The Wisdom of Exeter: Anglo-Saxon Studies in Honor of Patrick W. Conner 9781501513060, 9781501517822

Table of contents :
Contents
List of Illustrations
Introduction
1. The Conners of Exeter, 1070–1150
2. Winchester Revisited: Æthelwold, Lucifer, and the Place of Origin of MS Junius 11
3. Metrical Footprints and Pat Conner’s Exeter Booklets
4. The Early Modern Afterlife of Exeter’s Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts
5. The Divisions of the Ruthwell Cross
6. Lagustreamas: The Changing Waters Surrounding J. R. R. Tolkien and The Battle of Maldon
7. The Curse of Sleep in Anglo-Saxon England
8. Andreas’s Blooming Blood
9. Guthlac as Potential Brigand: Guthlac A lines 114–40
10. Performance and Audience in the Exeter Book Riddles
Publications of Patrick W. Conner
Index

Citation preview

The Wisdom of Exeter

Richard Rawlinson Center Series for Anglo-Saxon Studies

Editorial Board Lindy Brady, University of Mississippi, USA Kees Dekker, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, the Netherlands Nicole Guenther Discenza, University of South Florida, USA Helen Foxhall Forbes, Durham University, England Timothy Graham, University of New Mexico, USA Catherine Karkov, University of Leeds, England (Series Editor) Rosalind Love, Robinson College, Cambridge University, England

The Wisdom of Exeter Anglo-Saxon Studies in Honor of Patrick W. Conner Edited by E.J. Christie

ISBN 978-1-5015-1782-2 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-1-5015-1306-0 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-1-5015-1290-2 Library of Congress Control Number: 2020939022 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2020 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Cover image: Exeter Book 20v, © Professor Bernard Muir Typesetting: Integra Software Services Pvt. Ltd. Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck www.degruyter.com

Contents List of Illustrations E. J. Christie Introduction

VII

1

Elaine Treharne 1 The Conners of Exeter, 1070–1150

11

David F. Johnson 2 Winchester Revisited: Æthelwold, Lucifer, and the Place of Origin of MS Junius 11 27 Thomas A. Bredehoft 3 Metrical Footprints and Pat Conner’s Exeter Booklets

63

Timothy Graham 4 The Early Modern Afterlife of Exeter’s Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts Catherine E. Karkov 5 The Divisions of the Ruthwell Cross

77

131

Stuart D. Lee 6 Lagustreamas: The Changing Waters Surrounding J. R. R. Tolkien and The Battle of Maldon 157 Bob Hasenfratz 7 The Curse of Sleep in Anglo-Saxon England Thomas N. Hall 8 Andreas’s Blooming Blood

177

197

Thomas D. Hill 9 Guthlac as Potential Brigand: Guthlac A lines 114–40 Jill Frederick 10 Performance and Audience in the Exeter Book Riddles

221

227

VI

Contents

Publications of Patrick W. Conner Index

247

243

List of Illustrations Figure 4.1

Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 101, p. 449. Section of the Parkerian transcript of the list of Leofric’s procurements, with marginal notes relating to three of the books included in the list. By kind permission of the Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge 83 Figure 4.2 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 190, p. 306. Portion of Ælfric’s pastoral letter for Wulfsige, bishop of Sherborne, with underlining probably by John Joscelyn. Note the parchment tab pasted to the edge of the leaf. By kind permission of the Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge 89 Figure 4.3 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 190, p. 294, with Parkerian addition of the Latin preface to Ælfric’s pastoral letter for Wulfsige. By kind permission of the Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge 91 Figure 4.4 The Gospels of the Fower Euangelistes (1571), sig. D.iiiiv, with text from the end of chapter 7 of St. Matthew’s gospel. Note the rubric before Matthew 7:28. By kind permission of the Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge 95 Figure 4.5 Cambridge University Library MS Ii.2.11, fol. 12v, with rubric for Matthew 7:28–8:13. By kind permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library 96 Figure 4.6 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 441, fol. 11v. Note the Parkerian addition of verse numbers and of the rubric preceding Matthew 7:28. By kind permission of the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford 98 Figure 4.7 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 41, p. 85, with marginal note by Abraham Wheelock commenting on the absence of this passage of the Old English Ecclesiastical History from the University Library copy. By kind permission of the Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge 102 Figure 4.8 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 41, p. 241. In the margin Wheelock has supplied from CUL Kk.3.18 two portions of text omitted by the original scribe of CCCC 41, keying them to the appropriate point in the text with pairs of matching signes-de-renvoi. By kind permission of the Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge 103 Figure 4.9 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 419, fol. ivv. The S block of Wheelock’s index notes for the volume. By kind permission of the Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge 108 Figure 4.10 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 421, p. 47. William L’Isle’s marking of a scriptural quotation within Ælfric’s homily “In natale plurimorum sanctorum martyrum.” By kind permission of the Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge 110 Figure 4.11 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 191, fol. iiv. Inscription by Matthew Parker recording his belief that Archbishop Theodore was the author of the manuscript’s Latin text and that Ælfric was the translator of the Old English version. By kind permission of the Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge 114

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501513060-203

VIII

List of Illustrations

Figure 4.12 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 191, p. 127. A passage bearing on clerical marriage within the Old English version of the enlarged Rule of Chrodegang has here been underlined and glossed in Latin by John Joscelyn. By kind permission of the Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge 120 Figure 4.13 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 191, p. 138. William Retchford’s interlinear transcription of the faded title of chapter 76 of the enlarged Rule of Chrodegang. By kind permission of the Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge 129 Figure 5.1 Ruthwell Monument, Original East Side. Photo: Author 131 Figure 5.2 Ruthwell Monument, Original South Side. Photo: Author 132 Figure 5.3 Ruthwell Monument, Original East Side. Photo: Author 136

E. J. Christie

Introduction This interdisciplinary volume collects original essays in the fields of codicology, paleography, metrics, history, art history, and literary criticism. Composed by prominent scholars in Anglo-Saxon studies, these essays honor the depth and breadth of Patrick W. Conner’s influence in our discipline. Patrick W. Conner is Eberly Centennial Professor of Arts and Sciences Emeritus at West Virginia University. He is author of Anglo-Saxon Exeter: A Tenth-Century Cultural History (1993), editor of the reconstructed Abingdon version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (1996) for Cambridge’s collaborative edition of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and one of the acknowledged experts on the Exeter Book of Old English poetry. He is a former Executive Director of the International Society of Anglo-Saxonists (1991–1997) and was inducted as an honorary member in 2011. He served on the editorial board of the Old English Newsletter and was Chair of the English department at WVU (1994–2000) and director of the West Virginia University Press (1999–2008). He also has the dubious credential of having directed my doctoral dissertation. In my view, this last achievement was obviously the crowning one in a long and illustrious career. If it was only through me that Pat’s legacy lived on, others might say, there would be some cause for alarm. Thankfully, it is hard to assess which of his legacies is most profound. As a scholar, teacher, editor, administrator, and innovator, Pat has been a leader in the discipline of Anglo-Saxon studies for four decades. He earned his Ph.D. at the University of Maryland (1975) with a dissertation on the Exeter Book. After a brief stint at Goucher College, Pat made his debut at West Virginia University in 1976. After 35 years of service the name of this University is now, among Anglo-Saxonists, simply synonymous with Pat’s. His influential “Booklet Theory” of the Exeter Book, first published in “The Structure of the Exeter Book Codex” (1986), proposes on codicological and paleographical grounds that the Exeter Book was completed as three originally independent booklets. Different forms of membrane, soiled outer leaves, as well as the distribution of decorative initials and special letter forms, offer clear support for the hypothesis. Tom Bredehoft’s contribution to this volume offers further, metrical support for the composition of the Exeter Book according to Pat’s Booklet Theory. Conner further suggests that the paleographical differences can be explained by a significant passage of time between the completion of one booklet and the next. As a result of these findings, the “literary selfE. J. Christie, Georgia State University https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501513060-001

2

E. J. Christie

sufficiency” of each proposed booklet can be assessed: Booklet I is organized around the incarnation, ascension, and second coming of Christ and the life and death of St. Guthlac. Booklet III is unified by its collection of one hundred riddles and the riddling nature of other poems in it. All of the poems that occur elsewhere, furthermore, are from the third booklet. This part of the manuscript appears to have its own literary integrity which, Conner argues, “suggests a textual history for the third booklet which is not shared with the other two booklets” and may be seen as further evidence of its unity.1 Finally, though the unifying feature of Booklet II seems harder to explain, it may be explained as a miscellaneous collection of verse of the sort that Bishop Leofric’s inventory describes. The Booklet Theory, as Pat recognized, provides a foothold for literary analysis of the Exeter Book, since the themes and relationships of the poems within each booklet are readily identified, while the codex as a whole appears—as it conventionally had appeared—too diverse to be explained further. Pat’s interest in the Exeter Book and its context persisted and culminated in the monograph, Anglo-Saxon Exeter: A Tenth-Century Cultural History (1993), a book which Joyce Hill described as “revolutionary.”2 In it Conner argues that the manuscript was in fact produced at Exeter as opposed to Canterbury or Glastonbury as was previously supposed. It further paints a picture of Exeter, in contrast to the traditional assumption, as a thriving monastic center. Many of the essays gathered here thus gravitate towards the poetry, composition, and reception of the Exeter Book. Still others respond directly to Pat’s recent interest in the social context for Anglo-Saxon literature in the parish guilds. Pat is also pioneer of digital medievalism, an early and active proponent of technological applications to the study of Anglo-Saxon literature. His services to the discipline in this capacity are too many to enumerate, but the highlights of his work include founding (in 1985) the ANSAXNET e-mail discussion list, one of the earliest such uses of BITNET to connect an international scholarly community. Pat also founded the Center for Literary Computing at West Virginia University in 1991, a center which continues to grow and supports dozens of current projects exploring the intersection of computing and literature.3

1 Patrick W. Conner, “The Structure of the Exeter Book Codex (Exeter, Cathedral Library, MS. 3501),” Scriptorium 40.2 (1986): 241. 2 Joyce Hill, Review of Anglo-Saxon Exeter, by Patrick W. Conner, Medium Aevum 64.2 (1995): 313. 3 Center for Literary Computing. West Virginia University. http://literarycomputing.wvu.edu/ home.

Introduction

3

In 1992, his Beowulf Workstation, a pedagogical tool designed using Apple’s Hypercard programming application, won the Joe Wyatt Challenge to EDUCOM for educational uses of Information Technology.4 Between 1999 and 2008, Pat directed the West Virginia University Press. Since 2001, West Virginia University Press has published Essays in Medieval Studies, the proceedings of the Illinois Medieval Association. Under Pat’s direction the press began a medieval series for which he served as Series Editor and which to date has published over twenty titles especially focused on medieval language, literature, and culture. WVU Press also publishes the widely used Reading Old English textbook by Robert Hasenfratz, one of the authors who honors Pat with an essay in this volume. In 2010, for his leadership in developing the once languishing organization into a productive university press, Pat was recognized with the Ethel and Gerry Heebink Award for Distinguished and Extended Service to the State of West Virginia. As with all great teachers, Pat’s pedagogical influence extends far beyond the sphere of his formal duties in the classroom. I have to think back more than twenty years to remember my first encounter with him in Stansbury Hall on the campus of West Virginia University, but it is as clear to me now as it was then. I did not set out to be an Anglo-Saxonist but was won over in equal parts by the subject matter itself and by Pat’s infectious enthusiasm, his apparent intent to gather everyone under the roof of his mead hall to hear about Old English literature, his propensities both to reminisce and to burst spontaneously into song. Pat seemed to me then to be part renowned scholar and part cabaret. His characterization of his own career as a scholar is a clear index of the humor and humility he models as a mentor: “I’m still trying to answer a question I heard mentioned when I was an undergraduate. ‘How was this poetry presented to its audience and how did that audience think about it?’ After 50 years thinking about it, I can speak cogently on that topic now for about twenty minutes.”5 As Pat’s student, his colleague, and his friend, I am thus proud to offer him this volume in celebration of his twenty minutes and our twenty years. I envy those, like the scholars who have here added their voices to this cabaret, who were singing with Pat from the beginning. The essays fall naturally into three groups, focusing on manuscripts, context and reception, and literary criticism respectively. Essays by Elaine Treharne, Thomas Bredehoft, and David Johnson focus on manuscripts. Following them,

4 The Hypercard stacks for this application can be downloaded from Woruldhord. University of Oxford. http://poppy.nsms.ox.ac.uk/woruldhord/items/show/350. 5 WVU Today, October 5, 2011. http://wvutoday-archive.wvu.edu/n/2011/10/05/wvu-professoremeritus-selected-as-honorary-member-of-the-international-society-of-anglo-saxonists.html.

4

E. J. Christie

Timothy Graham examines the “afterlife” of the Exeter manuscripts and thus creates a bridge between the meaning of the Exeter Book to its Anglo-Saxon audience and its reception in later periods. Catherine Karkov’s essay on the Ruthwell Cross likewise considers its reception, particularly in the popular “heritage” discourse. The final group of essays turn to more restrictively literary purposes. Three of the first four essays are concerned specifically with Exeter or the Exeter Book. Treharne presents compelling evidence showing that the Exeter “manumissions,” so long assumed to indicate the freeing of slaves, actually refer to the entry of freemen into the Exeter Guilds. Bredehoft provides new metrical analysis that supports Pat Conner’s foundational analysis of Exeter Book codicology, showing how metrical patterns vary in accord with the three booklets defined by Conner, but also contributing to a growing body of his research that radically re-imagines Old English meter. Far from the rigid and conservative body of rules modeled on the meter of Beowulf, Bredehoft argues that Old English meter was “a living tradition, including a demonstrable degree of change” and “a surprising range of metrical practices” (64). David Johnson’s analysis brings forward new evidence that more concretely establishes the date and provenance of the Junius 11 manuscript, which stands alongside the Exeter Book as one of four prominent manuscripts of Old English poetry. Elaine Treharne examines the post-Conquest legacy of Bishop Leofric and the scribes who added short vernacular legal texts and annotations to Exeter’s books. The varied calligraphy of these scribes is of paleographical interest, they can be dated closely, and further testify both to the perstistent use of the vernacular at Exeter for legal and corporate purposes (in contrast to other centers like Leicester and York) and to the ongoing relationship between the religious center and its secular community. Exeter Cathedral Library, 3501 (The Exeter Book), Cambridge University Library, Ii. 2. 11 (The Exeter Gospels), and Oxford Bodleian Library, Bodley 579, all contain groups of legal records suggesting that each performed as a “municipal book . . . a public repository of legal materials” (14). Following Pat Conner’s arguments about the use of Exeter’s manuscripts in the context of Parish Guilds, Treharne re-examines the apparent manumissions that form the bulk of the legal records in these books. She points out that their identity as manumissions in many cases rests on literal translations of legal terminology that can be better understood, for example, by comparison with the Latin terminology in documents describing the collective rights of guilds. Read in this context, it is possible that these texts are in fact guild records that testify to the payment of dues and the entry of members in the “liberty” or rights of membership, rather than to the purchase of freedom for slaves or servants. Thus, these additions to Exeter’s manuscripts demonstrate a great deal about the persistence of a close relationship between the religious center and its secular community,

Introduction

5

constituting what is potentially “the first major corporate or borough records to survive from medieval England” (26). David Johnson’s chapter revisits his argument—first made in his article “The Fall of Lucifer in Genesis A and Two Anglo-Latin Royal Charters”—for a Winchester provenance for Oxford, Bodleian Library, Manuscript Junius 11.6 As is the case for the other Old English literary codices, a firm identification of time and place of origin of Junius 11 has proved hard to pin down. After reviewing the complex history of arguments for Canterbury, Glastonbury, Malmesbury, and Winchester, and surveying the relevant catechetical and hexameral texts, Johnson renews his case for Winchester based on a literary motif Junius 11 shares with two securely dated and located royal charters. The distinct depiction of Lucifer’s fall in Junius 11 parallels that in two Anglo-Latin charters, “King Edgar’s Privilege” and the “Penniarth Diploma,” both of which “originate in Winchester in the last quarter of the tenth century” (53). Johnson confirms that only these two sources evince the “radical replacement doctrine” found in Genesis A. This doctrine, that the creation of the Earth occurs only after the angels’ fall as a way to replace their number, represents a unique and extreme version of an idea in Augustine’s City of God. In addition to this unique cosmology, Junius 11 is linked to these charters by the figure of Ælfwine whose portait appears in Junius 11, perhaps as the patron or intended recipient of the book. An Ælfwine minister is listed as the recipient of land in the Peniarth Diploma, and two men of the same name and rank witness Edgar’s Privilege. Though the identification of these Ælfwines in Winchester documents cannot be definitive, taken in concert with the cosmological parallels it is further suggestive evidence of a Winchester origin for the Junius manuscript. The essays in this section, then, all present fresh arguments and concrete evidence that help to resolve longstanding scholarly debates. They are followed by a second group of essays that examine the cultural context and later reception of Anglo-Saxon literature. Drawing on his previous arguments regarding Old English meter, Tom Bredehoft offers metrical analysis of the Exeter Book. Rejecting the strict metrical formalism that has animated much study of Old English meter, Bredehoft demonstrates the degree of flexibility and innovation in Old English poetry, and suggests that, because of this flexibility, metrical innovations can be used as a means of dating poems as they diverge from inherited West Germanic norms. Rules for alliteration, rhyme, and hypermetric verses, all demonstrate conservative and innovative versions. Odd metrical types that have sometimes

6 Johnson, David F. “The Fall of Lucifer in “Genesis A” and Two Anglo-Latin Royal Charters.” The Journal of English and Germanic Philology 97.4 (1998): 500–21

6

E. J. Christie

been dismissed as unmetrical nevertheless occur frequently enough that they might be understood to represent purposeful differences in metrical practice. He offers evidence that Booklet III of the Exeter Book, as Pat Conner described it, differs systematically from the first two booklets: its hypermetric lines are always clustered; it contains no examples of verse rhyme; and, finally, it contains no unexpanded Type D lines. In other words, this part of the Exeter Book exhibits the most conservative metrical practices. Bredehoft thus offers his metrical argument as a supplement to Conner’s codicological analysis, particularly noting that the metrical coherence of the second group of riddles (61–95) marks them out as the likely core of Booklet III, to which other more varied texts later accrued. Through careful examination of manuscripts associated with Exeter, Timothy Graham reconstructs the important role they played in early modern antiquaries’ construction of protestant precedents. This essay begins with the interpolated first quire of the Exeter Book, a list of items Leofric procured for Exeter Cathedral when he moved his see from Crediton. Graham makes the compelling case that this list, originally part of a manuscript (Cambridge University Library, MS Ii. 2. 11) containing an Old English translation of the gospels, was added to the Exeter Book by Parker himself. Examining this list and other documents removed from CUL MS Ii. 2. 11, Graham shows in fine-grained detail the practices and decisions of Parker and his circle as they looked for an Anglo-Saxon past with which to support their reforms. Parker’s markings found in Exeter manuscripts, especially CCCC 190, demonstrate the extensive role they played in the production of Parker’s A Testimonie of Antiquitie (1561)—the first printed edition of Old English texts. Parker’s more ambitious edition of the Old English Gospels (1571) also bears the mark of his examination of Exeter’s CUL Ii. 2. 11. Parker’s edition is divided following this manuscript, in which the gospel text is divided by rubrics as is no other surviving copy. Abraham Wheelock’s edition of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History draws on CCCC 41, which was one of the manuscripts presented to Exeter by Leofric. William L’Isle studied CCCC 419 and 421, marking passages in his own hand, for an edition of vernacular scriptural and homiletic texts that he ultimately failed to produce. Finally, Parker, his Old English expert John Joscelyn, Wheelock, and William Retchford, all engaged with Exeter’s bilingual copy of the enlarged Rule of Chrodegang (CCCC 191). This meticulous chapter thus demonstrates the long afterlife of Exeter’s manuscripts in the culturally important work of sixteenthand seventeenth-century scholars. Pursuing the antiquarian recovery of the Anglo-Saxon past shows the importance of Exeter’s books in this recovery, and demonstrates conclusively the direct role of Archbishop Matthew Parker in the manipulation of these manuscripts.

Introduction

7

Catherine Karkov’s essay, in focusing on the Ruthwell Cross, forms a bridge between material and textual culture. Karkov offers this paper in recognition of Pat’s own contribution to the study of this much-studied yet persistently enigmatic runic monument.7 In it, she demonstrates that “far from a peaceful symbol of ecclesiastical harmony and unification, the Ruthwell monument is and always has been a monument that divides and establishes borders between and borders around its audiences” (133). From the documentary record of the monument’s recovery to the pages of contemporary scholarship, Karkov demonstrates the many points of division this monument elicits: cross or obelisk, local or foreign, Celtic or Anglo-Saxon, spiritual or political, harmonious whole or inelegant fragment? At almost any point imaginable this object provokes polar interpretations. Challenging the logic of “heritage” in which such monuments must conventionally be seen as unifying, Karkov thus presents a compelling case for understanding the Ruthwell Cross precisely by accepting its dissonance. Stuart Lee’s chapter explicates Tolkien’s unpublished contributions to the study of The Battle of Maldon. Drawing on Tolkien’s notes, Lee asserts that his famously negative view of the poem’s protagonist (which emerged in his writing after 1950) was not immediately influenced by Tolkien’s own experiences in World War I, as has sometimes been asserted. Early mentions of Maldon in the unpublished papers show no condemnation of Byrhtnoth. Focusing on two substantial unpublished essays, “Alliteration on ‘g’ in Maldon” and “The Tradition of Versification in Old English, with special reference to the Battle of Maldon and its alliteration,” Lee goes on to show that for Tolkien the poem’s idiosyncratic versification was not a sign of either a debased tradition in late verse or poor craft on the part of the poet. Instead, Tolkien argued that Maldon’s style represents a freer form of Old English verse that could well have existed alongside the stricter, “classical” style of poems like Beowulf, rather than emerging later as the language changed or the poetic tradition weakened; though this sort of argument has gained more support in recent decades it was, like many of Tolkien’s other conclusions, far ahead of its time. Closing with a brief consideration of Tolkien’s fiction, Lee observes how many of the characters in The Lord of the Rings fail a test of pride, as Byrhtnoth did. The evidence of Tolkien’s unpublished papers demonstrates clearly that this Old English poem stayed with Old English literature’s most famous critic throughout his career. The essays that follow, by contrast to those in the first two groups, focus on literature. Leading off the section, Robert Hasenfratz’s essay on Christ III specifically discusses the literature of the Exeter Book—the book of Old English

7 “The Ruthwell Monument Runic Poem in its Tenth-century Context,” RES 59 (2008): 26–51.

8

E. J. Christie

poetry with which Pat Conner’s name is indelibly linked since Anglo-Saxon Exeter (Boydell, 1993) if not before. Hasenfratz explores the curious, and perhaps a little alarming, Anglo-Saxon condemnation of sleep as one of the earthly evils, banished from Heaven. Like war and famine, sleep is associated with the Fall. Sleep is condemned through association with sloth, disease, and moral carelessness in Exeter Book poems like Christ III, The Phoenix, and Guthlac, as well as in associated verse from other manuscripts. Hasenfratz traces the attitude to sleep in these poems to liturgical reforms of the English Benedictine movement. Although there was a tradition of suspicion towards sleep in the ascetic tradition, this suspicion was not universal, and the documents of the English Benedictine reform demonstrate a heightened concern about the perils of sleep. Both the Rule of Chrodegang and the Regularis Concordia, he demonstrates, pathologize sleep as a disorder oppressing indulgent monks during night offices. The nighttime, and the unguarded consciousness that comes with sleep, thus represented dire moral peril. Hasenfratz’s article thus contributes not only to our understanding of Old English literature, but also to the history of ideas regarding sleep in medical and literary discourses since Aristotle. Jill Frederick probes the identity of the Exeter riddles, which are generally understood in the context of a Latin literary tradition. Examining features of the riddles rarely considered so systematically, Frederick argues that these texts contain “vestiges of their own performance” (229). In addition to aural cues, such features include the relationship of the speaker to the riddle object, semantic boundaries of verbs, locative phrases, and alliterative patterns, all of which reinforce the identity of the riddles as markedly Anglo-Saxon speech acts. First-person plural pronouns, for example, consistently set the scene of riddles in a current moment and invite a group to say, explain, or consider the identity of the riddle object. Textual as they are, the riddles of the Exeter Book, Frederick demonstrates, dramatize an aural performance so as to evoke their life beyond the page. Thomas Hill contributes a note examining the depiction of Saint Guthlac in the Exeter Book poem Guthlac A. This poem begins with an angel and a demon offering Guthlac competing visions of his future: one in which he “accepts grace thankfully” and another in which he “evilly fights for worldly goods.” Suggesting that the contrast between a pious life and one of outlawry is a false dilemma with more roots in literary models than in real Anglo-Saxon culture, Hill points out that Guthlac’s conversion to the eremitic life is thus presented as a choice between counselors on the model of Proverbs 1:7–16. The Old English Andreas, Thomas Hall observes, diverges from its probable Latin source as well as the overwhelming majority of versions of the apocryphal Acts of Andrew and Matthias, insofar as it describes “flowering groves” emerging from his copiously spilled blood where other versions describe trees

Introduction

9

growing from Andrew’s hair and flesh. Hall argues that the poet’s revision of this scene aligns it with “a powerful concept of symbolic renewal” (202) found in mythology and folklore. In similar scenes in these sources, plants grow from the blood of a slain hero. While mythological and folkloric versions suggest the enduring power of this cyclical imagery, even closer analogues for Andreas can be found in Greek hagiographical literature like the fourth-century Martyrdom of Philip and the martyrdom of St. Therapon as recounted in the Synaraxion of Constantinople. The Old English Andreas can thus be seen not only to conform to narrative formulae of hagiography, but also to participate in a mythic tradition that dates to as early as the thirteenth century B.C. These essays chart the deep influence of Patrick W. Conner during his career as an Anglo-Saxonist with a special concern for Anglo-Saxon Exeter and the Exeter Book. They also testify to the deep affection he has inspired in his colleagues. In this volume, some of the most influential scholars in our field present groundbreaking essays that demonstrate the vibrant life of the mind evoked by the oldest literature in English, a literature for which Pat Conner has been a tireless advocate.

Elaine Treharne

1 The Conners of Exeter, 1070–1150 It is an immense privilege to have this opportunity to honor Professor Patrick Conner and to focus on Exeter, its manuscripts, and its historical context, all areas of research and scholarship in which he is a pioneer. Pat Conner’s contribution to our understanding and appreciation of the Exeter Book, of the book collections at Exeter Cathedral, and of the Benedictine movement more broadly, is, and will continue to be, of the greatest significance, and early Medievalists’ debts to him are many. In particular, he is the exemplary professional, teacher, researcher, and colleague, whose unwavering kindness and generosity is a model for others to emulate. It is thus with a sense of gratitude and pleasure that I offer this small note to Pat. It is somewhat speculative, proposing an innovative reading of some key texts from Exeter that seem, perhaps, to be of potential importance for Pat’s own work. Further research will prove if the new readings I offer can bear the weight of interpretation I shall place upon them. The “Conners” of my title are offered in the spirit of Pat Conner’s academic life, and his sustained examination of evidence and inspection of detail, for these “conners” are persons who try, test, inspect, and examine.1 This note will thus examine some of the scribes who wrote English in the post-Conquest decades at Exeter from ca. 1070 to 1140. These decades followed a period of immense importance for the diocese, when Bishop Leofric (d. 1072) expediently moved the see from rural Crediton to urban Exeter in 1050, and oversaw what was the single most important and rapid programme of manuscript copying in the late AngloSaxon era. In this programme, as is now well documented, Leofric ensured that both he and his, probably, small group of canons were supplied with core liturgical materials and a range of vernacular manuscripts for pastoral work throughout the see.2 At some point during the 1050s and 1060s, then, dozens of books were

1 Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “conner”: “1467 in Eng. Gilds (1870) 382 ‘Ij ale conners . . . to se that the ale be good’.” 2 For a summary of this programme, see Elaine Treharne, Living Through Conquest: The Politics of Early English, 1020 to 1220, Oxford Textual Perspectives 1 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012); Elaine Treharne, “Producing a Library in Late Anglo-Saxon England: Exeter 1050–1072,” Review of English Studies n.s. 54 (2003): 155–72. On manuscripts of Exeter origin and provenance, see especially the indispensable Patrick W. Conner, Anglo-Saxon Exeter: A Tenth-Century Cultural History Elaine Treharne, Stanford University https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501513060-002

12

Elaine Treharne

written by a singularly well-trained cohort of scribes, whose generally expert hands bespeak a keen sense of the significance of the task they were set. Characterizing the English books in this group are a consistent calligraphic sensibility, a defined sense of the essential desirability of interlinear and marginal space in the mise-en-page, the dominance of legibility as the defining quality, and a visual propriety that marks the vernacular out as a worthy medium of textual transmission. This confident manuscript production might have extended some years or it might have been concluded relatively quickly by this expert team of scribes. Subsequently, there was no sustained vernacular textual facture and this compellingly implies that this programme was centered around Leofric himself. What legacy, then, did the work of his prelacy create?

“Where the Past Lives” Caroline Steedman’s strange and compelling book, Dust, reminds us that To enter that place where the past lives, where ink on parchment can be made to speak, still remains the social historian’s dream, of bringing to life those who do not for the main part exist, not even between the lines of state papers and legal documents, not even in the records of Revolutionary bodies and fractions. . . . In the practices of history and of modern autobiographical narration, there is the assumption that nothing goes away; that the past has deposited all of its traces, somewhere, somehow (though they may be, in particular cases, difficult to retrieve).3

(Woodbridge: Boydell, 1993); and Patrick W. Conner, “Exeter’s Relics, Exeter’s Books,” in Essays on Anglo-Saxon and Related Themes in Memory of Lynne Grundy, ed. Jane Roberts and Janet Nelson, King’s College London Medieval Studies 17 (London: King’s College, Centre for Late Antique and Medieval Studies, 2000), 117–56. Also central to Exeter manuscripts are T. A. M. Bishop, “Notes on Cambridge Manuscripts Part III: MSS. Connected with Exeter,” Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society 2/2 (1955): 192–99; Elaine M. Drage, “Bishop Leofric and the Exeter Cathedral Chapter, 1050–1072: A Reassessment of the Manuscript Evidence” (unpubl. D.Phil. dissertation, University of Oxford, 1978); and Pierre Chaplais, “The Authenticity of the Royal Anglo-Saxon Diplomas of Exeter,” in his Essays in Medieval Diplomacy and Administration (London: Hambledon Press, 1981), item XV with original pagination, 1–37. Most recently, see Takako Kato, “Exeter Scribes in Cambridge, University Library, MS Ii. 2. 11,” and Erika Corradini, “The Objects of Knowledge: Reconstructing Medieval Communities through a Material Analysis of Manuscripts,” both in Producing and Using English Manuscripts in the PostConquest Period, ed. Elaine Treharne, Orietta Da Rold, Mary Swan, New Medieval Literatures 13 (2011): 5–21, and 199–220, respectively. 3 Caroline Steedman, Dust (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001), 70, 75–76. My emphasis.

1 The Conners of Exeter, 1070–1150

13

To search for substantial vernacular remains from post-Conquest Exeter is to search in vain, since no codices are extant in English—no large number of homilies such as we find from Worcester, Rochester, Christ Church Canterbury, and Ely. But there are textual materials that survive to be studied with these central premises in mind: that the ink on the parchment, and its in-between—between the lines—can be made to speak; that the inscribed remnants of the past, like the fragments of fabric clinging to resurrected bones, can be discovered and rewoven into a patterned narrative that completes our currently partial picture of Bishop Leofric’s legacy at Exeter. These materials testify to the profound impact Leofric had on his diocese, particularly the explicit appreciation for the value of the vernacular in pastoral and political activities, and the key role that seems to have been carved out for English-speaking local and regional congregations at the cathedral of St. Peter’s itself. Scribes writing in English at Exeter ca. 1070–1140 left traces of their interaction with the manuscripts in short legal documents and annotations written in English. These now survive as additions to Exeter Cathedral Library, 3501 (the Exeter Book), and Cambridge University Library, Ii. 2. 11, recently discussed by Takako Kato,4 and Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley 579. Without these brief texts, we should have no evidence of literacy or cultural and social exchange through the medium of English in the post-Conquest diocese of Exeter, despite the prolific production of vernacular manuscripts during the episcopacy of Leofric, up to 1072. These later scribes writing in the spaces of books created earlier—and many of whom were employed to write legal documents—evince a wide range of calligraphic ability, and a varied orthography in their crucial, public work. This suggests they were unlike their highly trained and consistent predecessors, who had written the corpus of manuscripts under Leofric. Their more personal and idiosyncratic responses to the manuscripts in which they intervene are apparent in the visual aspect and the mise-en-page of their stints. Moreover, akin to the Mortuary Rolls and Episcopal Professions analyzed in detail and used so effectively by Neil Ker in his English Manuscripts in the Century after the Conquest,5 this succession of legal and ceremonial documents written by these various scribes into Exeter books forms something of a catalogue of local vernacular script from the Conquest until the mid-twelfth

4 Kato, “Exeter Scribes in Cambridge, University Library, MS Ii. 2. 11.” See also Orietta Da Rold, Takako Kato, Mary Swan, and Elaine Treharne, The Production and Use of English Manuscripts 1060 to 1220 (Leicester: University of Leicester, 2010): http://www.le.ac.uk/ee/ em1060to1220/. 5 Neil Ker, English Manuscripts in the Century after the Conquest, The Lyell Lectures 1952–1953 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960).

14

Elaine Treharne

century. Indeed, some of the hands can be dated relatively closely, and can thus be considered as anchor hands for developments in specifically southwestern English paleography during these post-Conquest decades. All testify to the continued use of the vernacular for specialized textual functions, particularly those involving the laity in confraternity with Exeter Cathedral, and lay communities in smaller parishes closely affiliated with Exeter. And unlike so many other documents and manuscripts from which we retrieve our fragments of knowledge, these have all the appearance—both paleographic and prosopographic—of being near-contemporary records of then-current legal procedures. The three Exeter manuscripts contain batches of legal records that extend the function of the host volumes, though not all contemporaneously. Cambridge University Library, Ii. 2. 11 contains the West Saxon Gospels, datable to s. xi3/4, copied by one Exeter scribe; it also contains Leofric’s donation inscription, his inventory, and a relic-list. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley 579 is the tenth- and eleventh-century sacramentary commonly known as the Leofric Missal. It also contains the Leofric inventory. Exeter Cathedral Library MS 3501, datable to s. x2, is, of course, the Exeter Book of Old English poetry. I am not concerned with the manuscript per se, since it contains a number of displaced leaves that properly belong to CUL Ii. 2. 11 and that can be discussed alongside these Gospel Book leaves. Seven other manuscripts, listed and discussed by Pat Conner in AngloSaxon Exeter,6 contain an inscription declaring their donation by Leofric to the secular community at St. Peter’s, Exeter in 1072. Reconstructing the quires belonging to CUL Ii. 2. 11, which can be done thanks to Ker’s careful detective work, means it is possible to see two irregular gatherings—one at the beginning of the Gospels, and one at the end—containing a number of unique documents copied deliberately into the Old English Gospel Book. Their dates range from the contemporary inscription of ca. 1072 (Leofric’s death) to two Latin grants as late as ca. 1150. Some were entered retrospectively, and others suggest a present immediacy, and that raises all kinds of questions about the way this particular Gospel Book functioned after its creation as a municipal book, a public repository of legal materials sacralized by their specific physical context. From early in the medieval period, Gospel Books, and other volumes of sacred writing, were used to deposit a multitude of writings; it is clear from this that reliance on memory or the potential ephemerality of the single-leaf

6 Patrick W. Conner, Anglo-Saxon Exeter: A Tenth-Century Cultural History (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1993). All of the guild material is printed in B. Thorpe, ed., Diplomatarium anglicum ævi saxonici (London: Trübner, 1865), 605ff.

1 The Conners of Exeter, 1070–1150

15

document were deemed insufficiently secure means of ensuring the permanence of the record. Such writings include the famous inscription added to the mid-eighth-century Codex Aureus (Stockholm, Swedish Royal Library, A. 35) that surrounds the opening of the Gospel of St. Matthew. In Old English, the ninth-century annotation records that the book had been stolen by the Vikings, who first came raiding in England in 793, but had been ransomed back by Ealdorman Alfred and his wife Werburg. The determination of Alfred and Werburg to be remembered for their pious act is rendered through writing, a textual act relevant to the appropriate volume, rightly sure that the book’s glory would assist in its survival. This inscription and many others entered into Gospel Books are interventions in the text that are directly related to the host books; indeed, they become integral to the telling of the books’ history. Less obviously integrated, perhaps, but still deliberately and meticulously included in Gospel Books, are the legal documents and manumissions added later to the eighth-century Llandeilo Fawr Gospels;7 to the late ninth-century Bodmin Gospels (London, British Library, Additional 9381); and to London, British Library, Royal 1 B. vii, which details the freeing of a certain Eadhelm by King Athelstan.8 In these books, space is a precious commodity, often filled by words considered as valuable in temporal terms as the salvific utterances of Christ himself, ciphered through the Gospels. The intruding texts become unified with the main text, especially in the Bodmin or St. Petroc Gospels where manumissions are squeezed into the bas-de-page of numerous folios, or even written vertically in the margins. They share the same substrate, and, to the casual peruser, are often hidden from view, fitting into the extent of the writing grid relatively unobstrusively. This integration of ceremonial and legal writing into the secure environment of the sacred codex occurs, too, in Hereford Cathedral Library, P. 1. 2, a Gospel Book dated to the eighth century, with two eleventh-century legal records inserted into blank space.9 These insertions, which I have discussed

7 Also known as the Lichfield, St. Teilo, or St. Chad Gospels, now kept at Lichfield Cathedral, and digitally available: https://lichfield.ou.edu/ 8 Simon Keynes, “King Athelstan’s Books,” in Learning and Literature in Anglo-Saxon England: Studies Presented to Peter Clemoes, ed. Michael Lapidge and Helmut Gneuss (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 185–89. 9 For a brief discussion, see Simon Keynes, “Hereford Cathedral Diocese before 1056,” in Hereford Cathedral: A History, ed. Gerald Aylmer and John Tiller (London: Hambledon Press, 2000), 3–20, at 16–18. See, too, Richard Gameson’s chapter, “The Hereford Gospels,” in that same volume. The text is translated in D. Whitelock, ed., English Historical Documents I, c. 500–1042 (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1955), no. 135, p. 556.

16

Elaine Treharne

briefly elsewhere,10 are fascinating, and relevant especially to the discussion of the Exeter Gospels. At folios 134rv, the legal texts extend beyond the writing grid, illustrating a response of authority that subsumes that of the originally formatted page. A boundary of blankness provides an acknowledgement of textual individuation, and then the Old English text escapes the bounding lines, filling the remaining space. It is permanence that these recordings of events seek, and achieve through association with the Gospels. Here, though, the explicit recognition of the book’s function as public repository for the entire community is demonstrated by the account of a shire meeting during Cnut’s reign, in which a woman, Enniaun, rejects her son as heir and bequeaths her land to Leofflæd, wife of Thurkil the White instead. At the end of proceedings, we are told: Þa astod Þurcyll hwita up on þam gemote 7 bæd ealle þa ðegnas syllan his wife þa land clæne þe hire mage hire geuðe, 7 heo swa dydon. 7 Þurcyll rad ða to Sancte Æðelberhtes mynstre be ealles þæs folces leafe 7 gewitnesse 7 let settan on ane Cristes boc. Then Thurkil the White stood up in that [shire]-meeting, and asked all the thegns to give to his wife, clear from the claim, the lands which her kinswoman had granted her, and they did so. And Thurkil rode then with the permission and witness of all the people to St Ethelbert’s minster [at Hereford], and had it entered in a Gospel Book.11

In this example the Gospel Book is represented as a repository for a shire-wide community, a book in which—for the regional secular elite, at least—the looselytermed “marginal” legal text becomes central; the ancient Gospels’ significance is made contemporary and is about both the present recording of text, and the future assurance of land ownership—presenting and re-presenting meaning across time, within the public sphere. Such, too, was the fate of the York Gospels12 and, indeed, the Blickling Homilies—communal volumes, public collections of memory inscribed. Jon Wilcox calls the Blickling Homilies, in its later urbanized context, an

10 Elaine Treharne, “Textual Communities (Vernacular),” in A Social History of England, 900–1200, ed. Julia Crick and Elizabeth van Houts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 341–51, at 347–48. See also Clare Lees and Gillian Overing, Double Agents: Women and Clerical Culture in Anglo-Saxon England (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001), 72–75. 11 My edition and translation from manuscript, as are all the texts here, unless otherwise stated. Italics indicate extended abbreviations; bold indicates lexical items of particular significance. 12 York Minster 1, an early eleventh-century Gospel Book that was probably given to Wulfstan, Archbishop of York, and into which various texts were subsequently copied. See Elaine Treharne, Living Through Conquest: The Politics of Early English, 1020 to 1220, Oxford Textual Perspectives (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 22–29.

1 The Conners of Exeter, 1070–1150

17

“oath book”;13 I think we can be rather more precise, and label it specifically a Guild Book, a corporate codex.

Revealed in This Book In his work over the last decade, Patrick Conner has built up a convincing argument for the public performance of Old English literary work at the ceremonial feasts of Anglo-Saxon Parish Guilds. His work has focused chiefly on the Exeter Book verse, and, most recently, on Cambridge University Library, Ii. 2. 11, together with other Exeter manuscripts and documents from the tenth to the fourteenth centuries that he is able to relate to the early guilds.14 It seems beyond doubt that Exeter Cathedral was closely bound up with emergent guilds; that many entries in books produced or maintained at the cathedral, and indeed whole books themselves, were, effectively, corporately owned. This is surely how we must regard CUL Ii. 2. 11, the Exeter Gospel Book, which, like the Blickling Homilies, is remarkable for its sacralized Englishness—that is, as a venerated vernacular book selected by a corporate audience in the eleventh and twelfth centuries to include public, documentary additions to record the procedures of the guild. That Exeter had a vibrant guild culture is testimony to its wealth and status: it was the sixth wealthiest city in England in terms of taxable income in the late medieval period, even with a relatively small population. It was also one of the larger cities in pre-Conquest England, rated alongside Canterbury, Winchester, and Chester in The Cambridge Urban History of Britain: 600–1540.15 Evidence survives to show that by the fourteenth century, at least, Exeter had a city council of twelve, and men had long entered into the freedom of the city;16 mint-names show that it 13 Jonathan Wilcox, “The Blickling Homilies Revisited: Knowable and Probable Uses of Princeton University Library MS Scheide 71,” in The Genesis of Books: Studies in the Scribal Culture of Medieval England in Honour of A. N. Doane, ed. Matthew Hussey and John D. Niles (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011), 97–115. 14 Patrick W. Conner, “Parish Guilds and the Production of Old English Literature,” in Intertexts: Studies in Anglo-Saxon Culture Presented to Paul E. Szarmach, ed. Virginia Blanton and Helene Scheck (Tempe, AZ: ACMRS, 2008), 255–71. 15 Alan Dyer, “Appendix: Ranking lists of English medieval towns,” in The Cambridge Urban History of Britain: 600–1540, ed. Peter Clark and David Pallister (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 748ff. 16 See Maryanne Kowaleski, Local Markets and Regional Trade in Medieval Exeter (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), esp. p. 97 for the table of men entering into the freedom of the city of Exeter from the thirteenth century onwards. See Margery M. Rowe and Andrew M. Jackson, eds., Exeter Freemen, 1266–1967, Devon and Cornwall Record Society, e.s. 1 (Exeter: Devon and

18

Elaine Treharne

was by far the most important of the southwestern cities, and on a par with Canterbury in terms of its moneyers.17 It should be no surprise that Exeter’s guilds had a long history; its Guild Statutes survive in London, British Library, Cotton Tiberius B. v, folio 75, a leaf that originally belonged to an Exeter Latin Gospel Book.18 The cathedral, under Leofric’s foundation, was certainly the focal point of parish and diocesan pastoral care; it might even have been the center for craft guilds’ activities—as perhaps the Exeter minster had been before it. In Cambridge University Library Ii. 2. 11, the Old English Gospels written in Leofric’s episcopacy were augmented with thirty or so English and Latin documents filling folios at the beginning and another set of folios at the end (now in the Exeter Book), datable to ca. 1090–1150.19 These additional texts contain critical information for establishing the history of the guilds at Exeter; they also change the function of this Old English Gospel Book to an explicitly corporate codex. Most obviously, the lists of guilds at folio 7rv, datable to the end of the eleventh century, are an explicit statement of the links between guildsmen and the cathedral.20 Interestingly, these lists were written with an initial sense by the scribe or compiler of a long-term commitment by Exeter Cathedral to the guilds: spaces were left between the village groupings, with the intention, then, to fill in more names as guildspersons entered; present in this white space, though, is the absence of these expected names, and it might be supposed that whatever relationship had been fostered diminished or was inscribed elsewhere. The predominant records in these pages are so-called manumissions, examined most recently by David Pelteret in the context of slavery in early Medieval England.21 In total, from Anglo-Saxon England, 120 of these legal documents expressing manumission are extant, nearly all of which come from the southwest, probably as a result of Welsh influence, Wendy Davies argues.22 The most important collections are those in the Bodmin Gospels (London, British Library,

Cornwall Record Society, 1973). On the medieval guilds, including a discussion of Exeter and Woodbury, Charles Gross, The Gild Merchant: A Contribution to English Municipal History (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1890), is still useful. 17 Jayne Carroll and David N. Parsons, Anglo-Saxon Mint Names I: Axbridge—Hythe, EPNS e.s. 2 (Nottingham: EPNS, 2007), 134. 18 According to Whitelock, EHD I, no. 137, pp. 558–59, who translates the document. See, more recently, Conner, Anglo-Saxon Exeter, Appendix 1, 165–70, with text at 168–69. 19 The reconstruction of these leaves into their correct sequence is complex; see N. R. Ker, Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957), Item 20, 28–31. 20 See Conner, “Parish Guilds and the Production of Old English Literature.” 21 David Pelteret, Slavery in Early Mediaeval England (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1995). 22 Wendy Davies, “Charter Tradition,” in Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia, ed. John T. Koch (Oxford: ABC-Clio, 2006), 403–7.

1 The Conners of Exeter, 1070–1150

19

Additional 9381, mentioned above), and the Exeter manuscripts. Notably, the close association of manumission with the guilds is unequivocally witnessed by the single leaf bound in with London, British Library, Cotton Tiberius B. v. The leaf which contains the earlier tenth-century Exeter Guild Statutes also contains two manumissions, one written in the eleventh century onto the partially blank verso of the leaf; the other, datable to the mid-tenth century, squeezed onto the recto that contains the Statutes.23 This scribe’s desire to have actual physical proximity of manumission and Statutes suggests a deliberately intended material and textual relationship. This relationship is worth examining in more detail in the other Exeter so-called manumissions. One example of an apparent manumission was written into the space originally left blank for the names of additional guildspersons to be entered, at the opening folio of the first quire (now Exeter Book, folio 7r). Opening with a discreet form of capitulum to indicate a new textual item in the third major block of writing, this reads: Her cyþ on þissere béc þæt Gedmer, Spernægles sune, hæfð alised Leofilde his maga ut of Toppeshamlande mid iiii 7 xx penuge at Ceolrice, Heordinges gereua, Eadnoðes sune, 7 þærto is gewittnes Ælwine preost 7 Ailword Pudding 7 Heording 7 his broðras, 7 Wulford at Iacobescircan, 7 Huga se reda 7 eall þæt hundred at Toppeshamme. 7 se þe þis undo, habbe Godes curs 7 Sancta Maria efre butan ende. Here it is made known in this book that Gedmer, Spernægl’s son, has released Leofilde, his kinsman, out of Topsham with 24 pennies, at/from Ceolrice, Heording’s reeve, Eadnoð’s son, and thereto are witness Ælwine preost and Ailword Pudding and Heording and his brothers, and Wulford at St James’ Church, and Huga the advisor 7 all that hundred at Topsham, and may he who undoes this have God’s and St Mary’s curse for ever, without end.

Quite what this account is doing written—almost undetectably—tucked into the space of the guild-names is not immediately apparent. Frances Rose-Troup, who offers one of the most comprehensive accounts of these records, deduces that as there was no Topsham guild at this time, the scribe wrote it next to the Colaton Guild entry.24 But the way in which the record, added sometime in the first ten or twenty years of the twelfth century, is subsumed within the guildship section, denoted only by the initial capitulum, makes one wonder if this does not represent the introduction of someone new into the Colaton Guild itself? Is Leofilde’s entry into the Colaton Guild at the heart of this short document?

23 Ker, Catalogue, 256; Conner, Anglo-Saxon Exeter, Appendix 1, 165–70. 24 Frances Rose-Troup, “Exeter Manumissions and Quittances of the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries,” Reports and Transactions of the Devonshire Association 69 (1937): 417–45.

20

Elaine Treharne

The same scribe who wrote this Leofilde text, wrote another at the foot of folio 6r: Her kyþ on þissere béc þæt Liueger se bacestere on Excestre alysde an wifman Ediþ hatte, Godrices dohter, Cocraca, ut of Clistlande at Gosfreige bisceope to xxx peningas æfre ma freoh 7 saccles, heo 7 eal hire ofspring. 7 Gesfreige bisceop wæs hlaferd ofer Clistland on þam dagum. 7 þærto is gewitnis Colswein, 7 Roger on Buin, 7 Hereberd on Clist, 7 Edric se cipa. 7 se þe þis undo, hæbbe he Godes wræðe a butan ende. Amen. Here it is revealed in this book that Liveger the baker in Exeter has redeemed/released a woman called Edith, Godric Cockneck’s daughter, from Clist, from/at/before bishop Geoffrey for thirty pence, evermore free and sackless—she and all her offspring. And bishop Geoffrey was lord over Clist in those days. And thereto is the witness, Colswein, and Roger at Buin, and Herbert of Clist, and Edric the merchant. And he who undoes this, may he have God’s wrath ever without end. Amen.

Although this entry was written as the final five lines of this folio, it was not the last to be written, since the three above it are particularly compressed and extend the line-length beyond the writing grid. This document indicating the release or redemption of Edith refers to Geoffrey, the bishop of Coutances, who died in February 1093,25 and it’s clear that this document was written retrospectively, since “Geoffrey was lord over Clist in those days.” This scribe is thus, it seems, charged with bringing these records up to date where space is available on these leaves: a living, long-term commitment from the cathedral to the guild, then. Moreover, though, this apparent manumission may not be quite as clearcut as it may seem. The same Edith, apparently freed by Liveger the Baker also appears elsewhere in the sequence of texts in a document datable to around 1110,26 which occurs in the middle of folio 4v (in the quire in CUL Ii. 2. 11, the sequence of which was originally folios 5, 4, 6). In this later text, where Edith is now the wife of the said Liveger, Liveger is called upon to defend his wife from the unwanted attention of Hubert of Clist (perhaps the witness to the earlier of the documents in which Edith was, to all intents and purposes, released from servitude). Whatever complicated set of events is being recorded in this text on folio 4v, there is no transparent translation and, indeed, a literal translation makes little sense. Benjamin Thorpe, in his Diplomatarium Anglicum, has to fiddle with the language: Her kyþ on þissere béc þæt Huberd on Clist cræfede anne wifman þe Edit hatte, Liuegeres wif, mid unrihte, for þam Liueger hig alisde ut at Gosfreige bisceope ealswa man sceolde

25 Rose-Troup, “Manumissions,” 436. 26 Rose-Troup, “Manumissions,” 430.

1 The Conners of Exeter, 1070–1150

21

freohne wifman, 7 ealswa hit hriht wæs on þam dagum ælcne freohne27 man wiþ xxx peningas. 7 Huberd wæs leosende þære wifmanne far his unriht cræfinge þáá 7 æfre má, hig 7 eal hire ofspring. 7 þærto is gewitnis Willelm de Buhuz, 7 Ruold se cniht, 7 Osbern Fadera, 7 Unfreig de Tettaborna, 7 Alword portgereua, 7 Iohan se cniht, 7 Rau Folcard. 7 þeos spæc wæs innan Villelmes bure de Buhuz on Excestre gespæce. Here it is known, in this book, that Hubert at Clist demanded a woman named Edith, wife of Liveger, with injustice, because Liveger had redeemed her [alysan ut] of bishop Geoffrey as a man should [make] a free woman, and as it was right in those days [to make] every free man for 30 pence. And Hubert lost the woman, for his unjust claim [summons], then and evermore, her and all her offspring. And thereto are witnesses, William de Buhuz, and Ruold the knight, and Osbern Fadera, and Humphrey de Tettaborne, and Alword portreeve, and John the knight, and Ralph Folkard. And this cause was argued in the chamber of William de Buhuz at Exeter.28

Problems with accessing these documents’ interpretation emerge from the literal translation of key terms, such as the use of the phrasal verbs “alysan . . . ut” (“released,” “redeemed,” or here, perhaps “paid the fine for”?), “bycgan . . . at” (bought from, or here, perhaps “paid for in front of,” “sponsored”?); and individual lemma, such as “freoh” (“free,” or here, perhaps “at liberty”?), “saccles” (“without blame,” “guiltless,” or here, perhaps “unmolested”?), “cwæð saccles” (“said [to be] without guilt,” or here, perhaps “declared should be unmolested”?), “to cepe and to toll” (“price and toll” or here, perhaps “trade and tax”?), “gespæce” (“argued,” or here, perhaps “guild-meeting”?), and “saccles of elcre craefigge” (“sackless from every demand,” or here, perhaps “safe from any summons”?). If the suggested interpretations are supplied in the documents, the meaning begins to shift dramatically from the manumitting of the unfree to something altogether different. Indeed, supplementary evidence provided by these sets of texts does indicate something other than their labeling as manumissions. Groups of documents are closely related either by the people involved in the various transactions, or by the lexis used, which tends to cluster, and which, as Pelteret points out in relation to its formulaic nature, might be a record of actual speech.29 In relation to the shared persons, for example, Edith—wife of Liveger—appears in these two quoted documents, written some years apart, the later of which involves a case requiring William de Buz’s intervention in his chamber. This same William

27 This word, “freohne,” occurs twice in the corpus of Old English, both times in this document. See s.v. “freohne,” Dictionary of Old English. 28 This translation is by B. Thorpe, ed., Diplomatarium Anglicum, 633–45, with bold added to highlight problematic words and phrases. The Old English is my own edition. 29 Pelteret, Slavery, 146, following Florence Harmer’s view of the formulae in writs.

22

Elaine Treharne

appears again in a later document, this one written in Latin on folio 5r, in what appears to be absolutely contemporary script, datable to the second quarter of the twelfth century. Here, in this document, “William de Buz ab omnia seruitute absoluit” one Edwine Spileman—a phrase which might indicate the freeing of Edwin Spileman, but which is also reminiscent of the action of absolving beneficiaries from military service, manorial service, or other obligations due. Even more intriguingly, it is also the case that such absolution of services owed is one of the many benefits accrued by guildsmen when they become a freeman of a Craft or Merchant Guild in the Ceremony of Admittance. It is to this possibility of the occasion of a Ceremony of Admittance as the cause for the creation of these numerous documents that I now turn. Given this interpretative leeway for a moment—that what is extant in all of these Exeter documents represents a guild’s ceremonial admittance—we obtain a different explanation for the so-called manumissions in CUL Ii. 2. 11: that is, these are records of the admittance of freemen and freewomen of the Exeter Guilds. This would elucidate conclusively why the guildspersons’ names are in the Gospel Book, with what has appeared to be, to date, an eclectic mix of legal materials: this book becomes a formal, corporate record, and the earliest in the country, of the guilds’ business. It would also explain why, in our first example, the insertion of the later text concerning Leofilde was made so seamlessly, introducing another guild member, and his circumstances of admission, into the group of those who already belonged. It would explain, too, why these records cease in the middle of the twelfth century, when the actual Guildhall in Exeter was built (perhaps),30 and when entry into the cathedral’s Gospel Book would no longer be required. In addition, this explanation would, in addition, account for anomalies detected in the records by commentators, records that appear to deal with persons who clearly could not have been enslaved or in servitude or in threat of such in any meaningful way, like Liveger the Baker’s wife, whose status suggests she would be a freewoman; or, in another case on folio 5r, the nephew of a Robert of Powderham, whom this Robert “cwæð saccles,” despite the fact he could surely not have been enslaved. To date, the published translations of the specialist lexis in the English documents have potentially resulted in opacity, at best, requiring various kinds of manipulation to make sense. The documents in CUL Ii. 2. 11 that appear to be manumissions, might, in fact, testify not to the payment required for freeing a slave, but to the customary dues paid when the guildsperson entered the

30 S. R. Blaylock, “Exeter Guildhall,” Devon Archaeological Society Proceedings 48 (1990): 123–78.

1 The Conners of Exeter, 1070–1150

23

freedom of the guild by paying the membership fee—the fine. This freedom in the guild involved various rights and privileges, collectively known as the “liberty.” These enfranchised citizens included women and offspring and, indeed, many customals from the later Middle Ages function through inherited franchises and evince numerous examples of rights passed from father to son. The importance of this inheritance is visible in the status of the witnesses of these legal documents. In the following example from folio 4v of CUL Ii. 2. 11, though, it is less the witnesses who are interesting and more the terms of the contract: Her kyð on þissere bec þæt Willelm de la Brugere cwæð saccles Wulwærd ðane Webba, inna tune and ut of tune of elce crafigge. 7 þarto is iwitnis, Rau Teodberhtes sune, 7 Teodberhtes his sune 7 Atsun se hwita, Hroðolf Alca sune, Hemeri cuta kig, Philippe Pagenes sune, Ricard Alka sune, Gesfrei hoel, Herbð, 7 Gollein, Ailwerd faber 7 his broðer, Rau de Salcei, Herlawine, Brihtmer uidic. Se þe þis mare undo, habbe he Cristes curs, and Sancta Maria 7 ealle Cristes halgena a butan ende. Amen. It is shown in this book that William de la Bruge called Wulfwaerd the Weaver “sackless” of every claim within and without the town. And thereto is witness Ralph son of Teodberht, and the son of Teodberht and Atsun the white, Hrothulf Alca’s son, Hemery Cutakig, Philip son of Pagene, Richard son of Alke, Geoffrey Hoel, Herbth, and Gollein, Ailwerd Faber and his brother, Ralph of Salsey, Herlawine, Brihtmer Uidic. He who undoes this, let him be cursed by Christ, and Holy Mary and all Christ’s Saints without end. Amen.

Until now, this document has been translated as revealing another manumission, here of Wulfwaerd the Weaver, who was “called sackless” (whatever that means) in and out of town. Bosworth-Toller translates this rare, and surely specifically legal, word as “without blame,” “without fault.”31 This would be an odd claim to make of a slave if he or she were being manumitted. There is an alternative definition, however: “unmolested,” or “safely.” In the contemporary Leges Eadwardi, the Liberty of Cities states: Liberty of Cities. C.l. Be it known that within the space of three miles from all parts outside of the city a man ought not to hold or hinder another, and also should not do business with him if he wish to come to the city under its peace. But when he arrives in the city, then let the market be the same to the rich man as to the poor.32

31 Joseph Bosworth, An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary: Based on the Manuscript Collections of the Late Joseph Bosworth, ed. Thomas Northcote Toller (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1898), s.v. “sacleas.” 32 Benjamin Thorpe, ed., Ancient Laws and Institutes of England (London: Eyre and Spottiswood, 1840), 462, reprinted in Roy C. Cave and Herbert H. Coulson, A Sourcebook for Medieval Economic History (Milwaukee: The Bruce Publishing Co., 1936; repr. New York: Biblo & Tannen, 1965), 199–200.

24

Elaine Treharne

In the guild contract above between William de la Brugere and Wulfwærd, it is possible to understand the document thus: Here it is revealed in this book that William de la Brugere announced Wulfwærd the Weaver should be unmolested, within town and without, by any summons. And thereto is witness Rau, son of Teodberht, etc.

This rare, semantically specialized word, “saccles,” occurs most frequently in these legal documents in collocation with “freoh” (“free”). This phrase is paralleled by a number of other, equally rare phrases that are also difficult to translate. Comparing these Old English phrases with Latin charters of concession, we find legal formulae, such as a grant made quod libere et sine omni impedimento.33 Scholars’ ability to understand these earlier medieval legal or ceremonial documents turns on formulaic phrases in Latin charters and in English; this legal jargon seems transparent, but it is not. For example, within the legal exchanges in these Exeter ceremonies, the phrase “to cepe 7 to tolle” is employed. “Toll,” or “payment due,” is used fifty and more times in Old English, usually in a strictly legal context and in collocation with “team,” in respect to the granting of privileges waiving the grantor’s right to toll. In the Exeter documents, though, this phrase occurs in the unique collocation, “to cepe 7 to tolle,” rendered as “price and toll,” but its uniqueness begs the question of its precise nuance, its specialist function in these post-Conquest texts. “Toll” might be considered integral to the formulaic lexis of guild records, as a payment specific to the burgesses in their governing and being governed. A charter of Henry II, for example, granted freedom from toll to cives mei Wintoniensis, which suggests to James Tait that “the borough community and the gild were only two aspects of the same body.”34 The same is the case with lexis that appears as mundane as “bohte . . . æt,” consistently rendered as “bought . . . from,” and yet surely open to interpretation as “paid the price for . . . in front of,” where “price” means “the fixed fine of entry.” Some of the formulae here are undoubtedly legal argot, with a narrow semantic range that is not immediately equivalent to its literal meaning; but even with obvious words, in this register, the complexity of ritual inevitably moves us away from literalism. As Paul Hyams reminds us in his most recent work on legal documents and their meaning in the post-Conquest period, “Charters [and by extension, the 33 In a later charter from King John to the Burgesses of Leicester, who should be able “to come and go freely and without hindrance”: Mary Bateson, ed., Records of the Borough of Leicester: 1103–1327 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1899), 7. 34 James Tait, The Medieval English Borough: Studies on Its Origins and Constitutional History (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1936; repr. 1999), 229.

1 The Conners of Exeter, 1070–1150

25

kinds of material in the Exeter records] only allow us to receive the words they contain; we must always recognize the possibility that their account of the acts that do the real work is incomplete.”35 As such, interpreting these documents in the light of twelfth-century analogous diplomatic materials potentially changes the content and meaning of the exchanges in the Exeter Gospel Book from manumissions to something more closely resembling entry into freedom in the guilds. Such an interpretation would parallel the procedure, as much as it can be deduced, in the earliest Leicester Borough Records, where, as Bateson explains, “The assembly, whoever was there, chose in all likelihood an alderman and colleagues to swear in and receive the entrance-money and the hanse (a toll) of all those who should thereafter be known as the Gild of Merchants. In return for these fees, the burgess or the stranger might buy and sell by wholesale and retail within the borough and prevent all others from doing so.”36 The guild would do its business at the “morgenspæce” overseen by the alderman or other official. In the text discussed above and featuring William de Buhuz, who heard the case of Edith and Liveger in Exeter, the reader was told “7 þeos spæc wæs innan Willelmes bure de Buhuz on Excestre gespæce,” usually translated as “this debate was heard in the chamber of William de Buhuz in Exeter.” I should prefer to argue that the debate took place at the Exeter equivalent of the Leicester Guild’s “morgenspæc”—the formal meeting of the guild. The earliest Leicester lists show the guildsmen entering the freedom in a sequence with their payments listed, together with their names and sometimes their village, and always their witnesses or sponsors. Such a ceremony would account for the rather strange so-called manumissions in the Exeter records that detail the apparent “release” or “sale” of family members of the minor nobility.37 R. B. Dobson explains the process of “urban ‘freedom’,” a term used in relation to later records of the York Guilds.38 In those York texts, those who were new freemen were required to swear on the Freeman’s Register, as it is known now. Dobson demonstrates that admittance to the freedom was by patrimony: that is, “theoretically the direct ‘heirs’ of the burgesses who benefited from twelfth- and 35 I am grateful to the author for allowing me to read a pre-publication draft of “The Joy of Freedom and the Price of Respectablity”, since published as Paul R. Hyams, “La joie de la liberté et le prix de la resplectabilité: Autour de chartes d’affanchissement Anglaise et d’actes Français analogues (v. 1160 – 1307),” Bibliothèque de l’École des chartes 164.2 (2006): 371–389. Fuller analysis is forthcoming in Hyams book entitled The Joy of Freedom and the Price of Respectability. 36 Bateson, ed., Leicester, xxvii–viii. 37 Rose-Troup, “Exeter Manumissions,” 428. 38 R. B. Dobson, “Admissions to the Freedom of the City of York in the Later Middle Ages,” Economic History Review (1973): 1–22, at 3.

26

Elaine Treharne

thirteenth-century charters” (thus the sons of freemen).39 This patrimonial element might be illustrated by the insistence in the lists of witnesses and beneficiaries in the Exeter records, even to the point of inserting fathers’ names in the interlinear space, as happens in the last example cited above from CUL Ii. 2. 11. That there may well have been a formally organized guild in Exeter earlier in the twelfth century than has been recognized is suggested by Tait in his discussion of a grant of land to St. Nicholas, Exeter, by omnes cives Exonie in 1147. This was delivered manu nostra by Theobald fitz Reiner, ut dapifer noster. Tait suggests this demonstrates an early stage of the gilda mercanda, which is more explicitly manifested by the end of the twelfth century.40 A major difference between the Leicester or York records and those from Exeter, though, is that the former two borough records are predominantly in Latin, smattered with English terms; at Exeter, Leofric’s vernacular legacy and the Anglo-Saxon past is alive and well a century after the see’s foundation, the English of the records underscoring the close links between the cathedral chapter and the native English. However speculative some of what is posited here might seem prima facie, scholars would do well to remember that just as the Exeter legal documents change the nature of the manuscript in which they were made permanent, so too a closer examination of the form, linguistic detail, and function of these documents might lead to a better understanding of the emergence of guild culture. From this might be gleaned a greater appreciation of what might be in this Gospel Book the first major corporate or borough records to survive from medieval England, with significant repercussions for understanding ecclesiastical and lay society and culture in Exeter from the tenth to the twelfth century, and the important synergistic interactions between the religious and the secular. This is just as Patrick Conner argued in his foundational study of Exeter twenty-plus years ago: an argument that is as significant and pioneering now, as it was when he first made it.

39 Dobson, “Admissions to the Freedom of the City of York,” 6–7. 40 Tait, Medieval English Borough, 227–28.

David F. Johnson

2 Winchester Revisited: Æthelwold, Lucifer, and the Place of Origin of MS Junius 11 Of the four major codices containing Old English literature, it is perhaps Oxford, Bodleian MS Junius 11 that, until fairly recently, had most successfully thwarted attempts to establish both its date and place of origin. They all have their problems: The Exeter Book (Exeter, Dean and Chapter MS 3501) is tenth century (based on the paleography), but the place of origin has been a subject of some debate, in which our honoree has played a central role. The Vercelli Book (Vercelli, Biblioteca Capitolare MS CXVII) has been confidently dated to the late tenth century based on its paleography, but where it was made is uncertain. And while there is a consensus on the dating of the Beowulf manuscript (London, British Library MS Cotton Vitellius A. XV) to the early eleventh century, its place of origin is likewise unknown.1 The point is that there does not seem to be any kind of real consensus on either the date or the place of origin

1 On the date, place of origin, and provenance of the Exeter Book, see George Philip Krapp and Elliott Van Kirk Dobbie, eds., The Exeter Book, Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records 3 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1936), and the most recent edition by Bernard J. Muir, ed., The Exeter Anthology of Old English Poetry: An Edition of Exeter Dean and Chapter MS 3501, 2 vols. (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1994; rev. 2nd ed., 2000). On the place of origin, see especially Patrick W. Conner, Anglo-Saxon Exeter: A Tenth-Century Cultural History, Studies in Anglo-Saxon History 4 (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 1993), 33–47. For an opposing view, see Richard Gameson, “The origin of the Exeter Book of Old English Poetry,” Anglo-Saxon England 25 (1996): 135–85. On the Vercelli Book, see G. P. Krapp, ed., The Vercelli Book, AngloSaxon Poetic Records 2 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1932) and D. G. Scragg, ed., The Vercelli Homilies and Related Texts, Early English Text Society Original Series 300 (London: Early English Text Society, 1992). Scragg suggests St. Augustine’s, Canterbury. For the date and place of origin of the Beowulf manuscript, see the introductions to F. Klaeber, ed., Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg, 3rd ed. (Boston: D.C. Heath, 1950), now revised by R. D. Fulk, R. E. Bjork, and J. D. Niles as Klaeber’s Beowulf (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008). On the dating of the manuscript, see especially the contributions in The Dating of Beowulf, ed. C. Chase (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981), and Beowulf and the Beowulf Manuscript, 2nd ed. (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1996), as well as D. N. Dumville’s “The Beowulf Manuscript and How Not to Date it,” Medieval Studies English Newsletter (Tokyo) 39 (1998): 21–27. David F. Johnson, Florida State University https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501513060-003

28

David F. Johnson

for Junius 11. In fact, the safest description of this manuscript that the empirical data seem to allow is the one that puts it ca. 1000, “somewhere in southern England.” Yet the temptation to link the production of this manuscript to a certain place and time has proven no easier to resist than has been the case with any of the other codices, and the discussion has generated nearly as much debate as that surrounding the place of origin of the Exeter Book. Many scholars have offered their solutions to this problem over the course of the last hundred years or so and I will preface my own attempt to revisit the issues of provenance and dating with a brief retrospective review of the theories previously proposed. I hope it will be helpful to reiterate their most salient points, in the interest of contextualizing the “new” data I would like to consider here. What I hope to demonstrate in this article is that this data constitutes just cause for revisiting Winchester as the possible place of origin for Junius 11. The evidence for both date and provenance falls into four general categories: the paleographical, the philological, the iconographical, and what may loosely be termed external or circumstantial. To begin, then, with the paleographical evidence. Wolfgang Keller dated the script of the first section of the manuscript (Genesis, Exodus, Daniel) to the range 970–980.2 Israel Gollancz thought such an explicit dating impossible and preferred “about 1000.”3 Ker authoritatively established this compromise dating in his Catalogue, assigning the date x/xi to the first section of the manuscript, and xi to the so-called book two (Christ and Satan). We should do well to remember, as Ker himself reminds us, that x/xi means “either at the beginning or at the end of the half century,” and so in this case we are looking at a range of dates between 975 and 1025, though the paleographical criteria would seem to favor the early end of this range.4 In a more recent study, Leslie Lockett takes an integrated approach to the dating of the manuscript, examining the manuscript’s illustrations (style and color), decorated initials, script, punctuation, and other codicological evidence, arguing authoritatively and convincingly for a range of 960 × 990.5 The most recent—and thorough—treatment of the paleography of Junius 11 is by Peter Stokes. He concludes that the work of the 2 Wolfgang Keller, Angelsächsische Palaeographie, vol. 43.1 (Berlin: Mayer & Müller, 1906). 3 A dating which Krapp then followed. Israel Gollancz, The Cædmon Manuscript of Anglo-Saxon Biblical Poetry: Junius XI: In the Bodleian Library (London: British Academy, 1927), at xviii; G. P. Krapp, ed., The Junius Manuscript, Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records 1 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1931), at x–xi. 4 Ker, N. R. Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1957): xx. 5 Leslie Lockett, “The dating of Oxford, Bodleian Library, Junius 11,” Anglo-Saxon England 31 (2002): 141–73. On the letter forms of the square minuscule of the first scribe, she mainly follows Ker, rejecting Dumville’s assumptions of uniform employment of the phases he identifies in royal diplomas from the mid-tenth century on as essentially groundless.

2 Winchester Revisited: Æthelwold, Lucifer, and the Place of Origin

29

first hand (the subject of Lockett’s study and the one responsible for Genesis A) might rather be dated to the later part of this range.6 Until very recently no one had proposed a provenance for the manuscript based on an identification of the Junius scribe’s hand with others known from Anglo-Saxon scriptoria. Lockett does identify three manuscripts from Canterbury whose hands bear some resemblance to Junius 11, but she is justifiably hesitant to conclude that Junius 11 must also be a Canterbury product based on this evidence.7 “We need not assume,” she says, “that Junius 11 came from the same scriptorium as the Trinity College manuscripts, because scribes and books travelled, and a writing master could have used as his teaching exemplar a high-grade manuscript from another house.”8 Stokes adduces four additional manuscripts that share some features of the first scribe’s hand in Junius 11, but of these, only one is a Canterbury product. One is possibly from Glastonbury, another definitely from Exeter, and the last unattributed.9 Turning next to the philological evidence, we can be brief, as the linguistic features of Genesis A, Exodus, Daniel, and Christ and Satan are of no help whatsoever in determining the date or provenance of the manuscript. Linguistic tests, most recently those applied by R. D. Fulk (1989, 1990) have borne out the traditionally early dating for at least the first three of these poems, rendering it more than obvious that they predate the production of the manuscript.10 Of some potential interest in this context is the question of when the transmission and transliteration of the interpolated Genesis B occurred. B. J. Timmer dated the transliteration to shortly after Alfred’s reign, ca. 900, based on its phonology and vocabulary, in which he detected Early West-Saxon features.11

6 Peter A. Stokes, English Vernacular Minuscule from Æthelred to Cnut circa 990–circa 1035, Publications of the Manchester Centre for Anglo-Saxon Studies 14 (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2014), 126–27. 7 Lockett, “The dating of Junius 11,” 167. 8 Lockett, “The dating of Junius 11,” 167. 9 Stokes, English Vernacular Minuscule, 127, n. 33. 10 See “West Germanic Parasiting, Sievers’ Law, and the Dating of Old English Verse,” Studies in Philology 86 (1989): 117–38, and “Contraction as a Criterion for Dating Old English Verse,” Journal of English and Germanic Philology 89 (1990): 1–16; Doane and Remley have argued, on the evidence of the sectional divisions in Junius 11, that the three poems underwent “a minimum of four stages in the transmission of the verse now preserved uniquely between its boards.” Paul Remley, Old English Biblical Verse (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 28. See also A. N. Doane, ed., The Saxon Genesis (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991), 12 and 240. Doane accepts a range between 650 x 900, with the later date being the more likely (36–37), if one assumes that Genesis A was revised at the time of the translation of Genesis B. 11 B. J. Timmer, The Later Genesis (Oxford; Scrivener Press, 1948), 17, 19–42, 44–45.

30

David F. Johnson

A. N. Doane, in his discussion of the unity of the two parts of Genesis A, notes that differences in their language might indicate they were composed at different times, though his conclusion is that the differences do not in the end warrant this supposition. He follows Timmer in positing an Alfredian or immediately post-Alfredian date for the transliteration of Genesis B.12 Ute Schwab reached much the same conclusion in her work on Genesis B and its Saxon model.13 Gerould (1911) was the first to posit a later date for its transliteration, situating it squarely in the tenth-century Benedictine reform, ca. 970, also based upon philological grounds, among others.14 Priebsch also concluded that the transliteration was a product of the late tenth century.15 It seems, then, that the philological evidence pertaining to the transliteration of Genesis B allows for a date anywhere from the end of the ninth to the last quarter of the tenth century, though the current consensus is that it should be situated at the early end of the spectrum. In the interest of economy, I would like to consider the remaining categories of evidence—the iconographical and external—together, and to take as my point of departure the four centers that have been proposed as the place of origin for Junius 11. These are, in the order I should like to consider them, Christ Church, Canterbury; Glastonbury; Malmesbury; and Winchester. The case for a Christ Church, Canterbury origin rests on two main pieces of evidence. The first is M. R. James’s well-known identification of Junius 11 with a manuscript appearing in Prior Henry of Eastry’s early fourteenth-century catalogue

12 A. N. Doane, ed., Genesis A: A New Edition (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1978), 34–35. He maintains this position in his 1991 edition of The Saxon Genesis, cited above; he says there (pp. 48–49) that “the early West-Saxon forms show that the late tenth century dating of the ‘translation’ of the Old Saxon poem into Old English put forward by Gerould . . . Priebsch . . ., and Ohlgren is clearly wrong, and Timmer’s dating in the early tenth (or even ninth) century is clearly right.” Doane adds the colorful remark to his speculations on when the transliteration occurred: “Although it is likely that Genesis B represents just a visual ripple in a ceaseless two-way flow of books between England and Germany, often mentioned as the actual agent or intermediary is the Saxon John, appointed abbot of Athelney by Alfred; Priebsch (38) adduces, among others, Grimbald (d. 904), . . . first abbot of New Minster, Westminster [sic].” 13 Ute Schwab, Eine Beziehungen zwischen alsächsischer und angelsächsischer Dichtung, Centro italiano di studi sull’ alto medioevo 8 (Spoleto: Centro italiano di studi sull’ alto medioevo, 1988), 117–215. 14 Gordon Gerould, “The Transmission and Date of Genesis B,” Modern Language Notes (1911): 129–33, at 132. As Ohlgren notes, “he presents linguistic data to show that the use of early features should be attributed to the scribe, or redactor, rather than the translator (Thomas H. Ohlgren, “Some New Light on the Old English Caedmonian Genesis,” Studies in Iconography 1 (1975): 38–73, at 62). 15 R. Priebsch, The Heliand Manuscript: Cotton Caligula A. VII in the British Museum, A Study (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1925), 40–41.

2 Winchester Revisited: Æthelwold, Lucifer, and the Place of Origin

31

of Christ Church, Canterbury. But the description appearing there, “Genesis Anglice depicta,” which James connected to the cataloguer’s title “Genesis in anglico,” found on page 2 of Junius 11,16 might just as easily be associated with the Old English Illustrated Hexateuch, BL MS Cotton Claudius B. iv, which resided at St. Augustine’s, Canterbury, a possibility he first suggests, then rejects.17 Noteworthy here is that most proponents of the Canterbury provenance seem to have adopted James’s position that “cause ought to be shown for assigning the Junius ms. away from Christ Church,” while I find little positive evidence in discussions of the topic of anyone having read the rest of the relevant paragraph in James’s description: “It is possible, by the way, to reconcile both views [i.e. the Canterbury and Winchester provenances current at the time] through the supposition that, like the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the Genesis was sent from Winchester to Canterbury after the fire of 1067.”18 He is here making a point that seems only recently to have been recognized, namely that the ascription in the Canterbury catalogue, if it is indeed accurate, establishes only the manuscript’s whereabouts in the early fourteenth century. The second kind of evidence for Canterbury is iconographical and stylistic. Homburger was among the first to posit a Canterbury origin on stylistic grounds, based mainly on his assumption that painting was the norm at Winchester, while outline drawings pointed to Canterbury, a view now regarded as overly simplistic.19 Art historians have long noted similarities between the work of

16 M. R. James, Ancient Libraries of Canterbury and Dover (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1903), xxv, lxxxviii, 51. Henry of Eastry was prior of Christ Church from 1284 to 1331. 17 Gollancz, The Cædmon Manuscript, xxxvii; P. J. Lucas, “MS Junius 11 and Malmesbury,” Scriptorium 34 (1980): 197–220, at 214. Rodney Thomson, “Identifiable books from the preConquest library of Malmesbury Abbey,” Anglo-Saxon England 10 (1982): 1–19, at 17. Barbara Raw cites Clemoes and Dodwell on the theory that Cotton Claudius B. iv was not the only manuscript of its kind. It was certainly not the first to combine the pictures it contains (“The Probable derivation of the illustrations in Junius 11 from an illustrated Old Saxon Genesis,” Anglo-Saxon England 5 (1976): 133–48, at 135). 18 James, Ancient Libraries, xxvi. 19 But a manuscript crucial to his theory, Harley 2904, has since been firmly attributed to Winchester on liturgical and paleographical grounds. Otto Homburger, Die Anfänge der Malschule von Winchester im X. Jahrhundert (Leipzig: Dieterich, 1912). For this assessment of Homburger’s theory and the information on this manuscript, see Linda Brownrigg, “Manuscripts containing English decoration 871–1066, catalogued and illustrated: A review,” Anglo-Saxon England 7 (1978): 239–66; at 246 and n. 2. See also her review of Wormald’s Drawings and his comments on locating styles in the tenth century on p. 248 and n. 2, worth citing in full here: “The drawings of the late tenth and early eleventh centuries do certainly divide conveniently into the two groups which have just been discussed, but the matter is complicated by the fact that unlike some continental schools of illumination these styles cannot be associated with a particular locality.

32

David F. Johnson

the second artist in Junius 11 and that of the man who worked on the illustrated Prudentius manuscript (Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 23).20 That manuscript was donated to Malmesbury in the mid-eleventh century, but the Canterbury provenance of CCCC 23 would appear to depend on the Junius 11 artist having been there, too, hence the circularity of the argument becomes clear.21 If recent assessments are to be believed, all arguments that would remove the question mark from a Canterbury attribution based on stylistic, iconographical evidence are, in the end, inconclusive. Lockett has made the case that the iconographical evidence on its own is not sufficient to be decisive, and Catherine Karkov provides an important cautionary caveat regarding this kind of evidence when contemplating the place of origin of Junius 11: The style of the drawings is unfortunately no help in establishing the origins of the manuscript. Junius 11 has traditionally been attributed to Christ Church, Canterbury, although attributions to Winchester, Glastonbury, and Malmesbury have also been posited. The hand of the second artist has been identified in several of the drawings in the psychomachia (Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 23), also traditionally attributed to Canterbury, though again the attribution has been questioned. Neither the Winchester style whose influence is evident in the work of the first artist, nor the more strongly Reims-influenced work of the second artist can be linked to a specific location, as both were popular across the south of England during the second half of the tenth century. Moreover, artists could also travel from monastery to monastery, making the association of individual hands with particular locales all but impossible to establish.22

Glastonbury was proposed for the first time by John Higgitt in his review of Elzbieta Temple’s Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: 900–1066.23 Higgitt pointed to Glastonbury as a rival book-producing center, despite the lack of significant

It is improbable that it will ever be possible to make a division of this kind . . .. Stylistic differences are much more likely to have arisen from the artist being influenced, in one way or another, by his archetypes rather than by a definite training in a single local style” (35). 20 An identification not granted by all who have considered the question. Temple (Elzbieta Temple, ed., Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts 900–1066, vol. 2 of A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, ed. J. J. G. Alexander (London: Harvey Miller, 1976)) and Lucas (“MS Junius 11 and Malmesbury”) find it convincing, but Rice (David Talbot Rice, English Art, 871–1100, vol. 2 of Oxford History of English Art (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1952), at 204) disagrees. 21 See Temple, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts 900–1066, 70. 22 Catherine E. Karkov, Text and Picture in Anglo-Saxon England: Narrative Strategies in the Junius 11 Manuscript, Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England 31 (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 35. On this last point, Karkov cites R. Gameson, “English Manuscript Art in the Mid-Eleventh Century: The Decorative Tradition,” Antiquaries Journal 71 (1991): 64–122, at 67. 23 John Higgit, Review of Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: 900–1066, by Elzbieta Temple, The Burlington Magazine 119 (1977): 445.

2 Winchester Revisited: Æthelwold, Lucifer, and the Place of Origin

33

manuscript evidence from before 1050. He expanded on this argument in a follow-up article in 1979, where he makes much of the great debt Canterbury owed to Glastonbury during the monastic reform.24 Higgitt makes an interesting case, but as Richard Gameson has pointed out, “the manuscript art of that house is an unknown quantity, and its potential influence on the scriptorium of Christ Church in this respect as in other matters is imponderable.”25 One of the most thorough attempts to determine the place of origin of Junius 11 was published by Peter Lucas in Scriptorium in 1980 and ’81.26 In this interdisciplinary study, Lucas makes the case for Malmesbury. It rests on several main positive arguments, all of which, however, have proven susceptible to doubt. Lucas adduces the stylistic similarities between Junius 11 and CCCC 23 already mentioned as evidence that the two must have been produced at the same center, to which Rodney Thomson, in his study of “Identifiable books from pre-Conquest Malmesbury Abbey,” replies, not unreasonably, that the “peripatetic operations of illuminators” is a well-known medieval phenomenon.27 Lucas offers stylistic, iconographical grounds for a Malmesbury origin in the form of some close correspondences between a number of the drawings in Junius 11 and “features of some of the carved medallions”—dated 1170–1180—“on the entrance arch of the south porch of Malmesbury abbey.”28 But as Thomson points out, the most this can support is that Junius 11 was in Malmesbury in the twelfth century.29 A further piece of evidence adduced by Lucas to support his attribution is one that turns up quite often in these arguments, namely the question of who that handsome medallion portrait on page 2 of Junius 11, with the name “Ælfwine” as identifying label, is supposed to represent.30 Like others before him, Lucas finds a 24 John Higgitt, “Glastonbury, Dunstan, Monasticism and Manuscript,” Art History 2 (1979): 275–90. 25 Richard Gameson, “Manuscript Art at Christ Church, Canterbury, in the Generation after Dunstan,” in St. Dunstan: His Life, Times and Cult, ed. Nigel Ramsay, Margaret Sparks, and Tim Tatton-Brown (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1992), 187–220, at 189, n. 8. 26 Lucas, “MS Junius 11 and Malmesbury”; and Peter J. Lucas, “Junius 11 and Malmesbury (II),” Scriptorium 35 (1981): 3–22. 27 Rodney Thomson, “Identifiable books from the pre-Conquest library of Malmesbury Abbey,” Anglo-Saxon England 10 (1982): 1–19, at 17. Thomson cites twelfth-century examples, such as the “work of the ‘Alexis Master’ of the St. Albans Psalter or of the artist of the Lambeth Bible” as cases in point; “one cannot assume,” he states, “a single scriptorium for two manuscripts simply because they were illustrated by the same artist.” 28 P. J. Lucas, “MS Junius 11 and Malmesbury,” 215. 29 Thomson, “Identifiable books,” 17. 30 An illustration of the medallion may be found in Charles R. Morey, “The Drawings of the Junius Ms.,” in The Cædmon Poems Translated into English Prose, ed. C. W. Kennedy (Glouchester, MA: Peter Smith, 1965), 198. But see now Muir’s digital edition on CD-ROM

34

David F. Johnson

conjectural solution to the Ælfwine question, identifying him as the abbot of Malmesbury by that name who held the position ca. 1043–1046. A crucial element in identifying the Ælfwine represented here is the question of whether the portrait was drawn by the first artist or added later. I am inclined to follow those who maintain that the portrait was not added later. My own examination of the manuscript revealed nothing that would indicate that this portrait and the name appearing in it was done by anyone other than the first artist. More on the Ælfwine question below.31 The foregoing is meant to establish among other things that there are counterarguments to all of the attributions made for Junius 11 to date. The full survey of arguments and evidence, of which this is necessarily but a pale reflection, has driven home to me, at least, just how circumstantial much of the available evidence is, and how speculative the conjectural narratives are that we weave around that evidence. But this realization will not prevent me here from weaving my own, so the moment has come to have another look at Winchester. What is the evidence for a Winchester origin of the manuscript? At first blush, there doesn’t seem to be

(Bernard J. Muir, ed., A Digital Facsimile of Oxford, Bodleian Library MS. Junius 11, software by Nick Kennedy, Bodleian Library Digital Texts 1 (Oxford: Bodleian Library, 2004)), as well as the online archive of the entire manuscript at http://image.ox.ac.uk/show?collection=bod leian&manuscript=msjunius11. 31 Doane holds a different view: “My impression is that the medallion is a late entry to the manuscript, perhaps late eleventh century . . .” but adduces nothing by way of evidence to support such a claim and specific dating (A. N. Doane, ed., Genesis A: A New Edition, Revised (Tempe, AZ: ACMRS, 2013), 34). Even more recently Peter Stokes has suggested that the inscription may have been written in a later “glossing hand.” See Peter A. Stokes, English Vernacular Minuscule from Æthelred to Cnut circa 990–circa 1035, Publications of the Manchester Centre for Anglo-Saxon Studies 14 (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2014), at 128. To paraphrase Sir Israel Gollancz, it is with a sense of temerity that one contends any opinion on matters paleographical with Dr. Stokes, but it strikes me that there is some wiggle room in his analysis of the “glossing script,” and elsewhere he follows others in attributing the medallion picture to the first artist (see Peter A. Stokes, “Junius 11,” in The Literary Encyclopedia, ed. R. Clark and R. Dance (London: The Literary Dictionary Company, Ltd., 2008), http://www.li tencyc.com.php/stopics.php?rec+true&UID=5553: “The first artist is thought to have drawn the main illustrations down to page 72 and the decorated initials to page 79, as well as a ‘portrait’ on page 2 and an initial on page 143”). The conclusion here would be that the medallion portrait was already in place at the time of the manuscript’s illustration and compilation, but that the inscription was inserted later. Naturally, the work of the first scribe cannot reasonably be dated to the eleventh century, unless the paleographical evidence offered by Lockett (and accepted by Doane) is way off. Complicating matters even further, Stokes does suggest that his findings might show that the script of the first Junius 11 scribe [HN1] “may well have been written during the later period” (i.e., 990 x 1035). If this be true, then it might have serious consequences for any theory that would date the compilation of Junius 11 to the late tenth century.

2 Winchester Revisited: Æthelwold, Lucifer, and the Place of Origin

35

much at all. And yet the case has been made. The Winchester attribution rested first on perceived iconographical, stylistic similarities between Junius 11 and other manuscripts executed in the same style. Gollancz and others have compared the line drawings to those in other Winchester products such as Stowe 944 (the New Minster Liber Vitae) and the Lanalet Pontifical.32 Lockett also notes stylistic similarities between the work of the first Junius 11 artist and that found in the Benedictional of St. Æthelwold, as well as that in the work of the New Minster Charter (i.e., “Edgar’s Privilege,” see below), both of which are Winchester products.33 These comparisons remain suggestive, but are—on their own—ultimately every bit as inconclusive as the stylistic parallels adduced for Canterbury. It was in 1923 that Gollancz identified the Ælfwine of the medallion on page 2 as Abbot Ælfwine of Winchester (1035).34 This identification was refuted first by Barbara Raw.35 Besides the abundance of candidates with the name “Ælfwine,” the portrait represents a secular figure, seemingly borne out by the lack of tonsure and shape of the figure’s garments. Again, this portrait has also been identified as the abbot of Malmesbury, yet even if we take into account the possibly stylized nature of the picture (some have seen the influence of coin portraits here), one has to wonder why anyone would wish to portray an abbot, or an abbot would allow himself to be portrayed, as an aristocratic layperson, especially in a reformed monastery. Another objection to Gollancz’s identification is the abbot’s dates, surely on the late side for a manuscript that was in production as early as the late tenth century, and no later than the first quarter of the eleventh century. This objection is strengthened by the assumption that the portrait was part of the first artist’s initial work, and hence much too early to refer to the later abbot of Winchester.36

32 Rouen, Public Library MS A.27 (368). See Gollancz, The Cædmon Manuscript, xxxvii–xxxviii, where he associates it with two other manuscripts in the Rouen public library of Winchester origin—The Benedictional of Archbishop Robert (Rouen, Bibliothèque municipale MS Y.7) and The Missal of Robert of Jumièges (Rouen, Bibliothèque municipale MS Y.6)—and compares the work of its artist to that of Junius 11. For a recent reconsideration of the manuscript’s localization and date, see Stokes, English Vernacular Minuscule, 53–57. The manuscript is now dated to the first quarter of the eleventh century. 33 Lockett, “The Dating of Junius 11,” 154–55 and 155, n. 70. 34 Gollancz, The Cædmon Manuscript, xxxiv–xxxv. 35 Raw, “The Probable derivation,” 135. 36 Raw attributes the medallion portrait to the first artist, as well: “The first artist was responsible for the drawings on pp. 1–68, including the portrait labelled ‘Ælfwine’ on p. 2, for the frontispiece and for the ornamental initials which extend from p. 1 to p. 79; he also drew the initial at the beginning of Exodus on p. 143.” (Raw, “The Probable Derivation,” 134.)

36

David F. Johnson

When Raw demolished Gollancz’s Ælfwine identification in her 1976 study, the case for Winchester was made out to be lost. But there is more to that case than just this medallion portrait. In 1975 Thomas Ohlgren published a study that offered further iconographical and external reasons for suspecting a Winchester provenance for Junius 11. As evidence, Ohlgren adduced continental models that parallel illustrations in Junius 11, models that he is able to trace to Benoit-surLoire at Fleury. There he identifies scenes on the capitals in the ambulatory of the abbey so similar to some in Junius 11 that he concludes that there must be a direct connection.37 But what would link these scenes to Winchester? He builds his case on the close ties between Fleury and Winchester during the monastic reform. While admitting that the external history seems inconclusive—that is, both Canterbury and Winchester had such ties, though Winchester might have had them earlier—Ohlgren nevertheless speculates on the significance of a number of salient and well-known points.38 For example, when Æthelwold expelled the secular canons at Winchester they were replaced by monks from Abingdon, which, as tradition has it, was the first monastic house to receive a copy of the Rule of St. Benedict from Fleury.39 Before he left for Winchester, Æthelwold was replaced at Abingdon by Osgar, who had been recalled from Fleury. Moreover, Fleury seems to have provided monks at Æthelwold’s request to help him compile the Regularis Concordia. As Ohlgren points out, “it seems

37 Thomas H. Ohlgren, “Some New Light on the Old English Caedmonian Genesis,” Studies in Iconography 1 (1975): 38–73. Ohlgren’s ideas concerning the underlying iconographical influences here—i.e., an illustrated Beatus Apocalypse—have never gained much traction. For example, Karkov notes that “Ohlgren (‘Illustrations of the Cædmonian Genesis,’ 211–12, n. 18) suggests the influence of Spanish Apocalypses on the Junius 11 page, though there is no concrete evidence for this.” (Text and Picture, 50, n. 14.) And yet Ohlgren’s analyses of the similarities between the drawings of the Junius 11 artists and the capitals at Fleury are no less valid or more far-fetched than any proposed by Gollancz, Herbert, Nicholson, Temple, Raw, Doane, or Lockett. They are, moreover, close enough in date to Junius 11—ca. 1050—to suggest that common models, perhaps in the form of a pattern-book, lay behind both those and some of the drawings in Junius 11. 38 Ohlgren, “New Light,” esp. 54–64. Strictly speaking, such a manuscript could just as easily have gone first to Canterbury, though Ohlgren’s observation that the New Minster, Winchester was already a reformed house before the time-frame of the manuscript’s dating (960 x 990), whereas Christ Church, Canterbury was not reformed until 995–1005 (see Ohlgren, p. 64), may carry some weight in deciding the issue. Doane posits that the manuscript could easily have gone to St. Augustine’s, which was a monastic house at the time—though only reformed at the same time as Christ Church—which remains a possibility (Doane, Genesis A: A New Edition, Revised, 32). 39 Ohlgren, “New Light,” 57. See also Eric John, “The King and the Monks in the Tenth-Century Reformation,” BJRL 42 (1959–60): 61–87.

2 Winchester Revisited: Æthelwold, Lucifer, and the Place of Origin

37

plausible . . . that when the exemplar of MS Junius 11 came to England, it would have gone to a reformed house with close ties to Fleury.”40 Ohlgren, following Raw, further posits that the exemplar containing Genesis B (translated or not) was already illustrated when it came to England from Fleury. This theory has been questioned by some critics, but it does not follow that the iconographical models did not then come from Fleury, nor that Winchester was not a very likely venue for their first transmission.41 Text and image needn’t have resided in the same manuscript for both to have found their way to Winchester. Veronica Ortenberg, among others, has confirmed how close the contacts were between the English reformed institutions and their counterparts on the Continent.42 If Winchester emerges from that picture with a slight edge over Canterbury as far as early contacts are concerned, we must admit that it’s not enough to decide the issue between them one way or the other. We may, though, finally pose the question: is there any other external or internal evidence that would suggest that the manuscript had in fact been produced at Winchester shortly before or after the turn of the eleventh century? I think there is. *** In an article that appeared in JEGP in 1998, I discussed the unusual aspects of the depiction of Lucifer’s fall in the first 115 lines of the OE Genesis A.43 As critics have pointed out, with the exception of these first lines of the poem, most of Genesis A constitutes a relatively close paraphrase of Genesis.44 This section of

40 Ohlgren, “New Light,” 64. It is of course perfectly possible that when the iconographical materials and the transliteration of Genesis B came to Winchester, they may have arrived there via Abingdon. 41 Ohlgren (“New Light,” 60) argues that “the drawings of the Old Saxon Genesis were used by the Anglo-Saxon artists to illustrate both ‘Genesis A’ and ‘Genesis B’”; “we must believe that the whole of the Old Saxon Genesis, either in the original or in translation, lay before the scribes and illustrators of the Junius manuscript.” Dissenting views have been expressed by Lucas (“MS Junius 11 and Malmesbury”) and Broderick (Herbert R. Broderick, “Observations on the Method of Illustration in MS Junius 11 and the Relationship of the Drawings to the Text,” Scriptorium 37 (1984 for 1983): 161–77). 42 Veronica Ortenberg, The English Church and the Continent in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries: Cultural, Spiritual, and Artistic Exchanges (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992). See also the contributions in D. Rollason, C. Leyser, and H. Williams, eds., England and the Continent in the Tenth Century: Studies in Honour of Wilhelm Levison (1876–1947), Studies in the Early Middle Ages 37 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010). 43 “The Fall of Lucifer in “Genesis A” and Two Anglo-Latin Royal Charters.“ The Journal of English and Germanic Philology 97, no. 4 (1998): 500-21. 44 Doane, Genesis A: A New Edition, Revised, 66, and 290 (commentary on ll. 18b–81).

38

David F. Johnson

the poem, its exordium, is without parallel in the surviving AS poetic corpus, nor does it, unlike the rest of the poem, have its origin in the Vulgate or Old Latin Book of Genesis. In this exordium the poet departs consciously from the Augustinian view regarding when Lucifer and the angels fell, by placing that fall well before the creation of the earth and the heavens (which occurs at l. 112 in Genesis A).45 In the opening lines of the poem, then (ll. 1–20a), the poet first depicts the angels dwelling in peace, joy, and happiness while they praise their lord, God. Next he recounts the rebellion and strife caused by a portion of the host (ll. 20b–34a); God’s subsequent anger and creation of Hell (ll. 34b–46b); and His crushing and expulsion of the rebels (ll. 47–77b). Peace returns to the Kingdom of Heaven, but the thrones of those who had rebelled are left empty (ll. 78–91b). So God takes further action: þa þeahtode þeoden ure Then our Lord meditated modgeþonce hu he þa mæran gesceaft, in His mind how He might resettle eðelstaðolas, eft gesette, that glorious creation, its settlements, 95

swegltorhtan seld selran werode bright heavenly dwellings with a better host þa hie gielsceaþan ofgifen hæfdon since the boastful enemies had quit them

45 Doane attributes the contents of the exordium to the hexameral tradition, arguing that the poet arranged the elements drawn from that complex of texts and legends in his own way, but in a “sophisticated and theologically informed way” (290). He fails to recognize that the specific tradition regarding the “location of the story” is in fact the one formulated by Origen, i.e. that the physical world was not created until after the fall of the angels, making it, and the creation of man in order to repopulate the empty thrones left by the fallen angels, contingent upon the fall of the angels. See my “Fall of Lucifer,” 503–8; on Origen, 511–12. Judging by his comments on ll. 18b–81, it seems he has misread my argument. Moreover, his claim that in one of the charters I adduce there “it is implied that the angels fell after the fall of man” is a puzzling one (Genesis A: A New Edition, Revised, 290). He fails to say which one, but the reader may judge for herself, as I reproduce the relevant passages here. I have tremendous respect for Doane’s learning and the accomplishments his editions of Genesis A and B represent, but we shall have to agree to disagree on the reading of the fall of the rebel angels episode in the exordium to Genesis A.

2 Winchester Revisited: Æthelwold, Lucifer, and the Place of Origin

heah on heofenum. forþam halig god high in the heavens. Therefore Holy God under roderas feng ricum mihtum under the orb of the heavens, with His mighty powers wolde þæt him eorðe and uproder willed that for Him earth and sky 100 and sidewæter geseted wurde, and broad water should be established, woruldgesceafte on wraðra gield a created world in compensation for the adversaries, þara þe, forhealdene, of hleo sende. those whom, fallen, He banished from protection. Ne wæs her þa giet nymþe heolstersceado There was not as of yet anything but the shadow of darkness wiht geworden, ac þes wida grund come into being, but this wide abyss 105 stod deop and dim, drihtne fremde, stood deep and dim, remote from the Lord, idel and unnyt. on þone eagum wlat empty and unused. Thereupon with His eyes stiðfrihþ cining and þa stowe beheold, He looked, the strong-minded king, and beheld that place, dreama lease, geseah deorc gesweorc devoid of joys, and He saw the murky darkness, semian sinnihte sweart under roderum, the perpetual night hovering black beneath the heavens, 110 wonn and weste, oð þæt þeos woruldgesceaft black and desolate, until this created world þurh word gewear wuldorcyninges. came into being by the Word of the King of Glory. Her ærest gesceop ece drihten, Here the Eternal Lord, Lord Almighty, helm eallwihta, heofon and eorðßan, Protector of all creatures, first created heaven and earth, rodor arærde, and þis rume land raised up the sky and founded this vast land

39

40

David F. Johnson

115 gestaþelode strangum mihtum, with His mighty powers, frea ælmihtig. Folde wæs þa gyta Almighty Lord. The earth was then not yet græsungrene. garsecg þeahte green with grass. Black, perpetual night sweart synnihte, side and wide, far and wide concealed the ocean, wonne wægas.46 its dark waves.

God decides to fill the seats left empty by the fallen angels with “a better host” (selran werode, l. 95b) and thus the Created World (earth, sky, and waters, and in it man), is established to compensate for those who had fallen (woruldsceafte on wraðra gield, “a created world in compensation for the adversaries,” l. 101). Now, part of the action depicted here (l. 95) constitutes what is known as the “replacement doctrine,” a line of thought first formulated in Augustine’s De civitate Dei. I observed earlier: This essentially pessimistic vision of the human condition (man was created solely to remedy a fault in the primal order) was widely current in the early Middle Ages, and it continued to be current in popular religious literature throughout the Middle Ages— though by the twelfth century scholastic theologians quickly dismissed it as untenable.47

What follows in the poem, however, constitutes a kind of radical replacement doctrine—the earth was created only after the angels had fallen and the need arose to replace their depleted ranks—an extreme version of the theory that Augustine himself seemed unprepared to sanction, as he preferred to believe that the creation and fall of the angels is reflected in the very first verses of Genesis, where the spiritual and earthly realms are seen to come into being nearly simultaneously, the rebel angels turning away from God and falling shortly after their creation.48 In other words, according to Augustine, God did nothing before he created heaven

46 Text cited from Doane, Genesis A: A New Edition, Revised, 149. Translation and emphasis mine. 47 Johnson, “The Fall of Lucifer,” 517. 48 On Augustine and the replacement doctrine, see my “The Fall of Lucifer,” 517. See as well Dorothy Haines, “Vacancies in Heaven: The Doctrine of Replacement and Genesis A,” Notes & Queries n.s. 44 (1997): 150–54, although she fails to remark on the radical nature of the form of the motif in Genesis A.

2 Winchester Revisited: Æthelwold, Lucifer, and the Place of Origin

41

and earth. The replacement doctrine had some currency in Anglo-Saxon England, but in other instances the creation of the earthly realm, and man’s place in it, is not explicitly contingent upon the fall of the rebel angels, and, so far as I know, it never (except for the two specific instances to be discussed below) occurs in the same scheme of creation as reflected in Genesis A. Nor does this form of the motif of the Fall of Lucifer and his angels—with the creation of the earth being contingent upon that fall—have any parallels in other genres where one might expect to find them. In my previous discussion of this motif, I had thought it unnecessary to survey in any detail the contents of relevant texts from the catechetical narratio and hexameral traditions, as well as other Old English poetic texts that had been adduced by others as possible sources or analogues for Genesis A. I do so now to drive home a point: even a brief survey will demonstrate that while the two main traditions adduced as most influential on the exordium of Genesis A may well share many points of similarity with the contents of the opening lines of our poem, they lack the most distinctive element present in the Old English poem and the two charters discussed below.49 To this end I propose to survey briefly the texts listed by Virginia Day in her 1974 study of the influence of the catechetical narratives on Old English literature.50 When it comes to the catechetical narratives, Day formulates an important caveat concerning our knowledge of this genre: Presumably [the narrationes] would have been in the vernacular and mostly would not have been written down at all. Catechism was always a predominantly oral activity. Our evidence is likely to come from works of advice to those who would be carrying out this form of instruction, from narratives in which teaching of this kind is reported and from the influence of the narratio detectable in literature.51

Despite this caveat, however, it may be possible to discern patterns in the arrangement of details in the surviving texts, so that, even within the seemingly limited scope of the subject matter contained in these narratives, the inclusion of some details and the exclusion of others may prove meaningful in terms of the influence these models may have had on literary versions of this catechetical material, among them Genesis A.

49 I do so as well to avoid any misunderstanding of my previous argument. While Day has argued for the influence of catechetical narratives on Genesis A, I argued in my 1998 article, as I do now, that such narratives could not have been the source of the “radical replacement doctrine” identified in Genesis A and the two charters discussed below. See my “The Fall of Lucifer,” esp. 510. 50 Virginia Day, “The Influence of the Catechetical Narratio on Old English and Some Other Medieval Literature,” Anglo-Saxon England 3 (1974): 51–61. 51 Day, “The Influence of the Catechetical Narratio,” 53.

42

David F. Johnson

In the context of this discussion we are most interested, for reasons that will become clear, in how (or whether) each narrative provides the answers to a number of basic questions. First, when did the creation of the angels and the spiritual world take place? Second, when did a portion of the heavenly host fall? And last, but most importantly: what, if any, are the implications of these events for the creation of the physical world and man? Following this brief survey of the Latin and vernacular narratio genre, I shall turn to other Old English poems that contain the motif of the Fall of Lucifer and compare them to the exordium of Genesis A with the same questions in mind. The purpose of this review is to establish the status of the Genesis A narrative relative to other texts dealing with the same theme. As we shall see, this is of great importance to the further development of my argument. As I have already noted elsewhere, Augustine’s De Catechizandis Rudibus presents none of the details concerning the creation of the angels and Lucifer’s fall of interest to us here.52 Among the fuller examples of the extant narrationes, the De Fide Catholica attributed to Boethius is certainly one of the most pertinent, and Crawford quotes from it extensively as the possible basis for the opening lines of Genesis A: Ergo diuina ex aeterno natura et in aeternum sine aliqua mutabilitate perdurans sibi tantum conscia uoluntate sponte mundum uoluit fabricare eumque cum omnino non esset fecit ut esset, nec ex sua substantia protulit, ne diuinus natura crederetur, neque aliunde molitus est, ne iam exstitisse aliquid quod eius uoluntatem exsistentia propriae naturae iuuaret atque esset quod neque ab ipso factum esset et tamen esset; sed uerbo produxit caelos, terram creauit, ita ut caelesti habitatione dignas caelo naturas efficeret ac terrae terrena componeret. De caelestibus autem naturis, quae uniuersaliter uocatur angelica, quamuis illic distinctis ordinibus pulchra sint omnia, pars tamen quaedam plus appetens quam ei natura atque ipsius auctor naturae tribuerat de caelesti sede proiecta est; et quoniam angelorum numerum, id est supernae illius ciuitatis cuius ciues angeli sunt, imminutum noluit conditor permanere, formauit ex terra hominem atque spiritu uitae animauit, ratione composuit, arbitrii libertate decorauit eumque praefixa lege paradisi deliciis constituit, ut, si sine peccato manere uellet, tam ipsum quam eius progeniem angelicis coetibus sociaret, ut quia superior natura per superbiae malum ima petierat, inferior substantia per humilitatis bonum ad superna conscenderet. Sed ille auctor inuidiae non ferens hominem illuc ascendere ubi ipse non meruit permanere, temptatione adhibita fecit etiam ipsum eiusque comparem, quam de eius latere generandi causa formator produxerat, inoboedientiae suppliciis subiacere, ei quoque diuinitatem affuturam promittens, quam sibi dum arroganter usurpat elisus est.53

52 See “The Fall of Lucifer,” 510. Day notes that Augustine’s version of the genre was far too complex and philosophical to be of any use with simpler audiences. See Day, “The Influence of the Catechetical narratio,” 52. 53 H. F. Stewart and E. K. Rand, eds., De Fide Catholica, The Theological Tractates of Boethius (London: W. Heinemann; New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1918), 56–59. “The divine nature,

2 Winchester Revisited: Æthelwold, Lucifer, and the Place of Origin

43

According to this account God brings forth the “world” from nothing, whereupon He creates the earth and heavens by His Word. It is possible to interpret these references to the creation of the “world” and subsequent formation of the heavens and earth as two separate creations, namely those of the spiritual and physical worlds, though admittedly the text is less than clear on this point. It is also possible to take the phrase, “ita ut caelesti habitatione dignas caelo naturas efficeret ac terrae terrena componeret,” as an inclusive reference to both the spiritual and physical creations. Of the two, this latter interpretation seems the more likely, given the explicit apportioning of things spiritual and earthly to their respective places: for naturas we may read “angels.” Viewed thus, the physical world has already been established by the time Lucifer (here referred to obliquely as pars tamen quaedam) falls. But while the creation of the physical world is not dependent on Lucifer’s fall, man’s creation is: “et quoniam angelorum numerum, id est supernae illius ciuitatis cuius ciues angeli sunt, imminutum noluit conditor permanere, formauit ex terra hominem.” God created man from the earth in order to prevent the ranks of the angels from being diminished. To return to the questions outlined above, then, we may note that the Pseudo-Boethian De Fide Catholica specifies when the angels were created (before man, certainly, though whether before Gen. 1:1 or at 1:3–4, following Augustine, is not detailed), as well

then, abiding from all eternity and unto all eternity without any change, by the exercise of a will known only to Himself, determined of Himself to form the world, and brought it into being when it was absolutely naught, nor did He produce it from His own substance, lest it should be thought divine by nature, nor did He form it after any model, lest it should be thought that anything had already come into being which helped His will by the existence of an independent nature, and that there should exist something, that had not been made by Him and yet existed; but by His Word He brought forth the heavens, and created the earth that so He might make natures worthy of a place in heaven, and also fit earthly things to earth. But although in heaven all things are beautiful and arranged in due order, yet one part of the heavenly creation which is universally termed angelic, seeking more than nature and the Author of Nature had granted them, was cast forth from its heavenly habitation; and because the Creator did not wish the roll of the angels, that is of the heavenly city whose citizens the angels are, to be diminished, He formed man out of the earth and breathed into him the breath of life; He endowed him with reason, He adorned him with freedom of choice and established him in the joys of Paradise, making covenant aforehand that if he would remain without sin He would add him and his offspring to the angelic hosts; so that as the higher nature had fallen low through the curse of pride, the lower substance might ascend on high through the blessing of humility. But the father of envy, loath that man should climb to the place where he himself deserved not to remain, put temptation before him and the consort whom the Creator had brought forth out of his side for the continuance of the race, and laid them open to punishment for disobedience, promising man also the gift of the Godhead, the arrogant attempt to seize which had caused his own fall.” See S. J. Crawford, “The Cædmon Poems,” Anglia 49 (1929): 279–84, at 282.

44

David F. Johnson

as when Lucifer fell (before man was created). The implications of his fall for the creation of the physical world and man differ in one significant point from the Genesis A account: it is quite impossible to read into this text the idea that had Lucifer not fallen, the physical world would not have come into being. In two further narratives a portion of the text constitutes a sermon dealing with catechetical narratio material. The recensio Vaticana of the Acta Andrea et Matthiae apud anthropophagos includes an account of Andrew preaching on the Christian cycle from creation to the ascension, but this sermon does not include any of the cosmogonic details of interest to us here.54 The Vita Sanctorum Barlaam Eremitae et Josaphat Indiae Regis depicts Barlaam likewise preaching on the same subjects. This account compresses the creation and sin of the rebel angels and the fall of man into a compact narrative that touches on most of the important points, but leaves out many details.55 At first blush it seems to establish the separate creation of the spiritual and physical worlds (implying the primary creation of the angels), but ultimately it is unclear as to precisely where in the scheme of events Lucifer fell, for this account deals with the issue only after Adam and Eve have been created and have received their warning concerning the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But while the text does not adhere to a strictly chronological presentation of these events, it is evident that Satan has already been banished from heaven when he becomes envious of Adam and subsequently approaches Eve in the guise of a serpent. This account may have been influenced by the Vita Adae et Evae, where Lucifer rebels out of envy only after Adam has been created, but ultimately it does not seem to be following that tradition alone, for envy of Adam is of course one of the main driving forces in the plot Satan hatches against man from hell. That man was to inherit the glories lost by Satan is clear (“Diabolus igitur . . . invidiam adversus hominem concepit, propterea quod seipsum e tanta gloria ejectum, illum autem ad tantum honorem subvectum perspiceret: eumque e beata illa vivendi ratione dejicere moliebatur”), though Lucifer’s fall is nowhere cited as the reason for man’s creation, or that of the entire physical world.

54 For the recensio Vaticana, see Franz Blatt, Die lateinischen Bearbeitungen der Acta Andrea et Matthiae apud anthropophagos (Giessen: Töppelmann, 1930), 119ff. Robert Boenig says of this early eleventh-century Codex Vaticanus that it is “far removed from the Greek tradition.” It concludes with a long sermon by Andrew to the converted cannibals, “a detail missing from the main tradition” (The Acts of Andrew in the Country of the Cannibals: Translations from the Greek, Latin, and Old English, Garland Library of Medieval Literature, series B, vol. 7 (New York: Garland Press, 1991), at iii). 55 The passage is too long to include here; for the text, see PL 73, col. 464–66.

2 Winchester Revisited: Æthelwold, Lucifer, and the Place of Origin

45

The Sermo Habitus Constantiæ, a sermon proper dealing with the complete Christian cycle of salvation history, has traditionally been attributed to St. Gall, but is now believed to have been composed by Notker Balbulus, master of the monastic school at St. Gall in the latter half of the ninth century.56 We may gather from the opening sections of this account that the writer interprets Gen. 1:1 to imply simultaneous creation of the spiritual and physical worlds (“. . . dignatus est opificio creare de nihilo, et super coelestia quidem beatis spiritibus habitaculum fecit, terram vero futuris hominibus præparavit”). These are the dwelling places of the angels and man, respectively. The reason for the creation of the latter (and the order of their creation) follows. The angels are created in order to honor God; when one of them presumes through his pride to set himself up as Prince of heaven, he is cast out of his heavenly abode. Thus, this version of the fall of Lucifer coincides more or less with the others we have seen so far, yet it differs from Genesis A in one important way: the physical earth has already been called into being before Lucifer falls; that fall is not the direct cause of its inception. A classic example of the catechetical narratio is the sermon known as De Correctione Rusticorum, composed by the sixth-century bishop of Galicia, Martin of Braga (ca. 520–580).57 Martin wrote it in response to a request by a fellow Galician bishop, Polemius of Asturica, and we know from the letter that prefaces the sermon that Polemius had asked him for a text he could use pro castigatione rusticorum. In this sermon Martin sketches briefly, for the benefit of Polemius’s rustic audience, the highlights of biblical history up to and including the Flood. Sections 2 through 5 of his text recount the creation, the fall of the rebel angels, the fall of man and the flood as punishment for man’s sins. Sections 3 and 4 are most relevant to this discussion: 3. Cum fecisset deus in principio cælum et terram, in illa cælesti habitatione fecit spiritales creaturas, id est angelos, qui in conspectu ipsius adstantes laudarent illum. Ex quibus unus, qui primus omnium archangelus fuerat factus, uidens se in tanta gloria præfulgentem, non dedit honorem deo creatori suo, sed similem se illi dixit; et pro hac superbia cum aliis plurimis angelis, qui illi consenserunt, de illa cælesti sede in aërem istum, qui est sub cælo. deiectus est; et ille, qui erat primus archangelus, perdita luce gloriæ suæ, factus est tenebrosus et horribilis diabolus. Similiter et illi alii angeli, qui consentientes illi fuerunt, cum ipso de cælo proiecti sunt, et, perdito splendore suo, facti sunt dæmones. Reliqui autem angeli, qui subditi fuerunt deo, in suæ claritatis gloria in

56 For the text, see PL 87, col. 13A. For this attribution, see W. E. Willwoll, Die Konstanzer Predigt des Heiligen Gallus: ein Werk des Notker Balbulus (Freiburg: Paulusdruckerei, 1942). 57 This sermon was known to the Anglo-Saxons; Ælfric drew upon it in composing his De Falsis Diis. See e.g. D. F. Johnson, “Euhemerisation versus Demonisation: The Pagan Gods and Ælfric’s De Falsis Diis,” in Pagans and Christians, ed. T. Hofstra, L. A. J. R. Houwen, and A. A. MacDonald (Groningen: Egbert Forsten, 1995), 35–69.

46

David F. Johnson

conspectu domini perseuerant; et ipsi dicuntur angeli sancti. Nam illi, qui cum principe suo Sathan pro superbia sua iactati sunt, angeli refugæ et dæmonia appellantur. “3. In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, in His celestial habitation He created spiritual creatures, that is, angels, who should stand in His presence and praise Him. One of these, who had been appointed archangel, chief of them all, seeing himself so radiant and glorious, did not pay honor to God his Creator, but said that he was equal to Him; and for this act of pride he, along with many other angels who had agreed with him were thrown out of heaven with him, lost their splendor, and became demons, while the rest of the angels, who had remained subject to God, still persevere in the glory of their brightness in the Lord’s presence; and they are called holy angels, while those who were thrown out with their leader, Satan, because of their pride are called rebellious angels and demons. 4. Post istam uero ruinam angelicam placuit deo de limo terræ hominem plasmare, quem posuit in paradiso; et dixit ei, ut, si præceptum domini seruasset, in loco illo cælesti sine morte succederet, unde angeli illi refugæ ceciderunt, si autem præterisset dei præceptum, morte moreretur. Uidens ergo diabolus, quia propterea factus fuerat homo, ut in loco ipsius, unde ipse cecidit, in regno dei succederet, inuidia ductus, suasit homini, ut mandata dei transcenderet. Pro qua offensa iactatus est homo de paradiso in exilio mundi istius, ubi multos labores et dolores pateretur. 4. After this fall of the angels, it pleased God to form man from the mud of the earth and place him in paradise; and He said to him that if he obeyed the precept of the Lord, he might succeed without death to that celestial region from which those rebellious angels had fallen, but if he acted contrary to the precept of God, he should suffer death. Then the devil, seeing that man had been created to succeed to the place in the kingdom of God from which he had fallen, was induced by envy to persuade man to disobey the commands of God. For this offense man was cast from paradise into the exile of this world, where he should endure many labors and pains.” The text is from C. P. Caspari, ed., Martin von Bracara’s Schrift De correctione rusticorum, Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Christiania 44 (Christiania: Mallingschen Buchdruckerei, 1883), 2–4; the translation is from C. W. Barlow, in Iberian Fathers, vol. 1, The Fathers of the Church, ed. R. J. Deferrari, vol. 62 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America, 1969), 72–73.

As is evident, Martin is silent as to the exact order of the first creation, though he too seems to imply that Gen. 1:1 refers to the creation of both spiritual and earthly realms (“Cum fecisset deus in principio cælum et terram, in illa cælesti habitatione fecit spiritales creaturas . . .”); the angels have been created simultaneously with, or shortly following, the establishment of heaven and earth. The replacement doctrine is here evident as well, in section 4, though it is clearly not the more radical version formulated in Genesis A. A compendium of Christian teaching and doctrine that draws upon and follows closely Martin’s treatment of the early events of creation is the Scarapsus of Pirmin of Reichenau

2 Winchester Revisited: Æthelwold, Lucifer, and the Place of Origin

47

(a missionary among the Alamanni, d. 753).58 Its corresponding sections on the fall of Lucifer and man are virtually identical to Martin’s. Day includes in her discussion a brief overview of the influence of the catechetical narratio on Latin, Irish, and Old English literature.59 The Libelli de Spiritalis Historiae Gestis of Avitus, bishop of Vienne (d. 518) is a narrative poem that mentions Lucifer’s fall only in passing and provides none of the details of cosmogonic chronology of interest to us here. The Devil makes his appearance in the book entitled “De Originali Peccato,” where he features in this narrative primarily in his role as temptor and instigator of man’s fall.60 The Hiberno-Latin Altus Prosator, attributed to Columba, presents the events leading up to and directly subsequent to Lucifer’s fall in a way that seems reminiscent of Genesis A. Stanza 1 deals with the primordial and infinite status of God, and the coeternal nature of the Trinity. Stanza 2 recounts the creation of the angels, in which six orders are named. Stanza 3 tells of Lucifer’s fall from heaven (on account of pride), while stanza 4 equates him with the ancient dragon and the slippery snake, and describes how he takes with him a third portion of the heavenly ranks. Stanza 5 deals with the creation of the physical world: 5. Excelsus mundi machinam praeuidens et armoniam, caelum et terram fecerat, mare aquas condidit, herbarum quoque germina uirgultorum arbuscula solem lunam ac sidera ignem ac necessaria aues pisces et peccora bestias animalia Hominem demum regere protoplastum praesagmine.61

58 Gall Jecker, Die Heimat des hl. Pirmin Des Apostels der Alamannen, Beiträge zur Geschichte des alten Mönchtums und des Benediktinerordens, ed. Ildefons Herwegen, vol. 13 (Münster in Westf.: Aschendorff, 1927). 59 Virginia Day, “The Influence of the Catechetical Narratio,” 51–61. 60 Alcimi Aviti Opera, MGH, Auct. Ant. 6.2., ed. Rudolfus Peiper (Berlin, 1883), 203–94. See especially ll. 35–125. DAY NOTE. 61 “The Most High, foreseeing the frame and order of the world had made the heaven and earth. The sea and waters He established; likewise the blades of grass, the twigs of shrubs; sun, moon, and stars; fire and necessary things; birds, fish, and cattle; beasts and living things: and lastly man first-formed to rule with prophecy.” Text and translation from J. H. Bernard and R. Atkinson, The Irish Liber Hymnorum, 2 vols., Henry Bradshaw Society 13, 14 (London: Harrison and Sons, 1898), vol. 13, p. 70; and vol. 14, p. 151. It is worth noting that this hymn was certainly known in Anglo-Saxon England, independent of Hrabanus Maurus’s adaptation of it in his De Fide Catholica. It is contained in a pre-Conquest English manuscript compiled in Winchester ca. 1029 (Cotton MS Galba A. xiv),

48

David F. Johnson

The order of events as presented in these stanzas might suggest that God did not make the physical world until after Lucifer’s fall, a situation reminiscent of “her ærest gesceop ece drihten, / helm eallwihta, heofon and eorþan” of Genesis A, lines 112–13. But the verb tense used by the poet appears to belie this, for the pluperfect fecerat would allow for the creation of heaven and earth, and everything in it, including man, to have taken place even before Lucifer fell. There is at any rate no indication that God first cast Lucifer out of heaven and “then made heaven and earth,” nor is there any mention of His having done so because of the gaps left in the heavenly ranks by Lucifer’s fall. Hrabanus Maurus’s De Fide Catholica, itself heavily dependent upon the Altus Prosator, alters nothing with respect to the presentation of these events.62 There are a number of relevant, essentially catechetical texts in Old English prose. Among those that include the motif of Lucifer’s fall is Ælfric’s Treatise on the Old and New Testament, contained in his Letter to Sigeweard, which accompanies the Old English Hexateuch in a number of manuscripts which contain that work. The influence of the hexamera is apparent here, for Ælfric asserts that ten orders of angels were created on the first day; that somewhere within the six days of creation (“Hwæt, þa binnan six dagum”) Lucifer rebelled and fell; and that it was on the sixth day that God created man. There is only the briefest of hints at the replacement doctrine (“Adam 7 Evan . . . sceoldon habban, & heora ofspring mid him, þa fægeran wununge þe se feond forleas, gif hi gehirsumedon heora Scippende on riht”). But while the imprecise chronology of Lucifer’s fall might allow for it, Ælfric does not state that God created the physical world only after that fall; indeed, the words “þa . . . þe se soða God þa gesceafta gesceop, þe he gescippan wolde,” which precede the account of the rebellion, suggest instead that this was not the case.63 In another letter, this one to Wulfgeat at Ylmandune, Ælfric recounts the creation of the angels and the fall of Lucifer, but this account does not clarify the chronology of these events, nor does the replacement doctrine feature at all.64 Ælfric’s Sermo de Initio Creaturæ, on the other hand, constitutes a rather full account of the fall, and the events leading up to it, though here Ælfric

edited by Bernard Muir in “Two Latin Hymns by Colum Cille (St. Columba),” Revue du moyen âge latin 39 (1983): 205–16; and A Pre-Conquest English Prayer-Book, Henry Bradshaw Society 103 (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 1988). 62 Carmina 31, PL 112. 63 See S. J. Crawford, The Old English Version of the Heptateuch, EETS o.s. 160 (Oxford: Early English Text Society, 1922). 64 Bruno Assman, Ags Homilien und Heiligenleben, Bibliothek der Angelsächsischen Prosa 3 (Kassel: Georg Wigand, 1899), 2, ll. 31ff.

2 Winchester Revisited: Æthelwold, Lucifer, and the Place of Origin

49

again neglects to provide us with a precise chronology of the respective creation of the spiritual and physical worlds. The replacement doctrine is included; though, as before, there is no indication that the creation of the physical world should have been contingent upon Lucifer’s fall.65 Wulfstan adapts this homily in his own catechetical account of Christian history, and this text contains a detail that is reminiscent of the situation in Genesis A: An is ece God þe gesceop heofonas & eorðan & ealle gesceafta, & on fruman he gelogode on þære heofonlican gesceafte, þæt is, on heofona rice, engla weredu mycle & mære.66

This might imply a sequential order of creation of first the spiritual, then the physical world that goes beyond what is implied by the mere order of the words caelum et terrae of the biblical account, or heofonas & eorþan in the Old English. But like Ælfric, Wulfstan does not make the subsequent creation of the physical world contingent upon the fall of Lucifer; in fact, he does not indicate when that creation took place with respect to that of the spiritual world. Ælfric discusses the creation of the angels and Lucifer’s fall in two further documents. His De Creatore et Creatura touches on many of the standard points in this portion of the medieval classification of topics, but here too Ælfric gives no specifics concerning the order of creation, fall, and establishment of the physical world. The replacement doctrine is likewise mentioned, but, again, not the contingency of physical creation upon Lucifer’s fall that we have identified in Genesis A.67 Finally, we return to the hexameral tradition with Ælfric’s Exameron Anglice. Writing within the framework of the six-day creation, Ælfric leaves no doubt as to when the spiritual world, and the materials for the subsequent creation of the physical world, came into being: On ðam forman dæge ure Drihten gesceop seofonfealde weorc, ðæt wæron ealle englas and ðæs leohtes angin and ðæt antimber

65 Benjamin Thorpe, ed., The Homilies of the Anglo-Saxon Church: The First Part, containing the Sermones Catholici, or Homilies of Ælfric (London: The Ælfric Society, 1844–46), vol. 1, 11–13. 66 Dorothy Bethurum, The Homilies of Wulfstan (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957), 142–45: “One is the eternal God who created the heavens and the earth and all creatures, and in the beginning he placed in the heavenly creation, that is, in the kingdom of heaven, hosts of angels, great and glorious.” 67 B. Fehr, ed., Die Hirtenbriefe Ælfrics, Bibliothek der Angelsächsischen Prosa 9 (Hamburg, 1914). I might also mention Ælfric’s translation of Alcuin’s Interrogationes Sigewulfi, as it contains questions concerning creation, the angels, the devil, and the creation of man. But because it is not a narrative and follows no chronology, its contents cast no light on the issues we are concerned with here.

50

David F. Johnson

ðe he of gesceop syððan gesceafta, ða upplican heofenan and ða nyðerlican eorðan, ealle wæterscypas and ða widgillan sæ, and ðæt upplice lyft, eall on anum dæge. ða englas he geworhte on wundorlicre fægernysse and on mycelre strencðe, manega ðusenda, ealle lichamlease lybbende on gaste. (96–105)68

The account of Lucifer’s fall, however, bears no resemblance to that found in Genesis A. It is on the sixth day that Lucifer sins and falls, the same day that God makes man, and by this time all the other features of the physical world are firmly in place. As in many of the other versions discussed so far, the replacement doctrine is repeated, but creation of the physical world (and in it, man) is not contingent upon Lucifer’s fall.69 Having reviewed the representative texts from the two genres thought to have influenced the exordium of Genesis A, we turn now to other literary manifestations of the motif in Old English poetry. Here, too, we shall be concerned mainly with whether and how these texts deal with the questions of 1) when the angels were created; 2) when the sinful ones fell; and 3) what the relationship is, either implicitly or explicitly stated, between the fall of Lucifer and the creation of the physical world and man. Most of the poetic treatments of the fall of Lucifer in the Old English corpus are extremely allusive. Thus we find in the Exeter Book poem Resignation only the briefest mention, with no account of creation or any of the cosmogonic details we are interested in here.70 There are two allusions to the fall in Andreas as well, though they are similarly brief, amounting to little more than assertions that Lucifer and his fellow rebels had been cast into hell.71 The account of creation, in particular of the angels, their ministry to God, and the fall of Lucifer, in Elene is likewise lacking in any chronological detail. The context of the passage 68 “On the first day our Lord created seven-fold works, i.e. all the angels, the beginning of light, and the material of which He afterwards created the creatures, the high heavens and the lowlying earth, all the waters and the vast sea and the high atmosphere, all in one day. The angels he made of wondrous beauty and great strength, many thousands, all incorporeal living in spirit.” 69 ða wolde God wyrcan ðurh his wundorlican mihte mannan of eorðan, ðe mid eadmodnisse sceolde geearnian ðone ylcan stede on ðæra engla geferrædene ðe se deofol forworhte mid his dyrstignysse (S. J. Crawford, ed., Exameron Anglice, or The Old English Hexameron (Hamburg, 1921), ll. 324–28). 70 ASPR III, ll. 49–58. 71 ASPR II, ll. 1184–94, and 1375–85.

2 Winchester Revisited: Æthelwold, Lucifer, and the Place of Origin

51

would account for this as much as anything else, for it is not an overtly catechetical one. Rather, the words are put in the mouth of Judas Cyriacus, who, in response to Helen’s request that he reveal the location of the true cross, invokes angelic mediation and aid for the task. A second reference to Lucifer’s fall, this time in Judas’s encounter with the Ancient Adversary himself, is altogether too brief to shed any light on the matter at hand.72 St. Juliana, in the eponymous Old English metrical saint’s life, alludes to Lucifer’s fall and subsequent punishment in her interrogation of a demon she has captured, but, again, this allusion appears entirely out of its cosmogonic context, and serves instead as ammunition in her flyting with the devil.73 In a similar context, St. Guthlac uses his knowledge of the angel’s rebellion against the demons who plague him in Guthlac A.74 Here again the allusions to Lucifer’s fate are really defiant retorts aimed at contrasting the demon’s condition with Guthlac’s future heavenly bliss. Cosmogony does not enter the context at all. While the account of the rebel angels’ fall in the poetic Solomon and Saturn is of great interest for a number of unusual details, its portrayal of cosmogonic chronology is as incomplete as the others discussed thus far. We are told of the conflict between the “good angel and the bad,” and the subsequent fall of the latter, but the context seems not to have called for any mention of the creation of heaven and earth, or even of man.75 The account of creation in Christ and Satan is fuller and bears a greater resemblance to Genesis A in scope and purpose. The first twenty lines or so appear to fulfill the same function as the exordium in the latter poem, for they provide a (very) brief overview of the early events of creation. This is not so much a narrative account of these events as it is a list of God’s creative accomplishments, the reasons both for worshipping Him and proofs of His unfathomable nature. The culmination of this latter sentiment is in line 18: “Hwa is þæt ðe cunne / orðonc clene nymðe ece God?” (Who is there that can know to the full his design, except eternal God?). It is here that the “description” of creation becomes both chronologically confusing and unorthodox. The syntax of lines 19–21 in particular has caused problems for critics.76 At least one has accused the poet of heresy, interpreting these lines to

72 ASPR II, ll. 723–71; and 934–52. For a discussion of this scene, see D. F. Johnson, “Hagiographical Demon or Liturgical Devil? Demonology and Baptismal Imagery in Cynewulf’s Elene,” Leeds Studies in English 37 (2006): 9–29. 73 ASPR III, ll. 417–28. 74 ASPR III, ll. 592–98; 623–36; 651b–83. 75 ASPR VI, ll. 451–76. 76 Dreamas he gedelde, duguðe and geoguþe: Adam ærest, and þæt æðele cyn,

52

David F. Johnson

suggest that Adam was created before the angels, while others have argued that no chronological order of creation need necessarily be implied here.77 Whether what the poet has given us is to be taken chronologically or not, the lines as they stand contain at any rate no reference to the order of creation of the spiritual and physical worlds, and the poem is silent on the issue of God’s motives for creating man. The account of Lucifer’s fall in Genesis B is a characteristically “loquacious and free” one, bearing as it does the impress of the Old Saxon style from which it derives. It begins by recounting how God ordained ten orders of angels who would work his will; one of them was more intelligent, stronger and more beautiful than all the others, second only to God Himself. In some 150 lines, Lucifer swells with pride, rebels, is cast out of heaven and thrust into hell. Satan laments his situation and describes the sufferings of hell in two speeches, in the second of which he begins to plot his revenge against man. From a chronological viewpoint, it is noteworthy that whoever made the insertion of the Old Saxon material chose to place this version of Lucifer’s fall directly after the creation of man, thus in effect aligning the text with the hexameral tradition. Here we recall Ælfric’s account of the sixth day of creation, on which Lucifer fell and man was formed from the earth. But the matter is hardly that straightforward, for the account is told in the perfect (“Hæfde se alwalda engelcynna . . . tene getrimede”), thus Satan’s own description of his rebellion and fall, as well as the poet’s, may just as easily be taken to have occurred long before the “hexameral” account of creation begun at Genesis A, lines 126 ff. It does appear, however, that the Old Saxon original did not contain the same explicit representation of the order of the cosmogonic events as we have identified in Genesis A (ll. 92–101) or we might reasonably have expected the Anglo-Saxon translator to incorporate it here as well. The only hint we have that the Saxon poet’s view on the matter might have coincided with the situation described in Genesis A is at lines 395 ff.: He hæfð nu gemearcod anne middangeard, æfter his onlicnesse.

þær he hæfð mon [geworhtne

Mid þam he wile eft gesettan

engla ordfruman, þæt þe eft forwarð. [He distributed joys to old and young: first Adam and that noble race (the princes of angels), which later was degenerated.] 77 “Bright,” comments Clubb, “intended by his interpretation to free the poet from the charge of heresy in ‘placing the creation of man before that of the angels.’” Merrel Dare Clubb, Christ and Satan, An Old English Poem (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1925), 51. According to Sleeth, this passage, like the opening lines of the poem, “is meant to be understood timelessly.” Charles R. Sleeth, Studies in Christ and Satan (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1982), 91.

2 Winchester Revisited: Æthelwold, Lucifer, and the Place of Origin

53

heofona rice mid hluttrum saulum.

We þæs sculon hycgan [georne, þæt we on Adame, gif we æfre mægen, and on his eafrum swa some, andan gebetan, onwendan him þær willan sines, gif we hit mægen wihte [aþencan.78 Especially line 395, “He has now marked out a middle-earth, where he has made man after his likeness,” might convey the implication that the events it describes—creation of “middle-earth” and man—have only just taken place. The collocation of these events with the replacement doctrine expressed in the above lines, however, makes it equally possible to speculate that Satan’s speech here hearkens back to the account of creation in the exordium of Genesis A. What is missing of course is the explicit statement that God created the earth and man because Lucifer had fallen, and this lack stands in the way of resolving the implicit chronology of Genesis B.79 To return, then, to the putative influence of the catechetical narratives, my previous conclusions still stand: There is, then, nothing in particular in Augustine’s narratio that corresponds to the opening section of Genesis A, nor do any of the texts that Day lists as narrationes or texts influenced by them provide the parallels in cosmogonic chronology that I am concerned with here.80

Finally, it is worth quoting P. E. Dustoor who, in his study of Lucifer in Milton and other early English literature, remarked that “of all the writings discussed in this section, Par[adise] Lost and the so-called Cædmonian Genesis alone

78 Doane, Saxon Genesis, ll. 395–400. 79 I am greatly indebted to Jill Fitzgerald, for reading this chapter in draft, for her insightful comments, and for graciously sharing with me some of the findings of her recent dissertation, “Rebel Angels: Political Theology and the Fall of the Angels Tradition in Old English Literature” (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2014). Among the texts produced in Anglo-Saxon England that include some mention of the “replacement doctrine” are Blickling Homily 11, the twelfth-century homily “On Creation” in MS Vespasian D. XIV, Ælfric’s Catholic Homily 1.1, and Wulfstan’s Sermo 6. DiNapoli lists six homilies in Ælfric’s First Series that include the replacement doctrine, though none of these contain the key detail under discussion here, i.e. the creation of the earthly realm specifically for the purpose of replacing the empty thrones of the fallen angels. (Robert DiNapoli, An Index of Theme and Image to the Homilies of the Anglo-Saxon Church: Comprising the Homilies of Ælfric, Wulfstan, and the Blickling and Vercelli Codices (Hockwold cum Wilton, Norfolk, England: Anglo-Saxon Books, 1995), 28.) 80 For further discussion on this point, see Johnson, “The Fall of Lucifer,” 510.

54

David F. Johnson

conceived the entire creation of our World as subsequent to the fall of the disobedient Angels.”81 But as I argued in 1998, the radical replacement doctrine found in the exordium of Genesis A does have parallels. In the aforementioned article I identify two such, both of them Anglo-Latin charters, and both originating in Winchester in the last quarter of the tenth century. These two charters are the document known as “King Edgar’s Privilege to New Minster, Winchester” (BL Cotton MS Vespasian A. viii) and a Burton Abbey charter contained in the Peniarth Cartulary. The full text with translations of both documents can be found elsewhere, so I reproduce just the most relevant bits of each here. EADGAR REX HOC PRIVILEGIUM NOVO EDIDIT MONASTERIO AC OMNIPOTENTI DOMINO EIUSQUE GENETRICI MARIÆ EIUS LAUDANS MAGNALIA CONCESSIT.

5

10

Omnipotens totius machinae conditor ineffabili pietate universa mirifice moderatur que condidit. Qui coaeterno videlicet verbo quaedam ex nichilo edidit. quaedam ex informi subtilis artifex propagavit materia. Angelica quippe creatura ut informis materia. nullis rebus existentibus divinitus formata. luculento resplenduit vultu. Male pro dolor libero utens arbitrio. contumaci arrogansfastu. creatori universitatis famulari dedignans. semetipsum creatori equiperans aeternis baratri incendiis cum suis complicibus demersus iugi [iugiter?] merito cruciatur miseria. Hoc itaque themate totius sceleris peccatum exorsum est.

QUARE HOMINEM CONDIDIT ET QUID EI COMMISIT.

15

I. Evacuata namque polorum sede. et eliminata tumidi fastus spurcitia. summus totius bonitatis arbiter lucidas celorum sedes non sine cultore passus torpore. formatis ex informi materia diversarum rerum speciebus. hominem tandem exlimo conditum. vite spiraculo ad sui formavit similitudinem. Cui universa totius cosmi superficie condita subiciens. seipsum suosque posteros sibi subiecit. quatenus eius exsecutura posteritas angelorum suppleret numerum celorum sedibus superbia turgente detrusum.82

81 P. E. Dustoor, “Legends of Lucifer in Early English and in Milton,” Anglia 54 (1930): 211–67. This is a view that Doane does not seem to share. 82 Councils and Synods with other Documents Relating to the English Church, ed. Dorothy Whitelock, M. Brett, and C. N. L. Brooke (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981) vol. 1, p. 121 (no. 31). This text is edited as no. 1190 in Cartularium Saxonicum, ed. W. de G. Birch (London, 1885–93). The opening frontispiece is a very well-known Anglo-Saxon illumination which has frequently been reproduced—e.g. James Campbell, The Anglo-Saxons (Oxford: Phaidon Press, Ltd., 1982), Fig. 164; C. R. Dodwell, Anglo-Saxon Art: A New Perspective (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1982), pl. E; Elzbieta Temple, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts 900–1066, ill. 84; Janet Backhouse, D. H. Turner,

2 Winchester Revisited: Æthelwold, Lucifer, and the Place of Origin

55

[King Edgar grants this Privilege to New Minster and to Almighty God and His Mother Mary and praising His great works grants [it]. The omnipotent founder of all the fabric with ineffable pity measures all things marvelously which He has founded. He brought forth certain things by the Coeternal Word from nothing; certain things the subtle artificer extended from inform matter. Indeed angelic creation like inform matter, [when] no things [were] existing, [was] formed by the divine, [and] gleamed with splendid countenance. Evilly, alas, using [his] free will, being proud with contumacious arrogance, disdaining to serve the Creator of the universe, making himself equal to the Creator, [Satan was] cast down with his accomplices into the abyss in eternal flames—he is tormented with eternal suffering. At this pattern of all crime sin sprang up. Why He founded man and what he entrusted to him The throne of the heavens being emptied and the filth of torrid arrogance being eliminated, the highest arbiter of all goodness, having not suffered the gleaming thrones of the heavens in idleness without a user, having formed the divine species of things from inform matter, having established man from clay, formed him to his likeness with the spiration of life. Subjecting all things created on the face of the entire cosmos to him, He subjected him himself and his descendents to Him, in order that his posterity, which was to follow, should complete the number of the heavenly angels thrust down from their thrones by swelling pride.]

The second document, an Anglo-Latin diploma preserved in the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth, Peniarth MS 390 (the “Peniarth Cartulary”), is a grant of lands by Æthelred II (Unræd) to his scriptor, Ælfwine. Like “Edgar’s Privilege,” it was written at Winchester in the second half of the tenth century (984). The relevant portion of the proem of this charter is as follows:

5

10

Regnante domino nostro Ihesu Christo imperpetuum. Qui ante mundi constitucionem decem angelorum agmina mirifice collocauit. decemaque post per superbiam cum suo lucifero in barathrum boraginis elapsis, nouem in sua stabilitate misericorditer conseruauit. quique decimam adimplere cupiens postquam celum terramque conderet. hominem ex limo terre formauit. formatumque prothoplastum serpentinus liuor ad mortem usque perduxit. omneque humanum genus post illum. Et quando dei inmensa misericordia hoc perspexit. condoluit, unicumque filium suum mittens satum de intemerata uirgine Maria per crucis mortem omne humanum genus piissime redemit.83

and Leslie Webster, eds., The Golden Age of Anglo-Saxon Art 966–1066 (London; British Museum Publications, 1984), no. 26, pl. IV. 83 C. R. Hart, ed., The Early Charters of Northern England and the North Midlands, Studies in Early English History 6 (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1975), 187. This is Sawyer no. 853.

56

David F. Johnson

[By our Lord Jesus Christ, perpetually ruling. He before the creation of the world wondrously established ten multitudes of angels and when the tenth [order] had afterwards fallen through pride from the north into hell with Lucifer, He mercifully conserved nine [orders] in their stability. And desiring to replenish the tenth order, He afterwards created heaven and earth, [and] He formed man from the slime of the earth. And serpentine envy brought the first created man unto death, and the entire human race after him. But when God in His boundless mercy perceived this, He sympathized, and sending His only son, begotten of the inviolate Virgin Mary, He righteously redeemed the entire human race through death on the cross.]

As far as the date of “Edgar’s Privilege” is concerned, the portion of the manuscript containing the Privilege (fols. 1–33) must certainly have been made in the period 966 x 984. The terminus a quo is 966, the date given on folio 30 of the charter itself, while the terminus ad quem must be 984, the year of Æthelwold’s death. Whitelock expresses some caution against taking the charter’s date at face value: It is likely that New Minster received a privilege in 966, but one cannot be certain that the present document is not an expansion of a text of a more normal type made perhaps some time later, but at any rate before Bishop Æthelwold’s death in 984.84

The date and provenance of the Peniarth Diploma, which as we have seen also contains the distinctive version of Lucifer’s fall, is equally certain. C. R. Hart finds little room for doubt concerning its status as a Winchester product.85 Several features conspire to corroborate the 984 date given on the charter itself, and the surviving portion of the witness list allows us to pinpoint the date with unusual accuracy: after August 1 (death of Æthelwold) but before October 28, when Ælfheah was enthroned at Winchester.86 This is how I previously summarized the interrelations of these three documents: The points of agreement between the narrative of the fall of the angels in Genesis A, “Edgar’s Privilege” (EP), and the Peniarth Diploma (PD) may be enumerated as follows: 1. In the beginning God created a purely spiritual realm in which angelic intelligences worshipped and rejoiced in felicity. (Genesis A, 1–20; EP, 5–6; PD, 1–2.) 2. Then one angel, motivated by pride, rebelled against God; he disdained to serve God and wished to make himself equal with God. (Genesis A, 22–27A; EP, 7–10; PD mentions pride as cause of fall, 3–4.).

For convenient access to a description, text and bibliography, see now “The Electronic Sawyer: Online catalogue of Anglo-Saxon Charters” at http://www.esawyer.org.uk/charter/853.html. 84 Whitelock, Councils and Synods, vol. 1, 120. 85 Hart, Early Charters, 192. 86 Hart, Early Charters, 189.

2 Winchester Revisited: Æthelwold, Lucifer, and the Place of Origin

3. 4. 5.

6.

57

God was moved to anger and expelled this angel and his fellow-rebels from the joy of heaven into the torment of hell. (Genesis A, 34–77; EP, 9–10; PD, 3.) Then peace existed again in the realm of heaven. (Genesis A, 78–86A; implicit in EP, 12–16; PD, 4–5.) Then God, noting that thrones in heaven were empty, determined to fill them. He therefore created heaven and earth and man, whose purpose was to increase and multiply until the number of fallen angels was complete. (Genesis A, 86B ff.; EP, 12–20; PD, 5–6.) Adam and Eve lived in felicity for a time, but Satan envied them since they were heirs to “his” possessions in the heavens. (Genesis A, 185–233; EP, 50–61; PD, 7–8.)87

As I have previously observed, these three texts have a shared cosmological perspective, one that is distinct from all other known Anglo-Latin and Old English accounts of the fall of the rebel angels. In Genesis A and the two charters, creation—or at least the creation of the earth—is the direct consequence of the fall of Lucifer. What, we may ask, is the relationship, if any, of the three texts that contain this distinctive motif of Lucifer’s fall with its unique cosmogony? Further, what are the implications of this data for the dating and placing of Junius 11? At the very least it constitutes an intriguing coincidence: three texts, two of them without question written at Winchester, and both irrefutably produced in the second half of the tenth century. Is there any reason to believe that the third—Genesis A, and with it, Junius 11—is connected to the other two? The sequence of events that constitutes my conjectural reconstruction, taking into account the evidence adduced by others and my own “new” data, would go something like this: Let us suppose that Æthelwold or one of his monks either found or acquired at Winchester, or brought with them from Abingdon, a manuscript containing the OE vernacular poems now preserved only in MS Junius 11. The exordium to Genesis A may very well have influenced Æthelwold when he turned his creative energies to the drafting of “Edgar’s Privilege.” He would have recognized in its unique representation of the events of Lucifer’s Fall, and the subsequent creation of a physical space for the development of the future elect, a politically poignant parallel to the very events that occasioned the drafting of this deluxe testimony to the royally sponsored monastic revival in England: the expulsion of the secular canons from New Minster and their replacement by regular Benedictine monks. The absence of any other instances of the motif in question in other texts, whether in Latin or the vernacular, increases the chances that Genesis A, as the older text, bears this relationship to “Edgar’s Privilege.” Both Ohlgren and Raw arrived at the conclusion that a more complete version of the

87 Johnson, “The Fall of Lucifer,” 510.

58

David F. Johnson

Saxon Genesis, upon which Genesis B is based, came to England already accompanied by a set of illustrations corresponding to the main group of Junius pictures.88 If we follow Doane and Timmer in dating that transmission to the last years of Alfred’s reign or shortly thereafter, candidates for its transmission do present themselves. One of the names associated with the route whereby Genesis B made it to England is Grimbald, monk of St. Bertin’s who came to England in about 893 and later became abbot of New Minster at Winchester, where he died in 903. If we follow Gerould (and Ohlgren) and date the arrival of these materials and their translation to the second half of the tenth century, there are also named candidates who might have brought it with them from Fleury.89 It could have been any one of many nameless persons, rendering it quite possible that all the materials needed to compile Junius 11—and thus be in place to exert an influence on the composition of the proems to the two charters cited above—were on hand sometime between, say, 960 and about 1000. Again, I hasten to note that these same materials could have come to England at or before this time via St. Augustine’s or Christ Church, Canterbury, where Junius 11 might then have been assembled. But careful consideration of the evidence brought to bear to demonstrate the former reveals its virtual nonexistence, whereas the evidence for Christ Church, Canterbury rests now on equally shaky ground. Iconographical and stylistic features once thought conclusive no longer stand up to scrutiny, and even paleographical similarities with other Canterbury manuscripts, as discussed above, are not, given the movements of scribes and their exemplars, ultimately very suasive. There are conflicting opinions on the main evidence first offered by M. R. James in 1903 (that thirteenth-century reference in a Christ Church, Canterbury catalogue).90 In fact, Doane says it best when it comes to the Canterbury attribution: “[Several critics] agree in accepting the Christ Church provenance as fairly likely and it is usually accepted on the level of lore if not fact.”91 As lore, and not fact, then, it remains open to challenge. While my argument may in the end prove just as tentative as any proposed thus far, I should nevertheless like to consider the issue of localizing the Junius manuscript in light of the distinctive motif of Lucifer’s fall in Genesis A and the two royal charters I have identified above. I believe that a

88 See Doane, Genesis A: A New Edition, Revised, 30. 89 See Ohlgren, “New Light,” 61. 90 James, Ancient Libraries of Canterbury and Dover, 51, no. 304, cf. 509. As Doane notes, Wormald, Ker, and Temple accept the attribution to Canterbury. Gollancz thought it applied to Cotton Claudius B. iv, as did C. R. Dodwell and Peter Clemoes, editor of the facsimile edition of the manuscript. See Doane, Genesis A: A New Edition, Revised, 33, and no. 91. 91 Doane, Genesis A: A New Edition, Revised, 33.

2 Winchester Revisited: Æthelwold, Lucifer, and the Place of Origin

59

Winchester origin and the late tenth-century date suggested by the manuscript’s paleography may be supported by my findings, and while my conclusions may not be irrefutable, the evidence upon which they are based is both new and no more circumstantial than any adduced thus far. The points concerning Junius 11 to keep in mind as we consider the contexts of “Edgar’s Privilege” and the Peniarth Diploma are the following: 1) the distinctive motif of the “radical” replacement doctrine which makes the creation of the physical world contingent upon Lucifer’s fall; 2) the possible late tenth-century date and Winchester provenance of Junius 11; and 3) the portrait of a layman named “Ælfwine” on page 2 of the “Cædmon” codex. Let us return to that portrait medallion on page 2 of the manuscript. As I’ve already mentioned, Gollancz identified him as the Abbot Ælfwine of Winchester (1035), while Lucas saw in him a depiction of the abbot of Malmesbury (ca. 1043–1046), neither of whom fit into the dating range established by Lockett. Who the inscription actually refers to is probably impossible to say with any certainty, but, as Raw argues, the portrait represents in all likelihood a layman, possibly the person who commissioned the codex. This would not be the first or only instance of an Anglo-Saxon layperson being the recipient of a vernacular codex dealing with Christian themes. We know that Ælfric translated large portions of the Old Testament at the request of such a patron, and it may even be the case that the other illustrated Old Testament translation extant from about the same period was commissioned for a wealthy layperson.92 Whoever this Ælfwine actually was, he may have been the intended recipient of the manuscript, or he may have been involved in its production, though I am unaware of any other such pictorial “signatures” of Anglo-Saxon manuscripts by the scribes or artists responsible for their production.93 There are a number of reasons why one should exercise caution in dealing with this kind of evidence, not least of which is the fact that the name “Æfwine” is a

92 See C. R. Dodwell and Peter Clemoes, eds., The Old English Illustrated Hexateuch: British Museum Cotton Claudius B. IV, Early English Manuscripts in Facsimile 18 (Copehagen: Rosenkilde and Bagger, 1974), 58. 93 Though mention should be made of the appearance of the name “Ælgar” on the verso folio of the two-page illumination in BL Stowe 944 (New Minster Liber Vitae). This has all the appearances of some kind of “signature,” either of the abbot under whose direction the book was produced, or the scribe/artist who produced it. It is not, in any event, the name of the recipient, for the book was intended from the beginning to be placed on the altar and was certainly never meant to leave the monastery.

60

David F. Johnson

very common Anglo-Saxon name.94 As long as we do not lose sight of the hypothetical nature of this one bit of evidence (taken on its own), we may, I think, pursue this line of reasoning a bit further. Thanks to the PASE project—Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England—we are now in a better position to survey the Ælfwines known to have lived during our period for candidates who might have been the subject of the portrait medallion in Junius 11. The PASE database lists 182 Ælfwines, ranging in dates between the end of the seventh and the last quarter of the eleventh centuries. In his study of the Diplomas of King Æthelred, Simon Keynes includes a table listing all the ministers who signed Æthelred’s diplomas, and an Ælfwine appears there from 981 to 1012.95 If we accept Lockett’s dating of the first book of Junius 11 (i.e., 960–990), some 39 remain from the list provided by the PASE database. If we accept that this portrait is that of a layman, and not a monk, as Barbara Raw and others have argued, then about 21 candidates remain. “Ælfwine 32,” as he is listed in the PASE database, is the man who appears as the beneficiary of six hides of land granted him in the Peniarth Diploma. Hart notes the uniqueness of the appearance of the unusual motif concerning Lucifer’s Fall in this charter: The proem is unique. The fall of Lucifer seldom figures in pre-Conquest English diplomas, but it does appear in the proem of K 686, an original dated 994. This Bodmin charter enlarges on an Abingdon proem; the reference to Lucifer forms part of the elaboration, so it seems likely that it was a contemporary theme.96

The diploma is unique in that it contains the only reference to a scriptor in an Anglo-Saxon document of this type: this Ælfwine was Æthelred’s scriptor and minister. Hart’s commentary on this issue is worth citing in full: This is the only reference to a scriptor in Anglo-Saxon diploma. Presumably Ælfwine was a layman; his alternative title minister indicates that he was of thegnly rank. He could hardly have been a mere copyist; one imagines that he filled the role of secretary at court.

94 See William George Searle, Onomasticon Anglo-Saxonicum (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1897), s.v. “Ælfwine.” But now PASE: The Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England Database 2 (London, 2010): www.pase.ac.uk. 95 Simon Keynes, The Diplomas of King Æthelred “The Unready” 978–1016: A Study in Their Use as Historical Evidence, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought, 3rd ser. 13 (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1980), Table 6. 96 Hart, The Early Charters, 191. For K 686 (S 880), see http://www.esawyer.org.uk/charter/ 880.html. While the proem does contain the replacement doctrine, it does not include the radical motif under scrutiny here.

2 Winchester Revisited: Æthelwold, Lucifer, and the Place of Origin

61

In this capacity, he might well have been concerned with drawing up royal diplomas. An almost contemporary gloss gives OE burthe(g)n for cancellarius vel scrinarius.97

Thus the minister or scriptor who received the land was no lowly layperson, for the rank of minister implies at the very least a thegnly rank and close proximity to the king. There are other plausible candidates, of course, many of whom held the office of minister, and several of whom are listed in the New Minster Liber Vitae as friends or benefactors of that house in Winchester, but the temptation is strong to link this man with the medallion portrait of the unknown Ælfwine in Junius 11, and I would not be the first to draw this connection.98 The attestation of an “Ælfwine minister” appears on a number of diplomas, including “Edgar’s Privilege,” where in fact two such ministers attested the document. If we assume that one of these is the same Ælfwine who signs a great number of diplomas during the reigns of Edgar and Æthelred, it may not be unreasonable to speculate as well that he was the recipient of the land grant in Oxfordshire recorded in the Peniarth Diploma.99 That he was a scriptor as well is particularly suggestive within the context of this discussion. In summary, then, the combination of evidence presented thus far renders it possible that a royal minister named Ælfwine, who was active in the second half of the tenth century and present at Winchester, may have been the patron, commissioner, or intended recipient of the Anglo-Saxon vernacular manuscript that bears his portrait and name.100 His dates are, moreover,

97 Hart, Early Charters, 189. On glosses and meaning of ministry, see Keynes, The Diplomas of King Æthelred, 146ff. And at 135: “The dispositive section of the diploma (S853) refers to the beneficiary in customarily warm terms: cuidam mihi oppido dilecto fidelique ministro videlicet meo scriptori qui a notis noto Ælfwin nuncupatur vocabulo pro eius amabili humilique obsequio quo iugiter instanter deseruit.” Note as well that the authenticity of this charter is supported by the fact that it appears in a cartulary of a house that had no claim to the land it describes. See Keynes on this in the opening section of his book. The charter is a copy that dates to s. xiii med. (P. H. Sawyer, Anglo-Saxon Charters, II: Charters of Burton Abbey (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1979) and http://www.esawyer.org.uk/charter/853.html.) 98 My identification of the Ælfwine in the medallion on p. 2 of Junius 11 was anticipated by the creators of the PASE website. See http://www.pase.ac.uk/about/branding.html. After Stokes, English Vernacular Minuscule, 128, n. 37. 99 That this Ælfwine was a member of Æthelweard’s circle is yet another tantalizing connection in light of the literary patronage associated with others close to the king. See Daniel Anlezark, “Lay Reading, Patronage, and Power in Bodleian Library, Junius 11,” in Ambition and Anxiety: Courts and Discourse c. 700–1600, ed. Giles E. M. Gasper and John McKinnell (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 2014), 76–97. I owe this insight to the anonymous second reader of this study. 100 A further potentially supportive thematic issue relevant to my identification of Ælwine here was pointed out to me by Jill Fitzgerald (personal communication), namely that it is

62

David F. Johnson

consistent with the range suggested by the paleographical and iconographical evidence reviewed here, and most recently established by Leslie Lockett. This Ælfwine may never have received the manuscript if it was intended to be given to him, and a possible reason for this is provided by the condition of the manuscript itself: it is clear that more than one artist was needed to furnish it with its planned program of illustrations, and equally clear that the program was never completed. If the designer of the manuscript had trouble finding artists to work on it, and if we assume, as several critics have, that Book II, containing Christ and Satan, was part of the original plan, then we may also posit a delay of final delivery caused by the need to locate a copy of that poem. The fact that as many as four more scribes worked on that section alone may suggest that the scriptorium’s priorities lay elsewhere. If Ælfwine sponsored the project in some fashion, it may not have been enough to ensure the manuscript’s completion. If he commissioned it for his own use, the difficulties mentioned above may have delayed its completion until Ælfwine himself had died, probably sometime after 1012 when his name appears for the last time on one of Æthelred’s charters. This identification of Ælfwine is admittedly conjectural. Yet here we have this unique motif of the Fall of Lucifer and contingent creation of the world shared by Junius 11 and these two Winchester charters—the latter two having both been composed in the third quarter of the tenth century and irrefutably originating in Winchester. The first text of Junius 11, with its singular illustrations and interpolated transliteration of Genesis B, betrays what one might call an obsession with Lucifer’s Fall, and the appearance of the medallion portrait of Ælfwine provides a further suggestive link between that manuscript and the charters. When added to the arguments made by others, this data, I would suggest, constitutes at the very least just cause for revisiting Winchester as the place of origin of Junius 11.

striking “how much of the codex is directly concerned with earthly/heavenly territorial inheritance and proper lord-retainer relationships.”

Thomas A. Bredehoft

3 Metrical Footprints and Pat Conner’s Exeter Booklets For a few years before his retirement, it was my pleasure to teach and work alongside Pat Conner at West Virginia University in Morgantown, West Virginia. Though one might not know it from his published works, Pat is a born performer and storyteller, as well as a well-known local character in the Morgantown community, seemingly knowing everyone and known by everyone. A favorite memory of mine involves eavesdropping on Pat from a nearby table at a local coffeehouse, as he regaled his table companions with a story he swore was absolutely true. It seems Pat had known, long before, an older faculty member from another department on campus who told a story about a Chemistry professor at WVU who had, somehow, wrangled his way into teaching a course on ornithology. After teaching his students all he could, it was time to give them an exam, and he brought in a stuffed bird, hidden under a cloth. Placing the bird on the table at the front of the room, he told the students to take out their exam booklets and to identify the bird and write everything they knew about it, from the evidence they could see—and then he lifted the cloth so that only the bird’s feet were showing. One student rebelled. “This is crazy,” he said, tossing his booklet on the teacher’s desk and heading for the door. “Young man,” said the professor in indignation, “You can’t just walk out during an exam: tell me your name, so I can mark you down in my book!” The student, fed up, pulled up his pants so that his feet and ankles were showing, and he said “Here’s everything you need to know to identify me!” Pat swears the story is true; no matter how often I point out how closely it resembles any number of well-known jokes about clever students and ignorant professors, no matter how perfectly structured it is as a joke, here oral tradition and history come to a meeting point where the boundary between them is impossible to pin down with certainty. Pat makes his truth claim, and he makes it loudly, in his inimitable way; but I still have my suspicions. I have come to realize that Pat and I have vastly differing views about the history of Old English verse, and we have had many enjoyable discussions about our differences there, too, and I can only hope Pat finds as much to value in my perspectives as I do in his. So it is with pleasure that I offer this little study

Thomas A. Bredehoft, Independent Scholar https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501513060-004

64

Thomas A. Bredehoft

in honor of my friend and mentor Pat Conner, at the very point of intersection between two of the things we (separately) have worked the hardest to understand: Old English meter and the Exeter Book. At the heart of my argument here is my conviction that we have long been misled, in the field of Old English poetic studies, by a perception or belief that the Old English metrical system was inherently and thoroughly conservative, barely changing at all across the centuries. It is a perception that is promoted first by inflexible metrical formalisms, which have difficulty showing metrical differences between poems; second, by a too-great focus on the meter of one poem (Beowulf) as if it were definitive of all Old English meter; and third, by a perception that late Old English verse was irregular, not bound by rules at all.1 In fact, with a proper understanding of the data, Old English meter shows all the hallmarks of having been characteristic of a living tradition, including a demonstrable degree of change and evolution during the historical period. Many Old English poems share a great deal in terms of meter, but there are a surprising range of metrical practices and structures in which variations and innovations can be clearly traced. For my purposes in this essay, I will focus on only a small number of specific issues. And while I will use a version of the metrical formalism I employed in Early English Metre, most of the points I will make about Old English meter, I believe, will be independent of one’s specific metrical perspective: these issues, even if they have not been well understood, ought to be observable to anyone who takes the time to scan the lines and count the various types. The undeniable tedium of doing that scanning and counting, I suspect, is one further reason why scholars have often preferred to see Old English meter as stable; nevertheless, the effort of scanning and counting can reward us with greater understanding of the poems, and the tradition, we care so much about. Further, as I have recently articulated in an essay on the date of Beowulf, a comparison with the Old Saxon poetic tradition allows us to reconstruct the basic forms and metrical practices of the inherited West Germanic tradition.2 As such, innovative metrical forms can, at the least, often be identified in comparison to that inherited tradition, and often they can be tentatively sequenced, if not actually dated. In the following discussion, I will take the conclusions of

1 Of course, I made all these points in my 2005 book, Early English Metre (Toronto: University of Toronto Press), but for the most part, the situation in Old English studies seems largely unchanged. 2 Thomas A. Bredehoft, “The Date of Composition of Beowulf and the Evidence of Metrical Evolution” in Leonard Neidorf, ed., The Dating of Beowulf: A Reassessment (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2014), 97–111.

3 Metrical Footprints and Pat Conner’s Exeter Booklets

65

that prior essay as a starting point for discussion of metrical innovations and dating as relevant to the poems of the Exeter Book. First, as I suggested in Early English Metre, Old English poets used three distinct systems for hypermetric versification, which we can label H1, H2, and H3. In H1, hypermetric a-verses begin with stressed feet (S-feet or s-feet, in my formalism), while b-lines must begin with finite verb feet (s-feet) or unstressed feet (xfeet). In H2, unstressed x-feet are allowed at the beginning of the a-line, and in H3, fully stressed S-feet are also allowed at the start of the b-line. Further, some poems demand that hypermetric lines appear in clusters (C); other poems allow unclustered hypermetric lines (U). Comparsion with Old Saxon practice indicates that H1 rules are the most traditional, while H2 and H3 rules are later innovations. Likewise, clustering is the most traditional hypermetric practice, and use of unclustered hypermetric lines must be seen as innovative. Rhyme, always available as a secondary poetic effect in Old English verse, likewise exhibits a variety of behaviors in the surviving poetry. Some poems use hending rhyme (H), in which root-syllables rhyme with one another, even when subsequent syllables do not match. Alternatively, some poems show only what we might call coda rhyme (C), where rhyme words always match throughout the whole “coda” of the word, from the stressed element to the end. Some poems show only formulaic rhyme, which appears only within the half-line (FR), while other poems use verse rhyme (VR), where the final stresses of the a-line and b-line rhyme with one another. The Heliand rhymes, few as they are, are formulaic and within the half-line, and they include examples of both hending rhyme and coda rhyme. It appears to be the case that verse rhyme is an innovation within the Old English tradition, as is the restriction of rhymes to coda rhymes. In addition to these varying rules for hypermetric verses and rhyme, the rules for alliteration also show some surprising variations. In the general case, double alliteration (2A) is required for a-line verses with two S-positions (Sievers types A, D, and E), although the simplest Sx/Sx verses (those composed of two words, each following the stress pattern Sx) are excluded from the double alliteration requirement, as are verses with proper names, formulaic rhyme, or semantic doublets.3 The requirement for double alliteration in all these SS types seems to be the inherited, traditional practice. In specific poems, however, we often see

3 I have, therefore, attempted to exclude these exceptions from the tabulated data; occasionally doing so has had noticeable effects, as in the totals quoted for type D in Widsith, where verses with proper names have been excluded from the totals, as they provide little clear evidence on the poet’s alliterative practice.

66

Thomas A. Bredehoft

that the demand for double alliteration is relaxed or not used at all in some SS types: these are comparatively innovative. In Beowulf, for example, single alliteration (1A) is allowed in type S/Sxx. Finally, some odd types occasionally appear to be allowed. The most widespread such type is Sxx/S, a type that has often been described as unmetrical in Old English, usually because it breaks some categorical rule that scholars wish to argue applies to all verses. It is always a rare or unusual form in classical Old English verse, but examples appear frequently enough to suspect that differences in metrical practice might be discerned based upon the presence or absence of Sxx/S verses. Other unusual or unmetrical forms (such as Sxsx/S), while appearing occasionally, are probably not frequent enough to be of use for this purpose, although this specific type is a diagnostic Old Saxon type, and when it appears in poems with other evidence of Old Saxon influence, it can be important. One additional criterion that is of potential use for sequencing is the preferene of unexpanded Type D (S/Ssx) to expanded type D* (Sx/Ssx). The inherited tradition appears to prefer unexpanded D, but later poems often prefer expanded D*, sometimes by a very wide margin; the preference (or lack of it) for unexpanded D can be expressed as a percentage (D%) indicating the number of unexpanded D examples out of the total of D plus D*. At its core, my work in this essay has simply been to tabulate these various metrical practices throughout most of the poems of the Exeter Book in an effort to work up a metrical “footprint” for each poem or group; my working hypothesis has been that metrical similarities across or within sections of the book may or may not correspond to what Pat Conner has identified as three booklets within the Exeter Book.4 If the evidence shows metrical variations between the Exeter booklets, Pat’s interpretation of the codicological and paleographical evidence gains some support; if no metrical variations correspond to the three booklets, this study must remain agnostic about Pat’s reconstructed booklets. As we shall see, the evidence does in fact offer some support for at least part of Pat’s argument that the three booklets of the Exeter Book correspond to material of separate textual origins.

4 As the contents of Table 3.1 will indicate, I have left out of consideration some of the very shortest of the Exeter poems (such as Pharoah and Wulf and Eadwacer), where the resulting tabulations of verse appearances would clearly have been unilluminating because too few in number to reveal any patterns at all.

3 Metrical Footprints and Pat Conner’s Exeter Booklets

67

Methods Without scanning every single verse and line of the Exeter Book (about two-and -a-half times the amount of poetry as in Beowulf), I nevertheless worked through the entire book (in the ASPR edition), and tabulated the a-line examples of types A, D, and E, as well as recording data on hypermetric passages, rhyme, and examples of type Sxx/S. Certain other important metrical criteria (such as the kinds of linguistic-metrical criteria studied by R. D. Fulk) were not tabulated for this study.5 Table 3.1 presents the data. Several difficulties resulted. In general, I treated each poem as a separate textual item, but where the Riddles were concerned, doing so would naturally have resulted in a large amount of poetry for which the data was statistically meaningless, since the length of each Riddle is often very short indeed. Instead, I attempted to group the Riddles as best I could according to where I subjectively felt a change in metrical practice had occurred. Riddle 40 was treated as an individual item, on the basis of its likely composition in the tenth century, as Katherine O’Brien O’Keeffe has persuasively argued.6 Even so, the numerical frequency of some of the tabulated data made it difficult to be certain about the meaningfulness or significance of the observations. To avoid assigning significance to random similiarities or occurrences of unusual types, I considered verse rhyme to occur only if it affected more than two consecutive half-lines, and I considered single alliteration to be allowed in a type only if two or more examples occurred, and that cases of single alliteration in the type were also more than a third of the total for that type. When total examples were too few to make such a determination, I inserted the raw data numbers into the chart, with double alliteration numbers preceding single. In the face of metrical forms with very few raw numbers, of course, our responsibility is to treat the data with a corresponding level of care and caution.

Implications: Metrical Coherence Table 3.1 is, naturally enough, a quite dense summary of my observations, and it is useful to unpack some of the more important results hidden within its

5 See R. D. Fulk, A History of Old English Meter (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992). 6 Katherine O’Brien O’Keefe, “The Text of the Aldhelm’s Enigma no. C in Oxford, Bodleian Library, Rawlinson C. 697, and Exter Riddle 40,” Anglo-Saxon England 14 (1985): 61–73.

68

Thomas A. Bredehoft

Table 3.1: Tabulation of Metrical Variation in Exeter Poems. Poem (lines) Hypermetric Rhyme Odd Types

D%a

Alliteration Sx/(x) Ss/ Sx Sx

S/ Ssx

S/ Sxx

Ssx/ Ssx/ S (x)S

Conner Booklet  Christ I ()

FR

% A

A

A

x

A

A

Christ II ()

T(U)

VRC/ FRH

Sxx/S

% A

A

A

/

A

A

Christ III ()

T(C)

FRH

Sxx/S

% A

A

A

A

A

A

Guthlac A ()

T(U)

FRH

% A

A

A

A

A

/

Guthlac B ()

T(C)

VRC

% A

A

A

/

A

A

Sxx/S

% A

A

/

A

A

/

FRH/ VRC

Sxx/S

% A

A

A

A

A

A

FRH

Sxx/S

% A

A

A

A

A

/

% A

/

A

x

A

x

Gifts ()

/ A

x

x

/

A

A

Precepts ()

/ A

x

/

x

A

x

% A

/

A

x

A

/

% A

x

A

x

/

/

/ A

x

x

x

A

x

% A

A

A

x

A

x

Conner Booklet  Azarias () Phoenix ()

T(U)

Juliana () Wanderer ()

Seafarer ()

T(C)

FRH

T(U)

Vainglory ()

VRC

Widsith ()

FR

Fortunes ()

T(C)

FRH

69

3 Metrical Footprints and Pat Conner’s Exeter Booklets

Table 3.1 (continued ) Poem (lines) Hypermetric Rhyme Odd Types

D%a

Alliteration Sx/(x) Ss/ Sx Sx

S/ Ssx

S/ Sxx

Ssx/ Ssx/ S (x)S

Maxims I ()

T(U)

VRC

/ Ab

A

A

/

A

/

Order ()

T(C)

FRH

/ A

x

/

x

/

/

Riming ()

T(U)

VRC

/ A

A

A

A

A

/

% A

/

/

x

A

A

S & Body II ()

/ A

/

/

/

/

/

Deor ()c

/ /

x

x

x

/

/

% A

A

A

/

A

/

/ A

/

/

x

A

x

/ /

A

x

x

A

x

% A

A

A

x

A

/

Panth/Wh () Conner Booklet 

Rid- () Rid- () Rid- ()

T(C)

Sxx/S

Rid-a ()

CR

Rid- ()

FRH

/ A

/

/

/

/

x

Rid ()

FRH

% A

x

A

x

x

/

Rid- ()

FRH

Sxx/S

/ A

/

x

x

A

x

Sxx/S

% A

/

A

/

A

x

Rid- ()

Sxx/S

Wife’s L ()

/ /

/

/

x

/

/

JDay I ()

/ A

x

/

x

A

x

/ A

/

x

/

A

x

/ A

/

A

x

A

x

Resign () T(C) Descent ()

FRH

70

Thomas A. Bredehoft

Table 3.1 (continued ) Poem (lines) Hypermetric Rhyme Odd Types

LPr I ()

D%a

Alliteration Sx/(x) Ss/ Sx Sx

S/ Ssx

S/ Sxx

Ssx/ Ssx/ S (x)S

/

T(C)

HusbM ()

FRH

/ A

/

/

/

/d x

Ruin ()

FRH

/ A

A

x

x

/

/

% A

A

A

/

A

/

Rid- ()

2/0 (etc) = 2 double alliteration examples and zero single alliteration examples, or 2 examples of D and 0 of D*. a In this column, the percentages are calculated as D/(D + D*); raw numbers given are simply D/D*. b 9 a-lines in Maxims I show 1A in Sx/(x)Sx, but all have identical metrical/syntactic structure, with sceal on the x position of the first foot, and I treat them as a non-significant exception to the general requirement for 2A in this verse type in this poem. c For Deor, I ignore SS verses with proper names, as likely excluded from 2A requirements. d This verse is one of the Husband’s Message rune verses, and so may not be typical.

numbers. First, I have marked with underlining specific areas in the alliterative practice section which seem to me to mark out especially notable or revealing domains where single alliteration is allowed; once again, there is probably an element of subjectivity in such marking, and readers should feel free to make their own judgments. But given the results shown in Table 3.1, it seems to me that we can draw the following conclusions with some confidence. Most importantly, I believe we should note that Conner’s Booklet 3 is distinguished from Booklets 1 and 2 on four specific criteria, at least three of which are independent. First, Booklet 3 is unique in two respects related to hypermetric rules: only type 1 hypermetric lines appear in Booklet 3, and those that appear are always clustered; these two criteria may not be entirely independent. In contrast, Booklets 1 and 2 allow both unclustered hypermetric lines and types 2 and 3. Further, Booklet 3 has no examples of verse rhyme, employing only rhyme within the half-line.7 Finally, Booklet 3 shows a far 7 Thomas A. Bredehoft, “Old English and Old Saxon Formulaic Rhyme,” Anglia (2005): 204–29. I mark the rhymes in Riddle 28 as examples of coda rhyme because they do have matched codas, and the rhyme words used are generally not familiar formulaic rhymes; but cf. Rid28 6a “frætwed, geatwed” and Rid35 10b, “geatwum frætwað.” Though not included in my list of Old

3 Metrical Footprints and Pat Conner’s Exeter Booklets

71

higher occurrence of unexpanded Type D than the first two booklets. Although I will discuss issues of dating more fully below, it is important to note that Booklet 3 thus exhibits the most consistently traditional metrical forms in all four of these specific matters, in comparison to Booklets 1 and 2: Booklet 3 has a strong claim to be the oldest core of the Exeter Book, with the other booklets perhaps standing as later accretions. In addition, within Booklet 3, the second grouping of Riddles (numbers 61–94) shows no indication of varied metrical practice that I can pinpoint, although the first grouping of Riddles from 1 to 59 clearly does. Riddles 61–94 allow single alliteration in type A with secondary stress in the first foot, and in unexpanded type E: this combination is unmatched in the rest of the Riddles, and it is paralleled in the Exeter collection only in Maxims I. Within the first grouping of Riddles, three sub-groupings stand out for atypical metrical practices: Riddles 15–17 feature hypermetric lines as well as double alliteration in type E; Riddles 41–46 show double alliteration in type E and 47–59 show single alliteration in type A. Katherine O’Brien O’Keeffe’s account of a tenth-century origin for Riddle 40 is not reflected in any certain metrical uniqueness, but the metrical diversity of the first group of Riddles (especially in comparsion to the coherence of the second group of Riddles) encourages us to suspect diverse origins for the first group of Riddles, and the inclusion of Riddle 40 into a group which is diverse in other ways seems perfectly reasonable.8 In Booklets 1 and 2, we find poems with all three varieties of hypermetric verses, as well as some poems that require hypermetric clustering and some that do not. All varieties of rhyme appear in both booklets, as well as various combinations of single alliteration patterns. Notably, Juliana and Christ II do not match in all particulars, despite the Cynewulfian signature passages attached to both: Juliana allows single alliteration in types D and E and has no verse rhyme, while Christ II requires double alliteration in both of those types and does use verse rhyme. As indicated in my “Date of Composition of Beowulf” essay, the Cynewulf signature passages, if considered separately, match Christ II in using unclustered hypermetric types 2 and 3, and in using verse rhyme.9

English formulaic rhymes in my “Formulaic Rhyme” essay, it seems probable that these two examples should count as formulaic, as they share the same verse type. Note that the Riddle 28 example is coda rhyme; the Riddle 35 example is hending rhyme. 8 Katherine O’Brien O’Keefe, “The Text of the Aldhelm’s Enigma no. C.” 9 Thomas A. Bredehoft, “The Date of Composition of Beowulf and the Evidence of Metrical Evolution,” 104.

72

Thomas A. Bredehoft

Implications for Dating or Sequencing As the previous section should have made clear, one thing we can certainly conclude from Table 3.1 is that the Exeter poems are, as a group, sufficiently diverse in terms of metrical practice to confirm that the whole of the book is likely to be a grand poetic anthology, representing poems of various, even numerous, origins and probably numerous authors. Such a circumstance inevitably raises the possibility that part of the diversity might be due not only to differences in authorship, but also to differences of dating. In my recent essay on the dating of Beowulf, I suggested that a relative chronology for Old English poetry might be constructed on the basis of the sorts of metrical variations catalogued here. Doing so, as noted above, depends upon recognizing the most likely archiac practice, in which the testimony of Old Saxon is of central importance. In short, the most conservative practice in Old English verse almost certainly involves clustered Type 1 hypermetric lines, formulaic hending rhyme, double alliteration in all SS types (except Sx/Sx), and a preference for S/Ssx over Sx/Ssx. It will be convenient, I think, to consider the poems in each of Conner’s three booklets separately. In Booklet 1, with Christ I–III and Guthlac A and B, it is important to note one dating criterion that is not addressed in Table 3.1: influence from Old Saxon verse, which seems to characterize Christ III.10 If my conclusions about the timing of Old Saxon influence can be relied upon, Christ III would thus seem to date from the Alfredian period or later; its use of type 3 hypermetric rules would also not be unusual in a ninth-century context. And while specific dates are difficult for the other four poems in Booklet 1, ninth-century pre-Alfredian dates of composition seem plausible. Guthlac B is the most conservative in terms of hypermetrics, but it makes use of verse rhyme (ll. 829–30), in a passage strikingly similar to Phoenix 53–55. Differing patterns of hypermetric usage, rhyme, and double alliteration suggest no two of the poems in Booklet 1 are metrically coherent with one another. Finally, all five poems exhibit a preference (sometimes very marked) for expanded D* over unexpanded D that seems to argue against possible early or eighthcentury origins.

10 Besides the lexical/formulaic parallels noted by Roland Zanni in Heliand, Genesis, und das Altenglische (Berlind: de Gruyter, 1980), see the following verses, which have unmetrical Old English scansions, but allowable Old Saxon scansions: 921a, 1049a, 1107a, 1109a, 1208a, 1304a, 1359b, 1405a, 1414a, 1494a. Note that some of these verses involve s-feet with more than two unstressed initial syllables; other metricists would probably not find such verses troublesome.

3 Metrical Footprints and Pat Conner’s Exeter Booklets

73

In Booklet 2, the larger number of shorter poems makes generalizations correspondingly difficult. Here, too, however, we see a great deal of metrical diversity, although almost all of the poems here, too, prefer expanded D* to D; Fortunes of Men is an exception here, but it uses innovative type 2 hypermetric rules. Most of the individual poems in Booklet 2 exhibit one or more additional innovative features. In poems lacking hypermetric lines or rhyme, alliteration patterns and preference for Type D or D* offer too few data points, perhaps, to even attempt dating or sequencing; it is notable, however, that only The Wanderer and Order of the World use both clustered hypermetrics and formulaic hending rhyme (being conservative in each case), with The Wanderer innovative only in prefering D* to D, while Order shows the same preference and appears to allow single alliteration in type E. Overall, I can see no reason to think that as a group the poems in Booklet 2 are either more or less conservative in their metrical patterns than are the poems in Booklet 1. Booklet 3, on the other hand, appears to be notably different. Lacking examples of both verse rhyme and using only the most conservative hypermetric patterns, Booklet 3, on the whole, seems more metrically conservative than Booklets 1 and 2. Strikingly, a number of poems or sequences in Booklet 3 also show a clear preference for D to D*, which is also the presumed conservative preference. A number of poems allow single alliteration in type E, but as I discussed in “The Date of Composition of Beowulf,” single alliteration in this type is so widespread that it is very likely to have been a very early innovation. The consistency of Booklet 3’s preference for conservative metrical practices seems to me to be a likely indicator of early dates of composition, even if not a certain one. But it seems just as important to note the other most unusual feature of Table 3.1’s data in relation to Booklet 3. Specifically, the poems Deor, The Wife’s Lament, Resignation, The Husband’s Message, and The Ruin include a total of four examples of unexpanded Type D, compared to twenty expanded D* verses. It seems to me to be quite striking that these essentially represent the poems from this booklet we most often associate with the genre of the Old English elegy, and that their preference for D* is very unlike the rest of the booklet (though Riddles 15–17, 31–39, and 41–46 also seem to prefer D*). The surprising but relatively consistent link between these elegiac poems and their consistent preference for D* seems to beg for additional research or commentary: we may have evidence for shared authorship or origins, or even evidence for specific metrical rules linked to poetic genre. Here, the identification of a specific metrical practice maps onto a related sub-grouping of Exeter poems so closely as to demand explanation. And it may be worth noting that in Booklet 2, The Wanderer, The Seafarer, and even Widsith, poems also often associated with

74

Thomas A. Bredehoft

the genre of elegy and sometimes even seen as among the oldest Old English verse, share the Booklet 3 elegies’ preference for D* over D.11 Pat Conner, in considering the possible development of Booklet 3’s contents, observes “There is evidence that the two separate collections of riddles have been copied together into one manuscript which the ‘Exeter-Book’ scribe then copied into Booklet III. Poems which were not riddles were appended to the beginning and end of each collection.”12 All five of the poems under discussion belong to Conner’s “poems which were not riddles” and they very likely have a different source from the Riddles. But, as noted above, it is also important to see that the second core group of Riddles (61–95) are essentially coherent, metrically, as if composed by one author, while the first group (Riddles 1–59) are metrically diverse. If this metrical evidence can supplement Conner’s useful codicological arguments, it would appear that Riddles 61–95 mark the most coherent, and possibly the original, core of Booklet 3, and that various texts accreted to it, including a second group of Riddles that was itself accretive. In terms of their position at the core of an accretive collection and in their general metrical conservatism, Riddles 61–95 can very likely be placed at an early point in our reconstructed chronology of Old English verse, perhaps in the eighth century.

Conclusion At least since 1072, the diversity of the poetic contents of the Exeter Book has been well recognized. Pat Conner’s foundational work on the Exeter Book, by tracing out the probable sequence of copying amongst the gatherings, opens the door for a clearer understanding of the act or acts of collection that brought this great poetic collection together. My work in this essay, I hope, offers a useful footnote to Pat’s work, and in its own counting and describing of metrical feet and their characteristic patterns of appearance, I hope to have suggested that a careful look at the verses and metrical feet of a poem might tell us more about a poem—or the book in which it is housed—than many of us might expect. Exeter

11 In Widsith, of course, I do not count the name-filled verses of the first (“weold”) catalogue or thula, as exceptional and not very useful in establishing the poet’s metrical practice. It may well be significant that Widsith shows zero examples of unexpanded D, except for those in the weold-catalogue. 12 Patrick W. Conner, Anglo-Saxon Exeter: A Tenth Century Cultural History (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 1993), 159.

3 Metrical Footprints and Pat Conner’s Exeter Booklets

75

Riddle 51, “Pen and Three Fingers,” famously describes the trail of the pen as “swearte . . . lastas” (2; dark footprints), and Pat’s own careful analysis of the Exeter scribe’s traces—like my own habits of metrical analysis—go a step beyond what the WVU ornithologist expected of his students: we attempt to describe these Exeter birds not from their feet, but from their tracks. And in doing so, I have happily followed, for at least a short distance, in Pat’s footsteps.

Timothy Graham

4 The Early Modern Afterlife of Exeter’s Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts The scriptorium at Exeter Cathedral was among the most active of the late Anglo-Saxon and early Anglo-Norman periods. It was in 1050 that Bishop Leofric transferred the seat of his diocese from Crediton to Exeter; a dozen surviving manuscripts are attributed to Exeter during the third quarter of the eleventh century1 and the activities of the scriptorium have been thoroughly investigated and analyzed by Elaine M. Drage in her 1978 Oxford D.Phil. thesis as well as by Elaine M. Treharne in more recent studies.2 In addition to overseeing the efforts of the cathedral’s scribes, Leofric was also able to expand Exeter’s library by obtaining manuscripts from other centers.3 But not only was Exeter a thriving locus of book culture in the years leading up to and immediately following the Battle of Hastings; its manuscripts also played a notable part in a variety of scholarly endeavors conducted by early modern antiquarians who

1 See Helmut Gneuss, Handlist of Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A List of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies 241 (Tempe, AZ: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2001), nos. 13, 14, 15, 59.5, 60, 62, 66, 109, 397, 425, 431, 520; and, for fuller information, the corresponding entries in Helmut Gneuss and Michael Lapidge, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A Bibliographical Handlist of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100, Toronto Anglo-Saxon Series 15 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014). 2 Elaine M. Drage, “Bishop Leofric and Exeter Cathedral Chapter (1050–1072): A Reassessment of the Manuscript Evidence” (unpublished D. Phil. thesis, University of Oxford, 1978); Elaine M. Treharne, “Bishops and Their Texts in the Later Eleventh Century: Worcester and Exeter,” in Essays in Manuscript Geography: Vernacular Manuscripts of the English West Midlands from the Conquest to the Sixteenth Century, ed. Wendy Scase, Medieval Texts and Cultures of Northern Europe 10 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), 13–28; Elaine M. Treharne, “The Bishop’s Book: Leofric’s Homiliary and Eleventh-Century Exeter,” in Early Medieval Studies in Memory of Patrick Wormald, ed. Stephen Baxter, Catherine E. Karkov, Janet L. Nelson, and David Pelteret, Studies in Early Medieval Britain (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2009), 521–37. See also the discussion of Bishop Leofric’s scriptorium and library in Patrick W. Conner, AngloSaxon Exeter: A Tenth-Century Cultural History (Woodbridge, U.K.: Boydell, 1993), 1–20. 3 See Gneuss, Handlist, and Gneuss and Lapidge, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts, nos. 39, 59, 108, 174, 257, 258, 406.5, 506, 530, 533, 534, 537, 559, 565, 567, 568, 575, 585, 590, 592, 607, 608, 608.1. Timothy Graham, University of New Mexico https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501513060-005

78

Timothy Graham

collected and read medieval books in the century or so after the Dissolution of the Monasteries of the 1530s. This essay will describe and discuss some of the more noteworthy ways in which Exeter’s Anglo-Saxon manuscripts contributed to the efforts of Anglican scholars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to study and edit Old English texts. The essay, it is hoped, will expand our understanding of the contribution made by medieval manuscripts to key aspects of early modern antiquarian activity.

Matthew Parker and the First Quire of the Exeter Book Our best contemporary source documenting the manuscripts produced at or acquired by Exeter under Leofric is the section devoted to books in a detailed list of the lands, liturgical vestments, and other items that the bishop procured for his new cathedral. Originally drawn up late in his episcopate (between 1069 and 1072), this list survives in several copies, of which one of the earliest, dating from the late eleventh century, is now to be found at the beginning of the Exeter Book of Old English Poetry (Exeter, Dean and Chapter Library, MS 3501, fols. 1r–2v).4 It is well known that this list is entered on leaves that did not originally form part of the Exeter Book. Rather, they belong to a confected quire of eight leaves (now Exeter Book, fols. 0 and 1–7) removed from another manuscript. The reference within the Exeter Book’s copy of the list to “þeos englisce cristes boc” (“this English gospel book”) establishes that the manuscript to which the leaves originally belonged was a copy of the Old English translation of the gospels.5 It has long been recognized that the gospel book in question is Cambridge University Library MS Ii.2.11, which according to an inscription added at the front was presented by Dean Gregory Dodds of Exeter to Matthew Parker, archbishop of Canterbury, in 1566.6 Various scholars have speculated

4 Patrick Conner provides a helpful discussion, edition, and translation of this list in AngloSaxon Exeter, Appendix V, 226–35. 5 Where the Exeter Book’s copy of the list has “þeos englisce cristes boc,” other copies have the non-specific “.i. englisce cristes boc.” 6 The inscription occurs on the recto of an unnumbered endleaf two leaves before fol. 1, and also records Matthew Parker’s rebinding of the manuscript: “Hunc codicem Evangeliorum Gregorius doddes decanus ecclesię Exoniensis cum assensu fratrum suorum Canonicorum dono dedit Mattheo Cantuariensi Archiepiscopo, qui illum in hanc nouam formam redigi et ornari curauit. 1566o” (“Gregory Dodds, dean of the church of Exeter, with the consent of his

4 The Early Modern Afterlife of Exeter’s Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts

79

on the date of the transfer of the leaves from the one manuscript to the other, though without providing a convincing explanation of why the transfer took place. In his section of the introduction to the outstanding 1933 facsimile of the Exeter Book, the great Germanic philologist Max Förster suggested that the removal occurred during the fifteenth century.7 By contrast, Frances Rose-Troup, an expert on Exeter’s history and archives, attributed the deed to Dean Dodds’s “nefarious hand,” although without presenting any evidence for her conclusion.8 It has largely escaped notice that there is compelling evidence to prove beyond reasonable doubt that Matthew Parker was the individual responsible. Parker, of course, was the first major collector of Anglo-Saxon manuscripts on a national scale following the Dissolution, as well as the first to make use of texts within those manuscripts for a variety of publication projects. His actions regarding these leaves reveal an important aspect of his attitude to and work with the manuscripts that passed through his hands.9 The eight leaves were taken from two different points within MS Ii.2.11: five from the front, before the opening of St. Matthew’s gospel, and three from the back, after the Old English version of the text known as the Vindicta Salvatoris, which follows St. John’s gospel in the manuscript. Only two of the leaves (now Exeter Book, fols. 2 and 3) were originally a bifolium. Following their removal from MS Ii.2.11, the other six were joined together to form three confected bifolia by pasting to their inner edges three long, thin strips of reused parchment that serve to hold the three pairs of leaves together. It is these strips of parchment that provide persuasive evidence that the removal of the leaves was Parker’s work. Photographs of the strips, taken after they had been removed while the Exeter Book was at the British Museum in the early 1930s for study and rebinding, were included in the 1933 facsimile (the strips themselves were

brother canons, gave this gospel book as a gift to Matthew, archbishop of Canterbury, who had it restored and embellished in this new form. 1566”). 7 The Exeter Book of Old English Poetry with Introductory Chapters by R. W. Chambers, Max Förster, and Robin Flower (London: Lund Humphries, 1933), 47. 8 Frances Rose-Troup, “Exeter Manumissions and Quittances of the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries,” Report and Transactions of the Devonshire Association for the Advancement of Science, Literature and Art 69 (1937): 417–45, at 418. 9 I first suggested that Parker was the individual responsible for removing the leaves from the Exeter copy of the Old English gospels to the Exeter Book in an article published some twenty-five years ago: Timothy Graham, “A Parkerian Transcript of the List of Bishop Leofric’s Procurements for Exeter Cathedral: Matthew Parker, the Exeter Book, and Cambridge University Library MS Ii.2.11,” Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society 10.4 (1994): 421–55, at 444–48. Since my arguments have largely been passed over in subsequent scholarship, it seems worthwhile to reiterate them here.

80

Timothy Graham

at this time mounted in a leaf of thin card that now precedes fol. 0 of the Exeter Book). As Förster recognized, the text on the three strips establishes that they were all cut from a single monastic account roll. The script indicates that the roll dates from the fifteenth century, and it was this that led Förster, in his contributions to the Exeter Book facsimile, to date the removal and transfer of the leaves to that time;10 but the date of the roll establishes no more than a terminus post quem for the date at which the strips were cut from it in order to be reused to join together the leaves removed from MS Ii.2.11. Unknown to Förster, four large fragments and a strip of the very same roll were used when MS Ii.2.11 was rebound for Parker in 1566 by the so-called “MacDurnan Gospels binder” (one of several London binders whose services Parker used):11 two large fragments, each glued to a parchment leaf to form a stout doubled leaf, served as the front and back pastedowns; two further large fragments, each sandwiched between a pair of parchment leaves glued to their rectos and versos, served as front and back flyleaves; and a strip perhaps served to reinforce the edge of one of the original leaves of the manuscript. MS Ii.2.11 was rebound again in 1949, when two of the fragments were left in the manuscript while the other two and the strip were removed from it but boxed with it, along with the boards of the Parkerian binding. All these fragments bear script matching that of the three strips used to join the leaves now in the Exeter Book; the layout also matches. There can be no doubt that the fragments inserted in MS Ii.2.11 when it was rebound for Parker come from the same account roll as the strips in the Exeter Book. Parker’s involvement is emphatically confirmed by the use of yet other portions of the same document in two other manuscripts owned by and bound for him: Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MSS 198 and 400. MS 198 is an eleventh-century collection of Old English homilies from Worcester; MS 400 is a composite manuscript compiled by Parker that includes twelfth-, thirteenth-, and sixteenth-century components. Within MS 198, a fragment of the roll covered on both sides with paper leaves apparently served as a front flyleaf in the

10 Chambers, Förster, and Flower, Exeter Book, 47, 55. In a later publication, he suggested that the leaves were removed from MS Ii.2.11 in the sixteenth century by the Exeter librarian immediately before the manuscript was presented to Parker: see Max Förster, “Die heilige Sativola oder Sidwell. Eine Namenstudie,” Anglia 62 (1938): 33–80, at 40. 11 On the MacDurnan Gospels binder and his binding for MS Ii.2.11, see Howard M. Nixon, “Elizabethan Gold-Tooled Bindings,” in Essays in Honour of Victor Scholderer, ed. Dennis E. Rhodes (Mainz: Pressler, 1970), 219–70, at 254–62; Mirjam M. Foot, The Henry Davis Gift: A Collection of Bookbindings, vol. 1: Studies in the History of Bookbinding (London: The British Library, 1978), 35–49; Howard M. Nixon and Mirjam M. Foot, The History of Decorated Bookbinding in England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), 38–40; and Mirjam M. Foot, Studies in the History of Bookbinding (Aldershot, U.K.: Scolar Press, 1993), 308.

4 The Early Modern Afterlife of Exeter’s Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts

81

Parkerian binding; within the present binding, dating from 1930, it follows the modern endpapers and is numbered as fol. i*. The fragment used in MS 400 evidently served as a pastedown in the Parkerian binding and is now retained at the front of the manuscript, which had further rebindings in 1748 and 1954. The occurrence of fragments cut from one and the same document in manuscripts of varying provenances that were all rebound for Parker can only be explained by the conclusion that the document was used by Parker’s binders. There are, moreover, numerous other cases of his binders using similar documents for like purposes.12 The content of the leaves removed from MS Ii.2.11 makes it possible to explain Parker’s otherwise seemingly puzzling action of having those leaves cut from one manuscript in order to transfer them to another. In addition to the list of Leofric’s procurements, the texts on these eight leaves include lists of members of guilds within the diocese of Exeter, a set of Exeter manumissions, a record of a gift to Exeter by Canon Leofwine, a document in the name of Bishop Osbern (1072–1103) regulating the ringing of bells at the church of St. Nicholas, Exeter, and a set of documents recording sales of land in and around Exeter. Thus they all relate specifically to Exeter and its cathedral, and several of them have a legal or quasi-legal status. We know from other actions performed by Parker that he believed that formal documents concerning a particular institution belonged in the archives of that institution—an attitude he developed at least as early as the 1540s, when he served two terms as Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University and concerned himself with the University’s records and their orderly preservation. It is this attitude that is likely to explain why the original first leaf of Parker’s copy of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 173)—a leaf that contained an added copy of a writ of William the Conqueror confirming the lands and liberties of Christ Church Cathedral, Canterbury (the institution to which CCCC 173 belonged from ca. 1000 until Parker acquired the manuscript)—was cut from the manuscript after it came into Parker’s hands: the archbishop, who kept his manuscripts at Lambeth Palace, his London residence, no doubt believed that the copy of the charter should be retained in Canterbury; he most likely removed it in order to

12 Examples among Parker’s manuscripts at Corpus Christi College are cited and described in Mildred Budny, Insular, Anglo-Saxon, and Early Anglo-Norman Manuscript Art at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge: An Illustrated Catalogue, 2 vols. (Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 1997), 1:191 (CCCC 12), 510 (CCCC 41), 681 (CCCC 44), 466–67 (CCCC 162), 549–50 (CCCC 178), 199 (CCCC 192), 749 (CCCC 199), 480 (CCCC 201), 53 (CCCC 304), 221 (CCCC 448), and 489 (CCCC 473).

82

Timothy Graham

return it to Canterbury, although it is not now to be found there.13 Similarly, when Dodds presented Parker with the Exeter copy of the Old English gospels and the archbishop discovered that the manuscript contained documents relating to Exeter Cathedral, he had those documents removed and returned to Exeter. Whether Parker ever had the Exeter Book in his hands and transferred the removed leaves himself, or whether he simply sent them back to Exeter where they were inserted at the front of the Exeter Book, must remain an open question. It is, however, worth noting that the glosses and titles entered by Laurence Nowell on fols. 9r, 10r, 20v, 32v, and 44v of the Exeter Book, within the poems Christ and Guthlac, may indicate that at some point in the 1560s the Exeter Book was in London. Nowell is not known to have traveled to Exeter to study manuscripts, but he was employed in the London household of William Cecil, Queen Elizabeth’s Secretary of State, between ca. 1562 and 1567, during which time he acquired and worked on Anglo-Saxon manuscripts: he entered his name and the date 1563 at the front of the Beowulf manuscript (London, British Library, MS Cotton Vitellius A. xv, fol. 94r), and at the end of his transcript of MS G of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, he noted that he completed the transcript in 1562 “in ædibus Secilianis . . . Londini” (“in the Cecil household in London”; London, British Library, MS Add. 43703, fol. 264v). Parker and Cecil were in constant contact at this time; at least one manuscript, the Vespasian Psalter (London, British Library, MS Cotton Vespasian A. i), was loaned to Parker by Cecil, and if the Exeter Book did indeed reach Cecil’s London residence, it could well have come to Parker’s attention.14

13 That the now-missing leaf belonged to the manuscript in Parker’s time is shown by Parker’s numbering of the recto of the current first leaf as “3,” not “1”; that the missing leaf contained the writ of William the Conqueror is shown by the recording of the incipit of CCCC 173 as “Willelm cyng” on p. 72 of Parker’s inventory of his manuscripts in Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 575 (where CCCC 173 appears as the eleventh item under the heading “S”) and by John Joscelyn’s transcription of the complete writ in his notebook, London, British Library, MS Cotton Vitellius D. vii, fol. 40r. Parker’s attitude toward archival documents also explains the transfer to Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 111—of which the contents include a twelfthcentury cartulary of Bath Abbey—of documents that had been added in the late eleventh century to a Bath copy of the Old English gospels, Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 140. Parker could not return the documents to Bath Abbey itself, as the institution had been dissolved; his next best option was to incorporate them into a manuscript of which a major component was a collection of Bath’s charters. See Graham, “Parkerian Transcript,” 453–54. 14 For the loan of the Vespasian Psalter to Parker, see Helmut Gneuss, “Zur Geschichte des Ms. Vespasian A. I,” Anglia 75 (1957): 125–33; Gneuss there prints and discusses the letter that Parker wrote to Cecil in January 1566 when returning the manuscript. Parker also succeeded in gaining access to the Peterborough copy of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 636), which belonged to Cecil during the 1560s; see Dorothy Whitelock, ed., The

4 The Early Modern Afterlife of Exeter’s Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts

83

Before relinquishing the leaves cut from MS Ii.2.11, Parker had a full transcript made of the list of Leofric’s procurements. The transcript is now to be found on pp. 447–50 of Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 101, a miscellaneous collection of sixteenth-century transcripts of charters and other materials. The copy of the list is formally written by a skilled hand attempting to imitate the Anglo-Saxon minuscule of the original.15 Within the portion of the transcript that relates to Leofric’s books, three references have been underlined (all on p. 449), with associated notes added in the inner margin in sixteenthcentury Secretary hand (Fig. 4.1). While Robin Flower unequivocally identified

Figure 4.1: Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 101, p. 449. Section of the Parkerian transcript of the list of Leofric’s procurements, with marginal notes relating to three of the books included in the list. By kind permission of the Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.

Peterborough Chronicle (The Bodleian Manuscript Laud Misc. 636), Early English Manuscripts in Facsimile 4 (Copenhagen: Rosenkilde & Bagger, 1954), 25–26. 15 John Joscelyn made his own informal copy of the list in his notebook, MS Cotton Vitellius D. vii, fol. 101rv.

84

Timothy Graham

the author of these notes as John Joscelyn (1529–1603), perhaps the most that can be said is that they are by a member of Parker’s circle.16 Two of these notes offer comments that provide interesting insights into Parker’s use of AngloSaxon manuscripts from Exeter. The first concerns the book described in the list as “.i. canon on leden ⁊ scriftboc on englisc”—a book that modern scholars have identified as Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 190 (an eleventhcentury compilation of penitential and other ecclesiastical texts) and that was certainly so identified by the Parker circle.17 According to the note, “hic liber mutuatus ab Archiepiscopo Mattheo ab ecclesia et restitutus vidi vbi seruatur” (“this book borrowed by Archbishop Matthew from the church and returned; I have seen where it is kept”). If the note is true—and there are no grounds on which to doubt it—it offers noteworthy evidence relating to Parker’s acquisition of manuscripts. In 1568, a document issued by Queen Elizabeth’s Privy Council gave the archbishop and his agents authority to search throughout England for “auncient recordes and monumentes.”18 The owners were to allow Parker to take and study their medieval books on the understanding that, “after a tyme of perusyng of the same,” he would return them into the owners’ safekeeping. Because Parker amassed so substantial a collection of medieval manuscripts— around five hundred by the end of his life—it has sometimes been doubted whether he fulfilled the second part of this arrangement. The note to the transcript suggests an alternative possibility. In certain cases Parker may indeed have returned a book but on a subsequent occasion the owner may have presented it to him to keep, as must have happened with CCCC 190: such a circumstance would explain both the note and the fact that MS 190 became a permanent member of Parker’s collection. Another of the three notes to the transcript indicates a similar scenario of a book returning to Parker following an initial loan by Exeter. This note relates to the item described in Leofric’s list as “liber officialis amalarii,” identified by

16 Chambers, Förster, and Flower, Exeter Book, 91; and see the discussion and comparison with known examples of Joscelyn’s Secretary hand in Graham, “Parkerian Transcript,” 435–36. 17 For the modern identification, see, for example, Förster in Chambers, Förster, and Flower, Exeter Book, 27, nn. 92–93, and N. R. Ker, Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957; repr. with supplement, 1990), 73. The Parkerian identification emerges in the introduction to A Testimonie of Antiquitie, fols. 11v–13r, where a manuscript described in sufficient detail to identify it as CCCC 190 is said to be the item referred to as “.i. canon on leden ⁊ scriftboc on englisc” in Leofric’s list; see below, p. 87. 18 A copy of the document may be found in Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 114A, p. 49. It is quoted in full in C. E. Wright, “The Dispersal of the Monastic Libraries and the Beginnings of Anglo-Saxon Studies. Matthew Parker and His Circle: A Preliminary Study,” Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society 1.3 (1951): 208–37.

4 The Early Modern Afterlife of Exeter’s Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts

85

modern scholars as the copy of the Liber officialis by the ninth-century interpreter of the liturgy, Amalarius of Metz, that is now Cambridge, Trinity College, MS B.11.2; fol. 121v of the Trinity manuscript bears an eleventh-century inscription identifying it as Leofric’s gift to Exeter. The note to the transcript comments, “hic liber mutuatus a Mattheo Cantuariensi” (“this book borrowed by Matthew [Archbishop] of Canterbury”); to this Parker himself has added the words, “et restitutus” (“and returned”). Again, however, the book seems subsequently to have come back into Parker’s hands, for it was one of a group of manuscripts he gave to his son John (1548–1619); the archbishop has entered John’s name on fol. 1r, and from John it passed to Archbishop John Whitgift (1583–1604), subsequently forming part of Whitgift’s major gift of manuscripts to Trinity College. These two notes to Parker’s transcript thus reveal an aspect of the archbishop’s dealings with manuscripts that would otherwise remain hidden: that manuscripts could come into his hands on loan, pass back to their original owners, then re-enter his collection permanently. The third note relates to the Exeter Book itself, described in Leofric’s list as “.i. mycel englisc boc be gehwilcum þingum on leoðwisan geworht” (“one large book in English about various things written in verse”). The note records that “hic liber Saxonicus habet quaternionem assutum in principio qui continet hanc cartam, cum aliis” (“this Saxon book has a quire sewn in at the beginning that contains this document along with others”). This comment, written by a member of Parker’s circle who had visited Exeter Cathedral—as shown by his words quoted above, referring to the returned CCCC 190—is the earliest written reference to the addition to the Exeter Book of the leaves formerly belonging to MS Ii.2.11. The term assutum offers one more point of interest: it apparently implies that the quire confected at Parker’s instigation had been “sewn in” at the front of the Exeter Book in its existing binding rather than that the manuscript was fully rebound to facilitate the addition of the quire.

Early Modern Editorial Practices and Exeter’s Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts The Contribution of Exeter Manuscripts to A Testimonie of Antiquitie Exeter’s manuscripts played a noteworthy part in early modern printed editions of Old English texts. The first of those editions was A Testimonie of Antiquitie, printed by John Day for Matthew Parker in 1566. Intended to contribute to the

86

Timothy Graham

sixteenth-century debate between Protestants and Catholics on the doctrine of transubstantiation and on the use of the vernacular for Christian worship and instruction, the volume included the text of a homily by Ælfric for delivery on Easter Day as well as excerpts from three of Ælfric’s pastoral letters and Old English translations of the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, and the Ten Commandments. The texts are mostly presented with the Old English on left-hand pages and a sixteenth-century English translation on the facing page; in the case of the last three, briefer texts (Lord’s Prayer, Creed, and Commandments), the translation is presented interlinearly. The preface to A Testimonie, written perhaps by John Joscelyn, refers to Exeter, along with other cathedral libraries, as an important source of manuscripts containing homilies and other Anglo-Saxon texts attesting to the doctrines and practices of the early English Church.19 Exeter manuscripts are quoted and utilized at various points in the book. Addressed to “the Christian Reader,” the preface establishes the context for the whole book by commenting that in the ongoing controversy about the nature of the eucharistic sacrament, many are accused of spreading new and heretical doctrine when in fact there is ancient justification for their views in the Easter homily that is here published. This homily, the preface continues, is one of a collection to be found in several exemplars of which some have now come into private hands while others are still housed in such cathedral libraries as those of Worcester, Hereford, and Exeter. These vernacular homilies, moreover, were translated from Latin versions which therefore pre-date them, so that the doctrine attested by the vernacular homilies is older than the Old English homilies themselves. At this point, the author of the preface quotes from Ælfric’s Old English preface to his Grammar, where Ælfric, referring to his two series of Catholic Homilies, notes that he has translated eighty homilies into Old English. The specific source of the quotation is Cambridge University Library MS Hh.1.10, a copy of the Grammar that is the work of several scribes active at Exeter

19 [Matthew Parker,] A Testimonie of Antiquitie, shewing the auncient fayth in the Church of England touching the sacrament of the body and bloude of the Lord here publikely preached, and also receaued in the Saxons tyme, aboue 600. yeares agoe (London: John Day, [1566]), fols. 3r, 5v, and 11v (all references to A Testimonie are to the second state, Short-Title Catalogue no. 159.5, in which the leaves of the preface are foliated). On this historic publication, see especially John Bromwich, “The First Book Printed in Anglo-Saxon Types,” Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society 3.4 (1962): 265–91; and Theodore H. Leinbaugh, “Ælfric’s Sermo de Sacrificio in Die Pascae: Anglican Polemic in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,” in Anglo-Saxon Scholarship: The First Three Centuries, ed. Carl T. Berkhout and Milton McC. Gatch (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1982), 51–68. On issues surrounding the precise publication date of A Testimonie, see Erick Kelemen, “A Reexamination of the Date of A Testimonie of Antiquitie, One of the First Books Printed in Anglo-Saxon Types,” ANQ 10.4 (Fall 1997): 3–10.

4 The Early Modern Afterlife of Exeter’s Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts

87

during Leofric’s episcopate and that by the 1560s had come into the hands of Matthew Parker, who in 1574 was to include it in his gift to the University Library of twenty-five manuscripts and seventy-five printed books.20 The preface to A Testimonie goes on to discuss Ælfric’s credentials at some length, noting that he only ever describes himself as abbot although some have claimed that he was also the individual of the same name who was archbishop of Canterbury during the reign of Æthelred. It quotes Ælfric’s own comment, in the Latin preface to his Grammar, that he was educated in the school of Æthelwold at Winchester; here again, the source is CUL Hh.1.10.21 It notes that Ælfric’s authority within his own time is demonstrated by his pastoral epistles, which were written at the request of bishops for delivery to those bishops’ clerks and priests, and by the inclusion of these epistles in collections of authoritative canons. Two such collections are to be found at Worcester—the reference is to the manuscripts that are now Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Junius 121 and Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 265—while one comes from Exeter, having been presented to the cathedral by Leofric, the diocese’s first and foremost bishop. Here the preface quotes from the list of Leofric’s procurements now to be found at the front of the Exeter Book but formerly in CUL Ii.2.11;22 the quotation continues as far as the reference to “.i. canon on leden ⁊ scriftboc on englisc,” which is identified as the book of canons (now Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 190) whose contents include Ælfric’s pastoral letters. The authoritative status accorded the pastoral letters, the preface comments, demonstrates that Ælfric’s teaching was, in essence, the teaching of the English church at large both during his lifetime and thereafter, up until the Norman Conquest. The central text printed in A Testimonie, spanning fols. 19r–61v, is the Easter Day homily (Catholic Homilies II.15)23 in which Ælfric provides an extended discussion of the eucharistic bread and wine, a discussion that in Parker’s view established conclusively that the homilist had not believed in

20 A Testimonie of Antiquitie, fol. 4rv. For CUL Hh.1.10, see P. R. Robinson, Catalogue of Dated and Datable Manuscripts c. 737–1600 in Cambridge Libraries, 2 vols. (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1988), 1:32–33 (no. 48); and, on CUL Hh.1.10 as the source of the quotation in the preface of A Testimonie, Peter J. Lucas, “A Testimonye of Very Ancient Tyme? Some Manuscript Models for the Parkerian Anglo-Saxon Type-Designs,” in Of the Making of Books: Medieval Manuscripts, Their Scribes and Readers. Essays Presented to M. B. Parkes, ed. P. R. Robinson and Rivkah Zim (Aldershot, U.K.: Ashgate, 1997), 147–88, at 185. 21 A Testimonie of Antiquitie, fols. 6v–7r; Lucas, “A Testimonye of Verye Ancient Tyme?,” 185. 22 A Testimonie of Antiquitie, fol. 12rv; see Lucas, “A Testimonye of Very Ancient Tyme?,” 186. 23 See Malcolm Godden, ed., Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies. The Second Series: Text, Early English Text Society, SS 5 (London: Oxford University Press, 1979), 150–60.

88

Timothy Graham

transubstantiation: Ælfric held that the bread and wine of the Holy Communion became Christ’s body and blood in a spiritual rather than a literal, physical sense. Parker’s manuscript sources for the homily were Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 198 (from Worcester) and London, British Library, MS Cotton Faustina A. ix (of unknown origin); no Exeter manuscript includes this homily. Parker followed the edition of the homily with passages from Ælfric’s pastoral letter for Wulfsige, bishop of Sherborne, and from both the Old English and Latin versions of his second pastoral letter for Wulfstan, where Ælfric again discusses the nature of the eucharistic bread and wine. Both letters include a section criticizing priests who retain for up to a year communion bread consecrated on Easter Day in order to use it when visiting the sick and ministering the sacrament to them. The treatment of this theme is more extended in the second pastoral letter to Wulfstan, but in both cases, Ælfric notes that priests who adopt this practice mistakenly believe that such communion bread has greater efficacy than bread consecrated on any other day of the year. He laments that when kept so long, the bread may become rotten or be eaten by rodents or other creatures. Priests should keep the communion bread for no longer than one or two weeks; it is equally holy on whichever day it is consecrated, since it is Christ’s body, although it is so, says Ælfric—and this was the key point for Parker— not physically but in a spiritual sense. The printed excerpts from the pastoral letter for Wulfsige and from the Old English version of the second pastoral letter for Wulfstan, which appear on fols. 62v–72r of A Testimonie, were based on the copies of the two texts found in both the Worcester manuscript that is now Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Junius 121 and CCCC 190, Exeter’s “canon on leden ⁊ scriftboc on englisc.” The manuscript sources are identified in editorial comments on fol. 62r, where CCCC 190 is described as “a canon boke of the churche of Exeter.” CCCC 190 bears interesting signs of how it was used by the Parker circle. Within the manuscript, the pastoral letter for Wulfsige spans pp. 295–308. The passage quoted in A Testimonie extends from p. 305, line 20, to p. 306, line 17.24 Parker or one of his assistants marked the leaf on which this passage begins by pasting to its outer margin a rectangular parchment tab that protrudes from the fore-edge of the leaf (see Fig. 4.2); this was no doubt done so that the leaf could be identified quickly, perhaps to facilitate comparison of the manuscript text with the printed version.25 The twelve-line portion of the

24 See Bernhard Fehr, ed., Die Hirtenbriefe Ælfrics in altenglischer und lateinischer Fassung, repr. with a supplement to the introduction by Peter Clemoes (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1966), 29/10–31/4. 25 According to a statement toward the end of A Testimonie (sigs. K.iiiv–K.iiiir), such a comparison was conducted by Parker accompanied by fourteen of his bishops upon publication of

4 The Early Modern Afterlife of Exeter’s Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts

89

Figure 4.2: Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 190, p. 306. Portion of Ælfric’s pastoral letter for Wulfsige, bishop of Sherborne, with underlining probably by John Joscelyn. Note the parchment tab pasted to the edge of the leaf. By kind permission of the Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.

passage that begins with the vital statement that the eucharistic bread is Christ’s body not physically but spiritually (“þæt husel is cristes lichama. na lichamlice. ac gastlice”; p. 306, lines 6–17) has been underlined in the manuscript, most likely by

the work; see below, p. 92. Note also the similar “tagging” of pp. 387–88 of CCCC 162, marking the leaf on which begins a section of text that matches part of the main homily printed in A Testimonie; see R. I. Page, Matthew Parker and His Books (Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 1993), 97. See also the discussion of the total of four tabs added to CCCC 190 in Budny, Insular, Anglo-Saxon, and Early Anglo-Norman Manuscript Art, 1:539.

90

Timothy Graham

John Joscelyn (Fig. 4.2). At the beginning of the letter, Parker made good the omission from CCCC 190 of Ælfric’s Latin preface to Wulfsige by having it copied from Junius 121 in blank space available in the lower area of p. 294 (Fig. 4.3), while the letter’s title, “Be preoste synoðe,” also originally missing from CCCC 190 but present in Junius 121, was entered in bright red pigment at the top of p. 295.26 The Parker circle also marked up CCCC 190’s copy of the Old English version of the second letter for Wulfstan. The full text of the letter spans pp. 336–49, with the portion quoted in A Testimonie extending from p. 341, line 12, to p. 343, line 12.27 Again, the leaf on which the quoted passage opens has been identified by a parchment tab pasted to the outer margin. The key portion of the text that begins on p. 342, line 11, has been marked with a long vertical ink line in the outer margin; this portion includes Ælfric’s statement, “Ne bið se liflica hlaf lichamlice swa ðeah se ylca lichama þe crist onþrowade. Ne ðæt halige win nis ðæs hælendes blod. þe for us agoten wæs on lichamlicam ðincge. Ac on gastlicum andgite” (“The lively bread is not corporeally the same body in which Christ suffered, nor is the holy wine the Savior’s blood that was shed for us in a bodily manner, but in a spiritual sense”). The marginal mark was perhaps entered by John Joscelyn, who collated the full text of CCCC 190’s copy of the letter against the version in Junius 121, as is shown by his entering between the lines of CCCC 190 both a few words omitted from its text but to be found in Junius 121 and some variant spellings.28 A Testimonie of Antiquitie also prints the equivalent passage from the Latin version of Ælfric’s second letter for Wulfstan (fols. 73v–75r).29 Prefatory comments explain that the Latin has been included so that those who do not know Old English will be able to verify the accuracy of the modern English translation that accompanies the Old English in A Testimonie: “Nowe because verye fewe there be that doe vnderstande the old Englishe or Saxon . . . and for that also it maye be that some will doubt how skilfullye, and also faithfullye these wordes of

26 Note that the comments in the outer margin of pp. 297 and 306 of CCCC 190 are the work, not of the Parker circle, but of William Stanley (1647–1731), eighteenth-century cataloguer of the manuscripts of Corpus Christi College. Stanley’s comment on p. 306, “v. p. 342.f.”—providing a cross-reference to a passage in Ælfric’s second Old English pastoral letter for Wulfstan— is visible in Fig. 4.2. 27 Fehr, Die Hirtenbriefe Ælfrics, 178/5–186/8. 28 These entries by Joscelyn occur on pp. 336, 338, 339, 340, 341, and 343. In most cases he has entered a caret mark below the line to indicate where the insertions should be made. The cross-referencing comments entered into the outer margin of pp. 336 and 342 are by William Stanley (the comment on p. 342 is wrongly attributed to Joscelyn in Lucas, “A Testimonye of Verye Ancient Tyme?,” pl. 22[b]). 29 For the passage, see Fehr, Die Hirtenbriefe Ælfrics, 62/19–64/17.

4 The Early Modern Afterlife of Exeter’s Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts

91

Figure 4.3: Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 190, p. 294, with Parkerian addition of the Latin preface to Ælfric’s pastoral letter for Wulfsige. By kind permission of the Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.

92

Timothy Graham

Elfrike be translated from the Saxon tounge: we haue thought good to set downe here last of all the very words of his latyne epistle, which is recorded in bokes fayre wrytten of olde in the Cathedrall Churches of Worcester and Excester” (fol. 73r). Parker’s sources for the Latin text were CCCC 265, from Worcester, and, again, CCCC 190. Once more, the manuscripts bear intriguing signs of the manner in which they were studied and treated by the Parker circle as the edition was in preparation. In the Worcester manuscript, the three lines carrying the Latin text of Ælfric’s statement quoted above in Old English, asserting that the communion bread and wine are Christ’s body and blood in a spiritual but not a physical sense, have been carefully erased, presumably by a medieval reader disturbed by the statement’s apparent denial of transubstantiation (CCCC 265, p. 177). But a Parkerian hand has reinstated the lines by copying them from CCCC 190, where they occur on p. 156; the hand (possibly that of John Joscelyn) inexpertly attempts to replicate the English Caroline minuscule of the original. In the outer margin of the Worcester book, alongside the reinstated text, Joscelyn, writing his easily recognizable informal italic script, has entered the comment, “quidam papista hic abraserat tres lineas sed restituuntur e veteri libro Exoniensis bibliothecæ in quo etiam hic habetur tractatus” (“a certain papist had erased three lines here, but they are restored from an ancient book of the library of Exeter in which this treatise is also contained”). In the printed text (A Testimonie, fol. 74v), the words erased from MS 265 appear within parentheses in the main column, with this comment entered alongside in the margin: “The words inclosed betwene the ii. halfe circles, some had rased out of Worceter booke, but they are restored agayne out of a booke of Exeter church.” A Testimonie follows the excerpts from Ælfric’s pastoral letters with an editorial statement that ends with the observation that Matthew Parker, archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Young, archbishop of York, and thirteen other named bishops have diligently compared the printed versions of the texts assembled in A Testimonie with their manuscript sources to ascertain that the printed texts “doe fullye agree to the olde auncient bookes . . . from whence they are taken . . . without any adding, or withdrawing any thyng” (sigs. K.iiiv– K.iiiiv; quotation from sigs. K.iiiv–K.iiiir).30 Presumably the comparison was conducted at Lambeth Palace, Parker’s archiepiscopal residence in London where he kept his manuscripts. The statement, culminating in its impressive list of episcopal attestations, would seem to be a logical point on which to end

30 Fol. 75 of the second state of A Testimonie is the last leaf to bear a folio number. Subsequent leaves are here identified by the signatures entered in the lower margin of their rectos.

4 The Early Modern Afterlife of Exeter’s Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts

93

the volume, but it is followed, seemingly as an afterthought, by Old English versions of three key Christian texts: the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, and the Ten Commandments. These texts are prefaced with an editorial comment noting that records survive to demonstrate that “it is no new thyng to teache the people of God the Lordes prayer, and the articles of their belief in the Englishe tounge whereby they mought the better serue their God, and holde faste their profession of Christianitie” (sig. K.vv): a church council held in the year 747 and described by William of Malmesbury in his history of the English bishops laid down that priests should both learn and teach the Lord’s Prayer and the Creed in their own tongue;31 Ælfric advised that on Sundays and feast days priests should tell the people the meaning of the gospel in the vernacular and should frequently explain the Lord’s Prayer and the Creed;32 and Cnut’s laws required all Christians to learn those same two texts.33 The Old English texts then follow, with Exeter manuscripts supplying both the Lord’s Prayer and the Creed: the former is printed from the versions in CUL Ii.2.11 and London, British Library, MS Cotton Cleopatra B. xiii, fols. 1–58, a fragment of a homiliary made during Leofric’s episcopate, while the latter derives from the same homiliary.34 Exeter manuscripts are thus quoted and drawn upon virtually from the beginning to the end of A Testimonie, contributing significantly to this historically important first printing of Old English texts.

The 1571 Edition of the Gospels in Old English More ambitious than A Testimonie of Antiquitie was the publication in 1571 of a complete edition of the four gospels in their Old English translation.35 The dedicatory epistle to Queen Elizabeth at the beginning of the book is signed by John Foxe, the celebrated author of Acts and Monuments of These Latter and Perilous

31 See William of Malmesbury, Gesta Pontificum Anglorum: The History of the English Bishops, vol. 1: Text and Translation, ed. and trans. M. Winterbottom with the assistance of R. M. Thomson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2007), 12–13. 32 The reference is to Ælfric’s pastoral letter for Bishop Wulfsige, which is quoted (sig. K.vir) from the version in Junius 121; see Lucas, “A Testimonye of Verye Ancient Tyme?,” 187. 33 The reference is to I Cnut, which is quoted (sigs. K.viv–K.viir) from London, British Library, MS Cotton Nero A. i, fols. 3–57 (of unknown origin); see Lucas, “A Testimonye of Verye Ancient Tyme?,” 187. 34 Ibid. 35 John Foxe, ed., The Gospels of the Fower Euangelistes translated in the olde Saxons tyme out of Latin into the vulgare toung of the Saxons, newly collected out of Auncient Monumentes of the sayd Saxons, and now published for testimonie of the same (London: John Day, 1571).

94

Timothy Graham

Days, Touching Matters of the Church—better known as Foxe’s Book of Martyrs— but the driving force behind the project was certainly Matthew Parker: within the epistle, Foxe acknowledges that “we are beholden to the reuerend, and learned father in God, Matthew Archbishop of Cant. a cheefe and a famous trauailler in thys Church of England, by whose industrious diligence & learned labours, this booke . . . hath beene collected & searched out of the Saxons Monumentes.”36 The format of the publication is notable (see Fig. 4.4). The Old English text occupies the main column of each page; it uses the same font that John Day had designed for A Testimonie of Antiquitie, modeled on Anglo-Saxon minuscule.37 The outer margin carries a sixteenth-century English translation of the gospels that uses a Gothic blackletter typeface and a smaller font size. The sixteenth-century version is included to assist readers to understand the Old English; there were few scholars in Elizabethan England who had any fluency in Old English. The specific version chosen was that of the so-called Bishops’ Bible, first published in 1568. This was the translation whose production Matthew Parker himself had initiated and supervised, parceling out different sections of the Bible among a team of around fourteen of his bishops. Upon publication, the Bishops’ Bible became the official Bible of the Church of England; a copy was to be kept in every church throughout the realm and was to be read aloud at services every Sunday.38 Juxtaposing the Old English text with that of the Bishops’ Bible in the 1571 edition of the gospels not only served the purpose of making the older vernacular version understandable. The Old English version served in its turn to legitimize the sixteenth-century text by demonstrating that there was a venerable tradition of translating the Scriptures into English. This was undoubtedly part of Parker’s purpose. After noting the hostility of the Catholic Church to vernacular translations, Foxe comments in his epistle dedicatory that the existence of the Old English version helps to establish that “the religion presently taught & professed in the Church at thys present, is no new reformation of thinges lately begonne, which were not before, but rather a reduction of the Church to the Pristine state of olde conformitie.”39

36 The Gospels of the Fower Euangelistes, sig. ¶iir. 37 Peter Lucas has established that the major manuscript source for the design of John Day’s Old English font was Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Junius 121, from Worcester. See Lucas, “A Testimonye of Very Ancient Tyme?,” esp. 172–79. 38 The Bishops’ Bible also served in the early seventeenth century as the basis from which the translators of the King James version were enjoined to work. See Adam Nicolson, God’s Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible (New York: HarperCollins, 2003), 73. 39 The Gospels of the Fower Euangelistes, sig. ¶iir.

4 The Early Modern Afterlife of Exeter’s Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts

95

Figure 4.4: The Gospels of the Fower Euangelistes (1571), sig. D.iiiiv, with text from the end of chapter 7 of St. Matthew’s gospel. Note the rubric before Matthew 7:28. By kind permission of the Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.

Exeter’s copy of the Old English gospels played an important part in the preparation of the edition. Specific readings establish that the base manuscript used for the printed text was Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 441, an eleventh-century copy of unknown origin and provenance. Bodley 441, however, lacks an important element present in CUL MS Ii.2.11. In the latter, the gospel text is divided up into paragraphs, each paragraph comprising a lection headed by a rubric stating on which day in the liturgical year it is to be read: for example, “Ðis godspel sceal on þone feorðan sunnandæg ofer pentecosten” (“This gospel is for the fourth Sunday after Pentecost”; fol. 7v) before Matthew 5: 20–24—a section of the Sermon on the Mount with Jesus’s comments on the need to be reconciled with one’s fellows before bringing a gift to the altar—

96

Timothy Graham

and “Ðys sceal on þone þryddan sunnandæg ofer epiphania” (“This is for the third Sunday after Epiphany”; fol. 12v) at the head of Matthew 7:28–8:13, narrating Christ’s healing of the leper following the Sermon on the Mount (Fig. 4.5).40 These rubrics do not occur in any other of the six surviving copies of the Old English gospels (five of which were known to the Parker circle).41 The rubrics are significant: they suggest that the vernacular text was read aloud in church in Anglo-Saxon times on the days indicated and that there was therefore an Anglo-Saxon precedent for the contemporary practice of the Church of England in using the vernacular text of the Scriptures within a liturgical context. Parker had already noted this in his preface to the Bishops’ Bible, where he commented that the manuscript evidence demonstrates that it “may be

Figure 4.5: Cambridge University Library MS Ii.2.11, fol. 12v, with rubric for Matthew 7:28–8:13. By kind permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library.

40 For these two rubrics, see the apparatus criticus in R. M. Liuzza, The Old English Version of the Gospels, 2 vols., Early English Text Society, OS 304 and 314 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994–2000), 1:9 and 15. 41 Apart from Bodley 441 and CUL Ii.2.11, these copies include Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 140 (owned by Parker); London, British Library, MS Cotton Otho C. i (used by Joscelyn); Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Hatton 38 (owned by Parker’s son John); and London, British Library, MS Royal 1 A. xiv. In MS Ii.2.11, each rubric is followed by the opening words of the Latin lection that is the basis for the vernacular version. These Latin openings occur at the same points in the other manuscripts of the Old English gospels, dividing their text into lections, but the absence of rubrics means that in those manuscripts there is no indication of when within the liturgical year individual lections are to be recited.

4 The Early Modern Afterlife of Exeter’s Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts

97

seene euidently howe it was vsed among the Saxons, to haue in their churches read the foure gospels, so distributed and piked out in the body of the euangelistes bookes, that to euery Sunday and festiuall day in the yere, they were sorted out to the common ministers of the Churche in their common prayers to be read to their people. . . . [T]hese . . . holy fathers of the englishe Church, had the impulsion of the holy ghost, to set out these sacred bookes in their vulgar language, to the edification of the people.”42 The rubrics of MS Ii.2.11 are all included in the 1571 edition, where they appear as headings to the sections of text to which they relate and are placed between a pair of long horizontal lines (see Fig. 4.4). Bodley 441, moreover, offers important evidence of the editorial method underlying the edition. Throughout the Bodleian manuscript, a sixteenth-century scribe, presumably a member of Parker’s circle, has copied all the rubrics of MS Ii.2.11 in the interlines immediately before the text to which they relate (see Fig. 4.6). Bodley 441 shows further sixteenth-century additions. In common with the other copies of the Old English gospels, it originally included no chapter or verse numbers. Nor could it have done: the chapter numbers now regarded as standard developed only in the early thirteenth century, while the verse numbers still used today first appeared in the sixteenth century, in the edition of the Greek New Testament printed by Robert Estienne at Geneva in 1551. Chapter numbers were entered in the margin of Bodley 441 by Robert Talbot (d. 1558), one of the first Tudor scholars to become interested in reading Old English texts, to whose small but important collection of Anglo-Saxon manuscripts Bodley 441 belonged.43 Talbot’s addition of these chapter numbers was not directly connected with the preparation of the edition, which postdated his death by several years. Parker’s scribe then extended Talbot’s work by adding verse numbers that he typically entered in the interline immediately before the first word of a verse, with a caret mark placed below the added number (see Fig. 4.6). Both the chapter and the verse numbers appear in the printed edition (see Fig. 4.4). Parker’s scribe also signaled in the manuscript which initials were to appear in enlarged format in the edition. For example, on fol. 11v, he has placed a curving bracket around the first letters of the word Soðlice, which begins chapter 8 of Matthew’s gospel. He then entered a large S in the outer margin, with a line linking this letter to the original scribe’s S within

42 Bishops’ Bible, sig. *iir. This passage is quoted in Kees Dekker, “Reading the Anglo-Saxon Gospels in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,” in Anglo-Saxon Books and Their Readers: Essays in Celebration of Helmut Gneuss’s Handlist of Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts, ed. Thomas N. Hall and Donald G. Scragg, Publications of the Richard Rawlinson Center (Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 2008), 68–93, at 74 n. 26. 43 Ker, Catalogue, no. 312, p. 376.

98

Timothy Graham

Figure 4.6: Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 441, fol. 11v. Note the Parkerian addition of verse numbers and of the rubric preceding Matthew 7:28. By kind permission of the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford.

the column of text (Fig. 4.6). Sure enough, a large capital S appears at this point in the printed text.44 We can thus see the editorial process at work on the leaves of Bodley 441: all the features there added—rubrics copied from MS Ii.2.11, chapter numbers, verse numbers, and indications of which letters are to be treated as enlarged initials—were incorporated into the edition. It is even possible that, once the manuscript had been marked up, it was turned over to John Day to serve as printer’s copy. Unlike other manuscripts used in this way, however,

44 The Gospels of the Fower Euangelistes, sig. E.ir.

4 The Early Modern Afterlife of Exeter’s Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts

99

Bodley 441 does not show traces of printer’s ink on its pages.45 While such absence of printer’s ink may not rule out Day’s direct use of the manuscript, an alternative possibility is that, once the various additions had been made to Bodley 441, Parker had a complete transcript prepared that was then delivered to Day for the printer’s use but that has not survived.46

CCCC 41 and Abraham Wheelock’s Edition of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History Another of Exeter’s Anglo-Saxon manuscripts throws further interesting light on early modern editorial practices. Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 41 is a large-format copy of the Old English version of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History made in the first half of the eleventh century. Of unknown origin, it was among the manuscripts acquired by Leofric and presented by him to the Exeter library; although it does not appear in the list of his procurements for the cathedral, an inscription in Latin and Old English recording his gift of the manuscript occurs on the last page of the codex (p. 488). In the seventeenth century, CCCC 41 was used by Abraham Wheelock (1593–1653) as he prepared his dual-language Old English and Latin edition of the Ecclesiastical History published in 1643.47 At this time Wheelock served as both Cambridge University Librarian and the university’s Lecturer in British and Anglo-Saxon Antiquities, a position created for

45 Probably the most famous example of a manuscript bearing traces of printer’s ink is the Winchester manuscript of Malory’s Morte Darthur (now London, British Library, MS Add. 59678), in which the traces demonstrate that the manuscript was in William Caxton’s workshop in the 1480s, while he was preparing his edition of the Morte; see Lotte Hellinga, “The Malory Manuscript and Caxton,” in Aspects of Malory, ed. Toshiyuki Takamiya and Derek Brewer, Arthurian Studies 1 (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1986), 127–41 and 220–21. Matthew Parker certainly sent at least one of his manuscripts—his copy of Matthew Paris’s Historia maior, Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 16—to the printer: see Page, Matthew Parker and His Books, 59–60 and plates 45–47. 46 As a parallel for this possibility, Parker used a transcript for the final portion of his edition of Matthew Paris. His own manuscript lacked the concluding part of Paris’s chronicle, spanning the years 1254–1259, as well as the continuation for 1259–1273, both of which were included in the edition. Parker had this material transcribed from London, British Library, MS Royal 14. C. vii (owned by Henry Fitzalan, earl of Arundel) onto fols. 317r–455r of Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 56, which he then supplied to the printer: these leaves of CCCC 56 carry printer’s notes recording the page and signature numbers of the edition. See Page, Matthew Parker and His Books, 59. 47 Abraham Wheelock, ed., Historiæ ecclesiasticæ gentis Anglorum libri V, a venerabili Beda presbytero scripti (Cambridge: Roger Daniel, 1643).

100

Timothy Graham

him in 1639; he also held the university’s lectureship in Arabic. His edition of the Ecclesiastical History privileged the Old English text by according it a wider column and larger type than the Latin, and by placing it in the left column of each page, where the reader’s eye would encounter it first. To establish each version he used three different manuscripts. For the Old English, in addition to CCCC 41, he used Cambridge University Library MS Kk.3.18 and London, British Library, MS Cotton Otho B. xi, which subsequently was badly damaged in the Cotton Library fire of 1731.48 The two Cambridge codices bear annotations by Wheelock that demonstrate that, as he went about his editorial work, he collated all three manuscripts directly against one another. When he discovered a significant variant reading, he might note the variant directly on the manuscript page. In this regard his practice paralleled that of other early modern scholars who studied different versions of Old English texts and who likewise entered variant readings within the manuscripts themselves. John Joscelyn, for example, entered numerous readings from MSS A, B, C, and E of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle into MS D, which he owned.49 William L’Isle (ca. 1569–1637), who during the 1620s and 1630s was the owner of MS E of the Chronicle, copied readings from MSS A and G both in the margins and interlines of E as well as on larger paper leaves that he inserted between the original parchment leaves of E when he had the manuscript rebound.50 L’Isle also entered variant readings into the two copies of the Old English Hexateuch that he borrowed from Sir Robert Cotton during the 1620s.51 L’Isle’s annotations to these manuscripts, like Wheelock’s in the manuscripts of the Old English Bede, were intended as preparatory work toward the production of printed texts:

48 The three manuscripts he used for the Latin text were Cambridge, Trinity College, MS R.5.22; Cambridge, Sidney Sussex College, MS 102 (formerly Δ.5.17); and London, British Library, MS Cotton Tiberius C. ii. Wheelock’s principal source for the Latin was, however, the edition of the Historia ecclesiastica printed in Cologne in 1601. 49 See the account of Joscelyn’s work in MS D in Angelika Lutz, “Das Studium der angelsächsischen Chronik im 16. Jahrhundert: Nowell und Joscelyn,” Anglia 100 (1982): 301–56, at 348–52. 50 L’Isle’s work in MS E is summarized in Timothy Graham, “Glosses and Notes in Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts,” in Working with Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts, ed. Gale R. Owen-Crocker, Exeter Medieval Texts and Studies (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2009), 159–203, at 195–97. 51 The two manuscripts are London, British Library, MS Cotton Claudius B. iv; and Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 509, which L’Isle failed to return to Cotton before the latter’s death in 1631. For L’Isle’s work on these two manuscripts, see Timothy Graham, “Early Modern Users of Claudius B. iv: Robert Talbot and William L’Isle,” in The Old English Hexateuch: Aspects and Approaches, ed. Rebecca Barnhouse and Benjamin C. Withers, Publications of the Richard Rawlinson Center (Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 2000), 271–316, at 293–302.

4 The Early Modern Afterlife of Exeter’s Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts

101

L’Isle planned to publish editions of both the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and as much of the Bible as survived in Old English, though in the event, neither project came to fruition.52 The Exeter copy of the Old English Bede bears abundant signs of Wheelock’s activity. At the very beginning, on the originally blank verso of the flyleaf53 facing the opening of the text, he has entered a note recording his comparison of CCCC 41 with CUL Kk.3.18: “Collatum hoc MS. cum exemplari bibliothecæ publicæ” (“This MS collated with the copy in the public library” [i.e., Cambridge University Library]). In a second note on the same leaf, he refers to certain significant differences between the manuscripts: “Versio hæc multis in locis, vt pag. 185. 186. tantum differt a MSi bibliothecæ publicæ versione vt tantum non altera videri posset. Sed pag. 195. reliquis Mis fere convenit etc. historiam de Furseo, quæ deest MSo publicæ bibliothecæ pag. 177 l. 23. restituit” (“In many places, such as pp. 185, 186, this version differs so greatly from the version of the manuscript of the public library that it could seem all but another version. But on p. 195 it almost conforms to the other manuscripts, etc. It restores the story of Fursey, which is lacking from the manuscript of the public library, p. 177, l. 23”). The page numbers that Wheelock here cites for CCCC 41 refer to the (very erroneous) pagination of the manuscript that appears to be in Wheelock’s own hand, added by him no doubt in an effort to make the manuscript easier to consult: unlike many of the manuscripts that had belonged to Parker, CCCC 41 had not been given a Parkerian pagination. Wheelock’s note draws attention to two major textual differences between the Corpus Christi and University Library manuscripts. On p. 165 (Wheelock’s “185”) of CCCC 41, the chapter describing the death of Aidan (Ecclesiastical History, Book III, chapter 17) lacks Bede’s concluding comments on Aidan’s admirable character and on his one flaw, namely, his failure to adhere to the correct method of calculating Easter. In a comment entered on the page itself, Wheelock notes that this passage may be found in both the University Library and Cottonian copies of the text: “reliqua ad finem vsque capituli quæ hic desunt, vide in MSis publicæ Bibliothecæ et codice Cottoniano” (“for what is missing here up to the end of the chapter, consult the University Library and Cottonian manuscripts”). The last part of Wheelock’s note on the flyleaf refers to the inclusion within CCCC 41 of the arresting account of St. Fursey’s

52 See Timothy Graham, “William L’Isle’s Letters to Sir Robert Cotton,” in Early Medieval Texts and Interpretations: Studies Presented to Donald G. Scragg, ed. Elaine Treharne and Susan Rosser (Tempe, AZ: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2002), 353–79, at 372 and 374–75. 53 Now a flyleaf, this leaf served as the front pastedown of the former Parkerian binding of the manuscript. It would still have been a pastedown in Wheelock’s day.

102

Timothy Graham

vision of the afterlife, a narrative that is missing in the University Library and Cotton manuscripts. In CCCC 41, the Fursey material (Book III, chapter 19) spans pp. 167–74 and is followed by a brief chapter (III.20) on episcopal successions that is also lacking from the other two manuscripts. In the outer margin of p. 167, alongside the beginning of the Fursey narrative, Wheelock notes: “hæc Fursæi historia in MSo bibliothecæ publicæ Cantabrigiensis sic etiam in vetusto exemplari Cottoniano deest” (“this tale of Fursey is lacking in the manuscript of the Cambridge public library as also in the ancient Cottonian copy”). It is on p. 175 (Wheelock’s “195”) of CCCC 41 that the three manuscripts come back into conformity, as he notes in the middle portion of his comment on the flyleaf. There is one significant textual difference among the three manuscripts that Wheelock does not record in his flyleaf note: the omission from CUL Kk.3.18 of a portion of text beginning toward the end of Book II, chapter 5, and extending to the latter part of Book II, chapter 7—an omission that evidently reflects a lacuna in the exemplar from which MS Kk.3.18 was copied.54 Wheelock’s careful collation of the three manuscripts did, however, enable him to identify the omission, for in the outer margin of p. 85 of CCCC 41 he has duly entered this note (Fig. 4.7): “In Codice Cantabrigiensi hæc omnia a verbo Neþam, pag. 86. ad pag. 93. lin. 9. desunt at

Figure 4.7: Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 41, p. 85, with marginal note by Abraham Wheelock commenting on the absence of this passage of the Old English Ecclesiastical History from the University Library copy. By kind permission of the Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.

54 On the omission, see Ker, Catalogue, 36.

4 The Early Modern Afterlife of Exeter’s Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts

103

in MSo Cottoniano habentur pag: eiusdem MSi 59 lin. 1. ad p. 64. l. vlt.” (“In the Cambridge manuscript this entire passage, beginning from ‘Ne þam,’ p. 86 [sic], to p. 93, line 9, is lacking, but it is included in the Cottonian manuscript, p. 59, line 1 of the same manuscript to p. 64, last line”). In addition to noting these major textual differences between the manuscripts, Wheelock used the margins of CCCC 41 to supply certain words and phrases that the original scribes had omitted from that manuscript but that he found in the University Library copy. Such marginal entries by Wheelock occur on pp. 62, 239, 241, 243, 245–47, 249, 252, 269, 271, 277, and 279. The individual entries vary in length from a single word (p. 249) to as many as twenty-three words (p. 241; Fig. 4.8); in writing them, Wheelock adopted a script imitative of Anglo-Saxon minuscule. In most cases, he placed within the column of text, at

Figure 4.8: Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 41, p. 241. In the margin Wheelock has supplied from CUL Kk.3.18 two portions of text omitted by the original scribe of CCCC 41, keying them to the appropriate point in the text with pairs of matching signes-de-renvoi. By kind permission of the Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.

the point where the insertion should be made, a caret mark with an asterisk above it; he then preceded his note of the words to be supplied with the same combination of marks, which thereby serve as a pair of matching signes-derenvoi.

104

Timothy Graham

These entries within CCCC 41 attest to Wheelock’s careful scrutiny of the manuscript as he prepared his dual-language edition of Bede. But Wheelock was aware of many more textual variants among the copies than he records on the manuscript leaves. The Old English text of his edition is based on CUL Kk.3.18, but on virtually every page of the printed text, he listed the variant readings of the other two manuscripts in the left margin, using the sigla B for CCCC 41 and C for Otho B. xi and keying the variants to the text to which they relate by pairs of asterisks functioning as signes-de-renvoi. In light of the careful collation to which his recording of the variants attests, and given that his three manuscripts belonged to three different libraries, how did Wheelock manage to directly compare their texts in an age before the existence of photography and microfilms? Wheelock was evidently able to borrow the Cotton manuscript from Sir Robert Cotton’s son and heir Sir Thomas, who continued his father’s generous practice of lending manuscripts to scholars interested in them.55 As for the Exeter copy of the Old English Bede owned by Corpus Christi College, there is persuasive evidence that the college permitted Wheelock to borrow it. This was in direct contravention of the conditions under which Matthew Parker had bequeathed his manuscripts to Corpus: according to the terms of the quadripartite indenture that is the legal basis for the bequest, only the Master and Fellows of Corpus Christi College and senior members of Gonville and Caius College and Trinity Hall (the two other colleges with which Parker had strong connections) were permitted to use the manuscripts. While the Master of Corpus could take books to his lodging (but might not remove them from the college), Fellows had to consult volumes in the college’s library and were obliged to swear an oath not to remove them; writing in the books was forbidden.56 There is no provision in the indenture for permitting scholars not affiliated to Corpus, Caius, or Trinity Hall to examine the manuscripts. That Wheelock was nevertheless able to remove CCCC 41 from Corpus in order to study it at leisure is strongly implied by the presence of an inscription in his hand recording the college’s ownership

55 Cf. J. C. T. Oates, Cambridge University Library: A History, vol. 1: From the Beginnings to the Copyright Act of Queen Anne (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 205. Oates there quotes correspondence alluding to Wheelock’s borrowing of Cotton’s Latin copy of Bede (London, British Library, MS Cotton Tiberius C. ii); it is reasonable to assume that Sir Thomas also loaned Wheelock his Old English copy. 56 See Timothy Graham, “Matthew Parker’s Manuscripts: An Elizabethan Library and Its Use,” in The Cambridge History of Libraries in Britain and Ireland, vol. 1: To 1640, ed. Elisabeth LeedhamGreen and Teresa Webber (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 322–41, at 339–40.

4 The Early Modern Afterlife of Exeter’s Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts

105

of the volume in the upper margin of its very first page (p. 1): “Collegii Corporis Christi Cantabrigiensis sum incola” (“I am a resident of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge”).57 The only logical explanation for this inscription would seem to be that Wheelock—himself a librarian concerned with the safekeeping of books —entered it as a reminder that the book belonged and therefore must be returned to Corpus. There is, moreover, direct evidence that the college allowed Wheelock to borrow its manuscripts. The chance survival of a register recording items removed from the college’s library in the years 1643–1648 (Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, Archives XXXIX.146) preserves the information that three manuscripts were “Taken out for Mr Wheelock” on June 28, 1644 and “Brought into ye Library by Mr Wheelock” on August 5 (the day before Matthew Parker’s birthday, which was the day on which the college was obliged to perform an annual inventory of the books bequeathed by Parker).58 Two of the manuscripts were taken out for Wheelock again on August 10 and not returned by him until September 28, 1646. CCCC 41 was not among the manuscripts that the register lists as borrowed by Wheelock—who would have completed his work on MS 41 a year or two before the period covered by the register, given that his edition of Bede was published in 1643—but the document reveals that Wheelock was accorded an unusual degree of access to the college’s manuscripts, extending to borrowing privileges. It was surely those borrowing privileges that enabled him to set CCCC 41 alongside CUL Kk.3.18 and Otho B. xi as he conducted the assiduous collation that lay behind his preparation of the Old English text of his edition of Bede. Wheelock’s purpose in publishing Bede was akin to Parker’s in publishing A Testimonie of Antiquitie: as Wheelock’s comments in his prefatory material make clear, he believed that the practices and teachings of the ancient English Church, as described by Bede, provided a powerful lesson for his own time, justifying positions assumed by the Protestants. He believed that the same message was conveyed by numerous Anglo-Saxon sermons that similarly attested to pristine beliefs and practices. For this reason, to many chapters of his edition he appended sets of notes that quoted extensively from such sermons and other Old English texts. The notes were typically occasioned by a point made by Bede within the chapter in question and provided supporting evidence for that point. In his first preface, addressed to the Chancellor, Vice-Chancellor, Masters of colleges, and teachers of the University of Cambridge, Wheelock comments that the

57 The inscription is reproduced in Page, Matthew Parker and His Books, pl. 8. 58 See further Timothy Graham, “Abraham Wheelock’s Use of CCCC MS 41 (Old English Bede) and the Borrowing of Manuscripts from the Library of Corpus Christi College,” Cambridge Bibliographical Society Newsletter (Summer 1997): 10–16.

106

Timothy Graham

notes “will present to you ancient practice, which will wash away the sin of novelty; they will present truth . . . the expeller of heresy; and they will present agreement, liberally demonstrating our communion with ancient mother Church.”59 Most of the sermons quoted by Wheelock in his notes come from three collections in Cambridge University Library: MS Gg.3.28 (from Durham, though made perhaps at Cerne), MS Ii.1.33 (probably from Ely), and MS Ii.4.6 (from Tavistock, though written at the New Minster, Winchester). But Wheelock occasionally quotes from other manuscripts, among them CCCC 419, which with its companion volume CCCC 421 comprises a small-format, two-volume collection of homilies originally made perhaps in Canterbury but provided with later additions by scribes known to have been active at Exeter during the time of Bishop Leofric.60 The two-volume set is perhaps the “.i. full spell boc wintres ⁊ sumres” mentioned in the list of Leofric’s procurements.61 In his Bede edition, Wheelock refers to CCCC 419 as “Hom. Sax. Coll. Ben. num. 7” (“Saxon homilies of Benet [i.e., Corpus Christi] College no. 7”), citing the numbering accorded the manuscript by Parker and entered on a front flyleaf (“Septimus Liber,” fol. iiv). Wheelock quotes from CCCC 419 four times toward the end of his edition, in notes that respectively follow Book V, chapter 22 (pp. 460–61 and 462), chapter 24 (pp. 485–92 [misnumbered 485–88]),62 and Bede’s prayer at the end of the autobiographical passage with which he concludes his work (p. 495). Wheelock first quotes passages from two homilies that explain why Christians rightly observe Sunday as the Sabbath (against Jewish practice); next, he records a brief passage from a homily on baptism by Wulfstan that underlines the primacy of the sacraments of baptism and the eucharist; thirdly, he quotes a complete sermon by Wulfstan that outlines the key points of Christian belief; and finally, he

59 Wheelock, Historiæ ecclesiasticæ gentis Anglorum libri V, sig. A.3r: “Annotationes quas operi passim intexuimus . . . vobis præstabunt antiquitatem quæ crimen novitatis eluet: præstabunt veritatem . . . hæresis expultricem: præstabunt consensum, quæ nostram cum grandæva matre Ecclesia communionem prolixe monstrant.” 60 For Wheelock’s use of another Exeter manuscript, CCCC 191, in the notes of his Bede edition, see below, pp. 125–26. 61 There are, however, two other candidates for this identification: London, British Library, MS Cotton Cleopatra B. xiii, fols. 1–58, + Lambeth Palace Library, MS 489; and, as advocated by James E. Cross, Saint-Omer, Bibliothèque Municipale, MS 202. See Budny, Insular, AngloSaxon, and Early Anglo-Norman Manuscript Art, 1:528. 62 Wheelock’s chapters 22 and 24 are equivalent to chapters 21 (containing Abbot Ceolfrith’s letter to King Nechtan of the Picts on the correct observance of Easter and the tonsure) and 23 (on the state of the English nation and the rest of Britain at the time of Bede’s writing) in modern editions and translations of the Ecclesiastical History.

4 The Early Modern Afterlife of Exeter’s Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts

107

cites a passage from a sermon “De temporibus Antichristi” that comments that the Trinity alone is to be worshiped and adored—a key point for Wheelock, who repeatedly observes in his notes that primitive Anglo-Saxon practice did not idolize and address prayers to the saints as subsequent Roman Catholic practice has done. CCCC 419 itself provides noteworthy indicators of how closely Wheelock studied it as he searched for evidence attesting to the key practices and beliefs of the Anglo-Saxon Church: on four originally blank parchment flyleaves at the beginning and end (fols. i–ii and iv–v), he has entered a set of index notes that record key topics touched upon in the manuscript’s homilies.63 Arranged under alphabetical headings, there are around seventy of these index notes altogether, and all relate to issues of ecclesiastical doctrine and practice; for example, “antichristus natus Babiloniæ” (fol. ir), “baptismi conditiones, et promissa” (fol. ir), “Sancti non invocandi, quia sola trinitas invocanda” (fol. ivv; see Fig. 4.9). Each note is followed by one or more page references, and some also include line references. The notes attest to the manner in which Wheelock studied the manuscript as he searched for material he might include in his Bede edition. Thus his note “sacramenta 2. baptismus et Eucharistia 116. l. 12” (fol. ivv; see Fig. 4.9), for example, leads to the very statement from Wulfstan’s homily on baptism that is quoted from CCCC 419 on p. 462 of the Bede edition: “Twa þing syndon þurh godes mihte swa micle. ⁊ swa mære. þæt æfre ænig man ne mæg þær on ænig þing awerdan ne gewanian. fulluht. ⁊ huselhalgung” (“Two things are, through God’s power, so great and so pure that no man may ever in any way violate or diminish them: baptism and the sanctification that comes through the eucharist”). The index notes thus offer a fascinating window into Wheelock’s working methods during the years in which his edition was in preparation.64

William L’Isle’s Use of CCCC 419 and 421 CCCC 419 and its companion volume, CCCC 421, bear the marks of another seventeenth-century scholar who studied the manuscripts intently as he worked on a project intended for publication. Throughout both manuscripts, passages varying

63 The flyleaves on which Wheelock entered his notes were added to the manuscript when it was rebound for Matthew Parker. In the current binding, dating from 1954, the two back flyleaves (fols. iv–v) are upside down and in the reverse of their former order. 64 Other Anglo-Saxon manuscripts containing similar index notes by Wheelock include Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MSS 162, 188, and 201; Cambridge University Library MSS Gg.3.28 and Ii.4.6; and London, British Library, MS Cotton Nero A. i. On Wheelock’s index notes, see also Oates, Cambridge University Library, 243–45.

108

Timothy Graham

Figure 4.9: Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 419, fol. ivv. The S block of Wheelock’s index notes for the volume. By kind permission of the Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.

in length from two lines to as much as five and a half pages have been singled out by markings that in most cases consist of an “X” entered in the outer margin next to the beginning of the passage, accompanied by a vertical wavy line extending down the outer margin for the full length of the passage; in some cases, the passage has been underlined, and in such cases the vertical line in the margin may be omitted. Fifteen passages are marked in this way in CCCC 419, along with sixteen passages in CCCC 421.65 None of the markings is accompanied by any worded notes. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that all these marks are the work of one and the same hand, and that the hand is identifiable. The markings identify passages where, within a homily, Scripture is quoted or paraphrased in Old English; in several cases, the homilist first gives the passage, or its opening words, in Latin, following this with a vernacular version.

65 The marked passages in CCCC 419 occur on pp. 20, 22–27, 148–50, 160, 184–88, 205, 213–14, 228, 283, 286, 286–87, 303, 323, 341, 356–57; those in CCCC 421 occur on pp. 6–11, 16, 17, 18–19, 21, 32, 33, 35, 36, 47, 49, 82, 86, 87, 88, and 147.

4 The Early Modern Afterlife of Exeter’s Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts

109

For example, near the beginning of Wulfstan’s homily “Be cristendome,” in the context of a comment on the need for Christians to match their appellation with Christian deeds, Wulfstan quotes 1 John 2:6 without specifically identifying the scriptural source (CCCC 419, p. 205):66 Lytel fremað þeah cristen nama butan cristenum dædum. ac se bið rihtlice cristen þe cristes larum. ⁊ his lagum folgað. ealswa se apostol cwæð; Qui se dicit in Christum credere debet ambulare sicut & ipse ambulauit; Se ðe secge þæt he on crist gelyfe. fare se þæs rihtweges. þe crist sylf ferde; Yet the name “Christian” profits little in the absence of Christian deeds. But he is truly a Christian who follows Christ’s teachings and laws. As the apostle says: “Qui se dicit in Christum credere debet ambulare sicut et ipse ambulauit”—“He who says he believes in Christ should travel on the right path that Christ himself traveled.”

The annotator has entered an “X” in the margin alongside the beginning of the Old English version of the biblical quotation, with a wavy line extending downwards for the next two lines, in which the vernacular translation continues. Again, within Ælfric’s homily “In natale plurimorum sanctorum martyrum” (from the Second Series of Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies), in a passage praising the virtue of patience, Ælfric quotes from Proverbs 16:32, which expresses the sentiment that the patient man is better than the strong man (CCCC 421, p. 47):67 Soðlice geþyld is wyrtruma. ⁊ hyrdrædene eallra haligra mægena. ⁊ ungeþyld is eallra mægna tostencednys. Hit is awriten. þæs mannes wisdom bið oncnawen þurh geþyld. Eft cwæð salomon. selre is se geþyldiga wer. þonne se stranga. ⁊ se þe his mod gewylt is betera þonne se þe burh oferwinð. Truly, patience is the root and the guardian of all holy virtues, and impatience is the destruction of all virtues. It is written that a man’s wisdom is known through his patience. Again, Solomon says: “The patient man is better than the strong man, and he who commands his spirit is better than he who overcomes a city.”

The annotator has placed an “X” in the margin next to the line containing the first words of the quotation, “selre is se geþyldiga wer,” and has underlined the complete quotation (Fig. 4.10).

66 For this passage, see Dorothy Bethurum, ed., The Homilies of Wulfstan (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957), 200. 67 For this passage, see Godden, Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies. The Second Series, 314. The Vulgate text of Proverbs 16:32 is “Melior est patiens viro forti; et qui dominatur animo suo, expugnatore urbium.”

110

Timothy Graham

Figure 4.10: Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 421, p. 47. William L’Isle’s marking of a scriptural quotation within Ælfric’s homily “In natale plurimorum sanctorum martyrum.” By kind permission of the Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.

These markings are the work of William L’Isle, who made similar markings in other Anglo-Saxon homiliaries that he studied, including CCCC 162, 178, 188, 198, 302, 303, and 402, Cambridge University Library MS Gg.3.28, and Cambridge, Trinity College, MS B.15.34. Active in Anglo-Saxon studies from the late 1610s until his death, L’Isle, a one-time fellow of King’s College, Cambridge, worked from his home base in Wilbraham just outside Cambridge. He mostly studied manuscripts in Cambridge libraries, but he was also able to borrow items from Sir Robert Cotton’s collection and he himself was the owner of a few manuscripts, including the Peterborough copy of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 636), which on L’Isle’s death passed to Archbishop William Laud (1573–1645), who gave it to the Bodleian. L’Isle’s most visible achievement in the Anglo-Saxon field was his publication, in 1623, of Ælfric’s treatise on the Old and New Testaments, a work that Ælfric wrote for the layman Sigeweard and in which he briefly describes the content of the different biblical books, noting which of these books he has translated into the vernacular.68 That Ælfric had translated portions of the Bible was a key point for L’Isle, who spends much of the forty-page preface to his edition advocating for and defending vernacular translations of

68 William L’Isle, A Saxon Treatise Concerning the Old and New Testament (London: John Haviland, 1623).

4 The Early Modern Afterlife of Exeter’s Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts

111

Scripture. Writing of his motivation in publishing Ælfric’s treatise, he comments that “I could not . . . lightly passe by these ancient testimonies of this lands Religion: much lesse this their monument concerning the holy Scriptures; whose any part, or memory thereof so anciently written, in any tongue, for the glory of God and benefit of his Church, I desire to preserue; And the rather because it hath beene slandered for heresie and new doctrine . . . to haue the Scripture in vulgar.”69 He also records his (mistaken) belief that the greater part, if not the whole, of the Bible had been translated into Old English in King Alfred’s time and that copies of this translation had been sent to the cathedral churches, there to be carefully preserved (sigs. e.2r–e.3r):70 . . . the Saxons . . . haue left vs yet to be seene, a good part of the Bible, (if not all,) which besides the translations of Ælfricke auouched in this Treatise, the learned King Ælfred himselfe also seuen hundred and fiftie yeeres agoe, translated (as the History of Ely saith) in eulogiam Anglicæ gentis, into good English; which also with the Pastorall of Saint Gregory so likewise Englished, and certaine Mancusses, or marks, of gold, the fairest of his Coine, hee sent to his Cathedrall Churches; where the bookes haue beene kept euer since, till of late. . . . But this good ordinance of preseruing Standard-Bibles in our Cathedrall Churches or in the Kings Chappell, had it continued, we might haue shewed now the whole booke of God in Saxon, which was the English of those times, translated both by the King and the Archbishop of Canterbury.

L’Isle goes on to note that “a part hath beene set forth already by good Master Fox” (a reference to the 1571 edition of the Old English gospels) and that “(by the grace of God) I meane ere long to let the world know what is more remaining; as more I haue seene both in our Vniuersitie Libraries, and that of Sir Robert Cotton.”71 It was his desire to “let the world know what is more remaining” that is reflected in his marking-up of the homiliaries. L’Isle systematically

69 L’Isle, A Saxon Treatise, sig. d.1v. 70 The “History of Ely” mentioned by L’Isle, recording King Alfred’s translation of Scripture, is the book known to modern scholarship as the Liber Eliensis. The specific manuscript with which L’Isle was familiar is likely to be London, British Library, MS Cotton Domitian A. xv, in which the cited passage occurs on fol. 28v; see Graham, “William L’Isle’s Letters,” 359–60. In referring to Ælfric as archbishop of Canterbury, L’Isle—like some other early Anglo-Saxonists—is confusing the homilist with the individual of the same name who was archbishop from 995 to 1005. L’Isle again refers to King Alfred’s having translated the Bible near the end of his preface, where he puts these words into the mouth of Alfred himself (sig. f.4r): “Haue I translated with my owne hand the godly Pastorall of Saint Gregory, with many his learned Homilies; yea the whole Bible it selfe; haue I sent copies of them all to my Churches, with many Mancusses of gold, for the helpe and incouragement of my Pastors, and instruction of my people; that all should be lost, all forgot, all grow out of knowledge and remembrance?” 71 L’Isle, A Saxon Treatise, sig. e.3r.

112

Timothy Graham

searched through these manuscripts for quotations from the Scriptures in Old English, entering a mark in the margin whenever he came upon such a quotation. He then transcribed many of these quotations into a notebook, now Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 381;72 it is the high degree of correlation between the passages marked in the manuscripts and those transcribed into the notebook that allows the marks within the manuscripts to be ascribed to L’Isle.73 Passages that L’Isle marked in CCCC 419 and 421 are transcribed on fol. 134v of the notebook, from line 13 to line 26, and on fol. 139v, line 8. L’Isle also included in the notebook his complete translation of the Old English Hexateuch, of which he borrowed the two copies in Cotton’s possession (now London, British Library, MS Cotton Claudius B. iv, and Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 509); his translation of Ælfric’s homily on Judges, which paraphrases a large part of the biblical book; and his transcriptions and translations of Ælfric’s homiletic paraphrases of the books of Job and Esther (the latter of which is no longer to be found in any surviving manuscript). He evidently planned to publish all this material—along with the Old English translation of the Psalms, which he transcribed and translated in another notebook, Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 201—in an edition to be titled “Saxon-English Remaines” of the Bible; at the front of MS Laud Misc. 381 he has drafted three potential title pages for such a publication, one of which includes an imprimatur dated December 3, 1630 and signed by Henry Butts, Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University.74 But the planned edition failed to come to fruition. In a letter of March 16, 1631 to Sir Robert Cotton, L’Isle writes of how the project lies “dead by me.”75 L’Isle’s marks in CCCC 419 and 421 form part of a large body of manuscript evidence bearing witness to this failed project.

72 See Stuart Lee, “Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 381: William L’Isle, Ælfric, and the Ancrene Wisse,” in The Recovery of Old English: Anglo-Saxon Studies in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, ed. Timothy Graham, Publications of the Richard Rawlinson Center (Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 2000), 207–42. 73 MS Laud Misc. 381 includes L’Isle’s transcriptions only of Old Testament quotations, along with a few New Testament ones that he evidently transcribed in error, then crossed out; he perhaps copied the New Testament quotations that he marked in the homiliaries into another notebook that has not survived. 74 See Graham, “Early Modern Users of Claudius B. iv,” 303–10. For one of the draft title pages, see ibid., fig. 31. 75 London, British Library, MS Cotton Julius C. iii, fol. 242r. See Graham, “William L’Isle’s Letters to Sir Robert Cotton,” 372 and 374.

4 The Early Modern Afterlife of Exeter’s Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts

113

Early Modern Use of Exeter’s Bilingual Copy of the Enlarged Rule of Chrodegang of Metz Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 191 contains the Latin text of the so-called “enlarged” version of the Rule of Chrodegang, bishop of Metz (742–766), accompanied by the Old English translation of the text that was made at or within the sphere of influence of the Old Minster, Winchester, in the later tenth century.76 Chrodegang’s Rule was directed at canons who live in a community; the enlarged version of the Rule incorporates portions of the Institutio clericorum that was drawn up at the Council of Aachen of 816/17 along with extracts from other texts. Leofric most likely first encountered the Rule in Lotharingia (of which Metz was the principal city), where he was educated as a young man, probably in a reformed house of canons observing the Rule.77 It is not surprising that, when he moved the seat of his diocese to Exeter, turning the existing monastery of St. Peter’s into a community of canons, he introduced Chrodegang’s Rule and had a copy made. CCCC 191 is likely to be the “regula canonicorum” mentioned in the list of Leofric’s procurements for his cathedral; the manuscript is the work of one of the scribes active at Exeter during Leofric’s episcopate (Drage’s Scribe 2). Within the manuscript, each of the eighty-four chapters of the original Latin text is followed by its Old English translation. CCCC 191 was formerly bound with a Latin and Old English copy of the Capitula of Theodulf, bishop of Orléans (d. 821), now Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 201, Part II, and with a Latin and Old English Martyrology that now survives fragmentarily as Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 196. A thirteenth-century title on p. 1 of CCCC 191 mentions the Martyrology as forming part of the volume and describes the book as a whole as “liber utilis exceptis omnibus expositionibus in anglico” (“a useful book apart from all the explanations in English”)—thus attesting to the loss of the knowledge of Old English by that time. Entries in the Exeter library catalogue of 1327 indicate that by that date the Martyrology had

76 Ker, Catalogue, 74, noted that the place of origin of the exemplar of CCCC 191 was established by the inclusion in the Old English version of chapter 2 of the names of five known members of the Old Minster community. See also the discussion of the origin of the Old English translation in Brigitte Langefeld, The Old English Version of the Enlarged Rule of Chrodegang Edited together with the Latin Text and an English Translation, Münchener Universitätsschriften, Texte und Untersuchungen zur Englischen Philologie 26 (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2003), 143–44. 77 See Frank Barlow, “Leofric and His Times,” in Frank Barlow, Kathleen M. Dexter, Audrey M. Erskine, and L. J. Lloyd, Leofric of Exeter: Essays in Commemoration of the Foundation of Exeter Cathedral Library in A.D. 1072 (Exeter: University of Exeter, 1972), 1–16, at 2–3.

114

Timothy Graham

become detached. The wording of the Exeter catalogue of 1506 establishes that the original second leaf of the Rule of Chrodegang, carrying the end of the Old English preface and the beginning of the Latin chapter-list, had by then been lost.78

CCCC 191 and Matthew Parker CCCC 191 exhibits notable signs of use during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It was among the several Exeter manuscripts that came into Matthew Parker’s hands during the 1560s. Its text attracted Parker’s interest and at the beginning of the book he recorded his belief that the original Latin was the work of Theodore, seventh-century archbishop of Canterbury, and that the Old English translator was Ælfric (see Fig. 4.11): “Hic liber videtur esse scriptus primo latine

Figure 4.11: Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 191, fol. iiv. Inscription by Matthew Parker recording his belief that Archbishop Theodore was the author of the manuscript’s Latin text and that Ælfric was the translator of the Old English version. By kind permission of the Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.

78 The catalogue entry records the first word of the second folio as “accipiendam”; had the missing leaf still been present, “accipiendam” would have been the first word of the third, not the second leaf. See the description of CCCC 191 in Timothy Graham, Raymond J. S. Grant, Peter J. Lucas, and Elaine M. Treharne, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge I: MSS 41, 57, 191, 302, 303, 367, 383, 422, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts in Microfiche Facsimile 11 (Tempe, AZ: ACMRS, 2003), 39–47, at 40.

4 The Early Modern Afterlife of Exeter’s Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts

115

per Theodorum archiepiscopum septimum Cantuariensem et per Ælfricum translatus anglice” (fol. iiv: “This book seems to have first been written in Latin by Theodore, seventh archbishop of Canterbury, and translated into English by Ælfric”).79 His attribution was, of course, wrong on both counts (although facilitated by the manuscript’s failure to name the author of either the original text or the translation), but Parker’s admiration for his venerable Cilician predecessor even led him to the mistaken belief—attested by inscriptions that Parker entered at the front of the books—that several of the manuscripts in his possession had formed part of Theodore’s own library. Among these manuscripts were a twelfthcentury parchment copy of the Greek Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs that had been owned by Robert Grosseteste, bishop of Lincoln from 1235 to 1253 (Cambridge University Library MS Ff.1.24); a fifteenth-century paper copy of Homer (Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 81); and a copy of Cicero’s De inventione and the pseudo-Ciceronian Rhetorica ad Herennium, also on paper, written in the third quarter of the fifteenth century by the English humanist scribe John Pacy (Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 158). Remarkably, none of the manuscripts that Parker believed to have been owned by Theodore is earlier than the eleventh century. Parker’s pride in his “Theodoran” books was recorded by the antiquarian William Lambarde (1536–1601), who describes a visit to Parker’s library during which he was shown the books.80 The perceived Theodoran association of CCCC 191 no doubt elevated the manuscript’s status in Parker’s eyes.

79 This note is entered on the verso of the second of the pair of sixteenth-century flyleaves that are described below. The note is wrongly attributed to Wheelock in Langefeld, Old English Version, 67 and 89 n. 5. 80 William Lambarde, The Perambulation of Kent: Conteining the Description, Hystorie, and Customes of that Shyre (London: Ralph Newbery, 1576), 233: “The Reuerend father, Mathew, nowe Archebishop of Canterbury (whose care for conseruation of learned Monuments can neuer be sufficiently commended) shewed me not long since, the Psalter of Dauid, and sundry Homelies in Greeke, Homer also, and some other Greke authours, beautifully written in thicke paper, with the name of this Theodore prefixed in the fronte, to whose Librarie, he reasonably thought (being thereto led by shewe of great antiquitie) that they sometime belonged.” On Parker’s Theodoran attributions, see also M. R. James, The Sources of Archbishop Parker’s Collection of MSS at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, with a Reprint of the Catalogue of Thomas Markaunt’s Library, Cambridge Antiquarian Society Octavo Publications 32 (Cambridge: Cambridge Antiquarian Society, 1899), 9, where James describes the attributions as “sad work.” It is indeed extraordinary that Parker could be led to think that a manuscript written barely a century before his own time (Pacy’s copy of De inventione and Rhetorica ad Herennium) dated to the seventh century.

116

Timothy Graham

But the manuscript had suffered grave damage while in storage at Exeter during the Middle Ages. Significant portions of the edges of the leaves of the first quire had rotted away. Some leaves of the second quire were similarly affected, and portions of the lower margins and the upper inner area of pp. 65–68 are also gone. The surviving portions of the damaged leaves are badly stained by mold and dirt; evidently the manuscript had been stored in damp conditions at some point. These conditions also affected the red, green, and blue pigments of rubricated titles and colored initials within the manuscript. The red lead pigment that was used for all the titles and about half of the initials of chapter openings has in numerous places darkened, corroded, and faded into near invisibility; the blue pigment used for initials has partly flaked away on some pages, whereas the green has suffered less badly. Parker did what he could to stabilize the condition of the manuscript; his actions provide something of an object lesson in sixteenth-century conservation techniques.81 He had the manuscript rebound, presumably at the same time detaching from it the copy of Theodulf’s Capitula, which he bound up with another manuscript of different provenance (Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 201, Part I, a Wulfstanian ecclesiastical and secular handbook probably from the New Minster, Winchester). At the beginning of MS 191, Parker’s binder inserted a portion of a large-format document that the binder oriented sideways to form a pair of protective flyleaves (fols. i–ii).82 The entries visible on the document establish that it was of a kind with other documents used by Parker’s binders, such as that employed in CUL Ii.2.11, the Exeter copy of the Old English gospels.83 Specifically, the document used in the case of CCCC 191 was an account roll recording the discharge of the debts of a dead person, evidently an inhabitant of London, in the years 1512–1517. The darkened color and faded text of the recto surface of the second in the pair suggests that the binder may have pasted the two leaves to one another to form a doubled flyleaf, although they are now separate.

81 For similarly extensive Parkerian conservation of another Exeter manuscript, see Timothy Graham, “Matthew Parker and the Conservation of Manuscripts: The Case of CUL MS Ii.2.4 (Old English Regula Pastoralis, s. xi 3/4),” Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society 10.5 (1995): 630–41. 82 Parker probably also had flyleaves added at the end of the manuscript; they may have been removed at the rebinding of the manuscript in August 1748 that is recorded in Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, Archives B. 3, fol. 88v (where MS 191 is listed as “S.12”), or at the British Museum rebinding of 1926, mentioned below. 83 Discussed above, pp. 79–81.

4 The Early Modern Afterlife of Exeter’s Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts

117

At the time of rebinding, Parker had the missing original second leaf of the manuscript replaced with a fresh leaf of parchment (pp. 3–4), blank apart from his note on the recto stating that because of the loss of the original leaf, the chapter-list at the beginning of the manuscript lacks titles for Latin chapters 1–30: “Hic desunt argumenta latina huius libri vsque ad caput 31. quamuis ante ipsa capita inseruntur et anglice vel saxonice habeantur” (“Here are missing the Latin titles of this book up to chapter 31, although they are entered before the chapters themselves and they are present in English or Saxon”). He also had long rectangular strips, variously of parchment or paper,84 pasted to the damaged edges of the first leaves to restore their margins. These strips were subsequently lifted, most likely when the manuscript was conserved and rebound at the British Museum in 1926.85 Several of them were evidently discarded, but their former presence can be detected by the dark rectangular stains they have left on the edges of leaves up to p. 20. Some of the strips have been retained and are now pasted to modern paper guards or part-leaves that were inserted between the original leaves at the rebinding of 1926. Some of the retained paper strips have been cut down from their former extent. The retained parchment strips are portions of an account roll recording the discharge of the debts of a dead person—perhaps the same account roll as was used for the front flyleaves, although the hand is different. Most of the retained strips have Parkerian entries on them, in most cases transcribing portions of the original script of the manuscript that the strips covered when pasted in position. The two thin horizontal paper strips that are now pasted respectively to the recto and the verso of the modern paper flyleaf that directly precedes p. 1 have presumably both been cut from a broad Parkerian paper strip that would have restored the upper margin of p. 1; one of the strips has the Parkerian page number “1” at the right-hand end while the other has a transcription of the thirteenth-century title of the volume (the title that includes the comment that the book is useful apart from the portions in Old English). A third paper strip, oriented vertically and now pasted lower down on the recto of 84 Curiously, Arthur S. Napier, who examined the manuscript for his edition of the bilingual Rule of Chrodegang (published in 1916) at a time when the strips were still in place, mentions only paper: “The first few leaves have been injured and paper has been pasted over the edges to mend them.” Arthur S. Napier, ed., The Old English Version of the Enlarged Rule of Chrodegang together with the Latin Original; An Old English Version of the Capitula of Theodulf together with the Latin Original; An Interlinear Old English Rendering of the Epitome of Benedict of Aniane, Early English Text Society, OS 150 (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1916), vii. 85 On the rebindings of Corpus Christi College manuscripts carried out at the British Museum in the later 1920s and early 1930s, see Budny, Insular, Anglo-Saxon, and Early Anglo-Norman Manuscript Art, 1:liii.

118

Timothy Graham

the same modern flyleaf, includes a note by Matthew Parker in which he explains that the mention in the first sentence of the Latin preface to the enlarged Rule of the authority of the canons of the 318 holy fathers refers to the First Council of Nicaea of 325 AD: “Significat hic canones concilii niceni, vbi erant episcopi 318” (“The reference here is to the canons of the Council of Nicaea, at which there were 318 bishops”). This strip must have been cut down from a larger strip that restored the outer margin of the page; Parker’s note would then have stood alongside the opening sentence of the preface. The parchment strips (cut from the account roll) formerly pasted to pp. 5, 6, and 7 are now located between pp. 4–5 and 6–7, attached to modern paper inserted between the original leaves. When in position, these strips covered small portions of the Latin and Old English chapter-lists of the original leaves, so Parker had the covered words transcribed onto the upper surfaces of the strips. The strip that was pasted to the upper margin of p. 5 carries a transcription of the last word of the title of Latin chapter 30 (the only word in the first line of the original page); the carefully shaped strip that restored both the upper and outer margins of p. 7 has transcriptions of words from three Latin titles, for chapters 76–78, as well as the Parkerian page number for the leaf to which the strip was pasted; and the rectangular strip that restored the lower margin of the same page carries a transcription of the complete title for Old English chapter 6. Another complete Old English chapter title (for chapter 7) was transcribed onto a paper strip pasted to the upper margin of p. 8; the transcription was, however, inaccurate and was later corrected by Wheelock. This strip has now been cut down from its original extent, with its surviving portion pasted to a modern paper guard located between pp. 8 and 9. Parker’s belief that the manuscript’s Latin text was by Archbishop Theodore would no doubt have heightened his potential interest in its content. Apart from his note on the mention of the Nicene fathers within the Latin preface, however, the leaves of the manuscript bear little evidence attesting to how closely Parker may have studied them. There is a single note by him, entered in red crayon in the outer margin of p. 164, alongside a sentence of Latin chapter 83 of the enlarged Rule where the text notes that members of the lower orders of the clergy can be condemned in law only if there are seven witnesses against them. The text reads: “Et non dampnabitur subdiaconus. accolitus. exorcista. ostiarius. lector. filios habentes & uxorem. & omnino Christum praedicantes. sic dicit mistica ueritas. nisi in .vii. testimoniis” (“And a subdeacon, acolyte, exorcist, porter, or lector having children and a wife, and professing Christ in full measure, shall not be condemned, unless, as the mystical truth says, through seven witnesses”). Both Parker and Joscelyn have underlined the words “filios habentes & uxorem”

4 The Early Modern Afterlife of Exeter’s Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts

119

(Joscelyn in ink, Parker in red crayon);86 and Parker has added the marginal comment, “Diaconatus non erat inter sacros ordines” (“The diaconate was not among the sacred orders”), alluding to the distinction between the sacred and minor orders of the clergy and apparently expressing his belief that in earlier times the diaconate was not one of the sacred orders (usually held to include priests, deacons, and subdeacons).87 Parker and Joscelyn no doubt thought that this passage provided evidence for members of the minor orders being permitted to have wives and children, but the text of the Rule here offers a garbled version of a canon of pseudo-Sylvester which, correctly worded, reads as follows: “Diaconus autem cardine constitutus urbis Romae, nisi XXXVII non dampnabitur. Subdiaconus, acolitus, exorcista, lector, nisi, sicut scriptum est, in septem testimonia filios habentes et uxorem et omnino Christum praedicantes. Sic datur mistica veritas.”88 In its correct form, the canon notes that deacons can be condemned only if there are 37 witnesses against them, while subdeacons and below can be condemned only if there are seven witnesses who are married and have children (i.e., who are heads of households) and fully profess the name of Christ. In its correct form, the passage thus has no bearing on the issue of the marriage of the minor orders of the clergy, but the garbled version found in CCCC 191 certainly appears to do so. An earlier passage in the Rule offers an unequivocal allusion to clerical marriage. The Latin text of chapter 62 lays down how clergy of all degrees are to behave and includes the passage, “Castimoniam quoque inuiolati corporis perpetuo studio conseruare studeant. aut certe unius matrimonii uinculo federentur. exceptis his canonicis qui uictu. & uestitu. potiantur” (CCCC 191, p. 125: “Let them also strive with ceaseless zeal to preserve the purity of an inviolate body, or indeed let them be joined in the bond of a single marriage, except those canons who are to receive [an allowance of] food and clothing”). Joscelyn has underlined the complete sentence, and on p. 127 he has entered an interlinear Latin gloss above the Old English version of the same passage (Fig. 4.12); his gloss, rather than simply copying the original Latin text, provides a version that matches the Old English more closely. He also copied both the original

86 That the underlining is by Joscelyn is confirmed by the presence in the margin alongside of a nota bene mark characteristic of him, resembling a Greek eta followed by a z. 87 Did Parker perhaps mean to write “Subdiaconatus non erat inter sacros ordines”? The subdiaconate was reckoned among the minor orders until the thirteenth century: see F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone, eds., The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), s.v. subdeacon. 88 See Alfred Boretius, ed., Capitularia regum Francorum, vol. 1, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Leges 2.1 (Hanover: Hahn, 1883), 134.

120

Timothy Graham

Figure 4.12: Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 191, p. 127. A passage bearing on clerical marriage within the Old English version of the enlarged Rule of Chrodegang has here been underlined and glossed in Latin by John Joscelyn. By kind permission of the Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.

Latin and the Old English into the notebook into which he transcribed numerous passages that captured his interest as he studied manuscripts (London, British Library, MS Cotton Vitellius D. vii, fol. 12r). Joscelyn there identifies the source of the passage as “Liber exoniensis Bibliothecæ” (“Book of the Exeter library”), a likely indication that he first studied the manuscript at Exeter before it entered Parker’s collection. Parker appreciated the importance of this passage in attesting to official sanctioning of clerical marriage in the early medieval church. It was one of four Old English passages that under Parker’s supervision were introduced into the second edition of the anonymously published A Defence of Priestes Mariages, which appeared probably in 1567 and supplemented the first edition, published in 1566 or 1567, with an additional seventy-five pages toward the end of the book that provided a battery of (mostly Latin) textual evidence demonstrating both that there was a time when the Church permitted priests to marry and that even after clerical

4 The Early Modern Afterlife of Exeter’s Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts

121

marriage was banned, examples of married priests were to be found.89 The strong link between the various texts (Latin and Old English) added to the second edition and passages marked in Parker’s manuscripts establishes Parker’s controlling hand in the compilation of the printed work.90 The passage quoted from CCCC 191 immediately follows a reference to a text indicating that St. Ambrose, fourthcentury bishop of Milan, had permitted his clergy to marry. The Old English passage is cited as evidence for clerical marriage continuing to be permitted into Anglo-Saxon times, and it was perhaps to emphasize its Anglo-Saxon context that the passage was quoted in the vernacular rather than the original Latin version. It is then followed by a sixteenth-century modern English translation that closely mirrors the wording of Joscelyn’s interlinear Latin gloss in CCCC 191 and is clearly based on that gloss (A Defence, p. 346): Thus was mariages [sic] free at al seasons, for a priest to haue one only wyfe at once, & was neither then woorthy blame, nor was a great whyle after in the Saxons time forbydden, as in bookes of rules and canons set out for the gouernyng of ye seculer priestes it may appeare: which be testified in these olde English wordes. ge hicgon hig eac þæt hig galre heordnysse heora clænnysse ge healdon syn ungewimmedum lichaman oððe witodlice beonge ferlæhte þære ge festnuncge anes ge syn scypes; Let them also do their endeuour that they holde with perpetuall diligence their chastitie in an unspotted body, or els verely be they coupled with the bonde of one matrimonie.

The Old English has, unfortunately, been garbled. In addition to errors of word separation and orthography, a section of text has been transposed, resulting in a meaningless passage; the text should read, “gehicgon hig eac þæt hig gehealdon syngalre heordnysse heora clænnysse ungewemmedum lichaman oððe witodlice beon geferlæhte þære gefestnuncge anes gesynscypes.” Parker’s printer, Richard Jugge—who also served Queen Elizabeth as royal printer—evidently had no skill in Old English.

89 A Defence of Priestes Mariages, Stablysshed by the Imperiall Lawes of the Realme of Englande, agaynst a Ciuilian, Namyng Hym Selfe Thomas Martin Doctour of the Ciuile Lawes, 2nd ed. (London: Richard Jugge, n.d.). The new material in the second edition spans p. 276, line 1, to p. 351, line 24; it includes three Old English quotations from the Peterborough Chronicle on pp. 288, 306, and 308. 90 See Page, Matthew Parker and His Books, 89–92; and Aaron J. Kleist, “Matthew Parker, Old English, and the Defense of Priestly Marriage,” in Hall and Scragg, Anglo-Saxon Books and Their Readers, 106–35.

122

Timothy Graham

CCCC 191 and John Joscelyn’s Lexicography Exeter’s copy of the enlarged Rule of Chrodegang also contributed significantly to a major project of John Joscelyn’s that remained unpublished: Parker’s Old English expert made extensive use of the manuscript as he worked to compile a comprehensive dictionary of the Old English language. CCCC 191 was exactly the kind of manuscript that was most useful for Joscelyn’s lexicographical enterprise, given that it contained the same text in both Latin and Old English versions. That he studied both versions intensively, using the original to assist with interpreting the vocabulary of the translation, is evident from his many underlinings of individual words in both Latin and Old English chapters. His examination was, however, to some degree selective, for his underlinings occur only in chapters 1–50, 62 (the chapter with the passage bearing on clerical marriage), and 79–84; there are no underlinings in chapters 51–61 or 63–78. The number of underlinings per chapter varies widely, from one in Old English chapter 40 to sixty-three in Old English chapter 50. In a few cases, Joscelyn enters a Latin gloss above the Old English term, but this is the exception rather than the rule. The underlinings within Latin chapters correlate closely with those within the vernacular chapters; although it is not invariably the case, Joscelyn typically underlines the Latin words that are the equivalents to the Old English words he marks and there is no doubt that he was using the Latin version as a key to the Old English. There are, for example, fifty-one underlinings in Latin chapter 50, all but one of them corresponding with words underlined in the equivalent Old English chapter. Joscelyn’s next step in his lexicographical project was to draw up lists of those words he had singled out (by underlining or some other method of identification) in manuscripts such as CCCC 191. His surviving wordlists are to be found in London, Lambeth Palace Library, MS 692, a notebook of some forty leaves that includes lists compiled from a little over twenty manuscripts.91 Words from CCCC 191 appear on fol. 3rv of the Lambeth manuscript, under the heading “Ex regula canonicorum” (“From the rule for canons”). The words are organized in alphabetical blocks by first letter, but within each block the order is not alphabetical; rather, it reflects the order in which the words appear in the Old English version of the source. Each word is accompanied by a Latin definition and (in most cases) a reference to the chapter in which it appears. There is

91 On Joscelyn’s wordlists and his lexicographical work in general, see Timothy Graham, “John Joscelyn, Pioneer of Old English Lexicography,” in Graham, Recovery of Old English, 83–140; for discussion of CCCC 191, see pp. 99, 102, 108–10, and 134.

4 The Early Modern Afterlife of Exeter’s Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts

123

a very high degree of correlation between the words underlined in CCCC 191 and those appearing in Lambeth 692, as well as between Joscelyn’s Latin definitions in Lambeth 692 and the Latin text of CCCC 191. For example, of the sixty-three Old English words underlined in Old English chapter 50, fifty-eight appear on fol. 3 of Lambeth 692, with chapter 50 cited as their source, and fifty-five have definitions that match the Latin text. In some cases, however, Joscelyn has had to adjust the form and inflection of the Latin definition in Lambeth 692 to agree with the form of the Old English lemma: for example, he uses the infinitive “parere” to define Old English “abugan” where the Latin text of the enlarged Rule has the past tense “paruerunt”; and he uses the imperative “obiurga” to define Old English “cide” where the Latin has the noun form “obiurgatione.” Folio 3r of Lambeth 692 (though not fol. 3v) includes words not only from CCCC 191 but also from CCCC 201, Part II, the copy of the Latin and Old English Capitula of Theodulf of Orléans that was formerly bound with CCCC 191 but was then joined with a different manuscript by Parker. That words from both sources appear in the same list in Lambeth 692 strongly implies that the manuscripts were still together when Joscelyn first examined them (probably at Exeter); his wordlist is, then, the latest evidence we have for their continued combination. Within the list, confusingly, Joscelyn does not indicate which words come from which text; his source, indeed, did not facilitate identification as the copy of Theodulf’s Capitula lacks both a title and an attribution of authorship. Joscelyn’s format for entries from both texts is identical: Old English lemma, Latin definition, and in most cases a chapter number. Only by comparing the list on fol. 3r of Lambeth 692 with the original manuscripts themselves is it possible to tell which words come from which source. Such a comparison reveals, for example, that within the block of nine words beginning with l, the first word is from the enlarged Rule of Chrodegang, the next six from Theodulf’s Capitula, the last two from the Chrodegang text. On fol. 3v, by contrast, all words come from the enlarged Rule. Altogether, fol. 3 of Lambeth 692 carries a total of 646 words drawn from the two sources. Joscelyn’s final step in his lexicographical work was to produce a fully alphabetized dictionary of more than 20,000 entries. He was assisted in the copying of the dictionary by John Parker, the archbishop’s son. The dictionary survives as London, British Library, MSS Cotton Titus A. xv–A. xvi. Words that Joscelyn first underlined in CCCC 191, then transcribed into Lambeth 692, appear in the Titus dictionary with their source identified as “Reg. can.,” “Can.,” or “Ca.,” sometimes followed by a chapter number. It is likely that Joscelyn planned to publish his dictionary, just as he also seems to have intended to publish the (now lost) Old English grammar on which he

124

Timothy Graham

worked.92 While Joscelyn’s intentions remained unfulfilled, his dictionary nevertheless made a substantial contribution to later lexicographical projects. The antiquarian Sir Simonds D’Ewes (1602–1650) made a complete transcript of it, now London, British Library, MSS Harley 8–9, and D’Ewes’s transcript was in turn used extensively by William Somner (1606–1669), whose Dictionarium SaxonicoLatino-Anglicum of 1659 was the first Old English dictionary to be published. Words from CCCC 191 are included in Somner’s dictionary, although their source is not there identified.

CCCC 191, Abraham Wheelock, and William Retchford CCCC 191 elicited the interest of Abraham Wheelock over a period of several years. Cambridge’s first Lecturer in Anglo-Saxon had already come upon the manuscript by the spring of 1641 when, on April 29, he wrote in a letter to his patron, Sir Henry Spelman (London, British Library, MS Additional 34601, fol. 46rv): Here are in Bennet Coll: a large parcel of Saxon Canons. num. (I thinke) 268. its thought they are Arch-Bishop Theodors: yet promoting prayinge to the Virgin Marie make me suspect them not to be his: many excellent instructions are there, which alsoe set out the face of the church in the auncient Monasteries. Beside King Alured with Bede, I haue a desire to dedicate these Canons to your worship. I would haue them printed when Bede is printed, least afterward, Mr. Daniel be diuerted from printinge Saxon; looke what I meete with of this kind, I desire, as your most humble scholer, to make it yours.

“Benet College” was a name frequently accorded Corpus Christi College in the early modern period, reflecting the dedication to St. Benedict of the parish church adjoining the college, which served as the college’s chapel; “268” is the number assigned MS 191 in Thomas James’s catalogue of the college’s manuscripts, published in 1600.93 Wheelock’s allusion to the belief that the text of CCCC 191 was by Theodore is based upon Matthew Parker’s note at the beginning of the manuscript (see Fig. 4.11). Unaware that the text had a continental origin, Wheelock valued it for what, in his view, it had to say about the practices of the Anglo-Saxon Church; and given that the manuscript itself was English and that

92 On the likelihood that the dictionary was intended for publication, see Graham, “John Joscelyn, Pioneer of Old English Lexicography,” 94–96. 93 “Libri manuscripti in bibliotheca Collegii Sancti Benedicti, Cantabrigiæ,” in Thomas James, Ecloga Oxonio-Cantabrigiensis, I: Catalogum confusum librorum manuscriptorum in illustrissimis bibliothecis, duarum florentissimarum academiarum, Oxoniæ et Cantabrigiæ (London: George Bishop and John Norton, 1600), 89.

4 The Early Modern Afterlife of Exeter’s Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts

125

the practices it outlines were presumably adopted at Exeter as well as in other English dioceses, he was justified in doing so.94 He informs Spelman that he wishes to publish the text at the same time as Bede, as he fears that thereafter Roger Daniel, the printer of the Bede edition, will turn aside from the printing of Old English texts. In the event, Wheelock was unable to fulfill his intention of publishing the complete text of CCCC 191. He did, however, incorporate three portions of the text into his Bede edition, in the notes that follow Book IV, chapter 24, Book IV, chapter 29, and Book V, chapters 14–15 (chapters 13–14 in modern editions). The first of these chapters tells the story of the cowherd-poet Cædmon, including how, after receiving instruction in sacred history from learned churchmen at Whitby, he succeeded in transforming his teachers into his listeners by the beauty with which he turned their instruction into melodious verse. Wheelock’s notes to the chapter first comment on the power of spiritual music to soothe its listeners, then go on to observe that the ancient ecclesiastical canons that some attribute to Theodore, and that are said to have been translated into the vernacular by Ælfric, provide clear directions for church musicians (p. 331): Vt inculta rusticitas & barbaries omnis a laudibus Dei celebrandis abhorreat, auditores spiritualis harmoniæ suavitate demulceantur. Hinc quales esse debeant modulatores Ecclesiastici, & qualis demum ipsa modulatio, Canones Ecclesiæ nostræ perantiqui; Quos Reverendiss. Theodoro Archiepisc. Cantuariensi, quidam adscribant, aperte monstrant; viz. hosce autor scripsit Latine: Ælfricus autem monachus, vir ætate sua Doctissimus, & de Ecclesia optime meritus Saxonice (ut aiunt) transtulit. So that uncultured rusticity and all barbarism may shrink away from the performance of the praise of God, listeners may be charmed by the sweetness of spiritual harmony. Hence the very ancient canons of our Church, which some may ascribe to the most reverend Theodore, archbishop of Canterbury, provide clear instruction for church musicians, and indeed for the music itself. The author wrote these same canons in Latin; but the monk Ælfric, the most learned man of his age and the most deserving of the Church’s recognition, translated them into Saxon (as they say).

Wheelock then quotes the full text of chapter 48 of the enlarged Rule, which describes how the Church’s musicians are to deck out their musical gifts with humility, sobriety, and virtue, using melody to lead the congregation to the love and remembrance of heavenly things. Following the format he adopts for the text of Bede itself, Wheelock privileges the Old English version of the chapter by placing it on the left, in a wider column, with the Latin to the right.

94 On the influence of the enlarged Rule of Chrodegang in late Anglo-Saxon England, see Langefeld, Old English Version, 18–20.

126

Timothy Graham

Wheelock’s notes to Book IV, chapter 29—which describes the death of St. Cuthbert, Eadbert’s succession as bishop of Lindisfarne, and Eadbert’s habit of giving to the poor each year one tenth of his livestock, grain, and clothing— comment on Anglo-Saxon practice with regard to tithes. He cites several texts bearing upon this, among them the preamble to King Alfred’s laws, Ælfric’s pastoral letter for Wulfsige, bishop of Sherborne, and (on p. 358) chapter 73 of the enlarged Rule of Chrodegang, which stipulates that the names of those who give tithes are to be recorded on the altar while the tithes themselves are to be divided before witnesses, with one third going to the fabric of the church, one third to the relief of the poor and strangers, and one third to the priest himself. Again, Wheelock quotes both the Old English and the Latin versions of the chapter, with the Old English placed in the left column. Finally, following two chapters of Bede’s Book V that describe how sinful men were granted a vision of the afterlife, and how King Coenred of Mercia encouraged one of those men to confess his sins, Wheelock notes that the canons attributed to Archbishop Theodore include an exhortation to confession that is pious and not contrary to Scripture (p. 432): Formam hortandi ad resipiscentiam, piam quidem, nec Scripturis sacris contrariam, tradunt Canones, quos Archiepiscopo Theodoro Cantuariensi adscribunt nonnulli. Sic autem Canon 29. De Confessionibus, verba Saxonica & Latina, utraque quidem perantiqua, viris doctis legenda hic apposuimus. The canons that some attribute to Archbishop Theodore of Canterbury transmit a formula for exhortation to repentance that is indeed devout and not in opposition to the sacred Scriptures. So we have set down here the Saxon and Latin words—both very ancient—of canon 29, On confessions, for the perusal of learned men.

Wheelock then quotes the full text of chapter 29 of the Rule, again in both versions and with the Old English taking priority through its positioning on the left. Wheelock thus drew upon Exeter’s copy of the enlarged Rule of Chrodegang when it could throw light on early church practices alluded to or hinted at by Bede. But Wheelock’s interest in CCCC 191 did not end with the publication of his edition of Bede. The manuscript was one of the three that he borrowed from the library of Corpus Christi College between June 28 and August 5, 1644—a year after the publication of the dual-language Bede.95 The document that records the loan (CCCC Archives XXXIX.146) lists the first of the borrowed manuscripts as “Canones Latin: Saxon.,” a title that matches the one entered on the recto of the first Parkerian flyleaf (fol. ir) of CCCC 191. Further, Wheelock had a complete

95 See above, p. 105.

4 The Early Modern Afterlife of Exeter’s Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts

127

transcript of the manuscript prepared, which would tend to confirm that he planned to publish the full text. The transcript (London, British Library, MS Harley 440) adjusts the layout found in the manuscript itself—in which each Old English chapter follows its Latin equivalent—by setting the two versions in parallel, with the Old English on left-hand pages and the Latin on facing pages. Such a layout of course recalls that used in both the main text and the notes of the Bede edition (where, however, the two versions are in parallel columns on a single page rather than on facing pages). This transcript of CCCC 191 was long thought to be in the hand of Wheelock himself: Humfrey Wanley (1672–1726), Sir Robert Harley’s librarian, attributed it to Wheelock both in a note entered on fol. 1v of Harley 440 and in his catalogue of the Harleian manuscripts; the attribution was repeated by C. E. Wright in his study of the sources of the Harleian collection and by Brigitte Langefeld in her recent edition of the Old English Chrodegang.96 Peter Lucas, however, has demonstrated convincingly that the transcript itself is in the hand of William Retchford (whose script is known from one surviving autograph letter) and that Wheelock’s hand is only to be seen in some notes entered in the margins of Harley 440.97 Retchford appears to have been Wheelock’s pupil in Old English. He received his Cambridge B.A. in 1640 and it seems that already in that year he was assisting Wheelock in his work on Anglo-Saxon texts.98 Lucas identifies him as the young man who, according to Wheelock in a letter to Spelman of May 27, 1640, “vnderstands the Saxon as wel as my selfe” (London, British Library, MS Additional 34601, fol. 10r). He is probably also the “ingenious yonge man” who, in a letter written some four and a half months earlier (on January 15, 1639/40), Wheelock informs Spelman is now with him permanently and has been assisting him in preparing a transcript of a text on AngloSaxon grammar (presumably Ælfric’s Grammar). Wheelock here notes that he will be sending this grammatical transcript to Spelman and that he has used

96 [Humfrey Wanley,] A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols. (London: G. Eyre and A. Strahan, 1808–12), 1:313; C. E. Wright, Fontes Harleiani: A Study of the Sources of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts Preserved in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1972), 352; Langefeld, Old English Version, 66. 97 See Peter J. Lucas, “William Retchford, Pupil of Abraham Wheelock in Anglo-Saxon: ‘He understands the Saxon as well as myself’,” Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society 12.4 (2003): 335–61, esp. 337–40 and 345–46. 98 In 1641, both Retchford and Wheelock published Old English poems of their own composition in a volume commemorating the safe return of King Charles I from a mission to Scotland: Irenodia Cantabrigiensis: ob paciferum serenissimi regis Caroli e Scotia reditum mense Novembri 1641 (Cambridge: Roger Daniel, 1641), sigs. A3v–A4r and G4r. See Francis Lee Utley, “Two Seventeenth-Century Anglo-Saxon Poems,” Modern Language Quarterly 3 (1942): 243–61.

128

Timothy Graham

the services of the young man—whose hand is “far better” than his own—in order to speed its completion (London, British Library, MS Additional 34600, fol. 205r):99 The next weeke I intend to send the Grammer as fairely transcribed, as I could possiblie effect: & to acknowledge the truth; that fearinge least I could not dispatch it in time, I haue vsed the help of that ingenious yonge man, I spake of, who now is to be wholie with me, & with me, shal in any paines of this nature serve your worship; & if I could haue diuided the work, my hand had beene more seene in it, though his be far better in my conceipt.

CCCC 191 provides further examples of Retchford’s work. The damage and deterioration that the manuscript suffered included the corrosion and fading of many of the rubricated titles that head both the Latin and Old English chapters; the original red lead pigment of these titles is now often very difficult to read. A seventeenth-century hand has, however, entered interlinear ink transcriptions of thirty-one of the faded titles.100 Although I formerly attributed these transcriptions to Wheelock,101 a comparison with the examples of Retchford’s hand that have now come to light establishes that they are by him. This is especially clear from the transcriptions of the Latin titles: whereas there is relatively little difference in the way Retchford and Wheelock wrote Old English—Retchford had, after all, studied Old English under Wheelock, and in their Old English hands both men were imitating Anglo-Saxon letter forms—their Latin hands had evolved independently. In addition to the differences in their Latin script pointed out by Lucas,102 two notable characteristics of Retchford’s Latin hand are the angular, squarish bow that he sometimes uses for b, and a particular

99 Lucas, “William Retchford, Pupil of Abraham Wheelock” (p. 343), thought that this comment referred to one John Hickman, who assisted Wheelock in the preparation of a catalogue of the books in Cambridge University Library; but the reference to the transcript of the Anglo-Saxon text on grammar, and Wheelock’s allusion to his willingness to use the young man’s services to provide Spelman with further such materials, would seem to accord better with what is known of Retchford’s interests and skills. The grammatical transcript was no doubt based on Cambridge University Library MS Hh.1.10, the Exeter copy of Ælfric’s Grammar, which was well known to Wheelock and annotated by him; see Graham, “Glosses and Notes,” 200–202. 100 The titles transcribed are those for Latin chapters 12 (p. 33), 33 (pp. 65–66), 34 (p. 67), 37 (pp. 70–71), 41 (p. 75), 46 (p. 83), 47 (p. 85), 55 (p. 111), 56 (p. 111), 70 (p. 133), 71 (p. 133), 74 (p. 136), and 76 (p. 138); and Old English chapters 22 (p. 49), 25 (p. 52), 29 (p. 57), 33 (p. 66), 36 (p. 70), 39 (p. 74), 41 (p. 75), 45 (p. 82), 46 (p. 84), 47 (p. 86), 50 (p. 95), 51 (p. 101), 54 (p. 109), 55 (p. 111), 70 (p. 133), 71 (p. 133), 72 (p. 134), and 73 (p. 135). 101 In my description of CCCC 191 for the Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts in Microfiche Facsimile project (above, n. 78), 43; and also in “Glosses and Notes in Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts,” 201 with fig. 6.20. 102 Lucas, “William Retchford, Pupil of Abraham Wheelock,” 339.

4 The Early Modern Afterlife of Exeter’s Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts

129

form of r that consists of a vertical left stem with a leftward serif at the top, a bottom portion consisting of an arc at baseline level, and a vertical right stem with an arm extending to the right. These features are found both in the portion of Retchford’s autograph letter reproduced by Lucas and in Harley 440, the transcript of CCCC 191;103 within CCCC 191 itself, they may be seen, for example, in the transcriptions of the titles of Latin chapters 33 (pp. 65–66), 70 (p. 133), and 76 (p. 138; Fig. 4.13). It is most likely that Retchford entered the interlinear transcriptions of the thirty-one titles as he made the complete transcript of the manuscript’s text that is now Harley 440. Like other early modern scholars, Retchford was prepared to write on the actual pages of Anglo-Saxon manuscripts if by doing so he could clarify the message of those pages.

Figure 4.13: Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 191, p. 138. William Retchford’s interlinear transcription of the faded title of chapter 76 of the enlarged Rule of Chrodegang. By kind permission of the Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.

CCCC 191 thus illuminates the aims and methods of four sixteenth- and seventeenth-century scholars whose attention it attracted. It offers remarkable examples of early modern conservation practices while also exemplifying ways in which Anglo-Saxon manuscripts could contribute both to major publication

103 Ibid., pls. 1 and 3.

130

Timothy Graham

projects and to forms of intensive study that failed to produce a published result. Along with other Anglo-Saxon manuscripts from Exeter, it opens a fascinating window onto the landscape of early modern scholarship. Removed from their medieval home, the Exeter manuscripts experienced a new lease of life as they were scrutinized by a range of scholars whose labors shaped and defined the early history of Anglo-Saxon studies. As they worked, the scholars left their marks in the manuscripts in a variety of informative ways. The careful examination of the manuscript evidence can in turn open up the world of these scholars to the modern Anglo-Saxonist who seeks to understand the history of the discipline.

Catherine E. Karkov

5 The Divisions of the Ruthwell Cross There is a significant hesitancy in the heritage literature . . . to actively incorporate the idea of dissonance into definitions of heritage. Instead, there is an active desire to separate an idea of dissonant heritage from an idea of heritage as something inherently “good” and “great.”1

The Ruthwell monument (Figs. 5.1 and 5.2) is a sculpture, a work of religious devotion and learning, a series of texts and narratives. It is also, especially for the post-Anglo-Saxon viewer, a tangible heritage site around which the competing

Figure 5.1: Ruthwell Monument, Original East Side. Photo: Author.

1 Laurajane Smith and Emma Waterton, “‘The Envy of the World?’ Intangible Heritage in England,” in Intangible Heritage, ed. Laurajane Smith (London: Routledge, 2009), 289–302, at 295. Catherine E. Karkov, University of Leeds https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501513060-006

132

Catherine E. Karkov

Figure 5.2: Ruthwell Monument, Original South Side. Photo: Author.

stories, myths, and histories of intangible heritage circle. Its importance to history and culture, as well as the debates around and desires to understand and preserve it, have circulated for centuries. But the Ruthwell monument is a monument of dissonance and division, and it has functioned as such ever since it was first erected on the Solway peninsula somewhere in or outside of the church at what is generally believed to be the monastic settlement of Ruthwell. What I am interested in in this paper is the fact that it is divided and divisive, as much as it is unified or unifying, in its conception and composition. It divides and is divided by the languages through which it speaks. It divided a monastic from a nonmonastic viewer, a male from a female viewer, a British from a Northumbrian viewer, and most probably people of varying degrees of literacy from each other. It divided the Ruthwell community at the time of the Reformation—a division which still resonates in the current community’s understanding of the monument. And it has divided modern scholars and scholarship. Was it originally a cross or a pillar? Why was it erected, and by whom? Was it carved in one campaign, or was it worked and reworked over a significant period of time? How should it be viewed

5 The Divisions of the Ruthwell Cross

133

and read? This paper will not provide answers for all, indeed any, of these questions, but it will, I hope, demonstrate that far from a peaceful symbol of ecclesiastical harmony and unification, the Ruthwell monument is and always has been a monument that divides and establishes borders between and borders around its audiences. It is offered to Pat Conner in recognition of his part in scholarship on and debate over some of the more controversial, puzzling, and dissonant aspects of the monument.

The Divisions of the Monument The Ruthwell monument is one of the best known and most exhaustively studied of all Anglo-Saxon sculptures. Created, or at least begun, in the eighth century, it is carved with figural scenes and inhabited vine-scroll ornament that are amongst the most classicizing in style of all Anglo-Saxon art. Its iconographic program—incorporating both the visual language of its carved panels and the verbal language of its multiple inscriptions—has generally been read as one that unites biblical imagery with liturgical practice, male viewers with female viewers, vernacular and Latin, poetry and prose, baptism and eucharist, the classical world of Mediterranean art with the relatively wild and desolate (though no less sophisticated) world of the Insular north.2 In the past I have described it as a monument of profound symmetry,3 with two of its sides devoted to figural panels and Latin inscriptions, and two devoted to vine-scroll ornament and inscriptions in Old English runes. The panels on the original west face of the shaft carry a eucharistic significance, while those on the east face are associated with baptism.4 Of the figural panels exactly half include women, creating a gender balance that is unique in the corpus of surviving Anglo-Saxon stone sculpture. That balance and symmetry, however, also enforces division and difference. Languages and voices remain separate, and both English and poetry could be said to be marginalized as they appear on the narrow faces of the monument and are much less clearly and deeply inscribed than their Latin counterparts. Moreover, as

2 For a complex liturgical reading of the monument see most especially Éamonn Ó Carragáin, Ritual and the Rood: Liturgical Images and the Old English Poems of the Dream of the Rood Tradition (London and Toronto: The British Library and University of Toronto Press, 2005). 3 Catherine E. Karkov, The Art of Anglo-Saxon England (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2011), 137–38. 4 Identification of the original east and west faces of the monument are based on comparison with the Bewcastle Cross, which still stands in its original position, and with which Ruthwell shares two panels: John the Baptist with the Agnus Dei, and Christ over the beasts.

134

Catherine E. Karkov

Orton, Wood, and Lees point out, “if there is a hierarchy of Latin and runic scripts . . . it does not apply on the upper stone,”5 on which only fragments of inscriptions, mostly untranslatable, have been recorded.6 The problem of the upper stone simply adds to the confusion over how to understand and interpret the monument. It is a sign that we might listen and hear only cacophony rather than harmony, with some voices shouting louder than others. The visual language of the monument can be read as equally discordant. The vine-scroll of the narrow sides grows upwards, whilst the figures of the broad sides remain largely static, tightly enclosed within their panels. Images of the eucharist and of baptism reach out in opposite directions, relying solely on the learned viewer to navigate her or his way around the monument, bringing the two sides of the monument together in mind only. And what of the famous gender balance? Here there is some division. There are as many women as men depicted on the shaft but it has been argued that most are notably humble and subservient figures.7 It is undeniable that Mary humbles herself before the angel Gabriel in the annunciation panel—her slight drawing back at his entrance and her bowed head make that clear to the viewer. Mary Magdalen bows at Christ’s feet, washing them with her tears and drying them with her hair. But Martha and Mary are the female representatives of the two sides of the monastic life, the active and contemplative, and thus equally important to the roles women monastics would have understood themselves as fulfilling as Paul and Anthony were to the men. Martha and Mary do not bear Christ’s body as Paul and Anthony bear it in the form of the eucharistic bread, but this might be a possible reason for

5 Fred Orton and Ian Wood, with Clare A. Lees, Fragments of History: Rethinking the Ruthwell and Bewcastle Monuments (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007), 45. 6 Dinwiddie recorded that “IN PRINCIPIO ERAT VERBUM” was carved around the image of John the Evangelist and his symbol, and that approximately half the letters survived at the time he wrote (Rev. John L. Dinwiddie, The Ruthwell Cross and Its Story: A Handbook for Tourists (Dumfries: Robert Dinwiddie, 1927), 9). Duncan recorded the runic inscription dægisæf carved down the original north side of the upper stone near its junction with the lower stone, and oriented differently from the inscription on the lower stone (Rev. Henry Duncan, “An Account of the Remarkable Monument in the Shape of a Cross, Inscribed with Roman and Runic Letters, Preserved in the Garden of Ruthwell Manse, Dumfriesshire,” Archaeologia Scotica 4.2 (1833): 313–26, at 320, pl. XIV). There is also a runic inscription, æfauœþo, on the left side of the panel carved with the bird of prey perched on a plant at the top of the present north side. This stone was reversed during the reconstruction of the monument, and the panel originally capped the south side. The inscription was wrongly translated by early scholars of the monument as “Cædmon made me,” or alternatively as “Colman made me” (see below p. 144). 7 Carol Farr, “Worthy Women on the Ruthwell Cross: Women as Sign in Early Anglo-Saxon Monasticism,” in The Insular Tradition, ed. Catherine E. Karkov, Robert T. Farrell, and Michael Ryan (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1997), 45–61.

5 The Divisions of the Ruthwell Cross

135

the scene’s conflation with the Visitation, in which Mary and Martha bear in their wombs Christ and John the Baptist respectively. In the flight into or out of Egypt, Mary might be sitting humbly displaying Christ, whose body is the central and most important figure in the panel, to us, but we might also understand her as a powerful image of the Church itself presenting Christ to his followers.8 There is also a division in the way the monument demands that the viewer/ reader respond to it. For a learned monastic audience, the Latin inscriptions would have been relatively easy to read, but they are written in the third person. They act as captions for the panels they surround but, with the exception of the John the Baptist panel, they do not invite our participation in the scenes represented.9 The faces of the figures have been hacked or worn away, so it is hard to say how many, if any, of them would have looked out to meet our eyes, but the sheer scale of the monument means that the majority of them would have stared either out over our heads or down at us. They inspire awe, devotion, and perhaps fear (Fig. 5.3), but they do not welcome us into their world. On the other hand, the runic inscription, which would always have been more difficult to read even if its letters were originally picked out with paint, is written in the first-person voice of the cross of the crucifixion. If the viewer had been (a) literate in Old English runes, and, (b) able to make out the small, crowded, and less deeply incised poem on the borders of the narrow sides of the shaft s/he would have been invited to join in the emotional story the poem tells. S/he would in reciting the poem—whether silently or aloud—have become one with the cross and its story.10 In doing so, however, a sense of isolation and separateness is created. There are no figures carved on these narrow sides, only birds and animals eating the fruit of the vine and crawling up its scrolling tendrils. We are like the animals feasting on but divided from the body of Christ, rather than like the biblical and saintly figures who hold, touch or are touched by Christ himself on the broad sides. This sense of isolation is furthered by the words of the poetic cross, insulted, wounded, afflicted with sorrows, and alone with Christ at the moment of

8 The Crucifixion, carved below the Annunciation on the east face of the cross is a later ninthcentury addition; a Virgin and Child or Adoration of the Magi is believed to have been carved on the opposite face of the base, but the panel is so badly worn that it is impossible to make out with any certainty. 9 The beginning of the fragmentary inscription around this panel reads “ . . . DORAMUS,” reconstructed as “ADORAMUS” (let us adore). 10 See Catherine E. Karkov, The Art of Anglo-Saxon England, 142–44; Catherine E. Karkov, “Art and Writing: Voice, Image, Object,” in The Cambridge History of Early Medieval English Literature, ed. Clare A. Lees (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 73–98, at 89–90.

136

Catherine E. Karkov

Figure 5.3: Ruthwell Monument, Original East Side. Photo: Author.

his death. Even though the cross tells us that others were present, the sadness and loneliness of its voice is unmistakable. [+ond]geredæ hinæ god almeittig· þa hewalde on galgu gistiga modig f[ore] [allæ] men [b]ug . . . [ahof] ic riicnæ kyniŋc· heafunæs hlafard hælda ic ni dorstæ [b]ismærædu uŋket men ba æt[g]ad[re i]c [wæs] miþ blodi bist[e]mi[d] bi[got][en of] . . . [+k]ris[t] wæs on rodi· hweþræ þer fusæ fearran kwomu æþþilæ til anum ic þæt al bi[h][eald] s[aræ] ic w[æ]s· mi[þ] so[r]gu[m] gi[d]rœ[fi]d h[n]a[g] . . .

5 The Divisions of the Ruthwell Cross

137

miþ s[t]re[l]um giwundad alegdun hiæ [h]inæ limwœrignæ· gistoddu[n h]im [æt] [his] [li][c]æs [hea]f[du]m [bih]ea[ld]u[n h]i[æ þ]e[r] . . . (Almighty God stripped himself when he wished to mount the gallows, brave [in the sight of all] men. I dared not bow. I [raised aloft] a powerful king. The Lord of heaven I dared not tilt. Men insulted the pair of us to[gether]. [I was] drenched with blood be[gotten from that man’s side]. [Christ] was on the cross. But eager ones came hither from afar. Noble ones came together. I be[held] all that. I [was terribly afflicted with sorrows]. [I bowed to the hands of men], wounded with arrows. They laid him down, limb-weary; [they stood at the shoulders of the corpse. They looked upon the Lord of heaven].)11

The gender (im)balance of the broad sides of the monument is also repeated on the narrow sides. In the poem the cross speaks both as the masculine galgu (gallows), the instrument of death, and as the feminine rod (rood), the instrument of life. Both are, of course, subservient to the will of Christ, and, in this retelling, to the will of the Church. And what of that cross that speaks? The poem is in the voice of the Cross/this cross, but is that the form the monument would originally have taken? Even the earliest scholars of the monument had their doubts; however, even if the monument was not originally a cross, it was certainly made into one at some point in the Anglo-Saxon period. Let’s assume for the moment then that it was always conceived of as a cross—and I will return to scholarly division on the subject

11 Square brackets indicate letters that have been supplied or restored based on the text of The Dream of the Rood. I strike through them here to indicate both the debate and division over how to reconstruct the verses, as well as the debate and division over the relationship between the two poems, and the difficulty a viewer encounters in trying to read the inscription today. As a word-for-word correspondence between Old and modern English is impossible, only those instances in which whole words, sections of words, or phrases are illegible have been stricken from the translation. All translations are my own unless otherwise indicated.

138

Catherine E. Karkov

below—but even in doing so we find a disparity between what is said in the poem and what we see with our eyes. The poem implies a wooden cross but we see only stone. The vine-scroll suggests a growing tree, but the tree in the poem has been cut down in order to be fashioned into the cross, and there is nothing tree-like about the broad faces of the monument. If anything, the figures on these latter faces would have reminded Anglo-Saxon viewers of the figures standing or sitting within arches or panels on imperial Roman monuments, many of which remained visible, especially along the line of Hadrian’s Wall.12 The poem also tells us that the monument is a gallows on one side and a cross on the other. When and how does it change form? We see no change in form. Certainly, this unseen shapeshifting is part of the mystical experience and/or riddling nature of the monument.13 The poem asks us to believe and experience, not to see with literal eyes; and it asks us to puzzle out the answers to its riddles and, if we are to do that, it must withhold or hide at least some of the answers. Nevertheless, there remains a difference between what is seen and what is read, a difference which also serves to further divide those who can only see and not read, from those able to hear/read the monument’s words. It is assumed that the Ruthwell monument was erected by a monastic community. The archaeological evidence for the existence of such a community remains inconclusive,14 although the deeply learned and multilingual nature of the monument suggests that only a monastic community would have had the knowledge and resources to plan, erect, and understand it. But that doesn’t mean that a monastic community would have been the only group to view the monument. There would have been visitors, servants, laymen, and women of various types, as well as the local inhabitants of the region who would also have seen or glimpsed the monument on occasion. Not all of these people would have approached or been

12 Martin Henig, “Murem civitatis et fontem in ea a Romanis mire olim constructum: The Arts of Rome in Carlisle and the Civitatis of the Carvetti and Their Influence,” in Carlisle and Cumbria: Roman and Medieval Architecture, Art and Archaeology, ed. Mike McCarthy and David Weston, British Archaeological Association Transactions 27 (Leeds: British Archaeological Association, 2004), 11–28; Jane Hawkes, “Iuxta Morem Romanorum: Stone and Sculpture in Anglo-Saxon England,” in Anglo-Saxon Styles, ed. Catherine E. Karkov and George H. Brown (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2003), 69–99; Orton, Wood, and Lees, Fragments of History, 105–17; Karkov, The Art of Anglo-Saxon England, 58–68. 13 See further Karkov, The Art of Anglo-Saxon England, 137–45; James Paz, Nonhuman Voices in Anglo-Saxon Literature and Material Culture (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2017), 175–215. 14 Christopher Crowe, “Excavations at Ruthwell, Dumfries, 1980 and 1984,” Transactions and Journal of the Proceedings of the Dumfriesshire and Galloway Natural History and Antiquarian Society, 3rd ser., 62 (1987): 40–47.

5 The Divisions of the Ruthwell Cross

139

able to understand the monument in the same way. Would those who could not read some or all of the inscriptions have been curious about what they said? Would they have wanted to learn more? Or would some at least have understood the monument as an object of otherness, a symbol of the imposition of a foreign church and a foreign power into their territory? Ruthwell stands on what had been British land, land the cross helped to claim, back when it was first erected, for Northumbria and the Northumbrian Church. For such an audience, the monument might have been nothing more than a towering symbol of aggression and conquest speaking in foreign tongues.

The Monument Divided The Ruthwell monument was itself divided, broken into pieces and partially buried in and around the church at the time of the Reformation, although the process seems to have been marked by confusion and differing opinions over what the monument represented. The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland 1640 Act anent the demolishing of Idolatrous Monuments decreed that Forasmuch as the Assembly is informed, that in divers places of the Kingdome, and specially in the North parts of the same, many Idolatrous Monuments, erected and made for Religious worship, are yet extant, Such as Crucifixes, Images of Christ, Mary, and Saints departed, ordaines the said Monuments to be taken down, demolished, and destroyed, and that with all convenient diligence: And that the care of this work shall be incumbent to the Presbyteries and Provinciall Assemblies within this Kingdome: and their Commissioners to report there diligence herein to the next Generall Assembly.15

Two years later the same body urged specifically that the Ruthwell monument be demolished, noting that “Anent the report of idolatrous monuments in the Kirk at Ruthw[ell] the Assemblie finds that the monument therein mentioned is idolatrous, and therefore recommends to the Presbytrie that they careful[l]y urge the order prescrived be the act of Parliament anent the abolishing of these monuments, be put to execution.”16 The wording itself is confusing. Clearly there was more than one monument at Ruthwell, or at least more than one had been reported. Had the

15 The Acts of the General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland from the year 1638 to the year 1649. Inclusive. To which are now added the index of imprinted Acts of the Assemblies; and the Acts of the General Assembly 1690 (Edinburgh: n.p., 1691), 92–93. 16 Cited in Paul Meyvaert, “An Apocalypse Panel on the Ruthwell Cross,” in Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 9, Proceedings of the Southeastern Institute of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Summer, 1978, ed. Frank Tirro (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1982), 3–32, at 4–5.

140

Catherine E. Karkov

other monuments been destroyed? Did only “the” monument remain? Assuming that “the” monument was indeed this monument—which certainly was idolatrous according to the definition of the Act—why had it been singled out? A division had also been created between the General Assembly and the local community. In his history of the cross, John Dinwiddie, minister at Ruthwell 1890–1936, noted that not all were eager to carry out the orders of the assembly, and that the then minister of Ruthwell, Gavin Young, ignored the order, “rightly” believing that the cross was not an idolatrous monument.17 It is also possible that Young was paying particularly close attention to the wording of the Act, and that unlike the other monuments which were in the church, this monument stood in Murray’s Quire, which was not owned by the church and seems to have had its own entrance separate to that of the church.18 On the other hand, Henry Duncan, Minister at Ruthwell 1802–1823, credited the delay in the monument’s destruction to the influence of the Murrays of Cockpool “who were the chief proprietors as well as the patrons of the parish, and who had espoused the cause of the Stuarts and the Episcopal party in opposition to the Presbyterians.”19 The monument did, after all, stand in their Quire. However, given reports of the disappearance of portions of the sculpture after Young’s death, attributing the monument’s protection to the Murrays is somewhat problematic. Whatever the case, in 1642 the community was forced to comply. According to Dinwiddie, however, Young did so in a way that caused as little damage to the monument as possible, and, ironically, in a way that brought it into the body of the church. The upper stone was pulled down from the cross, and the now separated shaft was lowered into a trench dug into the church floor, and partially defaced in the process.20 It lay resting on its present west face, and the eastern face with its vine-scroll and runic text, neither of which would have been considered idolatrous, remained visible above the floor of the church. The monument was thus demolished and defaced, yet it remained on view. It was buried, yet not buried. Dinwiddie is clear in his view that Young (and/or the Murrays) was set on preserving the monument and that it was buried in the manner that it was as a means of preserving the greater part of it in as good a state as possible.21 It is 17 Rev. Dr. J. L. Dinwiddie, The Ruthwell Cross, The Ruthwell Savings Bank, 9th ed. (Dumfries: Robert Dinwiddie, 2008), 25. 18 For an analysis of the wording of the Act in relation to the position of the monument see Orton, Wood, and Lees, Fragments of History, 38. 19 Henry Duncan, “An Account of the Remarkable Monument in the Shape of a Cross, Inscribed with Roman and Runic Letters, Preserved in the Garden of Ruthwell Manse, Dumfriesshire,” Archaeologia Scotica 4 part 2 (1833): 313–26, at 317. 20 For a detailed account of Young’s actions see Dinwiddie, The Ruthwell Cross and Its Story, 89–91. 21 Dinwiddie, The Ruthwell Cross and Its Story, 89–90.

5 The Divisions of the Ruthwell Cross

141

no doubt this view that has given rise to the idea current amongst at least some of the members of the community today that the cross was buried in order to protect it from the iconoclasts of the Reformation.22 Dinwiddie believed that Young watched over all the fragments of the cross, and that the upper stone and crosshead were not buried separately until after Young’s death, but there is no clear evidence that this either was or was not the case. Whether the defacing and scattering of the fragments occurred during Young’s ministry or afterwards, these very acts call into question the notion that either the Ruthwell community or the church’s patrons were intent on protecting or preserving the monument. If the community (or the Murrays) did want to protect the monument then why were the top of the shaft and the cross-head broken up, scattered, and buried across the churchyard? It is hard to interpret such actions as those of someone set on the monument’s preservation. Moreover, all record of where the fragments were buried was lost, and they were not rediscovered until Henry Duncan became minister at Ruthwell (1798–1723) and set about his reconstruction of the monument. From his accounts we know that some fragments had been discovered beneath the table stones that covered many of the graves in the churchyard,23 but that others were buried in unmarked locations and were only uncovered during the digging of fresh graves. As Duncan tells the story of the finding of one such fragment: A poor man and his wife having died within a day or two of each other, it was resolved that they should both be buried in the same grave, which on that account, required to be made unusually deep. The grave-digger in the course of his labour came to a fragment of sandstone of considerable bulk, which was found, on one of its sides, to contain the upper part of the image of the Supreme Being, with the Agnus Dei in his bosom, and, on the reverse, a representation of the upper part of two human figures in the act of embracing.24

To bury a fragment at such depth does not suggest that it was intended to be protected, retrieved, or retrievable. Duncan speculated that “It had probably been surreptitiously buried along with the body of some votary of the church of Rome, from a superstitious belief in its supernatural virtues,” but no such burial was mentioned in the account of its discovery.25 22 A view expressed by several members of the local community during 3-D laser scanning of the monument by the Visionary Cross project in March 2012. 23 Some fragments had been discovered beneath the table stones by William Nicolson on his visit in 1704, but it is not clear whether all had been discovered at that time, nor whether or not he had put some fragments back beneath the table stones to preserve them. 24 Duncan, “An Account of the Remarkable Monument,” 318–19. The lower fragment of the John the Baptist panel was, however, described as being present within the church by Thomas Pennant in his A Tour in Scotland and Voyage to the Hebrides 1772 (Chester: n.p., 1774), vol. 2, 95–98, at 98. 25 Duncan, “An Account of the Remarkable Monument,” 319.

142

Catherine E. Karkov

Scholarly Division and Dissonant Histories The Ruthwell Cross In their Fragments of History: Rethinking the Ruthwell and Bewcastle Monuments, Orton, Wood, and Lees note that the Ruthwell monument “has no immediate connection with the historical landscape around it. It is especially poignant that the place where it is now has none of the experiential depth of time and place that characterizes Bewcastle [the monument with which Ruthwell is so often compared]. We know that it has moved about and come to rest contingently, and arbitrarily. Preserved but not preserving, it is removed from wherein it now is: displaced; compromised; tolerated.”26 While Orton, Wood, and Lees are referring to the way in which the monument’s current location compromises it, they were not the first to note the general problem of place. The earliest accounts of the monument, both fanciful and otherwise, record a problematic and shifting relationship between the monument and land or landscape. By all accounts, however, it is ultimately a foreign object. In a diary entry for July 5, 1704, William Nicolson, Bishop of Carlisle and a student and teacher of Old English at Oxford, recorded a local story that apparently remained current in various tellings and retellings throughout the eighteenth century: The common Tradition of ye Original of this stone is this: It was found, letter’d and entire, in a Stone-Quarry on the Shore (a good way within ye Sea-mark) call’d Rough-Scarr. Here it had lain long admir’d, when (in a Dream) a neighbouring Labourer was directed to yoke four Heifers of a certain Widow y liv’d near him; and when they stop’d with yir Burthen, there to slack his Team, erect ye Cross & build a Church over it: All which was done accordingly. I wonder’d to see a Company of Modern Presbyterians (as ye present parishoners profess ymselves to be) so steady in this Faith; and even to believe, yet further, yt the Cross was not altogether so long (at its first erection) as was afterwards: But that it miraculously grew, like a Tree, till it touched the Roof of the Church.27

In this story, the monument is completely cut off from land, people, and history. It was found. By whom? Who carved it? How did it arrive or appear in the quarry? Fanciful as this origin story might be, it does actually suggest a deep sense of connection on the part of the local community with the miraculous shapeshifting nature of the monument described in the runic poem, and the tree-of-life symbolism of the vine-scroll carved on its narrow sides. It moves from stressing

26 Orton, Wood, and Lees, Fragments of History, 91. 27 William Nicolson, “Bishop Nicolson’s Diaries: Part II,” ed. H. Ware, Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society, new ser. 2 (1902): 155–230, at 196.

5 The Divisions of the Ruthwell Cross

143

the monument’s material, its mysterious origins in a stone quarry and hence its stoniness, to stressing its materiality, its marvellous visionary presence within the space and lives of the church and congregation. Some years later, John Craig, minister of Ruthwell 1783–1798, recorded a slightly different version of the same story: Tradition says, that this obelisk in remote times was set up at a place called Priestwoodside near the sea, in order to assist the vulgar, by sensible images, to form some notions of religion, but was drawn from there by a team of oxen belonging to a widow and placed in the churchyard, where it remained till the reformation.28

In this version, the monument was created specifically for a place and community, though we still don’t know by whom, before being moved to somewhere near its present location. By the end of the nineteenth century, and following Duncan’s restoration and re-erection of the monument in the garden of the manse, a more “scholarly” account of its origins was becoming current amongst at least some members of the local community. James Barbour, a local architect and archaeologist, wrote in the Transactions and Journal of Proceedings of the Dumfriesshire and Galloway Natural History and Antiquarian Society for 1899–1900, that the local legend was simply “a common way of accounting for the presence of works without a history, and possessing merit superior apparently to any effort of local skill.” He went on to demonstrate the local origins of the monument, concluding that the stone itself came from a local quarry and that it followed that “in all probability the Cross was sculpted and first set up in the vicinity where it stands.”29 A monument without a history and with no clear connection to place. Perhaps because of its apparent rootlessness, the Ruthwell monument has become emblematic of different and competing histories and places. Where exactly was it originally located, and by whom was it erected and for what purpose? In what territory was it designed? In what territory did it stand? The area around Ruthwell was originally British, but was it part of the ancient territory of Strathclyde, as the earliest historians of the monument believed, or was it part of the kingdom of Rheged, as has been claimed more recently?30 Either way, it was indisputably part of British territory prior to the incursion of the

28 Old Statistical Account of Scotland, vol. 10 (Edinburgh: n.p., 1794), 220. 29 Quoted in Gerard Baldwin Brown, The Arts in Early England, vol. 5: The Ruthwell and Bewcastle Crosses, the Gospels of Lindisfarne, and Other Christian Monuments of Northumbria (London: John Murray, 1921), 111. 30 See especially Eric Mercer, “The Ruthwell and Bewcastle Crosses,” Antiquity 38 (1964): 268–76; Orton, Wood, and Lees, Fragments of History, 9, 121–30.

144

Catherine E. Karkov

Northumbrian Church and kingdom begun at some point in the seventh century. Whether the area had originally been a site associated with the Celtic/ British Church remains an open question. At the beginning of the twentieth century, some scholars at least were fairly certain that it had been. Gerard Baldwin Brown accepted the monument as undoubtedly of Anglo-Saxon workmanship, but was less certain about the religion of the area in which it was erected, noting that Bede had credited the population of the area with “clinging somewhat doggedly to their traditional Celtic usages.”31 But for Brown, Ruthwell was a powerful statement of Northumbrian triumph.32 Dinwiddie, on the other hand, fashioned a problematic and centuries-long Scottish nationalist history for the monument that retroactively made Ruthwell a site of Celtic Christianity. He was quite dogmatic about the monument being a product of the Celtic Church and a symbol of the Scottish nation, even if the designers and/or craftsmen and/ or models for the figures might have been Anglo-Saxon.33 He saw the monument as a protest against the Romanizing stance of the Synod of Whitby and the Northumbrian king Oswiu, as well as the post-Whitby Northumbrian Church. “The church of St. Columba and St. Aidan,” he argued, “became a protecting Church. It was the first Protestant Church in the British Islands.” The Church of Rome, on the other hand, was “an imported and alien Church.”34 The Ruthwell Cross could be shown to be a product of the seventh century, espousing the views of the Celtic Church against those of Rome, proclaiming its origins in its own voice. Where Daniel Haigh and George Stephens had read “Cadmon me fawed” (Cædmon made me) in the runes along the margins of the panel with the bird perched on a vine-scroll at the top of the cross,35 Dinwiddie read “Colman me fawed,” identifying Colman as Bishop Colman of Northumbria, the “last Celtic bishop of the Northumbrian Church,” and the bishop responsible for leading dissenting monks back to Iona after the Synod of Whitby.36 Not only was the Ruthwell Cross a monument of protest, it was one that “usurped” power from the kingdom of Northumbria with its allegiance to the Roman Church, and

31 The Arts in Early England, vol. 5, The Ruthwell and Bewcastle Crosses, 290. 32 Brown, The Ruthwell and Bewcastle Crosses, 313–14. 33 He states, for example, that the model for the figure of Christ in the panel depicting Mary Magdalen washing Christ’s feet with her tears and drying them with her hair, must have been “a Saxon prince who was . . . fair-haired, long-haired, and moustached.” Dinwiddie, The Ruthwell Cross and Its Story, 13. 34 Dinwiddie, The Ruthwell Cross and Its Story, 38. 35 Haigh’s letter to George Stephens dated October 4, 1863 is quoted in Stephens, The Ruthwell Cross, Northumbria, from about A.D. 680 (London: J. Smith, 1866), 17. 36 Dinwiddie, The Ruthwell Cross and Its Story, 119.

5 The Divisions of the Ruthwell Cross

145

appropriated it to the Celtic Church.37 He was by no means alone in his views. Iona, the site with which for him Ruthwell was now spiritually and historically associated, was seen by some of his contemporaries to be the “spiritual and intellectual metropolis of Western Christendom.”38 But Dinwiddie believed that Ruthwell went on to surpass Iona in its adherence to the true faith. In 714 Iona had aligned itself with the Roman Church and hence the Romanizing ways of Northumbria, while Strathclyde (including Dumfriesshire) alone remained true to its origins. He concluded that there was good reason to believe, therefore, that “our great Cross at Ruthwell provided a rallying point for the steadily diminishing adherents to the rule of the Mother Church of Iona.”39 Dinwiddie’s views neatly aligned the origins of the monument in Scottish nationalism and protest with the local values of the community during the Protestant Reformation, the period in which the monument was buried and preserved for the nation, as well as with the period of Scottish nationalism and protest in which he wrote. The Ruthwell Cross and Its Story was first published in 1927, and was thus contemporary with the foundation of dedicated nationalist parties such as the Scots National League and the Scottish National Party, and the literary and artistic renaissance exemplified by the work of authors such as Robert McLellan, Lewis Spence, and Arthur Lamont, and by artists such as William Lamb and William McCance. I know of no documented evidence that Dinwiddie himself was actively involved in the Scottish national movement, but the story he tells of the Ruthwell Cross certainly suggests that he was sympathetic to the cause. He traces the rise of a Scottish “national consciousness” to the reign of David I (1124–1153) and the great monasteries that he is credited with founding. However, the “simple parish kirks,” such as Ruthwell, he argues, had a much greater influence on the general population and thus a greater role to play in spreading Christian ideals and morals throughout the land. The Ruthwell monument had a central role to play in this process. “It goes without saying,” he wrote, “that such a noble and beautiful symbol of the Christian faith as our famous Cross did constantly make a stronger and more direct appeal to the simple peasants, to whom its sculptures of well-known scenes from our Lord’s life had been familiar from their childhood. They did not need to be possessed of learning or endowed with artistic taste in order to read and understand these great ‘sermons in stone’.”40 The overall message of the monument was addressed to these two

37 Dinwiddie, The Ruthwell Cross and Its Story, 119. 38 Joseph Barber Lightfoot, Leaders in the Northern Church: Sermons Preached in the Diocese of Durham (London: Macmillan, 1890), 41. 39 Dinwiddie, The Ruthwell Cross and Its Story, 44. 40 Dinwiddie, The Ruthwell Cross and Its Story, 55, 56.

146

Catherine E. Karkov

humble groups, the simple peasants and the simple, yet civilizing and peaceful parish church. It preached: “Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth,” and “Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God.”41 In addition to its message of peace, Dinwiddie also believed that the Ruthwell Cross spoke of gender equality. He was the first student of the monument to observe the prominent number of women on the cross, and believed their purpose was to highlight the role that women played in the establishment of the Church and the spread of Christianity throughout the Early Christian world.42 Although he does not say as much, it’s possible that in this view he was also thinking back to what he believed to be the origins of the cross in the Celtic Church and its stance at the Synod of Whitby. Hild, abbess of Whitby, had been an important figure in the promotion of Christianity in the north of England, and was host to the 664 Synod; however, even if she did accept the decision to adopt the ways of Rome there is evidence to suggest that Whitby itself continued to adhere to many of the practices of the Celtic Church.43 Hild was also the abbess to whom Cædmon had revealed his miraculous poetic gift, and who was still credited with composing the runic poem even if his name was not inscribed on the topmost stone. Dinwiddie’s own argument is not so historically specific, rather he quotes William Lecky in associating the ideals of paganism with the masculine, and those of Christianity with the feminine,44 something implicit in his own verbal portrayal of the cross as a protective and peaceful teacher for the local community. Dinwiddie was almost completely wrong about the monument. It was not erected in the seventh century, it was not a monument of the Celtic Church, and it was not a monument of protest against Rome. It was not a humble and peaceful monument of the people, but a highly learned monument of the Northumbrian Church and elite that would have been difficult, if not impossible for the local population to fully understand. Dinwiddie read into the monument and its story the history and message he wished them to convey. Nationalistic approaches to the Ruthwell Cross were not unusual at the time that Dinwiddie was writing. The decades between 1880 and 1930 saw a flurry of publications by scholars from outside England arguing for a late date

41 Dinwiddie, The Ruthwell Cross and Its Story, 121. 42 Dinwiddie, The Ruthwell Cross and Its Story, 121. 43 Stephanie Hollis, Anglo-Saxon Women and the Church: Sharing a Common Fate (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1992), 179–207. 44 Dinwiddie, The Ruthwell Cross and Its Story, 125, quoting William E. H. Lecky, A History of European Morals from Augustus to Charlemagne, 2 vols. (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1869), vol. 2, chap. 5.

5 The Divisions of the Ruthwell Cross

147

for the cross and emphasizing its “obvious” dependence on later works of art and/ or literature. The Danish philologist and antiquary Sophus Müller argued that the cross dated from around the year 1000,45 while the American Albert S. Cook argued first for a date in the mid-tenth century, but subsequently came to believe that the cross could be as late as the mid-twelfth century.46 They were followed in their late dating by the Italian architectural historian G. T. Rivoira (who also saw Lombard influence on the cross),47 and the American art historian Charles Rufus Morey.48 English scholars led by Gerard Baldwin Brown and W. G. Collingwood argued just as adamantly that the cross dated from the seventh century, and thus stood at the very origins of Anglo-Saxon sculpture and poetry.49 Modern readings of the monument have been no less influenced by authorial or scholarly desire, even though we now know much more about Ruthwell’s style, iconography, history, and sources, and even though these readings are supported by more reliable sources and evidence. For Éamonn Ó Carragáin, who is concerned primarily with the liturgical meaning of the monument, the Ruthwell Cross (and for him it always was and was intended to be a cross) is a spiritual, beautiful, and peaceful work, deeply informed by liturgical texts and practices, and relatively easily understood as such by a variety of audiences, no matter what their levels of literacy in the multiple languages through which the cross speaks. For him, the cross is deeply rooted in place, but in this case in two places and

45 Sophus Müller, “Dyreornamentikken in Norden, dens Oprindelse, Udvikling og Forhold til samtidige Stilarter,” Aarboger for Nordisk Oldkyndighed og Historie, udgivne af det kongelige nordiske oldskrift-selskab (1880): 185–403, at 265–324. 46 Albert S. Cook, “Caedmon and the Ruthwell Cross,” Modern Language Notes 5 (1890): 77–78; idem, “The Date of the Ruthwell Cross,” The Academy: A Weekly Review of Literature, Science, and Art 37 (1 March 1890): 153–54; idem, “Notes on the Ruthwell Cross,” Publications of the Modern Language Association of America 17, new ser. 10 (1902): 367–90; idem, “The Date of the Ruthwell and Bewcastle Crosses,” Transactions of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences 17 (December 1912): 213–361. 47 G. T. Rivoira, Lombardic Architecture, Its Origins, Development and Derivatives, trans. G. Rushforth (London: William Heineman, 1910), vol. 2, 143 (translation of Le origini della architettura lombarda e delle sue principali derivazioni nei paesi d’oltr’Alpe (Rome: Loescher, 1907)); idem, “Antiquities of St. Andrews,” Burlington Magazine 21 (1912): 15–25, at 24–25. 48 Charles Rufus Morey, Medieval Art (New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 1942), 187 argues that the cross is a twelfth-century Romanesque work, and Irish in origin via Iona. 49 Brown, The Ruthwell and Bewcastle Crosses; W. G. Collingwood, Northumbrian Crosses of the Pre-Norman Age (London: Faber & Gwyer, 1927), 69–71, 84–86, 112–14, 118–19. See also W. R. Lethaby, “Is the Ruthwell Cross an Anglo-Celtic Work?” Archaeological Journal 70, 2nd ser. 20 (1913): 145–61; H. H. Howorth, “The Great Crosses of the Seventh Century in Northern England,” Archaeological Journal 71, 2nd ser., 21 (1914): 45–64; M. Conway, “The Bewcastle and Ruthwell Crosses,” Burlington Magazine 24 (1912): 193–94.

148

Catherine E. Karkov

deeply expressive of the harmony between the two: in the world of Rome and the Roman Church, and in the liturgical innovations brought to the Northumbrian monastery of Wearmouth-Jarrow by John the Archcantor in 679. As did earlier scholars, he locates the monument in the world of post-Whitby Northumbria, but sees it as a product of the Roman rather than the Celtic faction. Even its use of two scripts and two languages he equates with Rome rather than with the Anglo-Saxon tradition,50 despite the ambivalent relationship known to have existed between the Latin and Old English languages in seventh- and eighth-century Northumbria in general, and seemingly at Wearmouth-Jarrow and Whitby in particular.51 For Ó Carragáin, Ruthwell is not a statement of protest, but neither is it one of victory over the vanquished, and certainly not of conquest. Ruthwell is a vehicle of “interculturation” that peacefully united places and cultures: Rome, Northumbria, Ruthwell.52 It spoke a multicultural message that united East and West, the Roman and the British churches, monastics and those with whom they came into contact, men and women.53 Nevertheless, in its deep liturgical symbolism, Ruthwell was above all a Roman monument. Ó Carragáin was the first to point out that the Ruthwell Cross may originally have had a very close relationship to the immediate landscape in which it was set (even if it was not as profoundly tied to place and history as the Bewcastle Cross), established through the sun and its movement. He suggested in particular that the runic poem directed the viewer around the monument in a sunwise direction,54 and that the annunciation, visitation, and John the Baptist with the lamb of God panels were the visual keys that helped unite image and text with movement and place. Christ’s conception on the 25th of March, the point in the solar cycle at which the hours of sunlight triumph over those of darkness, was balanced by the conception of John the Baptist on the 24th of September, the point at which the “lessening days” take prominence. Similarly, the feast of the Nativity on the 25th of December, the point at which the days first begin to lengthen, was balanced by the nativity of John the Baptist on the 24th of June, the point at which the days begin to grow gradually shorter again. This would have been understood, for the early medieval viewer, by the alignment of the

50 Éamonn Ó Carragáin, Ritual and the Rood, 230. Ó Carragáin has published numerous articles on the Ruthwell Cross, but Ritual and the Rood is his most extensive study of the monument to date. 51 Uppinder Mehan and David Townsend, “‘Nation’ and the Gaze of the Other in EighthCentury Northumbria,” Comparative Literature 53.1 (2001): 1–26. 52 Ó Carragáin, Ritual and the Rood, chap. 5. 53 Ó Carragáin, Ritual and the Rood, 228–47, 259–61, 296–97. 54 Ó Carragáin, Ritual and the Rood, 62.

5 The Divisions of the Ruthwell Cross

149

cross on an east-west axis, so that as the sun rose it cast its light on the side of the shaft with the visitation panel, as if giving life to the as yet unborn Christ and John in the wombs of Mary and Elizabeth, and it rose behind the panel with John the Baptist and the lamb of God, as it was John’s mission to “go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways” (Luke 1:76).55 Of course, the cross no longer stands out of doors, and there is no certainty that it ever did so for an extended period of time. Moreover, the explanation of its original alignment and relationship to the sun, and hence the landscape, is based almost entirely on comparison with the Bewcastle Cross, which still stands in its original setting. Ruthwell has a tendency to cling to Bewcastle, even though they are divided by geography, and to The Dream of the Rood, even though they are divided by medium, and divided chronologically by several centuries. Like Dinwiddie, Ó Carragáin also equates the message and purpose of the cross with the feminine and the maternal, but he does so by showing how it was possible to connect these aspects of the monument to the liturgy of the early Church and to the biblical subjects depicted. Again, his analysis focuses on the “growing days” of Lent, Holy Week, and Easter, and their accompanying rituals of initiation, baptism, and rebirth. These rites, then, were at the heart of the scriptural iconographic program of the broad sides. Lent was the period of the pregnant Church, during which time the catechumens learned the tools that would enable them to reject Satan and their old lives while they awaited rebirth through the sacrament of baptism. This is symbolized on the cross in the panels depicting the healing of the blind man and the repentant Magdalen, which, together, represented growth in vision and growth in faith. The location of the panels between those of the annunciation and visitation made visual the parallel between the growth of the faithful in the womb of the Church and the growth of Christ in the womb of Mary. The composition of this part of the cross, he argues, forms an envelope pattern, the very structure of which is suggestive of a womb.56 He goes on to argue that the imagery of womb and birth embodied in the envelope pattern was specifically associated with the rhetoric of baptism, as exemplified by two of the eight distychs inscribed around the columns surrounding the baptismal font in the Lateran Baptisry in Rome.57 However, this association is ultimately convincing only if similar patterns are not found in inscriptions and texts unrelated to baptism. Ó Carragáin also speculates that the

55 Ó Carragáin, Ritual and the Rood, 83. 56 Ó Carragáin, Ritual and the Rood, 137–38. The concept of the envelope pattern is borrowed from earlier studies of Old English poetry. See Adeline C. Bartlett, The Larger Rhetorical Patterns in Anglo-Saxon Poetry (New York: AMS Press, 1935). 57 Ó Carragáin, Ritual and the Rood, 139.

150

Catherine E. Karkov

imagery of birth might well have been made even more explicit by the inclusion of an image of the baptism of Christ at the center of the now missing transom of the cross-head.58 This is speculation indeed as the only parallels cited are the eleventh-century cross-heads now in Durham Cathedral. On the other hand, the parallel might also provide support for the view that the upper stone was in fact a much later addition to the monument. In other words, the same panels and imagery that Ó Carragáin views as iconic of the peace and unity of Ruthwell, might also be interpreted as iconic of its dissonance and fracture.

The Ruthwell Monument A second vein of scholarship on the monument has focused on its status as a work of sculpture and a work of art. This vein of scholarship recognizes the biblical meaning and message, and probable liturgical function of the monument, while at the same time looking closely at its physical composition and style. It has its beginnings in Henry Duncan’s 1833 account of the cross, generally understood as the first authoritative description of the monument. It was during Duncan’s time at Ruthwell that the scattered fragments of the cross were discovered and/or hunted down, and it was Duncan who, with the help of a local mason, re-erected the monument in the garden of the manse. In examining, handling, and attempting to piece together the still fragmentary sculpture, he was able to study and interact with the stones on a level unprecedented since the monument’s destruction in 1642, and thus to get a clear, if not entirely accurate, sense of how they all fitted together. It is evident that Duncan looked long and hard at the different fragments of the cross and worried about how they should be reassembled. He had also read and critiqued earlier descriptions of the monument, noting where and why they were in error. The earliest accounts of the monument, those made before it was pulled down and buried, describe it as a cross.59 Later accounts, those made between its destruction

58 Ó Carragáin, Ritual and the Rood, 146. He also endorses the suggestion that the nativity was originally carved on the base of the cross beneath the flight into/out of Egypt, a suggestion which he attributes to Fritz Saxl (“The Ruthwell Cross,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 6 (1943): 1–16). However, Dinwiddie had made the same suggestion sixteen years before Saxl wrote (The Ruthwell Cross and Its Story, 29). 59 The earliest surviving description is that of Reginald Bainbrigg who visited the site in 1599 and described the cross in a letter to William Camden sent shortly thereafter. His letter to Camden is now London, British Library, MS Cotton Julius F.iv, fol. 352.

5 The Divisions of the Ruthwell Cross

151

and Duncan’s reconstruction, generally describe it as a pillar, column, or obelisk,60 presumably because the cross-head had become separated from the shaft so that a pillar, column, or obelisk was indeed what would have been seen. Duncan, however, was convinced that the Ruthwell monument was not a harmonious whole, that it was originally a column or obelisk, and had become a cross only when the top stone was added to the original column at a later date. Like Dinwiddie, he saw the origins of the monument in Insular, though not specifically Scottish culture, and he saw the Insular culture that had begun the monument as superior to the foreign-influenced culture that had completed it. Duncan focused much of his attention on the narrow sides of the shaft. The vine-scroll he felt to be particularly beautiful and free in its upward curling movement. So unlike the rest of the monument’s panels was it that he had originally mistaken it for pre-Christian work. Both the figural panels of the broad sides and the vine-scroll of the upper stone were inelegant in comparison and much inferior in workmanship. The vine-scroll of the upper stone could only have been the work of a later artist attempting to imitate the earlier scroll of the lower stone.61 Language too distinguished the narrow sides from the broad. He ascribed the alphabets to two different periods of history, the Latin, along with the inferior art of the figural panels providing evidence of a later remodelling of the monument that changed its essential nature.62 Duncan also looked closely at how the different parts of the monument fitted together. He commented on the difference in color between the upper and lower stone and saw this as added proof that the upper stone was a later addition and came from a different quarry than the lower stone. There is, as we now know, no reason to believe that the two stones are from different quarries, although the difference in craftsmanship between top and bottom remains striking. One of the most telling areas of the monument was the border at the top of the lower stone’s vine-scroll. Duncan observed that the border “divides the vine work on the Runic sides into two compartments and awkwardly interrupts its elegant convolutions— an intrusion which can only be satisfactorily accounted for by supposing that, on its original formation, the pillar at this point was made to terminate.”63 He also pointed out that the inscriptions on the upper stone were oriented differently.64

60 See Craig’s description above, p. 143; Alexander Gordon, Itinerarium Septentrionale: Or a Journey thro’ Most of the Counties of Scotland and Those in Northern England (London: n.p., 1726), 160–61; Thomas Pennant, A Tour in Scotland and Voyage to the Hebrides 1772, 84–85. 61 Duncan, “An Account of the Remarkable Monument in the Shape of a Cross,” 315–16. 62 Duncan, “An Account of the Remarkable Monument in the Shape of a Cross,” 314. 63 Duncan, “An Account of the Remarkable Monument in the Shape of a Cross,” 315. 64 See above, p. 134.

152

Catherine E. Karkov

Ruthwell, then, was an ugly and fragmented monument. Duncan ended his study by speculating on the monument’s patron(s) and the reason it might have first been erected. Here too he saw conflict and tension, speculating that the original column (i.e. the monument with vine-scroll and runic text but without figural panels or Latin inscriptions) had first been erected by a community of monks in order to record the ravaging of church lands by “some powerful chieftain,” who later repented and donated gifts to the church.65 When and why the figural sculpture and Latin inscriptions were added was, for him, not nearly as important. Fred Orton, whose primary interest is in the social history of the cross, saw the Ruthwell monument (and he was as insistent as Duncan that it was not originally a cross) as above all political (a product of a certain class with a certain wealth and power), and above all a work of sculpture. It has a materiality, a solid sculptural presence that stakes a claim, even if it is not a visually pleasing sculpture. Where Ó Carragáin and Dinwiddie had focused on the monument’s elegance and verticality, Orton and his co-authors Ian Wood and Clare Lees, saw it as a series of fragments, inelegant and earth-bound.66 In part this was due to the proportions and taper of the monument, which, especially in comparison to those of the Bewcastle Cross, make it appear wide and somewhat squat. In part it was also due to Duncan’s reconstruction, to the modern transformation of pillar, column, or obelisk back to cross, and all the disjunctions caused by missing pieces and intrusive restoration. Orton described the reconstruction as “an awkward mixture of five carved and inscribed Anglo-Saxon stones and six vulgar blocks of convenience from the nineteenth century (one of which is no more than a wedge) cemented together with crude pointing that here and there serves as modelling.”67 As already noted, the monument’s relation to place was equally awkward.68 It was very much an intrusion in its current setting, and its lack of history combined with its controversial origins gave it no clear ties to wherever it might originally have been designed or erected. What was clear to Orton, however, was that Ruthwell was a product of shifting ideologies and that these ideologies were closely bound up with claims to land and territory, rather than to place per se. At a general level, AngloSaxon Northumbria was divided into the kingdoms Deira and Bernicia, names that the Anglo-Saxons had adopted from the post-Roman British inhabitants.

65 Duncan, “An Account of the Remarkable Monument in the Shape of a Cross,” 323. 66 For convenience I will henceforth abbreviate the names of all three authors to “Orton,” as he is the primary author of the chapters dealing with the materials and materiality of the monument. 67 Orton, Wood, and Lees, Fragments of History, 39. 68 See above, p. 142.

5 The Divisions of the Ruthwell Cross

153

The very appropriation of these names might have been “an indication that the Northumbrians wished to think of or present themselves as indigenous.”69 Such a view gains support from the language of texts such as Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica or the Whitby Life of Gregory, which work to embed Old English into the pre-Latinate land and culture,70 and would have helped both to justify further claims to British territory, and to construct the Anglo-Saxons as the heirs to the imperial Roman culture that was still so visible in the landscape along the line of Hadrian’s Wall. More specifically, the acquisition of land, the founding of monasteries, and the production of stone sculpture were themselves the products of wealth and power. They were the result of economic and social factors as much as they were the result of religious and liturgical factors.71 Expansion into the territory around Ruthwell can be dated to the seventh century, and thus cannot be related directly to the monument;72 however, that does not mean that the establishment of a monastic community might not have been contemporary with the Northumbrian takeover of the area. The theological sophistication of the monument is beyond question and, if designed in-house, would suggest a settled and deeply-learned community—though of course other scenarios remain possible. Language, moreover, would have helped to divide the monument from the indigenous population well into the eighth century. All three languages in which the monument speaks—Latin, Old English, and the visual—would have declared the monument’s otherness. As Orton points out, A Briton, even a literate Briton who could cope with the Latin alphabet and language, is unlikely to have been able to read the runic script. The Old English language itself may well have been unintelligible. The presentation of Christ in terms of the warrior ethos of the Anglo-Saxons would have been intelligible, but may not have been welcome to the British peasantry confronted with the presence of the dominant Anglo-Saxon incomers.73

The importance of the local context in which the monument was erected—its otherness—extends to Orton’s reading of the runic poem. It fragments, as does the monument as a whole. Unlike Ó Carragáin, he does not read the poem as part of a unified tradition that extends to the Vercelli Book Dream of the Rood, written down ca. 1000, or the verse inscription of the eleventh-century Brussels reliquary cross now in the Cathedral of St. Michael and St. Gudula. To read the Ruthwell

69 Orton, Wood, and Lees, Fragments of History, 111. 70 See further Mehan and Townsend, “‘Nation’ and the Gaze of the Other in Eighth-Century Northumbria.” See also Guy Halsall, Worlds of Arthur: Facts and Fictions of the Dark Ages (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), chap. 10. 71 Orton, Wood, and Lees, Fragments of History, 197. 72 Orton, Wood, and Lees, Fragments of History, 124. 73 Orton, Wood, and Lees, Fragments of History, 124.

154

Catherine E. Karkov

poem in this manner forces a teleological reading of Anglo-Saxon culture, a “unified” and “linear” historical narrative that links the eighth-century “Golden Age of Northumbria” with the late tenth-century “Golden Age” of Anglo-Saxon art and poetry,74 the last flowering of a world soon to be transformed by the Norman Conquest. Certainly there is a relationship between the Ruthwell poem, The Dream of the Rood, and the inscription on the Brussels cross, but there are important differences and distinctions between the texts/objects that must be maintained. They were composed centuries apart, no doubt under and for very different circumstances, and their differences in material, scale, and objecthood give them a very different materiality. Neither the Ruthwell nor Brussels inscriptions have anything to do with dreams. Perhaps most importantly, there is no evidence, as some scholars would have it,75 that the poem as written in the Vercelli Book existed at the time the Ruthwell verses were composed. The view that the latter must somehow be based on the former is unsustainable, and has the effect of privileging the (later) book over the (earlier) object, and the written over the inscribed, a hierarchy that is more a product of modern scholarship than of early medieval culture. On the other hand, Orton may have been too concerned with establishing and maintaining differences and divisions between his objects of study, as he mistakenly asserts that the Brussels inscription is different in that it does not allow the cross to speak in the first person.76 There is general agreement amongst scholars of the Ruthwell monument that its poem can be read as a riddle on the nature and meaning of the cross, and Orton interestingly points out that there may be a relationship between the riddle the poem presents and the assembling of the puzzle posed by the fragments of the monument in the nineteenth century. “Interpolation and explanation of the runes as a riddle about crosses may well be useful also for understanding the meanings of the Ruthwell monument much later in its history when, for example, it was in fragments, or now, as the remarkable monument in the shape of a cross, that was first assembled by Henry Duncan between 1802 and 1823.”77 But there may equally be a relationship between the riddle of the Ruthwell poem and

74 Orton, Wood, and Lees, Fragments of History, 151–52. 75 See e.g. Jonathan Wilcox, “Transmission of Literature and Learning,” in A Companion to Anglo-Saxon Literature, ed. Phillip Pulsiano and Elaine Treharne (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 50–70, at 56–57. 76 Orton, Wood, and Lees, Fragments of History, 164. The relevant portion of the inscription on the Brussels cross reads: “+ROD IS MIN NAMA GEO IC RICNE CYNING BÆR BYFIGYNDE BLODE BESTEMED” (Cross is my name: once I bore the mighty king, trembling and drenched with blood). 77 Orton, Wood, and Lees, Fragments of History, 169.

5 The Divisions of the Ruthwell Cross

155

later Anglo-Saxon understandings of the monument, both in place and across Anglo-Saxon culture. There is abundant evidence that neither poetry nor works of art were considered “finished” at any given point by the Anglo-Saxons, and the visionary cross the Ruthwell runes conjure, like the monument itself, need to be understood as works that may have been added to, rearranged, recreated, destroyed, and created anew across time—both medieval and modern. The top stone might provide evidence of just such an Anglo-Saxon reworking, and one which might be understood as adding to the puzzle. Like Duncan, Orton argues that the upper stone was added at a significantly later date in the AngloSaxon period. (Would this have been a moment at which the poem inscribed on the lower stone might have become more widely known?) He notes that the identification of the figures in the two panels on the broad sides of the upper stone are the only major iconographic elements around which there remains significant scholarly division. Does the one panel represent John the Baptist or God the Father holding the lamb of God?78 Does the other represent the visitation or Martha and Mary, or perhaps a conflation of the two?79 Might the upper stone, which increases the number of images of women on the monument from three to five, have been added to reflect a change in the type of community at Ruthwell, a transformation from a male to a female house?80 This is an attractive suggestion, but one that runs the risk of essentialism. Images of women, even bridal and maternal images, were not always meant to appeal exclusively to women.81

78 The John the Baptist identification is argued most vehemently by Ó Carragáin (see e.g. Éamonn Ó Carragáin, Jane Hawkes, and Ross Trench-Jellicoe, “John the Baptist and the Agnus Dei: Ruthwell and Bewcastle Revisited,” The Antiquaries’ Journal 81 (2001): 131–53), although it is the one now generally accepted by most scholars; the God the Father interpretation was argued most vehemently by Paul Meyvaert (see e.g. his “A New Perspective on the Ruthwell Cross: Ecclesia and Vita Monastica,” in The Ruthwell Cross. Papers from the Colloquium Sponsored by the Index of Christian Art, Princeton University, 8 December 1989, ed. Brendan Cassidy (Princeton: Index of Christian Art, 1992), 95–166). 79 See, respectively, Éamonn Ó Carragáin, “Between Annunciation and Visitation: Spiritual Birth and the Cycles of the Sun on the Ruthwell Cross: A Response to Fred Orton,” in Theorizing Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture, ed. Catherine E. Karkov and Fred Orton (Morgantown, WV: West Virginia University Press, 2003), 131–87; Orton, Wood, and Lees, Fragments of History, 184–89; Catherine E. Karkov, “Naming and Renaming: The Inscription of Gender on the Ruthwell Cross,” in Karkov and Orton, Theorizing Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture, 31–64; Farr, “Worthy Women on the Ruthwell Cross.” 80 Orton, Wood, and Lees, Fragments of History, 188; Ian N. Wood, “Ruthwell: Contextual Searches,” in Karkov and Orton, Theorizing Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture, 104–30. 81 See, for example, Arthur Holder, ed., The Venerable Bede: On the Song of Songs and Selected Writings (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2011).

156

Catherine E. Karkov

Ideologies are those systems of ideas and beliefs, images, values and techniques of representation, each with its own structures of closure and disclosure, its own horizons, its own ways of allowing certain perceptions and rendering others impossible, by which particular social classes, in conflict with each other, attempt to naturalise their own special place in history.82

Ideologies also inform scholarship, providing scholars with their own structures of closure and disclosure, ways of seeing or not seeing that put them in conflict with each other, and provide them with the means to “naturalize” their own special place within the historiographic record. The Ruthwell monument is, and no doubt will remain, a site of conflict. There is nothing inherently good or great about the monument. It is only what we read back into it, our desire to know and to “solve” the riddles that it poses that imbue it with value. For some it is beautiful, for others ugly. For some it represents peace and unity, for others conflict and division. It has been made to stand for Scotland, for Northumbria, for Northumbrian intrusions into Scotland, for the Celtic Church, for the Roman Church, for protest against Rome, for acceptance of Rome, for a classless theological harmony, for class division, for a “feminine” Christianity, and for the clash of “masculine” warrior ideals with Christianity, for multilingual learning, and for the silence of incomprehension. It is also a heritage site around which these competing and conflicting attempts to understand the monument circulate, and to which they provide their own dissonant voices. As for myself, I have not made up my mind about the Ruthwell Cross, and doubtless never will. I write about it differently each time I study it, and each time I say that I will never write about it again. In the end, the different/divided discourses around the cross are what make it so appealing. They are also as much a part of Ruthwell and its heritage as the cross itself.

82 Orton, Wood, and Lees, Fragments of History, 202.

Stuart D. Lee

6 Lagustreamas: The Changing Waters Surrounding J. R. R. Tolkien and The Battle of Maldon The Battle of Maldon was described by John Holmes as (along with Beowulf) “the Old English poem that most influenced Tolkien’s fiction.”1 Whilst this may be a contentious statement, and an equally strong case could be made for Tolkien’s engagement with The Wanderer,2 there is clearly an element of truth here. This article will, using Tolkien’s fiction and his published and unpublished papers (especially those held in the Bodleian Library at Oxford), demonstrate that he continually engaged with the challenges in the poem throughout his career. Most importantly though, like the waters of the Blackwater, his views on Maldon were not always consistent and changed with the flows and eddies of time.

Student, Lecturer, Editor One can feel relatively safe in the assertion that The Battle of Maldon always was, and still is, a core poem in the Old English literary canon. As is well known, it depicts the defeat of the Anglo-Saxons, led by Byrhtnoth,3 at the hands of the Vikings in 991 near to the settlement of Maldon in Essex. It is as widely taught now in Old English courses as it was during Tolkien’s lifetime. Indeed, Tom Honegger’s observation that Tolkien “probably knew the poem as an undergraduate,”4 is undeniably true and it is very simple to eliminate the

1 John R. Holmes, “The Battle of Maldon,” in J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia: Scholarship and Critical Assessment, ed. Michael C. Drout (Abingdon: Routledge, 2007), 52–54. 2 Stuart D. Lee, “Tolkien and The Wanderer: From Translation to Adaptation,” Tolkien Studies 6 (2009): 189–211. 3 Tolkien, in his writings, often changed this to the dipthongized “Beorhtnoth” to reflect his views on how it would have been pronounced in Late West Saxon. 4 Thomas Honegger, “The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth: Philology and the Literary Muse,” Tolkien Studies 4 (2007): 189–99 at 189. See also Christina Scull and Wayne G. Hammond, The J. R. R. Tolkien Companion and Guide, 3 vols. (London: HarperCollins, 2nd ed. 2017), I:46. Stuart D. Lee, University of Oxford https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501513060-007

158

Stuart D. Lee

“probably.” A quick glance at Tolkien’s personal edition of Sweet’s Anglo-Saxon Reader5 from 1908 (the 8th edition) shows that this was the book he used as a student (the flyleaf is inscribed “JRR Tolkien // Coll. Exon. // Oxon // Michaelmas 1911”). On pages 120–30 which contain Maldon, the young Tolkien made numerous pencil annotations in the margins as he worked his way through the text. This early volume (in terms of his career) also serves to illustrate the precocious talent that Tolkien was to display in later years. Even at this early stage he was not afraid to take Sweet to task (p. viii) by noting that the editor had not corrected all the references in the glossary as a result of removing the chapter “Ælfric on the Old Testament” which had been present in previous editions. Pursuing this further, Scull and Hammond observe that in Trinity term 1915, Tolkien, by now having moved to studying English Language and Literature, sat exams which included Maldon.6 A closer examination of the actual papers shows that although Maldon was not explicitly mentioned the exam questions or translation exercises, any student worth their salt would have had to have referenced it when answering one of the contextual essays. No doubt the poem also formed a core part of the tutorials Tokien sat.7 After graduating, Tolkien’s interactions with Maldon are evidenced by the books that survive from his personal library. First, in his own copy of Sweet’s A Second Anglo-Saxon Reader (Oxford, 1887)8 which has on the fly-leaf “JRR Tolkien // 1919,” and second in his copy of Sweet’s Reader (9th edition, 1922). The latter is completely disbound and one could conjecture from this that it was possibly used in teaching (the pages being passed around for comment) when Tolkien was at the University of Leeds.9 When looking at the pages on Maldon we can see that Tolkien noted the following: p. 120 hyssa l. 2 – “once B[eowulf] 1317” p. 124 gegrundene – “[grimme] // cf Ruin 14 // cf Pearl 654 // Þe glayne so // grimly grounde // grimly growndyne // gare Isumbras // 453”

This is far from controversial, and adds little to our understanding of Tolkien’s thoughts on the poem, but the additional references to Pearl and St. Isumbras

5 Bodley, Tolkien MS E16/40. All the manuscripts cited in this article are in the Bodleian Library. 6 Scull and Hammond, Tolkien Companion and Guide, I:46. The exam papers are available online (http://poppy.nsms.ox.ac.uk/woruldhord/contributions/235). 7 Tolkien’s tutors at Oxford were K. Sisam for English and W. Craigie for Scandinavian. 8 Bodley, Tolkien MS E16/39. 9 Bodley Tolkien MS E16/41.

6 Lagustreamas: Tolkien

159

are interesting and will be discussed later, showing at the very least that Tolkien wanted to place the poem in its wider context. Furthermore, it is interesting to note what is not there. Notably, in all three books, there is no note, gloss, or mark for the key word ofermod which was to occupy his thoughts so importantly later on as we shall see. It is amusing also to note that Tolkien, like every student and teacher since, resorted to notes in the margins to get him out of problems when translating, or for aide-mémoires when teaching. This is somewhat ironic when set alongside a comment he makes in his later (unpublished) 1928 lecture entitled “The Germanic Verb.” Picking up a cause which was one he was to come back to again and again, namely the defence of language in the English syllabus at Oxford, he drew on Maldon as a rallying cry for defenders of philology and Old English, but perhaps forgetting his own practices as an undergraduate: It is with this faith that an attempt is made still to keep alive a “language” side in our swollen school. But to such a standard it is no good rallying fainthearts who will not work and dullards who cannot. If even the few who rally cannot work we should leave the absurd English School in peace to the simple throngs who groan over an Old English Reader (well-glossed in pencil in their witless way)10 having bibliography as their hope, and chat about Chaucer as their recreation. In this University linguistic studies have almost reached their Maldon. If you don’t gallop off after the poltroon son of Odda,11 if you stay upon the field of battle where the best should be, then for heaven’s sake let it be felt. You might save the School and yourselves as well.

Returning to Oxford in the 1920s to take up the Chair of Anglo-Saxon, Tolkien continued his interaction with the poem. Again Scull and Hammond provide us with a useful summary, noting that the evidence shows he taught Maldon more or less up to his retirement.12 Maldon seemingly rose in importance over the years when it replaced Ælfric’s Life of St. Oswald and The Assumption of St. John as a set text on the English syllabus Prelims paper. Of course, as is well known, Tolkien never personally produced an edition of The Battle of Maldon, but his colleague at Leeds University—E. V. Gordon— did just that in 1937.13 The collaboration between Tolkien and Gordon is a

10 Emphasis not in the original. 11 Godric, who deserts the English at the height of the battle in Maldon. 12 Scull and Hammond, Tolkien Companion and Guide, I:156, 165 and passim; II:109. Tom Honegger (“Homecoming,” 189) notes that the University Gazette 59 (1928–29), 55, records Tolkien as giving lectures on “The Battle of Maldon, Brunanburgh, and verse from the Chronicle” (Michaelmas Term 1928). 13 E. V. Gordon, ed., The Battle of Maldon (London: Methuen, 1937; reprinted in 1964).

160

Stuart D. Lee

matter for longer discussion, but it was clear that for both sides it was fruitful. The frustrating aspect though is that despite their best intentions it actually led to very little published output, mainly due, it would appear, to Tolkien’s inability to close a project or meet a deadline. In this instance though, in the foreword to his edition of Maldon, Gordon specifically thanked Tolkien for having offered considerable assistance, and for helping out on all kinds of textual problems.14 He expressed his gratitude to his colleague for proof-reading, making “many corrections and contributions,” and providing solutions to “many of the textual and philological problems.”15 Moreover, it is interesting to note that it was around this time (the late 1930s) that Tolkien was working on his famous Monsters and the Critics lecture (which he delivered in 1936 and published in 1937). Here, in the section that discussed the heroic spirit and “undefeated will,” Tolkien drew our attention to Byrhtwold’s exhortation at the end of Maldon as a summative “doctrinal expression” of the ideal.16 Putting this together then, in terms of a chronological progress, it is clear from the lecture and the assistance he gave to Gordon that Tolkien was actively looking at the poem in the mid- to late 1930s in some detail. This helps to substantiate the commonly held view that it was around this time that Tolkien also began his most ambitious engagement with Maldon—the alliterative poem/drama The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son (hereafter Homecoming).

The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorththelm’s Son Before considering the chronological placement of Homecoming in Tolkien’s published output, it is worth recapping the main details of the work. It is a verse drama, or “essay-cum-poem” as Shippey called it,17 reconstructing the events that might have taken place immediately after the defeat at Maldon.

14 Gordon’s edition of 1937 was the fifth book in the Methuen series, and his last. See Douglas Anderson, “‘An industrious little devil’: E. V. Gordon as friend and collaborator with Tolkien,” in Tolkien the Medievalist, ed. Jane Chance (London: Routledge, 2008), 15–25. 15 Gordon, Maldon, vi. 16 J. R. R. Tolkien, The Monsters and the Critics, ed. Christopher Tolkien (London: Allen & Unwin, 1983), 18 and 45. 17 Tom Shippey, J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century (London: HarperCollins, 2000), 294.

6 Lagustreamas: Tolkien

161

Scull and Hammond suggest a date of between “?1931—Trinity Term 1933” as when the activity on this began,18 noting a first set of notes appearing on the back of an “early 1930s” draft of Tolkien’s poem “Errantry.”19 What is also clear from the manuscripts in Bodley is that Homecoming began life in simple endrhyme but as has been noted by many others Tolkien then chose to use alliterative verse throughout.20 The play was eventually broadcast on the BBC Third Programme on the 3rd of December 1954 (10.15–10.45 pm),21 and if one accepts Scull and Hammond’s dating noted earlier it had therefore been twenty years in the making. The play that was aired had also been published along with a foreword entitled “Beorhtnoth’s Death” and an extensively referenced final piece entitled “Ofermod” in Essays and Studies in 1953.22 In hindsight it is remarkable it was accepted, and even Tolkien was a bit embarrassed. Tom Shippey summarises the now confirmed view that collectively these three pieces, and in particular the essay on “Ofermod,” firmly rejected the view of Maldon put forward by previous scholars, including Tolkien’s old colleague and collaborator E. V. Gordon . . . and W. P. Ker, who had called it “the only purely heroic poem extant in Old English” . . . Tolkien argues that Gordon, Ker, and the rest, were completely wrong.23

18 Scull and Hammond, Tolkien Companion and Guide, II:406–10. 19 J. R. R. Tolkien, The Treason of Isengard (The History of the Lord of the Rings, Part Two), ed. Christopher Tolkien, The History of Middle-earth, vol. 7 (London: Unwin Hyman, 1989), 85–6, 106–7. 20 Elsewhere Tolkien noted that alliterative verse is not to everyone’s liking (Bodley, MS Tolkien A17/2) and may seem “curious stuff” (fol. 5r). He defined it as verse where alliteration is part of the rules or the “essential recipe of the cook, and not salt, pepper or spice ‘to taste’.” Tom Honegger has fortunately provided a detailed analysis of the various drafts of Homecoming with specific reference to the theme of pride (“Homecoming”). 21 At the time it was described by the BBC’s magazine Radio Times as an “epilogue.” In 1954 Tolkien made his own private recording as he was not happy with the BBC’s version which ignored the alliterative metre favouring iambic pentameter. He always wanted to bring it together with his lectures on Beowulf and On Fairy-stories from the 1930s. In a letter from 1964 to Anne Barrett at Houghton Mifflin he noted “Myself, I had for some time vaguely thought of the reprint together of three things that to my mind really do flow together: Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics; the essay On Fairy-stories; and The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth. The first deals with the contact of the ‘heroic’ with fairy-story; the second primarily with fairy-story; and the last with ‘heroism and chivalry’” (see J. R. R. Tolkien, The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, ed. Humphrey Carpenter (London: HarperCollins, 1995), Letter #259, 350). 22 J.R.R. Tolkien, “Ofermod,” Essays and Studies 6 (1953), 1–18. 23 Shippey, Author, 294–95.

162

Stuart D. Lee

Underpinning this was Tolkien’s belief that the poem was in fact a “deep critique of [the heroic spirit] . . . and of the rash and irresponsible attitudes it created”;24 and that the Maldon poet was criticising the so-called heroism that led to Byrhtnoth’s disastrous decision to allow the Vikings to cross the causeway. Tolkien developed this idea within Homecoming at several points (by way of example see Tídwald’s statement that Byrhtnoth was “Too proud! Too princely!” and “doom he dared, and died for it”—Bodley, Tolkien MS 5, fols. 1–4). Tolkien also argued that the poet was not just criticising Byrhtnoth, but rather the societal values that led to his decision, a direct attack therefore on the idea of “Northern Courage” which Tolkien had probably first encountered in Ker’s The Dark Ages and repeated in Gordon’s Introduction to Old Norse.25 Byrhtwold’s speech towards the end of the poem, which Tolkien was drawn back to again and again, was in many ways a clear representation of these values.26 In his line-by-line notes to the poem Tolkien stated: These 2 lines are deservedly famous—in O.E. they are vigorous and sum up in curiously (?) compact and forceful way [del. all the vague feeling one has about] the special quality of Northern heroism:—unless you admit defeat you are not beaten, a cold grim and desperately hard creed, but [del. a good one?] a noble one, and not one that is at present in danger of being overpopularized and exaggerated. In fact said attentively one can hardly escape the impression that these lines are older and go back further than the texture of the context —a fact that Byrhtwold prob. spoke these exact words, because they were either proverbial or a familiar quotation. (Bodley, Tolkien MS A 30/2, fol. 123)

Notably, Tolkien found this (along with Byrhtnoth’s decision to yield the ground) a form of double-edged heroism which he struggled to find defensible (and even admirable). Again in an unpublished note on the topic he declared it may well have been how men “fought on after their gods faded” but “as far as it goes and as a working theory it’s absolutely impregnable” (Bodley, Tolkien MS A30/1, fol. 88v).27 In other words the sentiments expressed in Maldon were a throw-back to a pre-Christian attitude of death and glory, which had no place in the 990s or for that matter the twentieth century, and whilst one could admire the death of the 24 Shippey, Author, 294. 25 William P. Ker, The Dark Ages (London: Blackwood, 1904), 57–58; and E. V. Gordon, An Introduction to Old Norse (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1927), xxix–xxx. 26 In one draft of Homecoming (Bodley, MS Tolkien A5, fol. 12) the famous couplet “Hyge sceal . . . mægen lytlað” is heard off-stage and Torthlem (Tolta) declares: “Well said the scop! That will not be forgot // For many an age . . . an age . . . an age.” See also Bliss who notes a similar “proverb” in a later life of Edward the Confessor—J. Bliss, “An Anglo-Norman Nun: An Old English Gnome,” Notes and Queries 254.1 (2009): 16–18. 27 It is possible that Tolkien was actually referring more to Ker’s explanations in his book The Dark Ages than the overall concept of heroism.

6 Lagustreamas: Tolkien

163

retainers it was this flawed attitude to heroism that had directly influenced Byrhtnoth. The poet of Maldon had recognized this, and therefore he was not celebrating the heroic spirit but instead he was actively criticising it.28 Keeping to his guns, in the “Ofermod” essay Tolkien provided a direct character assassination of the ealdorman whom he described as being “wholly unfitting” (for leadership), owing to a “defect of character, no doubt.”29 He noted Byrhtnoth’s decision was “Magnificent perhaps, but certainly wrong. Too foolish to be heroic.”30 This has led many scholars to suggest that the views that Tolkien expressed in 1953 were shaped not only by his Christianity, but more importantly by his own experiences of war—notably those in the trenches in 1916. What he said of the Essex lord, he may also have thought of the generals of the war who established “their command posts many miles behind the front lines” and who, like Byrhtnoth, sought fame and glory above “worthwhile duty through morally acceptable means.”31 Yet, despite the attraction of this argument (First World War = Bad Leadership = Futile Deaths = Byrhtnoth) it does not seem to stand up to scrutiny. There is no doubt that Tolkien must have witnessed some horrific scenes on the Western Front. He had enlisted in 1915 and became a Signaling Officer with the Lancashire Fusiliers. Although he did not fight on the 1st of July 1916—the first day of the Battle of the Somme (in which the British Army lost around 50,000 men in less than twenty-four hours)—he was in the vicinity and went up to the front on the 5th of July. The next few weeks were spent going in and out of the trenches as attack after attack slowly pushed the Germans back, or ended in bloody stalemate (occasionally due to perceived blunders by commanding officers). Not only did he witness the “animal horror” of trench warfare,32 he also discovered that he had

28 Discussions of Tolkien’s essay and his criticism of Byrhtnoth are widespread—see for example Sir George Clark, “J. R. R. Tolkien and the True Hero,” in J. R. R. Tolkien and His Literary Resonances, eds. G. Clark and D. Timmons (London: Greenwood Press, 2000), 39–52. 29 See J. R. R. Tolkien, “The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son,” in Tree and Leaf, Including the Poem Mythopoeia [and] The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son, ed. Christopher Tolkien (London: HarperCollins, 2001), 146. Originally published in 1953 in Essays and Studies, 6:1–18. 30 Tolkien, “The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son,” 146. Tolkiens phrase calls to mind Bosquet’s observation of the Charge of the Light Brigade as “C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas la guerre.” 31 Janet Brennan Croft, War and the Works of J. R. R. Tolkien (Westport: Praeger, 2004), 77. See also Anna Smol, “Bodies in War: Medieval and Modern Tensions in “The Homecoming,” in “Something Has Gone Crack”: New Perspectives on J. R. R. Tolkien in the Great War, eds. J. B. Croft and A. Röttinger (Zurich and Jena: Walking Tree Publishers, 2019), 263–83. 32 Tolkien, Letters, Letter #61, 72.

164

Stuart D. Lee

lost friends from his schooldays.33 As Tolkien records in his Foreword to The Lord of the Rings: [I]t seems now often forgotten that to be caught in youth by 1914 was no less hideous an experience than to be involved in 1939 and the following years. By 1918 all but one of my close friends were dead.34 (The Fellowship of the Ring, Foreword, xxvi)

To argue though that what Tolkien, the young soldier, witnessed on the Somme directly influenced Tolkien, the academic, when he read The Battle of Maldon is a stretch. There are two clear problems with this. First, if this was the case then it is inconsistent with the fact that Tolkien’s criticism of Byrhtnoth was far from evident at first and seemed to develop as the years went on. He does not appear to have come back from the front raging at the conduct of the war as Siegfried Sassoon did in 1917, or reflected on it with bitter irony as Robert Graves and others did in the mid- to late 1920s. Tom Honegger notes that the criticism of Byrhtnoth in Homecoming is not in the first two (albeit quite short) versions of the play and only starts to appear in “text C,” and this observation is substantiated if we consider material held in Tolkien’s other unpublished manuscripts.35 In Bodley Tolkien MS 5, for example, in the various drafts of “Beorhtnoth’s Death” (fols. 13–13v) dating from the 1930s, Tolkien described the ealdorman as “redoubtable” and “an old man of great vigour, commanding stature and renowned valour.” Again in MS 5 on fol. 63 in a later draft of the same essay he declared “The Northmen asked for leave to cross the ford, so that a fair fight could be joined, and Beorhtnoth allowed them to do so” but actually crossed through an original comment of “in his pride” preferring instead to note “But this act, whether of (misplaced) chivalry, or of pride, proved fatal.” Chivalry clearly then is not synonymous with pride. Elsewhere (Bodley, Tolkien MS A29(a)1, fol. 100v), as part of an essay and notes on Wulfstan’s Sermo Lupi ad Anglos, he also felt at ease in describing Byrhtnoth as “the great duke” complete with “his valiant knights.” It is often the case that in the unpublished manuscripts of Tolkien we encounter full or partial translations of Old English texts, or his own glossaries made to accompany them, and Maldon is no exception. Whilst it has been noted elsewhere that any temptation to derive from these “Tolkien’s undiscovered edition” must be

33 For the most comprehensive account of Tolkien’s experiences in the War see John Garth, Tolkien and the Great War: The Threshold of Middle-earth (London: HarperCollins, 2003). 34 J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring. 3 vols (The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, The Return of the King). 50th anniversary edition. London: HarperCollins, 2004, xxvi. 35 Honegger, “Homecoming,” throughout.

6 Lagustreamas: Tolkien

165

resisted,36 taken as a whole they can be seen as very useful indications of how his thoughts progressed in relation to a specific text. For example, in Bodley, Tolkien MS 30/2 (fols. 124v following) there is a full translation of the poem, and with specific reference to the issues surrounding ofermod Tolkien provides the following translation of the lines 89–90: Then the chief \Earl [in pencil]/ (B.) in his \over/ confident chivalry (90) conceded too much land to the hateful people . . . (fol. 127)

Note here the curious translation of ofermod as “confident chivalry” and then at a later stage “over confident.” Again the term “chivalry” can at best be taken as ambiguous in this context but certainly this does not have the weight of criticism of a term like “pride.” Finally, in Tolkien’s unpublished lecture entitled “Anglo-Saxon Verse” (Bodley, Tolkien MS A30/1),37 which is a survey of Old English poetry and some of its major themes (written and redrafted over many years from the late 1930s to the 1940s and delivered on the radio), he never explicitly criticized Byrhtnoth in the (albeit brief) section he devoted to Maldon. He noted Byrhtnoth was a “Christian Duke” greatly honoured by the Church (fols. 3, 8, 15–16, 27), and “a tall (6 ½ feet) white-haired vigorous old warrior man” (possibly derived from Gordon’s edition). Bringing this all together, where exactly does it leave us? It is undeniable that by the time of his contribution to Essays and Studies in the 1950s Tolkien had clearly cemented his views on Byrhtnoth and how we should consider ofermod. But to suggest that this is because Tolkien was imposing or applying his personal experiences from the Somme some thirty years before seems to be fanciful. This also presupposes that we can be certain that he was critical of the way the war itself had been conducted – many soldiers were not. The brief survey of evidence above, alongside Honegger’s study, would suggest that Tolkien’s (and by extension the original poet’s) condemnation of Byrhtnoth is a later conclusion he (Tolkien) came to and was not evident in the 1920s–30s. One can read into this several possibilities of course. First that the younger Tolkien of the post-war years did not feel confident to propose this negative, and for its time, radical interpretation of Byrhtnoth’s actions, and only felt comfortable publishing it when his career was firmly established. However,

36 Lee, “The Wanderer.” 37 Later becoming “The Beginnings of English Poetry” (fol. 41). The various drafts of this are contained in Tolkien MS A30/1, fols. 1–40 from ca. 1937–41; fols. 41–68 1942; fols. 69–82 1943–48 (see Lee, “The Wanderer”; a version is also reprinted as “Old English Verse” in J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Fall of Arthur (London: HarperCollins, 2013)).

166

Stuart D. Lee

anyone who has studied Tolkien would find it hard to imagine him ever holding back on expressing his views (witness his comments on Sweet as a student noted earlier). An alternative, simpler view, and a more realistic one, is that as he studied the poem over the years he thought more on what the poet was saying, developing his own thinking, but based on literary, linguistic, and historical evidence not personal experience. In terms of the 1914–1918 war then, for such a meticulous scholar as Tolkien (especially when it came to philological studies), it is hard to believe that he would allow events that he experienced as a soldier to influence his academic analysis of a text from 900 years earlier. The link then between Tolkien’s interpretation of ofermod and his own military career should, at the very least, be treated with extreme caution.

A Wider Engagement Understandably, because of the article in Essays and Studies scholarly attention concerning Tolkien’s engagement with Maldon has naturally focused on his play and discussion of ofermod. However, this is only a part of the story. As one would expect from a scholar of Tolkien’s ability, his discussions on the poem (held in Bodley, Tolkien MS A30/2 dating from the 1930s and 40s) were far more widereaching. First, there was the question of authorship and the identity of the poet. Tolkien, at a couple of points, mused that he “may have been an Essex man” (Bodley, Tolkien MS A30/2, fol. 75)38 and in one version of his drama (“Beorhtnoth’s Death,” Bodley, Tolkien MS 5, fol. 63v) he even toyed with the idea of making one of his fictional characters—Torthelm—the eventual poet composing “from his own knowledge, from surviving reports, and from imagination and epic tradition.” Like many scholars Tolkien was acutely aware of the issues surrounding the survival of Maldon (in transcript form only) which he observed had been exacerbated by the “errors of an 18th c. antiquarian whose knowledge of O.E. was very small” (A30/2, fol. 75). Tolkien discussed the overall transmission issues of Old English poetry in a separate essay entitled “O.E. Textual Criticism” (MS A15/1) where he explained that a key challenge scholars faced was around the basic

38 Tolkien suggested (A 30/2, fol. 117) that this was because of a reference to Sturmer in Essex which provided “a grain of evidence of Essex origin of the poem.” He observed that Leofsunu could not be the author as he died in the battle, but to have an Essex placename as the only one mentioned in 325 lines “might” point to an Essex poet.

6 Lagustreamas: Tolkien

167

relationship of “A (Author) – R (Reproducer) – C (Critic),” whereby “C only knows A through R.” This could be even more complex in Old English where we may have “A – R – R – R – C” (the last R being the transcriber of the poem in the modern period). For Maldon, Tolkien asked: How did Maldon, for instance, reach a written form? It may have come straight to the author. Some clerk reverencing the memory of Byrhtnođ may have heard (or heard of) the poem celebrating his last battle, and knowing its maker have taken pains to take it down. But it is more probable that it had already gained some currency and passed through several mouths before this happened. (A30/2, fol. 58)

He concluded that “the meaning survives rather than the exact expression.” This could, according to Tolkien, lead to several issues such as “substitution of synonyms,” “disarrangement of words,” and “patching” (ibid.). Examples of these will be considered later but it is worth noting that under the heading of the “sins of omission,” for l. 109a Tolkien proposed [grimme] gegrundere garas (Tolkien MS A15/1, fol. 29). He justified this by citing Pearl l. 654; Sir Isumbras l. 453; and grimme gegrunden in The Ruin,39 and it is interesting to see that later editors such as Scragg40 accept grimme (attributing it to Holthausen), as indeed did Gordon citing the exact same examples of Pearl and Sir Isumbras.41 Tolkien was also interested in the characters of the poem (on A30/2, fols. 78–80 he provided notes on all the named protagonists), the wider manuscript tradition (A30/2, fol. 82), and its original length (which he suggested was “400 lines long at the very least . . . possibly much longer,” A30/2, fol. 59v). As noted earlier he even provided line-by-line notes for the entire poem and a translation (A30/2, fols. 84–110). Of particular interest to Tolkien though was the language and poetic style of Maldon. Throughout his unpublished papers there are constant clues to his work in this area: – MS 21/5, fol. 13 (headed “Byrhtnoþes déaþ æt Mældúne”)—This contains a list of thirty-five words of interest in the poem that are odd, or need glossing, with cross-references to other Old English texts—probably providing extra material to accompany a textbook such as Sweet’s Reader; – MS A15/1 (the essay on “O.E. Textual Criticism” noted above), fol. 65—A further set of line notes for Maldon (on the back of exam papers) concentrating on thirty possible emendations, e.g. l. 33 ulde hilde, l. 103 fohte feohte;

39 As noted previously these were the comments noted in his 1922 edition of Sweet’s Reader. 40 The Battle of Maldon, ed. Donald Scragg (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1981), 75. 41 Gordon, Maldon, 50.

168

Stuart D. Lee

– MS E16/45, fol. 138—A letter from W. J. B. Owen, dated 20/2/42, to Tolkien referring to discussion of fealo- (l. 166) in a lecture Tolkien must have given in 1941. Added to these notes are two major pieces of unpublished work that deserve more attention. First there is his lengthy study “Alliteration on ‘g’ in Maldon.”42 In this Tolkien paid particular attention to the troublesome (or so it was considered at the time) l. 192—Godwine and Godwig, gūþe ne gýmdon—which he argued was actually “quite satisfactory.” Tolkien suggested that it demonstrated that when the poem was written “front and back g had so far diverged that the ear refused to recognize them as alliterating consonants” (fol. 70)43 and thus this line does not actually break the “rule” that in Old English verse the second half-line should contain one alliterating stress. This was proof to Tolkien that by the time of Maldon the front g had moved towards the semi-vocalic (he cited twenty-three other examples in Maldon to support this view). This is now commonly agreed upon and feeds into dating theories (e.g. that velar and palatal g did not alliterate in later verse).44 This also led Tolkien to make the assertion that Old English verse was “written by ear not letter” even in the late tenth century, and that even in this later period the rules of alliteration were still being passed on “by ear not by book.” Conversely, the fact that front and back g are seemingly equivalent in the earlier longer poems of Cynewulf, and in Beowulf, suggested a common early dating for both where the gs “were actually similar phonetically” allowing Tolkien to restate his belief that Beowulf dated from the seventh/eighth century (fol. 70v). Returning to the discussion on how poets learnt their craft, Tolkien elaborated on this in another major piece—his unpublished essay “The Tradition of Versification in Old English//With special reference to the Battle of Maldon and its alliteration” (A30/2, fols. 35 following). This is a complicated and far-reaching work which appears to have been written well before Homecoming was finalized, and therefore was possibly sparked by being asked to assist Gordon with his 1937 edition.

42 A further copy is contained in fols. 137–39, with extra notes (some deleted) in A30/2, fols. 149–54v, 155–59, 161–61v. 43 In his edition Scragg (Maldon, 29 and 52 n. 137) suggested “it is possible that the poet no longer recognized the identity of the sounds [g, /g/, and /j/] for alliterative purposes as his predecessors did.” 44 See J. Terasawa, Old English Metre: An Introduction (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011), 104.

6 Lagustreamas: Tolkien

169

Whilst rejecting the idea of a professional “minstrelry” with some form of apprenticeship, he did feel that poets would have learnt their skill through absorbing what they had heard “in the home, where people recited verse,” which he argued “must have been common because Cædmon is ashamed he is an exception.” This in turn was important, for the poem as a poem “perishes even as it is being uttered” and thus to survive, almost in a Darwinian sense, it needed to be popular and regularly recited: To live it must be preserved in memory and be often repeated. And men die quicker than pictures or monuments, and the time soon comes when the memory must pass into a different mind and the repetition to another mouth \or person/. (fol. 45)

On hearing these poems then the aspiring poet would also develop an understanding and familiarity with metre, and though they may not have known the technical terminology surrounding their art, they would have abstracted from what they had heard a recognisable set of metrical rules (fols. 48–50). Using these the poet could then write their own verse, which Tolkien likened to a cook using ingredients in a recipe. The ingredients, in this case, being: length of syllable (time duration); stress (loudness) “of which at least three grades were consciously distinguished primary, secondary, atomic”; “alterations in rhythmic pattern of line syllables”; and alliteration on opening sounds. “Only vocalic structure (rhyme) was left ‘unconsidered’” he concluded “and handed over to the individual ‘cook’ as a seasoning to be employed according to need and taste.” Tolkien then turned his attention to the verse forms in Maldon which he noted were from a period before “metre sank to stuttering, and good spelling was overthrown by bad French to its lasting confusion” (A30/2, fol. 71). The main problem with Maldon, as is well known, is that at times it does not seem to adhere to the strict rules of metre witnessed in earlier Old English verse. The reasons put forward are varied, but tend to fall into two general theories: that Maldon is either bad/not-very-good verse by a bad/not-very-good poet (in terms of technique, not sentiment); and/or that it is demonstrating an erosion of the formal rules of Old English poetry that happened towards the end of the tenth century (the rules that Sievers and others described that are so evident in the earlier “better” verse of the Beowulf-poet or Cynewulf). Baum referred to the poem’s “bad meter,”45 Gordon stated the “verse does not always follow the strict rules formulated by Sievers.”46 Scragg described it

45 P. F. Baum, “The Character of Anglo-Saxon Verse,” Modern Philology 28.2 (1930): 151. 46 Gordon, Maldon, 28.

170

Stuart D. Lee

as “less taut than that of earlier Old English poems,”47 and more recently Fulk and Cain noted the text’s many “idiosyncracies of alliteration and meter” which would not have satisfied the formal expectations of an audience even “half a century earlier.”48 Tolkien, however, decided to look at the issue from a completely different angle by concluding that comparing Maldon with other earlier Old English poems (what McIntosh termed “classical verse”49) was not what was called for. In effect he argued that when considering Old English verse one needed to recognize that there were “separate prosodic varieties of composition” (A30/2, fol. 35), as opposed to the traditional view of separate chronological periods (i.e. early verse = classical/good, later verse = debased/bad). Tolkien suggested that these varieties could, and did, co-exist, just as Aldhelm knew both Latin and vernacular verse, and could compose in both. Tolkien did not shy away from considering the anomalies within Maldon. In fact in a detailed analysis he met each problem head on. To begin with he proposed that of the 325 lines in the surviving poem, only ll. 45, 75, 224, 271, and 288 broke “essential rules.” He argued that ll. 45, 75, and 288 were simply due to a misplaced head stave (for example, he suggested se Wulfstan wæs haten for l. 75, arguing it was “good idiom and lasts into ME. Cf opening lines of Lazamon”).50 For all three examples “an Anglo-Saxon would need hardly a minute’s thought each, if we asked him to put these lines right” (A30/2, fol. 62). Line 271 he felt was probably not by the poet but was perhaps the first example in English where rhyme replaced alliteration. He felt it had a Middle English ring to it and might have come from some popular recitation or semimetrical gieddas pointing tentatively to the giedd passages in the Chronicle of 959, 975, 979, 1011, 1036, and 1075. Finally, those lines which had caused scholars problems due to the alliteration on weak words (e.g. 127, 128, 189, 240, 242) he attributed to being more “colloquial” (see below) and argued were “perfectly genuine” (fol. 61v). But what did he mean by “colloquial”? Tolkien provided a classification of Old English verse into (A30/2, fol. 39): 1) “Strict epic” or “fornyrðislag”—written by monks, with notable characteristics of the reduction of anacrusis in the off-verse to a minute percentage, and “rigid observance” of the head stave rule. Tolkien gave Judith and Beowulf as examples.

47 Scragg, Maldon, 28. 48 R. D. Fulk and C. M. Cain, A History of Old English, 2nd ed. (Chichester: Blackwell, 2013), 319. 49 Angus McIntosh, “Wulfstan’s Prose,” Proceedings of the British Academy 34 (1949): 110ff. 50 Bodley, Tolkien MS A30/2, fol. 96.

6 Lagustreamas: Tolkien

171

“Poetic or emotional prose”—noted as “Prose with verse elements in varying degrees,” citing the Chronicle entries for 957 and 979 as examples. 3) “Chronicle poems”—with the most striking example being the entry for 1065 on Edward the Confessor which Tolkien stated was in “perfect agreement with the rules.” Under this heading he also listed “Competent poems” such as Brunanburgh, the Five Boroughs, and Eadmund; and “incompetent” ones such as the verse entries in 959, 975, 979, 1011, and 1057. 4) “Freer verse”—again written by monks, but with greater freedom in the offverse. For Tolkien Maldon was a clear example of this. 2)

It is this last point that is the most interesting for this analysis. “Freer verse” he noted was a “more hasty, or rather less formal manner than the long poems that have survived from an earlier age” (A 30/2, fol. 35). However, that did not mean that the lines in Maldon “that do things never done in Beowulf” were necessarily “bad lines . . . made by a bungler or a man in a hurry” (fol. 35v). Instead they were simply of a different style written by a “minstrel plain” as opposed to a “minstrel turned scholar (or scholar turned minstrel)”51 which he characterized the Beowulf poet as. Maldon presented to us a surviving example of a form of verse that could easily have existed for some time. This then sheds light on Tolkien’s comment in “Beorhtnoth’s Death”: The old poem is composed in a free form of the alliterative line, the last surviving fragment of ancient heroic minstrelsy.52

So what led Tolkien to this conclusion? First, he rejected Sievers’s claim that the Maldon-poet was poor because he either did not know the rules or did not have the skill to conform to them. As Tolkien pointed out, evidence in the poem elsewhere indicated that this was not the case. Instead he believed that the Maldonpoet was perfectly adept at his art, it was just a different slant on the art Sievers was looking for. Second, Tolkien argued that it did not follow that differences between later poems (such as Brunanburgh or Maldon) and poems “credibly conjectured to be 200 years or more older (such as Beowulf)” are due simply to the passage of time “with the breaking of rules as an inevitable result” (fol. 35v). If so then this would imply that “metre and alliteration such as that of Beowulf could no longer be done in the tenth century, and metre like Maldon would have been scorned in

51 Eden uses the term “bard” for a minstrel when discussing this essay. See Brad Lee Eden, Middle-earth Minstrel: Essays on Music in Tolkien (Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Co, 2010), 1–2. 52 Tolkien, “The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son,” 124.

172

Stuart D. Lee

the eighth” (fol. 35v). This seemed to Tolkien completely implausible. For it to be true it required that the rules of poetry were not properly understood in the later period, or that there had been some change (social or linguistic) that led to their popular demise. There was simply no evidence to support either of these, Tolkien argued. After all, strict metre was found later than Maldon, e.g. The Death of Eadward the Confessor from 1065 (see above)—with the only line “that is not in strict form” being se froda swa þeah befæste þæt rice (fol. 36). Metrical patterns, Tolkien argued, should be seen as an abstract form “like a triangle” which did not simply change in shape (fol. 36v): Once consciously recognized as a rule, a system of regulations—and this conscious recognition is an essential for the existence of metre in composer and audience—they can persist as long as poets find pleasure in them or have a purpose for them.

Tolkien also believed that metre, and metrical rules, could not have simply been forgotten as there would have a been a continuous flow of learning and performance over the generations. A rupture could only happen, he felt, if there had been a major catastrophe, but even the Viking wars would not have impacted so much that they could have broken poetical continuity in England. Metre could change, he noted, due to phonetic factors and poets would adopt different metres if required to do so due to this linguistic pressure. By way of example he suggested that anacrusis at the beginning of the second hemistich would have become more common if Old English poetry had continued to develop, pointing to the rise of the indefinite article, e.g. “a host of warriors” replacing hæleđa mengo.53 But even then any new metre would be related to an old one, and the old one, as the Chronicle poems demonstrated, was still there. Either way, none of this supported the accepted contemporary theory that somehow Old English metre had suffered from a “slow disintegration over time,” which is what many critics thought had led to the oddities of Maldon (fol. 36v). Returning to “freer verse” Tolkien argued that it was perfectly possible that this form, as evident in Maldon, existed quite happily cheek-by-jowl with the more “Epic verse” in the earlier periods. In answer to the obvious question of why none of it survives, Tolkien argued that this was due to chance, the “wrack and ruin of the North,” and the later “havoc of the sixteenth century” (fol. 35v). It would be folly, he believed, to see omission as proof of non-existence. If we

53 Tolkien noted that in earlier verse anacrusis was allowed in the first half-line more readily (citing Beowulf l. 109). There is a similar idea in Geoffrey Russom, “The Evolution of Middle English Alliterative Meter,” in Studies in the History of English Language II: Unfolding Conversations, ed. Anne Curzan and Kimberly Emmons (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2012), 294–95. Russom presents an analysis of anacrusis in Old Saxon which matches Tolkien’s observation.

6 Lagustreamas: Tolkien

173

accept that the early English must have written verse that covered real contemporary “stirring events” where “beloved men (such as Byrhtnoð) met victory or death,” then it was highly probable it would have been in a different style to the formal poetry of Beowulf—i.e. in the freer verse mode. It was possible too that this was considered more ephemeral, tied to a time or place which then passed, and abandoned. Maldon he felt may simply owe its fortuitous survival to the fact the lead protagonist was a notable patron of the Church. Tolkien concluded that the apparent variation of metre between early and late was entirely “illusory” (fol. 36). The differences perceived were more a “matter of purpose rather than period” (fol. 36) and would have been accepted for what they were, verse in this “freer mode” (fol. 38v) an “intentional divergence of prosody” (fol. 54). This mode may “all along have existed” (fol. 54), but simply was not recorded, was recorded and lost by chance, or was discarded by choice: Maldon then, as we have it is probably to be regarded not as a piece of uncertain metrical skill, but as a survival by fortunate chance of the kind of less polished and compacted verse that was made to celebrate events while the news of them was still hot . . . A kind that was seldom committed to writing at all. In a sense it was a “popular” kind—and for that very reason it’s more in the direct line of ancestry to Middle English alliterative verse. (A30/2, fol. 38v)54

What Tolkien was saying then was quite profound, certainly for the mid-twentieth century, and actually tallies with more recent scholarship. For example, in 2008 Yakovlev argued that the Sievers system which emphasized stress had diverted attention away from metrical structure patterns, and if we focused on the latter we would see a more continuous flow through Old English verse to Middle English.55 Prior to that Bredehoft was arguing for a recognition of different types of verse “which changed over time” and “probably varied across the social spectrum.”56 However, with the latter, Bredehoft and Tolkien still differed. Whilst they both questioned the stranglehold of the Sievers-Bliss scansion method (as did Yakovlev) and rejected the view that later verse showed signs of decay, Bredehoft felt this was because later verse “had rules of its own.”57 Tolkien on the other hand was

54 This brief summary does not do justice to the complete essay which also includes a detailed analysis of the so-called “bad lines” in Maldon stretching over several folios (fols. 39–41). 55 Nicolay Yakovlev, “The Development of Alliterative Metre from Old to Middle English” (Ph.D. diss., Oxford, 2008). See also Ian Cornelius, Reconstructing Alliterative Verse: The Pursuit of a Medieval Meter (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 44–66 for a good overview of the scholarship in this area from the early eighteenth century onwards. 56 Thomas Bredehoft, Early English Metre (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005), 33. 57 Bredehoft, Early English Metre, 7.

174

Stuart D. Lee

arguing that what we witness in Maldon was in fact a survivor of a long-standing form of verse of a more popular variety that could have been contemporary with Beowulf. Maldon was “a good poem” in the free mode, and in effect an Old English equivalent of the Old Norse conversational type of verse—málaháttr.

Maldon and Tolkien’s Fiction As with so much of his academic study Tolkien’s work on Maldon also eventually found its way into his creative fiction, possibly subliminally. Starting with The Silmarillion it could be suggested that there is a clear link between the actions of Túrin Turambar and Byrhtnoth as the former also makes a series of illfated choices, more often than not due to pride.58 Bowman notes a few possible links with the poem and The Lord of the Rings. She suggests (following previous scholars) the stance taken by Gandalf against the Balrog is akin to the comitatus at the end of Maldon,59 and Sam’s reluctance to leave his (assumed) dead master in Shelob’s Lair is a manifestation of the dilemma facing Byrhtwold and the other retainers.60 Sam though does decide to take a more pragmatic route when he resolves to take the Ring himself and see the Quest through, thus effectively abandoning his master. On a larger thematic scale one can point to the fact that throughout Tolkien’s legendarium one of the clear faults identified in the characters who fail is a sense of ofermod. This gets the better of Thórin on several occasions in The Hobbit, and whilst he undoubtedly has courage his pride overcomes his wisdom. Smaug the Dragon too falls to pride, exposing his physical weakness as a result of Bilbo’s flattery. In The Lord of the Rings the Ring itself plays on the vainglory of various protagonists—Boromir notably fails this test (as does Frodo to a degree); whereas Faramir, Gandalf, Galadriel, and Sam pass. Ultimately, it is pride that lead to both Saruman’s and Sauron’s downfall. As with the retainers at Maldon, many of the heroes in Tolkien’s fiction fight on often with no hope of success or survival. Sam and Frodo can see no

58 Though it has to be said that any similarity between the tale and the Old English poem fades in comparison with the influences of the story of Kullervo in the Finnish Kalevala. 59 Mary R. Bowman, “Refining the Gold: Tolkien, The Battle of Maldon, and the Northern Theory of Courage,” Tolkien Studies 7 (2010): 91–115, at 91. This scene was also noted by Alexander Bruce who saw the refusal to cede the bridge by Gandalf as direct opposition to Byrhtnoth allowing access across the causeway—Alexander M. Bruce, “Maldon and Moria: On Byrhtnoth, Gandalf, and Heroism in The Lord of the Rings,” Mythlore 26.1/2 (2007): 149–59. 60 Bowman, “Refining the Gold,” 101.

6 Lagustreamas: Tolkien

175

way back from their mission and expect to die in the attempt; the Ents march to their doom at Isengard; and the entire host of the Allies assault the Black Gates at the end of the book with seemingly no chance of success. Perhaps most interesting are the events at the Battle of Pelennor Fields. The death of Byrhtnoth has parallels with the death of Théoden at Pelennor. The latter is felled by the Witch King, but Éowyn and Merry rally around to defend his body. Following this the comitatus of the Rohirrim, upon discovering the death of their lord, ride recklessly to what they assume to be their doom.61

Endnote It is undoubtedly true that many Old English scholars will have filing cabinets of notes, and annotated books in their cellars, which if collected would form an interesting journey through their interactions with The Battle of Maldon. So what makes Tolkien so special? Why does he deserve the attention this article has awarded him? By way of justification I offer the following. First, Tolkien was a great scholar and his views were often (as demonstrated above) ahead of their time and sometimes controversial. Second, for the most part these have never been published and remain hidden in the archives of the Bodleian Library and contain ideas (albeit sometimes not fully developed) that can perhaps lead to new areas for modern scholars to follow. Finally, his creative reactions to Maldon in Homecoming and Middle-earth—so well known, and studied—seem worthy of constant revisiting, especially if new insights into their development are discovered. Even if, as with the waters of the Blackwater, these ebbed and flowed over time.

61 See Stuart D. Lee, and Elizabeth Solopova, The Keys of Middle-earth: Discovering Medieval Literature through the Fiction of J. R. R. Tolkien, 2nd ed. (Basingstoke: Palgrave/Macmillan, 2015), 296–324.

Bob Hasenfratz

7 The Curse of Sleep in Anglo-Saxon England For anyone suffering from insomnia, it may come as an unpleasant shock to learn that, at least according to a number of Anglo-Saxon poets, preachers, and thinkers, there was to be no sleep in heaven. To some the thought of remaining wide awake for all eternity may sound more like a living nightmare than a reward, but an account of heaven at the end of the Exeter Book’s Christ III lists sleep, perhaps counterintuitively from a contemporary point of view, as one of many earthly evils that will not harass the blessed souls in heaven. Christ III, like a number of Old English homilies on the afterlife, defines heaven in part negatively, by the earthly evils it does not contain. Among these is sleep. In heaven, there is peace without envy, happiness without sorrow, Nis þær hungor ne þurst, slæp ne swar leger, ne sunnan bryne, ne cyle ne cearo (ll. 794b–96a). (There is neither hunger or thirst,/ sleep or sluggish sickbed, nor the sun’s scorching,/ nor cold or care.)1

Selective metonymy seems to be at work in linking sleep so closely with illness. Of course, the sick tend to sleep more and lie down to recover, but this association among all possible connections with sleep (sex, rest, relief from worry, etc.), seems to be culturally selected. Specifically, slæp is linked with swar leger, a phrase difficult to interpret and translate. The noun leger (modern English lair, related to the verb licgan, “to lie, recline”) can refer literally to a bed, or a grave, or more abstractly to a “lying in,” or to sickness itself. The adjective swar is only slightly less slippery, with meanings that range from “sluggish, inactive, weak” to “heavy, oppressive.” But whether swar leger means “sluggish bed” or “oppressive illness” the pejorative tone is impossible to miss. S. A. J. Bradley solves the conundrum of how to translate this phrase rather brilliantly with “sluggish sickbed” adopted in the

1 All translations from the Old English are my own unless otherwise noted, and quotations from the Exeter Book are taken from Bernard Muir, ed., The Exeter Anthology of Old English Poetry: An Edition of Exeter Dean and Chapter MS 3501, 2nd ed. (Exeter: Exeter University Press, 2000). Bob Hasenfratz, University of Connecticut https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501513060-008

178

Bob Hasenfratz

translation above.2 Whichever exact interpretation one prefers, the poem does seem to link sleep directly to illness. For the poet, the bed itself is not a place of rest but of disease and sloth.3 That sleep should appear in a list of human afflictions like hunger, illness, scorching heat, or chilling cold may seem curious to us, but the Anglo-Saxons, or at least those who wrote many of the surviving texts, consistently viewed sleep as a pathological phenomenon. The association of sleep with disease is to be found in a cluster of Old English texts preserved mainly in the Exeter Book, a manuscript whose history and construction Patrick Conner has taken particular care to place in a distinct cultural moment.4 In describing the earthly paradise, for example, a rather tempting place with the characteristics of heaven mapped onto those of an unfallen Eden, The Phoenix uses language almost identical to that in Christ III to link sleep with the sickbed or illness itself: Nis þær on þam londe laðgeniðla, ne wop ne wracu, wea-tacen nan, yldu ne yrmðu ne se enga deaþ, ne lifes lyre, ne laþes cyme, ne synne ne sacu ne sar-wracu, ne wædle gewin, ne welan onsyn, ne sorg ne slæp ne swar leger ne winter-geweorp ne wedra gebregd. (50–57) (There in that land is no hated enemy,/ no crying or cruelty, no signs of woe,/ no old age or poverty or painful death,/ no loss of life, or enemy’s attack,/ nor sin or war or wounding cruelty,/ nor poverty’s struggle or lack of wealth,/ neither sorrow or sleep or sluggish sickbed,/ neither snowfall or sudden onslaught of storms.)

Of course, theology may play a role in imagining sleep to be a bedmate with disease: in heaven the blessed would presumably not want to doze lazily in the shining presence of God. Further, the poem seems to assume that sleep was born because of the fall, like violence, war, hunger, etc.—a fascinating but largely unexamined idea.

2 S. A. J. Bradley, trans., Anglo-Saxon Poetry, Everyman Library (London: J. M. Dent, 1995), 248. 3 No exact source for these closing lines have been identified. For the best account of the sources of Christ III, see Frederick M. Biggs, The Sources of Christ III: A Revision of Cook’s Notes, Old English Newsletter Subsidia 12 (Binghamton, NY: CEMERS, 1986). 4 Patrick W. Conner, Anglo-Saxon Exeter: A Tenth-Century Cultural History, Studies in AngloSaxon History 4 (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1993).

7 The Curse of Sleep in Anglo-Saxon England

179

As N. F. Blake, an editor of The Phoenix, points out, this line, “ne sorg ne slæp ne swar leger,” does not correspond to the putative source for The Phoenix,5 Pseudo-Lactantius’s fourth-century poem Carmen de ave Phoenice, which at this point reads “Luctus acerbus abest et egestas obsita pannis/ Et curae insomnes et violenta fames” (“There is no bitter grief or poverty clothed in rags/, sleepless worries or violent hunger”).6 One could argue that the radical rewriting of “curae insomnes” (“sleepless worries”) into “sorg ond slæp” (“sleep and sorrow”), if not a misreading, reveals a deep set of negative associations with sleep on the part of the poet. Blake suggests that there “seems to be no particular reason, except perhaps alliteration, why sorrow and sleep are closely connected in Old English,”7 but as I will argue in a moment, the connection between sleep and sorrow and illness seems to be part of a larger ideological formation. Comparing attitudes about sleep with those to food in Christ III and The Phoenix reveals some striking contradictions in what one might call the theology of the body. Neither Christ III nor The Phoenix imagines food as inherently evil, and neither poem claims that there will be no food in heaven, just that there will be no hunger. In fact, The Phoenix paints a mouth-watering picture of the orchard of paradise with fruit trees, their branches fully loaded, offering fruit (ofett) the whole year long.8 Though The Phoenix is finally no “Land of Cockayne,” the poet clearly thinks that readers will imagine the pleasures of eating fruit all the year round. Why then should it be impossible to imagine the pleasures of a restorative or even lazy nap? If sleep and food, two pillars of life that can lead to error if indulged in too much (or even too little), were treated in a parallel fashion, then these poems might have said that there would be no exhaustion or fatigue in heaven. Instead, in both, sleep is more akin to disasters like war and extreme weather. In this essay, I will explore why sleep, so necessary to human health and sanity, became such a perilous and toxic thing in the Anglo-Saxon imaginary. Before excavating the intellectual and religious ideology beneath the AngloSaxon distrust of sleep, however, I would like to confirm that the set of associations I have been outlining here is not isolated to Christ III and The Phoenix and to build a richer field of contexts through which better to understand the AngloSaxons’ tendency to pathologize sleep. Guthlac A, another poem preserved in the Exeter Book, imagines sleep somewhat differently, as a physical pleasure, though a dangerous and distracting one.

5 6 7 8

N. F. Blake, The Phoenix (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1964), 67, note to l. 56. Blake, The Phoenix, 92. Blake, The Phoenix, 67, note to l. 56. Blake, The Phoenix, ll. 76–77.

180

Bob Hasenfratz

In the largely non-narrative description of Guthlac’s saintly character in the beginning of Guthlac A we are told about his ascetic orientation towards sleep and his vigilance against the nighttime attack of demons in his fenland fortress: Oft eahtade, (wæs him engel neah), hu þisse worulde wynna þorfte mid his lichoman læsast brucan. No him fore egsan earmra gæsta treow getweode, ne he tid forsæt þæs þe he for his dryhtneߓ dreogan sceolde, þæt hine æreste elne binoman slæpa sluman oþþe sæne mod. Swa sceal oretta a in his mode gode compian, ond his gæst beran oft on ondan þam þe eahtan wile sawla gehwylcre þær he gesælan mæg. (336–47) (He often considered—an angel was near him—/how this world had to be used/ with the fewest pleasures for his body./ Not at all did he falter in his faith/ out of horror of hellish spirits,/ nor did he hesitate at the moment/ when he would have to languish for his Lord,/ when sleeps’ slumbers or a sluggish mind/ might blunt the power of his awakening./ So a champion must in his mind always/ fight for God and often guard his spirit/ against the one who wants to make war/ on every soul, where he can accomplish it.)

To me, Guthlac’s relationship with sleep makes much more immediate sense than the accounts of sleep in heaven. For Guthlac, sleep is a bodily pleasure that needs to be used with the utmost moderation and restraint, and as a saint and ascetic Guthlac can take his denial of the body to extreme lengths. But lurking deeper in this passage is what one might call a tropological or at least symbolic association with sleep. To be awake is to be morally and spiritually watchful and vigilant, and to sleep stands symbolically for a state of moral torpor, defined by a sæne mod, a lazy, slack, or careless mind which could leave one open to demonic attack. Could it be that sleep is banished from heaven because this moral symbolism is for the Anglo-Saxons so pervasive that sleep really can mean nothing other than spiritual blindness or oblivion? Perhaps, but if so, this absolutism threatens to trample biological fact and human need. Christ III actually opens with just such a tropological moment in which sleep plays a pivotal role: the terrible day of judgment will surprise mankind as a thief does his sleeping victims in the dead of night: Ðonne mid fere foldbuende se micla dæg meahtan dryhtnes æt midre niht mægne bihlæmeð,

7 The Curse of Sleep in Anglo-Saxon England

181

scire gesceafte,swa oft sceaða fæcne þeof þristlice þe on þystre fareð on sweartre niht, sorglease hæleð semninga forfehð slæpe gebundene, eorlas ungearwe yfles genægeð. (1–8) (Then with sudden disaster/ the great day of the mighty Lord/ will crash violently over earth-dwellers in the middle of the night,/ [over] bright creation, just as a stealthy criminal,/ a bold thief, who travels in darkness/ in the black night, suddenly surprises careless men, bound by sleep,/ attacks people unprepared for evil.)

In this passage, sleep and sleepiness clearly symbolize a moral state of carelessness or spiritual unpreparedness. For this spin on sleep to work though, the meaning of sorgleas (l. 6b) has to be warped from its usual sense “without sorrow or care” to mean “inattentive, lax, negligent, careless.” This distortion, though, is most likely fully intended since poems like Christ III support the idea that a believer should be filled with fear and dread at all times. To live without sorrow or suffering (though superficially attractive) would open a believer to dangerous complacency. Such is the idea behind the apparent Biblical source for these lines in Christ III, 1 Thessalonians 5:2–8: Ipsi enim diligenter scitis quia dies Domini, sicut fur in nocte, ita veniet: cum enim dixerint, Pax et securitas: tunc repentius eis superveniet interitus, sicut dolor in utero habenti, et non effugient. Vos autem, fratres, non estis in tenebris, ut vos die illa tamquam fur comprehendat: omnes enim vos filii lucis estis, et filii diei: non sumus noctis, neque tenebrarum. Igitur non dormiamus sicut et ceteri, sed vigilemus, et sobrii simus. Qui enim dormiunt, nocte dormiunt: et qui ebrii sunt, nocte ebrii sunt. Nos autem, qui diei sumus, sobrii simus, induti loricam fidei et caritatis, et galeam spem salutis.9 (For yourselves know perfectly, that the day of the Lord shall so come, as a thief in the night. For when they shall say, peace and security; then shall sudden destruction come upon them, as the pains upon her that is with child, and they shall not escape. But you, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. For all you are the children of light, and children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness. Therefore, let us not sleep, as others do; but let us watch, and be sober. For they that sleep, sleep in the night; and they that are drunk, are drunk in the night. But let us, who are of the day, be sober, having on the breastplate of faith and charity, and for a helmet the hope of salvation.)

9 All citatations from the Vulgate are taken from the edition by Robert Weber and Roger Gryson, eds., Biblia Sacra Vulgata, 5th ed. (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1980).

182

Bob Hasenfratz

The metonymic treatment of sleep in this passage could not be clearer: people of the day live in light and goodness, while actions taking place at night are morally suspect because of their association with darkness. If this were not the case, one would be forced to take the call, “let us not sleep, as others do” literally and attempt never to sleep, an obvious impossibility for most humans and animals. Instead, believers are called upon to live in an eternal daylight of spiritual watchfulness and banish all darkness from themselves. Clearly sleep had long been a convenient and pervasive metaphor. This moral coloring of sleep in the beginning of Christ III may explain at least in part the final linking of sleep with sickness and sluggishness at its end. Sleep in Christ III is a kind of spiritual sickness that has no place in heaven. Another poem on doomsday, Judgment Day II, preserved in Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 201,10 similarly imagines the death of sleep along with other sinful pleasures, though here the tone is arguably more savage: þonne deriende gedwinað heonone þysse worulde gefean, gewitað mid ealle; þonne druncennes gedwineð mid wistum, and hleahter and plega hleapað ætsomne, and wrænnes eac gewiteð heonone, and fæsthafolnes feor gewiteð, uncyst onweg and ælc gælsa scyldig scyndan on sceade þonne, and se earma flyhð uncræftiga slæp sleac mid sluman slincan on hinder. ðonne blindum beseah biterum ligum earme on ende þæt unalyfed is nu (232–43) (Then the harming pleasures of this world/ will disappear from hence, and completely cease to be./ Then drunkenness will disappear along with feasting,/ and laughter and playing will skip off together,/ and lust also will depart hence,/ and tight-fistedness and stinginess/ will fly far away, and every guilty lasciviousness/ will slink into the shadows then,/ and wretched, helpless sleep will flee,/ slack with snoozing slinking behind./ Then the damned in the end will understand / [burning] in the blind, bitter flames what is now not allowed.)

10 According to Ker, this manuscript was written at the beginning of the eleventh century and contains among other contents, English translations from the Regularis Concordia as well as the Capitula of Theodulf of Orleans. See Neil Ripley Ker, ed., Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon, rev. ed. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1990). All quotations from Judgment Day II are taken from the edition of Graham Caie, The Old English Judgment Day II: A Critical Edition with Editions of Bede’s “De die iudicii” and the Hatton 113 Homily “Be domes dæge”, Anglo-Saxon Texts 2 (Cambridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2000).

7 The Curse of Sleep in Anglo-Saxon England

183

The psychological strategy in this section of the poem is fascinating in that it takes on the point of view of a sinner or wretch watching his beloved vices disappear one by one into the flames. There is something haunting about the slow dawning on the damned soul as he watches his pleasures disappear into the dark fire. But there is also caustic wit as Play and Laughter skip (lit., leap) together into oblivion and Sleep, sluggish from too much dozing, brings up the rear.11 The pleasurehating joy of this passage is awe-inspiring and more than a little disturbing. As the final line quoted here implies, these pleasures are “not allowed” in this life and will disappear altogether after the judgment. Looking at the list of these banned pleasures, though, reveals a larger difficulty. Drunkenness is clearly off limits for the believer, but feasting or eating, play, laughter, and sleep? It is hard to understand how these pleasures could be absolutely banned from the world unless instead of feasting, gluttony was intended, and instead of play and laughter, sacrilegious play and scornful laughter, and instead of sleep, sloth or spiritual laziness were intended. Bradley must have seen this difficulty since he renders slæp as “sloth” in his translation of these lines: “and wretched degenerate sloth, slack with slumbering, will flee slinking away behind.”12 Here he translates uncræftiga as “degenerate,” underscoring the moral outrage of the passage. Clark Hall defines uncræftig as “helpless,” though the noun form uncræft is “evil practice.”13 Bradley may well be right about the valence of the word here, though “unpowerful, weak” or “helpless, defenseless” make good sense in the context of the judgment. Sleep has rendered the sinner helpless before polluting temptations. Judgment Day II goes on to paint a picture of heaven that in its rhetorical structure sounds very much like the accounts of the judgment we have examined in Christ III and The Phoenix, in which the nature of heaven is defined largely by what it excludes: ne cymð þær sorh ne sar ne geswenced yld, ne þær ænig geswinc æfre gelimpeð, oððe hunger oþþe þurst oððe heanlic slæp,

11 In its satirical inventiveness, the passage is reminiscent of the depiction of the seven deadly sins as servers in the devil’s court in Ancrene Wisse, part 4. See Bella Millett, ed., Ancrene Wisse: A Corrected Edition of the Text in Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 402, With Variants from Other Manuscripts, EETS O.S. 325 (Oxford: Oxford University Press for the Early English Text Society, 2005), part 4, ll. 466–553. 12 Bradley, Anglo-Saxon Poetry, 534. 13 J. R. Clark Hall, A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960. s. v. v. “uncræftig”, “uncræft.”

184

Bob Hasenfratz

ne bið þær fefur ne adl ne færlic cwyld, nanes liges gebrasl ne se laðlica cyle. (256–60)14 (no sorrow or pain come there, nor labored old age,/ no exhausting labor ever occurs there,/ or hunger or thirst or vile sleep,/ nor is there ever any fever or sickness, or sudden death,/ no crackling of flame or hateful cold.)

Here, sleep is stigmatized rather heavily as heanlic, “vile,” “contemptible,” or “disgraceful” according to Bosworth-Toller, though Dunning and Bliss suggest “humiliating.”15 This adjective packs an emotional punch that is paralleled only by “loathsome” or “hateful” cold in line 260. As before, sleep here appears in the immediate context of illness (fefur and adl, fever and sickness), perhaps suggesting why it is so vile. So far, most all of the negative associations with sleep have occurred in religious poems with a strong apocalyptic coloring, and a consistent picture of sleep as a species of illness or at least a phenomenon closely associated with disease has emerged. Why should this be the case? The second section of this essay considers the origins of this ideology. But before turning to answers, it may be well to examine how sleep appears as a problem in at least two arguably more secular texts with strong connections to the heroic tradition: “The Wanderer” and Beowulf. At first glance the attitude towards sleep in “The Wanderer” seems to be potentially different from that in poems like Christ III and Judgment Day II. In the opening section of the poem, which focuses on the individual sufferings of the exile, his lord and companions all dead, we are told that “Ðonne sorg ond slæp somod ætgædre/ earmne anhogan oft gebindeð” (ll. 39–40: “Then sleep and sorrow gathered together/ often bind the miserable wanderer”). The poem goes on to describe the dreams of the Wanderer, which read very much like memories of his happy past in which he imagines scenes of warm ties to his lord and family in which the customs of the hall are in full force, but which vanish when he wakes, revealing the true reality of his lonely, frozen condition on the ocean. Given this dichotomy, sleep and sorrow may not be synonymous in this passage but actually opposing terms:

14 This passage is quoted nearly verbatim in a Pseudo-Wulfstanian homily (Napier 29): “ne cymð þær sor ne sar ne ænig geswinc ne hungor ne ðurst ne hefelic slæp, ne byð þær fefor ne adl ne færlic cwyld ne nanes liges gebrasll ne se laðlica cyle.” Arthur Napier, ed., Wulfstan: Sammlung der ihm zugeschriebenen Homilien nebst Untersuchungen über ihre Echtheit, Sammlung englischer Denkmäler in kritischen Ausgaben 4 (Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, 1883), 139. 15 Joseph Bosworth, An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary: Based on the Manuscript Collections of the Late Joseph Bosworth, ed. Thomas Northcote Toller (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1898); T. P. Dunning and A. J. Bliss, eds., The Wanderer, Methuen’s Old English Library (London: Methuen, 1969).

7 The Curse of Sleep in Anglo-Saxon England

185

sleep could stand for the happy past, and sorrow for the bleak present of the speaker. If so, “The Wanderer” would depart significantly from the apocalyptic tradition I have been exploring above in its view of sleep. In their edition of the poem, however, Dunning and Bliss reject the idea of any tension between sleep and sorrow. Citing Christ III, The Phoenix, and Judgment Day II— precisely the texts treated above—they conclude that “the collocation of ‘sorrow’ and ‘sleep’ is not peculiar to The Wanderer but is a commonplace of Old English poetry,” and go on to speculate that “sleep is numbered among the evils because . . . it involves the temporary abjuration of the power of reason which distinguishes man from the beasts.”16 It may be a mistake to endorse Dunning and Bliss’s conclusion too quickly given that “The Wanderer,” at least in this moment, seems to draw on heroic values associated with the comitatus, but their appeal to what today we would call the philosophy of cognition bears some consideration. Beowulf in general seems to conceive of sleep as a species of heroic sloth: the rotten state of Denmark17 is revealed by the fact that after feasts the Danes inevitably sleep, which seems natural enough perhaps, but opens them to attack. The poet describes with unmistakable scorn the Danes and Geats’ falling asleep after the Beowulf’s welcome feast: “Sceotend swæfon,/ þa þæt hornreced healdan scoldon/ealle buton anum” (“Warriors slumbered/ who should have guarded the pinnacled hall/—all but one,” ll. 703–5).18 Beowulf’s wakefulness of course marks his superior heroic status. Grendel in fact exults, laughing when he sees “rinca manige/ swefansibbe-gedriht samod ætgædere/ magorinca heap” (“many warriors/ sleeping, the kin-troop gathered together/ a heap of young warriors,” ll. 728–30), and immediately moves to seize a “slæpendne rinc” (“a sleeping warrior,” l. 741) to kill and devour. This cycle of feast-sleepattack, identified as an oral-formulaic type scene by Harry Kavros,19 repeats later when Grendel’s mother attacks the hall. But if easy and unwary sleep in the face of attack is a heroic failing, Beowulf also allegorizes sleep much in the

16 T. P. Dunning and A. J. Bliss, eds., The Wanderer, 111, note to l. 39. 17 Brian McFadden, “Sleeping after the Feast: Deathbeds, Marriage Beds, and the Power Structure of Heorot,” Neophilologus 84 (2000): 629–46 traces compounds with the elements bed and ræst, ultimately arguing that the poet links roles of power for “both men and women to beds; the bed has a dual significance of sleeping and sexuality, and in the heroic language of the poem, sleeping is further linked to death” (642). 18 References to Beowulf are taken from Klaeber’s Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburh, ed. by R. D. Fulk, Robert E. Bjork, and John D. Niles with a foreword by Helen Damico, 4th ed. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008). Translations are my own. 19 Harry E. Kavros, “Swefen æfter Symble: The Feast-Sleep Theme in Beowulf,” Neophilologus 65 (1981): 120–28.

186

Bob Hasenfratz

same way the passage from Thessalonians does. In his “sermon” to Beowulf after his defeat of Grendel’s mother, Hrothgar warns Beowulf that when overweening pride grows in a man, þonne se weard swefeð, sawele hyrde; bið se slæp to fæst, bisgum gebunden, bona swiðe neah, se þe of flanbogan fyrenum sceoteð. (1741–44) (then the guardian slumbers,/ the soul’s protector; this sleep is too deep,/ bound by affliction, the Slayer very near,/ he who shoots vices from his bow.)

When the guardians of the hall slept, disaster ensued, and here where the guardian of the soul is sleeping because of pride, the devil can attack with impunity.20 On the whole, though, Beowulf’s distrust of sleep differs tonally from the more negative depictions in Christ III, The Phoenix, and Judgment Day II, which link it directly to sorrow and disease. Here, sleep symbolizes a failure of heroic vigilance. *** As will be clear in a moment, I believe that the pathology of sleep which reveals itself in the texts I have been analyzing here derives from a specific set of historical attitudes that can be traced to the liturgical reforms of the English Benedictine reform in the tenth and eleventh centuries. In early forms of Western monasticism associated with the Egyptian desert, sleep (like food, clothing, and other physical comforts) was often viewed as a dangerous indulgence and prompted the desert fathers and mothers to undertake radical forms of physical mortification to keep it in check. The Lives of the Desert Fathers preserve accounts of ascetics who slept only while standing up, or who balanced themselves on the sides of cliffs to prevent them from sleeping and thus falling to their deaths.21 Cassian22 and

20 Hrothgar’s conception of pride comes close to that in Prudentius’s Psychomachia, where personified virtues and vices battle for the human soul. See Gernot Wieland’s articles “The AngloSaxon Manuscripts of Prudentius’s Psychomachia,” ASE 16 (1987): 213–31 and “The Origin and Development of the Anglo-Saxon Psychomachia Illustrations,” ASE 26 (1997): 169–86. 21 See Charles J. Metteer, “Distraction or Spiritual Discipline: The Role of Sleep in Early Egyptian Monasticism,” St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 52 (2008): 5–43. Abba Sisoes of Calamon “hung himself over the precipe of Petra” (13). 22 Metteer, “The Role of Sleep,” 11–12. In the Institutes, Cassian is wary of oversleep but does not encourage the extreme practices of the Egyptian desert. See Book II, Chapters 12 and 13 for his most direct statements on sleep. For a convenient translation see C. S. Gibson, trans., The

7 The Curse of Sleep in Anglo-Saxon England

187

Benedict23 rejected these more extreme practices, and though they view sleep suspiciously as a potential pitfall, both give practical advice on how best to manage its dangers. It should be noted that not all medieval Western thought was as relentlessly alive to the dangers of sleep as the monastic tradition was. Tertullian, an early church father (160–225 CE), takes a surprisingly open-minded approach to sleep in his treatise on the soul (De anima), rejecting a number of received opinions about sleep and declaring it to be a completely natural and rational phenomenon: “Porro somnum ratio praeit, tam aptum, tam utilem, tam necessarium, ut absque illo nulla anima sufficiat, recreatorem corporum, redintegratorem uirium, probatorem ualetudinum . . . .” (“Now reason presides over sleep; for sleep is so fit for man, so useful, so necessary, that were it not for it, not a soul could provide agency for recovering the body, for restoring its energies, for ensuring its health.”)24 And Gregory the Great, in his commentary on Job 33:15, discusses the restorative benefits of sleep at some length.25 Though there is no space to devote to the positive treatment of sleep in the works of other patristic writers and Bible commentators, it is worth noting that some scattered evidence of a more pragmatic view of sleep survives in the writings and translations of the Anglo-Saxons. For example, glosses and medical texts reveal that insomnia was recognized as a form of disorder. In a section of his glossary that deals with issues of health and illness, Ælfric, for example, defines freneticus, “insane,” as “se ðe ðurh slæpleaste awet” (“he who goes mad through insomnia or sleeplessness”). Just below this entry, interestingly, Ælfric glosses lethargus or letargicus as “ungelimplice slapol” (“abnormally sleeply, listless, or lethargic”).26 These glosses seem to suggest a pragmatic attitude to sleep: too little of it leads to insanity but too much, especially of an abnormal kind, to lethargy, idleness, and depression. A late

Twelve Books of John Cassian on the Institutes of the Coenobia, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series 11 (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing, 1894). 23 See chapter 22 of the Rule of St. Benedict, “Quomodo dormiant Monachi” (How Monks are to Sleep). Benedict instructs the monks to encourage each other on rising especially “propter somnulentorum excusationes” (“because of the excuses of the drowsy,” XXII.8) 24 Tertullian, De Anima (PL 2, Chapter XLIII, 7). The translation provided here is slightly altered from Peter Holmes’s version: “Treatise on the Soul,” in Tertullian: Latin Christianity: Its Founder, vol. 3 of Ante-Nicene Fathers: Translations of the Fathers down to A. D. 325, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (Buffalo: Christian Literature Pub. Co., 1887), 222. 25 See David Johnson’s discussion of Gregory’s theories of sleep in his article, “In Somnium, in Visionem: The Figurative Significance of Sleep in Piers Plowman,” in Loyal Letters: Studies on Mediaeval Alliterative Poetry and Prose, Mediaevalia Groningana 15, ed. L. A. J. R. Houwen and A. A. MacDonald (Groningen: Egbert Forsten, 1994), 239–60 at 250–53. 26 Ælfrics Grammatik und Glossar, ed. by Julius Zupitza (Berlin: Weidemann, 1880), 305.

188

Bob Hasenfratz

Old English translation of an earlier Latin medical text, the Pseudo-Apuleius Herbarium,27 gives two remedies for insomnia or sleeplessness (OE slæpleast). The first is derived from the juice from papaver albus or white poppy. “Wið slæpleaste genym þysse ylcan wyrte wos, smyre þone man mid. Sona þu him þone slep onsenst.” (“For insomnia take the juice of this same plant, rub the person with it. Soon you will send him to sleep.”)28 The second calls for applying the juice of the mandrake or mandragora to the face of the insomniac: “Wið heafodece & wið þæt man slapan ne mæge genim þæt wos, smyre þone andwlatan; & seo wyrt swa some þam sylfan gemete þone heafodece geliðigaþ & eac þu wundrast hu hrædlice se slæp becymeþ” (“For headache or for the person who cannot sleep, take this juice and rub it on the face or forehead, and in the same way it will soften or assuage the headache, and also you will be surprised how quickly sleep will come”).29 These remedies suggest strongly that the concept of sleep as a natural phenomenon necessary to health was not at all foreign to the Anglo-Saxons. The documents and practices associated with the Benedictine Reform of the tenth and eleventh centuries in Anglo-Saxon England, on the other hand, reveal a sharpened interest in the problems of sleep and how it could disrupt monastic devotion. The Rule of Chrodegang, originally composed in the mideighth century as part of an attempt to reform secular clergy in the Carolingian empire, was taken up in an expanded form as an important document of the English Benedictine Reform. Chrodegang, bishop of Metz, originally wrote his rule for secular clergy or cathedral canons, attempting to give them a regular communal life modeled on monastic observance and liturgy. In the expanded Rule of Chrodegang some care is taken to shore up the notion that the regular life with its complex liturgy has Biblical precedent and divine mandate. In so doing it addresses rather directly any skeptics who might think that observance of a “regular” life, imposed by Chrodegang on canons of cathedrals, is too strict or, worse, even illogical or unhealthy. It is easy to see the sense of this rhetorical strategy in Chrodegang’s effort to reform the Carolingian clerical class, but it also was attractive to the Anglo-Saxons in convincing their own cathedral clergy or perhaps freshly reformed monks to adhere to the new liturgical rigor of the English Benedictine Reform.

27 H. J. de Vriend, ed., The Old English Herbarium and Medicina de quadrupedibus, EETS O.S. 286 (London: Oxford University Press, 1984), 30–233 at 98 and 172. 28 Item LIV.: “Popig papauer album,” De Vriend, Old English Herbarium, 98. 29 Item CXXXII.: “Mandragora mandregara,” De Vriend, Old English Herbarium, 172.

7 The Curse of Sleep in Anglo-Saxon England

189

A chapter, “Concerning the Antiquity of Vigils,” spends some time giving basic reasoning for the existence and efficacy of the night offices.30 (The expanded rule tends to refer to the night offices as Vigils, which the OE version translates as “holy watches.”31) After reviewing Biblical precedent for night-time devotion in the prayerful vigils of King David, Jesus, and Paul and Silas, the rule states that this is the reason that the night offices must be celebrated with full mental freedom and peace of mind. Perhaps originally with a skeptical audience of unreformed canons in mind, the Rule lays out the commonsense objection to vigils but immediately dismisses the idea as heretical: “Est autem quoddam genus hereticorum superfluas estimantium sacras uigilias, dicentium noctem esse factam ad requiem, sicut diem ad laborem. Hi heretici Grego sermone Nictates, hoc est, somniculosi uocantur” (“Nevertheless there is a breed of heretic who think holy Vigils are unnecessary, and claim that night was created for sleep, and the day for work. These heretics are called ‘Nyctates’ in Greek, meaning sleepy-heads”).32 The undermining of this potentially dangerous idea proceeds here along two lines: the rule both mocks those dismissing the efficacy of the night offices as lazy sleepyheads and also deploys authority by giving such heretics a quasi-official name, in Greek.33 Jerome called them dormitantes or “sleepers” in his refutation of the ironically named Vigilantius, who held similar views on the uselessness of the night offices

30 The chapter is numbered 16 in the standard edition of the expanded Latin rule, but 13 in the Old English translation and its immediate Latin source. 31 Chapter 16 begins, “Antiqua est uigilarum deuotio” (“The practice of celebrating Vigils is an ancient devotion,” which was translated into Old English thus: “Gefyrn is þæt haligra wæccena geornfulnys”). For the Latin text, see Jerome Bertram et al., eds., The Chrodegang Rules: The Rules for the Common Life of the Secular Clergy from the Eighth and Ninth Century (Florence: Taylor and Francis, 2005), 195, 243. See Brigitte Langefeld, ed., The Old English Version of the Enlarged Rule of Chrodegang, Münchener Universitätsschriften: Texte und Untersuchungen zur englischen Philologie 26 (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2003), 203. 32 Bertram, The Chrodegang Rules, 196, 244. 33 The name Nictates or “Winkers,” is both a derisive nickname and a quasi-official designation. Chrodegang borrowed this chapter directly from Isidore of Seville’s De Ecclesiasticis Officiis, Book 1, Chapter 22, on Vigils. See the edition by Christopher M. Lawson: Sancti Isidori Episcopi Hispalensis: De Ecclesiasticis Officiis, Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina 113 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1989), 114. Thomas Knoebel has recently translated the relevant passage from Isidore thusly: “There is, however, a certain category of heretics who regard vigils, which are sacred and fruitful for spiritual work, to be superfluous, saying that the divine laws that made the night for rest and the day for labor are being violated. These heretics are called νυσταγεζ in the Greek language, which means ‘the sleepy ones.’” See Thomas L. Knoebel, trans., Isidore of Seville: De Ecclesiasticis Officiis, Ancient Christian Writers: The Works of the Fathers in Translation (New York: Newman Press, 2008), 47. Nothing further is known of the Nictates.

190

Bob Hasenfratz

and vigils. The Old English translation of this passage goes to somewhat greater lengths to heap scorn on any monk daring to sympathize with this opinion: An cyn gedwyldmanna is þa wenað þæt halige wæccan syn idele, and hi cwæðað, “Niht wæs geworht to reste ealswa dæg to worce.” Þa gedwyldmen man hæt on grecisc nictates, and we on ure geþeode slumeras hi magon oððe swefeceras nemnan, and eac hi ma mæg slaperas hatan.34 (There is a kind of error-man [i.e., heretic] who believes that holy vigils are useless, and they say, “Night was made for rest just as day for work.” One calls these error-men Nictates in Greek, and we in our language, “slumberers.” They can alternatively be named “snoozers,” and they may also be called “sleepers.”)

As Brigitte Langefeld points out, this glossing of a Greek word with three synonyms is very “unusual for the Old English translator of the enlarged Regula,” which uses doublets obsessively, and it may be “that slapere was added, either by the translator or, possibly, later copyists because they felt the need for a straightforward and less obscure explanation.”35 The OE text is arguably more intensely mocking of the Nictates than the Latin version in that it provides not one but three synonyms for the word, two of which appear to have a colloquial force. Chrodegang’s rule contains a few other references to sleep that may be relevant: a chapter entitled De officiis diuinis in noctibus (“Concerning the divine office during nights”) allows for a moderate night’s sleep during the winter months, but bans all sleep during the interval following nocturns with these words: “Et non presumat aliquis in ipso interuallo tempore dormire, nisi quem infirmitas cogit, et hoc per licentiam fiat; et qui aliter fecerit excommunicetur” (“No one should presume to sleep during this interval, unless he be constrained by illness and be given permission; anyone who acts otherwise shall be excommunicated”).36 The OE translation of this text makes clear that “excommunication” means that a monk would be excluded from drinking with the brothers during the day for this offense. Crucially, though, Chrodegang’s rule suggests another reason why the Anglo-Saxons may have associated sleep with pathology: only monks suffering from illness were allowed to sleep during parts of

34 Langefeld, The Old English Version of the Expanded Rule of Chrodegang, 203. 35 Langefeld, The Old English Version of the Expanded Rule of Chrodegang, 77. 36 Bertram, The Chrodegang Rules, 242–43. For the OE version see Langefeld, The Old English Version of the Enlarged Rule of Chrodegang: “And ne gedyrstlæce nan broðor on þam interuallum to slapenne, butan hwa unhal sy, and se þonne hæbbe leafe; gif hwa elles do, sy he ascyred fram þæs dæges drince” (“And no brother will presume to sleep in this interval except for whoever is unwell and who then has permission; if anyone else does, he will be removed, lit., cleared, from the day’s drink”) (201).

7 The Curse of Sleep in Anglo-Saxon England

191

the night office (the interval for private reflection and study). Only the sick and weak were given the indulgence of sleep. One of the most important documents of the Benedictine Reform, the Regularis Concordia,37 brought a renewed rigor and uniformity to the practice of the liturgy, and the night offices in particular, showing a similar interest in the problems of sleep. This document, assembled by Æthelwold, is essentially a customary which aimed to synchronize the liturgical practice of all the reformed monasteries in England. To help enforce these new disciplines, the Regularis Concordia called for the creation of a new officer of the monastery, to be supervised by the dean, and called a circa, a brother who made rounds to ensure that the monks were observing the rule. His main task was to “saepius circuire claustrum ne forte inueniatur frater accidiosus aut alicui uanitati deditus” (“frequently to go the round of the cloister lest perchance there be found a brother who is slothful or given to some vanity”).38 The circa’s nighttime rounds are intended specifically to find brothers who are drowsy or sleeping during Nocturns: Habeatque ille frater laternam qua nocturnis horis, quibus oportet haec agere, uidendo consideret; quiquie dum lectiones legunter ad Nocturnos, in tertia uel quarta lectione prout uiderit expedire, circumeat chorum; et si fratrem inuenerit somno oppressum anteponat illi laternam et reuertatur; qui mox excusso somno petat ueniam genuflexo, et arrepta eadem laterna, pergyret et ispe chorum et si quiedem eiusmodi morbo somni affectum inuenerit, agat illi sicut et ipsi factum est reuertaturque in locum suum (Moreover the circa shall have a lantern so that he may look about him in the night hours, when it is proper so to do; and when the lessons are read at Nocturns, at the third or fourth lesson, as seems good to him, he shall go about the choir; and if he finds a brother drowsy with sleep he shall put the lantern before him and return to his place. Whereupon this brother, shaking off sleep, shall do penance on his knees and, taking up the lantern, shall himself go round the choir, and if he finds another overcome by the disorder of sleep, he shall do to him as was done to himself and so return to his own place.)

The idea of placing a lantern before a dozing monk and allowing him to wake on his own to discover his lapse rather brilliantly brings sleep into the orbit of the individual conscience and self-regulation but at the same time makes the crucial link between sleep and sloth or vanity. Even more importantly we are

37 Julia Barrow, “The Chronology of the Benedictine Reform,” in Edgar: King of the English, 959–975: New Interpretations, ed. Donald Scragg (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2008), 211–23 at 212. 38 All quotations and translations from the Latin Regularis Concordia are taken from the edition of Dom Thomas Symons: Regularis Concordia: The Monastic Agreement of the Monks and Nuns of the English Nation (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1953). This quotation is from page 56, paragraph 57.

192

Bob Hasenfratz

told that the freshly awakened monk becomes a sort of deputized circa who will search the choir for other brothers morbo somni affectum (“overcome by the disorder of sleep”). Symons’s translation of the language surrounding sleep tends to blunt its moral scorn somewhat. His translation of somno oppressum as “drowsy with sleep” does not quite capture the full force of a brother oppressum, “seized” or “overwhelmed,” by sleep, and his translation of the key phrase morbo somni as “disorder of sleep,” though on the right track, perhaps misses the sense of sleep as an outright sickness or disease. The Old English translation of this passage is alive to these ideological nuances: it translates somno oppressum with “mid slæpe ofsetne” (“oppressed” or “afflicted with sleep”)39 and morbo somni affectum with “geradum adle slæpes” (“possessed” or “ruled by the sickness of sleep”). Viewed from this distinctively monastic vantage point, sleep, especially during the night office, does indeed have a plague-like nature: it can spread from one sufferer to the next and lead to a kind of spiritual death. A more literary kind of evidence emerges about monastic attitudes towards sleep from some of the liturgical texts themselves, specifically hymns associated with the beginning or end of the night offices.40 One hymn sung at Lauds, the morning office, for example, comes very close to the associational poetics of the passages in Christ III and The Phoenix observed above. This hymn, labelled “Ad Matitutinam,” sometimes called by its first line Ales diei nuntius (“O Winged Harbinger of Day”), addresses the rooster as announcer of morning, celebrating the rising of the sun at the end of the night. It consists of stanzas excerpted from Prudentius’s longer Hymnus ad galli cantum or “Hymn at Cock Crow” and conceives of the night and sleep as deadly moral and spiritual perils to be survived: Ales diei nuntius Lucem propinquam precinit. Nos excitator mentium Iam Christus ad viam vocat. “Auferte,” clamat, “lectulos aegros, soporos, desides castique reti ac sobrii vigilate! Iam sum proximus.” Iesum ciamus vocibus flentes, precantes, sobrii;

39 Lucia Kornexl, ed., Die Regularis Concodia und ihre altenglische Interlinearversion, Texte und Untersuchungen zur englischen Philologie 17 (Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 1993), 120. 40 Helmut Gneuss pioneered the study of Anglo-Saxon hymns in his study and edition, Hymnar und Hymnen im Englischen Mittelalter, Buchreihe der Anglia Zeitschrift für englische Philologie 12 (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 1968).

7 The Curse of Sleep in Anglo-Saxon England

193

intenta supplicatio dormire cor mundum vetat. Tu, Christe, somnum disice tu rumpe noctis vincula, tu solve peccatum vetus novumque lumen ingere. (The winged herald of day cries out to announce that daylight is near. He who wakes the souls, Christ, is even now summoning us to life./ “Put away,” he cries, “the beds which are for the sick, the drowsy and the slothful, and be wakeful, chaste, just and sober! I am already very close.”/ Let us invoke Christ with our voices, in tears praying soberly. May our intent prayer prevent our pure hearts from sleeping./ Christ, dispel sleep, break the chains of the night, annihilate the old and infuse us with your new light!)41

The second stanza in particular imagines that beds are places of pathology, laziness, and sin and night itself (as in the last stanza quoted here) as a kind of imprisonment. In fact, the textual tradition represented in the Durham hymnal quoted here is fascinating in that according to Milfull, it contains “a startling attribution of the qualities associated with the occupants of the beds with beds themselves.”42 Milfull’s rather free translation obscures this odd metonymy, which is rendered very effectively by Peter Walsh this way: “‘Carry away,’ he cries, ‘these beds/ unwell, slumberous, and sluggardly . . . .’”43 The OE gloss for the second stanza preserves this reading, with a few complications, and comes surprisingly close in spirit to the phrase swar leger, “sluggish sickbed,” as preserved in Christ III and The Phoenix: “‘Afyrsiaþ,’ he cleopaþ, ‘bedd/ adlige mid slæpe eala ge asolcene’” (“‘Take away,’ he cries, ‘beds sick with sleep, O you slackened ones’”).44 It is tempting to suggest that the phrase swar leger might have been inspired directly by this particular hymn with its phrase lectulos aegros . . . desides, which means essentially the same thing. In fact, the coming of the dawn and Christ in the hymn mirror very interestingly the coming of Christ at the judgment in the opening of Christ III, both arrivals threatening to

41 The translation is taken from Inge B. Milfull’s The Hymns of the Anglo-Saxon Church: A Study and Edition of the Durham Hymnal, Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England 17 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 150. 42 Milfull, Hymns of the Anglo-Saxon Church, 150. The alternative text reads, “‘Auferte,’ clamat, ‘lectulos/ aegro, sopore . . .’” (“Take up, he cries, ‘beds for the sick and sleepy,’” 50). 43 Peter G. Walsh, ed. and trans., One Hundred Latin Hymns: Ambrose to Aquinas, Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library 18 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012), 149. 44 As Milfull notes, Hymns of the Anglo-Saxon Church, 150, the Old English gloss comes close to a variant of the Latin hymn preserved in continental hymnals: “‘Auferte,’ clamat, ‘lectulos/ aegros sopore, desides.’” The Old English “bed adlige mid slæpe” (“beds sick with sleep”) mirrors closely this variant reading.

194

Bob Hasenfratz

catch the unaware napping. The verbal correspondences, however, are not on the whole convincing enough to put this text forward as a direct source, but this hymn and others like it reveal associations between sleeping and disease that must have developed in the reformed monasteries of Anglo-Saxon England. Another morning hymn (“Ymnus ad Matutinam”) associates the day with health and the night with disease in these stanzas: Surgamus ergo strenue; gallus iacentes excitat et somnolentos increpat Gallus negantes arguit. Gallo canente spes redit, aegris salus refunditur, mucro latronis conditur lapsis fides revertitur. (Therefore let us arise with vigour. The cock is waking up the lieabeds and chiding the sleepy. The cock is accusing those who practice denial45 [i.e, those who refuse to get up]./ When the cock crows, there is hope again, health is restored to the sick, the dagger of the robber is sheathed and faith returns to the fallen.)46

Here sleep is perhaps to be despised not so much categorically as contextually: it has no place in the morning sunshine. On the other hand, the association of night, sleep, and disease is quite clear in the phrase “aegris salus funditur” (“to the sick health is restored [by daylight]”), glossed in Old English as “adligum hæl bið ongean-gesend” (“to the sick, health is sent again”).47 As before, this sort of statement is impossible to accept literally, since illness is generally not cured instantly by sunlight, but refers to the “malaise” of night and its attendant evils, which include sleep. This contradiction brings us back to a key question. Why should sleep be linked so often with disease specifically? One possible explanation has to do with the kind of perils Anglo-Saxons associated with dreams. If a sleeper consented to temptations or illicit pleasures during sleep, he or she would be guilty of sin and suffer pollution during sleep. Though there is no space here for anything like a full account of Anglo-Saxon concepts of dreams and dream cognition, one reason that sleep was a fraught subject in monastic culture specifically

45 The OE gloss reads “hana þa licgenda awecð ond þa slapolan he þreað. cocc þa wiþsacendan cit” (“the rooster awakes those lying [in bed] and he rebukes the sleepy ones. The cock proclaims those who refuse [to get up?]”). Millfull, Hymns of the Anglo-Saxon Church, 121. 46 Stanzas 5–6 in Milfull, Hymns of the Anglo-Saxon Church, 121–22, ll. 17–24. 47 Milfull, Hymns of the Anglo-Saxon Church, 121, l. 22.

7 The Curse of Sleep in Anglo-Saxon England

195

was the danger posed by erotic dreams and nocturnal emissions or wet dreams. Malcolm Godden lays out Gregory the Great’s complex thinking on whether dreamers were morally culpable for erotic dreams and nocturnal emissions.48 Dyan Elliot paints a vivid picture of fears surrounding night-time temptation, nocturnal emissions, and personal guilt: for early medieval thinkers like Cassian and Augustine and their immediate successors, sexual fantasies and dreams represented the “work of demons who penetrated the human senses, accessed the images stored in the memory, and came up with illusions so potent, so familiar, yet so diabolically vitiated that . . . the dreamer [was] without guilt (provided he did not consent to these images).”49 For many theologians, nocturnal emissions were a clear sign of such consent. Precisely this sort of terror of sexual sin is palpable in hymns associated with the night offices. A stanza in a hymn for Friday Nocturns, for example, pleads that Nec corpus adsit sordidum nec torpor instet cordium et criminis contagio tepesat ardor spiritus (And may the body not come here defiled nor numbness of heart descend on us and the ardor of our spirit grow lukewarm through the infection of sin.)50

In this particular case, the Latin capitalizes on the sense of sin as a communicable disease with the word contagio. Another hymn, for Compline (the end of the day), implores God to give protection against polluting night-time temptations: Ne gravis somnus irruat nec hostis nos subripiat nec caro illi consentiens nos tibi reos statuat (That sleep may not fall on us heavily nor the enemy creep up on us nor the flesh consent to him and proclaim us guilty before your eyes.)51

48 Malcolm Godden, “Were It Not That I Have Bad Dreams: Gregory the Great and the AngloSaxons on the Dangers of Dreaming,” in Rome and the North: The Early Reception of Gregory the Great in Germanic Europe, ed. David F. Johnson, K. Dekker, and Rolf H. Bremmer, Mediaevalia Groningana 4 (Leuven: Peeters, 2003), 93–113. 49 Dyan Elliot, Fallen Bodies: Pollution, Sexuality, and Demonology in the Middle Ages (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999), 19. 50 Milfull, Hymns of the Anglo-Saxon Church, 166, ll. 13–16. 51 Milfull, Hymns of the Anglo-Saxon Church, 136–36, ll. 9–12.

196

Bob Hasenfratz

The “gravis somnus,” or “hevi slæp” as the Old English gloss translates it, which can bring such dangerous, tempting dreams is not far in spirit from the phrase swar leger, “sluggish” or “oppressive bed,” banished from heaven in Christ III and The Phoenix. In conclusion, it seems to me plausible to suggest that the urgent concerns surrounding sleep in the liturgical reforms of the tenth and eleventh centuries and the earlier continental sources that inspired them, may have seeped into the poems that most vividly link sleep with disease and ban it from heaven— Christ III, The Phoenix, and Judgment Day II. The last of these poems actually appears in a manuscript that preserves a copy of the Regularis Concordia and other documents associated with the Benedictine Reform, while the other two have much in common with its eschatology. In reviewing theories of sleep in ancient medicine and their importance to understanding the phenomenon of sleep in early modern literary texts, Garrett Sullivan, Jr., uncovers a fundamental paradox underlying most pre-scientific thinking about sleep. Sleep was often thought of both as a binding of the senses but also as an overindulgence in them: In the case of sleep-as-sensory-binding, reason is literally disabled as the body slumbers; in that of sleeping-as-sensory-overindulgence, reason fails to assert authority over a body whose intemperance manifests itself during both sleep and waking. In other words, sleep-as-sensory-overindulgence encodes a habitual failure of rational self-regulation.52

This loss of reason in sleep, Sullivan argues, suggests a loss of humanity on the one side, making sleepers much like animals, but also accounts for the literary power of sleep on the other. In the end, if for the Anglo-Saxons sleep represented loss of reason, the potential for demonic temptation, the threat of sin and pollution, and the prospect of disease (whether physical or spiritual), no wonder they saw it as a blight which the saved would not suffer from in a postjudgment heaven.

52 Garrett A. Sullivan, Jr., Sleep, Romance and Human Embodiment: Vitality from Spenser to Milton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 18.

Thomas N. Hall

8 Andreas’s Blooming Blood cruor in florem mutabitur —Ovid, Metamorphoses X.728

A pivotal scene in the Old English Andreas comes at the end of the three-day period during which St. Andrew is brutally tortured by the Mermedonian cannibals, who scourge him, drag him through the streets, and draw a seemingly endless supply of blood from his body. Throughout the ordeal Andrew remains a model of resolute piety, but on the third and final day his courage begins to wane, and mindful of Christ’s words on the Cross, he implores God to deliver him from his suffering. God replies by assuring Andrew that He will protect him from further torment and that in spite of present afflictions, the righteous will triumph over evil at the end of time. Then as a sign that Andrew’s suffering has not gone unheeded, God directs him to turn and look at the trail of blood that his enemies have spilled on the ground: “Geseoh nu seolfes swæðe, swa þin swat aget þurh bangebrec blodige stige, lic lælan; no þe laðes ma þurh daroða gedrep gedon motan, þa þe heardra mæst hearma gefremedan.” Þa on last beseah leoflic cempa æfter wordcwidum wuldorcyninges; geseh he geblowene bearwas standan blædum gehrodene, swa he ær his blod aget. (lines 1441–49)1 “Now behold your own path, where through the breaking of your bones and the bruising of your body, your blood has shed a gory trail. They will not be allowed to do you any more harm by the blows of their spears, those who have performed the most severe injuries to you.” Then after the King of Glory’s speech, the beloved soldier looked at the path. He saw flowering groves standing adorned with blossoms where he had earlier shed his blood.

1 Andreas and the Fates of the Apostles, ed. Kenneth R. Brooks (Oxford: Clarendon, 1961), pp. 46–47. Translations from Old English, Latin, and Greek are mine unless otherwise indicated. My thanks to Stephen Harris and Charles D. Wright for commenting on a draft of this essay, and to Karen Winstead for a stimulating correspondence on this topic, to which I am much indebted. Thomas N. Hall, University of Göttingen https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501513060-009

198

Thomas N. Hall

This miracle marks a decisive turning point in the narrative. From the moment in the story when the devil appears and incites the Mermedonians to rise against him, Andrew’s enemies encounter little resistance in their campaign to overpower him. Even though Christ has repeatedly assured him that he has nothing to fear, Andrew’s suffering gets worse and worse, and he seems incapable of defending himself. Once he witnesses the eruption of blooming trees from the trail of his blood, however, he quickly recovers his strength and determination and regains the miraculous powers that he displays earlier in the poem. After praising God for coming to his rescue, he returns to prison, where God visits him and heals his wounds; then as sound of body as ever before, he unleashes the flood that subdues his captors and leads to their conversion. One of the curiosities of this passage is that while the version of the apocryphal Acts of Andrew and Matthias which the poet must have based his poem on is apparently lost and we don’t know exactly what his source looked like, none of the surviving recensions of this apocryphon in Greek, Latin, Syriac, or Old English prose even mentions Andrew’s blood in its account of this miracle.2 In the Recensio Casanatensis, the Latin version that is universally agreed to be closest to the poet’s presumed source, when God directs Andrew to look behind him, he sees trees spring up not from his blood but from his fallen flesh and hair: “‘Amen dico tibi andreas, potes(t) celum et terra transire, quam verbum meum sit vacuum. Nunc autem respice retrorsum, et vide caro tua, et capilli tui quid fiunt.’ Cum hoc respiceret beatus andreas, apparuerunt caro et capilli sui sicut arbores florentes et fructum afferentes”3 (“‘Truly I say to you, Andrew, heaven and earth will pass away before my word is void. Now look back and see what has become of your

2 On the poem’s mysterious lost source, see Claes Schaar, Critical Studies in the Cynewulf Group, Lund Studies in English 17 (Lund: Haskell House, 1949), pp. 12–24; Ellen B. Baumler, “Andrew in the City of the Cannibals: A Comparative Study of the Latin, Greek, and Old English Texts” (unpubl. PhD dissertation, University of Kansas, 1985); and Frederick M. Biggs, ed., Sources of AngloSaxon Literary Culture: The Apocrypha, Instrumenta Anglistica Mediaevalia 1 (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 2007), pp. 40–41 (with further references). Most of the extant versions of the Acts of Andrew and Matthias are listed by Friedrich Stegmüller, Repertorium Biblicum Medii Aevi, 11 vols. (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Instituto Francisco Suárez 1950–80) [hereafter RBMA] I and VIII, no. 201; Bibliotheca Hagiographica Graeca, ed. François Halkin, Subsidia Hagiographica 8a, 47, 65 (Brussels: Société des Bollandistes, 1951, 1969, 1984) [hereafter BHG]; Bibliotheca Hagiographica Orientalis, ed. Paul Peeters, Subsidia Hagiographica 10 (Brussels: Société des Bollandistes, 1910) [hereafter BHO]; and Maurice Geerard, Clavis Apocryphorum Novi Testamenti (Turnhout: Brepols, 1992), pp. 141–43 (no. 236). 3 Die lateinischen Bearbeitungen der Acta Andreae et Matthiae apud Anthropophagos, ed. Franz Blatt, Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft und die Kunde der älteren Kirche 12 (Giessen and Copenhagen: Tüpelmann, 1930), p. 87, lines 1–5.

8 Andreas’s Blooming Blood

199

flesh and hair.’ When the blessed Andrew looked back, his flesh and hair appeared to be trees, flowering and bearing fruit”). The Greek versions likewise describe fruit-bearing trees emerging not from Andrew’s blood but from his flesh and hair: Τότε ἦλθεν αὐτῳ φωνὴ ἑβραϊστὶ λέγουσα ‧ ἡμέτερε Ἀνδρέα, ὁ οὐρανὸς καὶ ἡ γῆ παρελεύσεται, οἱ δὲ λόγοι μου οὐ μὴ παρέλθωσιν. πρόσσχες οὖν καὶ θέασαι ὄπισθέν σου τὰς πεσούσας σου σάρκας καὶ τρίχας τί γεγόνασιν. Καὶ στραφεὶς ὁ Ἀνδρέας εἶδεν μεγάλα δένδρα φυέντα καρποφόρα.4 Then a voice said to him, speaking in Hebrew: “Our Andrew, heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. Therefore look back and see what has become of your flesh and hair that have fallen behind you.” And turning around, Andrew saw great fruit trees springing forth bearing fruit.

The Syriac version, which appears to depend on a lost Greek text, similarly makes no mention of blood, though it also omits the detail of Andrew’s hair: “And when he had said these things, a voice came to him in Hebrew, saying: ‘Andrew, heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. And do thou now turn and see thy flesh, which has been plucked from thee, what has become of it.’ And he looked and saw large trees, which had grown up and bore fruit.’”5 Even the two Old English prose translations describe fruitbearing trees growing out of Andrew’s flesh and hair: Đus gebiddende þam halgan Andrea, Dright(e)nes stefn wæs geworden on Ebreisc cweþende: “Min Andreas, heofon and eorðe mæg gewitan, min word næfre ne gewitaþ. Beheald æfter þe and geseoh þinne lichaman and loccas þines heafdes, hwæt hie syndon gewordene.” Se haliga Andreas þa lociende, he geseah geblowen treow wæstm berende and he cwæþ: “Nu ic wat, Drihten, for þon þæt þu ne forlete me.”6

4 The Acts of Andrew and the Acts of Andrew and Matthias in the City of the Cannibals, ed. Dennis Ronald MacDonald, Society of Biblical Literature Texts and Translations 33, Christian Apocrypha 1 (Atlanta: Scholars, 1990), p. 148. MacDonald’s edition here agrees substantially with Maximilian Bonnet and Richard Adalbert Lipsius, eds., Acta Apostolorum Apocrypha, 3 vols. (Leipzig: Hermann Mendelssohn, 1891–1903) II.1, 108, lines 7–12; reprinted by Blatt, Die lateinischen Bearbeitungen, p. 86, lines 3–7. 5 Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles, Edited from Syrian Manuscripts in the British Museum and Other Libraries, ed. and trans. William Wright, 2 vols. (London: Williams and Norgate, 1871) II, 111; see BHO 733. 6 Bright’s Old English Grammar & Reader, ed. Frederic G. Cassidy and Richard N. Ringler, 3rd ed. (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971), p. 216, lines 251–56. Compare the nearly identical Old English translation in Blickling Homily XIX (B3.3.1.2, LS 1.2), ed. R. Morris, The Blickling Homilies, EETS o.s. 58, 63, 73 (1874–80; repr. in one volume, London: Oxford

200

Thomas N. Hall

After St. Andrew had prayed in this fashion, the Lord’s voice appeared speaking in Hebrew, saying: “My Andrew, heaven and earth may pass away; my word will never pass away. Look behind you and see what has become of your flesh and the hairs of your head.” When St. Andrew then looked, he saw blooming fruit-bearing trees and he said, “Now I know, Lord, that you have not abandoned me.”

In fact, the only extant version of the Acts of Andrew and Matthias that describes trees growing out of Andrew’s blood is an abridged Armenian version (BHO 740; RBMA 201,7) that relates (in Louis Leloir’s translation) that “ils [the Mermedonians] le saisirent, le lièrent de corde aux pieds et traînèrent par les rues et par les places de la cité trois jours, à tel point que tous ses os furent brisés, et que beaucoup de sang coula de son corps. Mais André cria vers le Seigneur, et aussitôt il vit des arbres poussant, pleins de fruits, à l’endroit où son saint sang avait coulé.”7 The rest of the tradition is completely consistent in having blooming trees emerge from Andrew’s flesh and hair, and the collective evidence from all those versions of the apocryphon seems to suggest that the image of the trees arising from Andrew’s blood in Andreas is a novel invention of the poet.8

University Press, 1967), p. 245, lines 3–9. On the relationship between the two Old English prose translations, see Cassidy and Ringler, Bright’s Old English Grammar, p. 205. 7 Écrits aprocryphes sur les apôtres: traduction de l’édition arménienne de Venise. I. Pierre, Paul, André, Jacques, Jean, trans. Louis Leloir, Corpus Christianorum Series Apocryphorum 3 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1986), p. 264 (§§ 25–28). The Armenian text is ed. Chérubin Tcherakian, Ankanon girkh arakhelakankh (Venice: Òazar, 1904). M. R. James’s paraphrase of the relevant passage reads: “And a voice said in Hebrew: My words shall not pass away: look behind thee. And he saw great fruit-bearing trees growing up where his flesh and blood had fallen” (The Apocryphal New Testament [Oxford: Clarendon, 1924], p. 457). The scene is omitted entirely in the longer Armenian version (BHO 741; see Écrits apocryphes, trans. Leloir, pp. 205–27). 8 For a comparative analysis of the presentations of this scene in the Latin, Greek, and Ethiopic versions of the apocryphon, see Baumler, “Andrew in the City of the Cannibals,” Table 1: “Sequence of Events According to E [the Ethiopic text] and P [the Greek],” Event 74: “The Lord turns his fallen flesh and hair into fruit trees”; Baumler’s discussion of this event appears on p. 46. Of the surviving Ethiopic versions, the longest (BHO 734), trans. E. A. Wallis Budge, The Contendings of the Apostles, Being the Histories of the Lives and Martyrdoms and Deaths of the Twelve Apostles and Evangelists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1935), pp. 307–35, has a fruit-bearing tree emerge from Andrew’s fallen hair and members (at p. 330), while the abridged version (BHO 737), trans. Budge, The Contendings of the Apostles, pp. 223–40, compresses this scene dramatically (at p. 236) and omits the blooming blood miracle. The scene is absent entirely from the Ethiopic version (RBMA 201,3–4), trans. Solomon Caesar Malan, The Conflicts of the Holy Apostles: An Apocryphal Book of the Early Eastern Church, Translated from an Ethiopic MS. (London: D. Nutt, 1871), pp. 147–63. It is likewise omitted in the Arabic version (BHO 736), ed. Agnes Smith Lewis, Acta Mythologica Apostolorum, Horae Semiticae 3 (London: C. J. Clay, 1904), pp. 109–18 (at p. 116), translated by Lewis, The

8 Andreas’s Blooming Blood

201

We’ll probably never know for sure whether the poet dreamed up this detail on his own, but if he did (and I’m going to adopt this as a working assumption in the following discussion), then it would be useful to know why he made the change and where he got the idea. I’ll concede at the outset that the poet’s seemingly innovative assertion that the trees grew out of Andrew’s blood might well be viewed as not all that innovative or imaginative, since it should be obvious that even if other versions of the Acts of Andrew and Matthias neglect to mention it, there was plenty of Andrew’s blood flowing through the streets of Mermedonia. Up to this point in the story, Andrew has complained repeatedly that after being dragged through the city and across the countryside, he has left a prodigious trail of blood.9 In the Recensio Casanatensis, when Andrew prays to Christ on the third day of his torture, he cries that his flesh has been stripped and his blood has been scattered through the squares,10 and the Greek adds that his blood “flowed on the ground like water.”11 Statements to this effect appear in most versions of the apocryphon, and the Andreas-poet, with his notorious penchant for hyperbole and melodrama, has intensified these descriptions to produce an even greater

Mythological Acts of the Apostles, Horae Semiticae 4 (London: C. J. Clay, 1904), pp. 126–36 (at pp. 133–34). It is absent as well in the Croatian version (RBMA 201,14), ed. Biserka Grabar, “Apokrifna djela Apostolska u hrvatskoglagoljskoj literaturi,” Radovi Staroslavenskog Instituta 6 (1967), 109–208 (at p. 199). The Coptic version (BHO 735; RBMA 201,8–9), ed. and trans. Oscar von Lemm, Koptische apokryphe Apostelacten, 2 vols., Mélanges asiatiques 10 (St. Petersburg: l’Académie impériale des sciences, 1890) I, 148–66 [ = Bulletin de l’Académie des Sciences de Saint-Pétersbourg 33, Nouv. sér. 1 (1890), 558–77], is fragmentary and preserves nothing of this episode. The two Arabic versions (BHO 738 and 739) discussed by Georg Graf, Geschichte der christlichen arabischen Literatur, 5 vols., Studi e testi 118, 133, 146–47, 172 (Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1944–53) I, 265, and Aurelio de Santos Otero, Die handschriftliche Überlieferung der altslavischen Apokryphen, 2 vols., Patristische Texte und Studien 20, 23 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1978–81) I, 69–83, are too radically different to be considered close to the Latin version that underlies Andreas. I have not seen the Ukrainian version (RBMA 201,13), ed. Ivan Franko, Apocrify i legendy z ukräins’kykh rukopysiv, 5 vols. (L’vov: Nakl. Ukraïnsʹko-rusʹkoï vydavn. spilky, 1896–1910) III (1902), 126–44. 9 This feature of the Andrew legend may be indebted to a broader hagiographic tradition since it isn’t unusual for a saint to be dragged through a city until the ground is drenched with his blood. The Ethiopic Acts of St. Mark, a fourth- or fifth-century translation of an originally Greek apocryphon (RBMA 224), tells that the Egyptians attempted to stop Mark from performing miracles in Alexandria by seizing him, putting a rope around his neck, and dragging him through the city until “his flesh was falling on the ground and the stones were soaked with his blood”: Getatchew Haile, “A New Ethiopic Version of the Acts of St. Mark (EMML 1763, ff. 224r–227r),” Analecta Bollandiana 99 (1981), 117–34, at 133. See also the discussion of the Greek Martyrdom of Philip below. 10 Die lateinischen Bearbeitungen, ed. Blatt, p. 85, lines 17–18 (§ 28). 11 The Acts of Andrew, ed. and trans. MacDonald, pp. 145–47 (§ 28).

202

Thomas N. Hall

impression of how much blood Andrew has lost. At line 1238 he writes, “The body of the saint was sodden with wounds, soaked in blood. The frame of his bones was broken. Blood welled out in pulses of hot gore.” In a later passage, Andrew’s “blood surged in waves from out of his frame. He was smothered in rivers of hot blood” (lines 1275–77). The poet’s revision of this miracle to make the trees arise from Andrew’s blood is thus consistent with his exaggerated emphasis on blood elsewhere in the poem, and this recrafted image might simply be attributed to the poet’s enthusiasm for blood and gore. There’s also the argument that the poet describes the trees arising from the trail of Andrew’s blood in order to recall a moment earlier in the poem where Christ reminds Andrew that while on the Cross, His side had been pierced and His blood had flowed freely on the ground (lines 964b–69a). This point has been made by Frederick Biggs, who has argued that in the blooming tree episode the poet introduces the blood image to emphasize the parallels between Andrew’s suffering and Christ’s passion, and to develop a theme found frequently in patristic and medieval literature in which Christ’s blood is interpreted as the seed from which the saints and martyrs grew.12 The poet, in other words, rewrites the miracle to capitalize on the thematic and symbolic significance of Andrew’s blood. I think there’s merit to these arguments, but I also think there’s another reason why the poet has revised this scene, and that is because he recognized the potential to align it with a powerful concept of symbolic renewal that is well attested in a number of ancient and medieval literary texts, in each case centering on the image of a tree or flower or some other kind of plant that grows from the blood of a slain or wounded hero. Examples are worth considering from two general categories: those from mythological and folkloric traditions, and those from hagiographic literature. I’ll briefly discuss them in that order before considering how they might help us understand the blooming blood passage in Andreas.

12 Frederick M. Biggs, “The Passion of Andreas: Andreas 1398–1491,” Studies in Philology 85 (1988), 413–27. On the saints as branches that arose from the blood of Abel, see Charles D. Wright, “The Blood of Abel and the Branches of Sin: Genesis A, Maxims I and Aldhelm’s Carmen de virginitate,” Anglo-Saxon England 25 (1996), 7–19, at 10–11 n. 21.

8 Andreas’s Blooming Blood

203

Mythological and Folkloric Parallels The oldest known story about a hero whose spilled blood engenders a blooming tree is an ancient Egyptian tale known as “The Two Brothers.”13 In the central episode of this story, which survives in a single papyrus manuscript from the thirteenth century B.C. and has sometimes been referred to as the world’s oldest fairy tale,14 the Pharaoh of Egypt becomes enamored with the wife of a youth named Bata and asks her to become his court favorite. Bata’s wife complies and becomes so receptive to Pharaoh’s advances that when asked about her husband, she reveals that the only way to destroy him is to cut down the acacia tree on whose flowers Bata’s heart rests. When the acacia is cut down, Bata’s heart falls to the ground and he dies. But his elder brother Anubis, who has been prepared for such an event, travels to the valley of the acacia, where after three years of searching, he discovers Bata’s heart in the form of a dried seed. Anubis places the seed in a cup of water and pours it into his dead brother’s mouth, and Bata immediately returns to life. Bata then seeks revenge against his wife by transforming himself into a bull that looks in every respect like the sacred bull Apis, and he has Anubis ride him to Pharaoh’s court, where Pharaoh enthusiastically receives the bull and rewards Anubis with silver and gold. Several days later the bull enters Pharaoh’s harem and reveals his identity to his wife, who in a fit of horror contrives to have the bull killed. That evening, when Pharaoh is particularly attentive to her at dinner, she exacts a rash promise from him that she can have whatever she wishes. To Pharaoh’s chagrin, she asks for the bull’s liver. When the bull is slaughtered amid a sumptuous banquet in Pharaoh’s temple, two

13 The following summary is based on the translations by Ch. E. Moldenke, “The Oldest Fairy Tale. Translated from the Papyrus D’Orbiney, with Notes,” Transactions of the Meriden Scientific Association 7 (1895), 32–81 (trans. at pp. 62–71); Gaston Maspéro, Les contes populaires de l’Égypte ancienne, 4th ed. (Paris: E. Guilmoto, 1911), pp. 3–21 [translated into English as Popular Stories of Ancient Egypt, trans. A. S. Johns, rev. by Maspéro (New York, 1967)]; and William Kelly Simpson, The Literature of Ancient Egypt: An Anthology of Stories, Instructions, and Poetry, new ed. (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1972), pp. 92–107; and Susan Tower Hollis, The Ancient Egyptian “Tale of Two Brothers”: A Mythological, Religious, Literary, and Historico-Political Study, 2nd ed. (Oakville, CT, 2008), pp. 1–9. 14 E.g., Moldenke, “The Oldest Fairy Tale”; W. Mannhardt, “Das älteste Märchen. Satu und Ankpu oder die beiden Brüder,” Zeitschrift für deutsche Mythologie und Sittenkunde 4 (1859), 232–59; Vladimir Stasow, “Drewnêjsaja powest w miré ‘Roman dwuch bratjew’” [“The Oldest Story in the World, ‘The Tale of the Two Brothers’”], Westnik Jewropi 5 (1868), 702–32; and Susan Tower Hollis, The Ancient Egyptian “Tale of Two Brothers: The Oldest Fairy Tale in the World (Norman, OK, 1990). Hollis’s 2nd edition of this book (cited in the previous note) is the fullest study of the tale.

204

Thomas N. Hall

drops of blood fall from the bull’s neck, one on either side of the temple steps, and from these drops grow two large persea trees which bear the soul of Bata. Eventually, after a subsequent death and incarnation, Bata achieves his revenge by acceding to Pharaoh’s throne and publicly condemning his wife. The plot thus turns on the dual themes of betrayal and revenge, but the recurrent pattern of Bata’s death, resurrection, and transformation links the story to a large cycle of Mediterranean and Near Eastern renewal myths that have traditionally been seen as primitive interpretations of seasonal and agricultural change.15 Because persea trees—the kind of trees that emerge from Bata’s blood—were sacred to the Egyptian god Osiris and have occasionally been found flanking the entrances to his temples,16 and because the sacred bull Apis was also dedicated to Osiris, some scholars read “The Two Brothers” as a story that “arose on the periphery of Osiris worship.”17 The oldest records of the Osiris myth consistently present him within a drama of death and renewal, in some cases claiming that he died

15 The mythological background of the story was first elaborated by François Lenormant, Les premières civilisations: Études d’histoire et d’archéologie, 2 vols. (Paris: Maisoneuve et cie, 1874) I, 375–401. The tale is catalogued by Antti Aarne, The Types of the Folktale: A Classification and Bibliography, trans. and enlarged by Stith Thompson, FF Communications 184 (Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1961), p. 112 (no. 318, “The Faithless Wife”). For commentary on the story and its relation to other Indo-European tales, see Maspéro, Les contes populaires de l’Égypte ancienne, pp. xii–xx, 1–3; Edwin Sidney Hartland, The Legend of Perseus: A Study of Tradition in Story, Custom and Belief, 3 vols. (London: D. Nutt, 1894–96) I, 182–228; Pierre Saintyves [Émile Nourry], Les vierges mères et les naissances miraculeuses (Paris: E. Nourry 1908), pp. 64–66, 69–71; C. W. Von Sydow, “Den fornegyptiska sagan om de två bröderna. Ett utkast till sess historia och utveckling,” Vetenskaps-societeten i Lund Årsbok (1930), 53–89; Waldemar Liungman, Sagan om Bata och Anubis och den orientalisk-europeiska undersagans ursprung (Djursholm: Förlags A. B. “Vald Litteratur,” 1946); Stith Thompson, The Folktale (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winstone, 1946), pp. 275–76; V. Vikentiev, “Le conte égyptien des deux frères et quelques histoires apparentées: La Fille-Citron — La Fille du Marchand — Gilgamesh — Combabus — Localisation du domaine de Bata à Afka — Yamouneh — Les Cèdres,” Bulletin of the Faculty of Arts, Fouad I University, Cairo, 11.2 (December 1949), 67–111; idem, “Une nouvelle version de l’ancien conte égyptien des ‘Deux Frères’: ‘Le Fils Chéri,’ conte grec: ‘Zoulvisia,’ conte arménien,” Bulletin of the Faculty of Arts, Fouad I University, Cairo 14.2 (December 1952), 97–107; and Hedwig von Roquesvon Beit, Symbolik des Märchens: Versuch einer Deutung, 2nd ed., 3 vols. (Bern: Francke, 1960) II, 387–418. 16 On the connection between Osiris and persea trees, see Maspéro, Popular Stories, p. 18 n. 1; and E. A. Wallis Budge, Osiris: The Egyptian Religion of Resurrection, 2 vols. (London: P. L. Warner, 1911) I, 19, 73. 17 R. T. Rundle Clark, Myth and Symbol in Ancient Egypt (London: Grove, 1959), p. 114.

8 Andreas’s Blooming Blood

205

every year at harvest time, then rose again in the spring along with the crops.18 In Egyptian art and funerary ritual, Osiris is sometimes represented as corn or barley, particularly through the fashioning of “corn mummies,” effigies of the god made of earth and containing seeds that eventually sprouted to indicate Osiris’s resurrection.19 Much of the Osiris myth is now obscure due to its antiquity, but parallels between Osiris and other vegetative deities in neighboring mythologies call attention to similar stories within a broad European mythological cycle that are strongly reminiscent of the blooming blood episode in Andreas.20 A similar tale of renewal expressed symbolically by a plant that arises from spilled blood appears in the Greek myth of Agdestis and Attis as related by the fourth-century Christian apologist Arnobius. In Book 5 of his Adversus nationes, Arnobius confronts the pagan belief in the Great Mother of the Gods by critiquing the story of the hermaphroditic beast Agdestis, who was begotten of the incestuous union of Jupiter and the Great Earth Mother. Agdestis, he explains, was a creature of insatiable lust and fury whose destructive powers so troubled the gods that they devised a plot to tame him. Their plan was to put Agdestis to sleep by pouring a soporific wine into the stream he habitually drank from, and then to bind him with a noose to suppress his ferocity: Necessitatis in tempore haustum accurrit Agdestis, immoderatius potionem hiantibus uenis rapit: fit ut insolita re uictus soporem in altissimum deprimatur. Adest ad insidias Liber, ex setis scientissime conplicatis imum plantae inicit laqueum, parte altera proles cum ipsis

18 On this aspect of the Osiris myth, see Budge, Osiris I, 80 and passim; and Sir James George Frazer, Adonis, Attis, Osiris: Studies in the History of Oriental Religion, 2 vols., Part IV of The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion, 3rd ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1935), II, 96–114. 19 Alexander Scharff, “Frühe Vorstufen zum ‘Kornosiris,’” Forschungen und Fortschritte 21–23 (Berlin, 1947), 38–39; Frazer, Adonis, Attis, Osiris II, 90–91; and John Gwyn Griffiths, The Origins of Osiris and His Cult, Studies in the History of Religions 40 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1980), pp. 163–72. Osiris’s association with vegetation also extended to trees, as reflected in a spell from the Pyramid Texts which addresses him thus: “The am-tree serves thee, the nebes-tree bows its head to thee” (cited by Griffiths, The Origins of Osiris, p. 162). Other examples are noted by James Henry Breasted, The Development of Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt (New York: Charles Scribner, 1912), p. 22. 20 Compare the cosmogonic myth in the Coptic Gnostic tractate On the Origin of the World, a work probably first composed in Greek in the early third century in which all plant and animal life on earth arises from the virgin blood of the primordial “luminous man of blood” known as “Adam of Light,” whose spilled blood first begets Eros. “After that Eros, the grapevine sprouted up out of that blood, which had been shed over the earth. Because of this, those who drink of it conceive the desire of sexual union. After the grapevine, a fig tree and a pomegranate tree sprouted up from the earth, together with the rest of the trees, all species, having within them their seed from the seed of the authorities and their angels”: The Nag Hammadi Library in English, ed. James M. Robinson, 3rd ed. (San Francisco, 1988), p. 178.

206

Thomas N. Hall

genitalibus occupat. Exhalata ille ui meri corripit se impetu et adducente nexus planta suis ipse se uiribus eo quo uir erat priuat sexu. Cum discidio partium sanguis fluit inmensus, rapiuntur et combibuntur haec terra, malum repente cum pomis ex his punicum nascitur.21 When he has the need to drink, Agdestis runs there (to the stream) and gulps down a draught too greedily into his gaping veins. It thus happens that, overcome by the strange sensation, he sinks into the deepest sleep. Nearby (the god) Liber lurks in ambush and casts over his foot the end of a noose that is cunningly woven with hairs, while with another part he snares him by the genitals. Once he has breathed off the power of the wine, he rouses himself violently, and pulling against the knots, he deprives himself by his own strength of that which made him a man. With the tearing asunder of these parts, there pours an immense flow of blood that is snatched up and swallowed by the earth, and from this is suddenly born a pomegranate tree laden with fruit.

At this point in the story, Nana, daughter of the river Sangarius, discovers the tree and is so enamored with the beauty of its fruit that she plucks a pomegranate and clutches it to her breast. In this way she becomes impregnated by Agdestis and eventually gives birth to the boy Attis, whose own death years later reenacts Adgestis’s self-mutilation. When Attis reaches maturity, King Midas offers his daughter in marriage to Attis and arranges for a magnificent wedding. But Agdestis, enraged at having his son torn from him, bursts into the wedding and terrorizes the guests. The consequences of his attack are as follows: Rapit Attis fistulam, quam instigator ipse gestitabat insaniae, furiarum et ipse iam plenus, perbacchatus iactatus proicit se tandem et sub pini arbore genitalia sibi desecat dicens “tibi Agdesti haec habe, propter quae motus tantos furialium discriminum concitasti.” Euolat cum profluuio sanguinis uita, sed abscisa quae fuerant Magna legit et Mater deum, inicit his terram, ueste prius tecta erant atque inuoluta defuncti. Fluore de sanguinis uiola flos nascitur et redimitur ex hac arbos: inde natum et ortum est nunc etiam sacras uelarier et coronarier pinos. Virgo sponsa quae fuerat, quam Valerius pontifex Iam nomine fuisse conscribit, exanimati pectus lanis mollioribus uelat, dat lacrimas cum Agdesti interficitque se ipsam: purpurantes in uiolas cruor uertitur interemptae. Mater suffodit et Iam deum, unde amygdalus nascitur amaritudinem significans funeris. Tunc arborem pinum, sub qua Attis nomine spoliauerat se uiri, in antrum suum defert et sociatis planctibus cum Agdesti tundit et sauciat pectus pausatae circum arboris robur.22

21 Arnobius adversus nationes libri vii V.6, ed. August Reifferscheid, CSEL 4 (Vienna: C. Gerold, 1875), p. 178, lines 4–12. 22 Arnobius adversus nationes V.7, ed. Reifferscheid, p. 179 line 16–p. 180 line 8. In the abbreviated version of this legend recorded by the second-century Greek geographer and travel writer Pausanias, the tree that grows out of Agdestis’s blood is an almond tree (ἀμυγδαλέα): Pausanias, Description of Greece VII.xvii.11, ed. and trans. W. H. S. Jones, Loeb Classical Library 272 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1933), pp. 268–69.

8 Andreas’s Blooming Blood

207

Attis seizes the flute which the one who goaded them to frenzy was carrying, and being himself full of fury and storming about in a rage, he at last throws himself down beneath a pine tree and cuts off his own genitals, exclaiming: “Take these, Agdestis, for which you have incited such outbursts of mad chaos.” With the stream of blood, his life ebbs away, but the Mother of the Gods gathers the parts that had been cut off and throws earth on them, having first covered them, and wraps them in the garment of the dead. From the profusion of blood a flower is born, a violet, and entwines itself about the trees—whence the birth and origin of the custom that even now the sacred pines are veiled and garlanded. The maiden who had been his bride, whom the pontifex Valerius writes was named Ia, covers the breast of the lifeless one with soft wool, sheds tears with Agdestis, and kills herself. As she dies, her blood is transformed into purple violets. The Mother of the Gods digs under Ia, and from beneath her an almond tree is born, signifying the bitterness of burial. She then carries away the pine tree under which Attis robbed himself of his manhood and takes it to her cave, and joining in lamentations with Agdestis, she beats and wounds her breast about the trunk of the motionless tree.

As told by Arnobius, the myth of Agdestis and Attis involves three individuals who endure great suffering, mutilate themselves, and shed blood upon the ground, from which a tree or flower grows, signaling a transformation and renewal of vital energy. The fertile qualities of this energy are particularly apparent in the story of Agdestis, whose reproductive powers pass from the blood of his severed genitals into the fruit-laden pomegranate tree and thence into the fruit that impregnates Nana.23 The wounding of Agdestis, with his blood yielding a fruit-bearing tree, is perhaps closest in detail to the Andrew legend, but it was the death of Attis, whose blood gave birth to violets, that was central to the Greek myth, particularly as it was elaborated in Phrygia and later in Rome. Like Osiris in Egyptian mythology, Attis was a fertility figure believed to have suffered a tragic death marked by the proliferation of flowers on the blood-soaked ground, and his death and resurrection, according to Diodorus Siculus and others, were celebrated each year in spring rituals through at least the fifth century A.D.24 These myths of vegetative renewal were in such vogue among the Greeks that they eventually became the target of satire. Clement of Alexandria, in his survey of popular beliefs among the Greeks concerning the births and deaths of heathen gods, pokes fun at the legends that pomegranates sprang

23 On Agdestis in Greek and Roman mythology, see W. H. Roscher, “Agdestis,” Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römanischen Mythologie, ed. Roscher, 7 vols. in 10 (Hildesheim: G. Olms, 1965) I.1, cols. 100–101. 24 Important discussions of the Attis myth include Hugo Hepding, Attis: Seine Mythe und sein Kult (Giessen: J. Ricker, 1903); and Frazer, Adonis, Attis, Osiris I, 263–87, who speaks of Agdestis as “a sort of double of Attis” (p. 269). For more recent bibliography, see Rapp, “Attis,” in Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römanischen Mythologie I.1, cols. 715–27.

208

Thomas N. Hall

from the blood of Dionysus and that wild celery or parsley grew from the blood of the slain brother of the Corybantes.25 A comparable sequence of events is reflected in Syrian rituals commemorating the death and resurrection of the youthful demi-god Adonis, whom Hippolytus of Rome and the historian Socrates both identify with Attis,26 and whose story is essentially the same.27 Adonis was the lover of Venus and was tragically killed by a wild boar on Mount Lebanon. To assuage Venus’s grief, Zeus determined that Adonis would spend a part of each year in the underworld with Persephone and another part of the year above ground with Venus. Adonis consequently became recognized as a vegetative deity whose death each winter and resurrection each spring mirrored the cycle of the seasons. Bion, Lucian, and Ovid all tell how every spring as the rain washed the red earth down the mountains into the rivers and the sea, the crimson stain was believed to be the blood of Adonis, whose tragic death on Mount Lebanon had produced a torrent of blood out of which roses and scarlet anemones grew, and it was for this reason that the flowers returned to the mountainside each year.28 No doubt the version of this story that was best known in the medieval West was the one told by Ovid, who at the very end of Book 10 of

25 Clement of Alexandria, The Exhortation to the Greeks 2, ed. and trans. G. W. Butterworth, Loeb Classical Library 92 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1919), pp. 38–41. 26 Hippolytus, Refutatio omnium haeresium V.ix.8, ed. Miroslav Marcovich, Hippolytus: Refutatio omnium haeresium, Patristische Texte und Studien 25 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1986), p. 167, lines 42–44; Socrates, Historia ecclesiastica III.xxiii.51, ed. and trans. Pierre Maraval, Socrate de Constantinople: Histoire ecclésiastique. Livres II–III, Sources Chrétiennes 493 (Paris: Édition du Cerf, 2005), pp. 346–47. 27 On the parallels between Attis and Adonis, see Frazer, Adonis, Attis, Osiris I, 1–56, 223–60. 28 Lucian, De dea Syria 8, ed. and trans. J. L. Lightfoot, Lucian: On the Syrian Goddess (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), pp. 250–53; Bion, Epitaph on Adonis 64–66, ed. and trans. J. D. Reed, Bion of Smyrna: The Fragments and the Adonis, Cambridge Classical Texts and Commentaries 33 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 128–29. A scholium on Theocritus, Idyll V.92 attributed to Nicander likewise asserts that the anemone was born from the blood of Adonis: Fr. Dübner, Scholia in Theocritum (Paris: Editore Ambrosio Firmin Didot, 1849), p. 42. See the discussions by Wahib Atallah, Adonis dans la littérature et l’art grecs (Paris: Libraire Klincksiek, 1966), pp. 244–46; P. M. C. Forbes Irving, Metamorphosis in Greek Myths (Oxford: Clarendon, 1990), pp. 279–80; and Ian Lee, “The Flower of Adonis at Eryx,” Numismatic Chronicle 159 (1999), 1–31, at 15–21. In Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis, the flower that grows from Adonis’s blood is identified only as a “purple flow’r . . . check’red with white” (The Riverside Shakespeare, ed. G. Blakemore Evans [Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1974], p. 1718, line 1168). Milton combines the stories of Adonis and his Syrian counterpart Thammuz in recalling how “smooth Adonis from his native Rock / Ran purple to the Sea, suppos’d with blood / Of Thammuz yearly wounded” (Paradise Lost I.450–52, ed. Roy Flanagan, The Riverside Milton [Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1998], p. 368), where Adonis refers not to the slain god but to the river that was thought to flow from his blood.

8 Andreas’s Blooming Blood

209

the Metamorphoses relates how after Adonis is attacked by the boar, Venus hears his dying moans and approaches, but by the time she reaches him, he is lying dead in a pool of blood. She rends her clothes and beats her breast in anguish, curses the fates, and promises that her grief will be annually memorialized by the fragile flowers that will emerge each year from Adonis’s spilled blood: “luctus monimenta manebunt semper, Adoni, mei, repetitaque mortis imago annua plangoris peraget simulamina nostri. at cruor in florem mutabitur. an tibi quondam femineos artus in olentes vertere mentas, Persephone, licuit, nobis Cinyreius heros invidiae mutatus erit?” sic fata cruorem nectare odorato sparsit, qui tactus ab illo intumuit sic, ut fulvo perlucida caelo surgere bulla solet, nec plena longior hora facta mora est, cum flos de sanguine concolor ortus, qualem, quae lento celant sub cortice granum, punica ferre solent; brevis est tamen usus in illo; namque male haerentem et nimia levitate caducum excutiunt idem, qui praestant nomina, venti.29 “My grief for Adonis will be remembered forever. Every year will see his death and my lamentation reenacted in ritual form, for the blood of the hero will be transformed into a flower. Or were you not once allowed to change a young woman to fragrant mint, Persephone? Do you begrudge me the transformation of my beloved Adonis?” As Venus spoke, she sprinkled his blood with sweet nectar, which made it swell up like a transparent bubble that rises from the muck, and in no more than an hour a flower sprang out of that soil, blood red in color, just like the flesh that lies beneath the tough rind of the seedhiding pomegranate. Yet brief is its season, for the winds from which it takes its name—the anemone—shake off those petals so lightly clinging and fated to perish.30

The legend of the flowers born from Adonis’s blood has of course been retold and depicted many times, and it is even paralleled by medieval legends of crimson flowers that grew from the blood of Christ at the foot of the Cross.31

29 Ovid, Metamorphoses X.725–39, ed. William S. Anderson, P. Ovidii Nasonis Metamorphoses, Bibliotheca Teubneriana (Leipzig: Teubner, 1977), pp. 252–53. 30 Charles Martin, trans., Ovid, Metamorphoses (New York, 2010), pp. 284–85, with some minor adjustments to phrasing and punctuation. 31 See Oskar Dähnhardt, Natursagen: Eine Sammlung naturdeutender Sagen Märchen Fabeln und Legenden, 4 vols. (Leipzig: Teubner, 1907–12) II, 227–30; F. Ohrt, Herba, gratiâ plena: Die Legenden der älteren Segensprüche über den göttlichen Ursprung der Heil- und Zauberkräuter, FF Communications 82 (Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedakatemia, 1929), pp. 10–20; Mircea Eliade, “Ierburile de sub Cruce . . ., ” Revista Fundaţijlor Regale 11 (1939), 353–69; idem, “La mandragore

210

Thomas N. Hall

The conceit of a tree or flower born from the blood of a slain or mutilated hero also figures in a number of folktales from various parts of Europe and the Near East. A German tale collected in the nineteenth century tells of a shepherd with magic powers who is killed by the daughter of an enemy king, only to return to life through a series of transformations. When he turns into a horse, the princess orders her cook to slay him, but the horse has given the cook instructions to assist him in his next transformation, so that when three drops of his blood fall into the cook’s apron, she buries it under the eaves. The next morning a white cherry tree is growing on the spot.32 A Breton tale relates that when the hero is killed, again in the form of a horse, a ball of his curdled blood is put on a stone in the sun and sprinkled with magic water. A cherry tree grows out of it, laden with fine red cherries.33 In the Hungarian tale known as “Iron Laczi,” the hero comes back from the dead and transforms himself into a horse which his enemy’s wife seeks to kill so she can eat his liver. When the horse is slain, two drops of its blood fall to the ground and give rise to a tree with golden apples.34 A Lithuanian tale relates that a shepherd’s son is treacherously killed by the king in order to obtain his magic weapons. When the boy is struck in the heart, his blood spurts from his chest and several drops fall beneath the et les mythes de la ‘naissance miraculeuse,’” Zalmoxis 3 (1940–42), 3–48, at 22–24; idem, “Adam, le Christ et la Mandragore,” in Mélanges d’histoire des religions offerts à Henri-Charles Puech (Paris: Presse universitaires de France, 1974), pp. 611–16; Sergio Ribichini, “Metamorfosi vegetali del sangue nel mondo antico,” in Sangue e antropologia nella letteratura cristiana: Atti della terza Settimana di Studio (Roma, 29 novembre–4 dicembre 1982), ed. Francesco Vattioni, 2 vols. (Rome: Pia unione preziosissimo sangue, 1983) I, 233–47. A Celtic legend about the passion flower (ceuschrann) or milkwort (glúineach) that grew at the foot of the Cross and became stained with Christ’s blood, “hence the semblance of the cross on the flower,” is documented by Alexander Carmichael, Carmina Gadelica: Hymns and Incantations with Illustrative Notes on Words, Rites, and Customs, Dying and Obsolete: Orally Collected in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, 2 vols. (Edinburgh: T. and A. Constable, 1900) II, 114–15, 244; and Seán Ó Súilleabháin, “Etiological Stories in Ireland,” in Medieval Literature and Folklore Studies: Essays in Honor of Francis Lee Utley, ed. Jerome Mandel and Bruce A. Rosenberg (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1970), pp. 257–74, at 262 (no. F.18). 32 Johann Wilhelm Wolf, Deutsche Hausmärchen, Volkskundliche Quellen 3: Märchen und Schwank (Leipzig: F. Chr. Wilh. Vogel, 1851), pp. 390–96. The tale is entitled “Der Schäferssohn und die zauberische Königstochter.” 33 François-Marie Luzel, Contes populaires de Basse-Bretagne, 3 vols., Les littératures populaires de toutes les nations 25 (Paris : G. P. Maisonneuve et Larose, 1887) III, 262. 34 Oskar Ludwig Bernhard Wolff, Die schönsten Märchen und Sagen aller Zeiten und Völker (Leipzig: Otto Wigand, 1850), pp. 218–33. An anonymous English translation was published under the title “The Fireside Stories of Hungary” in Dublin University Magazine 70 (1867), 575–78.

8 Andreas’s Blooming Blood

211

window of the king’s daughter, who weeps at the sight of his murder. As her tears fall to the ground and mingle with the blood-soaked earth, an apple tree grows up at an alarming rate, and its branches soon touch her window. By noon the tree is covered with blossoms, by nightfall with blood-red apples.35 The well-known Turkish story of “The Lemon Girl” tells of a beautiful princess born from a lemon tree who is transformed into a dove by a jealous maidservant, who then takes the princess’s place and marries her prince. The prince takes a liking to the dove and has a cage made for her to keep her nearby, but the false princess demands that she be given the dove to eat. When the prince kills the dove in the garden, several drops of the dove’s blood fall to the earth and produce a cypress tree from which the rightful princess eventually emerges.36 A variant from Asia Minor tells of a princess, also born from a tree, who is transformed into a golden fish by a wicked moorish woman who convinces the prince to kill the fish in order to regain his bride. When three drops of the fish’s blood fall to the earth, they give birth to a cypress tree.37 The hero undergoes a double transformation in the Russian tale “Ivan, Son of the Sexton,” in which a man is betrayed by his wife to the Turks and is killed. He comes back to life as a horse with a golden mane which the sultan buys. The hero’s wicked wife recognizes him, however, and has him slain. From the horse’s blood arises a golden bull which the woman also kills, but from the head of the slaughtered bull arises an apple tree with fruit of gold.38 Similar tales are recorded in a variety of languages, all with the narrative plot of a hero who dies, returns to life, and takes on the form of an animal (usually a horse or bull) which when later killed bleeds upon the earth and produ-

35 Aleksander Borejko Chodzko, Contes des paysans et des pâtres slaves (Paris: L. Hachette et cie, 1864), pp. 349–72. Chodzko believed this story was of Indian origin. 36 Margery Kent, Fairy Tales from Turkey (London: Routledge, 1946), pp. 38–47. This is one of over 500 known variants of the much-studied tale “The Three Oranges,” indexed by Aarne, The Types of the Folktale, no. 408. For discussion, full bibliography, and a survey of variants, see Christine Goldberg, The Tale of the Three Oranges, FF Communications 263 (Helsinki, 1997); and Christine Shojaei Kawan, “Die drei Orangen [AT 408],” in Enzyklopädie des Märchens: Handwörterbuch zur historischen und vergleichenden Erzählforschung, ed. Kurt Ranke and Rolf Brednich, 13 vols. (New York: De Gruyter, 1999–2007) X, 346–55. 37 Johann Georg von Hahn, Griechische und albanesische Märchen, 2 vols. (Leipzig: Wilhelm Engelmann, 1864) I, 268–73 (no. 49). 38 Alfred Rambaud, Russie épique: Étude sur les chansons héroïques de la Russie traduites ou analysées pour la première fois (Paris: Maisonneuve, 1876), pp. 377–80.

212

Thomas N. Hall

ces a tree or trees that embody the soul of the reborn hero.39 In some versions, the hero dies and is buried in the earth, and is then reborn as a tree that springs from the grave.40 This motif is doubled in the well-known tales of “Tristan and Iseult” and “Piramus and Thisbe,” in which twin trees (or vines or flowers) grow from the graves of two tragic young lovers, and the branches intertwine as a symbol of their eternal union.41 Probably in its own unique category is the early Irish mythological tale “The Second Battle of Mag Tuired,” in which the physician god Dían Cécht murders his own son Míach in a sort of manic healing contest, then buries him, “and three hundred and sixty-five herbs grew through the grave, corresponding to the number of his joints and sinews.”42

39 Many of these folktale analogues were originally collected by Emmanuel Cosquin, “Un problème historique à propos du conte égyptien de Deux Frères,” Revue des questions historiques 22 (1877), 502–16. They are conveniently summarized by Cosquin, Contes populaires de Lorraine comparés avec les contes des autres provinces de France et des pays étrangers et précédés d’un essai sur l’origine et la propagation des contes populaires européens (Paris, 1886), pp. lxi–lxii, and by Maspéro, Les contes populaires de l’Égypte ancienne, pp. xvi–xviii. Several remote analogues for the blooming blood episode in “The Two Brothers” are discussed by Andrew Lang, Myth, Ritual, and Religion (London: Longmans, Green, 1887), pp. 156–58. 40 In addition to the examples cited by Stith Thompson, Motif-Index of Folk-Literature, 6 vols. (Copenhagen, 1955–58), no. E631, “Reincarnation in plant (tree) growing from grave,” see Sean O’Sullivan, Folktales of Ireland (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966), pp. 120–21. Of the tales indexed by Thompson under motif no. E631.0.3, “Plant from blood of slain person,” those most relevant here are collected by H. F. Feilberg, Bidrag til en ordbog over jyske almuesmål, 4 vols. (Copenhagen: Samfund, 1886–1914) II, 57a (s.v. juletrae); III, 866.47b (s.v. trae); and IV, 49a (s.v. blod); and by William Sherwood Fox, Greek and Roman Mythology, Mythology of All Races 1 (Boston: Marshall Jones, 1916), pp. 198, 201. For the legend of a great oak tree in Mobile, Alabama known as the Boyington Oak which sprang up from the grave of a hanged man in 1835 as proof of his innocence, see Dennis William Hauck, Haunted Places: The National Directory. Ghostly Abodes, Sacred Sites, UFO Landings, and Other Supernatural Locations, 2nd rev. ed. (New York: Penguin, 2002), p. 5. 41 Thompson, Motif-Index, no. E631.0.1, “Twining branches grow from graves of lovers.” Discussion by Pierre Gallais, “Les arbres entrelacés dans les ‘romans’ de Tristan et le mythe de l’arbre androgyne primordial,” in Mélanges offerts à Pierre le Gentil (Besançon: S.E.D.E.S., 1973), pp. 295–310; and Eleanor R. Long, “‘Young Man, I Think You’re Dyin’: The Twining Branches Theme in the Tristan Legend and in English Tradition,” Fabula 21 (1980), 183–99. 42 Cath Maige Tuired: The Second Battle of Mag Tuired, ed. and trans. Elizabeth A. Gray, Irish Texts Society 52 (Naas, Kildare: Irish Texts Society, 1982), pp. 32–33 (§ 35). On the 365 joints and sinews of the human body, a notion encountered in several early Irish and Anglo-Saxon texts, see Thomas D. Hill, “Punishment According to the Joints of the Body in the Old English ‘Soul and Body II,’” Notes and Queries n.s. 15 (1968), 409–10; and James E. Cross and Thomas D. Hill, eds., The Prose Solomon and Saturn and Adrian and Ritheus (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1982), pp. 125–26.

8 Andreas’s Blooming Blood

213

Other stories in this same general tradition involve a hero who is not a lover, and not even a single individual, but an army of soldiers who have died on the battlefield, and from their spilled blood grow fields of blood-red flowers, a martial variation on the Attis and Adonis myths. Many will recognize this as the idea behind the poppies that surround the Grave of the Unknown Warrior in Westminster Abbey today, and a much earlier example of the same idea was reported in the early seventeenth century by William Camden, who asserted that the country folk around Bartlow, Cambridgeshire had a special name for the red-berried plant that grew plentifully in a field where a battle with the Danes was supposed to have taken place during Anglo-Saxon times: they called it “Dane-wort” or “Danesbloud” and claimed that it “blometh from their bloud.”43 These stories from many times and places demonstrate an enduring fascination with concepts of cyclical renewal and rebirth through transformation, with a hero’s death and rebirth enacted by the shedding of his blood and the new plant life that emerges from it. These stories preserve one of the oldest and most fundamental elements of Western mythology and contribute to a rich tradition in the history of ideas which Gerhart Ladner characterized as an ideology of spiritual renewal expressed in vegetative symbols.44 In the examples I’ve mentioned so far, the hero is often a god, a magician, a warrior, a prince or princess, or a lover, but there are other examples that offer even better comparanda for the blooming blood passage in Andreas because in these stories the hero is a holy man.

Hagiographic Analogues Since Andreas is a poem based ultimately on a work of Greek apocryphal hagiography, it would be interesting to know if the blooming blood miracle has any parallels elsewhere within the corpus of Greek apocryphal hagiography, or even in any

43 William Camden, Britain, or A Chorographicall Description of the Most Flourishing Kingdoms, England, Scotland, and Ireland, and the Islands Adjoyning, out of the Depth of Antiquitie (London: Latham, 1637), p. 452. 44 Gerhart B. Ladner, “Vegetation Symbolism and the Concept of Renaissance,” in De Artibus Opuscula XL: Essays in Honor of Erwin Panofsky, ed. Millard Meiss (New York: New York University Press, 1961), pp. 303–22. Although Ladner is mainly concerned with the relationship between self-awareness and symbolic representations of renewal during the Italian Renaissance, he discusses several stories about vegetative rebirth from earlier periods, including Vergil’s account of the golden bough in Aeneid VI and medieval legends of the Holy Cross that talk about a reflowering of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

214

Thomas N. Hall

other work of hagiography, and it does. I can put forward two examples from Greek hagiography of accounts of the death or mutilation of a holy man and the emergence of a plant from his spilled blood, as well as a small number of more distant parallels from Latin hagiography. The earliest example I can find appears in the concluding section of the fourth-century apocryphal Acts of Philip known as the Martyrdom of Philip, in which a grapevine grows out of the blood of the apostle Philip after he is tortured and executed. The Martyrdom relates how Philip, together with his sister Marianne and his fellow-apostle Bartholomew, are preaching in the city of Hierapolis, where Philip befriends a man named Stachys and heals a woman named Nicanora, the wife of the wicked proconsul Tyrannos. When Tyrannos learns that his wife has been consorting with Christians, he flies into a rage and orders that Philip, Marianne, and Bartholomew be seized and punished. Philip and his companions are flogged and dragged through the streets as a crowd of witnesses looks on. Then they are shut in the temple of the idol of the viper (the local deity) while Tyrannos decides on a suitable method of execution. After consulting with his priests, Tyrannos has Philip hanged upside-down from a tree outside the temple with iron hooks piercing his heels and ankles. As Philip hangs from the tree and readies himself for a martyr’s death, he instructs Bartholomew to prepare his body for burial. He also asks Bartholomew to pray for him for forty days after his death, to build a church on the site of his execution, and to appoint Stachys as the church’s first bishop. Philip then prophesies to Bartholomew that after his death a grapevine will grow out of his blood beneath the tree where he is hanging: ἴδε, ὦ Βαρθολομαῖε, ὅπου στάξῃ τὸ αἷμά μου ἐπι τῆς γῆς, φυτὸν ἀνατελεῖ καὶ γενήσεται ἄμπελος καὶ ποιήσει καρπὸν σταφυλῆς. καὶ λαβόντες τὸν βότρυν ἀποθλίψατε αὐτὸν εἰς τὸ ποτήριον, καὶ μεταλαβόντες εἰς τὴν τρίτην ἡμέραν ἀναπέμψατε εἰς ὕψος τὸ ἀμήν, ἵνα γένηται τελεία προσφορά.45 See, O Bartholomew, where my blood will drop upon the earth, a plant will spring up and will become a vine and will produce fruit of a bunch of grapes. And having taken the bunch of grapes, press it into the cup, and having partaken of it on the third day, send up on high the Amen so that the offering may be complete.

Philip utters a final prayer to God and sends forth his spirit. Bartholomew then dutifully follows Philip’s instructions, and three days later a vine emerges from Philip’s blood, just as predicted:

45 Martyrdom of Philip 37.12–17, ed. François Bovon, Bernard Bouvier, and Frédéric Amsler, Acta Philippi: Textus, Corpus Christianorum Series Apocryphorum 11 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1999), p. 418.

8 Andreas’s Blooming Blood

215

μετὰ δὲ τρεῖς ἡμέρας ἐβλάστησεν τὸ φυτὸν τῆς ἀμπέλου, ὅπου ἔσταξεν τὸ αἷμα τοῦ ἀποστόλου Φιλίππου. καὶ ἐποίησαν πάντα τὰ ἐντεταλμένα αὐτοῖς παρ’ αὐτοῦ, ἐπὶ ἡμέρας τεσσαράκοντα προσφέροντες προσφορὰς καὶ ἀδιαλείπτος εὐχόμενοι. καὶ ᾠκοδόμησαν τὴν ἐκκλησίαν ἐν τῷ τόπῳ ἐκείνῳ καταστήσαντες καὶ τὸν Στάχυν ἐπίσκοπον‧ καὶ ἡ Νικάνορα δὲ καὶ πάντες οἱ πίστοι συνήγοντο καὶ οὐ δείλειπον δοξάζοντες τὸν θεὸν διὰ τὰ θαυμάσια τὰ γεγενημένα ἐπ’ αὐτούς. καὶ πᾶσα ἡ πόλις ἐπίστευσεν εἰς τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ Ἰησοῦ‧ ἐνετείλατο δὲ ὁ Βαρθολομαῖος τῷ Στάχυϊ βαπτίζειν τοὺς πιστεύοντας εἰς τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ πάτρὸς καὶ τοῦ υἱοῦ καὶ τοῦ ἁγίου πνεύματος, ἵνα λέγωσιν ἀμήν.46 After three days the plant of the vine sprouted up where the blood of the apostle Philip had dropped. And they did everything that had been commanded of them by him, offering an offering and praying without ceasing for forty days. And they built the church in that place, having appointed Stachys bishop. And Nicanora and all the faithful assembled and did not cease praising God for the wonders that had taken place among them. And the whole city believed in the name of Jesus, and Bartholomew commanded Stachys to baptize those who believed in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, so that they said Amen.

The story of Philip’s martyrdom thus concludes with a plant arising from Philip’s blood (albeit after his death), the building of a new church, and the conversion of the heathen populace, all generally paralleling events in Andreas. An even closer parallel for the Andreas passage is the account of the martyrdom of St. Therapon of Sardis, whose passion is commemorated in the Synaxarion of Constantinople on 26 May: Τῇ αὐτῇ ἡμέρᾳ ἄθλησις ἑτέρου ἁγίου ἱερομάρτυρος Θεράποντος. Ὃς ἦν ἱερεὺς κατὰ τὴν μητρόπολιν Σάρδεις ‧ καὶ διὰ τὴν ἀρίστην αὐτοῦ πολιτείαν κρατηθεὶς παρὰ τοῦ ἄρχοντος Οὐαλεριανοῦ τοὺς χριστιανοὺς διδάσκων δεσμεῖται καὶ ποινὰς ὑφίσταται. Μετὰ ταῦτα ἄγεται δέσμιος εἰς Συναὸν καὶ Ἄγκυραν καὶ ἐπὶ τοὺ Ἀστελῆ καλουμένου ποταμοῦ ὕπτιος ἐπ’ ἐδάφους ἁπλωθεὶς καταζαίνεται ῥάβδοις τὰς σάρκας ‧ καὶ πιανθεῖσα ἡ γῆ τῷ αἴματι αὐτου φυτὸν βαλάνου ἀνέδωκε μέγιστον λίαν ‧ ὃ μέχρι τὴς σήμερον δείκνυται ἀείφυλλον ὄν, πᾶσαν νόσον καὶ πᾶσαν μαλακίαν ἰώμενον. Καὶ μετὰ ταῦτα ἤχθη εἰς τὸ θέμα τῶν θρᾳκησίων πλησίον τοῦ ποταμοῦ Ἑρμοῦ ὑπὸ τὴν ἐπισκοπὴν Σατάλων ‧ καὶ πολλαῖς ὑποβληθεὶς τιμωρίαις καὶ κακώσεσι, τὸν τοῦ μαρτυρίου στέφανον ἐκομίσατο.47

46 Martyrdom of Philip 41, ed. Bovon et al., pp. 426–28. 47 Synaxarium Ecclesiae Constantinopolitanae e codice Sirmondiano nunc Berolinensi, ed. Hippolyte Delehaye, Propylaeum ad Acta Sanctorum Novembris (Brussels, 1902), cols. 710–11 (for 26 May). The places mentioned here are all in Lydia, western Anatolia. Synaos is the present-day Turkish city of Simav. The city identified as Ankara is probably not present-day Ankara but Ankyra Sidera, just north-east of Kilise Köy near the lake of Simav. On the geography of Therapon’s itinerary, see L. Robert, Villes d’Asie Mineure: Études de géographie antique, 2nd ed., Études Orientales 2 (Paris: E. de Boccard, 1962), pp. 95–96.

216

Thomas N. Hall

This same day [26 May] commemorates the passion of another saint, the holy martyr Therapon. He was priest in the metropolitan city of Sardis, and because he won the city over from the ruler Valerian through his excellent conduct and instructed them as Christians, he was put in chains and submitted to torture. After that he was taken prisoner to Synaos and to Ankara, and near the river called Astela he was spread out on the ground on his back and his flesh was lacerated with rods. And as the earth became enriched with his blood, it gave forth an exceedingly great fruit-bearing tree that can still be seen today, eternally green, and it heals all diseases and all illnesses. From there he was then taken to the burial ground of the Thracians by the river Hermon—of which the episcopal see was said to be Satala, consecrated under the metropolitan of Sardis—and having been subjected to many torments, he at last obtained the crown of martyrdom.

St. Therapon of Sardis is not well known in the West, and his identity is muddled by the existence of two other saints by the same name (one from Cyprus, the other from Germany).48 Yet his death by flagellation is recorded in the most important Byzantine synaxaria and menologia,49 in several hymns,50 and in an eleventhcentury Greek metrical calendar by Christopher of Mytilene.51 The notice of his passion in the Synaxarion of Constantinople is important for gauging the reception of his legend because as the largest and most influential collection of Greek saints’ lives arranged for liturgical use, the Synaxarion of Constantinople is effectively

48 On the cult of St. Therapon of Sardis, and on the connection to his namesakes Therapon of Cyprus and Therapon of Germany, see R. Janin, La géographie ecclésiastique de l’empire byzantin. Première partie: Le siège de Constantinople et le patriarcat œcuménique. Tome III: Les églises et les monastères de Constantinople (Paris: Institue français d’études byzantines, 1953), pp. 255–56; J.-M. Sauget, “Teraponte,” Bibliotheca Sanctorum, ed. Filippo Caraffa et al., 13 vols. (Rome: Istituto Giovanni XXIII nella Pontificia Università lateranense, 1961–70) XII, cols. 368–69; and H. Delehaye, “Saints de Chypre,” Analecta Bollandiana 26 (1907), 161–301, who speculates (at pp. 247–49) that the saints of Cyprus and Sardis were historically the same individual, and that the cult of Therapon of Sardis branched out as the saint’s relics were transferred from Satalia to Cyprus, where a church was dedicated to St. Therapon. 49 In addition to the passion notices printed here and below from the Synaxarion of Constantinople and the Menologion of Basil II, Therapon’s martyrdom is also recorded in the tenthcentury Typicon ed. and trans. Juan Mateos, Le Typicon de la Grande Église, 2 vols., Orientalia Christiana Analecta 65 (Rome: Pont. Institutum Orientalium Studiorum, 1962) I, 298–99 (for 25 May); and in the twelfth-century Synaxarium Chiffletianum, as noted by François Halkin, “Un nouveau Synaxaire byzantin: le ms. Gr. Lit. d. 6 de la Bibliothèque Bodléienne, à Oxford,” in Halkin, Recherches et documents d’hagiographie byzantine, Subsidia Hagiographica 51 (Brussels: Société des Bollandistes, 1971), pp. 14–35 (at p. 26, for 27 May). Notices of Therapon’s passion in medieval Slavic calendars and menologia are collected by Ivan Martinov, Annus Ecclesiasticus Graeco-Slavicus (Brussels: Henrici Goemaere, 1863), pp. 139–40, 334, 339, 343, 348, 350, and 354. 50 Indexed by Henrica Follieri, Initia Hymnorum Ecclesiae Graecae, 5 vols. in 6, Studi e testi 211–15 bis (Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1966) V.2, 140. 51 I Calendari in metro innografico di Cristoforo Mitileneo, ed. and trans. Enrica Follieri, 2 vols., Subsidia Hagiographica 63 (Brussels: Société des Bollandistes, 1960) I, 439, and II, 296–98.

8 Andreas’s Blooming Blood

217

the authoritative record of the Byzantine cult of saints. By the late tenth century it had circulated throughout Eastern churches in manuscripts so numerous that its exact age and origin cannot be determined, but the collection can be traced at least as far back as the reign of Emperor Leo VI (886–911),52 so that the notice of Therapon’s martyrdom can be dated at the latest to the opening of the tenth century. The substance of Therapon’s passion narrative is also corroborated by a parallel notice in the Menologion of Basil II from the close of the tenth century, in which Therapon’s blood yields not a fruit-bearing tree but a great evergreen oak: Θεράπων, ὁ τοῦ Χριστοῦ ἱερομάρτυς, ἱερεὺς ὑπάρχων τῆς ἐν Σάρδει ἁγίας ἐκκλησίας, καὶ διὰ τῆς διδασκαλίας αὐτοῦ πολλοὺς τῶν ἀρίστων ἐπιστρέφων ἐπὶ τὸν Κύριον ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦν Χριστὸν, καὶ βαπτίζων, ἐκρατήθη παρὰ τοῦ ἄρχοντος Οὐαλεριανοῦ, καὶ δεθεὶς ἀπεκλείσθη. Εἶτα τῆς φυλακῆς ἐκβληθεὶς, ἤχθη δέσμιος εἰς Συναὸν, καὶ πλησίον τοῦ ποταμοῦ ἀπλωθεὶς, καὶ δεθεὶς εἰς τέσσαρας πάλους ὕπτιος, ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν ἐτύφθη σφοδρῶς, ἕως κατεξάνθησαν αἱ σάρκες αὐτοῦ τοὶς ῥαβδοις. Ἐκ δὲ τοῦ αἵματος αὐτοῦ πιοῦσα ἡ γῆ, φυτὸν βαλάνου ἀπέδωκεν μέγιστου λίαν ‧ ὅπερ μέχρι τῆς σήμερον φαίνεται ἀείφυλλον ὃν, πᾶσαν νόσον καὶ πᾶσαν μαλακίαν τῶν προσερχομένων ἰώμενον.53 Therapon, the holy martyr of Christ, was priest of the sacred church at Sardis, and because he converted many of the noblest citizens to our Lord Jesus Christ through his teaching and baptized them, he was seized by the ruler Valerian and locked up in chains. Then he was removed from the garrison and taken prisoner to Syanos, and he was spread out on his back near the river and was tied to four stakes and was severely beaten on the ground until his flesh was lacerated by rods. And suffused with his blood, the earth gave forth the most enormous oak tree, which appears eternally green up to the present day and whose green foliage cures every disease and every illness of those who approach it.

Eventually a version of this legend also passed into oral tradition and spread beyond its presumable point of origin in what is now western Turkey, for the same miracle is also reported to have occurred not at Sardis but at Sardica (now Sofia, Bulgaria), where until the beginning of the twentieth century the trunk of a great oak could be seen which local inhabitants referred to as “the tree of St. Therapon,” believing it to mark the spot of his passion.54 The tree had

52 F. X. Murphy, “Synaxary,” New Catholic Encyclopedia, 2nd ed., 15 vols. (Washington, DC: Thomson/Gale, 2003) XIII, 678–79. 53 Menologium Basilianum, ex editione cardinalis Albani (PG 117, cols. 473D–476B); also printed in Acta Sanctorum, Mai VI (Antwerp: Michaël Knobarum, 1688), pp. 680–81. Neither of these passion notices is referenced in BHG. 54 Hippolyte Delehaye, The Legends of the Saints: An Introduction to Hagiography, trans. V. M. Crawford (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1961), pp. 44–45. The legend of the tree is recounted by Constantin Jireček, “Das christliche Element in der topographischen Nomenclatur der Balkanländer,” Sitzungsberichte der kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Vienna, Phil.-hist. Classe 136.11 (1897), pp. 54–58, who gives a first-hand description of the

218

Thomas N. Hall

become a shrine to the saint, and pilgrims continued to travel there to obtain fragments of the tree, which were believed to possess healing powers. In addition, a handful of legends that exemplify a similar pattern can also be found in Western Latin hagiography, although not as many as one might expect, and they aren’t as close to the blooming blood scene in Andreas as the Greek legends of St. Philip and St. Therapon. Gregory of Tours relates three stories about trees that miraculously grow from the resting places of Gallic saints and martyrs: a laurel tree sprang up from the grave of St. Baudillius at Nîmes,55 a pear tree grew from the graves of St. Nazarius and St. Celsus,56 and a mulberry tree rose from the spot where St. Genesius of Arles was martyred by decapitation. In the story of St. Genesius, as with Therapon, the faithful who sought help from Genesius carried away so many slivers of the tree that only the stump remained in Gregory’s day, “still alive for those who make devout requests, and it offers similar remedies.”57 Elsewhere, when the grave of the martyr Lucius of Cyrene was opened, three roses were seen growing from his breast; from the blood of St. Tatona, who was murdered in 343 under King Sapor, a fig tree arose; lilies bloomed from the seventhcentury grave of Bishop Vitalis in Salzburg; and when the tomb of the Cistercian William of Montpellier in Grande-Selve was opened, a lily was found growing from his mouth with the phrase “Ave Maria” written in gold letters on each petal.58

Conclusions The Andreas-poet was not the first person to tell a story about a hero who undergoes torture, experiences a real or symbolic death, and sheds his blood on the ground, from which a plant grows as a miraculous token of his spiritual resurrection. Versions of this tale-type go back at least to the thirteenth century B.C. and

tree trunk and discusses the vitality of the Therapon cult in Bulgaria during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. 55 Gregory of Tours, Liber in gloria martyrum 77, ed. Bruno Krusch, MGH SRM 1.2 (Hanover: Hahn, 1885), pp. 89–90; Gregory of Tours, Glory of the Martyrs, trans. Raymond Van Dam, Translated Texts for Historians 3 (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1988), p. 100. 56 Gregory, Liber in gloria martyrum 46, ed. Krusch, pp. 69–70; Glory of the Martyrs, trans. Van Dam, p. 70. 57 Gregory, Liber in gloria martyrum 67, ed. Krusch, p. 83; Glory of the Martyrs, trans. Van Dam, p. 91. 58 The examples of Lucius, Tatona, Vitalis, and William are discussed by Heinrich Günter, Psychologie der Legende: Studien zu einer wissenschaftlichen Heiligen-Geschichte (Freiburg: Herder, 1949), p. 268.

8 Andreas’s Blooming Blood

219

became an integral feature of the myths of Osiris, Agdestis, Attis, and Adonis, as well as a host of more recent folktales scattered about Europe and the Near East. The blooming blood episodes in the Greek Martyrdom of Philip and the passion notices for St. Therapon are especially noteworthy here since they show that this ancient narrative pattern, born of Egyptian and Greek mythology, has been adapted for the literature of Christian martyrdom, and of course the Philip and Therapon stories are both relatively proximate in language and genre to the literary milieu of the original Greek Acts of Andrew and Matthias, the ultimate source of Andreas. Notice that in both the Philip and Therapon stories, as in Andreas, the hero is a saint who enters hostile territory and performs acts of piety, then is seized and brutally tortured by his pagan enemies. The saint’s blood seeps into the ground and gives rise to a vine or a tree (and in one version of the Therapon legend a fruitbearing tree, just as in Andreas). Philip and Therapon don’t return to life or undergo a series of transformations like some of their mythological forebears, but the tree and vine that sprout from their spilled blood point to an unmistakable reformulation of the same regenerative motif that informs these other stories. Therapon, moreover, lives on through the curative powers of the tree that grew from his blood, and Philip lives on through the new church that is founded on the site of his martyrdom. The hero’s capacity for regeneration is also manifested in Andrew’s sudden rescue from the point of death and his miraculous return to health, and in this respect the blooming blood analogues help account for the unanticipated redirection of the narrative at this point in the poem. As Frederick Biggs has pointed out, Andrew’s flagellation and torture, his suffering for three days, and his prayer that God end his life are tell-tale signs of a traditional passion scene, one strikingly analogous to Christ’s passion.59 We should therefore expect Andrew to die at this point, but he comes back stronger than ever, as if resurrected, and performs a final miracle that converts his enemies. The regenerative power of Andrew’s blood thereby accomplishes a spiritual renewal that is continued and fulfilled in the baptism and spiritual rebirth of the Mermedonians. The poet offers no explanation for this dramatic reversal, but in his description of the blooming grove of fruit-bearing trees emerging from Andrew’s blood, followed by his miraculous resurrection, the sequence of events conforms precisely to this primal mythological pattern.60

59 Frederick M. Biggs, “The Passion of Andreas: Andreas 1398–1491,” 414. 60 J. Flamion, Les actes apocryphes de l’apôtre André: Les actes d’André et de Mathias, de Pierre et d’André et les textes apparentés (Louvain: Bureau de Receuil, 1911), pp. 258–59, observes that sudden reversals such as this which can be interpreted as the saint’s resurrection are common in early apocryphal acts (including the Acts of Peter and Andrew and the Slavonic Acts of Thomas), but he attributes these to the authors’ naive optimism and fondness for magic and the supernatural.

220

Thomas N. Hall

An awareness of these various analogues for the blooming blood episode in Andreas thus helps explain Andrew’s dramatic come-back as a symbolic resurrection, and it also gives us valuable insight into how the poet read his lost Latin source. If I’m right in supposing that there was no blooming blood in the poet’s source, just as there isn’t in most other recensions of the Acts of Andrew and Matthias, and if we should therefore credit the Old English poet with introducing the image of blooming trees growing out of Andrew’s blood, then we have some additional questions to wrestle with. Why did the poet think it necessary to alter the scene that he encountered in his source, and what gave him the idea to make the trees arise from Andrew’s blood instead of his fallen skin and hair? I don’t think it’s just a coincidence that the scene he created bears such a close resemblance to the blooming blood scenes in the Martyrdom of Philip, the notices of St. Therapon’s martyrdom, and even Arnobius’s account of Agdestis and Attis and Ovid’s account of Adonis. I think the Andreas-poet had either read or heard a story very much like these, and when he came to the blooming tree scene in his Latin source, he realized there was a problem. His Latin source author had obviously made a mistake. That’s not how the miracle works. Trees don’t grow out of anybody’s skin or hair.61 That makes no sense, and it’s not even an effective use of traditional Christian symbolism. What the Latin source author should have said is that the blooming trees grew out of Andrew’s blood. It’s blood, not skin or hair, that holds the power of life. Redemption comes through Christ’s blood, and the Christian Church was born out of Christ’s blood and the blood of the saints, not out of anybody’s skin or hair. The poet knew this, and he understood how the idea of rebirth through blood could add meaning to the Andrew story, so he rewrote the scene and put Andrew’s blood front and center. In so doing, he strengthened the parallel between Andrew’s near-martyrdom and the passion of Christ, and he also heightened the blood and gore in the poem, which appealed to his own sensibilities. The result is a passion and resurrection scene that is ironically both new and old, a brilliant fusion of the poet’s creative abilities and his understanding of the power of literary tradition.

61 There are numerous ancient literary texts that liken plants to hair. On the homology plants = hair, see M. L. West, Indo-European Poetry and Myth (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), p. 344. But that’s not the same thing as saying that new living plants are born from dead hair.

Thomas D. Hill

9 Guthlac as Potential Brigand: Guthlac A lines 114–40 The Old English poem Guthlac A begins with a scene in which the saved soul of a hermit and his guardian angel rejoice in the felicity which awaits him. After some comments on the tradition and value of the eremitic life in Anglo-Saxon England, the poet turns to the beginning of Guthlac’s life as a hermit. A guardian angel and a tempting demon attempted to influence him and offered him two quite different visions of his future life. Tid waes toweard; hine twegen ymb weardas wacedon þa gewin drugon— engel dryhtnes ond se atela gaest; nalæs hy him gelice lare bæron in his modes gemynd mongum tidum; oþer him þas eorþan ealle sægde læne under lyfte ond þa longan god herede on heofonum, þær haligra sawla gesittað in sigorwuldre dryhtnes dreamas— he him dæda lean georne gieldeð þam þe his giefe willað þicgan to þonce ond him þas woruld uttor lætan þonne þæt ece lif; oþer hyne scyhte þæt he sceaðena gemot nihtes sohte ond þurh neþinge wunne æfter worulde swa doð wræcmæcgas. þa þe ne bimurnað monnes feore þæs þe him to honda huþe gelædeð butan hy þy reafe rædan motan. Swa hy hine trymedon on twa healfa oþþæt þæs gewinnes weoroda dryhten on þæs engles dom ende gereahte. Feond wæs geflymed; siþþam frofre gæst in Guðlaces geoce gewunade, lufade hine ond lærde lenge hu geornor,

Thomas D. Hill, Cornell University https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501513060-010

222

Thomas D. Hill

þæt him leofedan londes wynne, bold on beorhge. (114–40)1 The time was approaching: About him two guardians Kept watch, those ones struggled—the angel of the Lord And the terrible spirit. They did not offer similar teaching at all, Into the thought of his mind on many occasions. One said that all this earth, was passing away under the sky; and praised the lasting good in the heavens, where the souls of holy ones possess in victorious glory the joys of the Lord. He (God) readily pays them the reward of deeds— to those who will receive his grace thankfully, And reject this world for themselves, [rather] than that lasting life. The other urged him that he should seek the gathering of murderous thieves by night, and evilly fight for worldly good, even as wretched outlaws do, those who do not care about a man’s life, because it [murder] brings plunder into their possession, so that they can possess the spoils. Thus, on either side they urged him on until the Lord of hosts fixed the end of the conflict according to the angel’s judgment. The enemy was put to flight—afterwards the Holy Spirit [literally “the Comforter” or “the Spirit of Comfort”] remained to aid Guthlac, loved him and taught him, the longer the more zealously, so that the joys of the land (wilderness) pleased him, the dwelling on the mountain.

In the opening scenes of Guthlac A, Guthlac’s conversion to an eremitic lifestyle is presented as a choice between two counselors. An angel urges Guthlac to be mindful of the transitoriness of earthly life and of the joys of heaven, while a devil urges Guthlac to follow a different mode of life: Guthlac should join the band of robbers (sceaðena gemot) by night, should fight in an earthly way in

1 All quotations of Guthlac A are from The Guthlac Poems of the Exeter Book, ed. Jane Annette Roberts (Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press, 1979) by line numbers. I have expanded the sign “7” as “ond.” Translations are my own and are relatively literal and intended as an aid to readers.

9 Guthlac as Potential Brigand: Guthlac A lines 114–40

223

company with those who do not care about killing men because it allows them to gather plunder and possess booty. There are certain aspects of these lines which seem somewhat problematical: secular life is not necessarily a life of violence and plunder, and in any case Guthlac as a member of the royal family of Mercia should not have been tempted to live the life of a highway robber even if he had not chosen a monastic vocation. As is often the case in reading medieval religious texts, these choices do not necessarily reflect the real life choices which the young Guthlac had to make, but rather reflect literary and specifically Biblical texts. I would suggest that this scene is modeled specifically upon Proverbs 1:7–16: 7. Timor Domini principium scientiae, sapientiam atque doctrinam stulti despiciunt. 8. Audi fili mi disciplinam patris tui, et ne dimittas legem matris tuae. 9. Ut addatur gratia capiti tuo et torques collo tuo. 10. Fili mi si te lactaverint peccatores ne adquiescas. 11. Si dixerint veni nobiscum insidiemur sanguine, abscondamus tendiculas contra insontem frustra. 12. Degluttiamus eum sicut infernus viventem, et integrum quasi descendentem in lacum. 13. Omnem pretiosam substantiam repperiemus, implebimus domos nostras spoliis. 14. Sortem mitte nobiscum marsuppium unum sit omnium nostrum. 15. Fili mi ne ambules cum eis, prohibe pedem tuum a semitis eorum. 16. Pedes enim illorum ad malum currunt, et festinant ut effundant sanguinem. 7. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Fools despise wisdom and instruction. 8. My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother: 9. That grace may be added to thy head, and a chain of gold to thy neck. 10. My son, if sinners shall entice thee, consent not to them. 11. If they shall say: Come with us, let us lie in wait for blood. let us hide snares for the innocent without cause: 12. Let us swallow him up alive like hell, and whole as one that goeth down into the pit. 13. We shall find all precious substance, we shall fill our houses with spoils. 14. Cast in thy lot with us, let us all have one purse.

224

Thomas D. Hill

15. My son, walk not thou with them, restrain thy foot from their paths. 16. For their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed blood.2

One immediate point of similarity is that just as the Old English poem is concerned with Guthlac’s initial decision to choose the eremitic life, so these verses in Proverbs concern the choice which the “son” in Proverbs must make between pursuing wisdom or following the path of the “peccatores.” Both Guthlac and the young Israelite are at the beginning of their commitment to the religious life. Again, the choice is presented in what modern readers at least would see as extremes set against each other. One can be a pious Jew or a religious aristocratic Anglo-Saxon without committing one’s life to either the study of the Hebrew Bible and the wisdom tradition or accepting the total commitment to religion which the monastic and eremitic life entail. The choice is not necessarily between religion and brigandage. Proverbs is of course part of the canon of the Old Testament (Hebrew Scriptures), so the positive choice which is offered the young learner is imagined differently than the denial of the world and the celebration of heavenly joy which the angel offers Guthlac. Rather he is taught that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, that he should honor his mother and father and that he should seek and acquire wisdom. But the way of the sinner which the demon suggests to Guthlac is quite similar to the path which evildoers propose to the young learner in Proverbs. Guthlac is to join the band of robbers and seek plunder and wealth at the expense of the lives of his victims, just as the young Israelite would, if he were to accept the guidance of “peccatores.” There are no close verbal correspondences between the Biblical passage and the Old English poem beyond commonplace terms for “spoils” and “murder,” but the conceptual parallel is striking. The religious life involves absolute commitment to worship and wisdom—the irreligious life is one of robbery and murder. One reason this passage in Guthlac A has attracted relatively little attention from Guthlac scholars is that Guthlac was in fact the leader of a war-band committed to war against Celts on the border of Mercia in the first years of his youth. Old English scholars are often fascinated by the tradition of Germanic heroic poetry. There is no question that there are some extraordinarily rich and interesting Germanic heroic poems preserved in Old English and other related

2 All references to the Bible are to the Latin Vulgate version, Biblia Sacra iuxta vulgatam versionem, 5th ed., ed. Robert Weber and Roger Gryson (Stuttgart: Deutschebibelgesellschaft, 2007) by book title, chapter, and verse numbers. For the convenience of the reader I add punctuation, since this text is printed per cola et commata. The English translation is quoted from the Douay-Rheims translation of the Vulgate.

9 Guthlac as Potential Brigand: Guthlac A lines 114–40

225

languages and these poems often fascinate young (and older) scholars and draw them to the study of the language and the tradition. One corollary of these interests is the commonly received idea that the life of a leader of a warband was glamorous and exciting. It may indeed have been exciting, but when the Guthlac A poet was thinking of the contrast between the monastic life and the secular world, he thought of this Biblical passage and in effect conflated the war-band and murderous robbers of Proverbs 1:7–16. Whether this assumption was wholly fair to the young Guthlac and those warriors who fought with him can be reasonably debated; we may assume that there was nothing covert about Guthlac’s war and he presumably made war on more than one vulnerable traveler at a time. But it seems that the poet, at least, saw nothing glamorous about Guthlac’s life as the leader of a comitatus; he thought that the young Guthlac and the young Israelite who sought wisdom faced similar choices between robbery and murder on the one hand and the cultivation of wisdom and the worship of God on the other. He also believed that both Guthlac and the young Israelite mentioned in Proverbs in the end made the right choice. And indeed the poet may have been right.

Jill Frederick

10 Performance and Audience in the Exeter Book Riddles The presence in the tenth-century Exeter Book (Exeter Cathedral Library, MS 3501) of roughly ninety-two texts conventionally categorized as riddles creates something of a riddle in itself.1 Some scholars question whether these texts should be defined, never mind grouped, as riddles at all.2 Such questioning results from their manuscript context, which is problematic: over time, folios of the Exeter Book have gone missing, and lines have been lost through damage. How many texts existed in the manuscript, and how many might have disappeared? We do not know their origins: were they gathered up from diverse sources, composed for the occasion of the collection, or some combination thereof? Were they conceived of as a unified sequence or brought together serendipitously? In addition, there are still disagreements about the number of scribes in the manuscript—whether these texts were all written in the same hand3—which itself could reveal something about their assemblage.4

1 This study uses the riddles and line numbering of the Exeter Book riddles in The Exeter Book, ed. George Philip Krapp and Elliott Van Kirk Dobbie, ASPR 3 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1936), pp. 180–210 and 229–43. The texts of all Exeter Book riddles cited here are taken from Krapp and Dobbie, and the translations are my own, except where noted. 2 John D. Niles discusses this point in Old English Enigmatic Poems and the Play of the Texts (Turnhout: Brepols, 2006), pp. 46–49. See also Patrick J. Murphy, Unriddling the Exeter Riddles (University Park: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011), pp. 29–35, for an overview of the question of genre. 3 See Patrick Conner, “On the Nature of Matched Scribes,” in Scraped, Stroked, and Bound: Materially Engaged Readings of Medieval Manuscripts, ed. Jonathan Wilcox (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013), pp. 39–73. It is my honor in this chapter to celebrate Pat Conner, the principal scholar of the Exeter Book, on the occasion of his retirement. His work is crucial for any study of this singular manuscript and its contents. 4 See Patrick W. Conner, “The Structure of the Exeter Book Codex (Exeter, Cathedral Library, MS. 3501)” (Scriptorium 40.2 [1986]: 233–42), in which he argues for one scribe working at three separate manuscript booklets over time. In his article, “The Origin of the Exeter Book of Old English Poetry” (Anglo-Saxon England 25 [1996]: 135–85), Richard Gameson takes issue with Conner’s claim of an Exeter origin for the manuscript (p. 136), but offers only uncertainty instead. Jill Frederick, Minnesota State University Moorhead (Emerita) https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501513060-011

228

Jill Frederick

Then there is the question of the audience for whom the manuscript was assembled and how its contents were meant to be received. If this collection is in fact the same as the one described as “.i. mycel englisc boc be gehwilcum þingum on leoðwisan geworht” (a large English book about a variety of things composed in verse), donated to Exeter Cathedral by Bishop Leofric in 1072,5 would its eclectic, often secular contents have seemed appropriate for a monastic audience? Or was the book intentionally compiled to include a more secular audience? Finally, given the possible complexity of audiences, were these texts meant to be received as a private reading event or one that was public and communal, or perhaps both at different moments? In his analysis of the riddles, Old English Enigmatic Poems and the Play of the Texts, John Niles addresses this dilemma: Looking at the bare text of a poem, then, how can one tell what it represents in terms of performance and audience? Was this text meant to be sounded aloud in a communal setting (in shorthand diction, “the hall”) where a common cultural heritage was celebrated and where the traditional values of a people, and particularly of its ruling class, were invoked and reinforced? Alternatively, was the text meant to be read in a sequestered setting (“the cloister”) where a single learned person might have had a unique response to the private experience of reading it?6

These many questions, together with numerous others (for instance, the Exeter Book riddles’ ostensible relationship to the Latin tradition found in the riddles of Symphonius, Aldhelm, Alcuin, and Tatwine7) are the reasons these Old English enigmatic poems continue to fascinate us.

5 The first source for information about Exeter and the Exeter Book is Patrick Conner, AngloSaxon Exeter: A Tenth-Century Cultural History (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 1993). For a concise overview of the manuscript, author, and date, see the “Introduction” to The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book, ed. Craig Williamson (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1977), especially pp. 3–12. 6 Niles, Old English Enigmatic Poems, p. 3. 7 Latin enigmata are very often contextualized as riddles, with titles that contain their solutions. Williamson observes that “a riddle was communicated from one dialect region to another, and it seems likely in light of Aldhelm’s sending his Latin riddles to Northumbria that the communication was a conscious learned and literary exchange,” underplaying the idea that riddling might have been part of a long social tradition (Old English Riddles, pp. 11–12, 23). He quotes Lawrence K. Shook: “The Anglo-Saxon riddles, like most Anglo-Saxon poems, display minimal dependence upon Latin models” (“Riddles Relating to the Anglo-Saxon Scriptorium,” in Essays in Honour of Anton Charles Pegis, ed. J. Reginald O’Donnell (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies 1974), p. 219), (Old English Riddles, p. 12, n. 3).

10 Performance and Audience in the Exeter Book Riddles

229

At present the OEN Bibliography database shows 223 items on the subject of riddles,8 but what the bibliography also demonstrates is that scholars have addressed these questions in something of a piecemeal fashion, usually in the context of providing, or questioning, putative solutions to the conundrums set out in the individual poems, or in small groups of poems. In this essay, I should like to begin setting out a more comprehensive assessment of speaker and audience in the riddles without concern for what the solutions might be, since the solutions do not have an impact upon the engagement between performer and receiver. I will argue that the texts in the Exeter Book familiarly categorized as riddles contain implicit vestiges of their own performance contexts, retaining oral and aural cues that suggest an intended presentation to an attentive communal audience. In particular, such vestiges of performance that merit further analysis include the relationship of the speaker to the riddlic creature, that is, the fusion of subject and object as it is implied by the use of first person singular and plural and the dual; locative phrases; the semantic boundaries of verbs and their modalities (in particular the imperative and interrogative); and finally, alliteration, as it contributes to meaning and enforces memory. Examining these features will help to further the case that these texts are, in fact, certainly riddles and distinctly Anglo-Saxon at that, rather than attempts merely to translate a classical tradition.9 While, unlike some charms, Anglo-Saxon riddles do not contain instructions for physical acts to accompany their verbal performance, nevertheless one may easily and logically understand riddles as “dramatic enactment,” particularly in the context of a firstperson speaker. The speaker, by the very act of speaking, makes immediate the creature and circumstance that shapes the riddle very similarly to what the speech act theorist J. L. Austin calls “performative utterance—a speech act in which ‘saying is doing,’ a form of action in which saying makes it so.”10 Such a persona fuses the speaker and the riddle’s object irrevocably. The persistent scholarly attention, both direct and indirect, to providing solutions to the Exeter Book riddles is something of a bookish pursuit, so it is easy to forget that these works might well have been presented orally, for a crowd, in performance of some sort. Since the first-person speaker found in a significant number of the riddles would have often necessitated a persona defined by the riddle’s creature itself, such speakers create a sense of vocality at

8 For comparison’s sake, the database contains 362 items for the elegies and 136 for “Dream of the Rood.” 9 Cf. Marie Nelson, “The Rhetoric of the Exeter Book Riddles,” Speculum 49 (1974): 421–40. 10 Cited in Brenda Danet and Bryna Bogoch, “Orality, Literacy, and Performativity in AngloSaxon Wills,” in Language and the Law, ed. John Gibbons (London and New York: Longman, 1994), p. 109 of pp. 100–35.

230

Jill Frederick

the least. Hugh Magennis notes in his study, “Audience(s), Reception, Literacy,” that “reading seems normally to have meant reading aloud, whether alone . . . or, more usually, publicaly.”11 Such a presentation meant that “literature in the vernacular was accessible to the non-literate as well as to the literate.”12 John Niles nonetheless observes: On the one hand, the Exeter Book riddles come down to us only as written texts. The voices of their posers, assuming there once were posers, cannot now be heard. On the other hand, Old English poetry in general was meant to be voiced aloud. It was a social medium to its core. Poets maintained the trope of bodily presence and physical voice long after Old English verse had developed from its oral roots and had become a supple medium for writers . . . Poetry, like riddling, thus presents itself rhetorically as a public and interactive form of communication even when we encounter it on the manuscript page.13

The heart of any social exchange is in dialogue, and most of the ninety-five works presented as riddles in Krapp and Dobbie’s edition of the Exeter Book contain an “I-You” relationship since, of these ninety-five, forty-eight use a first-person speaker of the type Craig Williamson terms “projective”; that is, the speaker takes on the identity of the riddle’s creature.14 Twenty-seven use a firstperson speaker he terms “narrative,” one in which the speaker retains a human identity in order to describe the riddle’s creature.15 Marie Nelson has articulated this “I-You” opposition in her study, “Four Social Functions of Riddles,” noting that the first of these functions is “the competitive exercise of verbal skills.”16 Perhaps more pertinently, she does not treat the riddles as individual exercises in reading silently; her analysis assumes performance (albeit without arguing specifically for a performative context).17 Although the riddles do not contain instructions for physical acts to accompany their verbal performance, nevertheless, one may easily and logically understand riddles as dramatic enactments.

11 Hugh Magennis, “Audience(s), Reception, Literacy,” in A Companion to Anglo-Saxon Literature, ed. Phillip Pulsiano and Elaine Treharne (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2001), p. 86 of pp. 84–101. 12 Magennis, “Audience(s), Reception, Literacy,” p. 89. 13 Niles, Old English Enigmatic Poems, p. 44. 14 Williamson, Old English Riddles, p. 25. 15 Williamson, Old English Riddles, p. 26. 16 Marie Nelson, “Four Social Functions of the Exeter Book Riddles,” Neophilologus 75 (1991): 445 of 445–50. 17 Some have dismissed or underplayed the social aspect of the riddles. For instance, Craig Williamson asserts, “There is nothing . . . to suggest that the Anglo-Saxons maintained a tradition of social riddling” (Old English Riddles, p. 23), and John Niles has concluded, “The artful and uncompromising textuality of the Exeter Book riddles is in part what makes them so interesting from a literary perspective” (Old English Enigmatic Poems, p. 24).

10 Performance and Audience in the Exeter Book Riddles

231

Even in the case of the first-person narrative speaker, the persona creates a kind of actor on a kind of stage. So many of the riddles end with the command, Saga hwæt ic hatte, “Say what I am called,” they imply an audience that might well shout out a response, perhaps as a group or, as Nelson suggests, in competition with one another.18 An alternative command is found in a number of other riddles, among them 14, 16, 26, and 27 (commonly solved as “horn,” “anchor,” “Bible” or “book,” and “mead,” respectively):19 Frige hwæt ic hatte, “ask what I am called”; here the speaker uses the verb fricgan, “to ask,”20 a locution that also encourages the notion of dialogue between teller and audience, a real face-to-face encounter between the two participants. Indeed, most of the verbs used to ask or encourage a response imply that the response will be or should be spoken. Riddle 43, commonly solved as “soul and body,” ends with the assertion, Mon, se þe wille, cyþe cynewordum hu se cuma hatte, eðþe se esne, þe ic her ymb sprice (14b–16) A man, who wants to, may announce with fitting words how the stranger or the servant that I speak about here is named.

It uses in this statement the verbs cyþe (from cyþan, “to announce” or “make known”) and sprice (from sprecan, “to speak” or “say”).21 Both these verbs suggest that, at least at one time, the riddle’s sixteen lines were meant to elicit an oral response from an audience, and were delivered orally to that audience. Many of the riddles specifically ask for a solution, their requests implying that the respondent should provide a spoken answer, and a number of riddles seem particularly to indicate the speaker intends to engage the audience in a vocalized competition. For instance, in Riddle 35, the speaker closes by asking,

18 Seventeen riddles include this command or a slight variant: 1, 8, 10, 12, 19, 23, 35, 36, 39, 42, 55, 62, 66, 67, 80, 83, and 86. 19 Krapp and Dobbie, The Exeter Book, pp. 187, 188–89, 193–94. For references to riddle solutions through 1980, see Donald K. Fry, “Exeter Riddle Book Solutions,” Old English Newsletter 15 (1981): 22–33. This list has been extended by Bernard Muir, The Exeter Book Anthology of Old English Literature, 2nd rev. ed., 2 vols. (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2000), 2:655–63 and 735–39. John Niles has asserted “an Exeter Book riddle should not be considered solved until a felicitous answer is given to it in Old English” (Old English Enigmatic Poems, p. 139), and to that purpose provides a comprehensive list on pp. 141–44. 20 Joseph Bosworth, An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary: Based on the Manuscript Collections of the Late Joseph Bosworth, ed. Thomas Northcote Toller (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1898), s.v. fricgan. All references hereafter to this dictionary are cited as Bosworth Toller. 21 Bosworth Toller, s.v. cyþan, s.v. sprecan.

232

Jill Frederick

Saga soðcwidum, searoþoncum gleaw, wordum wisfæst, hwæt þis gewæde sy (13–14) Declare with true sayings, wise man, learned in words, what this garment might be.

The same overt emphasis on the skillful use of words, appealing to the audience’s intellectual pride, coupled with the need to articulate out loud, appears serendipitously enough in the opening question of Riddle 1:22 Hwylc is hæleþa þæs horsc ond þæs hygecræftig þæt þæt mæge asecgan, hwa mec on sið wræce, þonne ic astige strong (1–3a) Who among men is so clever and so skillful in mind that he can say who might drive me on my journey, when I arise powerful.

Intermittently through the text of Riddle 1 the speaker exhorts the audience to speak aloud what it understands: Saga hwa mec þecce (14b), “Say who covers me”; Saga, þoncol mon,/ hwa mec bregde of brimes fæþmum . . . (27b–28a), “Say, thoughtful man, who drew me from the ocean’s embrace.” Beyond the request for a spoken solution to the riddle, a general emphasis on the spoken word as a marker of the wise man occurs as well in other riddles (32, 36, 39, and 67): (1)

Rece, gif þu cunne, wis worda gleaw, hwæt sio wiht sie (32.13b–14) Explain, if you are able, skilled in wise words, what the creature might be; (2) Þu wast, gif þu const, to gesecganne, þæt we soð witan, hu þære wihte wise gonge (36.12b–14) You know, if you are able to say, that we know the truth, how the creature’s nature goes; (3) Gif þu mæge reselan recene gesecgan soþum wordum, saga hwæt hio hatte (39.28–29) If you may say the answer quickly with true words, say what she is called; (4) Secge se þe cunne, wisfæstra hwylc, hwæt seo wiht sy (67.15b–16) Let him say who may know, any man firm in wisdom, what this creature might be.

The imperative saga in Riddles 1 and 39, the gerund to gesecganne in Riddle 36, and the subjunctive secge in Riddle 67, each from secgan, “to say,” as well as the imperative rece in Riddle 32, from reccan, “to explain,” all stand in obvious contrast with the diction in line 8a in Riddle 41, Þæt is to geþencanne, “that is 22 In this one instance, I follow Craig Williamson’s argument—and thus his line numbers— that the first three riddles in Krapp and Dobbie’s numeration are in fact one riddle. See Williamson, Old English Riddles, pp. 127–33 for his reasoning.

10 Performance and Audience in the Exeter Book Riddles

233

to consider,” which asks for a private analysis. In fact, Riddle 41 seems quite atypical in its closing request, Þæt is to geþencanne þeoda gehwylcum, wisfæstum werum, hwæt seo wiht sy (ll. 8–9) That is for each person to consider, all wise men, what this creature might be,

in that it asks the audience for interior speculation—to think about, to consider— about a potential solution. The locution, to geþencanne, finds a parallel in Riddle 28, “Micel is to hycganne/ wisfæstum men, hwæt seo wiht sy” (12b–13; It is important to consider for learned men, what this creature might be), and in Riddle 31, “Micel is to hycgenne/ wisum woðboran, hwæt sio wiht sie” (23b–24; It is important to consider for wise speakers, what the creature might be). However, these few verbs asking for mental exercise, silent comprehension or understanding, are far outnumbered by verbs that are meant to elicit a spoken response. Other means of suggesting the audience’s engagement include the use of the first-person plural. Riddle 36, for instance, commonly solved as “ship,” ends in this way: Þu wast, gif þu const, to gesecganne, þæt we soð witan, hu þære wihte wise gonge (12b–14) You know, if you understand speech, that we know the truth—how that creature’s custom may go.

Not only does the last assertion encourage the group response, it also creates a common purpose of shared knowledge within the group with the pronoun we. Forms of the first-person plural appear in other riddles, as well: Riddles 40 (“Creation”), 41 (“water”), 42 (“cock and hen”), and 55 (“weapon holder”[?]), all engage their audiences using plurals: (1)

is þæs gores sunu gonge hrædra, þone we wifel wordum nemnað (40.72–73) The movement of the dirt’s son is quicker than what we name the beetle with words;23 (2) Ne magon we her in eorþan owiht lifgan, nymðe we brucen þæs þa bearn doð (41.6–7) Nor may we here on earth live at all unless we enjoy what its children do;

23 Williamson notes in his commentary that in these lines “the riddler forgets momentarily who is speaking (the personified ‘Creation’)” (Williamson, Old English Riddles, p. 272), but I would suggest that the pronoun insists on a public quality that the literate tradition of the Latin original does not have.

234

Jill Frederick

(3)

Nu is undyrne werum æt wine hu þa wihte mid us, heanmode twa, hatne sindon (42.15b–17) Now it is revealed to men at wine-drinking how with us the two vulgar-minded creatures are called; (4) Ic seah in healle . . . . . . rode tacn, þæs us to roderum up hlædre rærde . . . (55.1–6a) I saw in the hall . . . the sign of the cross that for us raised a ladder up to heaven.

The same connection between speaker and audience is also created using an instance of the first-person dual. Riddle 60, tentatively solved as “reed-pen,” creates a more one-on-one effect in ll. 14b–17: . . . ic wiþ þe sceolde for unc anum twam ærendspræce abeodan bealdlice, swa hit beorna ma uncre wordcwidas widdor ne mænden I with you, between us two alone, must boldly announce the message, so more men may not more widely relate our speeches.

These final lines, then, seem to present the object’s message as a dialogue between that object and its audience, the dual pronouns unc and uncre creating a slightly more intimate tone. This riddle and other riddles that involve writing materials are particularly interesting for the emphasis they place on the written record, even as the riddles themselves might be orally performed. Another cue suggesting performance can be found in locative phrases, both temporal and spatial.24 Some fifteen riddles use the adverb nu—“now, at this time”—in order to suggest the very moment in which the speaker unfolds the riddle before the audience (14, 24, 26, 27, 40, 42, 49, 53, 55, 71, 73, 77, 83, 92, 93, and 95): (1)

Nu mec wlonc þeceð geong hagostealdmon golde ond sylfore (14.1b–2) Now a young warrior covers me, bright with gold and silver; (2) Nu ic haten eom (24.9b) Now I am called (3) Nu þa gereno ond se reada telg ond þa wuldorgesteald wide mære dryhtfolca helm (26.15–17b)

24 See Marie Nelson, “Time in the Exeter Book Riddles,” Philological Quarterly 54 (1975): 511–18.

10 Performance and Audience in the Exeter Book Riddles

235

Now the ornaments and the red dye and the glorious possessions widely may celebrate the people’s protector; (4) Nu ic eom bindere ond swingere (27.6b–7a) Now I am a binder and a scourger; (5) nu me wrætlice weaxað on heafde (40.102) Now [curled locks] grow wonderfully on my head; (6) Nu is undyrne (42.15b) Now it is clear; (7) Ic þæt cyn nu gen nemnan ne wille (49.8b–9a) Even now I will not name that sort; (8) Nu he fæcnum weg þurh his heafdes mægen hildegieste oþrum rymeð (53.8b–10a) Now through the power of his head he clears a way for another crafty enemy; (9) Nu me þisses gieddes ondsware ywe (55.14b–15a) Now reveal to me this song’s answer; (10) nu eom wraþra laf (71.3b) now I am a remnant of anger; (11) Nu eom mines frean folme bysigo[] (73.8) Now I am troubled by my lord’s hand; (12) Nu wile monna sum

(13)

(14)

(15)

(16)

(17)

min flæsc fretan (77.4b–5a) Now a certain man will eat my flesh; Nu me fah warað eorþan broþor (83.4b–5a) Now the earth’s brother, hostile, possesses me; Nu eom guðwigan hyhtlic hildewæpen (92.4b–5a) Now I am a warrior’s joyful battle-weapon; Nu ic blace swelge wuda ond wætre (93.24b–25a) Now I swallow black wood and water; Nu snottre men swiþast lufiaþ midwist mine (95.7–8b) Now wise men especially love my presence; Þeah nu ælda bearn, londbuendra lastas mine swiþe secað (95.10b–12a) Although now the sons of men, land-dwellers, quickly seek my footsteps.

236

Jill Frederick

On its own, perhaps, the use of nu might have only a limited impact on the idea of immediate performance. In each of the instances above, however, the adverb as it is coupled with the first-person narrative reinforces the idea of fusion between the speaker and the riddle-object as well as the actual, real-time interaction between the speaker and the listener. In addition to nu, another adverbial marker suggesting the riddle’s performance—as opposed to private reading—is gen, “yet” (i.e., at the present time, now), “still” (i.e., from a preceding time, ongoing), “hitherto,” which appears in three riddles (20, 40, and 49): (1)

Ic wiþ bryde ne mot hæmed habban, ac me þæs hyhtplegan geno wyrneð (20.27b–29a) I cannot have marriage with a bride, but this joyous play is still refused me; (2) Ic eom on goman gena swetra þonne þu beobread blende mid hunige (40.58–59) I am on the palate yet sweeter than the bee-bread you blend with honey; (3) Ic þæt cyn nu gen nemnan ne wille (49.8b–9a) Even now I will not name that sort.

As with the use of nu, gen in conjunction with the present tense provides a sense of the immediate, ongoing situation between speaker and listener. Spatial locatives often suggest a dramatic immediacy, as well. We can find uses of the adverb her, “here, in this world, at this time,” in five of the riddles— 40, 41, 43, 49, and 88: (1)

ic fulre eom þonne þis fen swearte þæt her yfle adelan stinceð (40.31–32) I am fouler than this dark swamp that stinks here with evil mud; Ic eom wyrslicre þonne þes wudu fula oððe þis waroð þe her aworpen ligeð (40.48–49) I am viler than this foul wood or this seaweed that lies here cast away; ic eom wraþre þonne wermod sy, þe her on hyrstum heaswe stondeþ (40.60–61) I am more bitter than the wormwood may be, that stands here dusky in the woods; ic eom micle þonne þes lytla wyrm þe her on flode gæð fotum dryge (40.76–77) I am larger than the smallest worm that goes here with dry feet on the water; hnescre ic eom micle halsrefeþre, seo her on winde wæweð on lyfte (40.80–81) I am softer than the feathers here that the wind blows into the air; (2) Ne magon we her in eorþan owiht lifgan,

10 Performance and Audience in the Exeter Book Riddles

237

nymðe we brucen þæs þa bearn doð (41.6–7) Nor may we here on earth live at all unless we enjoy what its children do; (3) Mon, se þe wille, cyþe cynewordum hu se cuma hatte, eðþa se esne, þe ic her ymb sprice (43.14b–16) A man who wants to may announce with fitting words how the stranger or the servant that I speak about here is named.

The juxtaposition of the verb in line 16b with the locative particularly emphasizes the immediate locus of and the vocal interaction between speaker and listener. (4)

(5)

Ic þæt cyn nu gen nemnan ne wille, þe him to nytte swa ond to dugþum doþ þæt se dumba her, eorp unwita, ær forswilgeð (49.8b–11) Even now I will not name that sort who for their use and their good that the dumb one here, the dark fool, before has all swallowed up; Nis min broþor her, ac ic sceal broþorleas bordes on ende staþol weardian (88.20b–22a) My brother is not here but I, brotherless, shall stand guard at the end of the table.

In each of these riddles, the locative here situates the exchange between the speaker and audience in the real-time moment of performance, conjuring up the riddle creature before a communal group each time the riddle is presented. Riddle 31, in contrast, situates its creature in rather a larger context than the specific locale of the performance space, her, described in each of the above riddles. It begins its narrative description by noting “Is þes middangeard missenlicum/ wisum gewlitegad, wrættum gefrætwad” (1–2; This land is with various customs adorned, splendidly ornamented). In this instance the riddle’s creature operates within a broader territorial arena, middangeard, “the entirety of earth.” A number of riddles also allude to the location of performance space by other linguistic means. Riddle 48, for instance, specifies that its action takes place in front of an audience by using the preposition for, “in front of”: Ic gefrægn for hæleþum hring endean, torhtne butan tungan (1–2a) I heard a ringed thing speak in front of men, brilliant without a tongue.

238

Jill Frederick

So too does Riddle 55: Ic þæs beames mæg eaþe for eorlum æþelu secgan (7b–8) I can easily in front of noble men speak about the tree.

This riddle may also reinforce the speaker’s physical position in its closing words when it states Nu me þisses giedde ondsware ywe, se hine on mede wordum secgan hu se wudu hatte (14b–16) Now reveal to me this song’s answer, at mead-drinking say with words what the wood is called.25

However, Riddle 42 seems especially specific about the placement of its action. The speaker sets up a context on flette (5b), “on the hall floor,” where he mæg/ . . . rincum secgan (5b–6a), “can speak to men,” who are sitting æt wine (16a), “at their wine-drinking.” Moreover, the riddler creates a distinct sense of group competition in lines 11b–14a: Hwylc þæs hordgates cægen cræfte þa clamme onleac þe þa rædellan wið rynemenn hygefæste heold Who may unlock the treasure-gate’s chains with the key’s art, those which held steadfast against the rune-men?

Admittedly, there seems to be some ambiguity about the nature of this gaming, since the speaker describes the audience as þam þe bec witan (7a), “those who know books,” and his own method of riddling þurh runstafas (6a), “through runic letters,” suggesting written, rather than spoken, play.26 But in this riddle, the

25 Bosworth Toller defines the word med (in line 15b mede, a feminine noun in the dative singular) as “meed, reward,” allowing for a translation of se hine on mede/ wordum secgan as “Now reveal to me this song’s answer, for a reward say with words,” but I believe a pun on the word medu, “mead,” may well be possible here, with the translation I offer of se hine on mede/ wordum secgan as “say with words, who are in mead-drinking.” Such a translation would work well with the riddle’s opening claim, Ic seah in healle, þær hæleð druncon,/ on flet beran feower cynna, “I saw in the hall where warriors drink, four kinds borne onto the floor,” since the idea of mead-drinking reinforces the image of hall-community in these first lines. 26 Patrizia Lendinara has observed of this riddle that the presence of runes indicates it “has been recast for a bookish audience” (“The World of Anglo-Saxon Learning,” in The Cambridge

10 Performance and Audience in the Exeter Book Riddles

239

runic names have been spelled out, suggesting their pronunciation aloud rather than the exercise of silent reading. Seth Lerer has addressed this issue, asserting: The poet’s words are not the secret codes of private communication, but the public invitation to interpret, as he writes them on the floor for all to see. Only those who know books, he states, will understand this riddle, yet, runes are not a “bookish” but an epigraphical script, nor does it take much book-learning to grasp the opening scene.27

While Lerer can be challenged in regarding runes as merely “epigraphical,” we have in this scene, then, not only a suggestion that contradicts the idea that riddles have no performance cues (as we find in the Charms), but a statement about the placement of the riddler himself before a group. In fact, this public and communal scenario might well account for the troublesome presence of runes, which seem to suggest a private reading event, in other riddles: 19, 24, 36, 58, 64, 75, and 91. In Riddle 58, for instance, a similar situation exists, where, in its final statement, “Þry sind in naman/ ryhte runstafas, þara is Rad forma” (There are in its name three true runes, the first of which is rad), the rune itself, ᚱ, is spelled out. It suggests a comprehensive answer to the question of whether their inclusion in the riddles implies a purely visual, private experience or whether they were meant to be represented orally, perhaps as the words they embody in addition to their alphabetic aspect. Part of the problem in seeking to attain interpretive fullness is the incomplete evidence of the Exeter Book itself: the damages to the extant pages and the missing folios. Williamson acknowledges in his notes to Riddle 19 [Williamson 17] that Max Förster first perceived “that where the scribe puts whole groups of runes between points, as in Rids. [19] and [75], he meant each group of runes to be taken as a word, with the letters indicated by the runes read backwards.”28 Finally, while alliteration is obviously a defining feature of all Old English poetry, a number of instances in the riddles specifically suggest a voiced performance of the verse. Riddles 7 (“swan”), 8 (“nightingale”), 24 (“jay”), and 57 (“swallows”), in particular, contain clues to possible solutions through their sounds, though admittedly the qualities of onomatopoeia may often be subjective: in the ears of the listener, as in the eye of the beholder. Jonathan Wilcox provides a brief analysis of the sound clusters in Riddle 7 which help to create the putative solution of swan. He points out the verbs describing the bird’s frætwe (6b), its “trappings”: swigað,

Companion to Old English Literature, ed. Malcolm Godden and Michael Lapidge [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991], p. 268 of pp. 264–81). 27 Seth Lerer, “The Riddle and the Book: Exeter Book Riddle 42 in its Contexts,” Papers on Language and Literature 25 (1989): 7 of 3–18. 28 Williamson, Old English Riddles, 188.

240

Jill Frederick

“[my feathers are] silent” (1a), swogað, “they rush” (7a), swinsiað, “they make melody” (7b), singað, “they sing” (8a), that create the “swooshing sound” of the bird’s feathers.29 (He also suggests that in Riddle 33, with its possible solution of “iceberg,” “the hl- alliteration supplemented by the echoing dental [d and t] sounds suggests the eerie screeching of the mass of ice.”30) Despite saying that I don’t wish to consider solutions in my discussion here, there does seem to be an entrancing link between riddles solved as birds of some kind and the attempt to recreate within those riddles the birds’ sounds or songs. Riddle 24 is perhaps the most overt in its onomatopoeia— hwilum beorce swa hund, hwilum blæte swa gat, hwilum græde swa gos, hwilum gielle swa hafoc (2–3) sometime I bark like a dog, sometime bleat like a goat, sometimes honk like a goose, sometimes yell like a hawk—

to suggest its creature’s myriad voices.31 In Riddle 57, Andrew Welsh points out the heavy dependence on the liquid sounds of l- and hl-, in addition to the -ssounds in lines 2 and 3 that particularly suggest the swooping flight of swallows as they call to one another. He imagines the trills and twitters of the first line, the s as they take off.32 Riddle 8 (“nightingale”) too seems to emulate a sense of song: the exchange of sounds throughout the verses do evoke the trills and patterns of the nightingale.33 While I have said I do not want to become entangled in the web that solution-seeking can spin, it does seem more than reasonable, given my thesis that many of the riddles are meant to be spoken aloud, indeed presented to an audience, that their sound patterns would also provide their audiences with another set of clues as to their meaning. No amount of wishing and speculation can make the Exeter Book anything other than a textual phenomenon; it is an enclosed, enscribed textual space, and plainly a number of its riddles are purely written exercises that would not lend

29 Jonathan Wilcox, “‘Tell me what I am’: The Old English Riddles,” in Readings in Medieval Texts: Interpreting Old and Middle English Literature, ed. David Johnson and Elaine Treharne (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 55 of pp. 46–59. 30 Wilcox, “Tell me what I am,” p. 55. 31 Marie Nelson offers a detailed chart of this riddle’s sound pattern in “Rhetoric in the Exeter Book Riddles,” 433–34. 32 Andrew Welsh, “Swallows Name Themselves: Exeter Book Riddle 55,” ANQ n.s. 3 (1990): 90–93. His title uses Williamson’s numbering of the riddle under discussion. 33 I have written about the sound quality of this riddle in “‘Þær wæs hearpan sweg, swotol sang scopes’: Sounds of Anglo-Saxon Community,” in Sense and Feeling in Daily Living in the Anglo-Saxon World, ed. Maren Clegg Hyer and Gale R. Owen-Crocker, Daily Living in the Anglo-Saxon World 4 (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, forthcoming).

10 Performance and Audience in the Exeter Book Riddles

241

themselves to a communal activity. Yet others may well be more personal kinds of endeavors on the part of a scribe (I envision a kind of proto-crossword or Sudoku here). Even so, not all the Exeter Book riddles are the same in their production and intention: clearly a voice has at one point or other been transcribed, and the resulting texts express echoes of that vocality, remnants of performance. As the presenter takes on the role of the riddle’s creature, becomes—in a sense—that creature whatever it may be, a dramatic portrayal ensues which is meant to create a dialogue, to elicit an appropriate acknowledgment or response on the part of those listening. With implicitly and occasionally explicitly crafted statements, a goodly number of the riddles demand a response by way of command or question. They allude to a communal experience in the here and the now of the riddle, with both speaker and listener present in the immediate locus of some performance space, whether hall, cloister, refectory, or something resembling a village green. That presentation space, for better and worse, has long since disappeared, but the “mycel englisc boc be gehwilcum þingum on leoðwisan geworht” fortunately remains as a reflection of that dramatic arena, reminding us, however quietly, of an aspect of Anglo-Saxon cultural play that has retained not just its textual but its performative power.

Publications of Patrick W. Conner Books The Abingdon Chronicle, A.D. 956–1066 (MS C, with ref. to BDE), vol. 10 in The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: A Collaborative Edition. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1996. Anglo-Saxon Exeter: A Tenth-Century Cultural History. Woodbridge & Rochester, NY: The Boydell Press, 1993. Literary and Historical Perspectives of the Middle Ages: Proceedings of the 1981 SEMA Meeting. Edited with Patricia Cummins and Charles Connell. Morgantown: West Virginia University Press, 1982.

Chapters & Sections of Books “Guild Identity and Old English Elegiac Poetry.” In Transitional States: Change, Tradition, and Memory in Medieval Literature and Culture, edited by Graham D. Caie and Michael D. C. Drout, 149–62. Tempe AZ: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2018. “On the Nature of Matched Scribal Hands.” In Scraped, Stroked, and Bound; Materially Engaged Readings of Medieval Manuscripts, edited by Jonathan Wilcox, 39–73. Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2013. [This essay was judged to be the best article written in the subject area during the previous two-year period by the International Society of AngloSaxonists at its biennial meeting in Glasgow in 2015.] “Four Contiguous Poems in the Exeter Book: A Combined Reading of ‘Homiletic Fragment III’, ‘Soul and Body II’, ‘Deor’, and ‘Wulf and Eadwacer’.” In The Genesis of Books: Studies in the Scribal Culture of Medieval England in Honour of A.N. Doane, edited by Matthew T. Hussey and John D. Niles, 117–36. Turnhout: Brepols, 2012. “Introduction.” In Poetry, Place, and Gender: Studies in Medieval Culture in Honor of Helen Damico, edited by Catherine Karkov, 1–11. Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 2010. “Parish Guilds and the Production of Old English Literature in the Public Sphere.” In (Inter) Texts: Studies in Early Insular Culture Presented to Paul E. Szarmach, edited by Virginia Blanton and Helen Scheck, 255–71. Tempe, AZ: MRTS, 2007. “The Old English Elegy: An Historicization.” In Readings in Medieval Texts: Interpreting Old and Middle English Literature, edited by Elaine Treharne and David Johnson, 15–45. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. “Religious Poetry.” In A Companion to Anglo-Saxon Literature and Culture, edited by Elaine Treharne and Phillip Pulsiano, 250–67. Oxford: Blackwell, 2001. “Exeter’s Relics, Exeter’s Book.” In Essays on Anglo-Saxon and Related Themes in Memory of Dr Lynne Grundy, edited by David Hook, 117–56. London: King’s College Medieval Studies, 2000. “Beyond the ASPR: Electronic Editions of Old English Poetry.” In Editing Old English Poetry, edited by Kathryn O’Brien O’Keeffe and Sarah Larratt Keefer, 109–26. Cambridge: Boydell Press, 1997. “Lighting out for the Territory: Hypertext and Ideology in the American Canon.” In The Electronic Text: Investigations in Method and Theory, edited by Kathryn Sutherland, 67–105. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501513060-012

244

Publications of Patrick W. Conner

“On Dating Cynewulf.” In Cynewulf: Basic Readings, edited by Robert Bjork, 23–55. New York: Garland, 1996. “The Structure of the Exeter Book Codex (Exeter, Cathedral Library, MS. 3501).” In [Reprinted from Scriptorium 40.2] Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: Basic Readings, edited by Mary Richards, 301–15. New York: Garland, 1994.

Articles in Refereed Journals “The Ruthwell Monument Runic Poem in Its Tenth-Century Context.” RES 59 (2008): 26–51. “Editing the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.” A review essay of two new editions. JEGP 103 (2004): 369–80. “Of Elegies and Guild-poems: An Historicization.” Stylistica: Revista Internacional de Estudios Estilísticos y Culturales 2 (1994): 3–18. “Source Studies, the Old English Guthlac A and the English Benedictine Reformation.” Revue Benedictine 103 (1993): 380–413. “Hypertext, in the Last Days of the Book.” Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library 74 (1992): 7–24. “Notes from ‘ANSAXNET’ on Networking in the Humanities.” Computers and the Humanities 26 (1992): 195–204. “The Beowulf Workstation: A Model for Computer-Assisted Literary Pedagogy.” Literary and Linguistic Computing 6 (1991): 50–58. “Computer-Assisted Approaches to Teaching Old English” (with Clare Lees and Marilyn Deegan). Old English Newsletter 23 (Spring 1990): 30–35. “The Structure of the Exeter Book Codex (Exeter, Cathedral Library, MS. 3501).” Scriptorium 40.2 (1986): 233–42. “The Section Numbers in the Beowulf Manuscript.” American Notes & Queries 24 (1985): 33–38. “Bloom, Benstock and the Mason Connection.” James Joyce Quarterly 17 (1980): 217–20. “The Liturgy and the Old English ‘Descent into Hell’.” JEGP 79 (1980): 179–91. “Schematization of Oral Formulaic Processes in Old English Poetry.” Language and Style 5 (1972): 204–20.

Articles in Other Journals “The Exeter Book.” Oxford Bibliographies (2013). https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/ view/document/obo-9780195396584/obo-9780195396584-0094.xml. “Cybergogy.” Medieval Academy Newsletter (September 1996): 4. “Medievalists Online.” Medieval Academy Newsletter (February 1993): 2, 4. “Notes from ANSAXNET, Again.” Old English Newsletter 24 (1990/91): 32–35. “Notes from ANSAXNET.” Old English Newsletter 22 (Spring 1989): 23–24. “Networking in the Humanities.” First Annual WVNET User Conference: Proceedings. Morgantown, WV: West Virginia Network for Education Telecomputing, 1988. Pp. 13–31. “The Oxford Text Archive.” Old English Newsletter 21 (Spring 1988): 29.

Creative Writing

245

“Notes on ANSAXNET.” Old English Newsletter 21 (Fall 1987): 33. “ANSAXNET: Telecommunication for Anglo-Saxonists.” Old English Newsletter 20 (Spring 1987): 25.

Reviews The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 6: MS D in The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: A Collaborative Edition, edited by G. P. Cubbin. Speculum 75 (2000): 820–23. The Book of Cerne: Prayer, Patronage and Power in Ninth-Century England, by Michele Brown. Albion 31 (1999): 72–74. A Thesaurus of Old English, I: Introduction and Thesaurus; 2: Index, by Jane Roberts and Christian Kay with Lynne Grundy. Speculum 73 (1998): 887–89. Liturgy and the Ecclesiastical History of Late Anglo-Saxon England, by David N. Dumville. Catholic Historical Review (1996): 521–22. Méthodologies informatiques et nouveaux horizons dans les recherches médiévales, edited by Jacqueline Hammesse. Speculum 71 (1996): 427–30. Word, Texts and Manuscripts: Studies in Anglo-Saxon Culture Presented to Helmut Gneuss on the Occasion of his Sixty-Fifth Birthday, edited by Michael Korhammer et al. Æstel 1 (1993): 182–200. Hypermedia and Literary Studies, edited by P. Delany and G. P. Landow. Computers and Texts 2 (1991): 13–14. The Reign of Edward III, by Eliot Slater. Computers and the Humanities 25 (1991): 74–77. Visible Song, by Katherine O’Brien O’Keeffe. Envoi 3 (1991): 181–87.

Other Items in Print “Battle of Maldon,” “Beowulf,” “Cædmon,” “Cynewulf,” and “Exeter Book.” In Early Peoples of Britain and Ireland: An Encyclopedia, edited by Christopher A. Snyder. Oxford: Greenwood Publishing, 2008. “Exeter Book.” In The Oxford Encyclopedia of British literature, ed. David Scott Kastan, 1–2. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. “Exeter Book.” In Dictionary of the Middle Ages, Supplement 1. New York: Charles Scribners Sons/Reference for American Council of Learned Societies, 2003. “Appendix D: Medieval Drama.” In Literary and Historical Perspectives in the Middle Ages: Proceedings of the 1981 SEMA Meeting, edited with Patricia Cummins and Charles Connell. Morgantown: West Virginia University Press, 1982.

Creative Writing “The Anchorite.” South Carolina Literary Review 27 (1994–95): 72–90.

Index Abbot Ælfwine of Winchester 35 Act anent the demolishing of Idolatrous Monuments 139 Acts of Andrew and Matthias 8, 198, 200, 201 Acts of Philip 214 Adonis 208–209, 213, 219, 220 Adversus nationes 205 Agdestis 205–207, 219, 220 Albert S. Cook 147 Alcuin 228 Aldhelm 228 Ælfric of Eynsham 45, 48–49, 52, 59, 86–88, 90, 93, 109, 111, 114, 115, 125, 126, 159, 187 Ælfric’s Exameron Anglice 49 Ælfric’s Grammar 86, 87, 127 Ælfric’s pastoral letters 87 Ælfric’s Treatise on the Old and New Testament 48, 110 Æthelwold 56, 57 Alliteration 5, 65, 168–171, 179, 229, 239, 240 Andreas 8, 9, 50, 197, 200, 202, 205, 213, 215, 218–220 Andrew 219, 220 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle 1, 31, 81–82, 100, 101, 110 Anglo-Saxon Exeter: A Tenth-Century Cultural History 1 Annunciation 134, 148, 149 Anubis 203 Arnobius 205 The Assumption of St John 159 Attis 205–208, 213, 219, 220 Baldwin Brown 144, 147 Baptism 134 Bartholomew 214 Bata 203, 204 The Battle of Brunanburgh 171 The Battle of Maldon 7, 157–160, 162–175 Maldon 157, 158, 160, 162–175 Bede 144 https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501513060-013

Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica 153 Benedictine reform 8, 30, 186, 188, 191, 196 Beowulf 4, 7, 27, 64, 66, 67, 72, 157, 168, 170, 171, 173, 174, 184–186 Bewcastle 142, 148 Bewcastle Cross 152 Bion 208 Bishop Vitalis 218 Blickling 53 Blickling Homilies 16, 17, 199 Bodley 441 95, 97, 98 Bodley, Tolkien MS A29(a)1, fol. 100v 164 Bodley, Tolkien MS A30/1 162, 165 Bodley, Tolkien MS A30/2 166, 167, 171 Bodley, Tolkien MS 5, fol. 63v 166 Brussels Cross 153, 154 Bulgaria 217 Cædmon 125, 134, 144, 146, 169 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS Archives XXXIX.146 105 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 23 32, 33 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 41 100–105 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 81 115 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 101 83 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 158 115 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 162 110 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 173 81 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 178 110 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 190 6, 84, 85, 87, 88, 92 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 191 6, 113–116, 119, 121–124, 126–129 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 196 113

248

Index

Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 198 88, 110 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 201 116, 123 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 265 87, 92 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 302 110 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 303 110 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 402 110 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 419 6, 106–109, 112 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 421 6, 106–109, 112 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MSS 198 80 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MSS 400 80 Cambridge, Trinity College, MS B.11.2 85 Cambridge, Trinity College, MS B.15.34 110 Cambridge University Library, Ii. 2. 4 Cambridge University Library Ii. 2. 11 18 Cambridge University Library MS Ff.1.24 115 Cambridge University Library: MS Gg.3.28 106, 110 Cambridge University Library MS Hh.1.10 86 Cambridge University Library MS Ii.2.11 6, 13, 14, 17, 18, 78, 87, 93, 95, 116 Cambridge University Library MS Kk.3.18 100 Charles Rufus Morey 147 Christ 82, 209, 219, 220 Christ and Satan 28, 29, 51, 62 Christ II 71 Christ III 7, 8, 72, 177–186, 192, 193, 196 Christopher of Mytilene 216 Clare Lees 152 Clement of Alexandria 207 Colman 134, 144 Community of monks 152 Conner 1, 2, 6, 70 Corybantes 208 Craig Williamson 230 CUL Hh.1.10 87

CUL Kk.3.18 101, 102, 104, 105 Cynewulf 71, 169 Daniel 28, 29 Daniel Haigh 144 David I 145 The Death of Eadward the Confessor 172 De Correctione Rusticorum 45 De Creatore et Creatura 49 De Falsis Diis 45 De Fide Catholica 42, 43 Deor 73 Dían Cécht 212 Dinwiddie 140, 141, 144–146, 149, 151, 152 Diodorus Siculus 207 Dionysus 208 Double alliteration 65–67, 71, 72 The Dream of the Rood 137, 149, 153, 154 Duncan 143, 152, 155 Éamonn Ó Carragáin 147–150, 152, 153 Easter Day homily (Catholic Homilies II.15) 87 Elene 50 Emperor Leo VI 217 Eucharist 134 Exeter 130 Exeter Book 1, 2, 4–9, 11, 13, 14, 17–19, 27, 28, 50, 64–67, 71, 74, 78–80, 82, 85, 87, 177–179, 227–231, 234, 239, 240 Exeter Book Riddles 234, 236–241 –Riddle 1 232 –Riddle 7 239 –Riddle 8 239 –Riddle 19 239 –Riddle 24 239 –Riddle 28 233 –Riddle 31 233, 237 –Riddle 32 232 –Riddle 33 240 –Riddle 35 231 –Riddle 36 233 –Riddle 40 233 –Riddle 41 232–233 –Riddle 42 233, 238 –Riddle 43 231

Index

–Riddle 48 237 –Riddle 55 233, 238 –Riddle 57 239 –Riddle 58 239 –Riddle 60 234 –Riddle 67 232 Exeter Cathedral 228 Exeter Cathedral Library, MS 3501 4, 14, 27, 78, 227 Exodus 28, 29 Fall of Lucifer 41, 42, 62 Feminine and the maternal 149 Fred Orton 152 Gavin Young 140 Gender 156 Gender equality 146 Genesis A 5, 29, 30, 37, 38, 41, 42, 46, 49, 51–54, 56–58 Genesis B 29, 51, 57 George Stephens 144 Greek Acts of Andrew and Matthias 219, 220 Gregory of Tours 218 G. T. Rivoira 147 Guthlac 8, 82 Guthlac A 51, 179, 180, 221, 222, 224, 225 Guthlac B 72 Hadrian’s Wall 138, 153 Hagiography 213, 218 Henry Duncan 140, 141, 150, 151, 154 Hereford Cathedral Library, MS P. 1. 2 15 Hierapolis 214 Hild, abbess of Whitby 146 Hippolytus of Rome 208 The Hobbit 174 The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth 162, 168, 175 Hrabanus Maurus 48 Hugh Magennis 230 The Husband’s Message 73 Ian Wood 152 Insomnia 177 Iona 145

249

Iron Laczi 210 Ivan, Son of the Sexton 211 James Barbour 143 J. L. Austin 229 John Craig 143 John Niles 228, 230 John the Archcantor 148 John the Baptist 135, 141, 148, 149, 155 Judgment Day II 182–184, 186, 196 Juliana 51, 71 Jupiter 205 King Sapor 218 Latin 133–135, 151–153 Lee 134, 142 The Lemon Girl 211 Leofric, Bishop of Exeter (d.1072) 2, 4, 6, 11–14, 18, 26, 77, 78, 81, 87, 99, 106, 113, 228 Leofric Missal 14 Leofwine 81 Libelli de Spiritalis Historiae Gestis 47 Life of St Oswald 159 Liturgy 191 London 15 London, British Library, Additional 9381 15 London, British Library, MS Additional 43703 82 London, British Library, MS Additional 34600 128 London, British Library, MS Additional 34601 124 London, British Library, MS Cotton Claudius B. iv 31, 112 London, British Library, MS Cotton Cleopatra B. xiii 93 London, British Library, MS Cotton Faustina A. ix 88 London, British Library, MS Cotton Otho B. xi 100, 105 London, British Library, MS Cotton Vespasian A. i 82 London, British Library, MS Cotton Vespasian A. viii 54

250

Index

London, British Library, MS Cotton Vespasian A. viii 53 London, British Library MS Cotton Vitellius A. XV 27, 82 London, British Library, MS Cotton Vitellius D. vii 120 London, British Library, MS Harley 440 127 London, British Library, MSS Harley 8–9 124 London, Lambeth Palace Library, MS 692 122 The Lord of the Rings 7, 174 Lucian 208 Lucifer 43 Lucifer’s fall 37, 42, 43, 44, 49, 62 Lucius of Cyrene 218 Maldon 7 Manumission 18–20, 23 Marianne 214 Marie Nelson 230 Martin 46 Martin of Braga (ca. 520–580) 45 Martyrdom 214 Martyrdom of Philip 214, 219, 220 Max Förster 239 Menologion of Basil II 217 Mermedonia 201 Mermedonian 198, 219 Metamorphoses 209 Meter 4, 5, 64 Míach 212 Midas 206 Monastic community 138, 153 Monasticism 186 Monastic life 134 Monastic settlement 132 Monsters and the Critics 160 Nana 206, 207 National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth, Peniarth MS 390 55 New Minster Liber Vitae 61 Nicanora 214 Northumbria 139, 145, 148, 152, 154, 156 Northumbrian 132, 144, 146, 153

Ofermod 161, 165, 166, 174 Old English 133, 153 Old English Hexateuch 31, 48, 100, 112 Orton 134, 142, 153–155 Osiris 204, 205, 207, 219 Oswiu 144 Ovid 208, 220 Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley 579 4, 13, 14 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Junius 11 5, 27 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 441 95 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Junius 11 29, 32–34, 36, 37, 57, 62 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Junius 121 87, 88 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 201 112 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 381 112 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 509 112 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 636 110 Patrick W. Conner 1, 4, 6, 8, 9, 11, 14, 17, 26, 63, 64, 66, 74, 133, 178, 227 Pearl 167 Persephone 208 Pharaoh 203 Philip 214–215, 218, 219 The Phoenix 8, 72, 178, 179, 183, 186, 192, 193, 196 Piramus and Thisbe 212 Poetry 133 Recensio Casanatensis 198, 201 Reformation 132, 139–141, 145 Regularis Concordia 8, 36, 191, 196 Resignation 50 Rheged 143 The Ruin 73, 167 Rule of Chrodegang 6, 8, 126, 188–190 Rule of St. Benedict 36 Rune 133, 155 Runic 134, 135, 151, 152 Runic poem 148, 153

Index

Runic text 140 Ruthwell 132, 133, 135–139, 141–147, 149–156 Ruthwell Cross 131, 144–148, 156 Ruthwell poem 136, 137, 154 St Augustine of Hippo 195 St Baudillius 218 St Celsus 218 St Genesius 218 St Genesius of Arles 218 St Nazarius 218 St Philip 217 St Tatona 218 St Therapon 217, 218, 220 St Therapon of Sardis 215 Sangarius 206 Sardica 217 Sardis 217 Satan 44, 46, 51, 52, 55, 57, 149 Scotland 139, 156 Scottish 144, 145, 151 The Seafarer 73 The Second Battle of Mag Tuired 212 Sermo de Initio Creaturæ 48 Sermo Habitus Constantiæ 45 Sermo Lupi ad Anglos 164 Seth Lerer 239 The Silmarillion 174 Sir Isumbras 167 Sleep 177–196 Socrates 208 Sofia, Bulgaria 217 Solway peninsula 132 Sophus Müller 147 Stachys 214 Stockholm, Swedish Royal Library, MS A. 35 15

251

Strathclyde 143, 145 Symphonius 228 Synaxarion of Constantinople 216 Synod of Whitby 144, 146 Tatwine 228 Therapon 216, 218, 219 Tristan and Iseult 212 The Two Brothers 203, 204 Tyrannos 214 Venus 208, 209 Vercelli, Biblioteca Capitolare MS CXVII 27 Vercelli Book 153–154 Vespasian Psalter 82 Vine-scroll 134, 151 Violence 178, 223 Vita Adae et Evae 44 Vita Sanctorum Barlaam Eremitae et Josaphat Indiae Regis 44 The Wanderer 73, 157, 184, 185 W. G. Collingwood 147 Wearmouth-Jarrow 148 Whitby 148 Whitby Life of Gregory 153 Widsith 65, 73, 74 William Camden 213 William Lecky 146 William of Montpellier 218 William Nicolson 142 Wood 134, 142 Wulfstan 16, 49, 88, 90, 106, 107, 109, 164 Young 141 Zeus 208