPIENDIS. QUALITER PRO MODULO ET QUANTITATE PECCATI SIT PENITENCIE TEMPORIS INSTITUTIO. Querendum namque est sacerdoti.. . quam suo vitio provocami. Excerpt from the second capitulary of Theodulf of Orléans, namely chap. III.15-16, ed. de Clercq 1:328. Cf. below no. 15. /Now ed. Brommer, MGH Capit. Episcop. 1, pp. 142-84./ Also in C, pp. 51-52. 13. Fol. 15r-15v: (a) DIVERSITAS CULPARUMDIVERSITATEM EXIGIT PENITENCIARUM. Sicut corporum medici diversa medicamenta . . . affligi lacrimabilitate. (The text itself has been added in the margin of fol. 15r) (b) QUALITER PENITENS SUSCIPI DEBEAT. Penitentem ex corde ita oportet suscipi ...e t non secundum traditionem quam tradidimus vobis. (a) Sentences from the Poenitentiale Cummeani and Poenitentiale Ecgberti; (b) unidentified; both parts ed. Fehr, Hirtenbriefe, pp. 243 f. (no. 34, with indication of source to [a]) = Excerptiones Ps.-Ecgberti, chap. 165 (Fehr, Hirtenbriefe, p. 250). Partly similar to C, pp. 94-95 (cf. Fehr, Hirtenbriefe, p. 243); there is, however, a greater degree of similarity with the version in IO. 14. (a) Fols. 15v-18v: HAEC SUNT CAPITALI A CRI MIN A. Nunc igitur capitalia crimina secundum canones explicabo . . . qui est super omnia deus benedictus in s ecu la. Amen. The main part of the Poenitentiale Ecgberti (chaps. I-XIIII); ed. Wasserschieben, Bußordnungen, pp. 233-46; PL 89, 445-454; ed. Haddan and Stubbs 3:418-30. Cf. no. 10 above. Also in C, pp. 40-50. (b) Fols. 18v-19r: ITEM. Precium viri vel ancille pro mense vel anno . . . sicut sui compares clerici vel laid faciunt. Five short pieces; cf. Poenitentiale Ps.-Theodori, ed Thorpe, p. 306 (from MS O, p. 92).

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Also in C, pp. 50-51, under the rubric D EEGRIS, QUIIEIUNARE NONPOSSUNT. 15. Fols. 19r-21v: DE PRESBITERO SI NON PROHIBUERIT ADULTERIUM. Presbiter si in domum suam adulterum. .. sacerdotes penitentie medicinam ad[h]ibeant. Further excerpts from the second capitulary of Theodulf of Orléans, namely chaps. II.12-X.52 (beginning), ed. de Clercq 1:327-41. Cf. above no. 12./Nowed. Brommer, MGH Capit. Episcop. l,pp. 142-84./ Also in C, pp. 52-58. 16. Fols. 21 v-22r: (a) DE TEMPERANTIA PENITENTIE. Pro capitalibus criminibus . . . artam constituentpenitentiam. (b) QUOD NULLI SIT ULTIMA PENITENTIA DENEGANDA. Vera ad deum conversio in ultimis... cui est honor et gloria in saecula [saeculorum]. Poenitentiale Ps.-Theodori, chaps. II (beginning) and XLIX; ed. Thorpe, pp. 278 and 305 (from MS O) = Excerptiones Ps.-Ecgberti chaps. 164 and 173 (Fehr, Hirtenbriefe, pp. 250f., from MS I). Also in C, pp. 58-60. 17. Fol. 22r-22v: DE MILITIA SECULARI. Sciendum estquiapenitentes ad militiam secularem . . . qui se militie mundane voluerit implicare. The second part = Excerptiones Ps.-Ecgberti, chap. 155 (Thorpe). Also in C, pp. 93-94. 18. Fols. 22v-23r: (a) SERMO DE CONIUGIO. Legitimum coniugium nemo disiungere présumât. . . permaneant in castitate. (b) SERMO SANCTI PAULI APOSTOLI. Paulus apostolus dicit. Fugite fornicationem fratres . . . et ego spinam dei habeo. (c) SERMO SANCTI A UGUSTINIEPISCOPI. Audite karissimi membra Christi... vias latas quarum finis ad interitum ducit. Cf. Excerptiones Ps.-Ecgberti, chap. 121 (Thorpe). Also in C, pp. 62-65. 19. Fol. 23r-23v: (a) QUALITER CONIUGATUS CONVERTI DEBEAT AD MONASTERIUM. Si quis vult coniugatus converti ad monasterium . . . ex pari voluntate castitatis consensum. (b) DE INCESTIS CONIUNCTIONIBUS. Nemo incestis coniunctionibus se inquinet. . . non accédai, (c) Mu lier si duobus fratribus nupserit. . . tenere debebunt. (d) ITEM DE INCESTIS CONIUNCTIONIBUS. Si quis

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sponsam . . . constitutos. (e) ITEM DE EADEM RE. Si quis fornicationem .. . peniteat VII vel X vel XIIII annis. (b)=Excerptiones Ps. -Ecgberti, chap. 128, beginning (Thorpe); (c) = Poenitentiale Ps.-Theodori, chap. XX. 12 (ed. Thorpe); (a), (d), (e) unidentified. The rest of the page is empty. Also in C, pp. 65-66; the piece in C, p. 65, Si mulier discesserit a viro suo .. ., not in D. 20. Fol. 24r-24v: (a) Arbor consanguinitatis. Corresponds to stemma II in Isidore, Etymologiae, IX.6.28-29; ed. W.M. Lindsay (Oxford, 1911), voi. 1. Not in C but in O, pp. 132-33. (b) DE GRADIBUSPROPINQUITÀ TIS. Primo gradu continentur pater et mater. . . nec successio amplius propagari potest. Unidentified. Also in C, pp. 66-68. 21. Fols. 24v-25r: (a) GREGORIUS AD INTERROGATIONES AUGUSTINI ITA RESPONDIT Quedam terrena lex in Romana re publica . . . se omnino abstinere debet. (b) ITEM DE RATIONABILI CA USA. Verum post multum temporis a Felice Mesane Sicilie presule . . . perm isisse cognoscant. Johannes Diaconus, VitaS. GregoriiMagni, 11.37-38; PL 75, lOlf. =Excerptiones Ps. -Ecgberti, chaps. 132-33 (Thorpe), (a) Originally the beginning of Gregory the Great, Libellus responsionum, chap. 5 (MGH Epp. 2, ed. Paul Ewald, Ludo M. Hartmann, p. 335). Also in C, pp. 68-69. 22. Fols. 25r-26v: INCIPIUNTCAPITULA PAUCA CUIUSDAM SAPIENTIS. De prima predicatione sacerdotum . . . deus non spernit. Excerpts from the capitulary of Radulf of Bourges; PL 119, 703-726. Also in C, pp. 113-22. /Now ed. Brommer, MGH Capit. Episcop. l,p p . 227-68./ 23. Fols. 27r—3 lr: INCIPIUNT EXCE[R]PTIONES QUEDAM DE CAPITULIS THEODULFIAURELIANENSISEPISCOPI. . . Obsecro vos fra tre s. . . claustris monasterii contineri. Excerpts from the first capitulary of Theodulf of Orléans; PL 105, 191-208; ed. Sauer, Theodulfi Capitula, pp. 301-402. /Now ed. Brommer, MGH Capit. Episcop. 1, pp. 73-142./

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Also in C, pp. 122-42 (the complete version). 24. Fols. 31r-32r: DE PASTORIBUS ECCLESIE QUOMODO VIGILI CURA ET SEDULA AMMONITIONE POPULUM DEI PERDUCANT AD PASCUA VITE. Qui pastor est animarum studeat semper vigili cura . . . est illudpropheticum. Fol. 32r-32v: Clama ne cesses . .. quam ut postea ad supplicia eterna perveniat. Apparently unidentified and unedited. Combined from two different texts: The first (= 24a, up to illud propheticum) also in C, pp. 152-54; the second (= 24b, from Clama ne cesses. ..) also in C, pp. 3-4 under the heading INCIPITAMMONITIO SPIRITUALS DOCTRINE. Exalta infortitudine vocem tuam... Clama ne cesses... /The second part now ed. Cross, “Newly-Identified Manuscript,” pp. 78-80, cf. pp. 67 f. (no. 6)./ 25. Fols. 32v-33r: (a) DE DOCTRINA SACERDOTUM. Tam doctrinaquam vita clarere debet ecclesiasticus doctor... nonmetallum sed terra erit. (b) DE HIS QUI BENE DOCENT ET MALE VIVUNT. Interdum vitio doctoris . . . veritatem mendacio mutare. (c) DE EXEMPLIS PRAVORUM SACERDOTUM. Sepe per quos iusticia docetur. . . mores vero in nobis. Isidore, Sententiae, III.36-38; PL 83, 707-709. Also in C, pp. 17-19. C, pp. 19-20, DE VARUS OBSERVATIONIBUS EPISCOPI, is missing in D. 26. Fol. 33r: EPISTOLA ALCVINI AD EAN BALD UMARCHIEPISCOPUM. Esto forma figura salutis omnium . . . morum dignitate laudabiles. Excerpt from Alcuin’s letter to Eanbald (without the beginning); ed. Dummler, MGH Epp. 4, pp. 167-76 (no. 114); ed. Chase, Two Alcuin Letter-Books, pp. 64-70 (no. II.8). Also in C, pp. 13-17. 27. Fols. 33v-34r: AMMONITIO EPISCOPIS UTILIS. Karissime frater corde tenus perspice propheticum sermonem . . . reddere unicuique iuxta opera sua. Unidentified and apparently unedited; cf. Bateson, “Worcester Cathedral Book,” p. 713. In the second half (from fol. 33v, line 30) an interpretation of Leviticus 21:20. Also in C, pp. 4-7; C has a somewhat longer version: . . . gratia divina custodiat. Amen Vale.

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28. Fol. 34r-34v: EPISTOLA ALBINI LEVITE AD APELWHARDUM [ELPEL-?] ARCHIEPISCOPUM. Pio patri et sancte sedis presuli. . . in laudem et gloriam nominis sui largiri dignetur. Excerpt from Alcuin’s letter to Archbishop Aithelheard, ed. Dümmler, MGH Epp. 4, pp. 45-49 (no. 17); ed. Chase, Two Alcuin Letter-Books, pp. 71-75 (no. 11.10). Also in C, pp. 7-13. 29. (a)Fol. 35r: DE BLASPHEMIA. Quid ergo sit blasphemare liber Exodus declarat. . . de his omnibus liberavit eos dominus. Unidentified. Also inC, pp. 154-56. (b) Fol. 35r-35v: DE RAPINIS ECCLESIASTICARUM RERUM. Inimicus enim Christi efficitur omnis qui . . . respondentes omnes dixerunt. Amen. Excerpts mainly from Atto of Vercelli, De pressuris ecclesiasticis libellus, III; PL 134,88 f.; ed. Joachim Bauer, “Die Schrift ‘De pressuris ecclesiasticis’ des Bischofs Atto von Vercelli. Untersuchung und Edition” (D.Phil. diss., Tübingen, 1975), edition pp. 141 f. (and pp. vi-x from MS O). Also in C, pp. 156-57. (c) Fols. 35v-36r: DE REGE. Rex a regno dicitur et ideo ut rector regere debet. . . simulquefìniatur vita cum culpa. Excerpts from various sources, especially: (1) Sedulius Scottus, Liber de rectoribus christianis, chap. X; PL 103, 308; ed. Siegmund Hellmann, Sedulius Scottus (Munich, 1906), p. 49; (2) The Irish Collection o f Canons, XXV.3 (the last sentence), XXV.4, XXV.7, XXV. 15, ed. F. W.H. Wasserschieben, Die irische Kanonensammlung, 2nd ed. (Leipzig, 1885); (3) Isidor, Sententiae, III.62.4; PL 83, 736 C. Also in C, pp. 148-50. 30. Fols. 36r-37r: DE BAPTISMA TE. Primo necesse est utpaganus caticuminus s it. . . stare in aula celesti. Wulfstan’s Homily Villa; ed. Bethurum, Homilies, pp. 169-71. Also in C, pp. 180-82. 31. Fol. 37r: DE CRISMATE. Crisme unguentum Moysesprimo in Exodo iubente domino . . . regis et sacerdotis. Similar to the beginning of Ordo Romanus 50, chap. 25.145 (ed. Michel Andrieu, Les ordines Romani, voi. 5 [Louvain, 1961], p. 241).

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Inserted into no. 30 in MS O; ed. from O by Bethurum, Homilies, p. 170 in the apparatus. Also inC, pp. 182-83. 32. Fols. 37r-39r: DE OFF1CIISDIURNALIUMSIVE NOCTURNALIUM HORARUM. Oratio enim peticio dicitur . . . DE MATUTINALI OFFICIO. . . edent pauper es et satiabuntur et cetera. Hrabanus Maurus, De institutione clericorum, II. 1-10; PL 107, 325-329; ed. Aloisius Knöpfler, Rabani Mauri de Institutione Clericorum libritres (Munich, 1900), pp. 79f.; cf. also Emil Feiler, Das Benediktiner-Offizium, ein altenglisches Brevier aus dem IL Jh. (Heidelberg, 1901). Up to D, fol. 38r. . . in eius laudibus par iter exultantes, also in C, pp. 194-97 (without the title); complete in MS O, pp. 205-12. 33. Fols. 39r-40r: DEIEIUNIOIIII°R TEMPORUM. Quatuor esse tempora tocius anni manifestum e st. . . qui in trinitateperfecta vivit et regnai deus per omnia secula seculorum. Amen. Unidentified; without the ending ed. Fehr, Hirtenbriefe, pp. 240-41 (no. 14). /Now ed. Cross, “Newly-Identified Manuscript,” pp. 73-76, cf. p. 65 (no. 3)./ Not in C, but in IKO. 34. Fol. 40r-40v: ITEM DE IIII°R TEMPORIBUS. Quatuor temporibus que ecclesiastice custodiunt[ur]. . . opportunum duximus. Ab antiquis Romanis Grece et Latine legebantur . . . ut adorarent statuam quam fecit. /Now ed. Cross, “Newly-Identified Manuscript,” pp. 77 f., cf. p. 67 (no. 5); 34a also ed. Lucia Komexl, De Regularis Concordia und ihre altenglische Interlinearversion (Munich, 1993)./ (a) Quatuor temporibus . . . duximus: Regularis Concordia, chap. IX; ed. Thomas Symons (1953), p. 60 (no. 61); (b)Ab antiquis... fecit: partly dependent on Amalarius, Liber officialis, 11.1,1; 3,12; ed. J.M. Hanssens (Città del Vaticano, 1948), pp. 197 and 209. Not in C, but in O, pp. 236-37; cf. Fehr, Hirtenbriefe, p. 243 (no. 32). 35. Fols. 40v-41r: EXCOMMUNICATIO CONTRA CONTEMPTORES LEGIS DOMINI ET INIMICOS SANCTE DEI ECCLESIE. Audite, fratres karissimi, quod nec provocati agimus . . . et cantor statim offertorium incipiat et cetera.

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Excommunication rite; apparently unedited. /Now ed. Hans Sauer, “Die Exkommunikationsriten aus Wulfstans Handbuch und Liebermanns Gesetze,” in Bright Is the Ring o f Words. Festschrift für Horst Weinstock zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Clausdirk Pollner et al. (Bonn, 1996), pp. 283-307./ Also in C, pp. 211-13; cf. Liebermann l:xx. 36. Fol. 41r-41v: DE HIS QUIPOSTEXCOMMUNICATIONEM CUMLUCTU PENITENTIE AD RECONCILIATIONEM VENIUNT. Placuit universo senatui. . . remeantes cum pace ad propria. Rite for accepting the excommunicated back into the church; apparently unedited. /Now ed. Hans Sauer, see no. 35 above./ Also in C, pp. 213-14; at the end C (pp. 214.25-215.16) is slightly different from D. 37. Fols. 41 v-42v: DEIIII°RPRINCIPALIBUSSINODIS. Quatuor esse venerabiles sinodus comperimus... quia quifacitpeccatum servus estpeccati. Ailfnc’s letter 2.46-78; ed. Fehr, Hirtenbriefe, pp. 41-44. The whole letter 2 in C, pp. 160-73. 38. Fols. 42v-43r: INTERROGA TIO A UGUSTINI. Si post illusionem que per sompnium solet accidere . . . RESPONSIO GREGORII .. . captivus ex delectatione quam portat invitus. The ninth Interrogado and Responsio from the Libellus responsionum of Gregory the Great to St. Augustine of Canterbury; ed. Paul Ewald and Ludwig Hartmann, MGH Epp. 2, pp. 342-43 (no. XI.56). Transmitted also in Bede, Hist. eccl. 1.27; ed. Bertram Colgrave and R.A.B. Mynors, Bede's Ecclesiastical History (Oxford, 1969) pp. 98-102. Possibly borrowed in MS D from Burchard of Worms, Decretum, V.42-43; PL 140, 759-761 (cf. the following no. 39). Not in C. 39. (a) Fol. 43r: QUOD DEBEAT DARI DECIMA ET DE PECORIBUS ET DE OMNIBUS FRUCTIBUS EX CONCILIO MAGONTIENSICAPIT. XXXVIIF 0. Ammonemus atqueprecipimus ut decimas omnino dare non negligatur. . . auferat ei necessaria sua. (b) Fol. 43r-43v: EX CONCILIO ROTOMAGENSI CAP. IUI0. Omnes decime terre sive defructibus... et ad emendationem congruam. (c) Fol. 43v: QUODAUCTORITATE VETERISLEGISDANDA SIT DECIMA EX CONCILIO MAGUNCIENSI CAP. V. Decimas deo et sacerdotibus dei dandas Abraham . . . ecclesiis reparandis.

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(a) Council of Mainz (813), chap. 38; ed. Albert Werminghoff, MGH Cone. 2.1, p. 270 (no. 36); (b) Council of Mainz (852), chap. 3 in Burchard’s version; (c) Walaffid Strabo, De exordiis et incrementis rerum ecclesiasticarum, chap. 28; ed. Alfred Boretius and Victor Krause, MGH Capit. 2, pp. 512f. (a)-(c) = Burchard of Worms, Decretum, III. 131, 130, and 133 (PL 140, 699); in MS D probably taken from Burchard. Not in C. 40. Fols. 43v-44r: DE OFFICIO MISSE. DE CANONIBUS EXCERPTUM. Officium quidem misse magna ex parte ad solum pertinet sacerdotem . . . et reconditam habeat dispensationem. Unidentified; the first sentence as in Hrabanus Maurus, De institutione clericorum, II. 1 (cf. above for no. 32). Also in C, pp. 183-84. 41. Fols. 44r-45v: SERMOSACERDOTIBUS UTILIS. Osacerdotes domini dico vobis . . . et de omnibus his liberavit eos dominus. Excerpts from ¿Elfric’s letter 3; ed. Fehr, Hirtenbriefe, pp. 58-67. In D the sections 3 8 ^ 0 , 50-62, 64-67, 89-90 have been omitted. Also in C, pp. 174-80. 42. Fols. 45v-47r: ORDO AD REVOCANDOS PENITENTES EX PENITENTIALIROMANO... Credis in deum patrem omnipotentem et filium . . . ADMONITIO.. . ALIA ADMONITIO . . . dei gratia in corde nostro presentem esse sciamus. Ordo confessionis\ unidentified. At the beginning as Poenitentiale Ps.-Bedae, ed. Wasserschieben, Bußordnungen, p. 252, and Poenitentiale Sangermanense, ed. Wasserschieben, Bußordnungen, p. 350. Not in C.

III. COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE CONTENTS OF MANUSCRIPTS CD (CCCC 265 AND BARLOW 37) In their attempts to clarify the relationship between the manuscripts of Wulfstan’s Commonplace Book, scholars have not yet pointed out the close relationship between C and D.17To begin with, the close connection between those two manuscripts is shown by the fact that most texts contained in D, fols. lr-47r, also occur in C, pp. 3-268. Although the sequence of the texts is not identical in both manuscripts, several

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blocks with the same grouping of texts stand out, which also indicates that the beginning of both C and D is largely based on a common exemplar that has been lost. This common model must have been either a contemporary manuscript of the Commonplace Book in Wulfstan’s possession, or a copy of it. The scribes or compilers of C and D chose the material from this collection for their respective purposes and rearranged the parts they took over somewhat. It is not always clear whether the alterations were intentional or accidental. The scribe or redactor of D, in particular, has a tendency to abridge and omit (cf., e.g., nos. 23, 26, 28, 37, 41, as well as the remarks on blocks IV, IX, X, below), but also in C some texts are missing, or only partially contained, that are completely transmitted in MSS DO (nos. 20a, 32, 33, 34). This proves, on the one hand, that C cannot be dependent on D, nor D on C, but rather that both manuscripts are based on a common exemplar. On the other hand, it is clear that CD cannot be examined in isolation; our assumption of a particularly close relationship of CD must be substantiated by classifying all the texts included in CD within their respective total transmission, and especially by comparing them with the other manuscripts of Wulfstan’s Commonplace Book. Since the preliminary research necessary for this has only been undertaken in part,18 it is possible here to provide merely a sketch that will certainly require additions and refinement. The description of MS D given above (in section II) will be used as a starting point in analyzing the individual blocks of texts of MSS CD: (a) Block I contains nos. 1-2 (Excerptiones Ps.-Ecgberti', excerpts from Ansegis, Collectio capitularium, which may still be part of the Excerptiones Ps.-Ecgberti). While D presents them continually (fols. 1r-7v), they are in exactly the same order in C as in D, but are tom apart and distributed over three sections (C, pp. 22-35 = la; 60-62 = lb; 69-71 = Ic). At least la and lb must have been written continuously in the exemplar as they are in D (compare my remarks on block V below). The assumption that the Excerptiones Ps.-Ecgberti originated in England around 1000 A.D., and possibly within the circle around Wulfstan would seem to be corroborated by the fact that the Excerptiones Ps.-Ecgberti is apparently only transmitted in English manuscripts, and almost exclusively in those that transmit Wulfstan’s Commonplace

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Book (CDIJO). MS R, which so far has not been mentioned in connection with Wulfstan, is also of English origin (at least in the part in question here). The original scope and form of the Excerptiones Ps.Ecgberti are, however, still not quite clear. If one follows the example of almost all previous editors and uses the version in MS I as a basis, then not only does block I in CD belong to this collection, but also a large section of block V and some pieces of blocks II, III, IV, and VIII. However, Aronstam, the most recent editor, has established that the Excerptiones Ps. -Ecgberti exist in two recensions, which she illustrates with the following stemma:19

It is not clear why Aronstam denies the existence of the Excerptiones Ps.-Ecgberti in MS D.20 As we have seen, D does transmit this collection, and it does so in a version that is apparently closely related to the one in C. Both manuscripts offer (nearly) the same selection of texts in the same order; moreover, their variant readings also frequently correspond with one another. In addition, both have largely identical rubrics, whereas rubrics are nearly always missing in R. Occasionally it happens that D and R share the same variants against C. Hence, D is neither immediately dependent on R nor on C, which again confirms our assumption that CD are based on a common model. Accordingly, Aronstam’s stemma could be amended as follows:

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It is certain that Wulfstan possessed MS I. If our assumption that he also had the common exemplar of CD in his possession is correct, then he himself must have had the Excerptiones Ps.-Ecgberti in two versions at his disposal. At any rate, the question about the common core of both recensions as well as their deviations from one another will have to be investigated. /According to Cross and Hamer (see n. 12, below), CDR transmit the short recension (Ecgb.A), whereas 01 transmit the long recension (Ecgb.B)./ (b) Block II contains nos. 3-9; these are penitentials and related texts, mostly of insular origin (Cánones Hyberitanorum', Tres Cánones Hibernici; excerpts from Poenitentiale Ps.-Theodor i, Dialogus Ecgberti, and Cánones Wallici; Exempla Saxonica, penitential letters written by and to Wulfstan). Since they occur in exactly the same order in both manuscripts (C, pp. 96-113; D, fols. 7v-13v), it can be assumed that this was also the order in their common exemplar. The Cánones Hyberitanorum, the Tres Cánones Hibernici, and the Exempla Saxonica (nos. 3, 4, 8) are apparently only transmitted in MSS CD in this form. All three texts require closer examination.21 Although the Cánones Wallici (no. 7) are transmitted in several manuscripts apart from Wulfstan’s Commonplace Book, they are only to be found within the Commonplace Book in CD and P. Since D’s version of no. 7 has all the omissions of C, it can be assumed that CD here go also back to a common exemplar. The position of this exemplar within the textual transmission of the Cánones Wallici is not quite clear; in any case, CD here are apparently not immediately dependent upon P.22 The excerpts from the Poenitentiale Ps.-Theodori (no. 5; cf. nos. 14b, 16,19c)would need to be collated with the relevant passages of the version contained in MSS OS (O, pp. 12-94; S, fols. 80r-131v) and edited from MS O23 by Thorpe; the mere fact that CD have transposed the text of no. 5 as compared with O indicates that they are not immediately dependent on O but rather have a common model. This relationship is confirmed in no. 16a, which in addition to being contained in CD also occurs in MS I, fols. 154-155: CDI include a sentence that is missing in O.24 The excerpts from the Dialogus Ecgberti (no. 6) should be compared with the complete version (in London, BL, Cotton Vitellius A.xii).25 The Latin penitential letters written by and to Wulfstan (no. 9) occur, in addition to CD, also in K, fols. 41r-42r. These letters are

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contained in the following selection and sequence in the three manuscripts (numbering according to Aronstam, “Penitential Pilgrimages”): C 1,2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 D 1,2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10,9 K 1,2, 3, 4, 6, 5,7, 10 Unfortunately neither Bethurum nor Aronstam discuss the relationship between the manuscripts in their editions.26Aronstam’s critical apparatus illustrates, however, that the variants of CD often coincide. Furthermore, she points out that the letter no. 8 (according to her numbering), which is missing in K and only transmitted in CD, was a later addition to the collection.27 An even later addition is the last letter in MS D (no. 9 according to Aronstam’s count, only transmitted in D).28The following stemma is therefore conceivable for the collection of letters:

(c) Block III contains nos. 10-16 (C, pp. 20-22, 37-60; D, fols. 13v-22r). This block also involves penitentials and texts relating to penitence {Poenitentiale Ecgberti; the second capitulary of Theodulf [= Theodulf II]; excerpts from the Poenitentiale Ps.-Theodori); one exception is no. 11 (Ghaerbald = Capitula a sacerdotibus proposita), which is a collection of conduct codes for priests and which in MS C is not to be found with the other texts of block III. Ecgbert and Theodulf II are separated in D and mixed together with the inclusion of further material: Ecgbert, prologue; Ghaerbald; excerpts from Theodulf II; unidentified material; Ecgbert, main section; excerpts from Poenitentiale Ps.-Theodori (?); further excerpts from Theodulf II, as well as from Poenitentiale Ps.-Theodori. At this point, C has probably kept to the order of the common exemplar, namely, Ecgbert, Theodulf II,

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(further) excerpts from the Poenitentiale Ps.-Theodori (C, pp. 37-59). The Poenitentiale Ecgberti was relatively widespread; in Wulfstan’s Commonplace Book alone, it is to be found in BCDR and P. A clarification of the relationship between the manuscripts can only be achieved by a critical edition that takes the entire transmission into account.29In contrast, Theodulf II is sparsely transmitted; in Wulfstan’s Commonplace Book it appears only in CD. That here CD go back to a common model has already been shown by Brommer.30 It is more difficult to determine the original position of no. 11 (Ghaerbald = Capitulaasacerdotibusproposita): C, pp. 20-22 includes this text as an introduction to the Excerptiones Ps.-Ecgberti; D places it between the prologue and the main section of the Poenitentiale Ecgberti. The sequence in C makes better sense, also from the point of view of the contents. The evidence of the remaining English manuscripts that transmit no. 11, namely BIR (in R only chaps. 1-11), as well as the three pontificals Paris, BN, lat. 943 (Ker no. 364), BN, lat. 10575 (Ker no. 370), and Rouen, Bibl. Munic., 368 (A. 27) (Ker no. 374), is, however, not conclusive.31 It is true that in MS I no. 11, similar to C, forms the introduction to the Excerptiones Ps.-Ecgberti, but it is separated from it in R, and in B (which does not include the Excerptiones Ps. -Ecgberti), no. 11 is inserted between the prologue and the main section of the Poenitentiale Ecgberti, similar to D, and also (according to Aronstam) in Paris, BN, lat. 943 and 10575, as well as Rouen 368. Unfortunately there is no edition taking the complete English tradition of no. 11 into account. Selboume includes BCI as well as a few continental manuscripts, whereas Aronstam only considers Cl.32At any rate, the eight English manuscripts (BCDIR, Paris 943 and 10575, Rouen 368) appear to belong closely together within the entire transmission.33In the variant readings, sometimes D agrees with C, but sometimes also with B; in chapter 1 it has a sentence that, according to Aronstam, is missing in C. CD are not immediately dependent on each other, rather they are based on a common exemplar. A precise stemma could, however, only be set up after a systematic comparison of all the variants has been made. (d) Block IV consists in MS D, fol. 22r-22v only of no. 17 (De militia seculari). MS C, pp. 72-96, on the other hand, contains, apart from

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no. 17, four additional texts or rather text groups that, for the most part, are missing in D. Since two of them are also transmitted in other Commonplace Book manuscripts, it is possible that MS D has omitted some material from the common model of CD. MS C, pp. 72-96 contains:34 pp. 72-83: Incipit ordo ccnfessionis Sancti Hieronymi . . . : A Latin-late Old English handbook for the use of a confessor, inter alia also contained in MSS JS (cf. Cameron, no. B.l 1.4); ed. Fowler, “Late Old English Handbook,” pp. 1-34. pp. 83-91: DEFIDE CATHOLICA. Primum omnium ammonemus . . . gloria domino nostro Iesu Christo: Charlemagne, Admonitio generalis, chaps. 61-75; 77-78; 80-82 (ed. Boretius, MGH Capit. 1, no. 22); probably extracted from there in C and not from Ansegis, Collectio capitularium (ed. Boretius, MGH Capit. 1, no. 183). /Cf. Cross, “Newly-Identified Manuscript,” pp. 68-70 (no. 8)./ pp. 91-93: INCIPIT DE REGULA CANONICORUM\ Leg[al]ibus institutis . . . eo opitulante pervenire mereantur. Amen: Concilium Aquisgranense (816), chap. 145; ed. Werminghoff, MGH Cone. 2.1, pp. 419-21 (no. 39A) = Ps.-Amalarius, De regula canonicorum, chap. 145; PL 105, 932-934. The same text occurs once again in C, pp. 158-60. Excerpts from the Council o f Aachen of 816 (Ps.Amalarius) are further transmitted in MS K, fols. 18-23, 80-82. /Cf. Cross, “Newly-Identified Manuscript,” pp. 70 f. (no. 9). Cross notes that both texts of C, pp. 83-91 and 91-93, occur in the same sequence in R, fols. 192r-195v and 196r-196v./ pp. 93-94: DE MILITIA SECULAR1: in MS D, fol. 22r-22v = no. 17. pp. 94-96: INCIPIT QUALITER SACERDOS SUSCIPERE DEBEATPENITENTES: pieces from penitentials (Poenitentiale Ps.Romanum; Poenitentiale Cummeani; Poenitentiale Ps. -Theodori) and from the Excerptiones Ps.-Ecgberti (the latter occur in similar form already in C, pp. 69-70); see James 2:19. Although the title and part of the text are similar to MS D, no. 13 (cf. Fehr, Hirtenbriefe, p. 243), D nevertheless has greater similarity to I, fol. 155r—155v (= Loyn, no. 30d) and O, pp. 238f. (ed. Fehr, Hirtenbriefe, pp. 243 f. under no. 34). (e) Block V contains nos. 18-21: Texts concerning marital and kinship problems, which are partly also contained in the Excerptiones Ps.-Ecgberti, chaps. 121,128, 132-33 (Thorpe). The fact that the texts occur in exactly the same order in CD (C, pp. 62-69; D, fols. 22v-25r)

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would seem to indicate that this was also the order of the common exemplar, particularly since block V in this constellation is apparently only found in MSS CD. But it will be necessary to analyze it more closely in connection with the Excerptiones Ps.-Ecgberti. Perhaps block V had been part of block I in the model of CD, compare the sequence of the blocks in MS C: pp. 60-62 = lb; 62-69 = V; 69-71 = Ic. Possibly the original sequence had been, accordingly, la, lb, V, Ic. (f) With nos. 22-23, block VI (C, pp. 113-42; D, fols. 25-31) offers the capitulary of Radulf and the first capitulary of Theodulf, two Carolingian episcopal capitularies that were intended to control and regulate the conduct and duties of parish priests. The fact that CD contain both texts in the same sequence would seem to indicate that this was the order of their common model. Moreover, Brommer, having taken the entire transmission of these two capitularies into account and having compared all the variant readings, has shown that MSS CD are based on a common model for both texts. In Wulfstan’s Commonplace Book, Radulf is only transmitted in CD; Theodulf is also transmitted in P—but CD are not based on P.35 (g) Block VII contains nos. 24-28. These texts are concerned with the conduct of priests and bishops, especially their duty to guide the faithful and serve as role models. Thus, the contents of these texts connect appropriately with block VI. Apart from its presence in CD (C, pp. 3-19 and pp. 152-54; D, fols. 3 lv-34v), block VII is also found in O, pp. 169-88, whereby CO almost completely correspond in sequence, whereas D deviates:36 D 24a D E P A S T O R IB U S E C C L E S IE . . . Q u i p a s t o r e s t a n im a ru m

CO 24b IN C IP 1 T A D M O N I T I O S P IR IT A L IS D O C T R IN E . E x a lta in f o r titu d in e . . . C la m a m e c e s s e s . . .

24b C la m a n e c e s s e s . . .

27 A D M O N I T I O E P I S C O P O R U M

25 Isidore 26 Alcuin to Eanbald

28 Alcuin to Aethelheard 26 Alcuin to Eanbald 25 Isidore 24a Q u i p a s t o r e s t a n im a ru m . . . B o n u s p a s t o r . . . (the first sentence is missing in O)

U T IL IS

27 A M M O N IT IO E P IS C O P I S U T IL IS

28 Alcuin to Aethelheard

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CO most probably retain the sequence of these texts as they were found in the common exemplar of CDO, which was in Wulfstan’s possession. On the other hand, DO presumably maintain the position of block VII within the model of CD, or rather the common preliminary stage of CDO. Block VII follows VI in MS D (which fits well for content) and precedes VIII/IX, and in MS O it comes in the middle of block IX, whereas in MS C it has been moved to the very beginning of the manuscript; no. 24a was apparently overlooked and remained in block VIII. MS D positioned no. 24a, originally the last text of the group, before no. 24b (originally the first) and, by omitting the final sentence of 24a, which is identical with the second sentence of 24b (Clama ne cesses... si non obedient, pernicie est), as well as the title and the first sentence of 24b, combined both pieces into one text. The first sentence of 24a from CD (Quipastor est animarum. . .) is missing in O. On the other hand, in C the title is missing from 24a (D: DE PASTORIBUS ECCLESIE. . . VITE; O: DE PASTORIBUS SACERDOTUM). At least for no. 24a, the following stemma is conceivable, which, of course, would have to be substantiated by collating CDO for all texts from block VII:37

(h) Block VIII consists in D, fols. 35r-36r, of no. 29; MS C, pp. 142-60, in addition has several other texts; it contains:38 pp. 142-48: Vere fratres karissimi. . . qui vivit et regnat: Abbo of St. Germain, Maundy Thursday sermon; PL 132, 765; ed. Bethurum, Homilies, pp. 367-73. Not in D, but in IKO. pp. 148-50: Rex a regendo.. .finiatur vita cum culpa; D, no. 29c.

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pp. 150-52: Paulus d ic it. . . Deo magis quam hominibus; a text concerning the duty of priests to proclaim the word of God (thus thematically related to block VII = nos. 24-28); apparently unidentified and unedited. Not in D. pp. 152-54: Qui pastor est animarum . . . Bonus pastor super gregem . . . si non obedientpernicie est\ D, no. 24a. pp. 154-56: Quid ergo sit blasphemare. .. liberavit eos dominus: unidentified. D, no. 29a. pp. 156-57: Inimicus enim Christi... respondentes omnes dixerint. Amen: Atto of Vercelli. D, no. 29b. pp. 157-58: Fratres scitote. . . manus invalescebat Amalech: Excerptiones Ps.-Ecgberti, chap. 161 (Thorpe). Source unidentified. Not in D, but in I. pp. 158-60: Legalibus institutis . . . pervenire mereantur. Amen: Council of Aachen of 816, chap. 145 = Ps.-Amalarius, chap. 145; the same passage already in C, pp. 91-93; see block IV above. Not in MS D. The text in C, pp. 152-54 (= no. 24a) was originally probably part of block VII; perhaps there is also a correlation here with the text on pp. 150-52. The original order of the texts in C, pp. 142-48, 157-58, 158-60 is, on the other hand, unclear: were pp. 142-48 added here from block IX? Were pp. 157-58 added here from the Excerptiones Ps.Ecgberti? Were pp. 158-60 inadvertently copied again from block IV? The core of the common exemplar of CD for block VIII was probably 29abc (or, as in C, in the order 29cab). O contains only the Atto-excerpt no. 29b (O, pp. 96-97 Ecclesia sponsa C hristi. . . omnes dixerunt. Amen), but with a different order of sentences, whereas CD have the same sentences in the same order.39 The stemma of CDO for no. 29b could therefore correspond to the one given above for no. 24a. (i) Block IX consists in MS D of nos. 30-34, 37, and 40-41 (D, fols. 36r-40v, 41v-42v, 43v-45v) and contains largely liturgical material. D, nos. 35-36 have presumably been inserted here from block X; nos. 38-39 and 42 are probably later additions, see below for block X. In MS C, pp. 160-97, block IX is obviously quite well preserved. Block IX is transmitted almost as often as block I (the Excerptiones Ps. Ecgberti) within Wulfstan’s Commonplace Book and is also found, to a large degree, in the same manuscripts as block I, namely in CDIKO,

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but in varying order and selection. MS I offers the smallest selection, only De ieiunio IIII temporum (no. 33) and Abbo of St. Germain. CDKO, on the other hand, contain a relatively extensive common basis, which Wulfstan apparently wrote himself, or had written for his Commonplace Book:40 TElfric’s letters 2 and 3 (nos. 37 and 41), Wulfstan’s Homily Villa De baptismo (no. 30), in addition De officio missae (no. 40). Since CK contain the texts in exactly the same order, and since K was even written under Wulfstan’s supervision, CK could reflect the original sequence of this group. MS O puts iElfric’s second letter at the end, and MS D rearranges even more. Furthermore, CIKO have Abbo of St. Germain41 in common, DIKO De ieiunio IIII temporum (no. 33), CDO De officiis diurnalium sive nocturnalium horarum (no. 32), DO Item de IIII temporibus (no. 34). CO and Boulogne-sur-Mer 63 also transmit a group of three texts based on an common model that was, presumably, compiled by iElfric and sent to Wulfstan:42 (1) [ Ysidori de sacerdotibus. ] Initium quidem sacerdotii Aaronfuit . . . Actenus de primordiis sacerdotalibus . . . providentia et distributione discreta: Isidore, De ecclesiasticis officiis, II.5.1-18; PL 83, 780-786. In C, pp. 188-90. (2) [De septem gradibus ecclesiasticis. ] Hostiarii sunt idem et ianitores . . . presbiteros episcoporum nomine taxari: ed. Fehr, Hirtenbriefe, pp. 256f. In C, pp. 184-88. (3) [Item Beati Hieronymi Excerptum de Episcopis.] Bead Pauli apostoli verba . .. canones observare oportet: Excerpts from Jerome; see Fehr, Hirtenbriefe, pp. 257f. In C, pp. 190-94. CO also concur in linking this group with the excerpts from Hrabanus (no. 32), whereas D only has no. 32, but does not contain the other three texts. Bethurum, the latest editor, unfortunately does not give a stemma for no. 30 (Wulfstan’s Homily Villa);43 in her critical apparatus, no closely related groups of manuscripts are apparent. Yet she failed to notice that the addition that is inserted in MS O in Wulfstan’s Homily (ed. Bethurum, Homilies, p. 170, apparatus to line ,26) is positioned immediately at the end of this homily in CD (= De crismate, no. 31). Therefore the following stemma could be attempted:

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Clemoes, who collated MSS CKO for TElfric’s letters 2 and 3 (nos. 37 and 41), came up with the following stemma:44

This stemma coincides for CKO with the stemma we drafted for Wulfstan’s Homily Villa. A comparison of CDKO for both pastoral letters surprisingly indicated, however, that the D version neither displays a close relationship to C nor to O; rather it more frequently goes together with K, without being immediately dependent on it.45This does not quite fit in with our observations so far—anyway, a final clarification of the relationship could only be provided after a comparative collation of CDIKO for all their shared transmissions. (j) Block X: Here the MSS CD only have nos. 35-36 in common, an excommunication rite and a rite for readmitting those who had been excommunicated, which they transmit in the same order (C, pp. 211 -15; D, fols. 40v-41v). This already indicates that CD, with regard to nos. 35-36, are also based on a common exemplar. The compiler of MS O must have been familiar with both texts, too, since the table of contents in O (fols. i-iv) under the heading INCIPIUNT [CAPITULA DE SACEJRDOTALI IURE ECGBERTI ARCHIEPISCOPI lists the

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rubrics of nos. 35 and 36 under nos. 13 and 14, but the texts announced in this section of MS O’s table of contents do not appear later anywhere in the MS.46 D, nos. 38-39 (fols. 42v-43v) were presumably not yet included in Wulfstan’s collection (even though no. 38, apart from being in D, is also included in P, cf. section VI below), but were presumably inserted later and adopted from Burchard of Worms. Likewise, no. 42 (D, fols. 45v-47r) is possibly also a later insertion; perhaps it already belongs to the second main section of MS D. Regarding MS C, on the other hand, it cannot be ruled out that at least a part of the material that on pp. 198-210 and 216-68 surrounds nos. 35-36 was already included in Wulfstan’s collection (esp. pp. 216-27 and 237—68):47 p. 198: [GJREGORIUS MAXIMINIANO EPISCOPO SYRACUSANO. PRESBYTEROS, diaconos . . . ad utrumque iudicetur idoneus. Excerpts from Gregory the Great, letter IV. 11 (ed. Ewald and Hartmann, MGH Epp. 1.1, p. 244.12-16). This excerpt is also included in Johannes Diaconus, Vita S. Gregorii Magni, 11.54 (PL 75, 112).48 The rest of the page is empty. pp. 199-207: Quo temporepascha celebretur... excerpts from the Collectio Dionysio-Hadriana (PL 67, 141 ff.); cf. James 2:20. The Dionysio-Hadriana is also contained in MS P, see section VI below. p. 207-08: DE CAPITULIS BEATIPAP^ ADRIAN I E T ANGILRAMNIEPISCOPI. Accusationes adversus doctorem... Presbiter non adversus episcopum... chaps. 71-72 from the pseudo-Isidorian forgery of the Capitula of Angilram; PL 96, 1067; ed. Paul Hinschius, Decretales Pseudo-Isidorianae et capitula Angilramni (Leipzig, 1863), p. 768 (cor. xii-xiii).49 p. 208: EX CONC1LIO TOLETANO. Episcopus, presbiter. . . cum ordinarenturperceperant. Concilium Toletanum IV.28; PL 84, 374f. p. 209: Ex illorum consortio quidam rebelles . . . partly ed. James 2:17. /Now ed. Sauer, “Exkommunikationsriten,” pp. 294f. (see p. 353 above)./ p. 210: Fragment of a map, ed. James 2:17. pp. 211-15: Excommunication rites as in D, nos. 35-36. pp. 216-27: In huius litterature continetur serie. . . King Edgar’s laws in Latin and Old English versions; ed. Liebermann 1:206 ff. (IV Eg Versio and IV Eg) = Cameron, no. B.14.18.

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pp. 228-31: FERIA II CAENlJ domini. Primo mane custodes $cclesip . . . Neque oremus. Sed ita directe. (In red ink). Cf. Andrieu 1:99. pp. 232-36: Empty. pp. 237-68: JElfricus abbasEgneshamnensibusfratribus... Valete feliciter in Christo dilectissimi fratres. iElfric’s letter to his monks in Eynsham; ed. F.-M. Bateson in Compotus Rolls o f the Obedientiaries o f St. Swithun’s Priory, Winchester, ed. G. W. Kitchin (London, 1892), pp. 171-96 (appendix VII). For interpretation see now J.R. Hall, “Some Liturgical Notes on ^Elfric’s Letter to the Monks at Eynsham,” The Downside Review 93 (1975): 297-303. /Now ed. by D.H. Nocent in Corpus Consuetudinum Monasticarum, vol. 7, pt. 3 (Siegburg, 1984), pp. 149-85, but without any commentary. See now Komexl, ed., Regularis Concordia, pp. liff. and cliiff./

IV. ATTEMPT TO RECONSTRUCT THE LOST COMMON EXEMPLAR OF MSS C AND D Our assumption that MSS CD basically go back to a common exemplar has been largely confirmed; the reasons are that they have the selection and ordering of the texts largely in common; moreover, CD often agree closely in the stemmatic classification of all the respective manuscripts containing those texts, at least as far as this could be verified here. Also in several sections, where our assumption could not be clearly proved (especially in the case of nos. 37 and 41 from block IX) at least C and D can, undoubtedly, be traced back to Wulfstan’s Commonplace Book. The task now is to reconstruct the order of the blocks of texts in the common exemplar of CD. MS D has probably retained the order of its model in blocks VI, VII, VIII, IX; only block X was apparently inserted into block IX. On the other hand, as shown above, MS C moved block VII to the beginning and placed blocks VI, VIII, IX, and X at the end. Considering what has already been said above for blocks I and V, the presumable order in the common model of CD was as follows: blocks la, lb, V, Ic, . . . , VI, VII, VIII, IX, X. Presumably blocks II, III, IV stood between Ic and VI, perhaps in this order. The original position of no. 11 (preceding block la?) is not quite certain.

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Old English Prose: Basic Readings

If our reconstruction is correct, then a rather methodical arrangement of the version of Wulfstan’s Commonplace Book on which CD are based can be discerned. It began with canonical material (block la, lb, V, Ic = Excerptiones Ps. -Ecgberti, perhaps no. 11 as an introduction) to which penitentials (largely of insular, to a lesser extent of continental origin) were added (blocks II—III). Block IV is a mixture of material from penitentials, Carolingian Capitularies, and council decisions (if it had been already in the CD exemplar in the form transmitted by C). The texts that follow deal with the duties and conduct of priests and bishops (blocks VI-VII): two Carolingian episcopal capitularies (Radulf and Theodulf), passages from Isidore, Alcuin, and passages that have not yet been identified; followed by a section difficult to characterize (block VIII, esp. no. 29 = excerpts from Sedulius Scottus, Atto of Vercelli, the Irish canonical collection, etc.), the basic theme of which is perhaps justice (?). The collection ended with pieces of a predominantly liturgical character (block IX, together with the common contents of block X); ¿Elfric’s letter to his monks in Eynsham (only transmitted in MS C), which is essentially an abridged version of the Regularis Concordia, would fit into this context, too.

V. WULFSTAN’S COMMONPLACE BOOK AS SOURCE MATERIAL FOR HIS OWN WORKS Among other texts Wulfstan also used several of the texts and excerpts from his Commonplace Book as a source for his own works.50 (a) He used the Excerptiones Ps.-Ecgberti (no. 1, etc.) and Ghaerbald = Capitula a sacerdotibus proposita (no. 11, in MSS Cl introduction to or part of the Excerptiones), in his Canons o f Edgar and the Institutes o f Polity. ¿Elfric was familiar with the compilation of the Excerptiones Ps.-Ecgberti as well; he used it in his pastoral letters.51 The question already posed by Fehr regarding which version of the Excerptiones iElfric and Wulfstan used52 should, however, be reexamined taking MSS DR into consideration. (b) De improviso iudicio secularium, the penultimate section of no. 8 (Exempla Saxonica), was used by Wulfstan in V and VI Ethelred.53

Archbishop Wulfstem's (iCommonplace Book"

369

(c) Wulfstan used Theodulf s first capitulary (no. 23) in a few homilies (probably in VII, VIIIc, XIV.5-35, XVIII.34-65, ed. Bethurum, Homilies), extensively in the Canons o f Edgar, and occasionally in the Institutes o f Polity and his laws.54 (d) Sentences from nos. 24 and 25 were possibly used by him in Homily VI. 1-20, XVIb, and the Institutes o f Polity in the section concerning priests.55 (e) The section concerning Gildas from no. 28 (Alcuin to Aithelheard) was also used by Wulfstan, for example in his Sermo Lupi ad Anglos = Homily XX (El). 176-86 (ed. Bethurum, Homilies).56 (f) He also used the excerpt collection no. 29b (mainly from Atto of Vercelli, De pressuris ecclesiasticis), for example, in his homilies Xb.31-44 {De Christianitate) and Xc.42-54, furthermore in the Institutes o f Polity (I Polity 107 and 111-15, in the section concerning the church). In both cases he used the introductory sentence of this excerpt collection in the CD version, which is missing in the version of MS O.57 This is one indication that he not only must have had the exemplar of O in his possession, but also the exemplar of CD. It is not clear whether he was familiar with Atto’s complete text, which was not very widespread, or only with the excerpts in his Commonplace Book.58 (g) In the section concerning the monarchy in the Institutes o f Polity, I Polity 16-23 flow from two sources according to Jost’s source apparatus: sections 16-17 from Sedulius Scottus, Liber de rectoribus christianis, chap. X; sections 18-23, on the other hand, from the Irish collection of canons. But in MSS CD it is precisely these two Latin texts that are successively included as excerpts (beginning of no. 29c). Therefore it was possible for Wulfstan to translate consecutively the entire section I Polity 16-23 from his Commonplace Book. A further indication that he presumably used the model of CD is that in I Polity 19 he did not translate the variant Wasserschleben printed, namely hereditatem (iudicare), but rather that offered by CD, veritatem (iudicare): rihtwisnesse (lufige). According to Jost, Wulfstan also used Sedulius in I Polity 2, 6, 8 (and in II Polity 20). Of these 6 and 8 (as well as 7) could also have been paraphrased from the excerpts in CD. Similar to the case of the Atto excerpts in no. 29b, it is not certain with

370

Old English Prose: Basic Readings

no. 29c whether Wulfstan was familiar with the entire text of Sedulius Scottus, Liber de rectoribus christianis, or only with the excerpts.59 (h) Wulfstan later used no. 30, his own homily De baptismo (Villa, ed. Bethurum, Homilies), for his Old English homilies VUIb and VIIIc.60 (i) Wulfstan used the extract from Hrabanus Maurus (under the title De officiis diurnalium sive nocturnalium horarum, no. 32) for the prose passages of the Old English Benedictine Office.61 (j) In his homily Xa he translated chap. 145 of the Aachen Council of 816 (= Ps.-Amalarius, De regula canonicorum), not included in D, but twice in C (C, pp. 91-93 and 158-60), and also in K.62 (k) Wulfstan took as the basis for his Old English homily XV the Maundy Thursday Homily for the Re-acceptance of the excommunicated by Abbo of St. Germain, which is missing in D, but included in CIKO (C, pp. 142-48).63 (l) Of the texts missing in CD, but transmitted in O, Wulfstan used, for example, for his homilies Xb. 10-23 and Xc.21-30,64the Decalogus Moysi, probably compiled by ¿Elfric (included in O, p. 2 as part of Incipit de initio creaturae and p. 94 under the heading In nomine domini); furthermore Adso’s Libellus Antichristi (O, pp. 281-92) in his Homilies la, lb, and V.65

VI. PARALLELS IN CONTENT AND STRUCTURE BETWEEN MSS CD AND THE OTHER MANUSCRIPTS OF THE COMMONPLACE BOOK Of the manuscripts mentioned in connection with Wulfstan’s Commonplace Book, I, K, and O are the most closely related to CD. O has the most material in common with CD; in addition, the structure of its collection shows a certain similarity. If one takes the order in MS O as a starting point, then the following picture emerges:66 (1) Poenitentiale Ps.-Theodori: O, pp. 12-94; parts from it in CD as nos. 5 ,14b, 16, 19c (distributed among blocks II, III, V), which, however, are not immediately dependent on O. (2) Texts concerning priests and especially bishops (partly from Atto of Vercelli): O, pp. 94-110; in between also our no. 29b from block VIII (in O, pp. 96-97). (3) The Excerptiones Ps.-Ecgberti: O, pp. 111-38 (including fragments of other material) =

Archbishop Wulfstan’s “Commonplace Book”

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CD, no. 1 from block I etc. (in a different recension). MS O, pp. 132-33 also contains the same table of relationship as D, no. 20a, which is missing in C. (4) Collections of liturgical texts: (a) O, pp. 143-51 (not in CD); (b) O, pp. 151-69 and 188-213; (c) O, pp. 213-64, mainly excerpts from Amalarius and the Regularis Concordia (with omissions ed. Fehr, Hirtenbriefe, appendix III).67Much can be found in (b) and (c) that is contained in CD, block IX, namely, in (b) nos. 41, 30,40, 37, as well as ¿Elfric’s excerpt collection (not contained in D, but in C, see section Illi above), and no. 32; in (c) nos. 33 and 34, furthermore no. 13, an element from no. 8, and Abbo of St. Germain.68 (5) The entire block VII has been inserted into the liturgical collection (4b) of O: O, pp. 169-88 = CD, nos. 24-28. Even in O, compared with its exemplar, some elements have been rearranged or mixed up.69A further example of this is offered by O’s table of contents, which among other texts mentions nos. 3 5-36 (from block X), but these texts do not appear in the body of the manuscript (cf. section Illj above). MSS CDK have no. 9 from block II (Wulfstan’s collection of penitential letters) and likewise a part of block IX in common (no. 33, Abbo, 37, 41, 30, 40); with C, K shares also excerpts from the Aachen capitulary (= Ps.-Amalarius, De regula canonicorum). Apart from this, K contains a series of further sermons by Abbo, Wulfstan, etc.70 The MSS CDI have, according to the order of I, the following in common: (1) Texts regarding priests and bishops: MS I, fols. 122v-127r; the first of these three texts (Loyn, no. 26) corresponds to no. 24a from CD, block VII. (2) The Excerptiones Ps.-Ecgberti: I, fols. 127v-154r = CD, no. 1 from block I etc. (in a different recension). (3) A collection (I, fols. 154r-l 74v), consisting of parts of the Poenitentiale Ps.-Theodori (I shares with CD: D, no. 16 = Loyn, no. 30c, 1), parts of block IX (Abbo = Loyn, no. 30k; D, no. 33 = Loyn, no. 30s), as well as, from D, no. 13 (= Loyn, no. 30d) and a section of no. 8 (= Loyn, no. 30h). Fehr still counts this collection among the Excerptiones Ps.Ecgberti; Aronstam, on the other hand, does not.71 A large part of this collection is also found in MS O, pp. 238ff. (i.e., section 4c according to our numbering above), partly in exactly the same order. Due to its close proximity to CD on the one hand, and to I on the other, O appears to occupy a sort of middle position between CD and I.

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For this reason, too, it is possible to regard CDIKO as an especially closely related group within the manuscripts of Wulfstan’s Commonplace Book.72The opinion put forth by Bethurum, that O best preserves the original form of the Commonplace Book, is by no means certain, however; Fehr’s supposition that Wulfstan incorporated material from O into C is out of the question and has already been refuted by Clemoes.73 The MSS IK, which Wulfstan used himself, prove that Wulfstan had several copies of his Commonplace Book. As our study has shown, apart from IK he must have had at least the common model of CD, as well as the exemplar of O in his possession, or their respective preliminary stages. Several of the stemmata given above in section III make it clear that between the CD exemplar and Wulfstan’s copy probably an additional intermediate stage must be assumed; the same may be said of MS O. The contents of these manuscripts obviously overlapped partially; for example, all of them (CDIKO) contain sections of block IX, and all, apart form MS K, have block I (Excerptiones Ps.-Ecgberti), as well as all or part of the Poenitentiale Ps.-Theodori and block VII (regarding priests and bishops). Here the relationships between CDI(K)0 must still be examined more thoroughly. Other texts or groups of texts were apparently originally only contained in one manuscript: for instance, there were probably only contained in the common exemplar of CD, or its antecedent, certain parts of block II (nos. 3, 4, 8) and of block III (Theodulf II), in addition to this the entire block VI (Radulf and Theodulf). The material of block X (excommunication formulae) is only in CD, but was also known to the compiler of O. The remaining manuscripts are grouped around CDIKO: MS J contains mainly Old English texts; the few Latin texts (predominantly excerpts from the Excerptiones Ps.-Ecgberti) were, according to Aronstam, copied from MS I.74 MS S contains on fols. 80-13 lv parts of the Poenitentiale Ps.-Theodori, on fols. 132r-140r the late Old English handbook for the use of a confessor (Ordo Confessionis Sancti Hieronymi, in MS C on pp. 72-83), followed by some other texts.75 MS V essentially contains Wulfstan’s collection of Alcuin’s letters. Of the texts discussed here, MS B contains on fols. 3r-5r Ghaerbald (= Capitula a sacerdotibusproposita, no. 11) and on fols. ir-iv, lr-3r,

Archbishop Wulfstan ’s “Commonplace Book

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5r-l4v the Poenitentiale Ecgberti (nos. 10 and 14a). MS R contains the Excerptiones Ps. -Ecgberti (no. 1), fols. 184r—192r; unidentified canons, fols. 192v-195v; the Poenitentiale Ecgberti (nos. 10 and 14a), fols. 196r-197v; and Ghaerbald (no. 11), fol. 198r-198v, and should therefore also be considered in the analysis of Wulfstan’s Commonplace Book.76 Perhaps R is even close to the main group. The Paris manuscript (P) is the only one among those mentioned here to have already originated on the continent before Wulfstan’s time. That is the reason why Aronstam believed that Wulfstan’s Commonplace Book was not compiled by Wulfstan himself, but had rather emerged long before him on the continent, and was only taken over by him.77 Against this it could be argued that P (or a related manuscript) could even have been a continental source for Wulfstan’s Commonplace Book. In addition to this, Bieler has already pointed out that, for the most part, P contains a different collection of texts from C (which then also holds true for D).78At any rate P has the following texts in common with CD: 1. The Canones Wallici [A] (no. 7), in P, pp. 160-64; 2. The Poenitentiale Ecgberti (nos. 10 and 14a), in P, pp. 351-55; 3. Theodulf s first capitulary (no. 23), in P, pp. 343-50; 4. The Collectio Dionysio-Hadriana (only in C, pp. 199-207 = P, pp. 183-264); 5. Gregory the Great’s Libellus Responsionum (only in D, no. 38 = P, pp. 266-73). As already mentioned above in sections Illb and f, the Theodulf text and the Canones Wallici in CD do not go back to P. There is a possibility that the excerpt from Gregory’s Libellus Responsionum in D is not based on Wulfstan’s collection, but is perhaps a later insertion (see section Illj above).79 Whether or not the C version of the Dionysio-Hadriana is based on P needs to be examined, likewise whether in the text of the Poenitentiale Ecgberti a relationship exists between CD and P. At any rate, it cannot be excluded that P has nothing to do with Wulfstan, and that it must entirely be crossed off the list of manuscripts of his Commonplace Book.80

VII. SUMMARY AND PROSPECTS Archbishop Wulfstan’s so-called Commonplace Book contains theological texts, particularly of a canonical, liturgical, and homiletic

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nature; it has been transmitted in a number of manuscripts. This collection obviously existed right from the start in several manuscripts, the contents of which overlapped partially; however, some of the texts were apparently only contained in one of the manuscripts of the Commonplace Book. Bateson was the first scholar to refer to the Commonplace Book in 1895; it was Bethurum who linked it to Wulfstan’s name in 1942. The theories expounded by both scholars were, in principle, convincing, but many details remained unexplained in spite of further research. This is the point where the present paper begins. As is shown by a detailed comparison of MS D with MS C (Barlow 37 with CCCC 265), C and D have so many parallels as far as contents and structure are concerned that it can fairly safely be assumed that the texts they have in common originate from a common, but lost, exemplar. The texts common to CD can be assigned to 10 (or 12) blocks of texts, for which we could attempt to reconstruct their order in the exemplar. In the copies C and D, admittedly, individual blocks have been transposed, some of the material of the common source has been omitted and sometimes new material has been added. The common model of CD in its turn can be traced back (probably via at least one further intermediate stage) to a manuscript of his Commonplace Book used by Wulfstan himself. This assumption is corroborated by the fact that, in some instances, Wulfstan used excerpts from CD as source material for his own works; these excerpts must, therefore, already have existed in this form in the common exemplar of CD. In several other instances Wulfstan used other manuscripts of his Commonplace Book (e.g., the exemplar of manuscript O). If we compare CD with the other Commonplace Book manuscripts as regards order and contents, we can see that MS O (CCCC 190) is particularly close to MSS CD as far as both the amount of common material transmitted and certain parallels in the order are concerned. In some passages, however, MS O is also very close to MS I (Cotton Nero A.i). As, in addition to this, MSS I and K (Copenhagen 1595) also show a relationship to CD in some passages, we can refer to CDIKO as the core group of the Commonplace Book. Possibly MS R (Rouen 1382), which has not so far been mentioned in this context, should also be included in this core group. /This has now

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been established by Cross./ IK were written in one of Wulfstan’s scriptoria (Worcester or York) and used by him personally; CD, R, and O, on the other hand, are manuscripts of a later date. They represent, through intermediate stages, lost manuscripts from Wulfstan’s scriptoria. Many of the texts that are transmitted in several manuscripts from the group CDIKOR should, of course, now be researched further: some of them have not been edited, some have not yet been sufficiently collated. Only when this work has been done will we be able to give a greater degree of precision to the stemmata attempted above in section III and extend them to further texts or groups of texts within the Commonplace Book. For some of the texts other manuscripts would have to be consulted; among such manuscripts are BJSV, of which V was also written in one of Wulfstan’s scriptoria; furthermore, Paris 943, Paris 10575, and Rouen 368 should also be looked into. On the other hand it is questionable (and must therefore be checked) whether MS P (Paris 3182), which has always been mentioned in this context so far, really is connected in some way with Wulfstan and his handbook.

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Old English Prose: Basic Readings A ppe

n d ix

SCHEMATIC COMPARISON OF MSS CDIKO The following table is intended to provide a brief comparative analysis of the contents of MSS CDIKO, as far as they have been discussed here and are of interest for the transmission and structure of Wulfstan’s Commonplace Book. Of the 10 (or 12) blocks of text reconstructed for MSS CD, however, only block IX is presented in some detail; its core contents have been framed □. The numbers refer, unless indicated otherwise, always to the numbering used for D. Passages from the manuscripts that are not mentioned here are indicated by ellipses. References to Fehr below are to Hirtenbriefe.

Archbishop Wulfstan’s “Commonplace Book” MS D

(B A R L O W

37)

fols. lr-7v = Nos. 1-2 = Block I fols. 7v-13v = Nos. 3 -9 = Block II fols. 13v-22r = Nos. 10-16 = Block III fol. 22r-22v = No. 17 = Block IV fols. 22v-25r = Nos. 18-21 = Block V fols. 25r-31r = Nos. 22-23 = Block VI fols. 31r-34v = Nos. 24-28 = Block VII fols. 35r-36r = No. 29 = Block V ili fols. 36r-40v = Nos. 30-34 = _______________________ Block IX 36r-37r Wulfstan, De baptismate = No. 30 37r De crismate = No. 31_________ 37r-39r De officiis diumalium et noctumalium = No. 32 39r-40r De ieiunio IIII temporum = No. 33 40r-40v Item de IIII temporibus = No. 34 fols. 40v—4 1v = Nos. 35-36 = Block X fols. 41v^ l5v = Nos. 37; 40-41 = Block IX 41v-42v Ælfric’s letter 2 = No. 37 43v-44r De officio misse = No. 40 44r-45v Ælfric’s letter 3 = No. 41

377

MS C (CCCC 265) pp. pp. pp. pp.

3 -1 9 = Nos. 24b-28 = Block VII 20-22 = No. 11 = Block III 22-37 = No. 1 = Block la 37-60 = Nos. 10; 12-16 = Block III pp. 60-62 = No. 1 = Block Ib pp. 62-69 = Nos. 18-21 = Block V

pp. pp. pp. pp. pp.

69-72 = Nos. 1-2 = Block le 72-96 = No. 17 etc. = Block IV 96-113 = Nos. 3 -9 = Block II 113-42 = Nos. 22-23 = Block VI 142-48 Abbo o f St. Germain = Block IX? pp. 148-50 = No. 29c = Block V ili

pp. 152-54 = No. 24a = Block VII pp. 154-57 = No. 29ab = Block V ili pp. 160-97

=

Block IX

160-73 jElfric’s letter 2 = No. 37 174-80 yElfric’s letter 3 = No. 41 180-82 Wulfstan, De baptismo = No. 30 182-

83 De crismate = No. 31

183-

84 De officio misse = No. 40

18494 yfclfric’s excerpts collection (Isidore; De septem gradibus; Jerome ) 194-97 De officio diumalium et noctumalium = No. 32 pp. 211-15 = Nos. 35-36 = Block X pp. 237-68 Ælfric’s letter to his monks at Eynsham

Old English Prose: Basic Readings

378 MS O (CCCC 190) fols. I-IV Table o f contents, wherein the rubrics Nos. 35-36. pp. 12-94 Poen. Ps.-Theodori pp. 94-110 Texts concerning clergy,

This contains: 225-27 De ieiunio quattuor témpora = No. 33 (Fehr No. 14) 236-37 Qualiter quattuor témpora agantur = No. 34 (Fehr No. 32)

238-39 De diversitate culparum et penitentiarum = No. 13 priests, and bishops (Block III) (Fehr No. 34) Therein: 242 De improviso iudicio secula9697 = No. 29b (Block VIII) rium = part o f No. 8 (Block II) 9798 De clericis sive ecclesiasticis (Fehr No. 46) ordinibus (in MS I, fol. 127r) 253-58 Abbo o f St. Germain Between pp. 110 and 111 numerous (Block IX?) (Fehr No. 46) leaves are missing, pp. 264-81 Excerpts from Defensor, pp. 111-38 ExcPsEcgb (N o .l; Liber scintillarum Block I) with different material within pp. 281-92 Adso, De antichristo 132-33 = No. 20a (Block V)

pp. 143-51 Expositio officium sacre missae pp. 151-69 = Block I X ___________ 151-59 /Elfric’s letter 3 = No. 41 159-62 Wulfstan, De baptismo = No. 30 (inch No. 31) 163-64 De officio et mysterio missae = No. 40 pp. 169-88 = Nos. 24-28 = Block VII pp. 188-213 = Block IX 188-201 /Elfric’s letter 2 = No. 37 201-05 jElfric’s excerpts collection (only: De septem gradibus) 205-12 De officiis diumalium et noctumalium = No. 32 p. 213 Ordo librorum . . . ad legendum pp. 213-64 Item de ecclesiastica consuetudine

Archbishop Wulfstan’s “Commonplace Book”

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MS K (K o p e n h a g e n ?)

MS I (C o t

fols. 23v-25r De ieiunio quattuor temporum = No. 33 (Block IX) fols. 26r-30r Abbo o f St. Germain (with different beginning than in MS C) (Block IX?)

fols. 122v-125r = No. 24a (Block VII) (Loyn, no. 26)

fols. 41r-43r Penitential letters from and to Wulfstan = No. 9 (Block II) fols. 67r-80r Block IX_____________ 67r-74r ¿Elfric’s letter 2 = No. 37 74r-77v Ailfric’s letter 3 = No. 41 78r-79r Wulfstan, De baptismo = No. 30 79v-80r De officio missae = No. 40

t on

N e r o A .i)

fol. 127v De clericis sive ecclesiasticis gradibus (Loyn, no. 29) (in MS O, p. 97) fols. 127v-154r ExcPsEcgb 1-163 (ed. Thorpe) = No. 1 (Block I) (Loyn, no. 30ab) fols. 154r-174v ExcPsEcgb 164-80 (according to Fehr, app. IV) (Loyn, no. 30c-s); largely parallel with MS O, pp. 213-64. Parallels with CD are: 154r-155r = No. 16a (Block III) (Loyn, no. 30c) 155r-155v = No. 13 (Block III) (Loyn, no. 30d) 157r-157v = Part o f No. 8 (Block II) (Loyn, no. 30h) 159v-162v Abbo o f St. Germain (from Block IX?) (Loyn, no. 30k) 162v-163v = No. 16b (Block III) (Loyn, no. 301) 173r-174v De ieiunio quattuor temporum = No. 33 (Block IX) (Loyn, no. 30s)

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Notes 1. This article was originally published under the title “Zur Überlieferung und Anlage von Erzbischof Wulfstans ‘Handbuch,’” in Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters 36 (1980): 341-84. My thanks are due to Sigrid Schönfelder and Susan Bollinger for helping me to translate it into English, to Zora Gnädig for typing the English version, and to Renate Bauer for bibliographic help. Since 1980, a number of relevant studies and editions have been published. I did not endeavor to rewrite my original article in the light of these studies, but where it seemed useful to refer to them, I include the information in / /. 2. Recent research into Wulfstan is mainly associated with the names of Dorothy Bethurum, Karl Jost, and Dorothy Whitelock; see above all Jost, “Einige Wulfstantexte und ihre Quellen,” Anglia 56 (1932): 265-315; idem, Wulfstanstudien (Bern, 1950); Bethurum, “Archbishop Wulfstan’s Commmonplace Book,” Publications o f the Modern Language Association 57 (1942): 916-29; eadem, ed., The Homilies o f Wulfstan (Oxford, 1957); eadem, “Wulfstan,” in Continuations and Beginnings. Studies in Old English Literature, ed. E.G. Stanley (London, 1966), pp. 210-46; Whitelock, ed. “Archbishop Wulfstan, Homilist and Statesman,” Transactions o f the Royal Historical Society 24 (1942): 25-45; eadem, Sermo Lupi ad Anglos, 3rd ed. (Exeter, 1963); eadem, Some Anglo-Saxon Bishops o f London (London, 1975), pp. 25-31; also Roger Fowler, ed., Wulfstan ’s Canons o f Edgar, EETS 266 (London, 1972), esp. pp. xlviff; Milton McC. Gatch, Preaching and Theology in Anglo-Saxon England: /Elfric and Wulfstan (Toronto, 1977). In a wider context, Wulfstan’s lifeand works are dealt with, e.g., in S.B. Greenfield, A Critical History ofOld English Literature (New York, 1965), pp. 52-58; Frank Barlow, The English Church 1000-1066, 2nd ed. (London, 1979). /See now also S.B. Greenfield and F.C. Robinson, A Bibliography o f Publications on Old English Literature to the End o f 1972 (Toronto, 1980), p. xx; S.B. Greenfield and D.G. Calder, A New Critical History o f Old English Literature (New York, 1986), esp. chaps. 3 and 4; Hans Sauer, “Wulfstan von Worcester und York,” in Lexikon des Mittelalters, vol. 9 (Munich, 1998), cols. 347-348./

Archbishop Wulfstan’s “Commonplace Book”

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3. In addition to the works by Bethurum, Whitelock, and Fowler mentioned above see F.-M. Bateson, “A Worcester Cathedral Book of Ecclesiastical Collections, Made c. 1000 A.D., The English Historical Review 10(1895): 712-31; Bernhard Fehr, “Das Benediktiner-Offizium und die Beziehungen zwischen iElfric und Wulfstan,” Englische Studien 46 (1913): 337-46; idem, ed., Die Hirtenbriefe AHfrics, Bibliothek der angelsächsischen Prosa 9 (Hamburg, 1914; repr. with a supplement by Peter Clemoes, Darmstadt, 1966); J.M. Ure, ed., The Benedictine Office: AnOldEnglish 7ex/(Edinburgh, 1957) pp. 40-43; Peter Clemoes, “The Old English Benedictine Office, MS CCCC 190 and the Relations between iElfric and Wulfstan: A Reconsideration,” Anglia 78 (1960): 265-83; Roger Fowler, “Archbishop Wulfstan’s Commonplace-Book and the Canons of Edgar,” Medium Aevum 32 (1963): 1-10; idem, “A Late Old English Handbook for the Use of a Confessor,” Anglia 83 (1965): 1-4; R.A. Aronstam, ed., “The Latin Canonical Tradition in Late Anglo-Saxon England: ‘The Excerptiones Ecgberti’” (unpub. Ph.D. diss., Columbia Univ., 1974), pp. 7-13 and 148-50; Hans Sauer, ed., Theodulfi Capitula in England, Texte und Untersuchungen der Englischen Philologie 8 (Munich, 1978), pp. 59-66. 4. Editions (cf. also Angus Cameron, “A List of Old English Texts,” in A Plan for the Dictionary o f Old English, ed. Roberta Frank and Angus Cameron [Toronto, 1973], nos. B.2.1-6): Bethurum, Homilies (quoted from this edition; the division into four groups also originates from Bethurum); Fowler, Wulfstan ’s Canons o f Edgar; Karl Jost, Die Institutes o f Polity, Civil and Ecclesiastical ein Werk Erzbischof Wulfstans von York (Bern, 1959); Ure (as in n. 3); Felix Liebermann, Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, 3 vols. (Halle, 1903-16; repr. Aalen, 1960). On Wulfstan’s share in Aethelred’s legislation see now also Patrick Wormald, “Aethelred the Lawmaker,” in Ethelred the Unready. Papersfrom the Millenary Conference, ed. David Hill, British Archaeological Reports 59 (Oxford, 1978), pp. 47-80. /See now also A.G. Kennedy, “Cnut’s Law Code of 1018,” ASE 11 (1983): 57-81./ 5. /See now Andy Orchard, “Crying Wolf,” ASE 21 (1992): 239-64./

382

Old English Prose: Basic Readings

6. On yElfric see Peter Clemoes, “TElfric,” in Continuations and Beginnings, ed. Stanley, pp. 176-209; James Hurt, AHfric (New York, 1972); C.L. White, /Elfric (Hamden, Conn., 1898; repr. with a bibliography by M.R. Godden, 1974). 7. The abbreviations are: Ker = N.R. Ker, Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford, 1957); S.C. = Falconer Madan et al., A Summary Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, 7 vols. (Oxford, 1895-1953). In addition to the literature mentioned with the individual manuscripts and above in nn. 1 and 2, reference must also be made to Joseph Raith, ed., Die altenglische Version des Halitgar' sehen Bußbuches (sog. Poenitentiale Pseudo-Ecgberti), Bibliothek der angelsächsischen Prosa 13, 2nd ed. (Darmstadt, 1964), pp. ix-xix; Ludwig Bieler, The Irish Penitentials (Dublin, 1963), pp. 12 and 20-24; Aronstam, “Canonical Tradition,” pp. 14-22; Sauer, Theodulfi Capitula, pp. 45-54; A.G. Watson, Catalogue of Dated and Datable Mss c. 700-1600 in the Department of Manuscripts, The British Library, 2 vols. (London, 1979), nos. 28 and 33. On MS B (Bodley 718) see also Franz Kerff, “Der Quadripartitus. Überlieferung, Quellen und Bedeutung” (unpub. Ph.D. diss., Technische Hochschule Aachen, 1979), pp. 30-39 (as MS O). On Wulfstan’s handwriting cf. N.R. Ker, “The Handwriting of Archbishop Wulfstan,” in England before the Conquest. Studies presented to Dorothy Whitelock, ed. Peter Clemoes and Kathleen Hughes (Cambridge, 1971), pp. 315-31. A comparison of the sigla chosen here with the ones in the editions of Aronstam, “Canonical Tradition”; Bethurum, Homilies; Fehr, Hirtenbriefe; Liebermann, Gesetze: Our sigla

B c

D

I

J

0

-

P R s

V

cccc 201

Aronstam

-

Z

X

-

R

-

-

-

Bethurum

-

X Bar I G Cop w

-

-

-

Vesp

C

Fehr/Clemoes

-

c

-

-

-

-

D

-

-

Y J

K

G X Cop 0

Liebermann c G X 0 D /Kerff’s study has now been published: Franz Kerff, Der Quadripartitus. Ein Handbuch der karolingischen Kirchenreform (Sigmaringen, -

-

-

-

-

-

-

Archbishop Wulfstan’s “Commonplace Book'

383

1982), and so has Peter Brommer’s edition: MGH: Capit. Episcop., 1st part (Hannover, 1984), [includes descriptions of the manuscripts]; see further Helmut Gneuss, “A Preliminary List of Manuscripts Written or Owned in England up to 1100,” ASE 9 (1981): 1-60; Hubert Mordek, Bibliotheca capitularium regum Francorum manuscripta. Überlieferung und Traditionszusammenhang der fränkischen Herrschererlasse, MGH Hilfsmittel 15 (Munich, 1995)./ 8. On the literature that Wulfstan had at his disposal in Worcester, York (and London) cf. Bethurum, Homilies, pp. 59-62 and 70; Whitelock, Sermo Lupi ad Anglos, pp. 3 Iff.; Fowler, Wulfstan's Canons of Edgar, p. lvii with n. 2; Barlow, pp. 283-87. Further information on works that will be mentioned here can be found in Franz Brunhölzl, Geschichte der lateinischen Literatur des Mittelalters, vol. 1 (München, 1975), vol. 2 (München, 1992). /See now Brommer, MGH Capit. Episcop. I./ 9. On the Carolingian councils and capitularies see Carlo de Clercq, La Législation religieuse franque, 1: de Clovis à Charlemagne (Louvain, 1936); 2: de Louis le Pieux à la fin du IXe siècle (Anvers, 1958); specially on the episcopal capitularies see W.A. Eckhardt, Die Kapitulariensammlung Bischof Ghaerbalds von Lüttich (Göttingen, 1955), there on pp. 54ff. the ascription of the Capitula a sacerdotibus proposita to Ghaerbald; Peter Brommer, “Die bischöfliche Gesetzgebung Theodulfs von Orléans,” Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte, Kanonistische Abteilung 60 (1974): 1-120, and “Die Rezeption der bischöflichen Kapitularien Theodulfs von Orléans,” Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte, Kanonistische Abteilung 61 (1975): 113-60. 10. See, e.g., A.W. Haddan and William Stubbs, Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents Relating to Great Britain and Ireland, vol. 3 (Oxford, 1871), pp. 174L; J.T. McNeill and H.M. Gamer, Medieval Handbooks of Penance (New York, 1938), pp. 179L, 341, and 430 (no. 14); Bethurum, “Wulfstan’s Commonplace Book,” p. 918; Cyrille Vogel, Les “Libri Paenitentiales" (Turnhout, 1978), pp. 82f. As the Poenitentiale Ps.-Theodori is, however, apparently only recorded in English manuscripts containing Wulfstan’s Commonplace Book (MSS

384

Old English Prose: Basic Readings

OS, excerpts also in MSS CDI), I think it quite possible that, at least in the form transmitted by OS, it was compiled in England (and during Wulfstan’s lifetime?). 11. On the penitentials see F.W.H. Wasserschieben, Die Bußordnungen der abendländischen Kirche (Halle, 1851); McNeill and Gamer; Bieler; Vogel; see Vogel, p. 73, on the Très Canones Hibernici. /See now also Allen J. Frantzen, La littérature de la pénitence dans L ’Angleterre Anglo-Saxonne (Fribourg, 1991)7 12. On the Excerptiones Ps.-Ecgberti cf. Selborne (as p. 341), pp. 227-46 and appendix D; Fehr, Hirtenbrief\ pp. xcvii-cx; Paul Fournier and Gabriel Le Bras, Histoire des Collections Canoniques en Occident ( 1931 —32), 1:316-20; Loyn (as p. 341 ), pp. 49-54; Aronstam, “Canonical Tradition,” passim; eadem, “Recovering Hucarius: A Historiographical Study in Early English Canon Law,” Bulletin of Medieval Canon Law, n.s., 5 (1975): 117-22 (Aronstam’s attempt, based on older theories, to ascribe the Excerptiones to a deacon named Hucarius from St. German’s/Cornwall, is not convincing); Hubert Mordek, Kirchenrecht und Reform in Frankreich: Die Collectio Vetus Gallica (Berlin, 1975), p. 120, n. 86; Kerff, “Der Quadripartitus,” pp. 186-90 and 344 ff. Bethurum, Homilies, p. 99, misleadingly equates the Capitulare episcoporum (= Capitula a sacerdotibus proposita = Ghaerbald, MS D, no. 11) with the Excerptiones Ps.-Ecgberti; in fact this text is only part of the Excerptiones and this only in some of the manuscripts (see above section IIIc). /See now J.E. Cross and Andrew Hamer, “Source-Identification and Manuscript Recovery: The British Library Wulfstan MS. Cotton Nero A.i., 131 v-132v,” Scriptorium 50 (1996): 132-37; eidem, “Ælfric’s Letters and the Excerptiones Ecgbertif in Alfred the Wise. Studies in Honour of Janet Bately, ed. Jane Roberts et al. (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 5-13. Cross and Hamer distinguish a short recension (Ecgb.A), transmitted in Rouen 1382, fols. 184r—192r; CCCC 265, pp. 22-37; Barlow 37, fols. lr-7r; and a long recension (Ecgb.B), transmitted in Nero A.i, fols. 127v-154r, and CCCC 190, pp. 111-387 13. On these letters cf. Jost, Wulfstanstudien,pp. 16-21; Bethurum, Homilies, p. 101 ; further above section II no. 9 and Illb.

Archbishop Wulfstan’s '‘Commonplace Book”

385

14. Walther Holtzmann, Papsturkunden in England, 3: Oxford, Cambridge. . . (Berlin, 1952), p. 19, referred to wrongly as Barlow 36. Holtzmann points out that this manuscript “deserves to be examined more carefully”; cf. Bethurum, Homilies, p. 101. On MS D and its history see further Sauer, Theodulfi Capitula, pp. 50-54, with further references. The unprinted notes of Dr. G. Schmitz, Tübingen, were of great use in the following analysis; I would also like to thank Prof. Helmut Gneuss, Dr. Wilfried Hartmann, Dr. Walter Hofstetter and Dr. Rudolf Schieffer, all in Munich, for their helpful criticism. 15. On fols. 139v-140r is a short version of the Sermo de excellentia sacrorum ordinum of Ivo of Chartres, ascribed to Jerome, with the grades of the ecclesiastical offices; see on these R.E. Reynolds, The Ordinals of Christ from their Origins to the Twelfth Century (New York, 1978), p. 142. 16. The sometimes extensive additions and marginal annotations to fols. lv, 3v, 5v (to the Excerptiones Ps.-Ecgberti = no. 1); 7v (to the Cánones Hyberitanorum = no. 3); 9v, lOr, lOv (to the Cánones Wallici = no. 7); H r (to the Exempla Saxonica = no. 8); 15v (= the later added beginning of no. 13); 33v (to the Ammonitio episcopis utilis = no. 27); 43v (to no. 39); 44r (to no. 40); 44v, 45r (to no. 41 = /Elfric’s letter 3); 46v (to no. 42) are generally not taken into consideration here. 17. Cf., e.g., Bethurum, “Wulfstan’s Commonplace Book,” p. 928. 18. As already indicated, MS D is often not taken into consideration in the relevant editions and MS C not always; some texts seem not to have been edited at all; the information in the manuscript catalogues is not always complete. 19. Aronstam, “Canonical Tradition,” pp. 38-42, esp. 41; with this stemma, she wishes to replace the one printed by Fehr, Hirtenbriefe, p. cvi. 20. Aronstam, “Canonical Tradition,” p. 149, n. 48, declares the reference to this in Fowler, Wulfstands Canons of Edgar, p. lviii, to be wrong. Even if some of Fowler’s statements need adding to or correcting (contrary to what Fowler, pp. lvii—lviii, maintains, obviously partly based on Bethurum, Homilies, p. 99, MSS B and P do not include

386

Old English Prose: Basic Readings

the Excerptiones Ps.-Ecgberti), he is correct in the case of MS D. If for no other reason than that she neglects D, Aronstam’s edition cannot claim to be definitive. Cf. Kerff, “Der Quadripartitus,” p. 187 with n. 24, for criticism of this edition. 21. Bateson, “Worcester Cathedral Book,” pp. 721 and 724, only includes the C-version of nos. 4 and 8; Bieler, p. 182, also includes only the C-version of no. 4; cf. McNeill and Gamer, pp. 425 f.; Vogel, pp. 65 and 73. One part of no. 8 (Exempla saxonica) can be found in MS O, p. 242, and in I, fol. 157 (under the title De improviso iudicio secularium); see Jost, Wulfstanstudien, pp. 25ff. One part of no. 3 {Cánones Hyberitanorum) occurs in the Excerptiones Ps.-Ecgberti, chaps. 74 and 79 (ed. Thorpe [as p. 344] according to MS I). Perhaps the CD version of the Cánones Hyberitanorum should, like the Tres Cánones Hibernici (no. 4) following it in CD, be included as a text in its own right in an edition of the Irish Penitentials. 22. See Bieler, esp. pp. 24 and 25 under no. (2); cf. further Vogel, pp. 61 f. 23. Thorpe [as p. 344], pp. 277-306; cf. Cameron, nos. C.89.1-2. Excerpts from the Poenitentiale Ps.-Theodori occur also in MS I; see Bethurum, Homilies, p. 100; Loyn, pp. 17f. under nos. 30c, l,m, r. 24. Cf. Loyn, p. 17 under no. 30c. 25. On this text see Haddan and Stubbs 3:403; McNeill and Gamer, pp. 239 and 436. 26. Bethurum, Homilies, pp. 374-76; Aronstam, “Penitential Pilgrimages” [as p. 346]. 27. Aronstam, “Penitential Pilgrimages,” p. 75. 28. Aronstam, “Pope Leo IX and England” [as p. 346], pp. 535-41, identifies the sender as Pope Leo IX (1049-54). As Aronstam shows, this letter is one of the few documents of pseudo-Isidorian influence in late Anglo-Saxon England (cf. also n. 49, below). 29. On this text cf. Haddan and Stubbs 3:413-16; McNeill and Gamer, pp. 237 f. and 436; Vogel, p. 71; Kerff, “Der Quadripartitus,” pp. 32-37.

Archbishop Wulfs tan's “Commonplace Book”

387

30. Peter Brommer, “Die bischöfliche Gesetzgebung Theodulfs von Orléans” (unpub. Ph.D. diss., Tübingen, 1972), pt. 3, p. 5; cf. Sauer, Theodulfi Capitula, pp. 4 and 483. On Oxford, Bodleian Library, Rawlinson C. 290 (S.C. 12 148), which only became known later, cf. now Hubert Mordek and Götz Schmitz, “Papst Johannes VIII. und das Konzil von Troyes (878),” in Geschichtsschreibung und geistiges Leben im Mittelalter (Festschrift Heinz Löwe), ed. Karl Hauck and Hubert Mordek (Vienna, 1978) pp. 179-225. 31. On these manuscripts see Victor Leroquais, Les Pontificaux manuscrits des bibliothèque publiques de France (Paris, 1937), 2:6-10 (no. 93), 160-64 (no. 144), 287-300 (no. 188); Aronstam, “Canonical Tradition,” p. 43; Kerff, “Der Quadripartite,” pp. 33f. with n. 12. /On the pontificals see now also The Liturgical Books of Anglo-Saxon England, ed. Richard W. Pfaff, OEN Subsidia 23 (1995): 87f./ 32. Selborne, appendix A; Aronstam, “Canonical Tradition,” appendix I. On the text see Selborne, pp. 37-45 and 227-46; Fehr, Hirtenbriefe, pp. xciv-xcvii; Eckhardt, esp. pp. 54ff.; Loyn, pp. 49f.; C.E. Hohler, “Some Service Books of the Later Saxon Church,” in Tenth-Century Studies, ed. David Parsons (London, 1975), pp. 223 f. (= n. 47 to p. 72); Aronstam, “Canonical Tradition,” pp. 42-44. 33. This is confirmed by Brommer, who is preparing for the MGH a new edition of no. 11 (= Ghaerbald); cf. Kerff, “Der Quadripartitus,” p. 36. /Brommer and Kerff have now been published; Brommer as MGH Capit. Episcop. 1./ 34. For further details cf. James (as p. 340) 2:19; Ker, no. 53. 35. Brommer, “Die bischöfliche Gesetzgebung Theodulfs,” pt. 2, pp. 23f.; pt. 5, p. 10; cf. Sauer, Theodulfi Capitula, pp. 4, 26, 62-66. 36. Cf. also Jost, Wulfstanstudien, p. 68. 37. In the case of Alcuin’s letters (nos. 26 and 28) MS V should also be taken into account; for no. 25 (Isidore) possibly also Vatican, Palat. lat. 1352, see Selborne [as p. 341], pp. 327ff. (appendix C). For no. 24a, MS I, fols. 122v-124v (under the heading De veneratio[ne sacerdotum]), should be also consulted. As in O, the first sentence is

388

Old English Prose: Basic Readings

missing in I, which points towards a closer relation between IO; in I the text is somewhat longer, however (till fol. 125r . . .fractis cervicibus mortuus est)\ cf. Loyn, p. 16 under no. 26. Also Loyn’s no. 28 should in this context be examined more closely. 38. Cf. Sauer, Theodulfi Capitula, pp. 48f. James 2:19 does not mention the texts in MS C, pp. 142-60. 39. According to Bethurum, Homilies, pp. 323f., no. 29b also occurs in MS V as well as in DO; she does not mention it as a part of MS C. MS O also has in addition to no. 29b (O, pp. 96-97) a further series of excerpts from Atto’s De pressuris ecclesiasticis, namely, p. 102 Item canon sanctorum de electione episcoporum:; pp. 108-09 De accusationibus et excusationibus\ p. 110 De iuramentis episcoporum. See Bauer [as p. 351], edition, pp. i and v-xiv (with edition of the text). 40. For the group of nos. 37,41,30,40 cf. also Whitelock, “Archbishop Wulfstan,” p. 31 with n. 6. 41. MS K includes several other sermons by Abbo, see Jprgensen as p. 341, pp. 43 f. /See also now the facsimile edition by Cross and Morrish Tunberg [p. 341 above]./ 42. See Fehr, Hirtenbriefe, pp. x-xiv and 256-58; E.M. Raynes, “MS. Boulogne-sur-Mer 63 and yElfric,” Medium Aevum 26 (1957): 65-73; Clemoes in Fehr, Hirtenbriefe, p. cxlvii; Clemoes, “Old English Benedictine Office,” esp. pp. 273 ff. Titles occur only in the Boulogne manuscript, they are missing in MS C. But C includes the whole Isidore excerpt (De eccl. off. II.5.1-18) and not, as Fehr, Hirtenbriefe, p. 256 wrongly assumes, only II.5.5-18 (where he erroneously prints II.5.5-28). There is no question of “confusion” in C (thus Fehr, Hirtenbriefe, p. 256). On the genre to which De septem gradibus ecclesiasticis belongs (Lists of church offices), see Reynolds [as in n. 15]. 43. Bethurum, Homilies, pp. 169-71, cf. pp. 9-24. Apart from being in CDKO, this homily is also recorded in CCCC 201, see Ker, no. 49, art. 47 (and cf. Liebermann 1:xvi). 44. Clemoes in Fehr, Hirtenbriefe, pp. cxxxv-cxxxix, as supplement to pp. lviii-lix.

Archbishop Wulfstans “Commonplace Book

389

45. CD only have 42/10 edicta in common (KO edita), DO only 58/9 qfh (C quä, K qnm) and 62/19,63/2 alabaustrum (CK alabastrum); but DK 42/5 Constantinopolim (CO Constantinopoli)\ 43/7 septimam (CO septima); 59/4 missum (CO missus); 61/6 dominica die (CO die dominica); 63/1 per duas (CO per duos); 65/17 quia sifacit (CO quia qui facit). That D does not derive from K, is shown by CDO 66/30 discipulos (K apostolos), 67/11 liberauit (K liberabit). The preceding page and line numbers according to Fehr, Hirtenbriefe. Clemoes’s collation would have to be revised, taking MS D in account. 46. On the table of contents of MS O see James 1:452—56, esp. pp. 454 and 461-63 (with edition); Fehr, Hirtenbriefe, pp. ciiif.; Aronstam, “Canonical Tradition,” pp. 16-18. 47. On Wulfstan’s interest in Edgar’s fourth legal code cf. Whitelock, “Archbishop Wulfstan,” p. 32. See further section IV above. 48. The text of MS C diverges from the versions mentioned. It reads: “[G]REGORIUS MAXIMINIANO EPISCOPO SYRACUSANO. PRESBYTEROS, diaconos, ceterosque cuiuslibet ordinis clericis, quibus animarum cura commissa est vel qui ecclesiis quoquo modo militant, monachos vel abbates per monasteria fieri non permittas, nisi mortis gravitate coactos et in seculari vita nimia obstinantia permanere nolentes. Satis incongruum est, si cum unus ex his ordo quis non possit explere, ad utrumque iudicetur idoneus.” The last sentence here is obviously partly corrupt. 49. The excerpts from Angilram are among the few proofs of a knowledge of the pseudo-Isidorian forgeries in Anglo-Saxon England; on this question see Fehr, Hirtenbriefe, esp. pp. xcviiif. and cx-cxvii; Horst Fuhrmann, Einfluß und Verbreitung der pseudo-isidorischen Fälschungen, pt. 1 (Stuttgart, 1972), pp. 229-32; pt. 2 (Stuttgart, 1973), p. 419. Other pieces from Pseudo-Isidore are contained in the Excerptiones Ps.-Ecgberti, chaps. 91, 141, 144 (Thorpe); see Selborne, p. 245; Fehr, Hirtenbriefe, p. xcviii. Cf. further n. 28 above. 50. Cf. Bethurum, “Wulfstan’s Commonplace Book,” pp. 916-29; eadem, Homilies, pp. 99-101; Whitelock, “Archbishop Wulfstan,” p. 29; Fehr, Hirtenbriefe, p. 253. The following list does not claim to be complete; it concentrates on MSS CD.

390

Old English Prose: Basic Readings

51. On Wulfstan’s use of the Excerptiones Ps.-Ecgberti see Fowler, Wulfstan ’s Canons of Edgar, pp. xli-xlii and commentary; Jost, Die Institutes of Polity, p. 36 and source apparatus (pp. 39-165,178-209); on their use by yElfric see Fehr, Hirtenbriefe, pp. xcivff. and source apparatus. 52. Fehr, Hirtenbriefe, pp. cv-cvi. 53. See Whitelock, “Archbishop Wulfstan,” pp. 36f. with n. 6. Contrary to what Whitelock says, this section is not only recorded in C but also in DIO. 54. See Sauer, Theodulfi Capitula, pp. 282-91; Fowler, Wulfstan s Canons of Edgar, pp. xxxvi-xxxix and commentary. 55. Cf. Bethurum, Homilies, pp. 100f.; also Jost, Wulfstanstudien, pp. 63-69; Loyn, p. 16 under nos. 26-28. This dependence should be examined more closely; to this end, block VII (nos. 24-28) and all related texts (C, pp. 150-52; I, fols. 122-127) should be critically edited. 56. See Bethurum, Homilies, pp. 100 and 363 f.; Whitelock, Sermo Lupi ad Anglos, pp. 65 f. Contrary to what Bethurum says, exactly this passage is missing in D, but is included in CO. 57. Inimicus enim Christi efficitur omnis qui ecclesiasticas res usurpare iniuste conatur = Wu\fsian' shom \\yXbA 0f.;l Polity 111-12. Contrary to what Jost says this sentence is also from Atto; see Bauer, edition, pp. xiv and 141. 58. Cf. Bethurum, Homilies, pp. 100 and 323-24, whose information on this score should be completed and partially revised; see further Bauer, p. i. J.D.A. Ogilvy, Books Known to the English, 597-1066 (Cambridge, Mass., 1967) does not list Atto of Vercelli. 59. Ogilvy does not list Sedulius Scottus. 60. See Bethurum, Homilies, p. 302. 61. Ed. Ure. The introduction to this edition should be supplemented, taking MS D into account. 62. See Bethurum, Homilies, pp. 100, 306, and 322f.; further Jost, Die Institutes of Polity, pp. 248-55, where this homily is also edited (with indication of sources).

Archbishop Wulfstans “Commonplace Book

391

63. See Bethurum, Homilies, pp. 345ff. 64. There is an edition of the Decalogns in the source apparatus of Fehr, Hirtenbriefe, pp. 190-203. See also Bethurum, Homilies, p. 323; Clemoes, “Old English Benedictine Office,” pp. 277ff.; Clemoes in Fehr, Hirtenbriefe, pp. cxlviff. According to Clemoes the excerpts in MS O have not been directly taken from the Decalogus, but from Wulfstan’s homily Xb. 65. See Bethurum, Homilies, pp. 281-92. Daniel Verhelst, Adso Dervensis: De ortu et tempore Antichristi, CCCM 45 (Turnhout, 1976) now provides a critical edition of Adso’s work taking MS O into account. 66. Cf. the table in the appendix. In general only those sections of IKO are included that are also in CD. 67. On the liturgical collection of O, pp. 213-64 (4c according to our numbering) see Bethurum, Homilies, pp. 345 f.; Clemoes in Fehr, Hirtenbriefe, pp. xviii, cxlvi-cxlvii, 229-49. 68. The liturgical collection of O, pp. 151-69 and 188-213 (4b according to our numbering) contains the basis of block IX (nos. 41, 30, 40, 37). 69. Cf. also James 1:462; Fehr, Hirtenbriefe, pp. cii-cv (and 256); Aronstam, “Canonical Tradition,” p. 51: Parts of the Excerptiones Ps.Ecgberti are already in the collection in MS O, pp. 94-110. 70. Only very little of the homilies of Abbo of St. Germain has been edited so far (PL 132, 763-778), cf. Wolfgang Buchwald et al., Tusculum-Lexikon griechischer und lateinischer Autoren, 2nd ed. (Munich, 1963); Jan Prelog, in Lexikon des Mittelalters, vol. 1 (Munich, 1977- ), s.v. Abbo v. Saint-Germain. /See now Ute Önnerfors, ed., Abbo von Saint-Germain-des-Pres: 22 Predigten (Frankfurt/Main, 1985)./ 71. See Fehr, Hirtenbriefe, p. cii and appendix IV; Aronstam, “Canonical Tradition,” p. 9, n. 8. 72. Cf. Bateson, “Worcester Cathedral Book,” p. 714; James 1:462; Fehr, Hirtenbriefe, pp. xvi-xvii; Bethurum, “Wulfstan’s Commonplace Book,” p. 928; Loyn, pp. 17f.; further Liebermann 1:xx-xxxvii under C, G, O, P.

392

Old English Prose: Basic Readings

73. Bethurum, “Wulfstan’s Commonplace Book,” pp. 927f.; Bethurum, “Wulfstan,” p. 244; Fehr, “Das Benediktiner-Offizium,” pp. 337-46, esp. p. 344; see also Clemoes, “Old English Benedictine Office,” pp. 265-83. 74. Aronstam, “Canonical Tradition,” p. 24; cf. Ker, no. 338, arts. 36-39. 75. MSS CJOS also have various Old English confessional and penitential texts in common: see Cameron, nos. B. 11.1-5, B. 13.2-3 and 16, and the editions quoted there. 76. Besides, MS R also has on fol. 173 (in the part of French origin?) an Ordo librorum qui in aecclesia Romana leguntur. In primis in LXXaponunt Eptaticum . . . , which is possibly identical with that in MS O, p. 213 (cf. Fehr, Hirtenbriefe, p. 234), and subsequently excerpts from (Ps.-?) Amalarius (fols. 173-183). The Poenitentiale Ecgberti is obviously only partially transmitted in R. /According to Cross, “NewlyIdentified Manuscript,” pp. 64f. (nos. 1-2), the Ordo and the excerpts from Amalarius belong to the English part of R./ 77. Aronstam, “Canonical Tradition,” pp. Ilf. and 149 n. 48; Aronstam, “Recovering Hucarius,” p. 118. 78. Bieler, pp. 20-24, esp. 21; cf. Sauer, Theodulfi Capitula, pp. 62-65. 79. On the transmission of the Libellus Responsionum cf. also Paul Grosjean and Margaret Deanesly, “The Canterbury Edition of the Answers of Pope Gregory I to St. Augustine,” The Journal of Ecclesiastical History 10 (1959): 1-49, esp. pp. 45-48 (appendix B). 80. Cf. Sauer, Theodulfi Capitula, p. 62. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Hatton 42 (S.C. 4117) is a continental manuscript with the DionysioHadriana text that came to England and was evidently used by Wulfstan, see now F.A. Rella, “Continental Manuscripts Acquired for English Centers in the Tenth and Early Eleventh Centuries: A Preliminary Checklist,” Anglia 98 (1980): 114f. under no. 29 (with further literature). This manuscript does not, however, contain the African collection of the Dionysio-Hadriana (according to S.C.),

Archbishop Wulfstans “Commonplace Book”

393

whereas MS C does (according to James). Hatton 42 also contains the Collectio canonum Hibernensis (cf. our no. 29c) and the Cánones Wallici (cf. our no. 7). Similar to the pseudo-Isidorian forgeries (cf. n. 49 above) the Collectio Dionysio-Hadriana was not very widespread in Anglo-Saxon England; see Ogilvy, p. 121; Fuhrmann, pt. 1, p. 229 with n. 122; pt. 2, p. 419 with n. 29; Aronstam, “Canonical Tradition,” p. 7 with n. 2; Mordek, Kirchenrecht und Reform, pp. 151 ff. and 241-49. /Postscript: Research never ceases. There are now detailed descriptions of MSS CCCC 265 and CCCC 190 in Mildred Budny, Insular, AngloSaxon, and Early Anglo-Norman Manuscript Art at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. An Illustrated Catalogue, 2 vols. (Kalmazoo, 1997), nos. 34 and 40 (but CCCC 265 is my C and CCCC 190 is my O)./

The W olf on Shepherds: Wulfstan, Bishops, and the Context o f the S e rm o L u p i a d A n g lo s Jonathan Wilcox Wulfstan was Bishop of London 996-1002, Archbishop of York 1002-23, and concurrently Bishop of Worcester 1002-16. He was both a significant historical figure in late Anglo-Saxon England and a major Old English author. His writings comprise some forty Old English homilies (twenty-five edited by Bethurum, fifteen by Napier),1a small but growing corpus of Latin compilations (primarily sources for his vernacular homilies),2a number of legal codes (the late codes of Aithelred, the two codes of Cnut, the Canons of Edgar),3 and a work of political theory (the Institutes o f Polity).4 Even such an apparently neutral and factual introduction as this is fraught with difficulties. It is hard to establish the precise corpus of Wulfstan’s work: he obligingly rubricated a few items with the nom de plume “Lupus,” but most have to be attributed on account of style or manuscript affiliations.5 He reused his own material extensively. In a literate writer’s adaptation of traditional oral-formulaic style, this reuse takes the form not of extended verbatim repetition, but rather the recurrence of characteristic words, phrases, themes, even whole works in somewhat adapted or varied form.6Such recurrence makes it difficult to put a number to the homilies that Wulfstan wrote or to edit those works. Is the Sermo Lupi ad Anglos, to take Wulfstan’s most famous sermon as an example, one work, as in the conflated edition by Whitelock, or three, as in the three distinct versions edited by Bethurum, or, indeed, five, since the five surviving manuscripts each contains a different text?7And do further considerably abbreviated versions count 395

396

Old English Prose: Basic Readings

as separate homilies or variants of the same work?8 The problems of editing such textual instability are exacerbated by Bethurum in that she masks manuscript evidence through an incomplete (and often inaccurate) apparatus criticus9and excessively recapitulates the mouvance of the texts through presenting many of the homilies in forms unlike any surviving manuscripts.10 Of course, in this post-Foucauldian world, more fundamental objections might be offered to this introduction. In what sense can Wulfstan be considered an “author” of any of the works attributed to him, even those bearing his name?11At least we know that Wulfstan could write— unlike such an “author” as King Alfred—since his handwriting survives in a whole range of manuscripts.12 But in what sense is Wulfstan the author of Latin works in which he assembled—or caused to be assembled—excerpts from existing works? And in what sense can the archbishop be called the author of law-codes arrived at by the Witan and promulgated by the king?13 One could go further and question, for example, the arbitrary demarcation of both “Anglo-Saxon” and “England.”14However, the intention of this essay is not to bury Wulfstan but to praise him. Wulfstan is a named writer about whom a historical record survives and that is unusual in the study of Old English literature. King Alfred is a parallel case; otherwise Old English literature was mostly written by named writers about whom we know rather little— Cynewulf, Byrhtferth, even ^Elfric—or by unknown writers. The historical record for Wulfstan’s life is comparatively rich, if still far from complete. Wulfstan is named four times in the AngloSaxon Chronicle: his accession to the bishopric of London is recorded in F 996; he consecrates Cnut’s church at Ashingdon in D 1020, and consecrates vEthelnoth as Archbishop of Canterbury in F 1020; and his death is recorded in E 1023. He also appears, unnamed, consecrating iElfwig as Bishop of London at York in D 1014.15 He is a prominent signatory of charters from his accession to the London bishopric in 996 until his death.16A thirteenth-century Worcester Cartulary refers to him disapprovingly as “reprobus,” perhaps on account of land transfers associated with separating the sees of Worcester and York in 1016.17 The twelfth-century Liber Eliensis, however, provides the fullest and most favorable medieval biography: near-hagiographical in tone, this

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account includes the claim that the kings Aithelred, Edmund, and Cnut loved Wulfstan like a brother and honored him like a father.18 Wulfstan’s authorship of the legal codes provides confirmation of his prominent involvement with iEthelred and Cnut. Not much evidence survives of Wulfstan’s day-to-day life as a bishop and archbishop. A far thicker historical record survives of one of his successors at Worcester: his nephew, namesake, and (perhaps) godson, Saint Wulfstan.19 In the case of Saint Wulfstan, we have the advantage of a Life composed by one of his companions, Coleman, lost in its original Old English version but surviving in a Latin translation by William of Malmesbury.20One possibility for fleshing out the historical picture of Archbishop Wulfstan is to take over, mutatis mutandis, some of the details this source provides about Saint Wulfstan. Integrating Wulfstan’s writings and his historical existence is all the more important because the subject matter of much of his work lacks obvious appeal to modem readers. The law-codes have a clear historical interest, but what of his homiletic writings? Bethurum characterizes one homily (Bethurum XIII) as “partly a general admonition to virtue... and partly a very definite list of church dues,” and that polarization nicely sums up most of Wulfstan’s output.21 What can a critic do when faced with works that repeatedly provide “a general admonition to virtue”? This essay will provide a case-study for reading Wulfstan by considering his admonitions to bishops, in particular his comments on preaching, which are a recurring preoccupation of both his homiletic and legislative work. Pursuing the recurrence and development of passages on this single theme will open up questions of genre, textual integrity, textual stability, and authorship already touched upon in this introduction. Consideration of both the rhetorical shaping of Wulfstan’s admonitions and their manuscript context will shed light on Wulfstan’s literary production, while the archbishop’s own conduct will be viewed in relation to his writings. Such a discussion will suggest for the first time the central position that Wulfstan’s most famous sermon, the Sermo Lupi ad Anglos, occupied in his own assessment of his works.

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Old English Prose: Basic Readings

WULFSTAN ON BISHOPS Wulfstan became responsible for the leadership and guidance of the bishops of England as archbishop of York, and his statements on the subject presumably all post-date his accession to that see in 1002. Probably his first major statement in English on the role of bishops occurs in a short tract on the responsibilities of preachers based on Ezekiel and Isaiah, edited as Bethurum XVIb.22 Wulfstan’s immediate source survives in a copy of his commonplace book, London, BL Cotton Nero A.i, fol. 125r (edited as Bethurum XVIa), where he assembled excerpts on the duties of the clergy from Ezekiel 33 and 34 and Isaiah 56, and augmented them from the penitential of Ecgbert and Boniface’s letter to Archbishop Cuthbert.23 In creating an Old English version, Wulfstan translated the Latin material selectively and augmented it. The resulting tract on preaching survives in only a single manuscript: CCCC 201, which is closely associated with Wulfstan. The immediate context is shown in Table 1. T M

a b l e

1

a n u s c r ip t

C

o n t e x t

o f

B

e t h u r u m

X V I b 24

Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, 201 (Ker 49) 38. pp. 80-81 “Verba ezechiel prophete de pigris aut timidis vel neglegentibus pastoribus.” 39. p. 81 no rubric, beginning “Ne dear ic nu for godes ege . . .” (Napier 191.20-23). 40. pp. 8 2-86 “Sermo lupi ad anglos quando dani maxime persecuti sunt eos, quod fuit anno millesimo VIIII ab incarnatione domini nostri iesu cristi.”

Bethurum XVIb as a whole lacks any markers of delivery as a homily, although it is written in Wulfstan’s characteristically heightened style. Jost considered the tract an exercise in translation, which the writer kept by for suitable subsequent occasions, and such a status would be consistent with other pseudo-homiletic pieces in this manuscript.25Wulfstan did, indeed, draw on elements in the tract for key

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motifs throughout his subsequent writings on bishops, and so the rhetoric of his formulations is worth considering here at some length. Wulfstan begins the tract by drawing on Ezekiel 34 to portray the pastor as a shepherd. He rebukes the shepherd who lives in luxury heedless of his flock, or who gobbles up the sins of the people. False shepherds are the avaricious and those who fail to set a good example, “ne rihtlice ne bodiad swa oft swa hi scoldon, ac clummiad mid ceaflum bar hi scoldan clipian” (Bethurum XVIb.20-22; “nor rightly preach as often as they should, but mumble through their jaws where they should call out”).26 The idea is an expansion of Ezekiel but the phrasing is Wulfstan’s own.27He exploits the consonantal echoes of clummiad and ceaflum for onomatopoetic effect to suggest mumbling, while the full alliteration of clummiad and clipian highlights the underlying semantic contrast between the two verbs (“mumble” and “call out”), the choice between which is the essence of the passage. The phrase clumian mid ceaflum, literally “to keep silent with one’s jaws,”28survives only in the related group of works by Wulfstan under consideration here. Wulfstan may have coined the concatenation; at the least, he clearly appreciated the phonetic effectiveness of the phrase. Wulfstan varies the image of the bad cleric as a failing shepherd with that of the silent preacher as a muzzled dog, developed from Isaiah 56:10. He points out that those are feeble shepherds who will not call out g if bar hwilc beodscada scadian onginned. N is nan swa y fel scada swa is deofol silf; he bid a ymbe baet an, hu he on manna sawlum maest gescadian maege. Donne motan \>a. hyrdas beon swide wacole 7 geornlice clipigende be wid bone beodscadan folc sculon warian. (Bethurum X V Ib.28-33) if any fiend begins to harm the flock there. There is no fiend so evil as is the devil himself; he is always only concerned how he may perform the greatest harm against the souls o f men. Then the shepherds need to be very watchful and eagerly calling out who must defend the people against that arch-fiend.

The root syllable, scad, is used five times in a few lines to provide characteristic emphasis. The greatest fiend (scada) is the devil himself,

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Old English Prose: Basic Readings

whose only concern is how he may most greatly harm (gescadian) the souls of men. The shepherds, who should be calling out against the arch-fiend (peodscadan), are bishops and masspriests “J)e godcunde heorda bewarian 7 bewerian sculon mid wislican laran, J)æt se wodfræca werewulf to swiôe ne slite ne to fêla ne abite of godcundre heorde” (Bethurum XVIb.33-36; “who must save and defend the divine flocks with wise teaching, so that the madly ravenous werewolf may not savage too greatly or devour too many from the divine flock”). Here Wulfstan creates climactic emphasis through the sound of the language. The tautologous verbs and predictable adjective (bewarian, bewerian, and wislican) provide a positive alliterative triad to balance and oppose the menacingly alliterative wodfræca werewulf “madly ravenous werewolf.” Wulfstan provides the only surviving Old English use of the word werewulf in this and related texts, a word particularly suited to his rhetorical effects. The action of that slaughterous wolf is emphasized through repeated parallel structures centering on rhyming stressed syllables (“to swiôe ne slite ne to fêla ne abite”). Wulfstan gives force to his call for episcopal preaching by pointing it up in a purple passage that he will reuse in subsequent exhortations. Wulfstan expressed his position on bishops more fully in his contribution to estates’ literature, the Institutes o f Polity?9 Here he presents the ideal ordering of a Christian society. Jost’s edition, the best available, presents the work at two distinct stages, the second perhaps put together in its final form after Wulfstan’s death.30 For the chapters on bishops, however, it is easier to consider each of the three surviving manuscripts as a separate version in its own right. Such a return to the manuscripts allows the integration into the discussion of related pieces not edited as part of Polity but circulating with it, namely two appendices edited by Jost and a tract edited as “Episcopus” by Liebermann. Of the three relevant manuscripts, CCCC 201 contains the earliest version, edited by Jost as I Polity. Nero A.i contains an interim version, which has the added interest of frequent contributions in Wulfstan’s own hand, and Oxford, Bodleian Library, Junius 121 contains the latest version, edited by Jost as II Polity. The arrangement of the material can best be understood in tabular form, as in Table 2:

The Wolf on Shepherds Ta b l In

e

401

2

s t it u t e s o f

P

o l it y

and

Re l

at ed

Te x t

s in

Ma n u s c

r ipt

Co

nt ext

Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, 201 (Ker 49) 42 (iv). p. 88 no rubric, beginning “De episcopis paulus dicit.” Ed. Jost, Institutes o f Polity, pp. 59-61 (I Pol. §§35-40). 42 (v). pp. 8 8-89 “Item.” Ed. Jost, Institutes o f Polity, pp. 6 7 -7 3 (I Pol. §§41-56). London, British Library, Cotton Nero A.i (Ker 164) 11. fol. 97r-97v “Item de episcopis.” Collated Jost, Institutes o f Polity, pp. 59-61 (I Pol. §§35-40). 12. fols. 9 7v-98 v “Item.” Collated Jost, Institutes o f Polity, pp. 6 7 -7 4 (II Pol. §§58-76). 13. fols. 99r-100r “Incipit de sinodo.” Collated Jost, Institutes o f Polity, pp. 2 1 0-16. 14. fols. 100v-102r no rubric, beg. “Biscpas scoldan symle godes riht bodian.” Ed. Jost, Institutes o f Polity, pp. 2 6 2 -6 7 (“Ermahnung an die Bischöfe”). 19. fol. 109r-109v “Be J^eodwitan.” Collated Jost, Institutes o f Polity, pp. 6 2 -6 6 (II Pol. §§41-57). 20. fols. 11 Or—115r “Sermo lupi ad anglos quando dani maxime persecuti sunt eos quod fuit anno m illesim o XIII ab incarnatione domini nostri iesu cristi” Oxford, Bodleian Library, Junius 121 (Ker 338) 1 (v). fols. 11 r—12v “Be })eodwitan.” Ed. Jost, Institutes o f Polity, pp. 6 2 -6 6 (II Pol. §§41-57). 1 (vi), fols. 12v-13v “Item de episcopis.” Ed. Jost, Institutes o f Polity, pp. 6 7 -7 4 (II Pol. §§58-76). 1 (vii), fols. 13v-15r “Item.” Ed. Liebermann, Gesetze, 1A l l- 1 9 (“Episcopus”). 1 (viii). fol. 15r “Item.” Ed. Jost, Institutes o f Polity, pp. 7 5 -7 6 (II Pol. §§77-81). 1 (ix), fol. 15r—15v “Item.” Ed. Jost, Institutes o f Polity, p. 77 (II Pol. §§82-84). 1 (x). fols. 15v-17r “Incipit de synodo.” Ed. Jost, Institutes o f Polity, pp. 2 1 0 -1 6 .

402 Ta

bl e

Old English Prose: Basic Readings 2 (c o n t.)

Recurring passages within P o l i t y : CCCC 201, 42 (iv) = Nero A.i, CCCC 201, 42 (v) = Nero A.i, Nero A.i, Nero A.i,

11 12 13 19

= Junius 121, 1 (vi) = Junius 121, 1 (x) = Junius 121, 1 (v)

The passage that recurs in all three manuscripts (I Pol. §§41-56/ II Pol. §§58-76) draws, in part, on Bethurum XVIb, and is the section most concerned with preaching and learning. Wulfstan begins “Biscopas scylan bocum and gebedum fylgean”31 (“bishops must attend to books and prayers”), with alliterative stress and grammatical rhyme linking the books and the prayers and alliteration linking both to the bishops. Wulfstan anticipates the qualities of Chaucer’s studious clerk—“And hy sceolan leomian andrihtlice laeran” (I Pol. §42/11 Pol. §59; “and they must learn and rightly teach”), exploiting the convenient alliterative quality of those two verbs—and adds the obligation to preach and set a good example. Bishops must have fear of God not of worldly constraints: “Ac bodian hy symle Godes riht geome and unriht forbeodan, gyme, se J)e wille” (I Pol. §46/11 Pol. §63; “But they must always preach God’s right eagerly and forbid wrong, pay heed who may”). To this point, Wulfstan has been loosely following the Excerptiones PseudoEcgberti (present in his commonplace book) but this last recapitulation is unprompted by the source. Characteristically at such a moment, Wulfstan exploits to the full the rhetorical potential of Old English prose: bodian aurally contrasts withforbeodan on account of the central assonance, even though they are unrelated verbs, in a chiastic pattern that centers on the stark contrast between riht and unriht, a favorite contrast in Wulfstan’s works. The final clause keeps that chiasmus central and hints at the irrelevance of the audience’s response: the preacher preaches because he has to, not to please his audience. Wulfstan goes on to explain the role of the preacher in an extended metaphor of the shepherd protecting his flock, derived from Ezekiel. This whole passage is taken over from the earlier tract, Bethurum XVIb, with only minimal changes (I Pol. §§47-51/11 Pol. §§64-68 < Bethurum

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XVIb.27-37).32After this Wulfstan gives his attention to those subject to the bishops’ teaching, who are enjoined to take heed, and ends with biblical quotations in support of episcopal power. Further precepts to bishops are scattered throughout this cluster of texts, some of which build upon the earlier formulations. There must always be good teaching in bishops’ households and bishops must always be concerned with wisdom, wherever they may be (“Incipit de synodo,” §7); they must preach right and forbid wrong and not mumble into their jaws (II Pol. §§42-47, which picks up both the bodian/ forbeodan contrast seen at I Pol. §46/11 Pol. §63 and the clumiad mid ceaflum play first seen in Bethurum XVIb.20-22); a bishop’s daily work is rightly first his prayers (“gebedu”), “and öonne his bocweorc, raeding oööon rihting, lar oööon leomung” (II Pol. §77; “and then his bookwork, reading or correcting, teaching or learning”), followed by further required duties, including teaching the people divine learning (II Pol. §81); and bishops must guide ordained men so that they may know what they have to preach to secular men (“Episcopus” §2). One further passage in this cluster merits special attention in view of its close association with Wulfstan’s writing process. The section “Ermahnung an die Bischöfe” opens and closes with phrases written out by Wulfstan. In considering Cotton Nero A.i, Loyn suggests that Wulfstan may have composed this section as a summary of his comments on bishops after collecting together the three chapters that precede it in the manuscript.33 Wulfstan begins with a requirement to preach: Biscpas [sic] scoldan symle Godes riht bodian and unriht forbeodan, and witodlice, sona swa bispas rihtes adumbiad, and sona swa hy eargia}) and hy rihtes forscamiaö and clumiaö mid ceaflum, bonne hy scoldan clypian, sona heora wyrömynt biö waniende sw iöe. (“Ermahnung an die B ischöfe” §1; italicized words in W ulfstan’s hand)

Bishops must always preach God ’s right and forbid wrong and truly, as soon as bishops keep silent about right, and as soon as they shun and are ashamed o f right and mumble in their jaw s when they should cry out, at once their honor will be greatly waning.

Here Wulfstan forcefully brings together the bodian/forbeodan play of I Polity §46/11 Polity §63 and the onomatopoeic mumbling from

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Old English Prose: Basic Readings

Bethurum XVIb.20-22, two elements that were combined more diffusely at II Polity §§42-43. Riht bodian and unriht forbeodan are now in parallel rather than chiastically arranged, and Wulfstan uses the same object in two further parallels (rihtes adumbiad and rihtes forscamiad) where the verbs establish a grammatical rhyme (along with eargiap), which anticipates the verb of clumiad mid ceaflum. The temporal adverbs carry weight here: the first parallel is what bishops should always do, in a timeless manner; only if they fail this will they enter the timely world of the sona swa clause, which rushes into a further sona swa clause, to finally be picked up in the resulting sona clause, where alliteration and brevity focus the listener on wyrdmynt and waniende. Wulfstan recombines earlier rhetorical flourishes to forceful effect to emphasize the responsibility of bishops to preach. Wulfstan again considers episcopal duties in his homily for the consecration of a bishop, “Lectio Secundum Lucam,” edited as Bethurum XVII. Once again, there are complications arising from different manuscript versions of the text. The homily survives in two manuscripts: Oxford, Bodleian Library, Hatton 113, where the second part (Bethurum’s lines 39-79, along with three introductory sentences) comes first (fols. 83r-84v), followed somewhat later by the opening (Bethurum’s lines 1-43 on fols. 93v-94v), which breaks off with et reliqua a few lines into the overlap (see Table 3 for details); and BL Cotton Cleopatra B.xiii, where a longer version of the homily constitutes an integrated text (fols. 38r-43r), following Wulfstan’s homily on the dedication of a church (Bethurum XVIII). Bethurum’s decision to unite the two parts of the homily from Hatton 113 is a good one; her omission of the last part in Cleopatra B.xiii (edited only in Napier XXXVII, 178.19-179.32) is altogether less helpful.34 The first part of the homily is an explication of the episcopal consecration rite closely dependent on the liturgy.35 In the introduction, Wulfstan reuses the general characterization of bishops who “bodian... r ih t... unriht forbeodan” familiar from Polity (Bethurum XVII.14-18; cf. I Pol. §46/11 Pol. §63). He includes explicit reference to the liturgical occasion, appealing to his audience for validation that “you yourselves clearly saw and also heard the complete blessing” (Bethurum XVII. 18-19), and he promises to make clear the history of the institution

The Wolf on Shepherds Ta b l

e

405

3

Ma n u s c

r ipt

Ar

r a ng ement o f

Be t

hur um

XVII

Oxford, Bodleian Library, Hatton 113 (Ker 331) 26. fols. 83 -8 4 v beginning “Eala leofan men sw ytele is gesyne . . subsequent title “Be godes bydelum” (Napier 177.In; Bethurum VII.36-79). 27. fols. 84v-90v “Item sermo lupi ad anglos quando dani maxime persecuti sunt eos, quod fuit in dies æ}>elredi regis.” 28. fols. 90v-91 v “Her is gyt rihtlic wamung 7 soôlic mynegung £eode to J)earfe” (Bethurum XXI). 29. fols. 9 1v-93 v “Be mistlican gelimpan” (Napier XXXV). 30. fols. 93v-9 4 v “Lectio secundum Lucam. . . . Be biscophadum” (Bethurum VII. 1^13). London, British Library, Cotton Cleopatra B.xiii (Ker 143) 5. fols. 38r-43r “Lectio Secundum Lucam. . . . Be biscophadum” (Bethurum VII; Napier 178.19-179.32).

of bishophood (Bethurum XVII. 19-21). In the second part (Bethurum XVII.36-79), he repeats the stricture to preach God’s right, employing the same structure as in the introduction, and follows this by warning against mumbling into jaws and further requirements for the bishop to preach and the audience to listen to God’s herald, all repeating the formulation of II Polity §§42-57.36 The revisions involved in shifting from political treatise to homily are revealing of the expectations for the genre of each piece. Two slight changes of wording expand the moralizing about preaching to any priest rather than just bishops;37 while a shift in genre is also achieved by Wulfstan’s insertion of phrases characteristic of his homiletic perorations, which directly implicate his audience in his message: “Leofan men, wamiad eow be swylcan 7 uton we ealle don swa us }>earf is, beorgan us geome wid Godes yrre” (Bethurum XVII.63-64; “Dearly beloved, warn yourselves according to such and let us all do as is needful for us, save ourselves well from God’s anger”).38The version of the homily in Cleopatra B.xiii comes to a different close with a series of general admonitions that provide a more general homiletic conclusion.39 Here Wulfstan exhorts in turn

406

Old English Prose: Basic Readings

“Godes J)eowas” (“God’s servants”) to love purity, be ordered by their rule, “and bocum and gebedum geomlice filian and bodian and bisnian godes riht geome” (179.7-8; “and eagerly to attend to books and prayers and to preach and show God’s right well by example”), and “manna gehwylcne” (“all people”) to general moral conduct. Perhaps Wulfstan’s final formulation on this subject comes at the end of I Cnut (I Cnut §§26-26.4). Here the account of bishops’ responsibilities serves as an appendix to the formulation of ecclesiastical legislation that constitutes I Cnut: “Bisceopas syndan bydelas 7 Godes lage lareowas, 7 hi sceolon bodian 7 bysnian geome godcunde J>earfe, gyme se de wylle” (I Cnut §26; “Bishops are the messengers and teachers of God’s law, and they must preach and set an example well for the divine need, pay heed who will”). The idea that bishops should preach right has echoed throughout Wulfstan’s formulations, often balanced with the need to forbid wrong {riht bodian/unriht forbeodan as in I Pol. §46/11 Pol. §63). The phrasing of I Cnut describing bishops as messengers and teachers was used by Wulfstan before at II Polity §42, where, too, it was balanced with the idea that they should forbid unriht. This time Wulfstan chooses to balance the verb bodian with bysnian, “to set an example,” to give a complete positive statement of what bishops should do. The preaching of bishops and priests is the only hope, “gyf f>aer hwylc J>eodsceada sceadian onginned” (“if any fiend begins to harm there”), Wulfstan continues in a formulation drawn from Polity and mirroring the early formulation in Bethurum XVIb.40 By including here such stress on the responsibilities of bishops to pass on God’s law, Wulfstan inscribes within the law-code the appropriateness of himself formulating this legislation.

WULFSTAN ENACTING HIS OWN MESSAGE The complex of writing Wulfstan addressed to bishops can be distilled to a fairly small number of specific injunctions. Foremost are the injunctions to preach and pray. Wulfstan obviously satisfied the requirement to preach in view of his surviving works, a point to which I will return. His prayers have not left such a tangible record; in this case the evidence of the Life o f Saint Wulfstan is useful, where the later bishop

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can often be seen at prayer.41 The call for “book-work” (“reading or correcting, teaching or learning”; II Pol. §77) was clearly fulfilled by Archbishop Wulfstan: his handwriting can be seen making corrections in many of the ten manuscripts that he annotates, while his commonplace book attests to his reading for the sake of teaching and learning. The most insistent charge made by the archbishop is to cry out, heedless of the perils in this world. This is the most marked attribute of both Wulfstans. A revealing passage in the Life o f Saint Wulfstan occurs when the later Wulfstan was deployed by King Harold early in 1066 to secure allegiance from the rebellious north of England: Sane licet esset pontifex bonus mansuetus et lenis; non tamen ad improbos indulgebat blandiciis; sed uicia eorum arguens, minacibus infrendebat uerbis. Sin id procederet; aperto eis preconabatur uaticinio; quanto multandi essent supplicio. . . . Denique Haraldo palam testificatus est quanto et detrimento, et sibi et Anglie foret; nisi nequitias morum correctum ire, cogitaret. (Book I, chapter 16; Darlington, V ita W u lfsta n i , p. 23) Well, the bishop, good, mild and gentle though he was, did not indulge the sinners with soft words, however, but accused them o f vices, grinding his teeth with threatening words [“minacibus infrendebat uerbis”]. By way o f prophecy, he announced to them frankly, if it carried on they would pay the penalty in suffering___He even openly called to Harold’s attention the calamity which would befall him and England, unless they took care to correct their evil ways, (trans. Swanton, T h re e L iv e s , p. 109)

Saint Wulfstan, like his like-named predecessor, was prepared to stand up to an implicitly hostile crowd and even, it seems, to the king himself. His prophetic apocalypticism here sounds strongly reminiscent of the earlier Wulfstan’s Sermo Lupi ad Anglos. Could that work have been the sermon preached on this occasion by the saint? In view of the events of 1066, Saint Wulfstan’s warnings are viewed by his biographer as prophecies soon fulfilled: “Quod in aduentu Normannorum eodem anno claruisse; quis eat in infidas?” (1.16; “As much became evident with the coming of the Normans that same year. Who can deny it?” Swanton, p. 109).

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The Archbishop’s honoring of his own strictures has to be inferred from his works rather than external report, but he, too, shows a clear willingness to call out. At the simplest level, Wulfstan’s very composition of such a large body of homilies attests to his copious preaching, while his composition of the law-codes demonstrates his speaking out to guide his flock. In the Institutes o f Polity, Wulfstan’s strictures are aimed at the whole social range of that flock, including the king and the rest of the hierarchy.42

THE SERMO LUPIAD ANGLOS The manuscript evidence provides some more subtle clues about Archbishop Wulfstan’s attitude to his preaching function. These clues revolve around the Sermo Lupi ad Anglos, Wulfstan’s most powerful sermon, crafted with considerable care, in which he uses contemporary events at a level of unusual specificity to illustrate his apocryphal theme.43 This sermon is a bold critique of his nation and its leaders. In the longest version (contained in manuscripts Nero A.i and Hatton 113), it includes Wulfstan’s condemnation of the slothfulness of bishops. This occurs as Wulfstan contextualizes his broader condemnation of sinfulness by reference to English history. After his denunciation of the contemporary sins of the English, he points to a pattern of heathen attackers defeating a settled Christian people by citing Gildas, the sixthcentury author, whose De Excidio Britanniae blames the success of the original Anglo-Saxon invasions on the sins of the settled Britons. Wulfstan draws this allusion from another reaction to heathen attack, that of Alcuin, whose Letter to Archbishop Aithelhard reacted to the Viking raid on Lindisfame of 793 by remembering Gildas’s earlier denunciation. Wulfstan had the relevant passage from Alcuin’s letter included in his commonplace book and translated it fairly closely in the Sermo Lupi ad Anglos. Alcuin explains the Britons’ loss of their homeland as resulting from the greed of the leaders, the injustice of the judges, the wickedness of the people, and “propter desidiam et pigritiam praedicationis episcoporum” (“on account of the slothfulness and indolence in preaching of the bishops”).44 In translating this Wulfstan adds some of his established rhetoric on the responsibility of preachers:

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“durh biscopa asolcennesse 7 jsurh lydre yrhde Godes bydela [)e so^es geswugedan ealles to gelome 7 clumedan mid ceaflum [jaer hy scoldan clypian” (Bethurum XX [El]. 182-84; “through the slothfulness of bishops and through the hateful indolence of God’s messengers, who kept the truth silent all too often and mumbled through their jaws where they should call out”). Bishops of the fifth and sixth centuries are anachronistically but purposefully viewed as equivalent to bishops in Wulfstan’s own day as he reuses the clumian mid ceaflum construction first seen in Bethurum XVIb.20-22. He adds that things are worse among the Anglo-Saxons now than they ever were among the Britons. Wulfstan’s own solution to the ineffectualness of preachers is his composition of the Sermo Lupi ad Anglos. This is made clear by the evidence of links in three of the five manuscript versions of the sermon. On each occasion there is a different link, but all three contexts serve to establish Wulfstan’s personal sense of the significance of the Sermo Lupi ad Anglos. In CCCC 201, Bethurum XVIb, the tract on preachers translated from Ezekiel, is followed on page 81 by a further very short item (see Table 1, above). This short passage is ignored by Bethurum but edited by Napier. In it Wulfstan takes a personal turn: N e dear ic nu for godes ege sodes gesweogian, ac licige, swa hit licige, sod ic w ille secgan, gime, se w ille, fordam se bydel, [>e forsweogad his hlafordes gewilboda, a he maeg him wenan hetelices leanes. (Napier XLI, 191.20-23) N ow I do not dare, for fear o f God, to keep silent about the truth but, like it or not, I will tell the truth, pay heed who wants to, because the herald who keeps silent about his lord’s commandments may always expect for him self a miserable recompense.

This is clearly authentic Wulfstan: the phrasing, rhythm, and vocabulary are entirely characteristic of him. The key patterns revolve around truth and silence: “sodes gesweogian” is gainsaid through the similar alliteration of “sod ic wille secgan.” The status of this sentence in relation to the preceding item is ambiguous: Bethurum XVIb does not close with any clear end-marking rhetorical flourish, and the codicological

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evidence for a break is also slight (there is no separating rubric, although there is a blank half-line between the items). The sentiment of the sentence clearly grows out of the message of Bethurum XVIb, the exhortation to preachers: Wulfstan acknowledges that the requirement not to keep silence extends to himself. His own bold expression of the truth, “licige, swa hit licige,” is the sermon that immediately follows: “Sermo lupi ad anglos quando dani maxime persecuti sunt eos . . .” (CCCC 201, pp. 82-86).45 A similar self-referentiality can be seen in Nero A.i, where Wulfstan’s own organization of the material is vouched by the presence of his handwriting. Here the section “Be peodwitan” ends with a personal statement: Ic wat swyde georne me sylfne forwyrhtne wordes and daede ealles to sw yde, ne dear peah for forswygian mid ealle Godes ege fela p a r a p in g a , p e d e r e d p i s s e p e o d e . (II Pol. §57; last six words in W ulfstan’s hand) I know m yself very well to be all too much a sinner in word and deed; nevertheless, I do not dare to remain entirely silent for fear o f God concerning those many things which afflict this people.

Here the humility topos of accepting his own sin leads Wulfstan to a characteristic understatement not to remain entirely silent, with the sinner related to his silence by the repeated fo r- prefix offorwyrhtne and forswygian. If the items in the manuscript are read sequentially, Wulfstan breaks out of that silence to launch into the following “Sermo lupi ad anglos quando dani maxime persecuti sunt eos .. .” (Nero A.i, fols. 11 Or—115r; see Table 2, above).46 The Sermo Lupi ad Anglos is introduced in a similar manner, although following from yet another context, in a third manuscript, Hatton 113. Bethurum XVII, the homily on the consecration of a bishop, here ends with Wulfstan’s admission of his sinfulness yet his inability to keep silent about the sins of the people in precisely the sentence just cited from the Institutes o f Polity (Bethurum XVII.76-79); the only change is the insertion after “to swyde” of “ealswa ma manna,” which generalizes the point of sinfulness in a way in keeping with the

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homiletic markers in the work. This passage serves as a transition from the theoretical statement of the responsibilities of the bishop to the practical fulfilment of those responsibilities in the following item, “Item sermo lupi ad anglos quando dani maxime persecuti sunt eos . . (Hatton 113, fols. 84v-90v). The association between the two homilies is emphasized even further in this case. The item before Sermo Lupi ad Anglos, item 26 in Ker’s listing, is only part of Bethurum XVII and opens with sentences (not edited by Bethurum but edited by Napier) first commenting on people’s sinfulness in general, then continuing: Nu ne dear ic for godes ege sodes geswugian; ac licige, swa hit licige, sod ic w ille secgan, gyme se 6e w ille. Fordam se bydel, ne bodad na his hlafordes gewilboda, a he maeg him wenan hetelices leanes (Napier XXXVII, 177. In).

This is precisely the introduction to the Sermo Lupi ad Anglos used in CCCC 201. The effect is to make the whole item before the Sermo Lupi ad Anglos in Hatton 113 all the more clearly the archbishop’s own statement of conscience, which is followed by his action upon that statement in the composition and preaching of his great sermon of the Wolf to the English. The association between the homily for the consecration of a bishop (Bethurum XVII) and the Sermo Lupi ad Anglos may be yet stronger. Both Jost and Wormald suggest that Wulfstan probably composed Bethurum XVII for his act of consecration of Ailfwig as Bishop of London on 16 February 1014, an event reported in the D-version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.47 This is the year of the Sermo Lupi ad Anglos as given in the most convincing rubric, Nero A.i, and accepted by its editors. The association of these two sermons in CCCC 201, then, may derive from their original composition. Early 1014 was a particularly tumultuous time after the martyrdom of Archbishop jElfheah in 1012, the expulsion of ^Ethelred in 1013, then the death of Swein on 2 February 1014 and the decision of the Witan to invite ^Ethelred to return, “gif he hi rihtlicor healdan wolde f>onne he aer dyde” (AngloSaxon Chronicle E, s.a. 1014; “if he would rule them more justly than he did before”).48 Wulfstan’s consecration of ¿Elfwig as Bishop of London in mid-February 1014 may well have been the specific occasion

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for which the sweeping jeremiad and call to order of the Sermo Lupi ad Anglos was first composed and where it was first delivered. In more general terms, its composition represents Wulfstan’s enactment of his own injunction to call out and not mumble through his jaws.

CONCLUSION This examination of one preoccupation through Wulfstan’s writings has illustrated the unstable nature of Wulfstan’s texts and the value of considering those works in manuscript context.49 It has also demonstrated how Wulfstan uses powerful if shifting rhetoric to make a predictable didactic point. That predictability raises the question of why pursue the texts at such length, if their message can so easily be abstracted to “But ‘Do wel and have wel, and God shal have thi soule’”50 to cite a later medieval masterpiece of didactic literature? In his important analysis of Wulfstan’s rhythm, Angus McIntosh pointed to the oddity of Wulfstan rewriting Ailfric’s prose style: Here is a curious situation in a troubled age; one man produces a special kind o f rhythmical writing with a distinct and recognizable texture, then another, heavily burdened with the cares and duties o f an enormously responsible position, takes the trouble to dissect all this and reconstruct it according to the rules governing his own rhythmical practice.51

I would like to suggest that this “curious thing” is precisely the point of all Wulfstan’s writing, including those not drawn from AHfric. The bishop is responsible to call out, not remain silent, act as God’s messenger, and convey God’s law. Wulfstan does this through his deployment of the rhetorical effects of language. Wulfstan’s message might be distilled to the predictable “general admonition to virtue” but the interest of his work (like Langland’s) lies in avoiding such reductionism. Wulfstan’s works need to be considered in all their complexity, beyond even the attempt by Bethurum to impose order on them, to develop a sensitivity to the specific rhetorical effects that he deploys. It is in the rhetorical power of language, such as the varying plays on bodian/forbeodan riht/unriht, that this “bydel . . . bodad . . . his hlafordes gewilboda” (“messenger preaches his lord’s commandments”).

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Notes 1. Dorothy Bethurum, The Homilies ofWulfstan (Oxford, 1957); A.S. Napier, Wulfstan: Sammlung der ihm zugeschriebenen Homilien (1883; repr. with a bibliographical supplement by Klaus Ostheeren, Dublin, 1967). On the homiletic corpus see Karl Jost, Wulfstanstudien (Berne, 1950) and Jonathan Wilcox, “The Dissemination of Wulfstan’s Homilies: The Wulfstan Tradition in Eleventh-Century Vernacular Preaching,” in England in the Eleventh Century, ed. Carola Hicks (Watkins, 1992), pp. 200-01. 2. Those identified by Jost are edited in Bethurum, Homilies; furtherworks are identified by J.E. Cross, “Wulfstan’s De A nticristo in a Twelfth-Century Worcester Manuscript,” ASE 20 (1991): 203-20 and in his introduction to The Copenhagen Wulfstan Collection: Copenhagen Kongelige Bibliotek, Gl. Kgl. Sam. 7595, ed. James E. Cross and Jennifer Morrish Tunberg, EEMF 25 (Copenhagen, 1993). 3. Ed. Max Liebermann, Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, 3 vols. (Halle, 1903-16); Roger Fowler, Wulfstan's Canons o f Edgar, EETS OS 266 (London, 1972); A.G. Kennedy, “Cnut’s Law Code of 1018,” ASE 11 (1982): 57-81. 4. Ed. Karl Jost, Die (iInstitutes o f Polity, Civil and Ecclesiastical ” (Berne, 1959). 5. This work was begun by Humfrey Wanley, Librorum Veterum Septentrionalium . . . Catalogus Historico-Criticus, vol. 2 of George Hickes, Linguarum Veterum Septentrionalium Thesaurus (Oxford, 1705), was pursued most fully by Jost, Wulfstanstudien, and is still going on (see the studies cited in n. 2 above). 6. For a sensitive and perceptive analysis of Wulfstan’s style focusing on such reuse, see A.P.McD. Orchard, “Crying Wolf: Oral Style and the Sermones L u p if ASE 21 (1992): 239-64. 7. Dorothy Whitelock, Sermo Lupi ad Anglos, 3rd ed. (London, 1963); Bethurum, Homilies, pp. 255-75.

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8. Ed. Napier, Wulfstan: Sammlung, homily XXVII and half of XL VII. 9. Napier, Wulfstan: Sammlung, is substantially more reliable for establishing the text. 10. Bethurum omits a large part of her homily IV, runs together two homilies to create her VII, combines XIII from a number of shorter distinct items in the manuscripts, and misses out an alternative ending of XVII. 11. Significant recent discussions of this question include Michel Foucault, “What is an Author?” in Language, Counter-Memory, Practice, trans. Sherry Simon and ed. Donald F. Bouchard (Ithaca, 1977); Roland Barthes, “The Death of the Author,” in Image-Music-Text, trans. Stephen Heath (New York, 1977), pp. 142-48; Donald E. Pease, “Author,” in Critical Terms for Literary Study, ed. Frank Lentricchia and Thomas McLaughlin (Chicago, 1990), pp. 105-17. 12. For the complexities of attributing “authorship” to Alfred, see Allen J. Frantzen, King Alfred (Boston, 1986), chap. 1; on Wulfstan’s handwriting, see N.R. Ker, “The Handwriting of Archbishop Wulfstan,” in England Before the Conquest: Studies in Primary Sources Presented to Dorothy Whitelock, ed. Peter Clemoes and Kathleen Hughes (Cambridge, 1971), pp. 315-31. 13. For consideration of this issue see, in particular, Patrick Wormald, “Aethelredthe Lawmaker,” in Ethelredthe Unready: Papers from the Millenary Conference, ed. David Hill (Oxford, 1978). 14. See, in particular, Allen J. Frantzen, Desire For Origins: New Language, Old English, and Teaching the Tradition (New Brunswick, 1990) on the arbitrary nature of the division between “Old English” and “not Old English.” 15. A multi-volume collaborative edition of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is currently in progress: general editors David Dumville and Simon Keynes (Cambridge, 1983- ). The best edition at present is Charles Plummer (based on the edition of John Earle), Two ofthe Saxon Chronicles Parallel, with supplementary extracts from the others, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1892-99).

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16. See Simon Keynes, The Diplomas o f King AZthelred