Via Crucis: essays on early medieval sources and ideas in memory of J.E. Cross 9780937058589

Table of contents :
Frontmatter
Abbreviations (page vii)
Illustrations (page x)
Preface (page xi)
1. Re-Reading The Wanderer: The Value of Cross-References (Andy Orchard, University of Toronto, page 1)
2. Visualizing Judgment: Illumination in the Old English Christ III (Sachi Shimomura, Virginia Commonwealth University, page 27)
3. The Old English Dough Riddle and the Power of Women's Magic: The Traditional Context of Exeter Book Riddle 45 (Thomas D. Hill, Cornell University, page 50)
4. The Old English Life of St Pantaleon (Phillip Pulsiano, Villanova University, page 61)
5. The Earliest Anglo-Latin Text of the Trinubium Annae (BHL 505zl) (Thomas N. Hall, University of Illinois at Chicago, page 104)
6. Reconciling Family and Faith: Ælfric's Lives of Saints and Domestic Dramas of Conversion (Dabney Anderson Bankert, James Madison University, page 138)
7. Pearls before Swine: Ælfic, Vernacular Hagiography, and the Lay Reader (E. Gordon Whatley, Queens College, page 158)
8. Sanctifying Anglo-Saxon Ealdormen: Lay Sainthood and the Rise of the Crusading Ideal (John Damon, University of Nebraska at Kearney, page 185)
9. The Old English "Macarius" Homily, Vercelli Homily IV, and Ephrem Latinus, De paenitentia (Charles D. Wright, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, page 210)
10. Irish Homilies A.D. 600-1100 (Martin McNamara, M.S.C., Dublin, page 235)
11. An Unpublished Homily on the Transfiguration (Raymond Étaix, Lyon, page 285)
12. Pembroke College 25, Arts. 93-95 (Paul E. Szarmach, Western Michigan University, page 295)
13. Comments on the Codicology of Two Paris Manuscripts (BN lat. 13,408 and 5574) (Fredrick M. Biggs, University of Connecticut at Storrs, page 326)
14. Links between a Twelfth-Century Worcester (F. 94) Homily and the Eighth-Century Hiberno-Latin Commentary Liber questionum in evangeliis (Jean Rittmueller, Memphis, page 331)
15. An Eighth-Century Text of the Lectiones in vigiliis defunctorum: The Earliest Manuscript Witness of the Biblical Readings for the Vigil of the Dead (Denis Brearley, University of Ottawa, page 355)
16. Liturgical Echoes in Laxdœla saga (Andrew Hamer, University of Liverpool, page 377)
17. Noble Counsel, No Counsel: Advising Ethelred the Unready (Alice Sheppard, Pennsylvania State University, page 393)
18. Gildas and Glastonbury: Revisiting the Origins of Glastonbury Abbey (Alf Siewers, Buckness University, page 423)
A Bibliography of the Writings of J. E. Cross 1985-2000 (page 433)
Index (page 439)

Citation preview

— Via Crucis

| MEDIEVAL EUROPEAN STUDIES I

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Te EGE PIPE Ley YE oe OE ee 4 sees ie Oe ee, sie iy fy co

,Rae ee EEE ai hey 4G LOE ge tie eaei. iy)ey, chs Ae oe recsse ses he PP Mey fy, LES ages Lean CE aeoias esiepeer ; 7Me: i _an Pea oe, nie Oe es yy a

a orPESOS, eth Wy, i OT tes Uae he(ee, matPiha VeJide FeatAeSeYH Les |yy ] L)yyyeyy re ih é nee aa ‘hey ee, is oeOe See further Andy Orchard, “Oral Tradition,” in Approaches to Reading Old English Texts, ed. Katherine O’Brien O’Keeffe (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 10123, at 102. 8

Re-Reading The Wanderer

scribe seems to have discerned a significant break here.*’ Notwithstanding the use of both aural and visual cues to mark out a new section of the poem at line 8, the sense alone would indicate the beginning of a seemingly self-contained passage chiefly notable for its egotistical self-obsession (lines 8-29a): the words ic, me, and min occur no fewer than twelve times in only twenty-

one and a half lines. At line 29b there is an abrupt change of both person and tense: from predominantly first-person narrative to third-person, and from predominantly past tense to pre-

sent.’ Throughout this section the poem considers the

problems of an unnamed individual, brooding on his personal troubles. The poem returns to a first-person narrative at line 58, but there is a difference: this time there are only three brief references to ic and min, all in the present, before the poem _ drifts back to a third-person narrative.“ Here again there is a change, however: this time the poem considers the thoughts of an individual brooding not on his own problems so much as those of his warrior class and the world in general. The poem contains only one other first-person reference, in the closing line, where, however, what is found is not the first-person singular that has characterized the narrative so far, but instead an inclusive plural: us. One might represent these developments schematically as follows:

“me,” back then (lines 8-29a); “one,” pondering one’s lot (lines 29b-57); “me,” now (lines 58-62); “one,” pondering the general lot (lines 63-110); “us,” together (line 115). *° See further Eric Gerald Stanley, In the Foreground: “Beowulf” (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 103-4; Mitchell and Robinson, Guide to Old English, p. 270, conveniently reproduce the relevant page of the manuscript. *” See Richman, “Speaker and Speech Boundaries.” *° The fact that these clear breaks in sense should occur with such mathemati-

cal precision half-way through a poem of 115 lines, and then half-way through the first half is certainly striking, especially when one considers that half-way through the second half (at line 88) a new verse paragraph begins with the thoughts of “one who deeply ponders this dark life”; for elaborate numerical analyses along these lines, see D. R. Howlett, British Books in Biblical Style (Dublin, 1997), pp. 574-82; Riccardo Ambrosini, “On The Wanderer and The Seafarer Once Again, but from a Numerological Point of View,” in Perspectives on Indo-European Language, Culture, and Religion: Studies in Honor of Edgar C. Polomé, 2 vols (McLean, VA, 1992), vol. 2, pp. 295-314.

9

Andy Orchard , Such an apparent development from an exclusive self-obsession to an inclusive selflessness is echoed by other developments in | the poem, from the seemingly detached passivity of someone waiting for (or experiencing) favor (are gebided, line 1) to the engaged effort of someone actively seeking it (are seced, line 114). In much the same way, even the terms used of God in the poem show a similar progression, from the impersonal metud of

line 2, perhaps connoting little more than a sense of fate, through the more personal “creator of men” (elda scyppend, line

85), here ironically recalled as a primarily destructive force (Ypde swa pisne eardeard), to the highly personalized reference to the “Father in heaven” (feder on heofonum, line 115) of the final

line of the poem. |

It is important to note the poet’s parallel insistence, again

mainly achieved through the creative use of unique or rare compounds, of psychological confinement and restraint in the | early stages of the poem, giving way to the language of psycho-

logical movement and freedom as the poem progresses.” So, at the beginning, we hear of the enclosure of the mind and spirit, highlighted by a series of nominal compounds: “spirit-locker” (ferdloca, lines 13 and 33), “hoard-coffer” (hordcofa, line 14), and “breast-coffer” (breostcofa, line 18). Within the same passage of

the poem, verbal phrases denoting psychological constraint underline the sense of containment, notably “binds fast” (feste binde, line 13, and bindad feste, line 18), and “confine with fetters” (feterum selan, line 24); it is surely significant that in a line where (as only rarely elsewhere in Old Englsh verse) two finite

verbs carry the alliteration, those verbs should be “hold” and “think” (bealde . . . bycge, line 14).

| The external landscape precisely echoes the internal (the so-called “pathetic fallacy”) in the “binding of the waves” (wapema gebind, line 24), with the ice-bound waves an apt meta-

phor for the speaker’s own suppressed and locked-in thoughts | and emotions. That this is a deliberately contrived effect is

| again underlined by the poet’s imaginative use of related com-

pounds: in the first few lines we find the speaker described as “troubled in mind” (modcearig, line 2) and “wretchedly troubled” (earmcearig, line 21), two rare compounds which focus at™ See Patrick Cook, “Woriad pa winsalo: The Bonds of Exile in ‘The Wanderer,’” Neophilologus 80 (1996): 127-37.

IO

Re-Reading The Wanderer

tention on his psychological state; a third unique compound, “winter-troubled” (wintercearig, line 24), alliterating with wabema

gebind, precisely brings together the external and internal landscapes.” The same point is presumably being made by the collocation “freezing spirit-locker” (ferdloca freorig, line 33a) placed

in alliterative contrast with the “bounty of the earth” (foldan bled, line 33b).

It is interesting to note that this sense of psychological |

constraint is effected mainly through the use of rare or unique

compound adjectives and nouns; by contrast, after the first fifty | lines, there is a growing sense of psychological movement and freedom, largely achieved through the use of rare or unique compound verbs and verbal phrases denoting thought. So, the speaker’s mind roams widely (mod geondbweorfed, line 51);* it eagerly scans everywhere (georne geondsceawad, line 52). In a fur-

ther series of linked compound verbs and verbal phrases the speaker himself says that he cannot consider throughout this world (gebencan . . . geond pas woruld, line 58) why he does not be- __.

come depressed when he ponders its every aspect (eal geondbence, | line 60); the speaker goes on to identify himself with one who deeply ponders every aspect of this dark life (deope geondpencep,

line 89). The repetition of such verbs and verbal phrases based on the prepositional prefix geond- only highlights the fact that the first time the preposition itself is used in the poem, it refers to the wanderer’s physical movement (geond lagulade, line 3). In much the same way, the phrase “over the binding of the waves” (ofer wapema gebind) occurs twice in the poem, the first time de-

picting physical movement (line 24), the second the movement of a weary soul (line 57). Just as there seems a conscious development in the wanderer’s psychological situation, from con-

straint to freedom, so too there is development in a physical sense: the restless “wanderer over the face of the earth” (eard“ See Dunning and Bliss, ed., The Wanderer, pp. 47-48: modcearig is unique to The Wanderer, while earmcearig occurs only once elsewhere, in The Seafarer, line 20. *! See further Lars Malmberg, “Poetic Originality in The Wandererand The Seafarer,” NM 74 (1973): 220-23. * The syntax at this point is ambiguous, but some psychological movement is surely implied; see further Mitchell and Robinson, Guide to Old English, p. 270.

II | |

Andy Orchard

| stapa) of line 6 is implicitly contrasted with the “wise man” : (snottor on mode) of line 111; the latter, however, does not move: he sits.” The errant traveling of the first few lines again stand in sharp contrast to the calm and comfort of the closing lines; it is surely significant that the final two words of the poem are “security” (festnung) and “stands” (stonded).* A similar contrast is found between the largely past-tense verbs of the beginning of the poem and the continuous and gnomic present-tense verbs of the poem’s ending, with its six-times-repeated bid.

| _ This movement from the selfish and worldly preoccupation with a lost past life to a selfless and unworldly concern for a _ timeless and future afterlife is signaled at the very mid-point of

the poem, in a line which we have already earmarked as structurally significant in two ways. Not only does line 58 (Forpon ic gepencan ne meg geond pas woruld) half-way through the poem sig-

nal a brief transition from third-person narrative back to firstperson, and offer an example of the newly acquired liberation of the spirit (gebencan . . . geond), but the main alliterating element in the verse (what in Norse terms is the so-called “headstave,” the first stressed syllable in the second half-line) is the word pis. This word, which has not occurred in the poem at all before this point, appears with great frequency thereafter, with a rather restricted range of referents; the first half-dozen examples might be represented as follows: “this world” (has woruld,

line 58); “this middle-earth” (bes middangeard, line 62); “this world” (pisse worulde, line 74); “this middle-earth” (pisne mid| dangeard, line 75); “this dwelling-place” (pisne eardgeard, line 85);

10): , |

“this dark life” (pis deorce lif, line 89).

The implicit contrast between this world and the next is heightened still further towards the end of the poem in a selfcontained section in which techniques of aural patterning simi-

lar to those already discussed are again employed (lines 106-

Eall is earfodlic eorpan rice, ) :

-onwended wyrda gesceaft weoruld under heofonum. |

“8 See Hugh Magennis, “Monig oft geset: Some Images of Sitting in Old English Poetry,” Neophilologus 70 (1986): 442-52.

* A useful discussion of the themes of motion and stasis in the poem is that by Elizabeth A. Hait, “The Wanderer’s Lingering Regret: A Study of Pat-

a terns of Imagery,” Neophilologus 68 (1984): 278-91, at 281-83. 12

Re-Reading The Wanderer Her bid feoh lene, her bid freond lene, her bid mon lene, her bid meg lene,

eal pis eorpan gesteal idel weorped!” | The verbal echoes between the opening and closing lines of this passage (Eall ... eorpan / eal... eorpan), along with their in_ ternal rhymes (-lic / ric-; eorb- / weorp-), clearly establish an enve-

lope pattern of the kind familiar elsewhere in Old English verse. In particular, the specific mention of a “kingdom of the earth” (eorpan rice, line 106), a “world under the heavens” (weoruld under heofonum, line 107), and an “earth’s foundation” (eorpan gesteal, line 110) all raise the possibility of a kingdom

(and a foundation) which is not of earth, and a world which is

not under heaven, a world which is not “here” (ber ... ber... her ... ber, lines 108-9) and “transitory” (lene, lines 108-9), but, as the poet says with his final words, in a place “where for us all security stands” (ber us eal seo festnung stonded, line 115).”°

Parallels for the kind of structural development enshrined in the text of The Wanderer can be discovered elsewhere in Old

English verse, where many of the traditional structural techniques outlined above are commonplace.” So, for example, the final twenty-five lines of The Dream of the Rood demonstrate very

similar strategies at work, based on the same principles of repe-

tition and echo.” The relevance of these lines to the present © “All is fraught with hardship in the kingdom of the earth, the decree of the fates changes the world under the heavens. Here property is transitory, here a friend is transitory, here a man is transitory, here a kinsman is transitory: all this earth’s foundation comes to nought.” See further Stanley, In the Foreground, p. 101.

* These lines are often compared with two stanzas from the secular Norse poem Havamal (stanzas 76 and 77), which contrast the transitory nature of this world with the lasting glory to be gathered by heroic endeavor; if there is a connection to be made, it is interesting to note that, just as the poet of The Wanderer seems to have used Christian themes to celebrate secular ideas, so too he may in this case be Christianizing a secular motif. The verses in question are edited by David A. H. Evans, ed., Havamal (London, 1986), p. 54; there is a sensible discussion of this and related matters by Robert E. Bjork, “Sundor et rune. The Voluntary Exile of the Wanderer,” Neophilologus 73 (1989): 119-29, at 123-24.

*’ For an excellent general discussion of such features, see Pasternack, The Textuality of Old English Poetry, pp. 60-89.

* See Eugene R. Kintgen, “Echoic Repetition in Old English Poetry, Especially The Dream of the Rood,” NM 75 (1974): 202-23; Andy Orchard, “Sound, Sense, and Structure in The Dream of the Rood’ (forthcoming); Carol Braun 13

Andy Orchard

discussion is highlighted by the fact that, as with The Wanderer, several critics have pointed to differences in style and tone between the beginning and the end of The Dream of the Rood, with the closing (and, to some, cloying) Christian sentiments of the final lines an unwelcome addition to a vivid and moving dream

vision.” These closing lines are worth quoting in full (The Dream of the Rood, lines 131b-56): Nah ic ricra feala freonda on foldan, ac hie ford heonon gewiton of worulde dreamum, sohton him wuldres cyning, lifiap nu on heofenum mid heahfedere, wuniap on wuldre, ond ic wene me daga gehwylce hwenne me dryhtnes rod, be ic her on eordan zr sceawode,

on pysson lenan life gefetige ond me bonne gebringe par is blis mycel,

dream on heofonum, par is dryhtnes folc geseted to symle, per is singal blis, |

ond me ponne asette per ic sypban mot , wunian on wuldre, well mid pam halgum dreames brucan. Si me dryhten freond, se Se her on eorpan er prowode on bam gealgtreowe for guman synnum. He us onlysde ond us lif forgeaf,

heofonlicne ham. Hiht wes geniwad

mid bledum ond mid blisse pam pe per bryne polodan. Se sunu wes sigorfest on pam sidfate, mihtig ond spedig, pa he mid manigeo com, -gasta weorode, on godes rice, anwealda zlmihtig, englum to blisse

167-86. ,

Pasternack, “Stylistic Disjunctions in The Dream of the Rood,” ASE 13 (1984):

76). ,

” Michael Swanton, ed., The Dream of the Rood (Manchester, 1987), is particu-

larly judicious on this point: “In the past, scholars have found different parts of these concluding lines unsatisfactory for various reasons, supposing _ what they considered to be stylistic or thematic breaks to indicate a later , redactor’s hand. . . . The final words here are ... no more out of place than _ Cynewulf’s signatures, or the homiletic endings to the Wanderer or Seafarer, -which also at one time were considered to have been later additions” (p. 14

Re-Reading The Wanderer

ond eallum 6am halgum pam pe on heofonum er | wunedon on wuldre, pa heora wealdend cwom,

«lmihtig god, per his edel wes.*

There are a number of general similarities to the theme and structure of The Wanderer here, and to the plight of its protagonist: the pointed reference, underlined by verbal echo, to a lack of powerful friends (Nab tc ricra feala / freonda on foldan, lines 131b-

132a), followed by a fervent desire to find a new friend in the Lord (Si me dryhten freond, line 144b); the inclusive sense of us

(twice in line 147); the mention (echoed elsewhere in the

poem) of “this transitory life” (line 138);*"" even the fourfold repetition of her bid, referring to the earth, found in The Wanderer (lines 108-9), is matched here by four patterned references to heaven in consecutive b-lines (per is... per is... per is... per ic, lines 139-42).

Other patterns specific to this passage of The Dream of the

Rood only underline the notion that the poet has carefully molded his material, in a manner similar to that suggested for

The Wanderer. the alternation in four a-lines of heaven and earth (on heofenum ...on eordan ... on heofonum ... on eorpan, lines 134a, 137a, 140a, and 145a) seems all the more aesthetically pleasing

since in the corresponding b-lines the word for God remains the same (drybtnes ... drybtnes ... drybten, lines 136b, 140b, and ” “T do not have many powerful friends on earth, but they have gone forth hence from the joys of the world, sought the King of Glory; they live now in heaven with the High Father, dwell in glory. And I look forward each day to

when the Lord’s Cross, which I have previously seen here on earth, will fetch me from this transitory life and bring me then where there is great bliss, joy in heaven, where there is the Lord’s folk seated at the feast, where there is continual bliss, and he will then place me where I afterwards might dwell in glory, delight in joy fully among those sainted ones. May the Lord be my friend, he who previously suffered here on earth on that gallows-tree for the sins of man. He redeemed us and gave us life, a heavenly home. Hope was renewed, with glory and with bliss, for those who endured the burning there. The Son was secure in victory on that expedition, mighty and successful, when he came with a multitude, a troop of spirits into God’s kingdom, the almighty sole ruler, to bliss among the angels and all the saints who previously dwelt in glory, when their ruler came, almighty God, where his homeland was.”

| The effect of separating adjective and noun (lenan life) across the caesura is both pleasing, since it serves to underline the instability of life on earth, and clearly deliberate, since it is also found the only other time the phrase

is used (line 109).

>)

Andy Orchard

144b); central to this sequence is a pair of lines linked by verbal

repetition and rhyme in which the dreamer contrasts his own vision of the cross (be ic ber on eordan er sceawode, line 137) with Christ’s suffering on the same cross (se de her on eorpan er prowode,

line 145), neatly summarizing the theme of the whole piece. © The intense raptures of heaven are emphasized through the interwoven repetition of words for “bliss” (blis, lines 139, 141, 149, and 153) and “joy” (dream, lines 133, 140, and 144); nei-

ther word appears elsewhere in the poem at all. Careful pat-

: terning is again evident in the echoing references in three self-contained a-lines to those dwelling in heaven’s glory in the present (wuniab on wuldre, line 135), the future (/sypban mot/ wunian on wuldre, line 143), and the past (wunedon on wuldre, line

155). Such parallels of structure, theme, and diction between The Wanderer and The Dream of the Rood are the more intriguing in that it might well be argued that The Dream of the Rood, like its

text.

companion-pieces in the Vercelli manuscript, is a homiletic Other parallels of theme and diction connect The Wanderer with a range of other Old English poems, and may help to shed light on certain aspects of the poem’s theme and purpose. In a striking passage early in The Wanderer, the poet asserts a heroic creed of stoicism and self-restraint (lines 11b-14): Ic to sope wat bat bip in eorle indryhten peaw,

bet he his ferdlocan faste binde, healde his hordcofan, hycge swa he wille.*

| The speaker goes on to assert, that “those eager for glory” (domgeorne, line 17) will therefore restrain their thoughts, as he has had to do (byra breostcofan bindad feste; swa ic modsefan minne sceolde . . . feterum selan, lines 18-21). A strikingly similar passage,

this time in a clearly Christian homiletic context, is found later in the Exeter Book, in the opening lines of Homiletic Fragment 2 ” See in particular E. O, Carragdin, “How did the Vercelli Collector Interpret The Dream of the Rood?” in Studies in English Language and Early English Litera-

ture in Honour of Paul Christophersen, ed. P. M. Tilling (Ulster, 1981), pp. 63-

104. See too Jonathan Randle, “he Homiletic Context of the Vercelli Book Poems” (unpubl. PhD dissertation, Univ. of Cambridge, 1999). * «T know it for a truth that it is in a warrior a noble custom that he binds fast his spirit-locker, contains his hoard-coffer, whatever he thinks.” 16

Re-Reading The Wanderer

(lines 1-4a), with verbal echoes with the relevant section of The Wanderer italicized: Gefeoh nu on ferde ond to frofre gepeoh dryhtne pinum, ond pinne dom arer,

mid modsefan.™ heald hordlocan, byge feste bind ,

The conscious arrangement and sound-play of these opening lines are highly distinctive, and include rhyme (Gefeob ... gepeoh), patterned alliteration (dryhtne pinum ... binne dom), and

chiastic arrangement of imperatives within individual lines (Gefeob ... gepeoh;, heald ... bind). Bradley has acutely character-

ized this brief (twenty-line) poem as “a quite complex, compact, and surely complete little poem, which discerns a model for the microcosmic individual Christian in the macrocosmic perspectives of divine history.”* Much the same might surely be said of The Wanderer, with which Homiletic Fragment 2 evidently shares certain aspects of poetic technique.

In much the same way, another poem from the Exeter Book, Deor, demonstrates in one passage a close analogue for _ the contemplative tone of The Wanderer in general (including a number of verbal parallels), and for the crucial central passage in particular. The relevant section of The Wanderer reads as follows (lines 58-62a): Forpon ic gebencan ne mag geond pas woruld for hwan modsefa min ne gesweorce,

, ponne ic eorla lif eal geondpence,

modge magubegnas.* | | hu hi ferlice flet ofgeafon,

* “Rejoice now in spirit, and for comfort serve your lord, raise up your glory, guard your hoard-locker, bind fast your thought in your heart (or perhaps [reading mip] ‘bind fast your thought, conceal your heart’).” See further The Wanderer, ed. Leslie, pp. 68-69.

® §. A. J. Bradley, Anglo-Saxon Poetry (London, 1995), p. 397. For a detailed analysis of the poem, see now James E. Anderson, Two Literary Riddles in the Exeter Book (Norman, OK, 1986).

* “Wherefore I cannot think throughout this world why the thoughts of my heart do not grow dark, when I fully contemplate the life of warriors, how they suddenly gave up the hall, the brave young retainers.”

Andy Orchard The parallel (and similarly central) passage from Deor reads as follows (lines 28-34):

Sitted sorgcearig, salum bidzled, on sefan sweorced, sylfan pinced bat sy endeleas earfoda dal.

| Meg bonne gepencan, pat geond pas woruld witig dryhten wendep geneahhe,

eorle monegum are gesceawad, |

wislicne bled, sumum weana del.” | What is striking about this passage is not simply the presentation of a bereft individual sitting ruminating about this world in language very similar to that of The Wanderer (most obviously the parallel between Deor, line 31, and The Wanderer, line 58); there are plentiful parallels for the emphasis on “this world” elsewhere in Old English literature, particularly in homiletic prose. But the poetic techniques employed to point up this pas-

| sage are just those found in The Wanderer and Homiletic Fragment | 2, such as rhyme (selum bideled, line 28), paronomastic repetition of key words and themes (bideled . . . earfoba del . . . weana del), use of “extra” alliteration (on sin lines 28-29; on w in lines

| 31-32), and the disposition of finite verbs so that they carry both stress and alliteration (Sitted . . . sweorced . . . wendep). Out-

side the passage quoted, it is interesting to observe that the rest of the poem is largely lacking such ornamental devices. Moreover, like The Wanderer, Deor, which moves easily from contempla-

tion of a strictly secular and heroic past to anticipation of a Christian homiletic future, has itself been the subject of numerous speculations about its generic affiliations, being considered both an(other) example of elegy and a “heroic” poem, as well as being compared (like The Wanderer) with the De conso-

latione Philosophiae of Boethius.* |

*” “The sorrowing man sits, separated from happiness, broods in his heart and

, thinks to himself that his portion of miseries is endless. Then he can consider how throughout this world the wise Lord frequently brings about change; to many a man he shows favor, certain success, to some a portion of woes.”

*® See, for example, W. F. Bolton, “Boethius, Alfred, and Deor Again,” MP 69 (1972): 222-27; Kevin S. Kiernan, “Deor. The Consolations of an AngloSaxon Boethius,” NM 79 (1978): 333-40; Jerome Mandel, “Exemplum and Refrain: The Meaning of Deor,” Yale English Studies 7 (1977): 1-9. 18

24): Re-Reading The Wanderer

Aside from these verbal echoes in Deor and Homiletic Frag-

ment 2, however, the poem, again found in the Exeter Book, which has been thought by critics most to resemble The Wanderer in thought, style, and structure is undoubtedly The Seafarer. Here again, a highly personalized narrative gives way to an ex-

tended meditation on the mutability of the world, producing an unmistakably “homiletic” conclusion (The Seafarer, lines 117Uton we hycgan hwer we ham agen,

ond bonne gepencan hu we pider cumen, | ond we ponne eac tilien, Pat we to moten in pa ecan eadignesse,

per is lif gelong in lufan dryhtnes, | hyht in heofonum. Pzs sy pam halgan ponc, |

bat he usic geweorpade, wuldres ealdor, ece dryhten, in ealle tid. Amen.”

Focusing on the first two lines cited here (lines 117-18), Bradley

makes the pertinent observation that “[t]he first proposition may be regarded as the thesis of [The Wanderer], .. . the second that of [ The Seafarer].””" Moreover, several of the same verbal strategies found in The Wanderer, Homiletic Fragment 2, and Deor

are also found in these concluding lines to The Seafarer, including the repeated alliteration of parallel verbal forms (hycgan,

line 117; gebencan, line 118),’' paronomasia (lif... lufan, line 121), and assonance across the line break (dryhtnes / hyht, lines 121-22). The same change to (for the first time) first-person plural references that was observed in the final line of The Wanderer is echoed here in the fivefold repetition of we in only three

lines (lines 117-19); indeed the distribution of personal pronouns throughout The Wanderer and The Seafarer is somewhat *® “Tet us consider where we have a home, and then think how we can come there, and then too endeavor to be permitted [to reach] that eternal bless-

edness, where there is the source of life in the love of the Lord, hope in heaven. For that let there be thanks to holy God, that he honored us, the prince of glory, the eternal Lord, for all time. Amen.” Of the opening line of the passage cited here (line 117), Ida L. Gordon, ed., The Seafarer (Norwich, 1960), notes simply that it isa “common homiletic formula” (p. 48). 0 Bradley, Anglo-Saxon Poetry, p. 329.

°! Moreover, one might note how hycgan (line 117) is linked through both al-

literation and paronomasia to the (non-alliterating) last word of the pre- , ceding line, bygd. 19

Andy Orchard

similar.” A further factor linking both poems is the fact that, while numerous (and occasionally identical) biblical and patris_ tic analogues for both The Wanderer and The Seafarer have been

_ suggested, not a single direct source has so far been identified, nor seems likely to be: both texts appear to have adapted considerably any material they might be supposed to have adopted, and neither can simply be considered a versified homily.”

| The above examples all demonstrate the extent to which

The Wanderer is but one of a number of Old English poems |

which might be said to employ the same restricted range of po-

etic techniques and ornamental effects for what might be termed a preaching or homiletic purpose. Moreover, as we

have seen, The Wanderer seems clearly to share a number of themes with vernacular homiletic prose. The extent to which the poet of The Wanderer both used and adapted such homiletic themes can be seen still more clearly by comparing the poem with a prose homily with which it shares no fewer than three of _ the same themes, all employed in the same order. The homily in question, Vercelli Homily 10, itself survives

in whole or in part in nine copies, and seems to have been a popular piece.” The first of the passages from Vercelli Homily 10 which bears comparison with The Wanderer relates to a gno-

mic passage from just after the half-way point in the poem

64-72): |

which lists in an understated way the qualities of the wise (lines Forbon ne meg weorban wis wer, zr he age wintra dzl in woruldrice. Wita sceal gepyldig, ne sceal no to hatheort ne to hredwyrde,

*? So, in The Seafarer we find twelve first-person singular references clustered in the first quarter of the poem (lines 1 [2x], 2, 6, 9, 14, 18, 19 [2x], 20, 34,

and 37), then a break before a spate of only four such references around half-way (lines 58, 59, 61, 64, and 66); then no more first-person singular references in the poem at all, until the first-person plural forms under discussion. On the entirely parallel distribution of first-person references in The Wanderer, see above, p. 9.

*’ See, for example, Peter Clemoes, “Mens absentia cogitans in The Seafarer and The Wanderer,” in Medieval Literature and Civilization: Studies in Memory of G.

N. Garmonsway (London, 1969), pp. 62-77; cf. Dunning and Bliss, ed., The | Wanderer, pp. 22-24. There are useful summaries of possible analogues in the notes to the editions in Muir, ed., The Exeter Anthology, vol. 2, pp. 486-96 and 504-15.

* D. G. Scragg, ed., The Vercelli Homilies and Related Texts, EETS OS 300 (Ox- | ford, 1992), pp. 191-218.

20

Re-Reading The Wanderer ne to wac wiga ne to wanhydig, ne to forht ne to fegen, ne to feohgifre ne nxfre gielpes to georn, zr he geare cunne. Beorn sceal gebidan, ponne he beot spriced, oppet collenferé6 cunne gearwe

hwider hrepra gehygd hweorfan wille.® | The structural unity of this passage is underlined not simply by manuscript capitalization and pointing,” but by the poet’s customary techniques of artful alliteration, repetition, and the use of unique and rare compounds. So, for example, at the beginning of the passage, continued alliteration on w (lines 64-65)

leads smoothly into a sequence of three verses (lines 66-68), | each of which ends with a compound adjective (bredwyrde, wanhydig, and feobgifre), the second element of which alliterates with

either the preceding or following line (or both).°’ The remaining lines of the passage are linked by repetition at the levels of syntax (Wita sceal . . . Beorn sceal), diction (geare cunne . . . cunne gearwe),” and theme (gielpes . . . beot).

There have been several discussions of the ne to... ne to theme that forms the centerpiece of this passage,” and which is *® “Wherefore a man cannot become wise before he has passed a portion of

winters in the kingdom of the world. A wise man must be patient: he should not be too hot-hearted, nor too quick of speech, nor too weak a

| warrior, nor too foolhardy, nor too fearful, nor too fawning, nor too eager | for property, nor ever too keen to boast, before he knows for sure. A warrior should wait, when he utters a vow, until, when his blood is up, he knows for sure where the thoughts of his heart will turn.” A parallel to line 68 is found in the Durham Proverbs 23, “Ne sceal man to zr forht ne to zr feegen”; see O. Arngart, “The Durham Proverbs,” Lunds Universitets Arsskrift (1952): 1-25, at 12. °° The Wanderer, ed. Dunning and Bliss, pp. 8-9. For a useful reproduction of a

number of the manuscript features, see Howlett, British Books in Biblical Style, pp. 575-77.

*” On the use of such techniques elsewhere in The Wanderer, see Muriel Cornell, “Varieties of Repetition in Old English Poetry, Especially in The Wandererand The Seafarer,” Neophilologus 65 (1981): 292-307; for their use in Old English literature in general, see Orchard, “Artful Alliteration,” pp. 433-34. °° One might compare the earlier pairing feste binde and bindai feste (lines 13 and 18). ”’ See particularly Bruce Mitchell, “Some Syntactical Problems in The Wan-

derer,” NM 69 (1968): 172-98, reprinted in his On Old English (Oxford, 1988), pp. 99-117; The Wanderer, ed. Dunning and Bliss, pp. 117-18. For an

, Irish analogue, see further Sealy Ann Gilles, “‘Ne .. . to’ Sequences in Old : pa

Andy Orchard

found commonly elsewhere in Old English, notably in a number of Wulfstan’s sermons.” In Vercelli Homily 10 we find the following (lines 44-54): , 7 we 6a dryhtenlycan were gehealden, 3 pa syblycan lufan Godes and manna. Ne syn we to gifre, ne to frece ne to fyrenlusteorne,

, ne to efestige ne [to] inwitfulle, ne to talende ne to twysprace, ne mordor to fremmanne [ne adas to swerianne ne nidas to hebbenne], ne leasunga to secganne ne peofda to beganganne |

| ne wirignessa [to fyligenne] ne heafodlice leahtras; ne lufien [we] ne scinscreftas, ne herien we ne galdorsangas; ne unriht lyblac ne onginnen we, ne to ydbylge [ne syn we], ne to langsum yrre nzbben we [ne we on oferhydo ne gewitan]; ac pas

, uncysta ealle we us bebiorgen pa de Gode lade syndon, 3 we burh pet pone awyrigedan gast aflymen 4 [gehynen] purh 6a heahmyhte ures dryhtnes.”

The exhortatory mode of this passage is absolutely typical of this theme as it appears in the homilies, and offers a striking contrast to the manner in which the same theme is employed in The Wanderer, where it has been suggested that “the expressions

... are probably ... statements of inalterable fact.”” The poet of The Wanderer appears to highlight the “secularization” of this

theme by the use of the term “kingdom of the world” (woruldrice, line 65), so affording yet another of the implicit English and Old Irish, with Special Attention to “The Wanderer,’” in Voztces in Translation: The Authority of “Olde Bookes” in Medteval Literature. Essays in

Honor of Helaine Newstead, ed. Deborah M. Sinnreich-Levi and Gale Sigal _(New York, 1992), pp. 53-68, especially 61-62.

© Dorothy Bethurum, ed., The Homilies of Wulfstan (Oxford, 1957); see, for example, Homily 8c, lines 168-73 and Homily 10c, lines 97-100. *! “And let us then keep the divine covenants and the peaceful love of God

and men, nor let us be too greedy, nor too rash, nor too wanton, nor too envious, nor too wicked, nor too slanderous, nor too deceitful, neither for - us to commit murder, nor to swear [false] oaths, nor to perform wickedness, nor to speak lies, nor to engage in thefts, nor to pursue blasphemies nor the cardinal sins; nor let us practice abuse, nor let us love the deadly sins, nor let us extol either sorceries or incantations, nor let us undertake wicked witchcraft; nor let us be too easily irritated nor have too lasting anger, nor sink into pride. But let us defend ourselves against all these evils, which are hateful to God, and let us thereby put to flight and overcome the accursed spirit through the high power of our Lord.” ® Dunning and Bliss, ed., The Wanderer, p.117. _ " See Leslie, ed., The Wanderer, p. 81.

, 22

Re-Reading The Wanderer

contrasts between this world and the next that are so much a

feature of the latter half of the poem. ,

The second homiletic theme to be found in both The

Wanderer and Vercelli Homily 10 is the so-called ubi sunt topos,

discussed briefly above.” The relevant passage from The Wanderer (lines 92-96) has already been cited; the equivalent section of Vercelli Homily 10 reads as follows (lines 231-44): For pan nis naht pysses middangeardes wlite 7 bysse worulde wela; he is hwilendlic 4 yfellic 7 forwordenlic, swa 6a rican syndon her in worulde. Hwear syndon pa rican caseras } cyningas, ba be gio weron, od0e pa cyningas pe we io cudon? Hwer syn-

don pa ealdormen pa pe bebodu setton? Hwer is demera domstow? Hwar is hira ofermetto, butan mid moldan bepeahte J in

witu gecyrred? Wa is woruldescriftum, butan hie mid rihte reccen. Nis pam leornerum na sel ponne leornendum, butan hie mid rihte domas secen. Hwer coman middangeardes gestreon? Hwer com worulde wela? Hwer cwom foldan fegernes? Hwer _ coman pa pe geornlicost «hta tiledon 7 odrum eft yrfe lafdon? Swa lene is sio oferlufu eordan gestreona, emne hit bid gelice

rena scurum, bonne hie of heofenum swidost dreosed 73 eft hrade eal toglideS — bid fager weder 7 beorht sunne. Swa — tealte syndon eordan dreamas, *} swa todzled lic 7 sawle.”

Against the parallel use of the theme in both the homily and the poem must be set its considerable elaboration in the prose version, which none the less keeps at its core a relatively faithful

™ See above, pp. 45.

“For the beauty of this earth is transitory and mean and perishable. So are the powerful here in this world. Where are the powerful caesars and kings, those who once were, or the kings whom we once knew? Where are the ealdormen, who made those decrees? Where is the tribunal of judges? Where is their pride, but covered in dust and reduced in punishments? Woe to the judges of the world, unless they decide aright. It is no better for

the teacher than for the students, unless they seek judgments with truth. Where have the earth’s treasures gone? Where has the world’s prosperity gone? Where has the earth’s fairness gone? Where have those gone who most zealously tilled the lands and afterwards left a legacy to others? So transitory is that too great love of earthly treasures: it is even like a shower of rains; when it falls most heavily from the heavens and afterwards quickly all glides away, it is fair weather and bright sun. So unstable are earthly joys, and so body and soul part.” 23

Andy Orchard

rendition of the ultimate Latin source.” Other aspects of the | Vercelli text suggest still further parallels with The Wanderer, es-

pecially the repeated stress at the beginning of the passage on “this world” (pysses middangeardes ... pysse worulde ... her in worulde), and the continual emphasis on worldly goods (woruldescriftum ... middangeardes gestreon ... worulde wela . . . foldan fegernes

... eordangestreona ... eordan dreamas). Once again, it is hard to escape the conclusion that, to its contemporary audience, The Wanderer must have had, at least in its latter stages, a strongly

homiletic flavor.

Likewise, the closing lines of Vercelli Homily 10 are broadly parallel to what is found at the ending of The Wanderer (lines 106-15); the relevant prose passage reads as follows (lines 254-75):

For pam iordlicum ic sylle pa heofonlican, for pyssum [h]wilendlicum pa ecan, for pyssum lenan life pet unlene, for byssum uncorenan life pat gecorene, for byssum earmlican life bat eadige. Gesalige biod pa de pat rice gemunad; unlede biod ba be pam widsacap. Hwet hylped pam men aht, peah pe he ealne middangeard on his anes zht eal gestryne, gif eft pat dio-

ful genimed pa sawle? Ne him no pe bet ne bid, peah he her on | life lifige pusend wintra, gif he efter his deabe bid leaded on

helle per on witum wunap a butan ende. Utan we penne wendan to pam beteran 3} gecyrran to pam selran. Ponne we moton gesion so6ne [drihten] 7 on gefean faran to fader rice. Per is sio hea ar, } per is sio fretewednes pes xdelinges. Per is cyninges prym gesyne, 4 per is arwyrdénes witegna. 3} per is

gestxdpignes giogudée jj per is ar } fagernes werum } wifum, J | geswesscipe engla, 3} geferreden apostola } heahfadera 4 witeg[ena]; 7 eadige gefiod 7 wynsumiap on lisse 4 on blisse 4 on ecum gefean. Par is sang 7] swinsung 7 Godes lof gehyred, 7 bes hyhstan cyninges gehyrnes. 3} sio biorhtu para haligra sawla

| ‘} para sodfestra scinab swa sunne, 7} pa men rixiad swa englas on heofenum. 3 we syndon pyder geladode 4 gehatene to pan hale-

gan [ham] } to pam cynelycan fridstole, par drihten Crist

Breuss. , wunab *j rixad mid eallum halegum a butan ende, amen.”

24 |

_ © Scragg, ed., The Vercelli Homilies, pp. 208-11, usefully provides a text of the Latin source (from Isidore, Synonyma 2.89-91); but for Beruzs (p. 210) read *” “For the earthly I give the heavenly, for this transitory that eternal, for this inconstant that permanent, for this unchosen life that chosen, for this miserable life that blessed. Blessed will be those who are mindful of that king-

dom, wretched will be those who forsake it. What does property benefit that man, though he entirely acquire the whole earth into his possession, if

Re-Reading The Wanderer

Once again, however, the prose passage is considerably more elaborate than the parallel treatment in The Wanderer. The basic structure of the prose passage is relatively straightforward: after a series of contrastive pairs (For pam ... for pyssum ... for pyssum ... for pyssum ... for pyssum) and a similarly contrastive beatitude and malediction (Geselige biod ... unlede biod), the homilist follows a biblical passage from Matthew 16:26 (Hwet . . . sawle) with

a “false ending” to the homily which foreshadows the actual conclusion (a butan ende); after the customary exhortation to | improve (Utan we penne wendan to pam beteran 7 gecyrran to pam

selran), there follows a highly intricate description of theisjoys of heaven which brings the homily to an end. But if there a con-

siderable difference in scale between the ending of The Wanderer and that of Vercelli Homily 10, the parallels of basic structure and phraseology are none the less striking. If in the poem the contrast between the earthly life and the heavenly is largely implicit (eorpban rice... weoruld under heofonum ... pis eordan

gesteal ... on heofonum per), while in the prose it is explicit (For pam iorolicum 1c sylle pa heofonlican), that is because the poem has

the world as its focus (Her bid... her b16... ber bi16 ... her bid), whereas the prose is relentlessly fixed on heaven (Der is . . . per

is... Peris...peris... peri... peris... Per is). In both cases,

however, what is sought is a destination where there will be “se-

curity” (festnung in the poem, gestedpignes in the prose) and

“srace” or “favor” (ar both in the poem and [twice] in the | prose), away from the “transitory” world (ber bid ... lene, as the

| poet says; for pyssum lenan life pet unlene, as the homilist puts it), in the hands of our heavenly “Father” (Feder on heofonum in the poem, whereas the homily alliteratively enjoins us on gefean faran to feder rice).

afterwards the devil snatches his soul? It will be none the better for him, though he should live here in life a thousand winters, if after his death he is led into hell and there abides in torments forever without end. Let us then - turn to that better place and switch to that happier; then we may see the true Lord and in joy travel to the kingdom of the Father. There is the high honor and there is the adorning of the noble one. There is the king’s glory seen and there is the reverence of the wise, and there is honor and fairness _ for men and women, and companionship of angels and fellowship of apostles and patriarchs and prophets and the blessed rejoice and exult in grace and in bliss and in eternal joy. There is song and music and God's praise of the highest King. And the brightness of the holy souls and of the righteous shines like the sun,and and summoned the men reign likeholy angels in the heavens. we are invited thither to the home and to that And kingly sanctuary, where Lord Christ abides and reigns with all the saints forever without end.”

25

Andy Orchard

Such close parallels between The Wanderer and the homiletic tradition, as expressed in Old English both in prose and verse, complement perfectly the techniques of echo and repetition employed within the poem itself, and fully support the as-

sertion by Roger Fowler that “here we have a Christian poet craftily using conventional Christian forms to lament the death of the Germanic past.” The Wanderer is perhaps best seen as a “heroic homily,” a brilliant combination of themes, thoughts, and structuring techniques familiar to its contemporary audience from both the secular poetic and homiletic prose tradi-

tions. The poet invites his audience to make the required

connections, and, through artful and deliberate repetition and echo, provides the mechanism to do so. An audience attuned to such a mechanism would surely have sensed a growing de-

velopment away from the secular traditions of the past and a

growing identification with Christian thoughts and values in the course of a poem that offers its audience in its last line (feder on

heofonum ... us) such a clear echo of the opening line of that most fundamental of all Christian texts, the Lord's Prayer (ure Feder ... on heofonum). With such words the spiritual journey of the

is complete. Modern readers appear to | strainwanderer myopically. at the individual edited sometimes words on the page,

unaccustomed by modern practice to “hearing” echoes. Yet the depth and richness of interpretation to be gained by attuning

ourselves to the patterns of echo and repetition that are the

hallmark of so many Anglo-Saxon texts would seem great. Such

is the value of cross-references.” |

** Roger Fowler, “A Theme in The Wanderer,” ME 36 (1967): 1-14, at 14.

™ A version of this paper was presented at the University of Liverpool in March 1996 at the invitation of Jimmy Cross, who made, as ever, a number

of extremely useful comments; I am picased to offer this paper in his memory.for I am also grateful to Michael Lapidge, Clare writing Lynch, this andpaper, Clare Orchard their help in the writing of this paper. Since I have Poetic become awareinofthe theProse following: Remly McCabe, “Ars Praedicandi: Devices HomilyLynn Vercelli X,” Mid-Hudson Language Studies I (1978), 1-16; and Samatha Zacher, “Sin, Syntax, and Synonyms: Rhetorical Style and Structure in Vercelli Homily X,” /EGP (forthcoming.)

26

Visualizing Judgment:

Illumination in the Old English Christ LT SACHI SHIMOMURA

r WE connection of light with the concepts of clarity, visibility and honor, and the connection of darkness with obscurity, ignorance and shame are literary commonplaces. In the Christian Latin tradition, such dichotomous associations involving light and darkness originate as early as the imagery of Ephesians 5:9-13, fructus enim lucis est in omni bonitate et iustitia et veri-

tate probantes quid sit beneplacitum Deo et nolite communicare operibus infructuosis tenebrarum magis autem et redarguite quae enim in occulto fiunt ab ipsis turpe est et dicere omnia autem quae arguuntur a lumine mani-

festantur omne enim quod manifestatur lumen est, | and John 3:20-21, omnis enim qui mala agit odit licem et non venit ad lu-

cem ut non arguantur opera eius qui autem facit veri- | tatem venit ad lucem ut manifestentur eius opera quia in

Deo sunt facta,’

which associate light with such terms as bonitate et tustitia et veri-

tate and open or manifest deeds, and darkness with concealed and shameful deeds (occulto, turpe). Some part of these associations can be seen in the Old English gnomic poem Maxims I, which declares that a man ashamed must move in the shade, while a bright or pure one belongs in the light: “Sceomiande man sceal in sceade hweorfan, scir in leohte gerised” (line 66).° ' Biblia Sacra iuxta Vulgatam versionem, ed. Robert Weber, 2nd ed., 2 vols. (Stuttgart, 1975). All future references to the Vulgate will be to this edition. * All quotations of Old English verse are taken from the ASPR by line number, unless otherwise noted. 27

Sachi Shimomura

The Old English poem Christ IT draws upon this commonplace and works it into an allegorization of the concepts of

light and brightness. Brightness, as allegorized in the poem, | becomes a measure of the nearness of the presence of Christ —

a nearness both literal and figurative, rather than the solely

figurative nearness to God normally implied in allegorizations

of brightness in the Christian Latin tradition; light also becomes allegorically associated with divine clarity of vision. Such

this poem focuses. |

light illuminates the tableau of the Last Judgment upon which

Christ I, the last and longest (approximately 800 allitera- : | tive lines) of three consecutive poems about Christ in the Exeter Book, draws mainly upon relatively standard biblical and homiletic lore.’ However, striking imagery that goes beyond mere

biblical or homiletic echo characterizes the poem. The three _ Christ poems deal respectively with the Advent, the Ascension, and the Last Judgment, three themes that medieval homilists not uncommonly linked together. The Dominica Pascha homily of the Blickling collection (Blickling Homily 7), for instance, contains a detailed description of the Last Judgment prefaced by lengthy references to events spanning the period between and including Christ’s Advent and Ascension, whereupon the homilist exhorts, “Uton we forpon gebencean hwylc handlean we him forp to berenne habban, ponne he eal pis recb } segp et pisse ilcan

tide, bonne he gesitep on his dom setle.”* Similar exhortations in other homilies issue from Christ himself, as in Vercelli Homily 8 and its major source, Sermo 57 of Caesarius of Arles, in which

Christ addresses the damned on Judgment Day and reminds

them of what he has done: “Suscepi dolores tuos, ut tibi

gloriam meam darem: suscepi mortem tuam, ut tu in aeternum viveres. ... Quur quod pro te pertuli perdidisti?”’ > For further discussion and an analysis of the literary-historical contexts of the Christ poems, see Thomas D. Hill, “Literary History and Old English Poetry: The Case of Christ f, If, and III,” in Sources of Anglo-Saxon Culture, ed.

Paul E. Szarmach with the assistance of Virginia Darrow Oggins, Studies in

. Medieval Culture 20 (Kalamazoo, MI, 1986), pp. 3-22. 4 The Blickling Homilies, ed. R. Morris, EETS OS 58, 63, 73 (London, 1874-80;

reprint 1967), p. 91, with Morris’s translation: “Let us therefore consider what recompense we have to offer to him, when he shall recount and say all , this at this same time that he shall sit on his judgment seat” (p. 90).

° Caesarius, Sermones, ed. G. Morin, editio altera, CCSL 103 (Turnhout, 1953), p. 253. For discussion, see Edward B. Irving, Jr., “Latin Prose Sources 28

Visualizing Judgment

Most studies of Christ IT have dealt with the relationships and connections among the three Christ poems, or with sources for and analogues to various portions of the poem. Rather than seek to establish specific sources or analogues, I propose to ex-

amine the imagery of light and illumination in the poem against the cultural and rhetorical framework — biblical, patris-

tic, and homiletic, as well as secular Anglo-Saxon — within which the poem must have been written, and upon which the Christ IIIT poet presumably drew. Such examination reveals a Germanic twist to the Christian Latin imagery and metaphorizations that the poet draws upon to portray the Last Judgment. The major segments of Christ III consist of the following: a

description of Christ arriving to summon people to judgment, interspersed with passages describing his appearance and the

fiery destruction of the earth that accompanies his coming (lines 867-1080); the people beholding Christ in majesty and recalling the crucifixion (lines 1081-1220); Christ dividing the blessed from the damned in judgment (lines 1221-1335); Christ addressing the blessed and the damned (lines 1336-1523); and finally, a description of the respective fates of the blessed and the damned (lines 1524-1664). This study is concerned primarily with the first three stages of the poem, from Christ’s arrival through the actual Judgment. When Christ arrives, he comes cloaked in light: Ponne semninga on Syne beorg | supaneastan sunnan leoma cyme®d of scyppende scynan leohtor

bonne hit men megen modum ahycgan,

. beorhte blican, ponne bearn godes burh heofona gehleodu hider odywe%. (lines 899-904)°

The poet metaphorizes Christ’s light as the light of the sun, for Old English Verse,” JEGP 56 (1957): 588-95. Irving cites Albert S. Cook, The Christ of Cynewulf: A Poem in Three Parts, the Advent, the Ascension, and the

Last Judgment (Boston, 1900), for identifying this sermon as a source for Christ IT, lines 1379-1523, as well as Rudolph Willard, “Vercelli Homily VUI

and the Christ,” PMLA 42 (1927): 31430, for identifying it as a source for Vercelli Homily 8.

° “Then suddenly, on Mt Sion, from the southeast, the light of the sun comes from the Creator, shining more brightly than men may conceive in their minds, blazing brightly, when the son of God appears hither through the covering of the heavens.” Translations are my own, unless otherwise noted. 29

Sachi Shimomura

presumably its equivalent in glory and brilliance, a figure so _ formulaic as to appear to be bereft of true metaphorical status. The Christ III passage seems to echo or contain reverberations of Matthew 17:2, the Transfiguration of Christ upon the mountain: “et resplenduit facies eius sicut sol.” Bede’s Lenten Homilia

I.24 on the Gospels, which discusses this verse and relates the Transfiguration to the light of the blessed after Judgment, explains that the Apostle compares Christ’s glory to the sun be~ cause “he could not find anything brighter than the sun to give as an example to human beings.”’ However, this brightness associated with Christ has a function beyond that of exemplifying Christ’s qualitative superlativeness. Its illumination, reaching beyond the everyday revelatory power of the sun, reveals the deeds and words and thoughts of people at Judgment: “Sceal on leoht cuman / sinra weorca wlite ond worda gemynd / ond heortan gehyed fore heofona cyning” (lines 1036b-38).° Such light brings

ingeponcas — internal thoughts — out. Neither the former thoughts nor deeds of those at Judgment remain hidden. Christ’s light, therefore, represents a divine clarity of vision surpassing or dissociated from any physical restrictions. On this

level, the figure of Christ/sun sustains a metaphorical functionality that logically extends the original, formulaic comparison.

Obviously, such a functional metaphor follows from vari-

ous biblical and apocryphal sources including 1 Corinthians 4:5 oe (“itaque nolite ante tempus iudicare quoadusque veniat Dominus qui et inluminabit abscondita tenebrarum et manifestabit consilia cordium et tunc laus erit unicuique a Deo”) and 4 Es— dras 16:54-67.” These passages point at the existence of a com-

plex of ideas involving the bringing out — literally, the bringing to light — of that which is hidden or interior, in order ’ “quia clarius sole aliquid unde exemplum daretur hominibus minime potuit

, inueniri”: Bedae Venerabilis Opera. Homiliarum Evangel (hereafter Bedae Homiliae], ed. D. Hurst, CCSL 122 (Turnhout, 1955), p. 173. Translation taken from Bede the Venerable, Homilies on the Gospels, trans. Lawrence T. Mar-

tin and David Hurst, O.S.B., 2 vols., Cistercian Studies Series 110, 111 (Kalamazoo, MI, 1991), vol. 1, p. 238.

* “The aspect of their deeds and the memory of their words and the thoughts of their heart must come into the light before the king of heaven.” ” Frederick M. Biggs cites these and other relevant parallels in The Sources of

1986), pp. 17-18. ,

“Christ III”: A Revision of Cook’s Notes, OEN Subsidia 12 (Binghamton, NY, 30

Visualizing Judgment

that God may deliver just judgment. Old English homiletic lit-

erature drawing upon these and similar passages sketches a continuum ranging from more abstract to more concrete formulations of that complex of ideas. On the more abstract end, Vercelli Homily 8, which draws upon a related passage, 2 Corinthians 5:10 (“omnes enim nos manifestari oportet ante tribunal Christi ut referat unusquisque propria corporis prout gessit sive bonum sive malum”), explains that at Doomsday “nznig man his sylfes gewyrhta behydan ne mag, ne [nan] man his agenne andwlitan on liohte wedere 06de on sunnan sciman becyrran ne mag.”"” Like

the biblical passages, this homily emphasizes that nothing is

hidden from Christ, but does not much elaborate on the mechanism of revelation, aside from simply implying a visual metaphor: it remains abstracted from any specifying imagery. The Sauwle Pearf homily of the Blickling collection (Blickling Homily 8) warns, somewhat less abstractly, against “pone egesfullan domes deg, se cumep nu ungeara; ] we bonne beop standende beforan Drihtnes prymsetle, 7 anra manna gehwylc sceal forp-beran swa

god swa yfel swa he zr dyde, 7 ponne edlean onfén be his sylfes gewyrhtum.”™" Painting a similar scene of souls standing before

the judgment seat and laying forth their past deeds, Vercelli Homily 10 likewise urges its listeners to be mindful of their souls’ good before they must come to the Last Judgment and the judge who “dem®d rihtne dom.” The homilist emphasizes that

they will not be able to hide themselves or their deeds behind worldly jewels or treasure: “ne bid ber fordborene gyldene beagas, ne bid per hyra heafodgold ne woruldgestreon boren to pam sigedeman. Ac on pam gemote standed anra gehwylces mannes sawl. Hio bid fordledende ealle ba wiorc pe hio gefremede, godes 0d%e yfeles.””™ "" The Vercelli Homilies and Related Texts, ed. D. G. Scragg, EETS OS 300 (Ox-

ford, 1992), p. 144. “No one may hide his own works, nor may anyone alter [disguise?] his own countenance in clear weather or in sunshine.” "' The Blickling Homilies, ed. Morris, p. 101, with Morris’s translation: “the awful Doomsday, which now cometh unexpectedly; and we shall then stand

before the throne of God, and each man shall produce both the good and ,

his own deserts” (p. 100). |

the evil that he previously did, and shall then receive reward according to ' The Vercelli Homilies, ed. Scragg, p. 199. “Nor will gilded rings be brought

forth there, nor will their crowns [it head-gold] nor worldly wealth be brought there to that victorious judge. But in that assembly will stand each 31

Sachi Shimomura . , Whereas both the Sauwle Dearf and the Vercelli passages empha-

size the sinners’ inability to hide before the Judge’s omniscience and just judgment (rihine dom), both also suggest some way in which the judged bear or lead forth the deeds that they have done. In the latter homily, the echo of fordborene . . .

| fordledende specifically underlines the contrast between the

| crowns and rings that may deck a person in this world and the © deeds that will deck that person’s soul at Judgment, thereby implying a comparable materiality for the revealed deeds as for the jewels. That comparison is made explicit in Blickling Homily 7 (Dominica Pascha), which warns that on Doomsday, “Nees

- na mid golde ne mid godwebbenum hreglum, ac mid godum dedum & halgum we sceolan beon gefretwode,” if we wish to be on Christ’s right hand with the blessed “pa he sended on éce leoht.””

| Blickling Homily 10 (Pisses Middangeardes Ende Neab Is) completes that step toward a more concrete formulation of revelation on Doomsday. The homilist pictures the dead at Doomsday revealing their sins with a concretely visual metaphor: when they rise up for Judgment, their flesh, like clear

glass, reveals their sins: “bib ponne se flaschoma ascyred swa gles, | ne mzg 6zs unrihtes beén awiht bedigled.”'* The sinners literally

bear their sins before the judge, as part of their visible flesh. Conversely, the blessed may be adorned with their good deeds, as though in place of the worldly adornments and jewelry that, according to Vercelli Homily 10 and the Blickling Dominica Pas_ cha, cannot be borne before the judgment seat; Vercelli Homily 21 urges, “Men 6a leofestan, uton us nu ymbscrydan 3 gefretuwian

' mid godum weorcum j mid megenum urum sawlum. .. . Of dam , | beod ymbscridde eallra rihtwisra manna sawla on domes dzge, ¥ of one’s soul: It will be leading forth all the works, of good or evil, that it has

performed.” | | '° The Blickling Homilies, ed. Morris, p. 95, with Morris’s translation: “but not with gold nor with sumptuous-woven (purple) garments, but with good and

holy deeds we must be adorned . . . whom he will send into everlasting

light” (p. 94). |

' Tbid., pp. 109-11, with Morris’s translation: “then shall the body (flesh-garb) be as transparent as glass, nought of its nakedness [recte sinfulness (unm-

htes) | may be concealed” (pp. 108-10). | 32,

Visuahizing Judgment

bam hie scinad beforan Godes gesyhée.”'’” Their good works and virtues clothe the souls of the blessed with the light with which they shine, metaphorically — and possibly literally, in the case of Chrest II.

The latter two examples, while effectively coalescing the revelatory aspects of judgment into simple visual terms, seem strangely disparate in their choice of imagery; the moment of Judgment reveals sins and good deeds differently. A passage in Gregory’s Moralia in Iob illumines the relationship between the different approaches taken by the homilists’ imagery for the blessed and the sinners at Judgment. Gregory, explicating the figure of gold and glass in Job 28:17 (“non adaequabitur ei aurum vel vitrum”), explains that the two substances allegorize the blessed “quorum corda sibi inuicem et claritate fulgent et puritate translucent.”'° The blessed both shine like gold and are clear like glass on account of their purity. Logically, then, impure sinners would reveal the blemishes upon their purity — as, in fact, they do in the Blickling homily Disses Middangeardes Ende Neah Is (“bib bonne se flaschoma ascyred swa gles, ne meg des unrihtes beén awiht bedigled”).

These more concrete metaphoric formulations in the Old English homilies straddle the line between literal and figurative imagery. In certain cases, the metaphor can as well be read lit-

erally: in the eyes of the homilist and his audience, the flesh may in fact become clear as glass on the day of the Last Judgment; good deeds may indeed scintillate like jewels. Christ II

crosses that line.

Brightness in Christ I/[ represents both a literal and a figurative nearness to divine presence. Around Christ, who shines in holiness, “halig scined” (line 1009), shine the hosts of angels, “hlutre blicaé” (line 1012); Christ’s angelic retinue glows “heofonbeorht” (line 1018), heavenly bright, and he himself shines out above them. Those unclouded by sins bring bright counte-

nances, “beorhtne wlite” (line 1058 and again at line 1076), into Christ’s light, as though their sinless state reflects back that ® The Vercelli Homilies, ed. Scragg, pp. 353-54. “Dearly beloved, let us now clothe and adorn our souls with good works and virtues. . . . With them will the souls of all the righteous be clothed on Doomsday, and with them will they shine before God’s sight.” | '© §. Gregorit Magni Moralia in Iob 18.77, ed. M. Adriaen, CCSL 143A (Turnhout, 1979), p. 941. 33

Sachi Shimomura

divine brightness. In fact, only the resplendent blessed see his bright aspect, his “scynan wlite” (line 914), at Judgment, while the damned find his aspect terrible, “egeslic ond grimlic” (line

918), to look upon." Just as their vision of the bright counte- ,

nance of Christ reflects the status of the saved, so their own bright countenances seemingly reflect that vision. The brightness reflected between the faces of Christ and the blessed high-

lights the proximity of the latter to Christ."® | The Pauline verse 2 Corinthians 3:18 provides conceptual

underpinnings for such reflected brilliance: “nos vero omnes revelata facie gloriam Domini speculantes in eandem imaginem

transformamur a claritate in claritatem tamquam a Domini Spiritu.” The face-to-face glory of God transforms its viewer with the selfsame glory and brilliance. This transformation a clantate

in claritatem occurs as by the Spirit of the Lord (“tamquam a Domini Spiritu”). The conjunction tamquam places the trans_ formation squarely in the realm of metaphor, a metaphor linking the transforming power of the face-to-face vision of God

| with the transforming knowledge of the divine spirit.” Light mediates the transformation. A homiletic passage by Bede hinges upon the same underlying metaphorical link, again phrased in terms of light. Bede explains in his Homilia I.8 on

the Gospels that: | |

there is a great difference between a light which is enlightened and light which enlightens; between those who

receive a share of the true light so that they may give light, and the perpetual Light itself, which is sufficient '7 For further discussion of the differing visions of the blessed and the damned, see Thomas D. Hill, “Vision and Judgment in the Old English Christ IIT,” SP 70 (1973): 233-42; and, as applied to The Dream of the Rood, David F. Johnson, “Old English Religious Poetry: Christ and Satan and The _ Dream of the Rood,” in Companion to Old English Poetry, ed. Henk Aertsen and Rolf H. Bremmer, Jr. (Amsterdam, 1994), pp. 159-87, at 182-84.

'8 Christ and Satan, lines 209-23, expands similarly on the concept of the bright aspects of both the blessed and the angels around Christ's throne, whose “wlite scined / geond ealra worulda woruld mid wuldorcyninge” (lines 222b-23). '. A sister verse, 1 Corinthians 13:12, clarifies this link between the specifically _ face-to-face vision of God and divine knowledge: “videmus nunc per specu-

lum in enigmate tunc autem facie ad faciem nunc cognosco ex parte tunc autem cognoscam sicut et cognitus sum.” 34

Visualizing Judgment

not only to give light in itself, but also illuminates by its presence whoever comes in contact with it.”

While Bede, following the Bible, glosses that light as divine wis- | dom, the Christ III poet appears to take the distinction between

“light which is enlightened and light which enlightens” and to |

some extent literalize that light. |

Although these biblical and Bedan passages delineate the illuminating power of divine presence in a solely metaphorical

context, an Old English Rogationtide homily preserves that idea in a more literalized context, one that evokes its usage in Christ III. This Rogationtide homily describes a soul’s approach ; to the abode of the blessed.*' Angels draw the soul from the body and lead it toward paradise. The blessed soul, rejoicing in

great light and happiness, is informed that better (literally, “brighter”) things await it, namely, the sight of God’s and his angels’ brightness: “Leohtre pe is toward ponne pu gesihst Godes beorhtnesse and his engla, and pin ansyn bid to heora ansyne / ecelice gestadelod.”** The repetition ansyn . . . ansyne verbalizes the reflec-

tive relationship between the countenances of God and his angels, and of the blessed soul: they are fixed (“gestadelod”) face to face. The homiletic narrative thus literalizes not only the soul’s

approach to God, but also its direct, facie ad faciem, eternal vision of God. That sense of God’s physical proximity echoes the description in Christ III of heaven’s bliss, granted to the blessed

at Judgment: one highlight of heavenly bliss is the sight of God’s shining countenance: “ber is seo dyre dryhtnes onsien / eallum pam gesalgum sunnan leohtra” (lines 1650-51).” When the *’ “Sed multum distat inter lucem quae inluminatur et lucem quae inluminat, inter eos qui participationem uerae lucis accipiunt ut luceant et ipsam lucem perpetuam quae non solum lucere in se ipsa sed sua praesentia quoscumque adtigerit inlustrare sufficit”: Bedae Homiliae, ed. Hurst, pp. 55-56; trans. Martin and Hurst, Homilies on the Gospels, p. 78.

*' Homily 9 in Eleven Old English Rogationtide Homilies, ed. Joyce Bazire and James E. Cross, Toronto Old English Series 7 (Toronto, 1982), pp. 115-24. Much of this homily is translated from Latin; for comments, see Bazire and Cross’s introduction to the homily. "= TIbid., p. 123: “Brighter/better awaits you when you see God’s and his an-

gels’ brightness, and your countenance is eternally fixed to their countenances.”

* “There is the dear aspect of the lord, brighter than the sun to all the blessed.”

35

Sachi Shimomura

countenances of the blessed become thus fixed on the bright countenances of the Lord and his angels, they too shine with a derived or borrowed brightness. In Christ II, the blessed, by virtue of their blessedness both figuratively and literally close to

| Christ, bask in his reflected glory.

The semi-literal use of light imagery found in Christ III ex-

ists conjointly with and in part derives from the metaphorical usage more common to the Christian Latin tradition. The tra- — ditional metaphorizations of brightness as an expression of di-

vine influence recur in homiletic material expounding the | verse of Matthew 13:43, “tunc iusti fulgebunt sicut sol in regno Patris eorum.” Brightness, in this verse, is clearly metaphoric

(stcut) of holiness: holiness offers one route of figurative approach to Christ, and hence to the heavenly kingdom. As dis-

cussed above, however, the approach to Christ can be literalized. In such a case, the metaphorical and the literal connect on the level of imagery. Certain Old English homilies show

, how the connection works. These homilies, while more or less maintaining the metaphorical bent of righteous brightness, offer a glimpse at how that image gathers an accretion of more concrete associations; through these concrete associations, it becomes more susceptible to a literal as well as metaphorical reading. One such homily, another Rogationtide homily, cites Mat-

thew 13:43 (“tunc iusti fulgebunt sicut sol in regno Patris eorum”) in connection with the idea that their virtues will

adorn the righteous at Judgment.’ The homilist urges his | audience to be virtuous and mindful of their religious teachings so that they too will be among the chosen: “ponne beo we at urum ytemestan dxge gewlitegode mid Godes pem gecorenum, be bem is awriten and dus cweden, ‘Der pa sodfestan men scinaé and leohtaé swa beorhte swa sunne on pes uplican Feder rice.”* Then they too will shine “swa beorhte swa sunne” in the heavenly king-

dom. The homiletic passage preserves the grammatically ingrained metaphorics (Old English swa . . . swa translating Latin sicut) of the biblical verse; however, it places that verse in the *4 Homily 10 in Eleven Old English Rogationtide Homilies, ed. Bazire and Cross, pp. 125-35.

» Tbid., p. 135: “then at our last day we will be adorned with the chosen of God, of whom it is written and said thus, “There the righteous men will shine as bright as the sun in the kingdom of the heavenly Father.’” 36

Visualizing Judgment

context of the beautifying of the blessed soul by its virtues and good works — a formulation discussed earlier in this paper as straddling literal and figurative imagery. As we have seen, concrete imagery, in this case the righteous soul’s adornment by virtues, marks that crossover point between literal and figurative. Here, in the Old English homily, the concretized imagery of adornment by virtues endows the juxtaposed biblical verse with associations lacking in its original, biblical context. Even though the concretized imagery itself originally derives from the biblical metaphorics of revelation, it imbues the brightness of the blessed with a more literal reading than is typical of the

Christian Latin tradition: the idea that each virtue literally adds : a quantum of light until the blessed soul achieves heavenly wattage. Then the light of the blessed becomes literal light that shines out, not merely figurative light. Another homily expounds at greater length upon Matthew 13:43, an anonymous homily in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS

Bodley 343 on the Transfiguration of Christ.“ This homily explains that Christ’s Transfiguration adumbrates the glory of the blessed at Judgment: “swa swa his ansyne weard on beorhtnes iturnd, swa beod alle his halgan on wlite and on wuldor ihwerfod on domes dzg swa he him sylf sade: Sodfeste men scined swa beorhte swa

sunne on heore feder rice.”” This passage goes on to describe the division of the sinful and the righteous on Doomsday, and adds that the latter “on brihtnesse libbaé and scinz6.”” The homilist explains that the Lord will transform the humility of our body,

and make it fair and bright after his own likeness: “Drihten gehywxd pa eadmodnesse ures lichames, and hine gedep wlitigne ant *° Homily 6 in Old English Homilies from MS Bodley 343, ed. Susan Irvine, EETS

OS 302 (Oxford, 1993), pp. 146-78. The manuscript dates to the twelfth century, but Irvine dates the seven homilies in this volume as “pre-Conquest works, roughly contemporary with those of A‘lfric” (p. xviii). The main source for the Tranfiguration homily is Bede’s Lenten Homila 1.24 (ed. Hurst, Bedae Homiliae, p. 147).

7 Old English Homilies, ed. Irvine, p. 169; translated by Algernon O. Belfour, ed., Twelfth-Century Homilies in MS Bodley 343, EETS OS 137 (London, 1909), p. 113: “even as his countenance was changed in brightness, so shall all his saints be changed in beauty and glory on the day of judgement, even as he himself said, “The righteous shall shine as bright as the sun in their Father’s kingdom.’” ** Old English Homilies, ed. Irvine, p. 171. 37

Sachi Shimomura

brihtne zfter his agene anlicnesse.”” The righteous, therefore, will

shine with their righteousness. So far, the figure of brightness resembles that of Vercelli Homily 21 or the Rogationtide homily discussed immediately above. The homily on the Transfiguration elaborates this figure of brightness by attributing to the blessed different degrees of brightness that correspond to their different degrees of blessedness: Sanctus Paulus pe apostol cwxd be pam Cristes halgen: Efne swa pe steore oferscined oderne on brihtnesse pat he bid brihtre pene pe oper. Swylc bid be mon zrest on domes dege swa mucele wundorlycor and brihtre penne he per scinzd for pene

oderne. For pam swa mycele mare swa 6e mon her on weorlde | to gode dep toforen pam odre, and swa mucel swa he bid on his

dade betere pene pe oder, swa mycele mare made and edlean he sceal underfon at ure Drihtine on domes dzg.*°

The homily thus explicitly establishes a one-to-one relation be-

tween good deeds and their rewards in terms of brightness. Such an elaboration delineates the role of light as comparative and metaphoric in a way that oddly emphasizes the visual qual-

ity of the light, and establishes a beauty-contest-like hierarchy of | brightness culminating in Christ himself, whose fairness and light “oferscinzé alle odre liht.”*

The righteous no longer just shine like the sun; they shine

in a hierarchy determined by their good deeds, so that their variations in brightness stand witness to their respective degrees of holiness. The carefully sketched details of the brightness/blessedness comparison above systematize the metaphor to an extent that gives it a vivid functionality well beyond that of

a figure of speech. Curiously enough, the very elaboration of ” Ibid. ” Ibid., p. 170; Twelfth-Century Homilies, ed. Belfour, pp. 113-15: “St Paul the Apostle said about the holy ones of Christ, ‘Even as the one star shineth

above another in brightness, because it is brighter than the other.’ So much the more glorious and brighter shall the one man be on the day of judgement when he shineth there before the other. Because as much as one man does the more good here on earth above another, — as much as he is better in his deeds than another, — so much more reward and recompense shall he receive from our Lord on the day of judgement.” See Ir_ vine, Old English Homilies, pp. 154-55, for a brief discussion of this passage and a similar passage in Atlfric’s homily for the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

| 18

“! Old English Homilies, ed. Irvine, p. 170.

Visualizing Judgment

the metaphorical imagery allows or encourages an unraveling of metaphor. Christ III, balancing between figurative and literal poles of imagery, achieves its forays into literalized imagery by

adopting standard homiletic metaphors in concretely visual

versions that seem, at their very inception, susceptible to a vivid | literalization.

While the homily on the Transfiguration presents a particularly complex figure of brightness, the homiletic tradition

includes rhetoric that draws upon simpler but nonetheless thematically comparable figures of light. Blickling Homily 2 (Dominica Prima in Quinquagesima), for instance, explains and establishes a distinction between earthly light and pet gastlice

leobt, the spiritual light of true faith, thereby laying bare the metaphorical quality of the latter, divinely inspired variety of illumination.” That spiritual light, according to the homilist, is _ held in common with the angels (mid englum gemene*). An analysis of such spiritual light in Christ III clarifies the play of the literal and the figural within this poem.

This spiritual or divine illumination plays a significant role at the Last Judgment, when Christ divides humankind into the saved and the damned. That vision of the division of humankind is essentially a divine one; only in the presence and revelatory light of Christ is such a division possible. The poet of Christ HI conveys the scope of Christ’s divinely illuminating presence by an elaborate visual schematization of the Last Judgment tab-

leau. At Judgment, as the saved cluster on the right hand of Christ and the damned cluster on the left, three specific signs differentiate the saved from the damned. These signs invoke both divine vision and a more concrete, human vision. Two of the three signs that mark the saved are concrete visual modes: they see the bliss of heaven that awaits them, and likewise they see the suffering of the damned. The damned, conversely, see the suffering of hell that awaits them and the bliss of the saved. These two sets of signs complement each other: each group

sees itself and the other group and perceives their relative ™ The Blickling Homilies, ed. Morris, pp. 14-25. See also the parallel passages in “ilfric’s homily for Shrove Sunday (Dominica in Quinquagesima, CH 1.10) in Llfric’s Catholic Homilies. The First Series. Text, ed. Peter Clemoes, EETS SS 17

(Oxford, 1997), pp. 258-65, and Gregory the Great, Homilia 2 in Evangelia

(PL 76, 1082). “8 The Blickling Homilies, ed. Morris, p. 21.

39

Sachi Shimomura

dooms. The remaining signs seem, at first glance, less closely related to each other:

Donne bid gesta dom fore gode sceaden , wera cneorissum, swa hi geworhtun er, ber bid on eadgum edgesyne

| preo tacen somod, pes pe hi hyra beodnes wel wordum ond weorcum willan heoldon.

An is rest orgeate per | bat hy fore leodum leohte blicad, blade ond byrhte ofer burga gesetu. Him on scinad «xrgewyrhtu, on sylfra gehwam sunnan beorhtran. .. . On him dryhten gesihd nales feara sum firenbealu ladlic, ond pat allbeorhte eac sceawiad heofonengla here, ond haleba bearn, ealle eorébuend ond atol deofol, mircne megencreft, manwomma gehwone magun purh pa lichoman, leahtra firene, geseon on bam sawlum. Beod pa syngan flzsc scandum purhwaden swa pet scire gles, pat mon ypest meg eall purhwlitan. (lines 1232-41, 1274b-83)*4

As in the homiletic tradition mentioned above, the saved shine with the brightness of their former good deeds, so that they appear brighter than the sun: “Him on scinad zrgewyrhtu, / on sylfra gehwam sunnan beorhtran” (lines 1240-41). The damned, on the

other hand, have flesh as transparent as glass, so that each of their sins can be seen through the fleshly covering: “Beod pa “ “Then is the judgment of souls appointed before God to generations of men, just as they earlier wrought; there on the blessed are easily seen three tokens together, since they held well to the will of their lord in words and deeds. One is first evident there, that they shine with light before the peo-

ple, in glory and brightness over the dwellings of cities. On them shine their former deeds, on each of them brighter than the sun... . On them [the damned] the Lord sees loathesome sins, not at all few, and also that

all-bright host of heavenly angels and the children of men — all the earthdwellers — and the terrible devil behold their dark might: each of sinstains, crimes of vices, they may, through the bodies, see on those souls. The sinful flesh is shamefully pierced through [translucent] like clear glass, so that one may most easily see all through it.”

40

Visualizing Judgment

syngan flesc / scandum purhwaden swa pet scire gles, / pet mon ypest meg eall burhwlitan” (lines 1281-83). How each group looks — to

the other group, to the angels, and to Christ — appears to be the point of these signs. Why is being seen so important?

Augustine, commenting on Isaias 66:24, discusses the question, “Sed quo modo egredientur boni ad uidendas poenas

malorum?”” According to Augustine, the blessed go forth metaphorically, “per scientiam,” or through knowledge. Thus the blessed will perceive the damned in torment in hell, but the

damned will not be able to perceive the blessed in joy in heaven: “Qui enim erunt in poenis, quid agatur intus in gaudio

Domino nescient; qui uero erunt in illo gaudio, quid agatur foris in illis tenebris exterioribus scient.”*’ Augustine goes on to

explain that the perception of the righteous at the Last Judgment partakes of divine knowledge: “Si enim haec prophetae nondum facta nosse potuerunt per hoc, quod erat Deus, quantulumcumque erat, in eorum mortalium mentibus: quo modo inmortales sancti iam facta tunc nescient, cum Deus erit omnia in omnibus?”*”’ Augustine’s explanation implicitly metaphorizes

divine knowledge in terms of vision; the blessed can see the damned because they share in God’s knowledge, and not because the blessed (in heaven) and the damned (in hell) exist in any sort of actual visual proximity to each other. Along similar lines, A:lfric, echoing Gregory, distinguishes between the limited vision granted to the damned, who at times see the blessed in glory, and the eternal, continuous vision granted to the blessed, who always see the damned suffering (“6a synfullan geseoo nu hwiltidum pa gecorenan on wuldre . . . 7 6a rihtwisan symle geseod pa unrihtwisan on heora tintregum cwylmigende”®). The viAugustine, De civitate Dei 20.22, ed. B. Dombart and A. Kalb, CCSL 48 (Turnhout, 1955), p. 740. *’ Ibid., p. 741. 37 Thid.; Saint Augustine, The City of God, trans. Marcus Dods (New York, 1950),

p. 747: “For if the prophets were able to know things that had not yet happened, by means of that indwelling of God in their minds, limited though it was, shall not the immortal saints know things that have already happened, when God shall be all in alle” * ZElfric’s homily on the Second Sunday after Pentecost (Dominica secunda post Pentecosten, CH 1.23), ed. Clemoes, £/fric’s Catholic Homilies, p. 368; translated by Benjamin Thorpe, ed. and trans., The Homilies of the Anglo-Saxon Church. The First Part, Containing the Sermones Catholici, or Homilies of 4lfric, 2

vols. (London, 1843-46), vol. 1, p. 335: “The sinful will now sometimes see AI

Sachi Shimomura

sion of the blessed again depends on their close metaphorical relationship to God: “da gecorenan geseod symle heora scyppendes beorhtnysse; 3} for pi nis nan ping on gesceaftum him bediglod.”?

Nothing in creation is concealed from those blessed who see

the brightness of their Creator (and therefore share in his knowledge). In Chnst III, however, there exists reciprocal sight between

_ the blessed and the damned. Such sight seemingly refers not to metaphorical vision — that is, divine knowledge metaphorized as vision — but, instead, to literal vision. Likewise, the brightness that the damned see upon the bodies of the saved becomes literal brightness, similarly de-metaphorized through an emphasis on actual vision. Rather than functioning simply as a metaphor for their blessedness, such as the Bible and the homilies employ, their brightness then becomes an actual and visible quantity, so that the poet of Christ IJ, speaking of the damned, can say, “Geseod hi pa betran blede scinan” (line 1291), they see

those better ones shine with glory. Not only do the blessed shine, but they are seen doing so. Again, why is being seen so

important in Chnst II? |

One answer involves the significance placed on the concept of shame, already alluded to in the quote from Maxims I. “Sceomiande man sceal in sceade hweorfan, scir in leohte gerise6” (“A

man ashamed must go in shade, while a bright one belongs in light”). Shame and praise are opposite sides of the same coin, and Germanic heroic culture heavily emphasizes the importance of praiseworthy action and its concomitant glory. Maxims I states, simply, “Dom bip selast” (line 80b),*’ a potentially ambiguous statement in view of the disparate possible meanings of the chosen in glory ... and the righteous will ever see the unrighteous suffering in their torments”; cf. Gregory, Homilia 40 in Evangelia (PL 76, 13089). Professor David F. Johnson of Florida State University kindly brought

, the latter passage to my attention.

* £ifric’s Catholic Homilies, ed. Clemoes, p. 368; translated by Thorpe, Homilies

_ of £lfric, vol. 1, p. 335: “The chosen will constantly see their Creator’s brightness, and therefore there is nothing in creation concealed from

|p

[them]”; cf. Gregory, Homilia 40 in Evangelia (PL 76, 1309): “quia qui Crea-

toris sui claritatem vident, nihil in creatura agitur quod videre non possint.”

* “Glory/judgment is best.” |

Visualizing Judgment

dom: judgment, glory.”’ A well-known passage from Beowulf echoes this vocabulary less ambiguously: Ure zghwylc sceal ende gebidan worolde lifes; wyrce se be mote domes zr deabe; pat bid drihtguman

unlifgendum efter selest. (lines 1386-89)” |

Glory before death is best; such glory, in the context of Beowulf,

requires praiseworthy heroic action. A passage in the Old Saxon Heliand likewise emphasizes praiseworthy action in

Thomas’s declaration of his intention to follow his lord Christ: that ist thegnes cust, that hie mid is frahon samad fasto gistande, dgie mid im thar an duome. ... Than lébot Gs thoh duom after, euod uuord for gumon. (lines 3996b-4002a)*

The Old Icelandic Havamdl also places importance on praise and the good judgment of men: Deyr fe, deyja fraendr,

deyr sjalfr it sama;

en oréstirr deyr aldregi hveim er sér gddan getr.

Deyr fe, deyja frandr, deyr sjalfr it sama; ek veit einn

at aldri deyr: | démr um daudan hvern.*

DOE. |

*' For discussion, see Eric Stanley, “Some Problematic Sense-Divisions in Old English: ‘glory’ and ‘victory’; ‘noble,’ ‘glorious,’ and ‘learned,’” in Heroic Poetry in the Anglo-Saxon Period: Studies in Honor of Jess B. Bessinger, Jr., ed.

Helen Damico and John Leyerle, Studies in Medieval Culture 32 (Kalamazoo, MI, 1993), pp. 171-226, as well as the appropriate entry in the Toronto

43

® “Fach of us must abide the end of worldly life; let him who may achieve glory before death; to the warrior unliving, that will be best thereafter.”

" Heliand und Genesis, ed. Otto Behaghel, rev. Burkhard Taeger, 9th ed. (Tubingen, 1984), p. 143. “That is the thane’s choice, that he should stand

fast together with his lord, die with him there at doom/glory. . . . Then judgment/glory will live thereafter for us, good word among men.”

Sachi Shimomura

Within Germanic heroic culture, glory and praise — the good judgment of men — outlive all other goods. In Christ If, the recurring phrase beorhtne wiite, referring to the bright aspect that the saved bring into the bright presence of Christ, shows a reification of such glory and praise. The saved will glow with their good deeds for all eternity; their

; brightness thus affirms and proclaims their praiseworthiness. As light, their praiseworthiness becomes an intrinsic attribute of their souls; eternal light, then, internalizes eternal praise. As the examples given show, the Germanic praise ethos presents a way of viewing a person in relation to both present and future, the period of his or her lifetime and the time after death. Praise must be won by the living; praise alone may outlast death. Such an ethos has obvious similarities to the Christian concern with the Last Judgment.” Anglo-Saxon homilists constantly reiterate the need to make good one’s sins before death, since Christ's mercy will not be available thereafter; moral cleanness must be won by the living, and it alone is significant after death.” This parallel encourages not only a juxtaposition, but a conflation of © Havamal, ed. David A. H. Evans, Viking Society for Northern Research 7 (London, 1986), verses 76-77. Translated by Patricia Terry, Poems of the Elder Edda, revised ed. (Philadelphia, PA, 1990), p. 21: “Cattle die, kinsmen die,

one day you die yourself; but the words of praise will not perish when a man wins fair fame. Cattle die, kinsmen die, one day you die yourself; I know one thing that never dies — the dead man’s reputation.” Evans notes:

“domr. literally ‘judgment’ (whether favourable or unfavourable); but, whereas the Norsemen commonly observed that a man’s fair fame would be remembered for ever, they very rarely stated that disgrace would never be forgotten. . . . So, in the context, démr is in practice restricted to ‘renown’” (p. 112). Evans goes on to mention that the meaning “glory,” while “well exemplified in OE dom and Gothic doms,” is unattested for the Norse domr.

*® Of course, the relationship is somewhat problematic; while both the Germanic and the Christian ethos emphasize the transience of life, they re- _

, spond differently to the problem. For an interesting reading of the Moth

_ riddle in relation to the conflict between Christian ideals and the Germanic fame/glory ideal, see Geoffrey Russom, “Exeter Riddle 47: A Moth Laid Waste to Fame,” PQ 56 (1977): 129-36. Russom argues that the riddle

| 44

makes an “implicit attack on earthly glory”: “If se wyrm destroys epics as easily as the corpse-worm devours flesh, little will remain of the ‘undying’ glory which is the pride of heroes and the poets who praise them” (p. 133).

* For this homiletic theme, see, for instance, those homilies that contrast God’s mercy now with God’s justice at Judgment, and those homilies that deal with the penitential motif discussed below.

Visualizing Judgment

these two culturally significant concerns. The Old English Seafarer contains a passage that exemplifies this conflation: there, the poet states, Forbon pat bid eorla gehwam eftercwependra lof lifgendra lastworda betst, bat he gewyrce, er he on weg scyle, fremum on foldan wid feonda nip, deorum dedum deofle togeanes, bat hine xlda bearn after hergen,

ond his lof sipban lifge mid englum | awa to ealdre. (lines 72-79a)” | Here again, praise endures as divine glory. And within the ideological framework of Chnst I, such divine glory generates radiance.

If brightness ultimately eternalizes praise, then one might ask what eternalizes shame. Christ [II assigns ultimate shame to sinners at the Last Judgment. The poet of Christ II makes this shame component of Doomsday explicit in the description of the damned; all their sins are on display before hosts of spectators:

On him dryhten gesihd nales feara sum firenbealu ladlic,

| ond pet zllbeorhte eac sceawiad heofonengla here, ond halepa bearn,

ealle eordbuend ond atol deofol. (lines 1274b-78)* | Since shame is a public concept, to have their sins on display before all — God and the angels, the devil, and all humankind — constitutes ultimate shame, such as the damned must en-

dure at the Last Judgment. Here the poet applies a turn of phrase or image, studied by M. R. Godden, which recurs in a number of homiletic and penitential works and which urges people to confession by reminding them that if they shame themselves before one man alone — presumably the priest lis7 “For every man, the best of final words is praise from those living and speaking afterwards; that before he depart on his way, he may work deeds on earth against the hate of fiends, worthy deeds against the devil, so that the children of men may praise him thereafter, and thenceforth his praise should live with the angels forever.”

* “On them [the damned] the lord sees loathsome sins, not at all few, and also that all-bright host of heavenly angels and the children of men — all the earthdwellers — and the terrible devil behold.” 45

Sachi Shimomura

tening to their confession — they may, thereby, save themselves

from being shamed before God and the inhabitants of heaven and the inhabitants of hell and the inhabitants of earth at the Last Judgment: “betere eow is bet eow sceamie biforen bam preoste ane. penne on domesdei biforen criste. and biforen al hevene wara. and biforen al eorde wara. and biforen al helle wara.”” The threat of having one’s sins revealed before all was clearly a powerful one.

The Old English poem Chnst II thus portrays the Last Judgment as a visual judgment of the praiseworthy and the shameworthy, the saved and the damned, who are respectively glorified and pilloried before all. In the illuminating presence of Christ, the bodies of the saved and the damned “crystallize,” as it were, their respective praise and shame in visual terms. But why should this revelation occur? The poet of Christ IIIT emphasizes the inability of any human to see with the heafodgimmum —

the gems of the head, or eyes — whether good or evil lies beneath a human exterior. That ability, then, is God’s alone. And if that ability to see past deeds as external signs is also God’s alone, as the poem repeatedly implies, then those who see good deeds as brightness and sins as through glass are partaking in

an ability that is God’s prerogative. Then it appears that, in Christ II, Christ’s vision — the ability to see what ordinary human eyes should not be able to see — is granted to humans at the Last Judgment.

That ability harks back to Gregory’s idea, reiterated by Ifric, that nothing in creation can be hidden from those who see

the brightness of the Creator.”’ While Gregory and lfric see that brightness in subjective terms, as a function of the individual perception of the blessed, the CAnst [1 poet generalizes the idea so that the damned as well as the blessed see by Christ’s light. Then Christ’s light no longer merely metaphorizes the

| divine understanding granted exclusively to the righteous; it

becomes a literal, objectively present phenomenon. Thus, humans partake of divine vision at the Last Judgment because of | ® M. R. Godden, “An Old English Penitential Motif,” ASE 2 (1970): 221-39.

_ . The quotation, one of many similar passages cited by Godden, is taken from Old English Homilies and Homiletic Treatises . . . of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries, ed. Richard Morris, EETS OS 29, 34 (London, 1868; reprint

1969), p. 35 line 34 - p. 37 line 2 (cf. Godden, p. 227). Wording varies slightly from example to example of this motif, but all seem to maintain the emphasis on shame before the hosts of heaven, hell and earth. , ” See n. 39 above.

46 ,

Visualizing Judgment

the quality of the light at Judgment, namely, the light of Christ

which has symbolically replaced the light of the sun as the poem proceeds. As Doomsday approaches, “Ponne weorped sunne sweart gewended / on blodes hiw, seo de beorhte scan / ofer

erworuld xlda bearnum” (lines 934-36)"': the sun turns dark in the hue of blood, now that the former world — the world that was seen by the light of the sun — is ending. As the sun goes from bright to bloody, the poem presents an image of the Cross

going from bloody to bright, so that finally it shines out

brightly. Here the poet terms the Cross “beacna beorhtast” (line

1085), the brightest of beacons, an epithet that elsewhere in Old English poetry refers to the sun.” As the Last Judgment proceeds, therefore, the Cross has replaced the sun as the illuminator of the world. This replacement becomes explicit when the poet comments, “Oonne sio reade rod ofer ealle / swegle scined on bere sunnan gyld” (lines 1101-2).°’ A Pseudo-Augustinian ser-

mon (Sermo 155) explains that the Cross “sole erit praeclarior, quorum splendorem divini luminis illustrata fulgore superabit.” It surpasses the sun because of the brilliance of its divine light. In Chnst IH, the Cross’s divine light becomes the divinity

itself as the Cross, in turn, is replaced by Christ in glory and _ brilliance, the “scyppend scinende” (line 1219), the shining creator whose presence and brightness makes Judgment visible to all. His brilliant aspect recalls how, as Doomsday begins, Christ approaches, shining, from the east, like the sun itself (“Ponne semninga on Syne beorg / supaneastan sunnan leoma / cymed of scyppende”).

Thus, the light of final Judgment occurs when Christ the Son (s-o-n) has replaced the sun (s-u-n).”” This pun, which can be approximated in Old English, poses a common medieval association.”” According to Augustine, *! “Then the sun becomes turned black in the hue of blood, [the sun] which shone bright over the former world of the children of men.” *” Cf. Beowulf, line 570a (“beorht beacen godes”); Andreas, line 242a (“beacna beorhtost”). ** “Then the red rood shines over all heaven in place of the sun.”

™ Pseudo-Augustine, Sermo 155 § 10 (PL 39, 2051). , °° In OE, sunu, m. “son”; sunne, f. “sun.”

” For an excellent discussion of the sun/son conflation in an Old English text, see J. E. Cross, “The Literate Anglo-Saxon — On Sources and Disseminations,” PBA 58 (1972): 67-100, especially 70-71. 47

Sachi Shimomura

| Haec distantia praemiorum atque poenarum iustos diri- mens ab iniustis, quae sub isto sole in huius uitae uanitate non cernitur, quando sub illo sole iustitiae in illius uitae manifestione clarebit, tunc profecto erit iudicium quale numquam fuit.>”

_ In this passage, Augustine metaphorizes Christ, the judge, as sol

iusticiae, the sun of justice, under whose light the distinction

between the righteous and the unrighteous shall be made clear.” The poet of Christ IIT echoes this metaphor in an image © that is no longer metaphor, but a rhetorical transformation that literalizes Christ as the illuminator of the Last Judgment. Those whose revealed actions stand up only to the light of the sun —

and not to the light of the Son, who is Christ — are those unworthy of salvation. In biblical and patristic eyes, in particular,

| the significance of the Last Judgment rests primarily upon the concept of revelation; such revelation is most often metaphorized in visual terms. Revelatio, according to Isidore of

Seville, “dicitur manifestio eorum quae abscondita erant,” that is, the “manifesting of things that were concealed,” a concept whose visual scope I have illustrated in relation to Old English homilies.” While Christ IIIT concentrates likewise on the manifesting of things that were concealed, the poem privileges not revelation metaphorized in visual terms, but vision itself as a demetaphorization of revelation.

~The sun in Christ II, darkened in the hue of blood, be-

comes, visually, a negative or shadow against which Christ’s glory blazes. An Old English sapiential text, the Prose Solomon and Saturn, associates the redness of the sun at evening with a glimpse of hell: “Saga me for hwan byd seo sunne read on zfen. Ic pe secge, for don heo locad on helle.”*° As Doomsday falls, the setting 57 Augustine, De civitate Det 20.27, ed. Dombart and Kalb, p. 751. “When this

difference in rewards and punishments dividing the righteous from the un- , righteous, which is not discerned under this sun in the vanity of this life, shall be made clear under that sun of justice in the manifestation of that _ life, then shall be a judgment as has never been.”

8 Christ’s metaphoric epithet comes from Malachi 4:2, “et orietur vobis timentibus nomen meum sol tustitiae.” *? Isidore, Etymologiae 6.2.49, ed. W. M. Lindsay, Istdori Hispalensis Episcopi Etymologiarum sive Originum Libri XX, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1911). © The Prose “Solomon and Saturn” and “Adrian and Ritheus”, ed. James E. Cross

and Thomas D. Hill, McMaster Old English Studies and Texts 1 (Toronto, 1982), p. 34, with Cross and Hill’s translation: “Tell me why the sun is red 48

oO , Visuahizng Judgment sun reddens upon those damned by the dom — the judgment — of the all-illuminating Christ, condemning the sinful, even as the light of Christ glorifies the blessed. The poetic afterimages of Chnst III reveal, finally, the literal and figural levels of revelation itself. The poem manifests

and allegorizes hidden deeds through the brightness that

adorns the blessed, or the black marks of sin that no worldly raiment nor shining jewels might conceal upon the bodies of the damned. These emblems glorify and pillory the saved and the damned, whose praise or shame thence becomes known to all. As scyppend scinende and sol iusticiae, Christ illuminates this

visual judgment with a radiance that exceeds the sun’s brilliance: what is hidden by the light of day remains hidden no longer on Doomsday, but transmutes into objectively visible signs. Vision and illumination in Christ [I thereby bring to light

the rich substrate of metaphoric language and traditions — biblical and patristic, homiletic and heroic — that underlies the poem’s depiction of the Last Judgment. Both Christ’s light and the vision that it enables transcend metaphor — much as Christ himself does.

| 49 |

: in the evening. I tell you, because it looks on hell” (p. 119). See also the , Adnan and Ritheus parallel and Cross and Hill’s discussion of both (p. 120).

The Old English Dough Riddle

| and the Power of Women’s Magic: The Traditional Context of Exeter Book Riddle 45

THOMAS D. HILL | | y WHE Old English Dough Riddle (Krapp-Dobbie no. 45) has

always seemed a relatively simple example of doubleentendre.' The assumption that it bears sexual meaning, as well , as a literal meaning somewhat less obvious than its “other” sexual sense, is confirmed both by the language of the text and by the fact that it is preceded by a phallic riddle (no. 44) and fol-

| lowed by an incest riddle (no. 46). Since the riddle is brief, I |

quote it and offer a translation. : Ic on wincle gefregn weaxan nathwet, bindan ond punian, pecene hebban; on pat banlease bryd grapode, hygewlonc hondum, hregle peahte brindende ping peodnes dohtor.* (lines 1-5)

' All references to the Old English riddles are from The Exeter Book, ed. George Philip Krapp and E. V. K. Dobbie, ASPR 3 (New York, 1936), by Krapp and Dobbie’s enumeration and by line number. For a convenient summary of previous discussion of the riddle, see The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book, ed. Craig Williamson (Chapel Hill, NC, 1977), pp. 282-83. It

should be noted that the solution(s) to this riddle, although straightforward and in my judgment plausible, have been supplied by modern editors

and are not supported by medieval evidence of any kind. ,

- ? “T Jearned about something growing in a corner, swelling and sticking up, lifting up [its] cover. A proud-minded woman seized on that boneless [object] with [her] hands, covered it with [her] dress [or cloth], that swelling

, 50

thing. [She was] a prince’s daughter.”

The Old English Dough Riddle

The general sense of the riddle is relatively clear — surprisingly

so when one considers the fact that the five lines of the poem contain two hapax legomena (banleas and prindende), one very rare

noun (wincle), one emendation (weaxan for MS weax), and two relatively rare verbs (findan and punian). The philological problems raised by these terms have received some commentary by editors and critics. Briefly, while the compound banleas raises no problems, the term prindende is genuinely problematic; editors have emended it on the basis of a parallel, printed, which occurs in Vainglory, line 32, and the form apbrunten in Riddle 37,

line 2. The Old English examples support the sense “swelling” — thus the bellows in Riddle 37, line 2, are prybum aprunten, “vigorously swollen,” and the subject of printed in Vainglory is ungemidemod mod, “immoderate pride.” On the whole, the form seems most easily understood as a variant of an otherwise unat-

tested *pbrintende; the variant is well within the norms of Old English scribal practice, and the presumed sense fits well in the context. Wincle as “corner” is quite rare in Old English; the only other attested examples are in place-names. But cognate forms, Dutch winkel and German Winkel, are well attested. The emendation of MS weax to weaxan seems necessary, and the sense proposed for pindan and punian seems generally appropriate.

Though the arguments for each step in the process of emendation, glossing, and interpretation seem cogent, the translation which has been often and confidently cited is based to a significant degree upon scholarly conjecture. A recent editor, for example, glosses pindan and printan (the presumed infinitive of prindende) as both meaning “swell.”” Presumably this is

approximately correct, but might not these two words have been differentiated in meaning in some significant way? It is important that literary historians not lose sight of the fact that the text as we have it is really quite difficult.

While parallels to the riddle itself have been cited,’ no fur-

ther commentary has seemed necessary. Scholars have occasionally cited the riddle with approval as evidence for a more positive folk attitude towards sexuality as against the rigorous * Williamson, The Old English Riddles, pp. 454-55. * See the Allgemeine Sammlung niederdeutscher Ratsel, ed. Rudolf Eckert (Leipzig,

1894), pp. 46 (no. 440), 52 (no. 506). 51

Thomas D. Hill

pessimism and fear of feminine sexuality implicit in so much early medieval Christian literature;? but beyond such vague ap-

probation the poem has occasioned little comment. In one sense the poem needs littke commentary. Double-entendre riddles are still part of Anglo-American oral tradition and the (im-

plicit) comparison seems immediate and “natural.” Our

understanding of a given riddle, however, depends to some degree on the “reception” and the context of that riddle, on the subsequent history of the riddle in English literature and folklore. The Old English John Barleycorn Riddle (Krapp-Dobbie no. 28), for example, is (if one accepts that solution) the oldest

English example of a rich tradition of drinking riddles and

| songs which culminates in the famous poem of that name by - Robert Burns. All of the editors and commentators on that rid-

dle have been aware of the later history of the riddle and its folkloristic and indeed mythic associations. If some editor or commentator were for some reason unaware of its later history, he or she would be cut off from a rich body of literature which admittedly is only indirectly relevant to the Anglo-Saxon riddle as such, but which still is important for our understanding of the Old English text. In this paper I wish to explore some literary and folkloric analogues of the Old English Dough Riddle because these analogues have not been recognized, because the

texts are of very real interest in their own right, and because , these texts allow us to speculate about the “literary history” of the Old English poem with much more assurance. Among the manuscripts of the seventeenth-century anti-

quarian John Aubrey is a collection published in the nineteenth century under the title Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme. As the title suggests, the manuscript consists of a series of notes on “pagan” folk belief and folk practice which Aubrey

observed in his investigations. One entry in this manuscript . concerns the game of “molding cockle-bread,” which Aubrey describes as follows:

Young wenches have a wanton sport, wch they call moulding of cocklebread; viz. they gett upon a Table-board, and then gather-up their knees & their coates with ther hands as high as they can, and then they wabble to and fro with their Buttocks as if the[y] were kneading of Dowgh with ther A—, and say these words, viz.: ° Christine Fell, Women in Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford, 1986), p. 71. 52

The Old English Dough Riddle My Dame is sick & gonne to bed,

| And I’le go mowld my cockle-bread. In Oxfordshire the maids, when they have put themselves

| into the fit posture, say thus: |

My granny is sick, and now is dead, And wee’l goe mould some cockle-bread. Up wth my heels, and down wth my head, And this is the way to mould cocklebread. —[W.K.]

I did imagine nothing to have been in this but meer Wantonnesse of Youth — rigidas prurigine vulve. Juven. Sat. 7 [129.] But I find in Burchardus, in his Methodus Confitendi on the VII. Comandement, one of ye articles

of interrogating a young Woman is, if she did ever subigere panem clunibus, and then bake it, and give it to one that she loved to eate: ut in majorem modum exardesceret amor? So here I find it to be a relique of Naturall

, Magick, an unlawfull Philtrum.

‘Tis a poeticall express, to kisse like cockles:

“The Sea nymphes that ace us shall envy our

to kiss.”° ,

bliss,

Wee’ll teach them to love, and [like the] Cockles

The text of Burchard of Worms (ca. 965-1025) which Aubrey mentions and which he somewhat misrepresents is an entry in the “Corrector et Medicus,” the nineteenth book of Burchard’s Decretum. It is, as its title suggests, a penitential, a list of offenses

with appropriate penances assigned to them, and it is phrased as an interrogation. The penitents are asked whether they have performed a given sinful practice, and if they have, they are assigned a given penance to perform. One of the sections of this work is concerned with women’s magic, and, as Aubrey observed, Burchard describes a magic practice that has obvious affinities with the game he recorded: Fecisti quod quaedam mulieres facere solent? Prosternunt se in faciem, et discoopertis natibus, jubent ut supra ® John Aubrey, Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme (1686-87), ed. James Britten

(London, 1881), pp. 43-44. Aubrey’s gloss on the word “cockle” seems to ignore the most immediate bit of word play which occurs to modern readers. Erotic slang in Middle English and Early Modern English is a difficult issue since this kind of usage is often not well attested, but there is some Middle English evidence for “cock” as a slang term for “penis”: see Thomas W. Ross, Chaucer’s Bawdy (New York, 1972), sv. “cock.” )3

Thomas D. Hill

_nudas nates conficiatur panis, et eo decocto tradunt maritiis suis ad comedendum. Hoc ideo faciunt, ut plus _ exardescant in amorem illarum. Si fecisti duos annos per legitimas ferias poenitas.’ (PL 140, 974)

Some features of this quotation from Burchard perhaps require comment. In the first place, the seriousness with which he re-

gards this ritual can be indicated by comparing the penance which he assigns this offense with other crimes against Christian morals. Thus transfixing the body of an unbaptized baby with a stake (PL 140, 974) or participating in the wild ride with the goddess Diana (PL 140, 973-74) similarly earn a two-year penance. And using magic to harm somebody directly is an even more serious offense involving five or seven years of pen-

ance. Burchard thus regards using magic bread to increase one’s husband’s ardor as a grave offense.

A second point is that both the ritual which Burchard describes and the game Aubrey observed are relatively public. The women whom Burchard is addressing do not perform this ritual alone. They require the help of others; indeed, they order (jub-

ent) others to mold the bread on their nates. This is specifically | a ritual for the head of a household; she is preparing the bread , for her husband (i1.e., her maritus) and she can rely on the assis-

tance of other women in the household in performing the ritual. And since Aubrey was a witness of the “wanton” game which he describes, it follows that English country girls were willing to perform it in the presence of a strange man. Some of ” “Hast thou done as certain women are accustomed to do? They lie down on

their face and having uncovered their buttocks, they order that bread should be made upon [their] nude buttocks; and having cooked it they give it to their husbands to eat. This they do so that they [their husbands] should burn with love for them [the wives]. If thou hast done this, thou shalt do penance for two years on the appointed days.” All quotations of Burchard are from the edition in PL 140 by column number. For a translation of some of the relevant canons, see John T. McNeill and Helena M. Gamer, Medieval Handbooks of Penance (New York, 1938; reprint 1990), pp.

321-45. For discussion of the textual problems involved and references to

the recent literature, see Gerard Fransen, “Le Decret de Burchard de

, Wurms. Valeur du texte de l’edition. Essai de classement des manuscrits,”

54 -

Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung fiir Rechtsgeschtchte (Kanonistische Abteilung) 93

(1977): 1-19. See also Cyril Vogel, “Pratiques superstitieuses au début du XI€ siécle d’aprés le Corrector stue medicus de Burchard, évéque de Worms (965-1025),” in Etudes de civilisation médiévale (IX¢-XIF siécles): Mélanges offerts a Edmond-René Labande (Poitiers, 1974), pp. 751-61.

The Old English Dough Riddle

Aubrey’s material was sexually explicit custom and lore that was only transmitted in private, but this particular practice appears to have been a public if “wanton” game.

The correspondences and differences between the Old English riddle and these customs needs to be defined with some care. To begin with, the Old English riddle is a literary text gathered in a major collection of Old English poetry. The clause from Burchard’s “Corrector” alludes to a magic ritual that is performed, and if it was associated with any verbal formulas, Burchard does not preserve them. The quotation from Aubrey is simply a note which he intended to use some day in a

handbook of English superstitions, and the practice he observed is a game. The only “text” Aubrey preserves, the rhyme

about “cockle-bread,” is not meaningful without his gloss. Again, the actions defined in these varous “texts” are quite different. In the magic ritual, dough was molded against the buttocks of the woman who wished to increase the ardor of her husband, whereas in the game Aubrey observed girls pretend to mold bread with their buttocks, but actually do nothing of the

sort. There is, however, a riddling dimension to the game which links it to the Old English riddle generically. The game and the rhyme imply an observer who sees the girl and asks, “What are you doing?” The “real” answer would be “simulating

sexual intercourse” (however one might express this in seven- | teenth-century England), but instead the player replies “moulding cocklety bread.” The Old English riddle is purely verbal in

that it depends on the “metaphorical” equation of kneading dough and sexual intercourse as the basis of double-entendre. But if the relationship between these written and oral “texts” is in some ways problematic, the figurative association of knead-

ing dough and sexual intercourse is implicit in all of these “texts.”

The social context and meaning of both Aubrey’s game and Burchard’s ritual seem quite clear, at least for Burchard and Aubrey. For Burchard and his clerical audience this ritual was threatening — a clear instance of the dangerous power of women’s magic. In the context of Burchard’s penitential this ritual is treated as a very serious matter; for Aubrey, however, the playful actions of the country girls were simply a game, one which he would have assumed to be simple “wantonness” unless |

he had read the relevant chapter of Burchard. The “real” »)

Thomas D. Hill

| meaning of the ritual and the game which presumably derives from it is more problematic. The line between what is playful | and what is magic in popular custom is clearly difficult to de- | termine. Various participants in the same ritual might provide radically different accounts of their actions. And the line between what is joking and what is serious in games and rituals of this sort is particularly obscure. If the real meaning of the acts with which Aubrey and Burchard were concerned is perhaps more problematic than either was aware, the social meaning of the Old English Dough Riddle is even more obscure. Even describing it as obscene, as commentators have traditionally done, implies that an Anglo-Saxon reader would have understood the distinction between obscene and conventional literary discourse in approximately the same terms that modern readers do. It is far from clear that they did. The codex in which the riddle is found, The Exeter Book, consists mostly of religious po-

etry, and there is nothing to set this riddle apart from any other _ poem in the book. Certainly in later medieval English literature, one would not expect to find a poem such as the Old English Dough Riddle in a gathering of devotional literature, but it is necessary to remember that while medieval churchmen were committed to ascetic ideals that included clerical and premarital celibacy and marital fidelity, they were not necessarily prudish or reticent in their discussion of sexual matters. It is fair to say, however, that the Dough Riddle and other similar Old English riddles seem to display an amused tolerance of sexual de-

sire and sexual pleasure which sets them apart from that tradition of medieval Christian discourse which condemns hu-

man sexual desire as innately sinful.

In addition to these three examples of “dough” metaphor and magic which I have cited, there are further instances of the game of molding cockle-bread in both English literature and folk custom. Thus in George Peele’s 1595 play The Old Wives’ Tale, Zantippa offers to draw water from the Well of Life, and a Head speaks from the Well: Head: Gently dip, but not too deep,

| For feare you make the golden bird to weep. Fair maiden, white and red, Stroke me smooth, and comb my head, And thou shalt have some cockall-bread.

Zantippa. What is this? 56

The Old English Dough Riddle

“Fair maiden, white and red, Combe me smooth, and stroke my head, And thou shalt have some cockall-bread.” “Cockall” callest thou it, boy? Faith, I'll give you cockall-bread! She breaks her pitcher upon his head; then it thunders and lightens and Huanebango rises up.”

The most recent editor of the play, Patricia Binnie, cites Aubrey’s note and then comments as follows: Dyce, and others who base their editions on his work, refer to Aubrey, but still profess themselves puzzled by what

the term means. By delicately editing out certain of Aubrey’s earthy phrases, and by missing the basic doubleentendre in the name of the “sport” itself, the closest they

get to a definition is that the phrase is used as a love charm.”

This scene and the phrase in question seem more enigmatic than Binnie’s comments might suggest. To the best of my knowledge, no one has offered an interpretation of the symbolism of the English folk-tale about the maiden who combs the

hair of the head (or heads) in the well’” — the folk-tale on

which this scene is based. Even assuming that one understood the folk-tale, the question of what Peele was doing with this bit of folkloristic material in this play is neither clear in itself nor the subject of convincing scholarly elucidation. The best one can say is that Peele seems to be alluding to the game Aubrey describes, but beyond the general sense that the Head’s speech bears sexual connotations, as indeed does the scene as a whole,

it is difficult to offer a very authoritative interpretation. | There is also evidence of the currency of the game of molding cockle-bread as a children’s game in nineteenthcentury England. Thus in a book published in the 1890s on The Traditional Games of England, Scotland, and Ireland, Alice Bertha * The Dramatic and Poetical Works of Robert Greene and George Peele, ed. Alexander

Dyce (London, 1861), pp. 664-70.

* George Peele, The Old Wives’ Tale, ed. Patricia Binnie, The Revels Plays (Manchester and Baltimore, 1980), p. 75. _ “Three Golden Heads,” in A Dictionary of British Folk-Tales in the English Lan-

guage, ed. Katherine M. Briggs, 2 vols. (London and New York, 1970; reprint 1991), vol. 1, pp. 517-22. See also “The Wal at the Warld’s End,” in ibid., vol. 1, pp. 551-54. 97

Thomas D. Hill ,

lows: ,

- Gomme describes the contemporary version of the game as folThe moulding of “Cokelty-bread” is a sport amongst hoydenish girls not quite extinct. It consists in sitting on the

ground, raising the knees and clasping them with the hand, and then using an undulatory motion, as if they were kneading dough. My granny is sick and now is dead, And we'll go mould some cockelty bread; Up with the heels and down with the head, And that is the way to make cockelty bread."

Gomme goes on to cite a notice of this game in the Times of | 1847:

A witness, whose conduct was impugned as light and unbecoming, is desired to inform the court in which an action for breach of promise was being tried, the meaning of “mounting cockeldy-bread;” and she explains it as “a play among children,” in which one lies down on the floor on her back, rolling backwards and forwards, and repeating the following lines: — Cockeldy bread, mistley cake,

| when you do that for our sake.

While one of the party so laid down, the rest sat around; and they laid down and rolled in this manner by turns."

There is other folkloristic and literary evidence of the currency

of this game in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, but these quotations provide a general sense of the character of the game during this period. Essentially the later versions seem less sexually explicit than the version of it wit| nessed by Aubrey, but the fact that the implicit content of the game was sexual is recognized by Gomme and other collectors. Girls who play this game are “hoydenish,” and the lawyer who | inquired about “cockeldy bread” was attempting to impugn the

character of the witness. |

I have been concerned with the literary history of the Old English Dough Riddle, and I would argue that it is not simply a

piece of purely literary double-entendre. Some Old English Alice Bertha Gomme, The Traditional Games of England, Scotland, and Ireland, 9 vols. in 1 (London, 1894-98; reprint New York, 1984), pp. 74-76. For further evidence for the currency of the children’s game and related issues see Aubrey, Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme, ed. Britten, p. 225. '2 Gomme, The Traditional Games, pp. 75-76. 58

The Old English Dough Riddle

riddles such as Krapp-Dobbie no. 86 — the multiheaded monster with one eye that turns out to be a one-eyed garlic seller —

seem to derive from the Latin riddle tradition and hence are “literary” riddles which as far as we know never circulated in folk tradition or derived from folk belief or practice. The symbolic associations of the Dough Riddle, however, are paralleled in both later English folk tradition and in an early medieval ac-

count of magical procedures, and the riddle can be read “against” these later texts with profit. The various examples, however, while they draw on a similar nexus of figurative associations, are different in that the Old English riddle is a joke, and Aubrey’s bit of action and rhyme is a game, but Burchard is

concerned with what he considers sinful magic. Certainly any woman who would undertake penance for two years must have believed herself guilty of something more serious than childish obscene games. In a sense, the Old English riddle complicates

the folklorist’s account of the relationship of the game to the ritual. It is easy to see how a ritual could have evolved into a children’s game; the remnants of “serious” superstition would thus be preserved by children who were ignorant of the real content of the game they were enacting. But the Old English riddle is the oldest of these three instances of dough as an erotic metaphor, and it appears to have been intended as a joke. The simplest way to understand the relationship of these various “texts,” however, is to observe that while they are all re-

lated, what they share is not any necessary connection to one specific tradition of ritual, magic, or game, but rather common assumptions about a certain set of metaphors. Dough is the material which a woman uses to nourish her family; it is potentially a rich symbol of a woman’s power within the home, and the way | in which it rises (apparently) spontaneously can provide the basis for erotic metaphor. That power can be celebrated in a riddle about a peodnes dohter who comes to grips with something

boneless, it can be flaunted by “hoydenish” girls who sing im- | pudent songs about flouting the authority of their matriarch, or

it can be manifested in a mode of magic of which Burchard

seems to have strongly disapproved. |

Anglo-Saxonists are quite wary about discussing “pagan”

survivals in the surviving corpus of Old English and Anglo-Latin

literature. This line of inquiry was pursued so zealously at one point that scholars were prepared to mutilate the texts we pos59

Thomas D. Hill

sess in order to exorcize the influence of Christian “monkish” interpolaters. The material from Burchard, however, is clear evidence of a tradition of Germanic women’s magic on the Continent which the Church, of that time at least, viewed as © pagan. All one can say definitely is that the magic practice in question is clearly not a Christian ritual and that it appears to be traditional — which would imply that it was current in Ger-

mania before the conversion. The Old English riddle and Aubrey’s game attest that the same nexus of ideas was current in England as early as the Anglo-Saxon period and that it continued in folk tradition until relatively recently. The Old English Dough Riddle is amusing, and some commentators have

| attempted to relate it to Old English social history. If the argument of this paper is valid, it may also provide some evidence about archaic traditions of Anglo-Saxon women’s magic — a subject that is as interesting as it is difficult and obscure.

60

The Old English Life of St Pantaleon PHILLIP PULSIANO!

Sr in Pantaleon + ca. venerated both the(Pantaleemon, East and West.' His305) Lifewas andwidely miracles and the panegyrics in his honor listed in BHL 6429-48, BHL Nov. Suppl., pp. 681-82, BHG 1412z-18c, and BHO 835-37 attest to the popu-

larity of the saint, who in the West was numbered among the | Fourteen Holy Helpers. Pantaleon, trained in medicine, was venerated as a healer and wonder-worker. His feast in the Ro-

man Martyrology is celebrated on 27 July (.vi. kalends Augusti),” but is recorded as 28 July in the Martyrologium Hiero-

nymianum’ and in the martyrologies compiled by Usuard,* [Editor’s note: Phillip Pulsiano died in August 2000, shortly before this essay went to press, and was unable to make any revisions to his edition in response to queries from the readers for the press. Some final corrections were generously made, however, by Joseph McGowan, who checked the Old English and Latin texts against films of the manuscripts. |

' See the entry by Joseph-Marie Sauget and Angelo Maria Raggi, “Pantaleone,” in Bibliotheca Sanctorum, ed. E. Josi et al, 12 vols. and index (Rome, 1961-70), vol. 10, cols. 107-18. * Martyrologium Romanum ad Formam Editionis Typicae Scholiis Historicis Instructum, ed. Hippolytus Delehaye e¢ al., in Propylaeum ad Acta Sanctorum Decembris (Brussels, 1940), p. 307: “Nicomediae passio sancti Pantaléonis médici, qui a Maximtino Imperatore pro fide Christi tentus, et equiilei poena ac lampadarum excustiOne cruciatus, sed inter hac Domino sibi apparénte refrigeratus, tandem ictu gladii martyrium consummiavit.”

° Toh. Bapt. de Rossi and Ludov. Duchesne, ed., Martyrologium Hieronymianum

, ad Fidem Codicum. Adtectis Prolegomenis (Brussels, 1894) [excerpt of AASS Novembris II, pars prior], p. 97: Cod. Bern.: “In Nicome[dia] Pantaleonis”; Cod. Wissenb.: “In nicomedia nat{ali] s[an]c[t]i pantaleonis.” * Le martyrologie d’Usuard: Texte et commentaire, ed. Jacques Dubois, Subsidia Hagiographica 40 (Brussels, 1965), p. 274: “v KI. Aug. 1 Apud Nicomediam, passio beati Pantaleonis, qui tentus pro fide Christi a Maximiano, equulei poena et lampadum excustione cruciatus, sed inter haec Domino sibi apparente refrigeratus, tandem ictu gladii martyrium consummavit.” 61

Phillip Pulsiano

Bede,’ Pseudo-Bede,® Hrabanus Maurus,’ Adon,® and Notker.” 5 Edition pratique des martyrologes de Béde, de l’'anonyme lynonnais et de Florus, ed.

Jacques Dubois and Geneviéve Renaud, Institut de Recherche et d'Histoire des Textes (Paris, 1976), p. 137: “Nicomediae, passio sancti Panteleoni: qui

cum, jubente Maximiano, artem disceret medicinae, a presbytero Heremlao ad fidem Christi conversus, multa fecit miracula, patremque suum sena-

: torem Eustorgium Christi fidei subjugavit. Ob quam causam tentus ab - eodem Maximiano, equulei poenae et lampadarum excustione cruciatus, sed inter haec Domino sibi apparente refrigeratus, tandem ictu gladii mar-

tyrium Comsumavit.” ,

° “(F.) V Kalend. August. Nicomediz passio sancti Pantaleonis martyris, qui cum, jubente Maximiano, artem disceret medicinie, a presbytero Hermolao ad fidem Christi conversus, multa miracula fecit, patremque suum senatorem Eustorgium Christi fidei subjugavit. Ob quam causam tentus est ab eodem Maximiano, equulei poena et lampadum exustione cruciatus. Sed

inter hac Domino sibi apparente refrigeratus, tandem ictu gladii martyrium consummavit” (PL 94, 988-90). ” Hrabanus Maurus, Martyrologium, ed. John McCulloh, CCCM 44 (Turnhout, 1979), pp. 22-23: “Romae Victoris papae et martyris, qui constituit in aecle-

siis ut faciente necessitate, ubi inuentum esset siue in flumine siue in fonte

siue in mari, tantum Christianae, credulitatis confessione declarata, quicumque hominum ueniens ex gentili baptizaretur , et sepultus est iuxta corpus beati Petri apostoli in Vaticano.” See also the entry for 18 February (.xii. Kal. Mar.): “In Nicomedia natale Pantaleonis martyris, qui sub Maximiano imperatore martyrium suum inpleuit. Hic Eustorio patre editus et ab Ermolao presbytero fide inbutus, antequam baptizaretur puerum a serpente obliga-

tum liberauit et serpentem oratione interfecit. Post baptismum uero

caecum inluminauit, patrem suum Eustorium ad fidem conuertit, et multa miracula in nomine Christi perpetrauit. Propter quod Maximianus iussit eum in eculeo suspendi et lampadas ad latera eius applicari, sed flamma - eorum subito extincti sunt. Postea missus est in sartaginem ignis, ut ibidem plumbo liquefacto exureretur, sed per Christi uirtutem frigescente ardore in nullo laesus est. Postea in mare missus sed inde sanus ad litus perductus est. Dehinc feris est traditus sed a nulla earum contaminatus. Ad extremum

uero capite caesus est, sed percussores ipsius reliquias corporis eius tulerunt et [p. 23] honorifice sepelierunt. Presbyter uero Ermolaus cum | duobus germanis suis, hoc est Ermippo et Ermoclito, decollatus est et a Christianis sepultus.”

* “vy Kal. Augusti. Nicomediz, passio sancti Pantaleonis. Qui cum jubente Maximiano artem disceret medicinz, a presbytero Hermolao ad fidem Christi conversus, multa miracula fecit, patremque suum senatorem Eustorgium Christi fidei subjugavit. Ob quam causam tentus ab eodem Maximiano, equulei poena et lampadarum exustione cruciatus (sed inter hac Domino sibi apparente refrigeratus), tandem ictu gladii martyrium con-

| 62

summavit” (PL 123, 202-435, at col. 309). ” “y Kal. Aug. In Nicomedia sancti Pantaleonis pueri. Qui cum jubente Maxi-

miano artem disceret medicine, a presbytero Hermolao ad fidem Christi

conversus, multa miracula fecit, patremque suum Eustorgium senatorem ,

The Old English Life of St Pantaleon

Numerous hymns and sequences (most late) are recorded in his honor." The saint is not mentioned in the Old English Martyrology, although he is included in a number of Anglo-Saxon litanies'' and calendars.'* His relics are listed in the Canterbury inventories.'’ The later miracles ascribed to Pantaleon are numerous and are often as fabulous as the saint’s Life. A sermon ©

by Rupert of Deutz records that each year at Constantinople,

the two vials containing Pantaleon’s blood and milk exchange ,

their contents; in another miracle in the same sermon, Harold of Russia ({¢ 1132), grandson of King Harold of England, is attacked by a bear and severely wounded. As his mother watches _ over him, St Pantaleon appears and assures her that Harold will regain his health.” The Old English Life of St Pantaleon is found in London, BL, MS Cotton Vitellius D. XVII (dated s. xi med. by Ker) in the order fols. 4lv, 46, 45, 47, 49, 48, 44, 42, 43, 50r; one folio is wanting.” The manuscript was badly damaged in the AshburnChristi fidei subjugavit. Ob quam causam ab eodem Maximiano equulei poena et lampadum exustione cruciatus, sed inter haec Domino sibi apparente est refrigeratus, tandem ictu gladii martyrii cursum consummavit” (PL 131, 1025-1170, at col. 1126). '° Repertorium Hymnologicum. Catalogue des chants, hymnes, proses, sequences, tropes

en usage dans l’église latine depuis les origines jusqu'a nos jours, ed. Ulysse Chevalier, 6 vols. (Brussels, 1892-1920), antiphons, no. 3480; hymns, nos. 6381, 6412, 7710, 9699, 14550-1, 16189, 19752, 23576, 28211, 38917, 39079; prayers, no. 23482; sequences, nos. 2742, 4598, 5322, 8147, 8586, 1512, 24616, 32164, 38126, 39851, 40971; prosa, no. 4549. M Anglo-Saxon Litanies of the Saints, ed. Michael Lapidge, HBS 106 (London, 1991), IX.72, XV(ii).119, XXI(i).72, XXIIL.106, XXVII.61, XXXII.70. '* English Kalendars before A.D. 1100, ed. Francis Wormald, HBS 72 (London, 1934; reprint Woodbridge, 1988), nos. 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20.

' See J. Charles Wall, Shrines of British Saints (London, 1905), p. 15.

'* Maurice Coens, “Un sermon inconnu de Rupert, abbé de Deutz, sur S. Pan-

taleon,” AB 55 (1937): 244-67. For additional miracles, see Anon., “De magno Legendario Austiaco,” Appendix XVIII, “Miracula S. Pantaleonis,” AB 17 (1898): 24-216, at 179-90. Additional information on miracles ascribed to the saint is given in AASS, Tulii VI, pp. 399-401, 421-26. N.R. Ker, Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford, 1957; re-

issued with supplement 1990), no. 222, art. 14. Ker gives the order of folios as 41, 46, 45, 47, 49, 48, 42, 43, 50. On the vocabulary of the Old English version, see Walter Hofstetter, Winchester und der spataltenglische Sprachgebrauch, Miinchener Universitats-Schriften 14 (Munich, 1987), p. 246 (no. 78). See also D. G. Scragg, “The Corpus of Anonymous Lives and Their Manuscript Context,” in Holy Men and Holy Women: Old English Prose Saints’

, | 63

Phillip Pulsiano

ham House fire of 1731, and the leaves are presently bound in a disordered state. Leaves now measure ca. 97 x 140 mm. (best leaves) and are ruled for 29 lines. Damage is heavy on fols. 45r and 48r; fol. 47v is difficult to read under natural light due to modern repairs using mesh. Despite the damage, much of the © text can be recovered with the use of fiber-optic and especially ultra-violet light.’° The Life was first edited by Patricia Margaret

Matthews as a master’s thesis but never appeared in print.’ More recently, Joana Soliva completed a study and transcription of the text as an MPhil. thesis." The Latin text upon which

the Old English version is based is best represented by BHL 6437, which survives in two Anglo-Saxon legendaries: London, BL, MS Cotton Nero E. I, Part 2, fols. 56v-60r (part of the “Cot-

ton-Corpus Legendary”; Worcester, s. xi’”*),'” and Salisbury,

| Cathedral Library, MS 222 (Salisbury, s. xi ex.), fols. 4lv-46v, which was probably copied from the same exemplar as Nero E. I.”° Neither text has been previously published.*'

The general outlines of the saint’s Life in the Latin account are as follows: In Nicomedia, the emperor Galerius Maximianus wages a campaign of persecution against Christians. Pantaleon, son of the pagan Eustorgius and the Christian Lives and Their Contexts, ed. Paul E. Szarmach (Albany, NY, 1996), pp. 20930, at 222 and n. 51.

'® Ultra-violet photography has proven useful in recovering damaged text, but : direct consultation under ultra-violet light reveals more. '7 «The Old English Life of St. Pantaleon” (unpublished M.A. thesis, Univer-

sity College London, 1966). The edition is listed by Roberta Frank and Angus Cameron, ed., A Plan for the Dictionary of Old English (Toronto, 1973),

no. B3.3.30. The proposed edition by Johannes Soderlind has not appeared. Matthews’s edition is used in the preparation of the DOE. '8 Joana Soliva, “A Study of Cotton Vitellius D. xvii and the Old English Life of Saint Pantaleon” (MPhil. thesis, University of Manchester, 1995). See also (by the same author): Joana Proud, “The Old English Life of Saint Pantaleon and Its Manuscript Context,” Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of

, Manchester 79 (1997): 119-32.

'? For a description of the original contents, see Peter Jackson and Michael Lapidge, “The Contents of the Cotton-Corpus Legendary,” in Holy Men and

Holy Women, ed. Szarmach, pp. 131-46. For the dating and origin of the manuscript, see N. R. Ker, “Membra Disiecta, Second Series,” British Museum Quarterly 14 (1939-40): 82-83.

*” Formerly Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Fell 1. For a description of the contents, see Teresa Webber, Scribes and Scholars at Salisbury Cathedral c. 1075 - c. 1175, Oxford Historical Monographs (Oxford, 1992), pp. 156-57.

*! For the AASS texts, see AASS, Iulii VI, pp. 397-429. 64

The Old English Life of St Pantaleon

Eubula, is sent to the palace of the emperor to train in medicine under the guidance of Eufrosinus. A certain Hermolaus calls him to his house, and there ensues a discussion about Pantaleon’s religion (his mother is Christian) and his training at the palace. Against Pantaleon’s statement that with the arts he learned he can heal all men of illness, Hermolaus responds: “Son, Asclepius is nothing, nor Hippocrates, nor Galen, nor the other gods whom the emperor Maximianus worships.” And he

urges him to accept Christ, recounting a number of His mira- :

cles, and finally asking that Pantaleon receive baptism. The next day, Pantaleon is called to a house where he finds a dead | child and a serpent by him. Initially hesitating, he recalls the words of Hermolaus and prays to Christ to restore the child and

crush the serpent, which then happens. He returns to Hermolaus, recounts the event, and receives baptism, then remains with Hermolaus for seven days. Returning home, Pantaleon

| seeks to convert his father. A certain blind man approaches, telling Pantaleon that other doctors have failed to heal him; Pantaleon heals him. His father is subsequently converted and dies not long after. Back at the palace, the other physicians question the formerly blind man; jealousy erupts toward Pantaleon, and the physicians accuse him before Maximianus,

claiming that because of him many will abandon worship of the idols. The man healed by Pantaleon is now brought for questioning before the emperor, where he asserts the supremacy of Christ over the pagan gods. Pantaleon and the emperor agree on a type of contest. To demonstrate the power of the Christian

| God, Pantaleon has a paralytic brought in. Where Maximi-anus’s invocation to the pagan gods to heal the man fails, Pantaleon is able to cure him through Christ. The implications are clear to the attending physicians: the power of the gods is in jeopardy. Maximianus presses Pantaleon to sacrifice to the gods or suffer torments. Then begins a series of tortures. Pantaleon

is suspended from his fingers, and his sides are burned with torches. But Christ appears in the aspect of Hermolaus, and immediately the hands of the torturers are withered. Pantaleon is then placed in an iron cauldron filled with lead, but Christ appears to him and the fire is immediately quenched and the lead turns to ice. The saint is then bound to a stone and thrown into the sea, but again Christ appears and he is carried above the waves and brought to dry land. The emperor, now filled with anger, orders Pantaleon to be set upon by wild animals, 65

Phillip Pulsiano

but they lie peacefully at his feet. Meanwhile, the populace, see-

ing the miracles, sing God’s praise. The emperor has a thousand men killed. A great wheel is ordered constructed, to which the saint is to be bound and rolled down a hill. But the bands burst and the wheel kills five hundred pagans. Maximianus, seized with fear, asks Pantaleon if he may meet Hermolaus, the

one who taught the saint, so that he may learn from him. Pan- | taleon brings Hermolaus and his two companions Hermippius and Hermogrates before the emperor, who asks them to sacrifice to the gods; they refuse. Christ then appears, and immedi-

: ately the earth trembles, destroying the idols. Pantaleon is imprisoned and the three others are beheaded, although the emperor tells Pantaleon that they indeed sacrificed to the gods and have now been sent to other cities. Pantaleon rejects the emperor's words and continues in his praise of Christ. The saint is then led to the city gates, where he is tied to an olive tree. A soldier strikes him with a sword, but it bends like wax. Seeing this, the soldiers are converted to Christ. A voice comes from heaven, telling the saint that his time has come and naming him Pantaleimon (xavteAenuvv, “all-compassionate”). Pan-

taleon then urges the soldiers to kill him, which they do

reluctantly. Instead of blood, however, his body pours forth milk, and the olive tree then bears forth fruit. Seeing this, the populace converts. Maximianus orders the tree cut down and Pantaleon’s body burned. The saint is then buried where he was beheaded by the walls of the city gate.

The Old English text follows the Latin closely, although it

is clear from the departures, which become more numerous from ca. line 300 onward, that the text as transmitted by the

| Salisbury and Nero manuscripts does not reflect the ultimate source of the Old English version. At lines 307-15, for example, when Pantaleon is placed among wild beasts, he offers a prayer in praise of God that is wanting in the Latin, as is also the narrative that follows (lines 316-22). Compare further lines 152-58,

334-45, 362-65, and 466 ff. There are also minor differences elsewhere, such as at line 192, where the Old English text gives _ the names of the pagan gods as Ypochratin, Mercurium, Galligenum, whereas the Latin text gives them as Asclepius, Hypocrates, Jove, Diana, Hercules and Jove a second time.

The texts below are conservatively edited. Manuscript abbreviations are expanded silently, and punctuation is supplied. In view of the damaged condition of the Vitellius manuscript,

| | 66

The Old English Life of St Pantaleon

an attempt has been made to fill in lacunae wherever possible. Matthews supplied text for many of the lacunae, and in many

instances I have relied on her suggestions; I have, however, supplied additional text based on the Latin and, where they occur, biblical citations. Additions are enclosed in square brackets. In all cases, attention has been given to what the spacing in the manuscript can accommodate and with due attention to forms used elsewhere in the text. The Latin texts vary from one another in only a few substantive instances, although Salisbury can be judged to be the better copy. The edition is a composite text relying on both Salisbury and Nero; differences be-

tween the texts are listed in the notes following the edition. I have silently standardized certain variations in word-forms, e.g., pena, peéia > poena, etc. In a number of cases, both manuscripts offer valid readings, and the choice between them was made on the basis of sense or simply a better reading, as in the case, for example, where Pantaleon’s father first becomes dubious about

the efficacy of the pagan gods; Nero reads “ab illa die dubitans | erat circa deos,” while Salisbury reads “ab illa hora... ,” here the preferred reading as it strikes more at the immediacy of the beginning of Eustorgius’s conversion.” The present work stands as a preliminary edition, the sole purpose of which is to make the texts available in print. Further work on the manuscript may result in the recovery of more letters and may make advances in filling in the lacunae in the Old English text at lines 176, 279, 480-82, and 494, all of which de-

part from the Latin text. |

” See also the line corresponding to line 81 of the Old English: “et ipsa hora credidit pater eius.” “Tam deeply indebted to Joseph McGowan for his generous and learned assistance in reviewing the Latin text(s). He has helped me to avoid certain blunders, although, of course, I take responsibility for any errors remaining

in the text. 67

Phillip Pulsiano

Incipit passio Sancti Pantaleonis die .xxvili. mensis [ulii,

| hoc est .v. kit Augusti. In ciuitate Nicomedia Maximianus

Imperator multos christianos persequebatur propter regnum et fidem domini nostri Iesu Christi. Multi in

montibus se abscondebant. Alii in speluncis cum tribulatione uitam suam consummabant. Alii in ciuitatibus morabantur absconsi. Quidam autem in petrarum Cauernis de uita hac liberabantur. Alii uero in ciuitatibus

ab implis principibus torquebantur in domino Iesu Christo. Certabatur tunc sanctitas et fides per sapientiam probans suos athletas.

In illis diebus senator quidam nomine Eustorgiush abitans in Nicomedia ciuitate. Hic habuit filtum nomine Pantaleonem. Hunc erudiuit optimis litteris et tradidit eum arcario cuidam nomine Eufrosino, qui omnia que erant circa imperatorem custodiebat in palatio. Hic accipiens Pantaleonem summam docebat medicinam et frequenter una

cum eo ibat in palatium. Et urdentes Pantaleonem imperator et omnis senatus dicebant ad Eufrosinum, ‘Cutus hec est spe-

ciositas puert?’ Erat autem tals Pantaleon, ut neminem

hominem inuentret secundum speciem decoris eius a uestigits

pedum usque ad uerticem capitis. Et Eufrosinus dixit, Est senatoris Eustorgii, cuius mater est Eubula.' Tradidit autem mihi illum, ut discat medicinam artem.’ Imperator autem et qui cum eo erant dixerunt, ‘Per salutem deorum, dignus est tuuenis hic’ assistere imperatori.’ Et conueniebat de die in diem ad magistrum suum, ut disceret omnem disciplinam artis medicine. Nam et imperator multum hortatus erat twuenem Eufrosinum, ut cum summa diligentia doceret puerum,

uolens eum habere successorem Eufrosini. Erat autem quidam _ presbiter nomine Hermolaus, qui se abscondebat in domo cum | alus duobus christiants, ubt transitum habebat Pantaleon. Hunc uidens Hermolaus secundum consuetudinem transeuntem, uidens etiam decorem et reuerentiam pueri, et cognoscens

per spirittum quia uas electionis futurus erat secundum beatum Paulum; nemo enim eum suasit aliquando inpudice intendere mulieri, aut in teatrum ire, aut ridere sine

'Ebula N. *ijuuenis N.

68

The Old English Life of St Pantaleon [41v]

v. Kt. AVGVSTI. PASSIO SANCTI PANTA[LEON]IS

Incipit passio Sancti Pantaleonis qui passus est in ctuitate N|ico]media sub Maximiano imperatore.

Geherad nu men pa leofestan hwet her segd on pysum 5 boc{um] be pam halgan Pantaleone pam cnihte. Segd her pet

he were p[ro]wigende in Nicomedia pere ceastre under Maximiano bam casere se de wes criste‘n’ra manna ehtend, 4 manige [cris]tene he dreade forpan hi gelyfdon on urne drihten helend Crist. 7 pa weron for his ehtnesse manige cristene 10 ~—innfe] dunum behydde 7 inne eordscrefum 7 manige heora lif b(ar] geendodan; 4 sume hi weron inne ceastrum J per wero[n] on yfele behydde. +) pa wes per an ealdorman on pere [ceas]tre 9

bes nama wes Exterius, he hefde anne sunu [bes] nama wes Pantaleon, 1 se wes swyde fegere on bocst[afum] gecyd. 3 pa 15 sealde he hine sume men 4 pes nama we[s Eu]frosinus. He bebead him pet he hine onfenge inne |sele]y het hine pat he him getahte alcne

| Notes to the edition are keyed to the line numbers. —Ed.] 16. Cf. Lines 37 sele and 426 helle as translations of palatio. The space available permits 3-4 letters. 17. Folio wanting; see italicized sections of Latin text

69

Phillip Pulsiano

causa sicut est consuetudo ceteris tunioribus. Una autem die idem Hermolaus’ presbiter conuocauit eum ut intraret in domi-

ciium suum ubt absconsus erat. Et cum intrasset salutautt eum dicens, ‘Gaudeat iuuenis, omni decore ornatus.’ Et Pantaleon dixit, ‘Gaudeas et tu senior, omni honore dignus.’ Et tenens eum fecit secum sedere et dixit er, Filtole quis es? Et que

sunt que circa te aguntur? Et cuius discipline doctrinam discis?’ Et Pantaleon dixit, Filius sum senatoris nomine Eustor-

git. Matris autem Eubule, que 1am tempus habet ex quo christiana defuncta est.’ Hermolaus presbiter dixit, ‘Cut secig consentis?’ Pantaleon respondit, ‘Cum adhuc uiueret mater

mea secum me habebat, pater autem meus non consensit; uoluit autem me in palatio militare. Hec autem postquam defuncta est pater meus ubi uoluit tradidit me.’ Hermolaus presbiter dixit, ‘Que sunt qug discis a magistro tuo?’ Pantaleon respondit, ‘Que disco, hec sunt Asclepu, Hipocratis, et Galient artes.” Sic precepit mihi magister meus dicens, “Si didiceris eorum artem, eris omnem infirmitatem curans omnium hominum”.’ Hermolaus presbiter dixit, ‘Filt, nihil est Asclepius, nec Hipocratis,’ nec Galienus, nec ceteri dii quos colit Maximianus imperator. Ueni filt, consentt mthi et crede in Christum, per cuius inuocationem omnem infirmitatem sanabis. [pse enim mortuos suscitauit, ccos tlluminauit, infirmos sanauit. Curus

et fimbriam mulier tetigit et fluxus sanguinis etus duodecim annorum cessautt. Aquam in uinum conuertit et omnia mirabilia fecit quorum non est numerus, et adest suts seruts, et liberat eos ex omnibus tribulationibus eorum, et eis qui in ip-

sum credant donat et maiora his facere.’ Pantaleon autem quemadmodum terra bona suscipiens suum semen fructificat secundum euangelium quoddam triginta, quoddam sexaginta,

| quoddam centum, ita et ille uerbum tenutt in semetipsum ad fructificationem et salutem multorum et dixit, ‘Domine Hermo-

lae, si possibile est ut notam faciam® archiatro que tu dicis. *Ermolaus N.

*EtN.

haberetS. *artem N. "Hipocras S.

a * notafaciam N. 70

The Old English Life of St Pantaleon

Hec enim et a beata matre mea audieram orante et inuocante Christum quem tu predicas.’ Et presbiter dixit, ‘Crede in eum et accipe baptismum celestis gratiae et eris hec omnia faciens in hominibus.’ De die autem in diem tbat Pantaleon ad presbiterum, et confirmabatur fide, nec enim ibat in suam domum nisi

prius utdisset eum. |

Una autem die dimissus est Pantaleon a magist ro suo et tbat in domum suam et declinans modicum uidit puerum a utpera percussum et mortuum, et serpens tuxta eum manebat. Et Pantaleon timore comprehensus discessit modicum, et in se rediens recordatus est uerba presbitert, et wterum redwt dicens in Semetipso. ‘Nunc debeo cognoscere si uera sunt que ab Hermolao presbitero dicuntur,’ et aspiciens in celum dixit, ‘Domine Lesu Christe, si dignus sum tua uocatione et uis me’ seruum tuum esse, in nomine tuo resurgat puer iste,'° et serpens crepet.”' Tunc matorem gratiam fide accipiens Pantaleon dixit, ‘Benedico te domine lesu Christe, quia dignatus es me cum seruts

tuis annumerare . | |

” interl. S.

’® et statim surexit puer S: interl. in later hand.

‘ crepuit S; N adds in margin: Et continuo serpens crepuit et puer liberatus est.

71

Phillip Pulsiano

Uadens autem cum magno gaudio uenit et procidit ad pedes presbiteri dicens, ‘Deprecor te famule Christi, da mihi lauacrum inmortalitatis. Ego enim cognoui hodie, quia non est alius deus preter dominum Jesum Christum, per quem mortui resurgunt.’ Narrauit ei omnia , que facta sunt, quomodo per inuocationem Christi puer a“ surrexit et serpens crepuit. Et presbiter dicit ei, morte ‘Ueni fili, ostende mihi ruinam serpentis,’ et uadens Pantaleon ostendit illi. Uidens autem presbiter Hermolaus respexit’” et dixit, ‘Domine Iesu Christe gloria pie-

, tatis'* tue, gloria misericordig tug, et inenarrabilis’” tue gratiae, quia celeriter donasti famulo Pantaleoni tua

sacramenta.’ Et iterum utrique in domicilium reuersi sunt,’ et facientes omnia secundum legem aecclesiasticam, et dedit!’ presbiter baptismum Pantaleoni. Et erat cum presbitero Hermolao dies .vii. Octaua autem die iuit in domum suam, et uidit eum pater elus et dixit ei, ‘Ubi fuisti fili tot dies, et fecisti me in tribulatione esse?’ Pantaleon dixit ei, ‘Uirum in multa infirmitate constitu-

tum in palatio curauimus, et eo quod de optimatibus palatii erat et amicus imperatoris; obseruauimus eum” _ dies wii. donec diligenter sanus factus est infirmus.’ Et

| quieuit pater eius. Sequenti autem die iuit ad Eufrosinum Pantaleon, et uidens eum Eufrosinus dicit ei, ‘Dic mihi Pantaleon ubi fuisti tot dies.’ Dicit ei Pantaleon, ‘Pater meus agrum comparauit, et misit me suscipere fines agri,

et permansi ibi diebus vii. donec introiuit in terminos possessionis. Omni enim margarita pretiosior est possessio, quam possedi’; hec autem omnia dicebat pro illuminatione baptismi. Haec audiens Eufrosinus, cessauit interrogare eum. Igitur Pantaleon gloria Christi

"* om. S, interl. N. |

' respexit in celum S. , 4 pietati N. 'S inenarrabili N.

” dedit N. | | 8 ei S, '® reuersi N.

72

The Old English Life of St Pantaleon

lececreft [t::::t] [46r] [He com pa gangende mid mycele gefea|n 7 he gefeol to pes messepreostes fotan 7} he cwzxd, ‘Ic pe

| 20 = [bi]Jdde pu Godes [pb]eowe pat pu me selle pa undeadlican fullwihte; nu ic gelefe of peossum andweardan dege pat nenig oder God nis sod butan se pe purh hine deade arisaé.’ 7 he pa ongan him secgan eal hu he pene cniht gehelde purh Cristes naman ‘J hu seo neddre forberst 7 hu gesund se cniht aras; 7

25 ba eode se massepreost mid pam cnihte pet he walde geseon bet wundor pat se cniht him rede; 4 pa mid py pe Ermolaus bis geseah pa gebed he hine to drihtene 7 he cwad, “Danca[s —

iJc pe do min drihten halend Crist foré6am pu were gemedomigende pet pu gecyd‘d’est peossum cnihte pines megnes 30 —_-wuldor.’ 3 he pa hwerfde eft ham 7 gefulllade pane cnJiht 7 he

het hine pat he wunade mid him .vii. d[agas, 7 he] wes eft bam xhtadan dege hwerfende to h[is feder], 7 pa mid py pe his fader hine geseah ba cwxd he to him, ‘Hwer were pu bearn pus feala daga, foréan bu me dudest myccle unednesse

| 35 mid peosse fore?’ 7 pa andswerade him Pant[alleon 7 he cwa%, ‘Sum man wes seoc geworden ¥ pa geheald{on] wit hine on

uncrum sele, } wit weron pa wuniende mid him 06 pet he wes gehaled.’ 7 pa mid py pe his fader pis [gehJerde pa ne andswearade he him nan word. ¥ pa odr[e dlege he wes eft

40 hwerfende to his larewe, 3 pa mid p[y ple se his larew hine geseah pa cwxd he to him, ‘Hwear ware p]u pis feala daga?’ 7 ba andswearode him Pantaleon [7 hle cwzd, ‘Min feder bohte

him land; pa sende he me pid[er fordjan per weron mycel symbel werode, J ic wes per [wuni]gende pas seofan dagas.’ 7

45 pis he cwxd be him sylfum; [j ge]mznde he pa halgan fulwi- | hte pe he onfange[n] [46v] [hafde]. 7 pa mid py pe [hlis lareow pis geherde pa swugo[de he] 3 pa wes Pantaleon swide

“ The text omits Omni enim margarita pretiosios est possessio quam poss-

edi, which may look to Matthew 13:46: “Inventa autem una preti- _ osa margarita, abiit, et vendidit omnia que habuit, et emit eam.” 73

Phillip Pulstano | repletus, et thesaurum fidei adquirens, cogitabat ut etiam

patrem suumeiadper deiparabolas scientiam Christi adduceret. Et per singulos dies oquebatur uirtutem, et idolorum

uanam gloriam dicens, ‘Pater quare immobiles sunt dii?

Quicumque eorum stat, stat semper. Quicumque autem | sedet, numquam surgit?’ Et pater elus dixit, ‘Per meam sa- , lutem sermo quem requiris grauis est, et non tibi possum respondere.’ Pantaleon eO, quia Sanctus per unum uerbumrepletus uocauitgaudio, patremdedit suumgloriam ad dei scientiam. Et ater eius ab illa hora'® dubitans erat circa deos, etiam non offerebat eis sacrificium. Habebat enim simulacra

in domo sua que Pantaleon uolens aliquoties confringere,

uerebatur dicens, ‘Non contristem patrem meum adhuc infidelem sed magis credat in Christum et sic communi consilio confringemus ea.’ Haec cum diceret Pantaleon, ecce uiri adduxerunt quendam cecum, et pulsantes ianuam requirunt”™ ubi esset medicus Pantaleon. Cumque cognouissent quia ibi

esset, rogabant ut exiret et curaret cecum. Audiens Pantaleon, cum multa festinatione exiuit ut uideret eum comprehenso suo patre, et uidens cecum Pantaleon dicit ei, ‘Quid est quod uis?’ Dicit ei cecus, ‘Deprecor te miserere mei, quia excecatus dulce*’ lumen non uideo. Omnes uero medici in

me operati, nihil mihi profuerunt. Sed insuper etiam modi- , stantiam meam eis erogaui, et nunc cecus et mendicus

| cum fuminis quod habebam tulerunt” a me, et omnem sub-

remansi.’ Dicit ei Pantaleon, ‘Ceteris medicis substantiam tuam dedisti, mihi quid dabis si illuminatus fueris?’ Respondit cecus,

| ‘Quod reliquum est substantig meg dabo tbi.’ Dicit ad eum

Pantaleon, “Lucis donum dat tibi per me Christus; uade igitur

eroga pauperibus quod mihi promisisti.’ Pater autem Pantaleonis prohibebat eum dicens, ‘Fili, recede ab homine; non

| enim potes peritior esse quam illi medici, qui ante te curare , eum non potuerunt.’ Et Pantaleon dixit, ‘Curam quam presto

homini huic, nemo ceterorum medicorum prestare potest;

, meus autem” magister uerbo sanat qui credunt.’ Pater autem elus suspicabatur, quod de Eufrosino diceret, et dixit illi, ‘Fili,

audiui quia et magister tuus adhibuit ei curam, et non potuit eum curare.’ Respondit Pantaleon, ‘Sustine et uidebis gloriam

Christi, per quem curabitur homo iste.’ Et statim tenens cecum et signans eum in oculis dixit, ‘In nomine Iesu Christi qui illuminauit que prius erant obscura, et sanat qu¢ contrita

die N. , | *! de luce S. |

sunt, et colligit que dispersa sunt, et conuertit errantia,

* ianuam N.

== contulerunt S, con eras. N. ** om. N.

, 74

The Old English Life of St Pantaleon

ful geworden Cristes ge[flea[n], 7 he hafde pas geleafan gold- | hord on hil[s] heortan ge[set]te 7 he pa was abisgad hu he his 50 — feder geledde to pa[m] leohte 7 to sodum geleafan. 7 ba wes ber sum blind m[an] 3 se hafde swype manige lac 9 mycel fih geseald wid his egna gesihde. 7 pa geherde he hwylcne lece-

cre[ft] se halga Pantaleon hefde 7 hu he gecyd wes. 4 pa g{e|laddon his freond hine to Pantaleone, 7 pa mid ply] pe 55 Pantaleon hine geseah pa ongan he acsian 7 he cwed, ‘Hwene sece ge? 7) pa andswerade him se blinde, 7 he cwad, ‘Tc pe

bidde pat bu me gemiltsige 7 pat pu me gehz[le fordon|] menige laces weron wyrcende [heora creftas on m]e 7 hit me nes naht nyt ac hi me benam[an eac] pa lytlan gesihde pe ic

60 er hefde 3 ealle mine [hte] syndon gedelde wid minre gesihde.’ } pa andswera[de] him Pantaleon 7 he cwe6, ‘Gif hi habbad ealle pine z[h]te genumen hwet selstu me ponne gif ic

be gehele?’ 7 pa andswerade him se blinda 7 he cwxd, ‘Tc

habbe gyt sum dal feos; ic pe selle eall pat’; 7 ba cwxd Pan- | 65 tale[on] to him, ‘Gyf pu gelyfst on pone halgan gast pon[ne]

sel6 he pe leoht 3 dal pu pearfum pet feoh pat pu me [geh]ete.’ 7 pa cwaxd pes cnihtes fader, ‘Far pu bearn f[ram] beossum men fordan pu hine ne meaht gehzle[n], foréan him fyleedon swyde menige laces } he meahte fram heora neni-

70 gum beon geheled.’ 7 pa [and]swerade Pantaleon his feder 4

he cwxd, ‘Ne can nenig oder lece don pene lececreft pe ils] | to don butan se pe hine me tehte.’ 7 ba mid [py [45r] pe his feeder pis geherde pa andswerade he him 7 he cwzd, ‘Min blearn ne mzht pu hine gehazlen forg6on he wes [mid] pe pe

75 lerde 3 se hine ne meahte gehelen.’ 7 pa andswerade him Pantaleon 7 he cwxd, ‘Abid lythwon penne gesihs pu pet ic gel[h]ale peosne man purh Godes wuldor.’ 4 ba ethran he pes blindan eagan 7 pus cwxd, ‘On drihtnes naman helendes

[C]ristes se be peostro onlihte 4 untrume gehalde 4 pa | 80 dwolli]gendan he gecigde to pam rihtan wege, 7 he gesomnad|e] ealle pa be on peostrum beod, hat pu nu halga

7)

Phillip Pulsiano

eris uidens lucem omnes” dies uite tug, et aliud maius lumen uidere uis si credideris in Christo.’ Et cum adhuc loqueretur uidit cecus et ipsa hora credidit pater eius cum eo qui sanus

factus est. Tunc uadens Pantaleon retulit Hermolao presbitero quanta fecit dominus per eum. Et erat multis diebus is

qui sanus est cum eo, et ibat una cum illo et patre suo ad presbiterum, qui confirmans dedit eis baptismum celestis gratie. Pater autem eius ingressus domum suam ubi erant idola omnia confregit et proiecit in foueam. Quod uidens Pantaleon dedit gloriam deo. Post paucum tempus, defunctus est pater eius. Substantiam uero que el missa est in pauperes

expendebat, necnon et eis qui in carceribus et tormentis

| propter nomen domini erant ministrabat et curabat eos. Cooperabatur autem ei Christus in omnibus, et multam inuidiam habebant ceteri medici. Quadam autem die congregatis medicis, astabat et cecus qui a Pantaleone sanatus fuerat, et uidentes eum dixerunt ad inuicem, ‘Nonne hic est cecus quem nos sanare non potuimus? Quis est qui eum

curauit?’ Et conuocantes cecum dixerunt ei, ‘Quis est qui te curauit?’ Dicit eis, ‘Pantaleon filius Eustorgii.’ Et”? medici dixerunt ad Eufrosinum, ‘Nonne tuus discipulus est*°?’? Et iterum dixerunt, ‘Per deos magni medici discipulus est, ita licet ignorantes de Christo prophetauerunt.’ Magnam autem inuidiam habebant

medici aduersus Pantaleonem, et querebant occasionem aliquam inuenire contra eum. Per tempus | autem multum obseruantes, uidentes quendam de confessoribus qui ab eo curabatur, et®’ accussauerunt eum imperatori Maximiano dicentes, ‘Imperator, quem tu iussisti ut celerius discat artem ** omnes uidentes S; eras. in N after omnes.

5 EN.

: *° om. N.

27 eras. S. , , 76

The Old English Life of St Pantaleon

feder pet pes man mege geseon eallum his lifes dagum.’ 4 pa weron his eagan [o]ntynde 3 he meahte leoht geseon on pzre ylcan tide [4] pa mid py pe his [fade]r pis geseah pa he gelefde

85 he ana on almihtigne God 9 se man end him se par er blind wes, J pa ferde Pantaleon mid mycele gefean 4 sed{e] pam messepreoste pa per on God gelyfddan; 7 pa hwerfd[e] se eft — ham to his huse se per gehaled was 3 he wes gefyl[l]ed mid - miccle gefean 7 he dyde Gode pancas. 7 pa wes pes [c]nihtes 90 fader gangende in to his huse j he tobrac ealle [pa]s godes pe berinne weron 73 he hio bewearp in enne sead. J pa mid py pe

| Pantaleon pis geseah ba was he swyde ge[bllissad 7 he pes Gode georne bancode. 3 pa weard his feder [dead efter naht feala daga. 3 ba feng Pantaleon to his [fleader xhte 9 he hi

95 dalde pearfum 7 bam mannum pam [ple weron preste fram Maximiano pam casere, 3 pa for[I]et eall seo ceasterware zlcne oderne lece butan [Pant]aleon ana J eall seo ceasterware wes

| etnexta[n to] him gepeod, 3 pa was pam odrum lacum swyde [myc]el zfest to Pantaleone. 3 pa geeode pet [sume] dege pet

100 alle pa laces weron gesom[45v]|[nade atgedere], 3 pa ferde bider se [bli]nda se pe w[xs] gehaled purh Pantaleon. 3 pa mid py pe pa leces hin[e ge]seagon pa cwedon hi heom betweonan hwa zxfre peosne m[an] gehalde, 7 pa gecigdon hi to

him pam pe per er blind w[zs] 7 hi hine acsodon hwa hine 105 = gehalde; 3 pa andswerade he heom j¥ he cwzd, ‘Pantaleon

| hatte se man se pe me gehalde pat wes Exterius sune pes ealdormannes.’ 7 pa cwadon pa leces to Eufrosine, ‘Nis pis se

cniht se pe pu lerdes[t]? 7 ba cwad Eufrosinus, ‘Ic swerige burh ura goda helo pat he hafad beteran lareow penne ic seo.’ 110 4ha hefdan pa leces swySe mycele heto to Pantaleone, 7} hi pa sohtan intingan to him pat hi hine meahtan fordan a[drif]an.

ba gemetton hi sume dege hwer he wes hezlende enne cristene mann. 79 pa eodan hi sona to Maximiano pam casere, 4 | hi hine wregden swyde to him 3 hi cwedon, ‘Se man se pe pu

77

Phillip Pulsiano medicine, uolens eum habere apud te, hic ambulat ad eos qui | diis conuitiantur, curat, uolens et ipse eadem”® sentire. Si autem uelociter eum non tuleris multos habet prohibere de sacrificiis et sanitates Asclepii~” in Christo habet transferre.’ Et rogauerunt

| imperatorem ut uocaretur cecus qui a Pantaleone fuerat sanatus. Et jussit uocari eum et cum inductus esset dixerunt ei, ‘Dic homo quali cura sanatus es.’ Dixit eis, ‘Christum inuocans Pantaleon signauit meos oculos, et ipsa hora uidi.’ Maximianus imperator dixit, “Tu ergo quid dicis? Uirtute deorum sanatus es, an eius qui dicitur Christus.’ Is qui sanatus fuerat dixit, ‘Isti quos uides omnes

medicos multa in me fecerunt, et omnem substantiam meam accipientes nihil me iuuauerunt,” sed modicum quod habebam luminis amputauerunt. Quis ergo maior est, Asclepius qui multo inuocato nomine non potuit sanare, an Pantaleon qui inuocatus est et lumen mihi donauit?’ Maximianus imperator dixit, ‘Uade,

noli esse stultus Christum inuocans, quia dii donauerunt tibi ‘ Jumen.’ Is qui sanatus fuerat dixit, “Tu noli esse stultus, mihi enim Christus donauit lumen per seruum suum Pantaleonem ad aperiens oculos meos. Ceterum dii tui non uidentes, quomodo possunt uisum alicui dare”’?’ Maximianus imperator dixit, ‘Per salutem deorum puto uera sunt que medici dixerunt.’

8 eandem S; n eras. inN. ” Aclepii N. uiuerunt S, although orig. the reading of N. *! donare N. 78

The Old English Life of St Pantaleon

bebude pat hine mon lerde elcne lececreft 7 elcne orotcreft 115 — hwat we tealdon pat he scolde pe heran, he penne lufad ealle ba pe urum godum teonan dod, 4 he hafad zlce eadmodnysse

| wid pa pe bu mid suslum prestest, 7 he hi heled; 7 gif pu hine nele ad[ri]fan of pisse ceastre panne asyndrad he menige men fr[am] urum godum.’ 7 ba bedon hi Maximianus pene casere

120 pat he het[e] pane blindan geledon beforan his gesihde se per er wixs| gehaled fram Pantaleone. 7 ba mid py pe he wes geled beforan pes caseres gesihd[e] pa cwaxd se casere to him,

‘Hwylc mlan] gehelde pe? 7 ba cwad se man, “Pantaleon hatte se lace se pe me gehalde.’ 3 ba cwx6 se casere to him, |

125 ‘Hwylcere end[ebyrd]nesse gehelde se man pe?’ J pa andswl[erade] him se ber er blind wes 7 he cwxd, ‘He cigde

[drihte]nes naman helendes Cristes } xth[ran [47r] mine eagan; pa mihte ic onstepe leoht] ge[seon.’ 7 se casere cwxd, ‘Gel]halde he pe burh ura goda magn pe ponne purh helend

130 [s]e is gecweden Crist?’ 7 ba andswerade him se man J he cwx, ‘Ealle pals l]aces pe pu her gesihst hi ‘weron’ wyrcende

heora creftas on me j ic heom sealde ealle mine xhte 7 heo me nes naht nyt geseald ac hi adyden from me ba lytl[an

gesi|hde pa pe ic ar hefde.’ 7 pa acsode hine se casere, 135 ‘[Hwea]der is Aslipius mara pa god pe penne Pantaleo[nus?’ 9] ba cwe6 se to him se pes ar blind wes, “Swyde oft ic cigde

As[li]pius me to fultume, 7 me [pat] n[zs naJht nyt, ne he me nenige gode beon ne mihte; on[step]e swa Pantaleon Crist cigde ofer me, pa mihte [i]c leoht [gese]on.’ 7 pa cwxd 140 se casere to him, ‘De bid wel gif pu nelt sprecan [id]ele word J bu nelt Crist cigen, fordéan ura god[as pe sea]ldan leoht; nes nu Crist.’ 7 pa andswerade he pam caser[e, 9] he cwad, ‘[P]u sprecst idelnesse ac ic ‘pe’ secge to sode [pat] Crist [onli]hte

mine eagan purh Pantaleon his peow; 3 hu magan [pilne 145 — go[das mJannum leoht sellen forpan hi ne magon nawiht [geseon?’ 7 bla wes se casere swyde eorre geworden 37 he cwxd,

‘[Ic swerige b]urh ura goda hele gif pes man leng leofad [penne cierrep he] manige men aweg fram urum godum. J pa

79

Phillip Pulsiano | Ipsa hora iussit eum duci et decollari dicens, ‘Si iste uix-

| erit, multos auertet a diis.’ Et postquam decollatus est dedit Pantaleon pecuniam his qui eum decollauerunt et accipiens corpus elus sepeliuit iuxta patrem suum. Post hec iussit imperator uocari Pantaleonem, et inductus Pan-

taleon habuit oculos ad deum. Dixit autem ad eum imperator, “Dic mihi si uera sunt que audiui de te. Nonne

ego precepi magistro tuo, ut cum omni diligentia te erudiret, uolens habere in regno meo propter pulchritudinem aetatis tue?’ Pantaleon respondit, ‘Que sunt que audisti de me?’ Imperator dixit, ‘Que audiui non credidi; potest fama mendax esse. Audiui autem quia ambulas, et ponis post incredulitatem deorum. Tu curas et necessaria prestas ad escam, confitendo et tu cum eis nomen Iesu.’ Pantaleon repletus spiritu sancto dixit, ‘Dii tui celum et terram non fecerunt. Si iubes requiramus et uideamus si celum fecerunt, aut terram fundauerunt, aut mortuos sus-

citauerunt, aut cecis lumen donauerunt, aut aliquem in- |

| firmum sanauerunt, et credimus eis. Si autem non, quid dicis?’ Maximianus imperator dixit, “‘Quare ille quem christiani colunt potest hec facere?’ Pantaleon respondit,

‘Quem christiani colunt hec facit.’ Maximianus

80

The Old English Life of St Pantaleon

bebead [se casere pat hine mon o]n pare ilcan tide hafde be- _ 150 _—_—heowe. 73 pa sealde [Pantaleon sw]ide mycel fih pam cwellerum

wid pam I[ic]ham[an 7 Pantaleon ge]nam pene lic[h]a[man] 9 hine bebyrgde b[e his faderes] byrgene. 7 pa zf[ter] peoss[um

_ bebead] Maxi[mianus se casere bet mo]n Pantaleon to him gel[ade, 7 pa mid py pe he was] ingeled pa sang se 7 he cwe,

155 ‘Drihten ne sw[iga pu mine heren]ysse foréan mine feond feohta[6 wid me. Hi agieldab hate pat pat ic for]gelde lufan;

| fordan nu is fyren(fullra mu[6 ontyned ofer me] 3 mine feond syndan nu sprecen[de wid me mid] [47v] inwitfulre tungan 7

hi me willad y[mbse]llan mid hefef[ullum] wordum. Fultume | 160 ~~ me nu drihten 4 gefreolse me efter pi[ne] mildheortnesse; ic benne eam pin peow J on pe ic blissi[ge.’] 7 pa after pissum wes Pantaleon geled in to pam casere 7 he pla] hafde symble his eagan 7} his heortan to drihtene onhel[ded] 3 ba cwad se casere to him, [‘Sege] me hweper pat seo sod pet me m[on] |

165 be pe secgd; ac me befest[e ic pe] pinum lareowe pet he pe sceold{e] laran alcne lacecre[ft pat ic be] wolde habban me

to lec[e].’ pa andswerade him Pantal[le]on 7 he cwx, ‘Hwet is pet pe pu [me] secg[a]n geherdest?’ 7 ba cwad s[e

, clasere to him, “Swa hwat swa ic b[e pe] secgan geherde ne 170 _ gelefde ic bas pat hit swa ware pat; pat wes swyoe yfel hlisa bat ic be pe secgan geherde pat pu were [ym] pa abisg[ad] pe ic preste, 7} pu agifst bam alce eadmodnys|[se pe ne] ur[a golda

: nellaS bugan.’ 7 pa wes Pantaleonus gefyll[ed mid pam hjalgan gaste 7) he cw pa, ‘Ne geworhtan p[inJe god[as rader 175 — nje heofan ne eordan, ac gif we nu cigaé Punor [pinne god

tiuuust] penne geseo we sona gif he geworhte heof[an 7 eordan; 3] gif hit swa bid panne meg he blinde onlih[tan 4 untrume] gehzlen; j gif he pyllic don mag penne gell[efe we

on pene.’ 3] pa cwxd se casere to him, ‘Mag eower Crist 180 d[on pis?) 4 pa] andswerade him Pantaleon 47 he cwz, ‘Dis clan he don.’ 3 pa] andswerade him se casere 9 he

152. Matthews emends to “b[einnan his feeder] byrgene.” 81

Phillip Pulstano | imperator dixit. ‘Quomodo possimus scire?’ Pantaleon respondit, ‘Iube unum paraliticum afferre de his qui in®* ciuitate lacent, et ueniant sacerdotes tui et inuocent deos tuos, et ego inuocabo Christum meum, et cognosces cuius inuocatio sanabit paraliticum, et deinceps illi debemus credere, quia potens est deus.’ Et dixit imperator, ‘Per deos bene dixisti; fiat sic.’ Et iussit afferri de platea paraliticum et poni in medio, et ablatus est in lecto, et certabant inmundi sacerdotes una cum philosophis uanam spem habentes. Quidam eorum Asclepium inuocabant™, quidam Hypocratem, alii Iouem, qui-

dam Dianam, alii Herculem et Jouem et ceteros deos, et eorum omnium uana erat inuocatio. Et Pantaleon stans uanum laborem subridebat. Hii uero postquam nihil egerunt dixit et Pantaleon inuocationem suam, et respiciens in celum

cauero te. |

dixit, ‘Domine exaudi orationem meam, et clamor meus ad te per

ueniat. Ne auertas faclem tuam a me, in quacumque die inuo-

*° om. N.

om. N.

82, ,

The Old English Life of St Pantaleon

cwxd, ‘Hu me[g ic pis geseon?’ 7 pa] cwxd Pantaleon, ‘[Ha]t me bringan to [anne laman man 7 hat ganga]n pine sacerdas

to him 7 g[ecigen hi pinra goda] naman J ic gecige mines

185 [godes naman ofejr hine, 7 panne fram swa hwes geciged[nesse se lama gehaled] bid pe[n]ne gelefe we on pen|[ne.’ ] ba wes se lama] geled tomiddes [heom] 7 pa cw2d se c[asere

to Panta]leone, ‘Agif pe weordmynt urum glodum.’ 7 pa and[49r]swerade him Pantaleone 7 he cwaxd, ‘Nu gecige pinra 190 — goda 4 we geseon gif se lama] beo geheled, 7 panne gif he ne bid gehaled panne gecige [ic] minne drihten ofer hine.’ 3 ba andswerade him Maximianus se casere } he cwxd, “Wel pu

hafast bet word gecweden j ic gedo pat hit swa bid swa pu cwede.’ J pa ongunnon pa sacerdas cigan 7 cwedon to heora 195 — godum, ‘Gehazlad pisne man.’ 7 hi pa ongunnon [ci]egan ealle

heora godas. 7} per wes sum genemned Ypochratin, [] oder

Mercurium, J se pridda Galligenum; 7 nes se lama na de ra[der glehald for heora gecigdnesse, y pa myd py pe Pantaleonus [pJis geseah pa smercade he. 9 pa se casere pis geseah

200 pat his [s]acerdum naht ne speu, pa cwxd he to Pantaleone, , ‘Do pin nu [p]ine cignysse.’ 7 pa locade se halgan Pantaleon to heofan[an] 7 he cwed, ‘Drihten, geher pu min

gebed j mine gecignysse becumen to pe, } on minum earfoddege ne ahwerf pu pinne anwlitan fram me, J onheld pu

188-191. The passage is confused here. Pantaleon asks that the paralytic be brought and that the pagan priests invoke their gods and Pantaleon will call on his God; whichever petition cures the man will then determine which god(s) will be accepted. The paralytic is then brought among them, and Maximianus tells Pantaleon to “sive honor to our gods.” Pantaleon responds (in a passage partly supplied here) by telling Maximianus: “[Now invoke your gods and we will see if the lame man] is healed, and if he is not healed then I will invoke my God over him.” Maximianus responds: “Well have you spoken that word, and I will do just as you say.” In the Latin text, Pantaleon’s proposal is made, Maximianus agrees, and only then is the paralytic brought; there is no intervening injunc-

tion to Pantaleon to honor the pagan gods. In the Old English text, lines 193-196 would be better placed at line 188 after gelefe we on penne, prior to the carrying in of the paralytic. 83

: Phillip Pulsiano | / \

Uelociter exaudi me, quia ad te domine leuaui animam meam. Ostende malignis et inmundis sacerdotibus, quia tues — qui sanas eos qui sperant in te.’ Et tenens manum paralitici erexit eum dicens, ‘In nomine Iesu Christi esto sanus.’ Ab hac

hora statim surrexit infirmus et abiit in domum gaudens et laudans deum. Multi autem ab illa hora crediderunt in domino et discesserunt a diis uanis. Et iterum inmundi sacerdotes

una cum medicis stridebant dentibus super eum, et dicunt imperatori, ‘Destructa est uirtus deorum. Si ei concesseris uitam, omnes auertet. Noli ergo credere; infirmus enim uirtute deorum surrexit.’ Et consentiens uerborum eorum, dixit ad Pantaleonem, ‘Cessa, Pantaleon, inuocare Christum, et misertus tug iuuentutis; accede et sacrifica diis. Multe namque et magne poeng te expectant, si perseueraueris in incredulitate.’ Pantaleon dixit, “Quas dicis poenas celerius mihi infer.

' Ego enim paratus sum omnem poenam sustinere propter Christum meum.’ Maximianus imperator dixit, ‘Cognouisti quanta passus est ante hos dies Antimus presbiter?’ Pan-

taleon dixit, “‘Utique scis quanta sustinuit senex et non

claudicauit in fide, sed ille toto animo et prompto

tradidit tremulentum corpus confortatus in fide; quanto magis nouelle™’ acetate debemus promptiores _

4 nouella S: a altered from e.

84 |

The Old English Life of St Pantaleon

205 pine are to me, 7} eteowe eallum pissum mannum pam pe her standad pet pu eart [a]na elmihtig God 3 pu gehelest ealle pa be on pe gele[fa]d.’ 7 he pa genam pes laman hand 4 he cw, ‘Aris bu on [d]rihtenes naman halendes Cristes 7 beo hal 4 gesund.’ [4] pa aras he onstzpe hal 4 gesund, +} he hwerfde mid

210 = mycclan gefean to his huse 7 he wuldrade urne drihten. [} pla on pere ilcan tid wurdon per swyde manige men [to glode gecerred. 7} pa pa laces geseagon hu se lama was [geh]aled pa gristbitodon hi mid heora todum on hine, [7 hi] cwedon mid bam sacerdum to pam casere, ‘Gif Panta[leon] ne bid acweald 215 panne forwurdad ura goda on[seged]nysse.’ 7 ba gepafade se casere heora worda [samn]unge ] he cwa6 pa to Pantaleone, ‘Gepafa me [bet pu onse]ge urum godum Jj gesih hu manige men syndon [49v] [forswoltene for heom.]’ 7 pa andswerade him Pantaleon [7 he cwxd], “Wite pu bat bas men pe her for 220 dinum godum swulton pa syndon lifligen]de aworold aworold fordan hi andettan Crist.’ 4 pa cwxd Maximil[anus] se casere, ‘Ablin pat pu me nemne Crist ac gefreolse bine iugode, fordan be beod swide miccle tintregan gegearowad gif pu on pisse

andetnysse ford purhwunast.’ } pa andswerade him Pan225 tale[on] 3 he cwad, ‘Gegearawa pu pine tintregan fordan ic eam gearo to pr[o]wigenne for Cristes naman.’ 7 ba cwa6 se casere, ‘Geher pu Pantale[on] hu man‘i’ge tintregan se ealde Antimus prowade.’ 7 pa andswerad[e] him Pantaleon 7 he cwxd, ‘He prowade swide manigfealdlice, 7 hi nes na pe rader 230 — oferswided gif he ponne was eald 7 he mani[ge] tintregan browade for Cristes naman; me penne gedaf[a]na6 swa miccle swidor to prowigenne swa ic eam gingra pet ic geearnige pat

202-207. A composite citation, in part Psalm 101:2-3 (Roman): “Domine, exaudi orationem meam, et clamor meus ad te peru-

| eniat. Ne auertas faciem tuam a me; in quacumque die inuocau-

ero te uelociter exaudi me.” The Latin text continues with Psalm 24:1: “Ad te domine leuaui animam meam” (see also Psalms 85:4, — 142:8).

, 218. forswoltene] upper portion of letters lost. 224. andetnysse] MS andetnyssse. 85

Phillip Pulsiano | accedere ad supplicia, ut digni_ efficiamur corone incorruptibilis”.’ Tunc uidens imperator inmobilem fidei eius

, constantiam, lussit suspensum ex ungulari et lampadibus : subincendere latera eius. Et respiciens Pantaleon in celum, uiriliter dolores sufferebat dicens, ‘Domine Iesu Christe, sicut in

sanandis adfuisti, mihi et in poenis subueni, et da mihi perfectum certamen.’ Tunc apparuit ei Christus in specie _ Hermolai presbiteri et dicit illi, ‘Noli trepidare fortissime athleta; ego sum tecum in omnibus.’ Et statim manus questionariorum

dissolute sunt. Maximianus imperator uidens quod factum est dicit ei, ‘Pantaleon ubique est ars magice tue, ut et lampades extingueres, et eos qui torquebant te in defectione constitueres.’ Pantaleon respondit, ‘Mea uirtus Christus est qui et lampadas extinxit et ministros tuos in defectione constituit.”, Maximianus

imperator dixit, ‘Si ergo maiores poenas tibi intulero, tunc

| sacrificas.’ Pantaleon respondit, ‘Si tu maiores poenas mihi intuleris et Christus maiorem uirtutem prestat mihi.’ Hec audiens imperator iussit afferri sartaginem ferream et poni super ignem et mitti plumbum in ea. Et cum ferueret sartago iussit exhiberi sanctum et mitti in illum. Et respiciens sursum

dixit Pantaleon, ‘Exaudi domine orationem meam dum deprecor ad te; a timore inimici eripe animam meam. Protege

, me a conuentu malignantium, a multitudine operantium _ Iniquitatem, quia exacuerunt tamquam gladium linguas suas.’ Et

cum orasset apparuit ei Christus, et tenens manus eius intrauit Cum eo in sartaginem. Statim autem ignis extinctus est

| et plumbum frigidum factum est*®. Astantes autem

*° fecit N. ,

| * incorruptibili N.

86

The Old English Life of St Pantaleon

ic were gewuld'r’ad mid him.’ J pa mid py pe se casere pis ge-

) herde pet he him wolde gebafian his willan, pa bebead he pat 235 hine mon ahenge on pripele j pat hine mon strengum swunge on his twa sidan. 9 pa locade se halga Pantaleon to heofonan 7 he cwxd, “Drihten, beo me on fultum on pissum tintregum 4

gehel me swa swa pu gehaldest pa fordgewitenan for pines naman gecigdnysse.’ 7 pa ateowde him sona drihten halend 240 Crist on Ermolaus anlicnysse pas messepreostes pe hine erest tydde 4 gefullade. 7 he cwad to him, ‘Ne ondred pu pe Pantaleon fordan ic beo mid pe on swa hwylcum tintregum swa pu

browi'g’an onginnest.’ } ba onstepe adeadadon pera manna handa pe hine presten. 3 pa mid py pe se casere pis geseah pa

245 bebead he pat hine mon panan adyde 7 he cwad to him,

‘Haflast] pu nu purh pine lybcraftas gedon pat ura tintr[egendra] handa adeadadon.’ 7 ba andswarade him Pant[aleon [48r] 7 he cwx6, ‘Crist is min miht, se pe gedyde bet pinra pegna handa adeadadon.’ 7 ba cwxd Maximianus se

250 —casere, ‘H] wat b[iJst pu ponne be mon [maran tintregan gegear|wad.’ 7 pa andswerade him [Pantaleon 7 he cwx6, ‘Ne

ondred]e ic me peh pu do maran [ti]ntregan on [me fordon min C]rist hafaS mara megn pon [pu] 7 pat he m[e alesse.’ 4 ba mid py pe se casere pis geherde pa bebea[d h]e pet mon 255 — mycelne hwer mid leade afylde 7 pat hine mon welde [o]6 dzt

I[e]ad ware eal hluttor geworden. 7 pa locade se halga [Pa]ntaleon to heofonan 3 he cwad, ‘Geher pu drihten mine stefne [mid pare pe ic to pe cleopige 7 gefreolse mine sawle fram pas [fleondes ege 7 bescild bu me fram yfelra manna

260 worda } fram [b]ere mznige pe unriht wyrcad, foréon men nu | scerpad [h]eora tungan wid me swa oder sweord.’ 9 pa him | swa gebidden[d]um zteowde him drihten halend Crist. 7 he nam Pantaleon [bJe his hand 7 astah mid him on pene hwer, ‘] ba onstepe was [pet] lead geworden swylce ceald weter. 3 pa

265 sang se halga Pan|[taJleon on pam hwere, 7 he cwxd, ‘Ic

260. men] orig. meen: 2 altered toe. 87

Phillip Pulsiano

ammirabantur in uisione. Imperator autem dicebat — asstantibus, ‘Quid uult hoc esse? Et ignem extincxit?’, et plumbum frigidum fecit. Quali ergo poena puniam eum?’

Et qui astabant dixerunt, ‘Iste in profundum maris

mittatur. Numquid et mare potest euadere?’§ Et accipientes eum ministri confusionis duxerunt ad mare.

| Imperator autem sequebatur eos expectare uolens quid eueniret. Et accipientes lapidem magnum alligauerunt

eum” ad collum’’, et ducentes eum _ stadia triginta proiecerunt in pelagus. Ibi apparuit ei christus*’ in specie presbiteri et increpauit*! mari. Mare autem diuino timore

conprehensum, portabat eum super undas incolumen. Lapis quoque tamquam folium super undas_ natabat. Sanctus uero Pantaleon a Christo deducebatur ad manum,

et adductus est in aridam glorificans deum. Cumque uenisset ad ripam, dicit ei imperator, ‘Magice artes** tue et

| mare uicerunt.’ Pantaleon respondit, ‘Non ego sed qui mecum est, quem tu non es dignus uidere.’ Imperator uero insania magna repletus, iussit omnes bestias. colligi,

ut per eas interficeret iustum, et dicit ad eum, ‘Uides

| bestias? Propter te parate sunt. Consenti ergo mihi et

37 extinxit S. | 8 ei S.

* locum N; cf. AASS, Iulit VI, p. 417: et jubet gravissimum lapidem ejus collo alligari, et sic in mare inmitti. 0 om. N.

*' increpuit N. * Magicae artes S, artes interl., Magie N. 88

The Old English Life of St Pantaleon

-_ cigde to drihtene 7 he me ge[he]rde, 3 ic nu fordan bodige his wuldor pe me geherde.’ 7 pa [h]i pis geseagan ealle be per widstodon 7 hi wes onwundrilg]ende on pis. 7 pa cwxd se casere to bam mannum pe per widstodon, ‘[H]wet is eow be 270 pam geworden pe ure lead wurde 4 ure fyr [co]lade forpan ic gedo pat he onfehd odrum tintregum.’ 3 pa cwex[do]n pe per widstodan to Maximiane pam casere, ‘Bebeod [pat hi]ne mon gebringe ut on sx fordan ne meg he hure se [bebe]odon pat heo hine forlete.’ 7 pa bebead Maximianus [se case]re pat — 275 hine mon wurpe on sz, 7 pa genaman hine pa [sacerdas] 3 hi hine geladdon to pare sx. 7 Maximianus wes [gangen]de mid him pet he wolde his insi{h]6 geseon. 7 pa bebead [se casere bet] mon gebunde swide mycelne stan on his [48v] [sweoran

J] se stan was hund [f:::t] 7 ba geleddon hi hine [on 280 heanysse 3 hi gewur]pan hine pa on pa sz, [] pa zeteowode hine drihten] per on Ermolaus anlic[nysse bas mzssepreostes] ] pa weard se stan sona of[aworpen] 3 he ongan fleotan ofer __ bam weetere swa oder leaf. 7 pa gena[m] drihten hine be pare hand, 7 he hine geladde to bam ofre 3 pa ongan he singan 4

285 cweban, ‘Ic be andetta on ealre min[re] heortan.’ 7 pa myd hi pe he com to pam ofre pa cwed Maximlianus] to him, “Hafast

bu nu beboden sx mid pinum lybcreftum pzt he[o ne] pe ne

| adrencte?’ 4 pa andswerade him Pantaleon 4 he cwzd, ‘N[e] dyden pat mine lybcraftas. Ac hit gedyde se pe mid m[e] wes.

290 Ac pu ne ert pes wyrde pat pu hine geseo.’ 7 pa was se -_ ca[se]re swide eorre geworden, 4 he bebead pa pet mon eall

, bet deo[r]cyn geledde to him pa pe he geset hefde mannum | to cwa[Ime], 3 pa ealla ‘pa’ wildeor weron cumen to Pantaleone. Pa c[wx6] Maximianus se casere to him, ‘Gebafa me pat

| 295 pu onseg[e] urum godum, J ara pinre iugode py les pu yfele deade swelte swa swa manige wif dydon pa de for Criste b[ro]wadon.’ 7 pa andswerede him Pantaleon 3 he cwz6, ‘Gif wif w[az]ron browigende for Cristes naman swa miccle ma

275. sacerdas] [cwellera]s Matthews. 89

Phillip Pulsiano

| sacrifica diis, ut non moriaris.’ Pantaleon respondit, ‘Omni errore repletus cum sis paratus*” mihi formidinem inferre, fortiorem me constituisti. Qui enim lampades tuas

extinxit et ministros tuos dissoluit, et plumbum tuum frigidum fecit, et mare infrenauit, ipse et feroces bestias mitigat.. Haec audiens imperator lussit induci iustum in

, arena et mitti omnes bestias. Statim autem cucurrit omnis ciuitas ad spectaculum. Dimisse ' igitur __besti¢ circumdederunt uasstissimum leones uultum. Leopardi autem pedes eius lingebant. Cetere autem fere semetipsas consummebant, certantes que prius uenirent ad pedes eius. Uidens autem omnis populus exclamauit dicens una uoce, ‘Magnus est deus christianorum; dimitte iustum.’ Et

occidit imperator in illa die, ex quo clamauit** mille homines. Christiani autem occulte eos qui mortui sunt sepeliebant, et ait imperator eis qui circa eum erant, ‘Quid faciemus huic puero qui per magicas artes*” plurimum populum uertit a diis?’ Et dixerunt ei,

8 om. N, interl. S.

* clamauit populus S. * magicas artes interl. S, magias N.

go |

The Old English Life of St Pantaleon

sceal ic browigan pet ic burh pet wuldorhelm onfo, 3 se de

300 = gieldyde pat pinra pegna handa adeadadon 7 pin lead adw[escte] 7 se Se forwyrnde pat heo me ne acwealdon se

mzg bebe[odan] pinum deorum pet hi me ne scedian.’ 7 pa | mid py pe he wes sprecende pa bebead se casere pet hi mon bescufle tomid]des pam deorum, 7} ba sona swa he wes tomid-

305 des bam [deorum] pa zteowde hine drihten on Ermolaus anlicny[sse pes] messepreostes, } he cwad to him, “‘Gebeoh pu

goda p[eow for[44r]éan ic] pe getrym[me] on eallum bing[um],’ 4 pla] y[mbsealdon pa wil]deor hine utan 3 hi ongunnan liccian his fet, 7 nas en[i]g [p]ar[a] deora pat fram 310 him onweg gewite zrpan hi pam him bletsu[n]ge onfengen. 4 ba mid py pe he pa deor gebletsad hafde ba gewitan hi aweg J hi heredan drihten. 7 pa mid py pe eall pat folc bis geseah pa cleopodan hi mycelre stefne 7 hi cwedon ealle, ‘Mycel is cristenra God.’ 3 hi cwedon ealle, ‘[S]eo pes halga ‘ongelyf6’,’ 4 315 pase casere pis geherde pa wes he gefylled mid ealre hatheortnysse. } he hit ofslean an pusand manna of pam folce, 7 he bebead pat mon pa wildeor acwealde. 3 pa bletsade se halga

Pantaleon drihten 7 he wes cwepende, ‘Gloria tibi Thesu Christe quia non solum.’ He cwxd, “Wuldor pe sy drihten

320 helend Crist fordéan nis na pet an pet bas men for de browadon, ac bas wildeor pa pe beofiaé me to sweltanne bonne

an seo hrinan of pinum halgum ‘ne dear’.’ j pa lichaman pe ber acwealde weron hi wurdon forstolene fram cristenum mannum J weron [b]ehydde mid pam wildeorum. ] per legen

325 manega dagas, [7 njas nan fugol pet mid his mude heom «thrinan wold[e floréan hi weron for Criste acwealde. 3 pa se

caser[e pis geherde pa bebead he pat mon mycelne sead adulf[e] y wurpe pa wildeor pxrin. 7 pa manige pa pe pis wu[n]dor geseagan pat par geworden wes pa wurdon hi 330 getrymed on hrihtum geleafan. 7 pa cwx6 se casere to his [gleferan, ‘Hu do we be pyssum cnihte, fordan eall pis [fo]lc reoraé fram urum onsxgednysse?’ 3} pa cwxd pet folc,

gI

Phillip Pulsiano

‘Fieri iube rotam magnam et tolli in altum montem et . alligari eum ad rotam et dimitti deorsum per montem,

ut carnes eius in aliis*® poenis dissipentur, et sic spiritum reddat.’ Ductus autem Pantaleon in carcerem, donec fabricata est rota. Cum ergo facta fuisset rota precepit Imperator ut nuntiarent precones in ciuitatem, et

congregarentur omnes spectare perditionem Pantaleonis, et 1tussit adduci eum. Cum autem duceretur

sanctus martir psallebat domino. Et tenentes eum ministri alligauerunt in rota. Et cum cepissent*’ uoluere rotam, statim ligature rupte sunt et stabat sanctus illesus,

rota autem recurrens occidit de gentilibus animas quingentas, et factus est timor magnus super omnes.

* in alis S. ” altered from orig. in- NS.

gz

The Old English Life of St Pantaleon

‘[Beb]eod nu pet mon mycel hweol arere 7 he sy gebun[den]

| to pam ilcan hweole 7 sy penne ahofen on heal[nysse 4] sy 335 penne forleten pat his lichoma mzge beon [44v] [tobrocen] 9 he swa his sawle forlete.’ 7 pa bebead se case[re pat] mon

| beluce Pantaleon on carcerne 06 pet hweol we[re ge]timbred be hine mon oncwellan sceolde. 7 pa worht[o]n [hi] pat hweol

__ prittig daga 7 pa was pam casere gesad pat pat weorc we(s] 340 geara pet per mon wyrcan sceolde. 3} pa bebead se casere managum pet hi bodadan pet eall pat folc come pider pet hi mihto[n] his insi6é sceawian. 7 he cwx6 to eallum cristenum folce, ‘Gif ge beod gehwerfde pat ge urum godum onsxgan benne beo ge forlatene 3} ge witodlice ne beod acwealde.’ 3 pa

345 eode se calse]re to his cafortune } he bebead pat mon Pantaleon to him geladde. 7 pa mid py pe Pantaleon wes geled to him pa wes he [sin]gende 4 cwepende, ‘Inclina domine aurem tuam ad me.’ He cwzxd, “Drihten, onheld pin eara to me, fordan ic eam wedla J pearfa, 7 geheald drihten

350 mine sawle ‘yj’ ales binne de'o’we fordan min God ic eam hiht[e]nde on pe. Sele pere strengde pinum peowe 7 ales pines manen|[es] bearn; 7 do on gode god tacen mid me pet pa geseon pa de m[e] hatedon pet hi synd gesunde, fordan pu God

| me fultumedest, 7 Pu eart min frofor.’ 7 ba wes geworden 355 zfter pam gebede pat hine m[on] brohte to pam cafortune 7

334. heanysse suggested by line 000 [325?]

342. insid] eras. afteri (2°).

351. bere] eras. aftere.

348-354. The passage, which is omitted in the Latin, is drawn from

Psalm 85:1-2 and 16-17: “Inclina domine aurem tuam ad me quoniam egenus et pauper sum ego; custodi animam meam

quoniam sanctus sum saluum fac seruum tuum deus meus sperantem in te” (1-2); “Respice in me et miserere mei; da potestatem puero tuo et saluum fac filium ancillae tuae; fac mecum domine

signum in bono ut uideant qui me oderunt et confundantur, , quoniam tu domine adiuuasti me et consolatus es me” (16-17).

| 93

| The reading pines manenes (line 341; read e for a?) translating anciliae tuae is found (among others and with variation) in the Vespasian Psalter. menenes dines.

Phillip Pulstano

Sed imperator timore comprehensus, uocans iustum dicit ei,

‘Usquequo hec facis, ut eos qui uluunt auertas a diis et

reliquos mortifices?’ Beatus Pantaleon respondit, ‘Ignominiose et inpudice fili diaboli, bene de uobis dixit

| propheta, “Conuertetur dolor eius et in uerticem ipsius iniquitas eius descendet.”’ Maximianus imperator dixit, “Quis

te docuit hec omnia miserabilia?’ Pantaleon respondit, ‘Dominus presbitur Hermolaus.’ Imperator dixit, ‘Possum uidere eum ut ego discam ab eo?’ Dicebat autem hec cum dolo. Pantaleon respondit, ‘Iube uado et adduco eum.’ Et iussit eum ire cum eis qui eum custodiebant. Uadens autem Pantaleon intrauit in cellulam ubi Hermolaus presbiter se abscondebat, et uidens eum dixit, ‘Domine meus pater, uocat te imperator.’ Et presbiter dixit, “Bene fili, uenit enim tempus

meum. In hac autem nocte asstitit mihi dominus Christus dicens, ‘Hermolae oportet te multa certare, sicut et seruus meus Pantaleon.’ Et ibat cum eo gaudens. Et cum inductus

8 om. N. 94

The Old Enghsh Life of St Pantaleon

hine geband to bam hweol. 7 ba we[s] him of heanysse Crist

ateowad, y pexrrihte wurdon pa spaca[n] tobrocene. 4 Pantaleon stod ungesceadad. } ba wes pat hweol witodlice hweorfende 7 hit acwealde fif hund manna. 7 pa wes mycel 360 —_ege geworden on pare ceastre of pere tide. [4] se casere wes mid micclan ege abry‘r’d, 7 he cleopade to P[an]taleone 37 he

cwxd, ‘Od Sis bu dydest pat pu lifigende men afly[m]dest

fram urum godum, J pu nu hafast odre acweald.’ 7 pa a[nd]swerade him Pantaleon 7 he cwzd, ‘Infelix et miser fili 365 = [dia|boli bene dixit [...]) He cwaxd, ‘Du ungeszliga 7 pu earma deofl[es] bearn, wel se witega cwxd be eow “Heora yfel cymed [eft 7 on [42r] his hnolle astigep his unrihtwisnes.” 7 pa cwxd se] casere, ‘Sodlice pas word syndon ecweden be eow, ac [sege] me hwa pe pis lerde.’ 3 pa andswerade him se halga Pantaleon

370 = he cwxd, ‘Min drihten Ermolaus se preost me pet lerde.’ 4 ba cwxd Maximianus, ‘Meg ic him geseon pat ic seo gelerd fram him?’ 7 he cwx6 eft, ‘Sodlice ic wolde becuman to him.’ | ba andswerade him Pantaleon 37 he cwaé, ‘Gif pu wilt ponne eteowige ic hine pe.’ } pa cwxd Maximianus, ‘Purh mine hele

375 swa pu me myccle fremsumnysse gegearawast.’ 7] p a andswerade him Pantaleon 7 he cwad, ‘Hat nu pet hine mon gelade to de.’ 7 he pa bebead pat Pantaleon eode sona mid

bam heordum to Ermolaus his magistre. 7 he ba was ingangende to him in to his huse, 7 he cwad, “Hlaford 3 fader

380 se casere pe cig6.’ } pa andswerade him se messepreost J he cwxd to him, ‘Ic cume bearn. Seo tid wes sodlice funden mid

me pet Crist com on peosse ilcan niht, 7 he cwed to me, “Hermolaus pe gedafanad to winnan[nJe swa Pantaleon min beow.”” 7 he pa eodan samod mid myccle gefean 06 pet hi

385 coman per se casere was. } pa wes [plis gesed Maximiano bam casere pet hi weron cumene, he pa bebead pat hi eodan

366-367. Psalm 7:17 (Gallican): “Conuertetur dolor eius in caput elus, et in uerticem ipsius iniquitas eius descendet.” The Old English glossed psalters provide the vocabulary for the emended text. 95

Phillip Pulsiano

esset dicit ei imperator, ‘Quod nomen _ habes?*”’ Respondit presbiter, ‘Dominicum nomen Christianus, parentum autem MHermolaus.’ Dixit ei imperator, ‘Habes aliquos alios tecum?’ Presbiter respondit, ‘Sunt mecum alii duo fratres.’ Imperator dixit, ‘Quod habent nomen?’ Hermolaus presbiter respondit, ‘Hermippus

et Hermogrates, et ipsi Christiani sunt.’ Imperator dixit, ‘Uocentur et ipsi.’ Et cum inducti essent, dicit eis imperator, “‘Uos estis qui Pantaleonem apostare fecistis

a duis?’ Responderunt, ‘Dignos sibi uocat Christus.’ Imperator dicit, ‘Suadete ei ut sacrificet diis, et eritis mihi amici karissimi.’ Responderunt ei uiri, “‘Oramus deum ut et tu credas, ut simul et tu et nos in quem credimus in ipso consummemur.’ Et cum_ starent

, omnes quattuor et orarent, apparuit eis”’ Christus et statim commotus est locus ubi stabant. Et dicit eis imperator, ‘Uidetis quia dii irati sunt, et commouerunt terram?’ Pantaleon respondit, ‘Bene dixisti. Si ergo diis

irascentibus commota est terra quare ipsi dii tui | cadentes commoti sunt?’ Et cum hec diceret Pantaleon, uenit quidam nuntians imperatori: Ceciderunt dii et confracti sunt. Audiens hoc imperator dixit, ‘Per meam : salutem istos nisi celerius exterminauero.’ Omnes quattuor | facientes consilium initiabunt rebellare. Et iussit Pantaleon in carcerem mitti, illos autem tres uiros multum torquens,

iussit decollari. Cum autem orarent amputauerunt capita eorum. Tunc tollentes corpora eorum sepelierunt. Post

hec iussit imperator adduci Pantaleonem et dicit ei,

” orig. uides N: habes interl.

ei N. 96 |

The Old English Life of St Pantaleon

in. } hi pa weron ingangende. ] pa cwxd se casere, ‘Hwylc is bissa mzssepreost gehaten?’ 7 ba cw se preost, “Her ic eam ateowed Ermolaus 3} min nama is witodlice mara gehaten, pat

390 = is pet ic eam cristen.’ 7 pa cwed Maximianus se casere to Pantaleone, ‘Hafast bu mid be Ermolaus 4 pa odre twegen ge-

| brodra? y pa [c]lwad Pantaleon, ‘Her is Hermippus 4 Ypochratis pa [syn]don cristene.’ 7 pa cw se casere to Pantaleon, ‘Eow [sz]gde pet ge urum godum ne onszgdon.’ 9

395 pa c[we]don hi, ‘se is [ur]e [God] se de unc cleopad, pet is ure dri{hten].’ 3 pa cwad [42v] [Maximianus se casere, ‘Dat

bid bet|re pat gyt gangan 3 on|segan] urum godum, ponne beo gyt me leofre.’ 7 pa cwadan hi to [him], ‘Wit gebiddad

unc to drihtene pat he unc gehealde, 3 sona wit beod 400 = gewuldrade.’ 3 hi pa weron heom gebi[d]dende feower tid 4 pa zteowde hine Crist. 3 pa befa[de] eal seo stow per hi weron

heom gebiddende. ¥ pa feollan eall pat deofolgyld pe par weron, } hi wurda[n] gelytlade. 7 ba wes se casere swyde

unrot geworden j pa cwxd he to heom, ‘Hwat, ge nu 405 — geseagon hu pas godas syndon tobrocene j on eordan geworpen. 7 pa andswerade him Pantaleon 7 he cwe3, ‘Gif bine godas synd on eordan gesewene 7 tohrorene forhwan gefeollan hi panne beron 7 weren tobrocene?’ 9 pa on pare

ilca{n] tide be hi weron pis sprecende pa com per sum 410 erendraca 3 segde Datianus pam casere pet ealle his godas w(z|ron gefeallana 3 eall tobrocene. 4 pa Maximianus pis geherde pa cwx6 he, ‘Ic swerige purh mine hzle pzt pals] feower men sceolon beon ascofene of pisse ceast[re] 7 hi nafre ma her

ne cumad.’ 7 pa bebead se caser[e] pet mon Pantaleon on 415 —_carcerne beluce, 7 pa odre preo he het macian on mislicum witum 7} hi hefde beheowe. 3 ba mid py pe hi weron hefde beheawan pa wlx]ron heora lichama genumen mid cristenum ma[n]num, 7 hi swide eadmodlice bebyrgdon. 4 pa efter bam bebead se casere pat mon Pantaleon gecigde to hi[m], 7 pa he

97

Phillip Pulsiano

‘Non speres quia uiuus effugies manus meas, si non sacrificaueris diis. Ecce magistri tui Hermolaus et Hermippus

et Hermogrates consenserunt et sacrificauerunt diis et facti sunt priores in palatio meo.’ Pantaleon respondit, ‘Iube ergo ut uideam illos quo possim cum illis permanere in eternum tempus in celesti palatio.” Maximianus imperator dixit, “Necessitas mihi facta est et in aliam ciuitatem transmisi eos, et ibi sunt constituti.’ Pantaleon respondit, ‘Bene impissime canis uolens mentiri, ueritatem

dicis. Sunt enim in ciuitate Christi constituti.’ Tunc imperator ira commotus; tussit torqueri eum et decollari, et post hoc corpus eius igni conburi. [bat igitur Pantaleon

laudans deum et dicens, ‘Sepe expugnauerunt me a juuentute mea, etenim non potuerunt’’. Super dorsum meum fabricauerunt peccatores; prolongauerunt iniqui-

tatem suam. Dominus iustus, concidet ceruices peccato- | | rum.’ Et postquam™ orauit ad dominum, ducentes eum milites foras ciuitatem, alligauerunt ad nouellam oliug, et

. accedens unus de militibus percussit eum gladio, et ferrum sicut cera duplicatum est et non nocuit iustum.

Uidentes proinde milites quod factum erat, dicebant

*! notuerunt mihi S. ** ceruices.’ Quod post N. 98

| The Old English Life of St Pantaleon 420 to him gecigd was ba cwx6 se casere to him, ‘Pantale[onl], hwet tel[s]tu pat pu mage beswican mine handa [gif pu] ne onse[c]g[e] ‘urum’ godum?’ Pa cwxd Pantaleon, ‘Nis me

behefe [pat] ic andswerige pinum wordum.’ J pa cwxd Maximianus sle cas[43rlere, ‘Ermollaus pin lareow J 425 [Hermippus 7 Ypochratis gepa]fodan pat hi onsegdan urum godum, 3} hi syndon nu onm[iddjan ura goda helle.’ 7 pa sodlice ongeat Pantaleon pet hi [w]eron gewuldrade mid Criste, J pa cwxd Pantaleon, “Bebeod nu pet ic hi geseo beforan pe.’ 7 pa cwxd Maximianus, ‘Ic hi sende to odere ceastre

430 pet hi sceolde'n’ per wyrcan min weorc.’ 7 pa andswerade him Pantaleon 7 he cwed, “Wel pat is gecweden pu unmedoma hund pet 6u ana lyxt; hi syndon on Cristes ceastre.’ 7 pa wes se casere swide eorre geworden, 7 he bebead bet him mon gegearawade manige tintregan pet he hine mihton oferswidan.

435 4 nenig hine ne mihte oferswidan. 7 pa bebead se casere bet mon mid [s]weorde ofsloge pene halgan Pantaleon. 7 he pa [w]as macigende pat hi ne mon hefde beeow ¥ pet hi his

[liJchaman on fyre forberndan. 7 pba witodlice eode [P]antaleon mid miccle gefean per hine mon cwell[llan 440 _ sceolde. 7 he ongan singan 7 cwepan, ‘Sepe expug[n]auerunt me.’ He cw, ‘Mine feond fuhton wid me swide [ge]lome on minum iugodhade, 7 hi ne mihton wid me. 73 p[u driJhten forbrast mid pinre sodfestnysse synfulra [swleoran.’ 7 hine mon geladde ut of pare ceastre, 7 hi [p]a coman to pere stowe 445 per goda licade, 7 hi hine [p]a gebundan to anan eletreowe. 4 ba eode an of pam [cwl]ellerum 9 sloh hine mid his sweorde, 9

berrihte wea[rdé pat swleord forbegid swa oder wex. 3 pa 6a cwelleras pis [gese] agan, pa cwedon hi betweonan heom,

440-443. A partial rendering of Psalm 128:2-3, which is given in full (Gallican version) in the Latin text: “Saepe expugnauerunt me a luuentute mea, etenim non potuerunt mihi; supra dorsum meum

fabricauerunt peccatores; prolongauerunt iniquitatem suam. Dominus iustus, concidet ceruices peccatorum.” 443. forbrast] letter eras. afters, s possibly altered from another letter.

99

Phillip Pulstano ad inuicem, ‘Magna est uirtus Christi,’ et procidentes ad pedes iusti dixerunt, ‘Deprecamus te famule Christi, ora pro nobis ut et nos credamus in eum.’ Et aspiciens in celum dixit, - ‘Domine deus meus comple desiderium meum in loco isto, et _ -uiris istis remissionem peccatorum dona, et da illis partem in

regno tuo.’ Et facta est illi uox de celo dicens, ‘Pantaleon conpletum est desiderium tuum, aperti sunt celi et sanitas donata est tibi. Iam non uocaris Pantaleon, sed Pantaleimon,

hoc est omnibus misericors, propter quod multis eris misericordiam prestans, et sanans eos.’ Et conuocans eos

Pantaleon rogabat ut eum percuterent; illi uero nolebant. Tunc sanctus dixit illis, ‘Nisi feceritis hoc, non habebitis partem mecum.’ Hec audientes uiri accedentes adorauerunt, et sic eum decollauerunt. Pro sanguine autem lac cucurrit. Arbor uero illa oliug ubi alligauerunt iustum statim repleta est fructu. Multitudo autem Nicomedie ciuitatis cum uidisset,

, quia per sanguine[m] de sancto corpore lac cucurrit et arbor oliug fructificauit, dedit gloriam deo et multi crediderunt. Audiens Maximianus tyrannus omnia que facta sunt iussit succidi arbusculam, ut ex eis conbureret corpus beatissimi

100

The Old English Life of St Pantaleon

‘Wuta‘n’ feal[lan to] his fotan pat he gebidde for us, fordan 450 —cristen[ra God] is swyde mycel.’ 7 hi pa feollan to his fota[n 3

hi cwedjon to him, ‘We pe biddad pet pu gebidde for us;

! [43v] [selle us] forg[i]fnysse Crist [7 eac us] bescilde, fordan [we ge]lyfa6 on Crist.’ 7 pa ahof se halga Pantaleon his handa to [heo]fonan 7 he cwxd, ‘Domine deus comple desiderium

455 meum.’ He cwad, “Min drihten God, gefyl mine ben on pisse stowe; sele eallum pissum man[um] forgifenysse heora synna, j sele heom dz! on pinum ric[e].’ 4 pa andswerade him stefn of heofonan, 7 seo. wes cwepende, ‘Pu goda peow pin georn-

fulnes bid gefylled, 3 heofona[n] pe is ontyned 7 pin bidad 460 _ engla preatas 7 pin setl is gewuldrad pat pe gegearawad is. 7 ne bist pu Pantaleon gecweden, ac pu bist mildheortnes gecweden. Fordéan manige syndon alesed purh pe. 7 beo bu sodlice strang. ‘} sorgendum ic onfo be pinre bene, 3 ic beo seocra lace

| j eohtendra lateow.’ 7 pa se halga Pantaleon pis geherde pa 465 _—_cleopade ‘he’ 7 he cwx6 to bam mannum, ‘Ofslead me nu, fordan nu sodlice is min tid cumen.’ j pa ondredan hi heom © gif hi hine ofslogan. } pa cwxd Pantaleon, ‘Gif ge bet nellad don ne habba[6] gedzl on me.’ 4 pa hi pis geherdan pa eodan hi mid miccle gefea[n] to him, 3 hi cyston his leoman 4 ofslo-

470 gan hine pa. 9 perrihte wes his lichaman xteowad swa hwit swa [s]nau } arn meolc for blod of his lichaman. 7 per geweard s[um] treow 7 pat was eall ful westma. 7 ba coman ealles pas [ri]ces ceasterware } woldan smyrian his lichaman. 4 ba geseagan hi pet meolc arn ‘for’ blod of his lichaman. 4 per

475 — wealrd pet] treow wastma ful, 7 hi sealdon pas gode wuldor. } ma[ni]ge men of pam folce gelyfdon on God. J pa hi pas

wund{or] geseagan pe ber geworden wes be pam halgan Pan|[ta]leone. 7 pa Maximianus pis geherde ba bebead h[e pat mJon pet treow forcurfe 7 Pantaleones licham[an for] bernde.

480 pha wes geworden pet he wes genume[n f:::::¢] [sor] [¢::1]

, | 10] 468. habbad] MS habba.

Phillip Pulstano

martyris. Et uenientes alii milites fecerunt sicut preceptum est

illis, et sic consummatum est certamen sancti martiris. Sepultus est in eodem loco ubi decollatus est in Nicomedia, uidelicet ciuitate foris muros, in uilla cuiusdam adamantis scholastici, recipiens coronam iustiti¢ et celestis glorie”” a

patre et domino nostro Iesu Christo, cui est honor et potestas et gloria una cum sancto spiritu et nunc et semper in saecula saeculorum. Amen. Explicit passio sancti Pantaleonis.

* sratie N

, — 102 ,

The Old English Life of St Pantaleon

cyprene, 7 hi hine ge[byrigdon fissscuceccccst hal]gum | lande j under halgum bocum. j pa halgan cweller[as w]zron gefre'o’de pa pe Pantaleon er leaddon. 3 hi hine hefde beheowan 7} weron heom pa eft hwerfende m[id] mycele gefean. 4

485 nu ealle ba men pa pe hine lufiaé pane halgan Pantaleon mid incundan mode penne onfod hi goddre mede beforan Gode. Ac lufige we nu men pa leofestan pene halgan Godes martyr,

7 him mid eadmodnysse toclypian 7 hine biddan pat he us bingige to pam drihtene se de gesceop heofonas 7 eordan on 490 —syx dagan, J on bene seofodan dege he hine gehreste fram zlcum weorce. 7 he pa bebead pet mon pa ilcan bysene heolde;

y nu ealle pa pe gelome [wyr]cad unalesed [wleorc on sunnandege o66e on sunnan[uhte t::::¢] geswican [nJellad. Sod is penne pet peos boc segé: ne besittad pa [n]afre Godes rice, 495 ac forwurdad on helle mid pam werigdan deoflum. Der bid alc yfel gemenged ne per ne bid nxnig god xteowad. Ac geswican we untid weorca 7} tilian pat we to Gode becuman motan, 4 bonne mid him beon aworulda aworolda butan ende. Amen.

scender after e. ,

481. gebyrigdon] perhaps a wrong conjecture: there seems to be a de491. heolde] MS healde?

493. geswican] difficult to read under ultra-violet; perhaps the word swa followed by an ascender visible before it. The readings are questionable.

103

The Earliest Anglo-Latin Text of the

Trinubium Annae (BHL 505zl)' | THOMAS N. HALL

v YHE origins of the cult of St Anne are something of a mystery to students of medieval hagiography, who are well acquainted with her first appearance in the second century Protevangelium of James and can readily document an expanding

devotion to Anne in England and western Europe from about , the mid-twelfth century, but who for the long intervening period have almost no solid evidence on which to base the claim of a legitimate ongoing cult.’ By the late Middle Ages, the leg' For valuable comments on an early draft, and for generous help with questions on various points, I wish to thank Timothy Graham, Antonia Gransden, Sarah Keefer, Richard Pfaff, and Teresa Webber. The text of the Trinubium Annae from Cambridge, St John’s College MS 35, is reproduced with the kind permission of the Master and Fellows of St John’s College, Cambridge. Research for this essay was supported by the Campus Research Board of the University of Illinois at Chicago.

' On the origins and development of the cult of St Anne, see H. Leclercaq, , “Anne (Sainte),” in Dictionnaire d’archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie, 15 vols. in. 30 (Paris, 1921-53), vol. 1.2, cols. 2162-74; Paul-Victor Charland, Les trois légendes de madame saincte Anne (Montreal, 1898); Charland, La bonne saznte, ou l’histoire de la dévotion a sainte Anne (Québec, 1904); Charland, Madame saincte Anne et son culte au moyen dge, 2 vols. (Paris, 1911-13); Charland, Le culte de sainte Anne en Occident. Seconde période: De 1400 (environ) a nos jours (Québec, 1921); Charland, Sainte Anne: Sa fete lturgeque et son culte. Universaliteé — ancienneté, 5th ed. (Québec, 1933); Willibrord Lampen, “Vereering

der H. Moeder Anna in de Middeleeuwen,” Historisch Tydschrift 2 (1924): 221-43; Beda Kleinschmidt, Die heilige Anna. Ihre Verehrung in Geschichte,

Kunst, und Volkstum (Dusseldorf, 1930); and Kathleen Ashley and Pamela | Sheingorn, “Introduction” to Interpreting Cultural Symbols: Saint Anne in Late

Medieval Society, ed. Ashley and Sheingorn (Athens, GA, and London, 1990), pp. 1-43, especially 6-17. The two-part entry by Gian Domenico Gordini and Elena Croce, “Anna,” in Bibliotheca Sanctorum, ed. E. Josi et al., 12 vols. and index (Rome, 1961-70), vol. 1, cols. 1269-95, is concerned primarily with the late medieval iconography of St Anne and even then represents 104

| The Earliest Anglo-Latin Text of the Trinubium Annae

end of the three marriages of St Anne and her multigen| erational Holy Family had become a cornerstone of devotion to the humanity of Christ and to the sanctity of his maternal rela| tions. Detailed accounts of Anne’s three marriages in the Legenda aurea and John of Freiburg’s Defensonum Annae helped promote this legend as the standard explanation for the close familial ties of as many as twenty-three biblical and apocryphal figures, including three of the four New Testament Marys and most of the apostles.” The legend’s emphasis on the women in Christ’s family yielded a dominant Christian model for the matriarchal concept of family and presented a strong positive view of marriage and motherhood. It also served as a potent stimulus to the growth of the cult of St Anne herself — the mother of the Virgin, grandmother of Christ, founder of the Holy Family,

and patron saint of sailors, carpenters, and women in child-

: birth.

This, however, is the picture we get from the late Middle

Ages, by which time the cult of St Anne had more or less reached its maturity and had become absorbed into main-

| stream Christian culture throughout the West. One doesn’t need to be reminded that the cults of medieval saints are typically better understood in their late manifestations than in their early ones, and the cult of St Anne is no exception. Until well into the thirteenth century, in fact, the evidence for a western cult of St Anne outside of Rome is limited to a handful of scattered texts and sites that are difficult to fit into a coherent picture — except for a striking pattern of devotion that developed in England over the course of the eleventh and twelfth centuries before spreading to the rest of Europe. How this came to be has not been adequately explained, but at least part of the , only a thin summary. The later spread of the cult to northern Germany and Scandinavia is discussed by Ernst Schaumkell, Der Kultus der heiligen Anna : am Ausgange des Mittelalters. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des religiosen Lebens am

Vorabend der Reformation (Freiburg-im-Breisgau and Leipzig, 1893); and

| Marianne E. Kalinke, “Mariu saga og Onnu,” Arkiv for nordisk filologi 109 (1994): 43-99. ? Tacupo da Varazze, Legenda aurea, ed. Giovanni Paolo Maggioni, 2 vols., Mil-

lennio Medievale 6, Testi 3 (Florence, 1998), vol. 2, pp. 901-2 (ch. 127); John of Freiburg, Defensorium Annae, ed. G. Albert, J. M. Parent and A. Guillemette, “La légende des trois mariages de sainte Anne: Un texte nouveau,” in Etudes d'histoire littératre et doctrinale du XIHe siecle. Premiere série,

Publications de l'Institut d’Etudes Médiévales d’Ottawa 1 (Paris and Ottawa, 1932), pp. 165-84. 105

Thomas N. Hall

answer lies, as will be suggested here, in the interest stimulated

in this saint by a short apocryphal text on the three marriages | of St Anne copied at Bury St Edmunds toward the end of the eleventh century.

To get to that point, however, it will be useful to recall those scattered. texts and sites that contributed to the earliest phases of the cult’s development. From the very beginning the identity of St Anne depended to a great extent on her place in the earthly genealogies of Mary and Christ, a concern that is already manifest in the Greek Protevangelium, where Anne is first identified as wife of Joachim and mother of Mary. The brief role allotted to her there is that of a pious matriarch who, like her Old Testament counterparts Sarah and Hannah, is initially sterile but whose prayer for a child is miraculously an-

swered by God through an angelic epiphany.” The Protevangelium also proposes a convenient solution to the conflict. between Mary’s perpetual virginity and the New Testament

references to Jesus’s so-called “brothers” by explaining that _ these “brothers” were actually sons of Joseph by a previous marriage.* This claim was upheld by all later Infancy Gospels and by a number of (predominantly Greek) patristic authors including

Clement of Alexandria and Origen, but it was not an explanation that gained universal acceptance.’ The identity of Christ’s brothers was also an issue of concern to Jerome, who argued that the brothers of Jesus referred to in Matthew 12:46-47 were not sons of Joseph but sons of Mary’s sisters,’ and this is the

3 Harm Reinder Smid, Protevangelium Jacobi: A Commentary (Assen, 1975), p. 40.

* Protevangelium 9.2, 17.1-2, 18.1, ed. Emile Amann, Le Protévangile de Jacques et

61, 63-64.

ses remaniements latins (Paris, 1910), pp. 216-17, 242-43, 246-47; English translation by J. K. Elliott, The Apocryphal New Testament (Oxford, 1993), pp.

° A. Meyer and Walter Bauer, “The Relatives of Jesus,” in Edgar Hennecke, | New Testament Apocrypha, ed. Wilhelm Schneemelcher, English translation ed. R. McL. Wilson, 2 vols. (Philadelphia, PA, 1963-65), vol. 1, pp. 418-32, at 425; Josef Blinzler, Die Briider und Schwestern Jesu, Stuttgarter Bibelstudien 21 (Stuttgart, 1967), pp. 131-33.

6 Jerome, Adversus Helvidium de Mariae virginitate perpetua §§ 13-16 (PL 23, 195-201). For discussion, see Johannes Niessen, Die Maniologie des heiligen H1eronymus. Ihre Quellen und ihre Kritik (Minster in Westfalen, 1913), pp. 16081; Blinzler, Die Briider und Schwestern Jesu, pp. 134-35, 142-44.

106

The Earliest Anglo-Latin Text of the Trinubium Annae

idea that eventually became established as the dominant teaching of the Latin Church.’

In the centuries following her initial appearance in the Protevangelium, the earliest sign of a formal cult to St Anne is Procopius’s report that Emperor Justinian I dedicated a church to St Anne in Constantinople about the year 550.° By the eighth century, churches in Jerusalem and Constantinople were commonly celebrating three Marian feasts in which Anne is given a

prominent place: those for the Nativity of Mary (8 September), Mary’s Presentation in the Temple (21 November), and Anne’s Conception of Mary (originally 9 December). During the ninth century a new feast for the Dormition of St Anne (25 July) was introduced at Constantinople, where a large number of medieval churches were dedicated to her and where a combined feast

in honor of Anne and Joachim (9 September) was observed beginning in the tenth century.” From Constantinople the cult rapidly migrated to Rome, where the feast of Mary’s Nativity was celebrated by the close of the seventh century,'° and where " Blinzler, Die Briider und Schwestern Jesu, pp. 135-38.

8 Procopius, Bualdings 1.3.11, ed. and trans. H. B. Dewing and Glanville Downey, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, MA, and London, 1940; reprint 1954), pp. 40-43. ” On the Byzantine feast of the Presentation, see Siméon Vailhé, “La féte de la Présentation de Marie au Temple,” Echos d’Orient 5 (1901-2): 221-24; Mary Jerome Kishpaugh, The Feast of the Presentation of the Virgin Mary in the Temple: An Historical and Literary Study (Washington, DC, 1941), pp. 22-58;

and R. W. Pfaff, New Liturgical Feasts in Later Medieval England, Oxford

Theological Monographs (Oxford, 1970), pp. 103-15. On the feast of Anne’s Conception: Martin Jugie, L’Immaculée Conception dans Vécriture sainte et dans la tradition orientale, Bibliotheca Immaculatae Conceptionis 3 (Rome,

1952), pp. 135-41. On the feast of Anne’s Dormition: Kalendanum Manuale Utriusque Ecclesiae Orientalis et Occidentalis, ed. Nicolaus Nilles, 2nd ed., 2 vols. (Oeniponte, 1896-97), vol. 1, p. 222; vol. 2, p. 498. A useful survey of the evolution of all five feasts is given by Jacqueline Lafontaine-Dosogne, Iconographie de Venfance de la Vierge dans VEmpire Byzantin et en Occident, 2

vols., Mémoires de l’Académie Royale de Belgique, Classe des Beaux-Arts, 11.3-3b (Brussels, 1964-65), vol. 1, pp. 23-34. The foundations of the Eastern cult are also briefly surveyed by Kleinschmidt, Die heilige Anna, pp. 1327.

'" Mary Clayton, “Feasts of the Virgin in the Liturgy of the Anglo-Saxon Church,” ASE 13 (1984): 209-33, at 213; Clayton, The Cult of the Virgin Mary in Anglo-Saxon England, CSASE 2 (Cambridge, 1990), p. 27. The archeo-

logical and liturgical evidence for the veneration of St Anne in eighthcentury Rome is discussed by H. M. Bannister, “The Introduction of the Cultus of St. Anne into the West,” EHR 18 (1903): 107-12, who explains this 107

Thomas N. Hall

the earliest known visual representation of St Anne made its appearance in a seventh-century fresco on the west wall of the church of Santa Maria Antiqua." Thereafter, incomplete materials for a celebration of a feast in Anne’s honor show up in ninth-century Naples and eleventh-century Saint-Vivant-sousVergy in Burgundy, although in both cases these appear to have been narrowly localized and short-lived and are difficult to see as part of a larger devotional movement that had taken root elsewhere in the West.” A pivotal step in the evolution of the story of Anne’s three

marriages took place in two roughly contemporary texts from

, ninth-century Auxerre. The first is an anonymous Easter ser-

mon that builds on Jerome’s revised genealogy by explaining that three of the four New Testament Marys (all but Mary Magdalene) were sisters. This sermon survives in a unique copy in Lyon, BM, MS 628, a homiliary written at Saint-Oyan (presentday Saint-Claude) ca. 870x880, where it was compiled, accord-

ing to Henri Barré, with the aid of Haymo of Auxerre’s com- )

mentary on the Pauline epistles and the homiliary of Heiric of Auxerre.'* The opening paragraph of the sermon states that: Legimus in evangelio I[I]Ior Marias fuisse, et quibus tres fuerunt sorores, Mariam, matrem Domini Salvatoris, et

Mariam Iacobi minoris matrem, que fuit matertera Domini, et Mariam matrem filiorum Zebedgi, quae appel-

| phenomenon as an Eastern import during the time of Pope Constantine (708-15), who visited Constantinople in 709-11 and is thought to have witnessed the consecration of a church of St Anne in Constantinople by Emperor Justinian II (685-711). 1! Ashley and Sheingorn, “Introduction,” pp. 10-11.

" For Naples, see H[ippolyte] D[elehaye], “Hagiographie Napolitaine,” AB 57 (1939): 1-64, at 27, 29, 33, 34, 42, 43; René Aigrain, L’hagiographie: Ses sources, ses méthodes, son histoire (Paris, 1953), p. 29. For Burgundy, see André Wilmart, “Chants en l’honneur de sainte Anne,” in his Auteurs spirituels et textes dévots du moyen dge latin (Paris, 1932), pp. 46-55, who edits an antiphon and a set of responses from Rome, Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS lat. 651, fol. 173r, which he believes were composed at eleventh-century Saint-Vivant-sous-Vergy in Burgundy for a unique Office cele-

bration of the feast of St Anne that represents a novel development fully independent of Roman tradition. '3 On the manuscript, see Henri Barré, Les homéliaives carolingiens de Uécole d’Auxerre: Authenticité, inventaire, tableaux comparatifs, initia, Studi e testi 225 (Vatican City, 1962), pp. 95-97, 110-12. 108

The Earliest Anglo-Latin Text of the Trinubium Annae

latur Salome, sororem matris Domini, et Mariam Magdalenam, quae dicta est a Magdalo castello vel vico, ubi fuit orta vel nutrita, de qua eiecit Dominus septem demonia, id est universa vitia."*

If the manuscript containing this sermon is as old as Barré be-

| lieved, then this passage qualifies as the earliest known expression of the idea that three of the four New Testament Marys were sisters. But a fuller and far more influential formulation of the same idea emerged from within the immediate circle of this homiliary’s compiler, for it appears in Haymo of Auxerre’s Epitome of Sacred History,” an amalgam of sacred narratives drawn largely from the Eusebius/Rufinus Historia ecclestastica and in

part, as is apparent here, from Haymo’s own imagination. In | Book 2 of the Epitome, Haymo connects Jerome’s teaching that the brothers of Christ were the sons of his mother’s sisters with the originally separate belief that three of the four Marys were sisters. The result is Haymo’s apparently unprecedented claim

that the St Anne of the Protevangelium must have had three daughters, each named Mary, and that their collective progeny included Jesus and his so-called brothers:

, Sciunt etiam qui diligenter exploraverunt, quia frater Domini sit dictus, tamquam cognatus sit. Hic enim mos Hebraeorum, cognatos vel propinquos fratres dicere vel

appellare. Frater igitur Domini sic dictus est, quia de Maria sorore matris Domini, et patre Alpheo genitus est; '* Printed by B. de Gaiffier, “Le Trinubium Annae: Haymon d’Halberstadt ou Haymon d’Auxerre?” AB 90 (1972): 289-98, at 298. “We read in the Gospel that there were four Marys and that three of them were sisters: Mary, the mother of our Lord and Savior; and Mary, the mother of James the Less,

who was our Lord’s maternal aunt; and Mary, the mother of the sons of Zebedee, who was known as Salome, the sister of our Lord’s mother; and Mary Magdalene, who was so called after the town or village of Magdala, where she was born or raised, from whom the Lord cast out seven demons, which is to say all of her vices.” The full sermon remains unprinted. '° On the authorship of the Epitome historiae sacrae, see de Gaiffier, “Le Trinubium Annae”; Henri Barré, “Haymon d’Auxerre,” in Dictionnaire de spiritualité, 17 vols. (Paris, 1932-95), vol. 7.1, cols. 91-97, at col. 95; and Dom:

nique Iogna-Pratt, “L’oeuvre d’Haymon d’Auxerre. Etat de question,” in Lécole carolingtenne d’Auxerre de Murethach a Remi 830-908. Entretiens d’Auxerre

1989, ed. Dominique Iogna-Pratt, Colette Jeudy, and Guy Lobrichon (Paris, 1991), pp. 157-79, at 159, 170-71. 109

Thomas N. Hall | unde Iacobus Alphei appellatur. Sed, quoniam nunc se ingessit occasio, de duobus Iacobis omnem quaestionem

: rescindamus, et altius generis eorum repetamus origi, nem. Maria mater Domini, et Maria mater Iacobi, fratris Domini, et Maria fratris Ioannis evangelistae, sorores fuerunt, de diversis patribus genitae, sed de eadem matre, scilicet Anna. Quae Anna primo nupsit Io-

| achim, et de eo genuit Mariam matrem Domini. Mortuo Ioachim, nupsit Cleophae, et de eo habuit alteram Mariam, quae dicitur in Evangeliis Maria Cleophae. Porro Cleophas habebat fratrem Ioseph, cui filiastram suam beatam Mariam desponsavit; suam vero filiam dedit Alpheo, de qua natus est Iacobus minor, qui et lustus dicitur, frater Domini, et Ioseph alius. Mortuo itaque Cleopha, Anna tertio marito nupsit, scilicet Salome, et habuit de eo tertiam Mariam, de qua, desponsata Zebedeo, nati

sunt Iacobus maior, et Johannes evangelista.”° | When set out in the form of a diagram, Haymo’s proposed genealogy can be illustrated as follows:

16 Haymo, Epitome historiae sacrae 2.3 (PL 118, 823D-824C). “Those who have carefully investigated this matter also know that he is called ‘brother of the

Lord’ as if he is his kinsman. For this is the custom of the Hebrews, to call or refer to one’s cousins or close relatives as ‘brothers.’ Thus the ‘brother’

of the Lord is so called because he was born of the sister of Mary, the mother of the Lord, and his father was Alpheus; this is why he is called James, son of Alpheus. But since the opportunity has now presented itself, we open up the whole question of the two Jameses and recite the origin of their noble lineage. Mary, the mother of the Lord, and Mary, the mother of James, the Lord’s brother, and Mary, the mother of James, the brother of John the Evangelist, were all sisters, born from different fathers but from the same mother, namely Anne. For Anne first married Joachim, and to him was born Mary, the mother of the Lord. When Joachim died, she mar-

ried Cleophas, and with him had a second Mary who in the Gospels is called Mary Cleophas. Now Cleophas had a brother named Joseph, to whom he [Cleophas] promised his step-daughter, the blessed Mary, in. marriage; but [Cleophas] gave his own daughter to Alpheus, [and] from her James the Less was born (who is also known as Justus, brother of the Lord) and the other Joseph. And so when Cleophas died, Anne married a third husband, namely Salome, and with him had a third Mary, to whom, after she married Zebedee, were born James the Greater and John the

Evangelist.” : 10

The Earliest Anglo-Latin Text of the Trinubium Annae Anne

| (1) m Joachim (2) m Cleophas (3) m Salome

| Mary Cleophas m Alpheus | Virgin Mary m Joseph | Zebedee m Mary

,

Jesus James the Less (Justus), John the Evangelist

Joseph & James the Greater If known at all to modern readers, the Epitome of Sacred History is

probably best remembered for its classic definition of the three estates of medieval society,'’ not for its account of St Anne’s family, but this apocryphal genealogy is of seminal importance

as the foundational expression of an idea that eventually be- |

came a central feature of medieval devotion to Anne and Mary. At some point after its composition in the late ninth century, Haymo’s narrative of Anne’s three marriages became separated from the Epitome and began circulating as an independent apocryphon now generally referred to as the Trinubium Annae.” In 1925 Max Forster published a ground-breaking study of the

textual history of the Trinubium Annae in which he distinguished five prose recensions and twelve metrical recensions

that were all in circulation by the end of the thirteenth cen- ,

tury.” During the course of his investigations, Férster consulted nearly ninety manuscripts (mostly of English, French and German provenance) from which he edited samples of each of his

seventeen text types, but he made no attempt to construct a stemma or determine how the various recensions relate to one '’ Edmond Ortigues, “L’elaboration de la théorie des trois ordres chez Haymon d’Auxerre,” Francia 14 (1986): 27-43. '§ BHL Nov. Suppl. 505e-505zw; Friedrich Stegmiiller, Repertorium Biblicum Medii Aevi, 11 vols. (Madrid, 1950-80), vol. 7, no. 10476. For a brief overview of the development of the Trinubium legend with a focus on the late Middle Ages, see Beda Kleinschmidt, “Das Trinubium (Dreiheirat) der hl. Anna in Legende, Liturgie und Geschichte,” Theologie und Glaube 20 (1928): 332-44.

'! Max Forster, “Die Legende vom Trinubium der hl. Anna,” in Probleme der englischen Sprache und Kultur: Festschrift Johannes Hoops zum 60. Geburtstag tiberreicht von Freunden und Collegen, ed. Wolfgang Keller, Germanische Bib-

liothek, Untersuchungen und Texte 20 (Heidelberg, 1925), pp. 105-30.

II

Thomas N. Hall

another textually or historically.” More important, because Forster was unaware of Haymo’s Epitome and was unable to lo-

cate any examples of the prose recensions prior to the twelfth century, he had difficulty reconstructing the earliest stages in the apocryphon’s history. However, an analysis of the names in * Some additions can now be made to Forster’s list of manuscripts. For further witnesses to his metrical recensions 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, and 10, see Ulysse Chevalier, Repertonum Hymnologicum: Catalogue des chants, hymnes, proses, , sequences, tropes en usage dans Véglise latine depuis les origines jusqu’a nos jours, 6 vols. (Brussels, 1892-1920), nos. 1108, 1112-14; and Hans Walther, Initia Carminum ac Versuum Mediu Aevi Posterons Latinorum: Alphabetisches Verzetch-

nis der Versanfange mittellateinischer Dichtungen, 2nd ed. (Gottingen, 1969),

nos. 1067, 1068, 1069, 1062, 1060, and 5992. Additional examples which seem not to fit any of Forster’s text types are listed by Walther, Initia Carminum, nos. 1056, 1057, 1063. An especially early example (the earliest?) of Forster’s prose recension 1 (BHL 505zg) is identified by Jan Gijsel, Dre unmittelbare Textiiberlieferung des sog. Pseudo-Matthaus, Verhandelingen van de Koninklijke Academie voor Wetenschappen, Letteren en Schone Kunsten van Belgié, Klasse der Letteren, jaargang 43, Nr. 96 (Brussels, 1981), p. 104, from Paris, BN, MS lat. 1772 (?Reichenau, s. xi ex.), fol. 96. For witnesses to other recensions, see Gijsel, Die unmittelbare Textuberleferung, pp. 145, 160, 179, 181, 182, 183, 187, 189, 204, 205. Significantly, Gijsel demonstrates (at p. 21) that versions of both Forster’s prose recension 3 (BHL 505z!) and his metrical recension 10 (BHL 505r) were incorporated into and transmitted along with the Q Text of the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew as early as the ele- | venth century, although the extant witnesses to this version of the apocry-

phon are all from the twelfth century and later (and in fact only one twelfth-century witness is extant). An additional copy of Forster’s prose recension | is printed by Angelika Dorfler-Dierken, Die Verehrung der hetligen

. Anna in Spatmittelalter und friher Neuzett, Forschungen zur Kirchen- und Dogmengeschichte 50 (Gottingen, 1992), pp. 133-34, from Vienna, Osterreichische Nationalbibliothek, MS 1659 (s. xii), fols. 30v-31r. A very unusual

version that combines Forster’s prose recensions | and 3 is printed by Kurt

Reindel, “Ein Legendar des 12. Jahrhunderts aus dem Kloster Pomuc (Dioz. Prag),” in Festschrift fiir Max Spindler zum 75. Geburtstag, ed. Dieter Al-

brecht, Andreas Kraus and Kurt Reindel (Munich, 1969), pp. 143-63, at 151-52, from Wurzburg, Universitatsbibliothek, MS M. p. th. qu. 46 (Pomuc, s. xii*), fols. 58v-59r; in this version Anne’s sister, Esmeria, is said

to give birth to three daughters named Elisabeth, Eliu and Amathia. As I was beginning work on this essay, J. E. Cross also drew my attention to a roughly sketched diagram of Anne’s “pedigree” based on the Trinubtum Annae (although on which version it is impossible to tell) written on the inside of the back cover of Hereford, Cathedral Library, MS O. 6. IV (Hereford, s. xii med.) in a hand dated s. xii by R. A. B. Mynors and R. M. Thomson, Catalogue of the Manuscripts of Hereford Cathedral Library (Woodbridge, 1993), p. 40; Iam grateful to Miss Joan Williams, Librarian of Hereford Ca_thedral Library, for providing me with a photograph. See also the updated

|2

cataloguing of variants by Fros in BHL Nov. Suppl. 505e-505zw.

The Earliest Anglo-Latin Text of the Trinubium Annae

the texts and a careful study of liturgical witnesses to the rise of

the cult of St Anne led him to conjecture that the Tnnubium Annae must have originated in England or Normandy around the end of the eleventh century.”!

A crucial piece of the puzzle which Forster overlooked is the text printed below from Cambridge, St John’s College MS 35 (B. 13),** a manuscript of Gregory the Great’s Homilies on Ezechiel written at Bury St Edmunds at the end of the eleventh or beginning of the twelfth century, possibly late in the abbacy of Baldwin (+ 1097),* the one-time physician to Edward the *! Forster, “Die Legende,” pp. 124, 130. 2 Heinrich Schenkl, Bibliotheca Patrum Latinorum Britannica, 3 vols. in 1 (Vi-

enna, 1891-1908; reprint 1969), no. 2600, dates the manuscript s. xi. M. R. James, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of St John’s Col-

lege Cambridge (Cambridge, 1913), p. 47, likewise dates it “Cent. xi” and refers to the text on fol. 173v as “a note on the three Maries,” a surprisingly imprecise identification in light of James’s vast knowledge of medieval apocrypha. Elsewhere James also dates the manuscript s. xi in his On the Abbey of S. Edmund at Bury, Cambridge Antiquarian Society, Octavo Publications 28 (Cambridge, 1895), p. 58, and in “Bury St. Edmunds Manuscripts,” EAR 41 (1926): 251-60, at 255 (no. 131). Schenkl and James’s date of s. xi is upheld by N. R. Ker, ed., Medieval Libraries of Great Britain: A List of Surviving

Books, 2nd ed., Royal Historical Society Guides and Handbooks 3 (London, 1964), p. 19; and by Helmut Gneuss, “A Preliminary List of Manuscripts Written or Owned in England up to 1100,” ASE 9 (1981): 1-60, at 13 (no. 147). Since then, Professor Gneuss has generously provided me with an advance pre-publication copy of his “Handlist of Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: Revised Preliminary List of Manuscripts Written or Owned in England up to A.D. 1100,” in which he now assigns the manuscript a date of “s. xi ex.” R. M. Thomson, “The Library of Bury St Edmunds Abbey in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries,” Speculum 47 (1972): 617-45, suggests (at p. 625 n. 39) that St John’s 35 may slightly post-date Baldwin’s abbacy. More recently David N. Dumville, English Caroline Script and Monastic History: Studies in Benedictinism, A.D. 950-1030, Studies in Anglo-Saxon History 6 (Wood-

bridge, 1993), p. 78 n. 360, states that the manuscript should be regarded as a post-Conquest production “perhaps datable saec. xi/xii.” Timothy Graham has kindly given me his opinion that the hand of fol. 173v “looks like an early addition to the manuscript, possibly near-contemporary with the main text” and that it can probably be dated s. xi ex./xii in. (private com-

munication, 21 April 1996). In the following discussion, I rely upon the | converging judgments of Thomson, Dumville and Graham in assuming the manuscript was written in the vicinity of s. xi/xii, perhaps not far from the year 1100. If Gneuss’s revised date of s. xi ex. is to be accepted, then the manuscript can be placed in or immediately after the abbacy of Baldwin. ** On manuscript production at Bury St Edmunds during Baldwin’s abbacy, see Thomson, “The Library of Bury St Edmunds Abbey,” pp. 624-27; Antonia Gransden, “Baldwin, Abbot of Bury St Edmunds, 1065-1097,” Proceedings 113

— Thomas N. Hall | , Confessor who was appointed abbot of Bury St Edmunds in 1065 and whose achievements include revitalizing the Bury scriptorium in the 1080s.** This text was first brought to my at-

tention in 1993 by Professor J. E. Cross during some correspondence about manuscripts of Gregory’s Homilies on Exzechiel,

and in gratitude I offer the present paper as a tribute to his own pioneering research on the transmission of apocryphal and hagiographic literature in early Insular manuscripts. The text in question appears on the verso of the last folio of the manuscript and is to my knowledge the earliest witness to any of the prose recensions of the Trinubium Annae catalogued by

Forster. Even if the manuscript was written shortly after Baldwin’s death and as late as the first or second decade of the twelfth century, the St John’s text is still about a century earlier than the oldest copy of this particular prose recension known to Forster (his prose recension 3, BHL 505zl).” The text preof the Battle Conference on Anglo-Norman Studies 4 (1981): 65-76 and 187-95, at

75; Dumville, English Caroline Script, pp. 30-31; and Teresa Webber, “The Provision of Books for Bury St Edmunds Abbey in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries,” in Bury St Edmunds: Medieval Art, Architecture, Archaeology and Economy, ed. Antonia Gransden, British Archaeological Association Confer-

ence Transactions 20 (Leeds, 1998), pp. 186-93, at 188. David N. Dumville, : “English Libraries before 1066: Use and Abuse of the Manuscript Evidence,” in Insular Latin Studies. Papers on Latin Texts and Manuscripts of the

| British Isles: 550-1066, ed. Michael W. Herren, Papers in Mediaeval Studies I (Toronto, 1981), pp. 153-78, at 162, points out that few of the pre-twelfthcentury manuscripts in the Bury abbey library actually originated there, and that the scriptorium seems not to have been active until after the Conquest.

** Thomson, “The Library of Bury St Edmunds Abbey,” pp. 624-25. On Baldwin’s role as personal physician to Edward the Confessor, William I, William II, and Lanfranc, see C. H. Talbot and E. A. Hammond, The Medtcal Practitioners in Medieval England. A Biographical Register (London, 1965),

pp. 19-21; Helen Clover and Margaret Gibson, ed. and trans., The Letiers of Lanfranc Archbishop of Canterbury, Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford, 1979), p. 141 n. 2; and Gransden, “Baldwin, Abbot of Bury St Edmunds,” pp. 65-66. * The oldest manuscript known to Férster was Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Ashmole 1280 (SC 8216), fols. 175v-176r, which he dated “Anfang 13. Jh.”

(“Die Legende,” p. 114). The manuscript is dated s. xiii by William Henry Black, A Descriptive, Analytical, and Critical Catalogue of the Manuscripts Bequeathed unto the University of Oxford by Elias Ashmole (Oxford, 1845), p. 1035. Férster speculated that this particular recension (BHL 505zl) was originally

| 114

composed “spatestens um 1100” (“Die Legende,” p. 114). The potentially oldest copy of BHL 505zl identified by Gijsel, Die unmittelbare Textuberlicferung, p. 160, is added at the back of Brussels, Bibliotheque Royale, MS 1050 (Aulne-sur-Sambre, s. xi) in a later undated hand.

The Earliest Anglo-Latin Text of the Trinubium Annae

sented here is taken from Cambridge, St John’s College 35, fol. 173v, with variants listed from the earliest manuscript known to

Forster, Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Ashmole 1280 (SC 8216), fols. 175v-176r (cited as A in the accompanying apparatus). Anna et Emeria fuerunt sorores. De Emeria nata est Elisabeth*, mater Iohannis Baptiste. loachim? duxit Annam uxorem; de qua orta‘ est Maria, mater Domini Iesu*. Mortuo Ioachim‘, secundum legem Moysi, Anna altero

nupsit’ uiro, scilicet Cleophe; de quo alteram habuit

filiam cui nomen prioris filie imposuit®. Hec dicitur Maria

Cleophe. Porro Cleophas dedit TIoseph, fratri suo,

Mariam, matrem Domini, gue filiastra sua erat. Desponsauit et alteram Mariam", filiam suam Alpheo, de qua — natus est Iacobus minor et alius' Ioseph; unde dicitur [acobus Alphet.

Mortuo Cleopha, Anna tertio marito Salome nupsit, secundum legem‘,nominis de quo tertiam! quam , similiter pro dignitate prime habuit filie abfiliam, angelo sibi nuntiati" et pro amore” Mariam nominauit. De qua, desponsata Zebedeo, nati sunt Iacobus maior et Iohannis’ euangelista. Maria, mater Iacobi minoris', et Maria, ' Iacobi

maioris et Iohannis euangeliste, et Maria Magdalene quesierunt Dominum cum aromatibus in monumento.” * Elisabeth] Elysabet A. ° loachim] Ioachym A. ° orta] nata A. “ Iesu] om. A. ° Ioachim] Ioachym A. * altero nupsit] nupsit alteri A. * filiam cui nomen prioris filie imposuit] Mariam A. Mariam] om. A.’ alius] om. A./tertio marito Salome nupsit] tercio nupsit marito, Salome scilicet A. K secundum legem]

om. A.' tertiam] terciam A." quam] quamquam St John’s 35." nuntiati] |

nunciante A. ° et pro amore] om. A. ? Iohannis] Iohannes A. 4 mater lacobi minoris] lacobi minoris mater A." mater (om. St John’s 35)| mater A. | *° “Anna and Emeria were sisters. Emeria gave birth to Elisabeth, the mother of John the Baptist. Joachim took Anna as his wife, and she gave birth to Mary, the mother of our lord Jesus. When Joachim died, in keeping with the law of Moses, Anna married a second man, namely Cleophas. With him she had a second daughter, to whom she gave the name of her first daughter: she is called Mary Cleophas. Then Cleophas gave Mary, the mother of the Lord, who was his step-daughter, to his brother Joseph. He also gave the other Mary, his own daughter, in marriage to Alpheus, to whom James the Less and another Joseph were born, and thus he is called James the son

of Alpheus. When Cleophas died, Anna married a third husband named Salome, in accordance with the law, with whom she had a third daughter, and she named her Mary both in honor of the name of her first daughter, which had been told to her by an angel, and out of her love for her. She [Mary Salome] married Zebedee and gave birth to James the Greater and

Ig

Thomas N. Hall

A revised family tree diagram based on the St John’s Trinubium Annae works out as follows:

Emeria | Anne , (1) m Joachim (2) t Cleophas (3) m Salome Elisabeth | Mary Cleophas m Alpheus |

Virgin Mary f Joseph | Mary Salome m Zebedee John the Baptist Jesus James the Less (Justus), James the Greater,

Joseph John the Evangelist

Even a cursory comparison of Haymo’s genealogy with the St John’s text of the Trinubtum Annae shows that in content and

phrasing the two are quite close, at times even identical,”’ though the St John’s version adds a branch to the family tree by

introducing Emeria, the sister of Anne and grandmother of _ John the Baptist. This surprising new kinswoman of Mary and Christ figures in none of the metrical recensions of the 7Tnnubium Annae and in only two of Forster’s prose recensions (no. 3,

represented here, and no. 4, where her name is spelled “Hymeria”). This name appears nowhere in the Bible and has no par-

allel in apocryphal literature before this time, and because

close parallels to it can be found in medieval Irish and Scottish (e.g. Emer), Forster was convinced that the name Emeria itself constitutes “proof” that this particular recension of the Trinubium Annae is an Insular composition.” Until a thorough new John the Evangelist. Mary, the mother of James the Less, and Mary, the mother of James the Greater and John the Evangelist, and Mary Magdalene sought our Lord with spices in his tomb.” 7 The following phrases in Haymo are repeated verbatim in the St John’s text : of the Trinubium Annae. Mortuo Ioachim, nupsit Cleophae ... Porro Cleophas ... Alpheo, de qua natus est Iacobus minor ... et Ioseph alius. Mortuo ... Cleopha, Anna tertio manito nupsit ... Salome ... de qua, desponsata Zebedeo, nati sunt [acobus maior et Iohannis evangelista.

*8 Forster, “Die Legende,” pp. 117-19. There is no entry for Emeria (or Esmeria or Hymeria) in the BHL, BHL Nov. Suppl., or Bibliotheca Sanctorum. By the late Middle Ages the legend of St Anne had expanded to include a full biography of the mother of Anne and Emeria, usually named Emerentia. The first fifteen chapters of the Old Icelandic Mariu saga og Onnu, for ex116

The Earliest Anglo-Latin Text of the Trinubium Annae

edition of all the recensions of the Trinubtum Annae is undertaken, the question of where (and when) this family of apocryphal texts as a whole originated will probably remain unsettled, but as far as I have been able to determine through comparison with other datable copies of the Trinubtum known to me, the St John’s text is indeed the earliest document of any kind to mention a sister of Anne named Emeria.”” Also new to the St John’s text, and to this entire recenson of the Trinubium Annae, is an emphasis on Anne’s adherence to the Mosaic law of marriage and widowhood.

The St John’s text merits comment for several reasons, among them the fact that it stands out as one of several Marian

apocrypha copied at Bury St Edmunds toward the end of the eleventh century. The so-called “Pembroke-style homiliary” in Cambridge, Pembroke College MS 25, a peculiarly English version of the Carolingian homiliary of St Pere de Chartres which J. E. Cross partially edited in a valuable 1987 monograph,” was

also compiled at Bury St Edmunds, very probably during Baldwin’s abbacy.”' In addition to a number of texts which Proample, are devoted to the life of “Emmerencia.” This latter figure is apparently unrelated to the virgin martyr Emerentiana identified in the Legenda aurea as a foster sister of St Agnes: Legenda aurea, ed. Maggioni, vol. 1, p. 172 (ch. 24); cf. BHL Nov. Suppl. 2527a.

* The only other instance of this name known to me that may predate St John’s 35 occurs in Pseudo-Augustine, Sermo 25(a) ad fratres in eremo (PL 40,

1275-77). This sermon, in the midst of a discussion of St Elisabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, refers in passing to “illa sancta Elisabeth, quae filia fuit sanctae Ismarae, quae quidem Ismara soror fuit carnalis sanctae

, Annae matris Dominae nostrae” (col. 1276). The date and place of origin

of the Ad fratres in eremo collection, however, remain unsettled, with present

scholarship placing it in Belgium, Flanders, or Gaul of the eleventh, | twelfth, or thirteenth century: see lohannis Machielsen, Clavis Patristica Pseudepigraphorum Mediu Aevi 1A-1B: Opera Homiletica, 2 vols. (Turnhout,

1990), nos. 1127 and 1152. ,

°° James E. Cross, Cambridge Pembroke College MS. 25: A Carolingian Sermonary Used by Anglo-Saxon Preachers, King’s College London Medieval Studies 1

(London, 1987). On the contents of the original Latin collection from which Pembroke 25 derives, see Barré, Les homéliaires carolingiens, pp. 17-25,

and Francois Dolbeau, “Du nouveau sur un sermonnaire de Cambridge,” Scriptorium 42 (1988): 255-57. *' The manuscript is dated s. xi by Ker, Medieval Libraries of Great Britain, p. 17; s. xi2 by Gneuss, “A Preliminary List,” p. 12 (no. 131); and s. xi ex. or xi? by Gneuss, “Handlist.” Thomson, “The Library of Bury St Edmunds Abbey,” p.

625 n. 39 and p. 627, accepts Pembroke 25 as a manuscript produced during Baldwin’s abbacy, as does Webber, “The Provision of Books for Bury St 117

Thomas N. Hall | fessor Cross identified as distinctively Insular compositions, the homiliary contains two sermons abstracted from the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew (art. 11) and the Protevangelium of James (art.

51), which are by far the two most influential accounts of Anne’s pregnancy and Mary’s nativity in the medieval West. The sermon abstracted from the Protevangelium of James (chs. 18) is in fact the only witness to the Latin text of this apocryphon

in England before the twelfth century and can thus be taken as a fair measure of the success of the Bury monks in collecting _ Marian apocrypha.”* The Pembroke 25 homiliary also includes

a third sermon based in part on the W text of the Transitus Marae (art. 49), the Assumption apocryphon on which Blickling Homily 13 is largely based.” Significantly, no other single manuscript owned or produced in England through the Norman period contains a comparable number or variety of Marian apocrypha. These signs of a heightened interest in texts on the life of Mary are paralleled, moreover, in a second Bury manuscript, the augmented version of Paul the Deacon’s Homiliary in Cambridge, Pembroke College MS 24, a collection of sermons for the sanctorale for May through November which An- Edmunds Abbey.” However, David N. Dumville, “On the Dating of Some Late Anglo-Saxon Liturgical Manuscripts,” Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society 10 (1991): 40-57, at 41, places the manuscript in “the ear-

lier twelfth century” on the basis of ink and formatting. :

—* Cross, Cambridge Pembroke College MS. 25, p. 37; Thomas N. Hall, “Protevan- | gelium of James,” in Sources of Anglo-Saxon Literary Culture: A Trial Version,

ed. Frederick M. Biggs, Thomas D. Hill, and Paul E. Szarmach, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies 74 (Binghamton, NY, 1990), pp. 37-38; Jean-Daniel Kaestli, “Le Protevangile de Jacques en latin. Etat de la question et perspectives nouvelles,” Revue d'histoire des textes 26 (1996): 41-102, at 47, 51. _ The Pembroke 25 text is now printed by Mary Clayton, The Apocryphal Gospels of Mary in Anglo-Saxon England, CSASE 26 (Cambridge, 1998), pp. 319-

22. Copies of this sermon for the feast of the Nativity of the Virgin (inc. “Inquirendum est”) survive in five other manuscripts: Cambridge, St John’s College MS 42 (?Worcester, s. xii), fols. 50r-51v; Rome, Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Reg. lat. 537 (s. xii), fols. 31v-32v; Karlsruhe, Landesbibliothek, MS K 506 (Dorlar, s. xii/xili), fols. 3r-5r; Oxford, Balliol College, MS 240 (England, s. xiv), fols. 107v-109r; and Frankfurt, Stadt- und Universitatsbibliothek, MS Praed. 43 (Frankfurt, s. xv), fols. 12lra-121vb. A critical edition is in order. *’ Clayton, The Cult of the Virgin Mary, pp. 232-34; Cross, Cambridge Pembroke College MS. 25, p. 36; Mary Clayton, “De Transitu Mariae,” in Sources of Anglo-Saxon Literary Culture: A Trial Version, ed. Biggs et al., pp. 41-43. The Pembroke 25 text is printed by Clayton, The Apocryphal Gospels of Mary, pp. 328-33. 118

The Earliest Anglo-Latin Text of the Trinubium Annae

tonia Gransden has recently shown to have been written in northern France (most likely at either Saint-Germain-des-Prés or Saint-Denis, where Baldwin received his training as a monk) in the late eleventh century, though the manuscript must have

reached Bury by about 1100 since the very last text in the manuscript, a sermon on the Assumption of Mary adapted from Augustine’s Tractatus in Iohannem (fols. 374v-375v), was _ written by a scribe known to have been active at Bury at that

time.” In place of the regular complement of homilies prescribed in the original Paul the Deacon Homiliary for the feasts of the Assumption and the Nativity of the Virgin (one each, for a grand total of two),”” the Pembroke 24 collection presents its

own unique combination of three new homilies for the Assumption and two new homilies for Mary’s Nativity for a total of five sermons for these Marian feasts.*° As Gransden has shown,

the date and circumstances of the homiliary’s composition make it likely that Abbot Baldwin was himself responsible for acquiring this manuscript in Paris and bringing it to Bury during the final quarter of the eleventh century, at which time he * Antonia Gransden, “The Alleged Incorruption of the Body of St Edmund, King and Martyr,” The Antiquaries Journal 74 (1994): 135-68, at 163 n. 106; Gransden, “The Composition and Authorship of the De miraculis Sancti — Eadmundi Attributed to ‘Hermann the Archdeacon,’” JML 5 (1995): 1-52, at 30-31; Gransden, “Some Manuscripts in Cambridge from Bury St Edmunds Abbey: Exhibition Catalogue,” in Bury St Edmunds: Medieval Art, Architecture, Archaeology and Economy, ed. Gransden, pp. 228-85, at 254; cf. Webber, “The

Provision of Books for Bury St Edmunds Abbey,” p. 188. Gransden thus corrects the longstanding belief (expressed, for instance, by Thomson, “The Library of Bury St Edmunds Abbey,” p. 625 and n. 39) that the manuscript was written at Bury.

” See Réginald Grégoire, Homéliaires liturgiques médiévaux: Analyse de manuscrits, Biblioteca degli “Studi Medievali” 12 (Spoleto, 1980), pp. 465-66 (no. 70), 467 (no. 76b).

*° The added homilies for the Assumption are Pseudo-Hildefonsus, Sermo 7 (fols. 116v-118v); Pseudo-Bede, Homilia III.57 (fols. 118v-120v); and the sermon adapted from Augustine, Tractatus in Iohannem 119 §§ 1-3 (fols.

374v-375v). The added homilies for the Nativity are Pseudo-Augustine, _ Sermo 194 (fols. 137r-140r); and Fulbert of Chartres, Sermo 4 (fols. 140r145v). For a cursory comparison of the Mariological content of Paul the Deacon’s Homiliary with that of other early medieval homiliaries, see Adalbert Hamman, “La dévotion mariale d’aprés les premiers homéliaires,” in De Cultu Mariano Saeculs VEXI, Acta Congressus Mariologici-Mariani Internationalis in Croatia Anno 1971 Celebrati, 4 vols. (Rome, 1972), vol. 4, pp. 21725, 119

Thomas N. Hall | must have directed a Bury scribe to add that extra sermon for the feast of the Assumption at the back of the manuscript.” If he was also responsible for overseeing the production of St John’s 35 and Pembroke 25, as seems to be the case, then Abbot Baldwin must be reckoned with as the inspirational force behind the growing devotion to Mary at Bury during these decades. Bury has never been thought of as a center of Marian devotion on par with Winchester or Canterbury, but this pattern of copying and collecting associated with Baldwin reveals an uncommon preoccupation with Marian literature, and if the St John’s copy of the Trinubium Annae was written during his ab-

, bacy as well, then it too must be considered an integral component of a concerted effort to amass a small library of Marian apocrypha.

In light of this pattern, it bears pointing out that by the first quarter of the twelfth century devotion to Mary had become a regular and inescapable feature of daily life at Bury. For | one thing, both of the abbey churches erected at Bury during the course of the eleventh century were jointly dedicated to St Edmund and the Virgin Mary. This had first been the case with the new stone church dedicated by Archbishop Athelnoth dur-

ing the reign of Cnut (on 18 October 1032) to replace the original wooden one,” and it was also the case with the magnificent Romanesque church which Baldwin himself con-

structed beginning in the early 1080s to house Edmund's

tomb.” Even the precious porphyry altar which Pope Alexan*’ Gransden, “The Composition and Authorship,” pp. 30-31; cf. Teresa Web-

ber, “The Patristic Content of English Book Collections in the Eleventh Century: Towards a Continental Perspective,” 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, Hants, 1997), pp. 191-205, at 200. °° Memorials of St. Edmund’s Abbey, ed. Thomas Arnold, 3 vols., Rolls Series 96

(London, 1890-96), vol. 1, p. 342. The dedication is recorded in several places: see Dumville, English Caroline Script, pp. 32-34, 41.

* According to Hermann’s De miraculis sancti Eadmundi, the presbytery of the church was completed in 1094: Memorials of St. Edmund’s Abbey, ed. Arnold, vol. 1, pp. 85-88. That the church was dedicated to Sts Edmund and Mary but never actually consecrated is demonstrated by Antonia Gransden, “The

, Question of the Consecration of St Edmund’s Church,” in Church and Chronicle in the Middle Ages: Essays Presented to John Taylor, ed. lan Wood and

G. A. Loud (London and Rio Grande, OH, 1991), pp. 59-86. For later medieval references to the Marian dedication, see Gransden, “The Question of the Consecration,” pp. 76-77. Just how far back organized devotion to 120

The Earliest Anglo-Latin Text of the Trinubium Annae

_ der II presented to Baldwin in 1070 while Baldwin was in Rome |

with Archbishop Lanfranc bore a joint dedication to Edmund , and Mary.” Furthermore, between ca. 1110 and 1121 a new par-

ish church was erected in honor of St Mary on the southwest | corner of the abbey grounds to replace the old stone church of St Mary, which had been torn down to make room for a southward extension of the transept of the abbey church.”” (When that original Marian church was built is unknown,” but presumably it was standing during Baldwin’s abbacy.) Then in 1113 or 1114 another Marian dedication took place when the altar of the chapel of St Mary in the crypts, situated directly below the shrine to St Edmund and extending westward beneath the presbytery of the abbey church, was dedicated by Ralph d’Escures, then Bishop of Rochester (1108-14), who was himself

an ardent devotee to the Virgin and the author of an important Mary goes at Bury is difficult to say, but at the end of the eleventh century there was an attempt on the part of someone within the circle of Herbert Losinga, Bishop of East Anglia (1090x1091-1119), to undermine the ab-

bey’s exemption from episcopal control by claiming that the church at Beadericesworth (the Anglo-Saxon town later renamed Bury St Edmunds)

had been founded four centuries earlier by Bishop Felix of East Anglia (630x631-647x648) and dedicated to the Virgin Mary. A propagandistic document preserved in London, BL, MS Harley 1005 (Bury, s. xii/xiii) alleges that Felix himself “in villa Beodrichesworth ecclesiam beate Dei genitricis Marie edificavit”: V. H. Galbraith, “The East Anglian See and the Abbey of Bury St. Edmunds,” EHR 40 (1925): 222-28, at 226; Antonia Gransden, “Legends and Traditions Concerning the Origins of the Abbey of Bury St Edmunds,” EHR 100 (1985): 1-24, reprinted in her Legends, Traditions and History in Medieval England (London and Rio Grande, OH, 1992), pp. 81-104, at 93-95. Memonals of St. Edmund’s Abbey, ed. Arnold, vol. 1, pp. xxxii, 345.

*' Gordon M. Hills, “The Antiquities of Bury St. Edmunds,” Journal of the British Archaeological Association 21 (1865): 32-56 and 104-40, at 45, 109-12; A. B. Whittingham, “St. Mary’s Church, Bury St. Edmunds,” Archaeological Journal — 108 (1951): 187-88. An anonymous twelfth-century tract on the dedication

of altars and chapels at the Bury abbey, ed. Antonia Gransden, The Custom- , ary of the Benedictine Abbey of Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk, HBS 99 (London,

1973), pp. 114-22, claims (at 116-17) that the new Marian church was built by Godfrey, the sacrist under Abbots Robert II (1107-12) and Albold (1114 20). According to William of Worcester, the new church was dedicated to the Assumption of the Virgin (see Hill, “Che Antiquities,” p. 111). ” The claim of older historians (e.g., Hills, “The Antiquities,” p. 109) that it was founded by King Sigebert of East Anglia in the early seventh century is now discounted; see Galbraith, “The East Anglian See” and n. 39 above.

1|

Thomas N. Hall

Marian sermon that was later translated into Old English.* Moreover, Jocelin of Brakelond tells us that either shortly before or during Baldwin’s abbacy Archbishop Stigand (1052-70)

, donated a statue of the Virgin “adorned with a great weight of gold and silver” to the abbey,” and some years later another statue of the Virgin was erected behind the high altar of the abbey church by Abbot Anselm of St Saba (1121-48),* the en-

terprising nephew of Archbishop Anselm who was a prime mover in the great Marian revival of the 1120s and who is best known to literary scholars today as the author and compiler of the earliest collection of Marian miracle tales in all of Europe.” One of Abbot Anselm’s charters dated 1121x1135 grants to the abbey a mill at Bury and fishponds at Pakenham, Ingham, and Stow (all in Suffolk), plus thirty shillings a year, to ensure that the feast of the Conception of the Virgin will be regularly celebrated at the abbey.” It was also probably Abbot Anselm who at about this time caused the central apsidal chapel directly behind the shrine to St Edmund at the eastern end of the abbey

church to be dedicated to the Virgin.” In addition, later records show that there was a pronounced emphasis on Mary in

® The Customary, ed. Gransden, p. 114; see Hills, “The Antiquities,” pp. 45,

, 107-8; James, On the Abbey, pp. 118, 141. Yet another Marian chapel, the celebrated Lady Chapel adjacent to the north wall of the presbytery, was later dedicated by Abbot Simon de Luton (1257-79): James, On the Abbey, p. 121; The Customary, ed. Gransden, p. 120. “% The Chronicle of Jocelin of Brakelond, ed. and trans. H. E. Butler (London,

1949), p.5. * Ibid., p. 5 n. 6; James, On the Abbey, p. 134. Yet another statue of the Virgin was later given to the abbey by Abbot Ording (1148-56): Butler, The ChroniCle, p. Xxi. * R. W. Southern, “The English Origin of the Miracles of the Virgin,” Medieval and Renaissance Studies 4 (1958): 176-216; Miracula Sanctae Virginis Mariae, ed. E. F. Dexter (Madison, WI, 1927). *” Feudal Documents from the Abbey of Bury St. Edmunds, ed. D. C. Douglas, Re-

cords of the Social and Economic History of England and Wales 8 (Lon-

, don, 1932), pp. 112-13 (no. 112).

* Hills, “The Antiquities,” p. 47; James, On the Abbey, pp. 138-39; The Custom-

ary, ed. Gransden, pp. 12, 59. The date of the dedication of this Marian chapel is unknown, but as Hills observes (p. 45), its foundation appears to be at least as old as those of the two apsidal chapels which flanked it at the eastern end of the church, one of which we know was a chapel to St Saba erected by Abbot Anselm, who had been abbot of St Saba’s in Rome before he was appointed abbot of Bury St Edmunds. The second apsidal chapel, to St Cross, was dedicated during Anselm’s abbacy as well. 122,

The Earliest Anglo-Latin Text of the Trinubium Annae

the liturgy: the thirteenth-century Bury Customary, written in or shortly after 1234 but basing itself on a long tradition of local liturgical practice, provides for an extra Marian prayer to be said at every ferial high mass from Advent to the feast of the Purification,” and it also stipulates special forms of commemoration for all five Marian feasts (for the Nativity, Purification, Annunciation, Conception, and Assumption).”” Marian devotion at Bury without question reached its apex under Abbot Anselm, who in effect made Bury the centerpiece of a national Marian movement bolstered by the creation of new liturgical forms and an original corpus of Marian literature, but the necessary antecedents for that movement were clearly taking shape under Baldwin and can in fact be traced even further back: that the liturgical requirements for a thriving Marian cult were already in place at Bury several decades before Baldwin’s abbacy is made clear from the “Bury Psalter” (Rome, Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Reg. lat. 12), a manuscript that appears to have been written at Christ Church, Canterbury, for use at Bury during the second quarter of the eleventh century.” The Psalter’s calendar marks both Mary’s Nativity and Assumption as major feasts, and one of the prayers appended to the manuscript is a Carolingian prayer beginning “Sancta Maria, genitrix domini nostri Iesu Christi, semper uirgo gloriosa.””” By * The Customary, ed. Gransden, p. 92. ” Tbid., pp. 7, 8, 22, 38, 46, 51, 52, 53, 54, 62; cf. also pp. 93, 94, 96, 105, 109.

Within this context, it may not be entirely by chance that another Bury abbot, Robert of Westminster, was consecrated by Archbishop Anselm on the feast of the Assumption in 1107: Arnold, Memorials of St. Edmund’s Abbey, vol. I], pp. xxxvil, [xii

°! For the unresolved debates over the Psalter’s date and place of origin, see Elzbieta Temple, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts 900-1066, A Survey of Manuscripts

Illuminated in the British Isles 2 (London, 1976), pp. 100-102 (no. 84); Dumville, English Caroline Script, pp. 33-34 and n. 117; William Noel, The Harley Psalter, Cambridge Studies in Palaeography and Codicology (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 150-51; and Rosalind C. Love, ed. and trans., Three Eleventh-Century Anglo-Latin Saints’ Lives: Vita S. Birini, Vita et Miracula S. Kenelmi

and Vita S. Rumwoldi, Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford, 1996), p. Ixii n. 56. Gneuss, “Handlist,” no. 912, dates the manuscript s. xi2/4, * English Kalendars before A.D. 1100, ed. Francis Wormald, HBS 72 (London, 1934; reprint Woodbridge, 1988), pp. 247-48.

* André Wilmart, “The Prayers of the Bury Psalter,” Downside Review 48 (1930): 198-216, at 204-5; Clayton, The Cult of the Virgin Mary, p. 110. For | another possible Marian feature of the manuscript — a full-page illumination of the initial Q facing Psalm 51 in which an enthroned female figure 123

Thomas N. Hall

the time of Baldwin’s abbacy, in other words, Mary was well on her way to becoming a vital part of the spiritual and devotional life of the Bury monks. It can hardly be fortuitous that a text on

the genealogy of St Anne’s three daughters, all named Mary, found its way into a manuscript copied at Baldwin’s abbey during the very period when Marian devotion was steadily on the increase.

To put this in a broader context, one has only to recall that the prosperity of the Marian cult at Bury was at least in part a reflex of the broader movement of Marian devotion that was sweeping through England in the late Anglo-Saxon and early Anglo-Norman period, much of it inspired by the newly established feast of the Conception. The feast of Anne’s Conception of Mary (celebrated 8 December in the West) was first introduced at Winchester about 1030, probably under the influence of Greek monks from Italy, where it had been celebrated since the tenth century.” From Winchester,” liturgical texts for the sits who has been thought to represent Mary — see Gransden, “The Alleged Incorruption of the Body of St Edmund,” p. 141.

*4 On the early history of the feast of the Conception in England, see Edmund , Bishop, “On the Origins of the Feast of the Conception of the Blessed Vir- , gin Mary,” Downside Review 5 (1886): 107-19, reprinted with corrections and supplementary notes in his Liturgica Historica: Papers on the Liturgy and Religtous Life of the Western Church (Oxford, 1918; reprint 1962), pp. 238-59; F. A. Gasquet and Edmund Bishop, The Bosworth Psalter (London, 1908), pp. 43-

51; S.J. P. Van Dijk, “The Origin of the Latin Feast of the Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary,” Dublin Review 228 (1954): 251-67 and 428-42; Clayton, “Feasts of the Virgin,” p. 226; Clayton, The Cult of the Virgin Mary, pp. 42-44.

> The “Missal of New Minster, Winchester,” Le Havre, BM, MS 330 (Winchester, New Minster, s. xi3/4 or xi2 [or xi1?]) contains texts for the feast of the Nativity of Mary and its Vigil (fols. 140v-142r) as well as for the feast of the Conception of Mary (fol. 165r): V. Leroquais, Les sacramentaires et les massels manuscrits des bibliothéques publiques de France, 4 vols. (Paris, 1924), vol. 1, pp. 190-92; The Missal of the New Minster Winchester, ed. D. H. Turner, HBS 93 (London, 1962), pp. 156-58, 190. See Clayton, The Cult of the Virgin Mary, pp. 82-83, 88. Richard W. Pfaff tentatively proposes that the missal was written “relatively early in Riwallon’s tenure (1072-88)”: “Massbooks,” in The Liturgical Books of Anglo-Saxon England, ed. Pfaff, OEN Subsidia 23 (Kalama-

zoo, MI, 1995), pp. 7-34, at 30. There are also two eleventh-century Win-

chester calendars that include entries for the feast of the Conception: London, BL, MS Cotton Titus D. XXVII (Winchester, New Minster, 1023x1031) and London, BL, MS Cotton Vitellius E. XVIII (Winchester, New Minster, s. xi med. or xi9/4; later provenance Winchester, Old Min124

The Earliest Anglo-Latin Text of the Trinubium Annae

feast of the Conception passed to Canterbury” and Exeter”’ by

the third quarter of the eleventh century, and to Ramsey by about 1080." For reasons that are still not entirely clear, the feast of the Conception appears to have died out for some time, possibly as long as four or five decades beginning around the time of the Conquest.” But at a Legatine Council held at London in 1129, the feast of the Conception of the Virgin was pub-

licly confirmed for the whole of the English Church,” and ster): see Wormald, English Kalendars before A.D. 1100, nos. 9, 12; Bishop, “On the Origins,” p. 239; Clayton, The Cult of the Virgin Mary, pp. 42-43.

°° The “Canterbury Benedictional,” London, BL, MS Harley 2892 (Canterbury, Christ Church, s. xi2/4), includes a benediction for the Conception of the Virgin (fols. 189v-190r): The Canterbury Benedictional, ed. Reginald Maxwell Woolley, HBS 51 (London, 1917; reprint 1995), pp. 118-19. See Bishop, “On the Origins,” pp. 240-41; Eadmen. Monachit Cantuanensis Tractatus de Conceptione Sanctae Mariae, ed. Herbert Thurston and Thomas Slater (Freiburg-im-Breisgau, 1904), pp. 85-86; Clayton, The Cult of the Virgin Mary, pp. 44-47, 85-87.

? The “Exeter Benedictional,” London, BL, MS Add. 28188 (Exeter, s. xi2), contains three unique benedictions for the feast of the Conception (fol. 161) which were probably composed at Winchester. See Bishop, “On the Origins,” pp. 239-40; Eadmeri ... Tractatus de Conceptione, ed. Thurston and Slater, pp. 8485; Clayton, The Cult of the Virgin Mary, pp. 45, 84-85. In addi-

tion, the “Leofric Missal,” Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 579 (SC 2675), written in NE France s. ix med. or ix2 or ix/x, but at Exeter by s. xi, contains the same mass for the feast of the Conception that appears in the “Missal of New Minster,” here copied by an Exeter scribe right about the time of the Conquest (fol. 374r): The Leofric Missal, ed. F. E. Warren (Oxford, 1883), p. 268. See Clayton, The Cult of the Virgin Mary, pp. 45-46, 82.

| *® Clayton, The Cult of the Virgin Mary, pp. 47-50. *’ Eadmer, at least, reports that it had been widely celebrated before the Conquest but as a result of the Lanfrancian reforms had been “done away with and utterly abolished as being contrary to reason”: Eadmeri . . . Tractatus de Conceptione, ed. Thurston and Slater, pp. 1-2 (also printed in PL 159, 301). For discussion, see Gasquet and Bishop, The Bosworth Psalter, pp. 46-48; R. | W. Southern, Saint Anselm and His Biographer. A Study of Monastic Life and Thought 105%c. 1130 (Cambridge, 1963), pp. 290-92; Wilmart, “Les compositions d’Osbert de Clare en l’honneur de sainte Anne,” in his Auteurs spintuels, pp. 261-86, at 264-65; Clayton, Cult of the Virgin Mary, p. 50; and Richard W. Pfaff, “Lanfranc’s Supposed Purge of the Anglo-Saxon Calendar,” in Warriors and Churchmen in the High Middle Ages: Essays Presented to Karl Leyser,

ed. Timothy Reuter (London and Rio Grande, OH, 1992), pp. 95-108. © Councils & Synods with Other Documents Relating to the English Church. I. A.D. §71-1204. Part IT. 1066-1204, ed. D. Whitelock, M. Brett and C. N. L. Brooke

} 125

(Oxford, 1981), pp. 750-52. The Winchcombe Annals record the first cele-

bration of the feast at Winchcombe in 1126: R. R. Darlington, “Winch-

Thomas N. Hall

within the year it was once again celebrated at Worcester, Winchester, St Albans, Reading, Gloucester, Winchcombe, Westminster, and Bury St Edmunds.” It was also about this time, of course, that the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception was in the process of being formulated at Canterbury by Eadmer (ft ca. 1128), whose treatise on the subject was plausibly written, as Joseph Bruder has argued, “to justify the reintroduction of the feast of our Lady in the Abbey of Saint Edmund’s, Bury, by its newly appointed abbot, Anselm.”” The effect these liturgical developments must have had on

popular devotion to Mary and her mother at the time is easy enough to imagine. As the feast of the Conception continued to grow in popularity, and as its celebrants began turning their thoughts to the theological complexities of the Conception and Nativity of the Virgin by her mother, St Anne, it would have been only natural for curiosity to shift gradually toward the figure of St Anne herself, and indeed this is precisely when we first

begin to discern a burgeoning interest in St Anne in England. Although a full-blown cult to St Anne is not in evidence anywhere in Europe until the thirteenth century — and even then is not widespread until the fourteenth — there are several incipient signs of a formal devotion to Anne in England as early as the mid-eleventh century, when she is first depicted in Engcombe Annals 1049-1181,” in A Medieval Miscellany for Doris Mary Stenton, ed.

Patricia M. Barnes and C. F. Slade, Publications of the Pipe Roll Society 76, NS 36 (London, 1962), pp. 111-37, at 125. *' Bishop, “On the Origins,” pp. 247-48; E. W. Williamson, ed., The Letters of Osbert of Clare, Prior of Westminster (Oxford, 1929), pp. 11-14. On the revival of the feast at Bury St Edmunds in the 1120s, see Van Dijk, “The Origin of the Latin Feast,” pp. 430-32. Eadmeri... Tractatus de Conceptione, ed. Thurston and Slater; A. W. Burridge,

“L’Immaculée Conception dans la théologie de l’Angleterre médiévale,” Revue d'histoire ecclésiastique 32 (1936): 570-97; Francis M. Mildner, “The Immaculate Conception in England up to the Time of John Duns Scotus,” Marianum | (1939): 86-99; 2 (1940), 173-93 and 284-306. The exact date of Eadmer’s treatise is unknown. According to Van Dijk, “The Origin,” p. 441,

Eadmer must have lived later than is commonly believed and probably wrote his treatise ca. 1134x1139. Burridge, “L’Immaculée Conception,” pp. 581-83, dates it between 1109 and 1125. Most scholars, including Southern,

place it ca. 1125.

- 126

8 Joseph S. Bruder, The Mariology of Saint Anselm of Canterbury (Dayton, OH, 1939), pp. 46-47; cf. Hilda Graef, Mary: A History of Doctrine and Devotion

(Westminster and London, 1985), p. 218. ,

The Earliest Anglo-Latin Text of the Trinubium Annae

lish manuscript illumination, and shortly afterward, when she is honored by newly composed liturgical texts for mass and Office. Among the earliest such witnesses is a miniature of the Na-

tivity of the Virgin in the “Cotton Troper,” London, BL, MS Cotton Caligula A. XIV, fol. 26v, from mid-eleventh-century Canterbury, which features Anne and Joachim holding the infant Mary beneath a titulus that reads “Ecce patet partus quem [...Jerat Anna per artus / Aecclessie matrem genuit pregnando

salutem / Quam Domino uouit pater ad templumque dicauit.””"" A roughly contemporary litany of saints in London, BL,

MS Harley 863 (Exeter, 1046x1072) includes Anne’s name within a list of the members of the choir of virgins.” Anne is also invoked in close company with Mary and Elisabeth as a saint specially capable of protecting an earnest supplicant “wid eallum feondum” in the Old English Journey Charm in CCCC 41

(s. xi1; provenance Exeter), which so far as I am aware is the earliest vernacular text in any language to mention Anne by name.”” Examples of this type of veneration become more numerous in the early twelfth century, when Anne’s name again shows up in a litany of saints copied into the collectar known as

the “Portiforium of St Wulstan” (CCCC 391), written at

Worcester, where for the first time in the West the feast of St Anne was observed with an octave during the episcopate of " Clayton, The Cult of the Virgin Mary, p. 172. Clayton translates: “Behold the

offspring is manifest whom Anna had brought forth [. . .] through her loins. She begot the mother of the church, being heavy with our salvation, whom her father vowed to the Lord and dedicated to the temple.” Clayton

identifies this miniature and the one accompanying it (of the angel announcing Mary’s birth to Joachim) as “the earliest surviving depictions of Pseudo-Matthew in a Western manuscript” (p. 173); cf. Clayton, The Apocry-

261-63. ,

phal Gospels of Mary, pp. 112-13.

" Anglo-Saxon Litanies of the Saints, ed. Michael Lapidge, HBS 106 (London, 1991), p. 199, line 274; Wilmart, “Les compositions d’Osbert de Clare,” pp. 06 Anglo-Saxon Minor Poems, ed. Elliot Van Kirk Dobbie, ASPR 6 (New York, 1942), p. 127 (lines 16-20).

” The “Portiforium of St Wulstan” was itself written ca. 1065, but the litany (at pp. 221-25) was copied into it in the early twelfth century: Anglo-Saxon Litanies, ed. Lapidge, p. 117, line 104. Anne’s name also occurs in a litany copied into London, Lambeth Palace Library, MS 427 (SW England [?Winchester], s. xi!), fols. 202v-205v, although the litany is much later than the

main contents of the manuscript, probably of the fifteenth century: see Lapidge, Anglo-Saxon Litanies, pp. 75-76 and 216, line 101. 127

Thomas N. Hall

Bishop Simon (1125-50), who provided a pittance on her feast day.” And in or about 1137 Osbert of Clare (+ ca. 1153), the prior of Westminster Abbey who lent strong support to Abbot Anselm in his campaign to secure recognition for the feast of the Conception in the late 1120s," composed a sermon, two hymns, and two devotional prayers in honor of St Anne for a nocturnal Office for her feast (celebrated 26 July), the first such compositions in existence in the West.” By comparison, no significant pattern of devotion to Anne is recorded on the | Continent for several decades, and even then appears to be largely due to English influence.”’ In England, meanwhile, her ** Bishop, “On the Origins,” p. 248 n. 3. , ” For the correspondence between Osbert and Abbot Anselm, see Eadmeri .. . Tractatus de Conceptione, ed. Thurston and Slater, pp. 53-83; The Letters of Osbert of Clare, ed. Williamson, pp. 11-14, 62-72 (ep. 5-8), 96-99 (ep. 23), 191-

203, 215. .

” Wilmart, “Les compositions d’Osbert de Clare.” Susan J. Ridyard, The Royal Saints of Anglo-Saxon England: A Study of West Saxon and East Anglian Cults (Cambridge, 1988) is one of the few modern scholars to recognize that Osbert “played an important part in the deeply controversial revival of the festival of the Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary and in the promotion of

the cult of St Anne” (p. 21). In addition, a prayer to St Anne attributed to

Anselm was written probably in England (at Canterbury?) during the twelfth century: Wilmart, “Priéres 4 sainte Anne, a saint Michel, a saint Martin censées de saint Anselme,” in his Auteurs spirituels, pp. 202-16. Anne’s

: name is also added to the English calendar in London, BL, MS Cotton Vitellius E. XVIII (Winchester, New Minster, s. xi med. or xi3/4), which Hickes dated to 1031, although the addition is probably of the thirteenth century: R. T. Hampson, Medi Aevi Kalendarium or Dates, Charters, and Customs of the Middle Ages, with Kalendars from the Tenth to the Fifteenth Century, 2

vols. (London, 1841; reprint New York, 1978), vol. 1, pp. 421, 428. Wormald, English Kalendars before A.D. 1100, p. 162, indicates that the entry for

_ St Anne (at 26 July) is a thirteenth-century addition. It should also be pointed out that an incomplete set of materials for the proper of a mass in honor of St Anne, consisting of an oratio, secreta, and postcommunio, appears

in the “Missal of St Augustine’s Abbey,” CCCC 270 (Canterbury, St Augustine’s, 1091x1100), fol. 181rv (see The Missal of St Augustine's Abbey Canterbury, ed. Martin Rule [Cambridge, 1896], pp. 162-63), but Timothy

Graham informs me that this mass set is a thirteenth-century addition to the manuscript (private communication, 6 August 1996).

” Bishop, “On the Origins,” pp. 246, 249; Veronica Ortenberg, The English Church and the Continent in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries: Cultural, Spiritual

and Artistic Exchanges (Oxford, 1992), pp. 117-18. On the earliest attestations of formal devotion to St Anne in France (first at Saint-Vivant-sousVergy in the eleventh century, then at Apt and Chartres at the end of the twelfth century), see Wilmart, “Chants en l’honneur de sainte Anne.” Noth128

The Earliest Anglo-Latin Text of the Trinubium Annae

cult continued to spread gradually over the course of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries until her presence was felt at every major ecclesiastical center, still well in advance of a com-

parably established cult in France or Germany. Although no pre-Conquest English calendar includes Anne’s feast day,” her 26 July feast is almost universally recognized in English calen-—

dars by 1300,” and she is widely commemorated in a large number of medieval church dedications throughout the British Isles,”* beginning at Evesham, where according to the Chronicle of Evesham a chapel dedicated to her was already in existence during the abbacy of Thomas de Marlebarwe (1218-29).” By 1309 a similar dedication took place at Bury St Edmunds when

a chapel to the Immaculate Conception of St Anne was in, stalled in the crypts of the abbey church and a parish confra-

| ternity of St Anne was created to maintain it.’° The veneration ing comparable from other parts of Europe turns up before the thirteenth | century. ” Wilmart, “Les compositions d’Osbert,” p. 264.

® For English calendars commemorating the feast of St Anne, all from the thirteenth century and later, see Francis Wormald, ed., English Benedictine Kalendars after A.D. 1100, 2 vols., HBS 77, 81 (London, 1939-46), vol. 1, pp. 57, 123, 139; vol. 2, pp. 24, 33, 69, 85, 113. 4 Frances Arnold-Foster, Studies in Church Dedications, or England’s Patron

Saints, 3 vols. (London, 1899), counts ninety-eight English churches dedicated to St Anne, of which thirty are pre-Reformation (vol. 1, pp. 97-100; vol. 3, p. 3). Francis Bond, Dedications & Patron Saints of English Churches: Ecclesiastical Symbolism, Saints and Their Emblems (London, 1914), p. 58, finds

44.

forty-one churches dedicated to St Anne in medieval England. On churches, chantries, chapels, and wells dedicated to Anne in medieval Scotland, see James Murray MacKinlay, Ancient Church Dedications in Scotland, 2 vols. (Edinburgh, 1910-14), vol. 1, pp. 180-88. See also C. L. S. Linnell, Norfolk Church Dedications, St Anthony’s Hall Publications 21 (York, 1962), p. ®™ Chronicon Abbatiae de Evesham ad Annum 1418, ed. William Dunn Macray, Rolls Series 29 (London, 1863), p. 271; The Chronicle of Evesham Abbey, trans.

David Cox (Evesham, 1964), p. 41.

| *® V. B. Redstone, “Chapels, Chantries, and Guilds in Suffolk,” Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and Natural History 12 (1904): 1-87, at 75; James, On the Abbey, p. 161. Provisions for the maintenance of this chapel in later medieval wills show that it continued to serve as a site of devotion to Anne for some time. According to Hills, “The Antiquities,” p. 108, the 1497 will of William Hawes of Bury bequeathed “to the chapell of Seynt Anne in

the undercroftys in the abbey, 5d.” Likewise, the 1457 will of Lady Ela Shardelowe includes the bequest of “capiciu{m] meu[m] penulat{um] 129

Thomas N. Hall

accorded her at Bury, Worcester, and Evesham was eventually granted formal recognition on a national scale when in 1378, on the occasion of Richard II’s marriage to Anne of Bohemia, Pope Urban VI issued a bull that added the feast of St Anne to the calendar of the English Church. It would not be until 1584, when Pope Gregory XIII added a mass for the feast of St Anne to the Roman Missal, that the celebration of her feast would be extended to the universal Roman Church.” Although there are still several gaps in our understanding of the early development of the cult of St Anne in England and of its debt to specifically English forms of Marian devotion, the evidence assembled thus far suggests that the St John’s text of

the Trnnubtum Annae was copied at precisely the time that a mounting interest in Mary’s conception and nativity was giving way to a nascent devotion to the mother of the Virgin herself. This twin devotion to Mary and Anne was certainly taking shape

at several English centers during the second half of the eleventh century — notably Winchester, Canterbury, Exeter and : Worcester — but we now see that it was also supported by the collection of apocryphal and sermonic texts on the life of Mary at Bury St Edmunds, and for this reason Bury should be in| cu[m] letuse3” to the Guild of St Anne at Bury: Wills and Inventones from the Registers of the Commissary of Bury St. Edmund’s and the Archdeacon of Sudbury,

ed. Samuel Tymms, Camden Society Publications OS 49 (London, 1850;

reprint New York, 1968), p. 14. ” On the development of the cult of St Anne in England in the thirteenth | century and following, see Charland, La bonne sainte, pp. 121-36; André - Wilmart, “De obsequio in S. Annam testimonium e vita S. Hugonis,” Ephemevides Liturgicae 42 (1928): 543-44; Kleinschmidt, Die hethge Anna, pp. 129-31,

John Stéphan, “The Cult of St. Anne in Exeter,” Report and Transactions of the Devonshire Association for the Advancement of Science, Literature and Art 97

(1965): 74-76. A rhymed office for the feast of St Anne probably authored by the Dominican Thomas Stubbs (ca. 1320-83) is catalogued and discussed , by Andrew Hughes, “British Rhymed Offices: A Catalogue and Commentary,” in Music in the Medieval English Liturgy: Plainsong © Mediaeval Music Society Centennial Essays, ed. Susan Rankin and David Hiley (Oxford, 1993), pp. 239-84, at 253-54. The proliferation and popularization of the cult of St

Anne in late medieval Norfolk and Suffolk is discussed by Gail McMurray Gibson, “Saint Anne and the Religion of Childbed: Some East Anglian Texts and Talismans,” in Interpreting Cultural Symbols, ed. Ashley and Sheingorn, pp. 95-110. There is also a modest corpus of Middle English literature devoted to St Anne: see Charlotte D’Evelyn, “Legends of Individual Saints,” _ in A Manual of the Wntings in Middle English 1050-1500, ed. J. Burke Severs and Albert E. Hartung (New Haven, CT, 1967- ), vol. 2, pp. 561-635, at 567

(no. 27). | 130

The Earliest Anglo-Latin Text of the Trinubium Annae

cluded in a list of the centers where the seeds of a cult to St Anne were being sown by the close of the eleventh century. The St John’s text of the Trinubium Annae is of interest for

another reason as well, however, and that is that it is the only copy of this particular prose recension of the Trnubium Annae thus far identified that predates the Old English version of the Trinubium in London, BL, MS Cotton Vespasian D. XIV, a col-

lection of sermons and theological tracts produced at Canter-

bury or Rochester in the second quarter of the twelfth century.” The Old English Trinubium, probably the earliest ver-

sion in any vernacular,” is there copied as an appendix to an Old English translation of a sermon on the Assumption of the Virgin by Ralph d’Escures, the Bishop of Rochester and later Archbishop of Canterbury (1114-22) who dedicated the Marian altar in the crypt of the Bury abbey in 1113 or 1114." Max For"The manuscript is most fully described by Max Forster, “Der Inhalt der altenglischen Handschrift Vespasianus D. XIV,” Englische Studien 54 (1920): 46-68; and Viktor Schmetterer, ed., Drei altenglische religiose Texte aus der Handschrift Cotton Vespasianus D XIV, Dissertationen der Universitat Wien 150 (Vienna, 1981), pp. 38-53. Forster, “Die Legende,” pp. 116-17, dates the manuscript “wohl spatestens im zweiten Viertel des 12. Jhs.” N. R. Ker, Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford, 1957), p. 274 (no.

209, art. 31), states that the manuscript is “probably from Rochester or Canterbury”; however, in Medieval Libraries of Great Britain, p. 358, Ker “re-

jects” this manuscript from the list of books from Canterbury. Rima Handley, “British Museum MS. Cotton Vespasian D. xiv,” N@’Q 219 (1974): 243-50, argues for a Christ Church origin. More recently, Mary P. Richards, Texts and Their Traditions in the Medieval Library of Rochester Cathedral Priory,

Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 78.3 (Philadelphia,

1988), pp. 92-94, makes a strong case for Rochester, emphasizing the

manuscript’s affiliations with a number of homiliaries compiled there. ”™ The next likely candidate is the prose Icelandic version of the Trinubium Annae in the Old Icelandic Homily Book, copied about the year 1200, sev- _ eral decades after the compilation of Cotton Vespasian D. XIV: see The Icelandic Homily Book. Perg. 15 4° in the Royal Library, Stockholm, ed. Andrea De

Leeuw Van Weenen, Islensk handrit: Icelandic Manuscripts, Series in Quarto 3 (Reykjavik, 1993), fol. 94r. The Icelandic text resembles none of Forster’s text types and is unlike the much later (fourteenth-century) Icelandic version printed and discussed by Forster, “Die Legende,” p. 121. ® The Old English sermon is edited and discussed by Forster, “Die spataltenglische Ubersetzung der Pseudo-Anselmischen Marienpredigt,” in Anglica: Untersuchungen zur englischen Philologie Alois Brandl zum stebzigsten Geburtstage

tiberreicht, 2 vols., Palaestra 147-48 (Leipzig, 1925), vol. 2, pp. 8-69. On the

sermon’s Latin source, see J. A. Endres, “Die neunte Homilie des hl. Anselmus,” Historischen Jahrbuch 30 (1909): 799-806; André Wilmart, “Les homélies attribuées a s. Anselme,” AHDLMA 2 (1927): 5-29 and 339-41; 131

Thomas N. Hall | ster, who devoted several detailed studies to the contents of this manuscript, to the career of Ralph d’Escures, and to the history of the Trinubium Annae, speculated that Ralph’s Latin sermon was composed between 1089 and 1100,” that the English translation of the sermon was made at the earliest between 1108 and 1122,° and that the English translation of the Trinubium Annae appended to it was written between 1100 and 1140.” As will be

| apparent from the text printed below, the Old English Trinubium so closely parallels the St John’s Latin version that it must

be regarded as a member of the same textual tradition. The most significant difference between the two (apart from language) is an added sentence at the beginning of the Old English which might well be construed as a prefatory or transitional statement affixed by the translator: We wylled eow nu sum dzl gereccen emben hyre neamagen,

be hire besibbe wxron. Anna and Emeria weron gesustre. Of Emeria wes geboren Elisabeth, Johannes moder pes fulhtres. Of Anna was geboren Maria, Cristes moder.

And pa pa hire were Joachim wes fordfaren, pa genam Anna efter Moyses x oderne were, pe wes genamd Cleophas. Of pan

heo hefde an odre dohter. Seo was eac genemd Maria efter bere zrre dohter. pas man cleoped Maria Cleophe; for heo wes his dohter. Da beweddede Cleophas Josephe his brodre Marian,

pes helendes moder, pe wes his steopdohter. And his agene | dohter Marien he geaf Alpheon, of pare was geboren Jacob se lesse and se oder Joseph. Des Jacob was geclypod Jacobus Alphej; for he wes Alphees sune.

Daget xfter Cleophas deade Anna efter pxre lage genam bone pridde were, pan wes to name Salomas. Of him heo hefde ba pridde dohter. And pa heo genamden eac Marien for pzre

| deorewurOnysse of bere forme dohter and for pan pe se zngel , Forster, “Abt Raoul d’Escures und der spatae. Sermo in festis S. Mariae,” Archiv 162 (1932): 43-48; and J. E. Cross, “Ralph d’Escures, Homily on the Virgin,” in Sources of Anglo-Saxon Literary Culture: A Trial Version, ed. Biggs et al., p. 157. *! Forster, “Abt Raoul d’Escures,” p. 44. * Ibid., pp. 46-47.

® Forster, “Die spataltenglische Ubersetzung,” pp. 57-58; Férster, “Die Legende,” p. 117. 132

| The Earliest Anglo-Latin Text of the Trinubium Annae | brohte pone name. Seo wes bewedded Zebedeo. Of pare weron geborene Jacob se mycele and Iohannes se godspellere.

Maria, pes lasse Jacobes moder, and Maria, pas mare Jacobes moder and Johannes bes godspelleres, and Maria seo Magdalenissce, sohten urne drihten mid smerigeles inne his pruge, ba ba he gebyriged was.”

Apart from minor stylistic differences and the fact that the Old English has the three Marys seek out Christ with ointment (mid smerigeles) rather than spices (cum aromatibus), the stories agree

in every essential detail, including the repeated assertion that Anne’s decision to remarry after the death of each husband was

: sanctioned by Mosaic law. This claim appears in no other recension of the Trinubitum Annae, in either verse or prose, and it is tempting to think some influence from English legal practice

| may be involved here since this idea is also upheld in eleventhcentury English law, which under Athelred and Cnut granted widows the right to choose their own partners if they wished to remalry, so long as they waited twelve months after the death of their husband.®

** Early English Homilies from the Twelfth Century MS. Vesp. D. XIV, ed. Rubie D.-

N. Warner, EETS OS 152 (London, 1917; reprint 1971), p. 139, lines 3-24. “We now wish to tell you something about her close relatives who were her cousins. Anne and Emeria were sisters. Emeria gave birth to Elisabeth, the mother of John the Baptist. Anne gave birth to Mary, the mother of Christ. And after her husband Joachim died, Anne took another husband, according to the law of Moses, who was named Cleophas. With him she had another daughter. She was also named Mary after the first daughter. She is called Mary Cleophas, for she was his [Cleophas’s] daughter. Then Cleo-

phas betrothed Mary, the Savior’s mother, who was his step-daughter, to his | brother Joseph. And he gave his own daughter Mary to Alpheus, to whom

James the Less and the other Joseph were born. This James was called James Alpheus, for he was the son of Alpheus. Moreover, after Cleophas’s death Anne took a third husband according to the law who was named Salome. With him she had a third daughter, and she also named her Mary in honor of the first daughter and because the angel had brought her that name. She was married to Zebedee. To her were born James the Greater and John the Evangelist. Mary, the mother of James the Less, and Mary, the mother of James the Greater and John the Evangelist, and Mary Magdalene sought our Lord with ointment in his tomb where he was buried.” ® V Athelred 21.1, VI Athelred 26.1, I Cnut 73: The Laws of the Kings of England from Edmund to Henry f, ed. and trans. A. J. Robertson (Cambridge,

133 ,

1925), pp. 8485, 98-99, 210-11; English Historical Documents c. 500-1042, ed.

Dorothy Whitelock, 2nd ed. (London and New York, 1979), pp. 445, 465; Theodore John Rivers, “Widows’ Rights in Anglo-Saxon Law,” American Journal of Legal History 19 (1975): 208-15, at 213; Andreas Fischer, Engage-

Thomas N. Hall

On the basis of the foregoing evidence I would like to propose that the version of the Trinubium Annae known to the Bollandists as BHL 505zl was first excerpted from Haymo’s Epitome of Sacred History and circulated as an independent apocryphon in England, and that a copy closely related to the one in

Cambridge, St John’s College 35, served as the immediate source of the Old English translation in Cotton Vespasian D. XIV. In his seminal investigations into the Trinubium’s textual history, Forster found reason to argue that the prose recensions of this apocryphon originated in either England or Normandy around the end of the eleventh century, and while I think he must have been right about the date, I now think it possible to exclude Normandy from this equation, at least in so far as it pertains to BHL 505zl. There are several witnesses to other recensions of the Trnubium Annae from the late-eleventh and © twelfth centuries from various parts of the European Continent,” and until those recensions are carefully studied and edited it will be difficult to say exactly where this entire complex of Tnnubium texts was composed or in what sequence its various members were produced. But the fundamental facts governing the history of BHL 505zl make it difficult not to think that this particular prose recension originated in England. That is, if the earliest surviving Latin copy was written at Bury St Edmunds not far from the year 1100, and if the earliest translation into any vernacular was an English translation made at Canter-

bury or Rochester in the early twelfth century, and if no other copy or translation of BHL 505zl is known to have existed anywhere in Europe for nearly a century afterward, only to reappear next in a manuscript produced in England, then there is ment, Wedding and Marnage in Old English, Anglistische Forschungen 176 (Heidelberg, 1986), p. 19; Rolf H. Bremmer Jr., “Widows in Anglo-Saxon England,” in Between Poverty and the Pyre: Moments in the History of Widowhood,

ed. Jan Bremmer and Lourens van den Bosch (London and New York, 1995), pp. 58-88, at 67-68, with several notable examples of Anglo-Saxon royal widows who later remarried at 61-65. “© Most crucially, several early examples have been noted by Gijsel, Die unmittelbare Textiberlieferung, in manuscripts containing the Gospel of Pseudo-Mat-

thew and other Marian apocrypha (see above, n. 20). In addition, it should be pointed out that some of Forster’s other text types have strong English connections, including his metrical recension no. 1 (BHL 505v; inc. “Nupta fuit Joachim”): of the five manuscripts listed by Forster, four are English or have English connections, and two are dated by him to the eleventh century. See Forster, “Die Legende,” p. 107. 134

The Earliest Anglo-Latin Text of the Trinubium Annae

good reason to think BHL 505zl is a composition of English | origin. Because of a couple of apparent copying errors (the misspelling of nuntiantt as nuntiati in the sentence concerning Anne’s marriage to Salome and the omission of the word mater in the last sentence), the St John’s text is almost certainly not the original — and for that matter the original need not have been written at Bury St Edmunds — but if the original was from Bury, its transmission from Bury to Canterbury or Rochester, where it was translated into English in the early twelfth cen-

tury, would not be hard to explain. Abbot Baldwin was a close friend and personal physician to Archbishop Lanfranc, who corresponded with Baldwin and who visited him at Bury on more than one occasion,®’ and the monastic communities of Bury and Canterbury were in close contact,” particularly after 1107, when the elder Anselm enacted a policy that required Bury abbots to be consecrated exclusively by the archbishop of For the correspondence between Lanfranc and Baldwin (a single undated letter in which Lanfranc addresses Baldwin as his friend), see The Letiers of

Lanfranc, ed. Clover and Gibson, pp. 104-5 (no. 22). In October 1071 Baldwin accompanied Lanfranc to Rome, where Lanfranc received the pallium and Baldwin secured a comprehensive privilege for Bury abbey; and in the late 1070s Lanfranc held a shire court at Bury to settle the notorious

dispute between Baldwin and Bishop Herfast of Thetford: see Margaret Gibson, Lanfranc of Bec (Oxford, 1978), pp. 118, 133, 157.

“ To judge, at any rate, from the patterns of book production at Bury, St Augustine’s, and Christ Church, which share some common features. For affinities between the scripts practiced at Bury and St Augustine’s in the period right around the year 1100, see Richard Gameson, “English Manuscript Art in the Late Eleventh Century: Canterbury and Its Contexts,” in Canterbury and the Norman Conquest: Churches, Saints and Scholars 1066-1109,

ed. Richard Eales and Richard Sharpe (London and Rio Grande, OH, 1995), pp. 95-144, at 102-3 and n. 28. On twelfth-century connections between Bury and Christ Church, see T. A. M. Bishop, “Notes on Cambridge Manuscripts Part I,” Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society |

(1949-53): 432-40, at 438. One book that migrated from Canterbury to Bury is Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Rawlinson C. 697 (SC 12541; NE France, s. ix“), a collection of works by Aldhelm and Prudentius with corrections in a tenth-century square minuscule hand from St Augustine’s abbey; it was at Bury St Edmunds by the thirteenth century: Dumville, English Caroline Script, p. 97. On the Canterbury-Bury connections of two other manuscripts (London, BL, MS Cotton Vespasian D. XII and London, Lambeth Palace MS 362), see Inge B. Milfull, The Hymns of the Anglo-Saxon Church: A Study and Edition of the “Durham Hymnal”, CSASE 17 (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 54-55, 64. There is also the case of the “Bury Psalter” (see above, p. 123 and n. 51-53). 135

Thomas N. Hall

Canterbury, an arrangement that placed the Bury abbey dlrectly under Canterbury’s primatial control.” As for the question of what role the Trinubium Annae itself

may have played in furthering devotion to Anne and Mary in the decades following the turn of the twelfth century, it is worth observing that in spite of its brevity and relative obscurity, this minor apocryphon is the first independent text of any kind to © articulate a set of familial relationships that fulfilled a basic requirement for a popular understanding of Mary’s conception and _ nativity. If Mary was to be venerated as a saint specially marked at her conception and birth, and if the feasts of her

Conception and Nativity were to be observed with special sollemnity, then something had to be known about the circumstances surrounding these two events, which means something

had to be known about the woman who conceived and bore |

her. No such information concerning Mary’s mother or her family was to be found in the Bible, however, so it had to be supplied from elsewhere, and this was accomplished with remarkable efficiency by the Trinubium Annae. By naming Mary's

| mother and sisters, and by identifying their husbands and children as well, the Trinubium Annae provides a rare glimpse into the social world in which Mary was conceived and born, and in

the process clarifies some of the family ties left ill-defined in

scripture. In this way it functions as a kind of genealogical primer that establishes a necessary context in which devotion to Mary and Anne as members of a Holy Family is possible. This is no doubt why the Trinubium is so frequently copied as an appendix to Marian sermons or other Marian apocrypha: because it functions as much as an aid to devotion as a focus of devotion itself. Needless to say, such an aid would have been in demand

at a time when the feast of the Conception had already been solidly established in England (even if it was suffering a temporary eclipse) and when the cult of St Anne was simultaneously in the process of gaining ground. Beyond this, the impact of the Trinubium Annae on English devotion to Mary and Anne is difficult to measure, but there is

one further clue to the nature of its influence in England before it came to be widely known elsewhere. Sometime during

the second half of the twelfth century a debate broke out 89 Sally N. Vaughn, Anselm of Bec and Robert of Meulan: The Innocence of the Dove and the Wisdom of the Serpent (Berkeley, CA, 1987), pp. 329-32. 136

\;

The Earliest Anglo-Latin Text of the Trinubium Annae

among several English churchmen over the question of

whether the biblical Salome was a man or woman.” The par-

. ticipants in this debate included Archbishop Roger of York (1154-81), Gilbert of Sempringham (f 1189) and a little-known figure named Maurice who was prior of the Augustinian mon- _ astery of Kirkham in Yorkshire (ca. 1153 x ca. 1188). It seems that an unknown writer, identified by Maurice only as “quidam doctor erroneus,” had composed a sermon or tract arguing that

the Salome who is said to accompany Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James to the sepulchre in Mark 16:1 was a man rather than a woman, and this argument had attracted a | sufficient number of adherents that they could be collectively dubbed “Salomites.” The error of this idea so enraged Maurice

| that he unleashed a series of heated letters to Roger and Gilbert passionately defending the femininity of Salome and at

one point accusing a member of Gilbert’s order of publicly preaching in favor of the Salomite position.” Just how long such a debate had been going on is not clear, but a prime source of Maurice’s displeasure is made quite apparent when in the midst of one of his letters to Gilbert he quotes a verse text of the Trnubtum Annae beginning “Tres tribus Anna uiris legi-

tur peperisse Marias / Tresque uiri Joochim, Cleophas,

Salomeque fuere” as an example of the way in which this heretical notion had become popularized.” By 1181, in other words, which is the latest possible date this exchange could have taken place, the legend of the three marriages of St Anne had become elevated to a point of ecclesiastical debate, had entered popular preaching, and had occasioned a rift in the Gilbertine order, all within a few decades of the copying of the St John’s text, and still several decades before Anne was to be culted to any appreciable extent on the Continent. By this time, it would appear, the legend had already begun to insert itself securely into the English religious consciousness. YM. R. James, “The Salomites,” JTS 35 (1934): 287-97; de Gaiffier, “Le Trinubium Annae,” pp. 293-94; Ashley and Sheingorn, “Introduction,” pp. 14-16. *! James, “The Salomites,” p. 294. ” Ibid., p. 291. This is BHL 505zc.

137

Reconciling Family and Faith: Alfric’s Lives of Saints ~and Domestic Dramas of Conversion , _* DABNEY ANDERSON BANKERT

7p iRic s two-volume collection of Lives of Saints, which survives in its entirety in a single manuscript, London, BL, MS Cotton Julius E. VII, is notable for the size and diversity of its contents.’ One of the collection’s common themes, what Karl F. Morrison has called “the one great theme” of hagiography, is religious conversion, which serves as a backdrop before which various social dramas are performed.’ A significant number of ' There are, however, a number of non-lfrician texts added to the collection (it is unknown by whom), and some Lives do not follow the expected liturgical order but rather appear to be linked thematically. For the most recent study of the extant manuscripts, see Joyce Hill, “Che Dissemination of Alfric’s Lives of Saints: A Preliminary Survey,” in Holy Men and Holy Women: Old English Prose Saints’ Lives and Ther Contexts, ed. Paul E. Szarmach (Albany, NY, 1996), pp. 235-59. Hill’s survey updates the older one by W. W. Skeat, “Account of Manuscripts” and “Table of Manuscripts,” in his edition of -£lfric’s Lives of Saints, EETS OS 76, 82, 94, 114 (London, 18811900; reprinted in 2 vols., Oxford, 1966), vol. 2, pp. vii-xxv, Ivii-lxii. All the texts are translations — some relatively faithful and many quite free — of Latin originals. Many of the sources remain unidentified or conjectural; see Adam Dunbar McCoy, “The Use of the Writings of English Authors in Old

, English Homiletic Literature” (unpublished PhD dissertation, Cornell University, 1973), pp. 208-14; Grant Loomis, “Further Sources of Ifric’s Saints’ Lives,” Harvard Studies and Notes in Philology and Literature 13 (1931): 1-8; J. Heinrich Ott, Uber die Quellen der Heiligenleben in Alfric’s Lives of Satnts

I (Halle, 1892); and selected studies listed by Luke M. Reinsma, ifric: An

Annotated Bibliography (New York, 1987), pp. 247-64. More recently, Patrick H. Zettel has argued for 4lfric’s use of the so-called Cotton-Corpus Legendary, but how extensive that use was remains to be determined: Zettel, “A:lfric’s Hagiographic Sources and the Latin Legendary Preserved in B.L. MS

Cotton Nero E. i + CCCC MS 9 and Other Manuscripts” (unpublished DPhil dissertation, Oxford University, 1979), and “Saints’ Lives in Old Eng- ,

| 138

lish: Latin Manuscripts and Vernacular Accounts: A‘lfric,” Peritia 1 (1982):

, 17-37. See also Michael Lapidge, “lfric’s Sanctorale,” in Holy Men and Holy Women, ed. Szarmach, pp. 115-30. ? Karl F. Morrison, Understanding Conversion (Charlottesville, VA, 1992), p. 61.

Reconciling Family and Faith

the Lives act out family crises instigated by the conversion of one or more members of a pagan family. These crises result from the pressures placed on the economic health, political fortunes, and social standing of families by the introduction of Christianity; and they articulate the troubled relationship between pre-Christian tradition and post-Christian reform as it is worked out at the level of society and the individual.

A number of the Lives which take conversion as a central

theme fall into the subgenre of the virgin martyr legend, the basic plot or paradigm of which is that a young Christian desires to remain a virgin but is wooed by and/or betrothed to a pagan against her will.” Her refusal to accept the suitor precipitates an attempt, either by the suitor himself or by a judge or a

similar authority figure, to force her to deny Christ and sacri- | fice to pagan idols. The stories dramatize the conflict between virginity and the imperatives of family, chiefly the retention and

extension of property through marriage and heirs. A distinct element of the female version of the paradigm is the torture and death of the virgin as punishment for her rejection of the suitor and her denunciation of the pagan gods. The purpose of this essay is to consider two such Lives — those of St Agnes and St Gallicanus (though the latter is firstly

the story of Constantia, daughter of the Emperor Constantine) |

— which fall into, or rather have been presumed to fall into, this category.’ While the collection is chiefly arranged according to the liturgical year, these two Lives are joined in Julius E. VII, a pairing that not only violates liturgical order since the feasts of Agnes (21 January) and Gallicanus (26 June) are five months apart, but also juxtaposes what appear to be opposing behavioral models and opposing lessons on the role and meaning of virginity for the Christian convert. In both stories the > The protagonists are typically female (Agnes, Constantia, Agatha, Lucy, Cecilia, and Eugenia, for example), but there are two narratives in the collection featuring male protagonists (St Julian and St Chrysanthus), which I hope to make the subject of a future study. For a careful analysis of the forms and social functions of the virgin martyr legend, see Karen A. Winstead, Virgin Martyrs: Legends of Sainthood in Late Medieval England (Ithaca,

NY, 1997). !

* The story of Constantia and Gallicanus is untitled in Cotton Julius E. VII, where it 1s headed only by reference to its author, Terrentianus. Because there are two protagonists, I have chosen to refer to it as the vita of “Constantia/Gallicanus.” 139

Dabney Anderson Bankert

protagonist is a devout young woman faced with an unwelcome threat to her virginity by a pagan suitor, but their responses to the threat are dramatized differently. While Agnes conforms to

the virgin martyr paradigm, haughtily refusing her suitor (an | act which leads to her martyrdom), Constantia manages to escape both marriage and martyrdom. Neither confrontational nor antagonistic, she avoids conflict as adeptly as Agnes appears

to seek it. While both suitors are converted, their experiences are quite different, even diametrically opposed.

In Agnes’s viia, narrative emphasis is placed on the two scenes which dramatize through dialogue the conflict between Christian and pagan viewpoints: a first scene depicting Agnes’s verbal abuse of her suitor (whom she compares unfavorably with Christ), and a second focusing on her discourse with his displeased father, Sempronius, the idolatrous prefect of Rome. In Constantia’s story, on the other hand, emphasis is gradually

and skillfully shifted from Constantia to her _ suitor, Constantine’s general Gallicanus, who himself becomes the “virgin” martyr. In fact, Constantia’s story can not accurately be classified as a virgin martyr narrative at all since she is only secondarily the focus of the struggle between pagan and Christian

_ values, and she is neither physically tortured nor martyred. In

; addressing this unlikely pairing, I am concerned chiefly with understanding the literary implications of the Cotton Julius E. VII compilation as it stands, not with any reconstruction of the manuscript as Alfric might have issued it. Still, as Joyce Hill points out, the fact that the prefaces are still attached suggests that Cotton Julius E. VII is not far removed from the original.’ It is, therefore, possible to speculate to a limited extent about authorial design, and in the case of these two Lives evidence of deliberate pairing is substantial. What, then, can we deduce of fElfric’s aims and motives in pairing these two very different stories? > Hill, “Dissemination,” p. 235 and n. 5. Two excellent studies of A‘lfric’s working methods are J. E. Cross, “The Literate Anglo-Saxon — On Sources and Disseminations,” PBA 58 (1972): 67-100; and J. E. Cross, “Alfric — Mainly on Memory and Creative Method in Two Catholic Homilies,” SN 41

(1969): 135-55. An early but still valuable discussion is Caroline Louisa , White, 4lfric: A New Study of His Life and Writings, Yale Studies in English 2 (Boston, MA, 1898). 140

Reconciling Family and Faith

Although we might expect to find an answer to this question in the Latin and Old English prefaces which A‘lfric attached to Julius E. VII, they too present interpretive problems.” Their respective expositions are similar in only two respects: first, in A‘lfric’s characterization of the contents as “passiones etiam uel wztas sanctorum illorum quos non uulgus sed coenobite officiis uenerantur” (“the passions and lives of those saints

whom not the people, but the monks, honor in special services,” LS 1.2); and second, in his definition of the collection’s purposes — education and encouragement of those who are “fide torpentes” (“slothful in the faith,” LS I.2).” These twin goals — education and inspiration — are hardly as transparent as they might appear (at least at this great remove), and are intimately bound up with questions of audience, about which

he‘It isispossible, lesshowever, explicit. : to determine why the Lives of

Agnes and Constantia/Gallicanus were paired, despite their perplexing and seemingly irreconcilable depictions of chastity. The solution to this puzzle lies, I believe, in the joining itself, specifically in the ways that joining historicizes the two vitae. I

will suggest that the textual fusion itself signals a method of reading that is not hopelessly oppositional, but rather progressively historical and prescriptive. In short, the two vitae do teach

a lesson, but the lesson is dynamic, not static, and it urges its audience to place themselves appropriately in the expansive landscape of Christian history. Whether it was the work of A‘lfric or a compiler, the pairing is consistent with what we know of Alfric’s methods and teaching interests. fElfric translated the stories of “St Agnes, Virgin” and Terrentianus’s story of Constantia and Gallicanus from as yet uni-

dentified Latin sources. Adam McCoy suggests that Agnes is “close to but not identical to Pseudo-Ambrose, S[ermo] 48, ‘In festo Agnetis Virginis et Martyris.’”” The story of Constantia and | 6 Alfric wrote prefaces to his Catholic Homilies, Grammar, Lives of Saints, Hexameron, Genesis, and Vita S. delwoldi, among others. A recent edition is 4-

141

fric’s Prefaces, ed. Jonathan Wilcox, Durham Medieval Texts 9 (Durham, 1994). An older one is White, £/fnic, pp. 165-82.

’ All quotations are from Skeat’s edition (hereafter LS), cited within the text by volume and page number. * McCoy, “The Use of the Writings of English Authors,” p. 209; LS no. 7A. An edition of this hymn is in PL 17, 701-5.

Dabney Anderson Bankert | | Gallicanus is closest to the Passio S. Gallicani (BHL 3236-3238) .”

There is nearly conclusive evidence that Alfric conceived of these stories as companion pieces. The two Lives are associated

historically (Constantia is both healed and converted by St Agnes’s intercession), but neither the posited sources nor other early medieval versions combine them. For example, both Lives —

are included in the first manuscript of the two which are together identified as the Cotton-Corpus Legendary (or more accurately the Worcester Legendary), London, BL, MS Cotton | Nero E. I, but the Passion of Agnes appears in Part 1, and the story of Constantia, titled “the Passion of Saints Gallicanus, Pe-

ter and Paul,” in Part 2."° Neither Aldhelm’s prose nor poetic De virginitate, texts with which A‘lfric may have been familiar

considering their popularity in tenth-century England, combines them. They are combined in the one complete manuscript of Lives of Sainis, Cotton Julius E. VII, however, and in two

eleventh-century fragments of the collection, London, BL, MSS

| Cotton Otho B. X and Cotton Vitellius D. XVII.'' Moreover, in | /Elfric’s version the stories are not simply appended, one to the

| other, but are linked by a prose transition that combines the various elements of the two legends into a single cohesive narrative.

Agnes is only thirteen, “cild-lic on gearum and eald-lic on mode” (“a child in years, but old in mind”), when she is wooed by the prefect’s son who offers her “deorwurée gyrlan” (“costly ” The Latin passio is edited by Boninus Mombritius, Sanctuarium seu Vitae Sanctorum, 2nd ed., 2 vols. (Paris, 1910; reprint Hildesheim and New York, 1978), vol. 1, pp. 318-20. See McCoy, “The Use of the Writings of English Authors,” p. 209; LS no. 7B; and E. G. Whatley, “Late Old English Hagiography, ca. 950-1150,” in Hagtographies: Histoire internationale de la littérature hagiographique latine et vernaculaire en Occtdent des ongines a 1550, ed. Guy

Philippart, 2 vols., Corpus Christianorum (Turnhout, 1994-96), vol. 2, pp. 429-99, at 468, 481.

0 For an explanation of the name confusion, see Rosalind C. Love, ed. and trans., Three Eleventh-Century Anglo-Latin Saints’ Lives: Vita S. Birint, Vita et Miracula S. Kenelmi and Vita §. Rumwoldi, Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford, 1996), pp. xvi-xvill. I follow Love here in calling the particular manuscripts the “Worcester Legendary.” A contents list of the Worcester Legendary is given by Michael Lapidge and Peter Jackson, “Appendix: The Contents of the Cotton-Corpus Legendary,” in Holy Men and Holy Women, ed. Szarmach, pp. 131-46.

" Hill, “Dissemination,” pp. 246-47; and Zettel, “Alfric’s Hagiographic Sources,” pp. 298-315; for Agnes, see ibid., p. 306. | 142

Reconciling Family and Faith

robes”), “deorwurda gimmas” (“precious gems”), and “woruldlice glencga” (“worldly ornaments,” LS 1.170). She responds in the impolitic way of virgin martyrs, telling him that she “pera maéma ne rohte pe ma pe reocendes meoxes” (“thought no more of the

treasures than of a reeking dunghill”), and imperiously and insultingly orders him away: “Gewit du fram me synne ontendnys leahtras foda and deades bigleafa gewit fram me. Ic habbe oderne lufiend pinne ungelican on xdelborennysse sede me bead beteran frategunga and his geleafan hring me let to wedde and me gefratewode mid unasmeagendlicra wuréfulnysse” (LS 1.170-72).'°

In the lengthy comparison of the two suitors which follows, Agnes associates the rejected youth with worldly sustenance and worthless treasures, Christ with spiritual nourishment and precious adornments, and she does so in distinctly erotic language

which heightens the insult to Sempronius’s son.'” The angry youth takes to his bed, “and siccetunga teah of niwel-licum breoste” (“and drew sighs from deep in his breast”) — a classic symptom of lovesickness — while his father assumes negotiations (LS 1.174).

Although Sempronius does resort to threats, he is not depicted as the bullheaded and sadistic judge or persecutor typi-

cal of such dramas. Sensible to Agnes’s youth and acknow- |

ledging that she is wise for her years, he first attempts to reason with her, but it quickly becomes clear that they are arguing at cross-purposes.'* Sempronius is a heathen, by definition incapable of understanding the transformation she has undergone. He simply thinks differently about the relationship between the ' “Depart from me, you fuel of sin, food of crime, and nourishment of death, depart from me! I have another lover, unlike you in nobility, who has offered me better adornments, and has granted me for a pledge the ring of his faith, and has adorned me with unimaginable honor.” ' For example, “his bryd-bedd me is gearo nu iu mid dreamum” (“his bridal-bed has for a long time now been prepared for me with joys”); “Of his mude ic under-feng meoluc and hunig” (“from his mouth I have received milk and honey”); “ic eom beclypt mid his clenum earmum” (“I am embraced with His pure arms”); “his fagera lichama is minum geferleht” (“His fair body is united to mine”), etc. (LS1.172). '’ On the motif of young in years but old in mind, see J. A. Burrow, The Ages of Man: A Study in Medieval Wnting and Thought (New York, 1986), pp. 102112. 143

Dabney Anderson Bankert

human and “divine” worlds: there are multiple gods, each with

particular functions, and none prohibits the productive mingling of faith and family interests. For Sempronius, then, Agnes’s position is incomprehensible, and he demonstrates this

when he asks the identity of his son’s rival. Advisors subse| quently explain that Agnes has been a Christian since her early youth, “and swa mid dry-crefte afylled pat heo crist tealde hire to bryd-guman” (“and so filled with sorcery that she believed Christ

her bridegroom,” LS 1.174). The narrative strategy is remarkable in its attempt to approximate a non-Christian viewpoint. Sempronius does not think allegorically but literally. The dilemma facing readers of saints’ Lives could not be more aptly

put. Allegorical interpretation is central to the divine mystery |

andThetoconflict transmitted gospel. , between Christian and pagan worlds is

dramatized in the conflict between judge and saint. Sem- pronius’s strategy in response to the refractory Agnes’s refusal of his son is consistent with his worldly interests. Shamed that she would choose another man over his son, he first flatters her, then warns her friends that her refusal is placing her in danger, and finally appeals to her emotions by explaining how much his son loves her. But, explains the narrator, “him speow hwonlice peah pe he swide sprece” (“he succeeded little, even though he spoke much,” LS J.174). Finally, vexed by her obstinate refusal to reconsider, he demands that she renounce her Christian faith or suffer “menig-fealde wita” (“many torments,” _ LS 1.174). But Sempronius is not a typical enraged and bestial foil to the virgin’s steadfast purity. His threat is tempered by the offer that accompanies it, which is consistent with his more complex characterization. If she wishes to remain a virgin, he tells her, she must do so in a way that is acceptable to the pagan culture they inhabit: “Hlyst minum rade gif du lufast megd-had, pat du gebuge mid

| biggengum hrade to pare gydenan uesta be galnysse onscunad.”

(LS 1.176)" |

'* “Listen to my advice if you love virginity; that you submit quickly to worship

of the goddess Vesta, who hates impurity.” , 144

Reconciling Family and Faith

But Agnes remains unshakeable in her commitment to serve Christ, and it is only when she abuses his gods that Sempronius loses patience and has her dragged to a brothel:

“Ic forber pe 06 pis fordan pe du gyt cild eart. Pu tzlst ure godas ... . Geceos pe nu agnes an pera twegra ... pinne lac geoftrige (to Vesta) 056e pu lajum myltestrum scealt beon geferleht and fullice gebysmrod.” (LS 1.176)"

As reprehensible as his exasperated judgment is, Sempronius’s efforts to change Agnes’s allegiance to pagan gods speak to a

_ problem of perennial concern to missionaries: how to teach potential converts that becoming a Christian means more than

merely changing one’s allegiance to a particular god. The Christian God is not simply a different god, and He does not suffer idolaters, as Agnes points out."”

Sempronius’s relative patience is further highlighted by his son’s despicable behavior after Agnes is dragged to the brothel. First goading friends to rape Agnes and then attempting it himself when divine intervention prevents them, he is struck dead for the attempted seduction and is then resurrected through Agnes’s intercession, an experience which effects his conversion. The heathen crowd interprets the youth’s death and resurrection, his sudden profession of Christ, and his condemnation of the pagan gods as the product of wicce-creft,

, and he is alienated from his family and community. The troubled Sempronius, unable or unwilling to calm the crowd, withdraws, leaving the deputy prefect to deal with Agnes (LS 1.182).

The story concludes with her martyrdom by beheading and Sempronius’s loss of his son, not to love, but to the Christian faith. The theme of the relationship between wisdom and age is thus fully dramatized. Sempronius’s son, in contrast to Agnes’s remarkable wisdom for her young years, is the paradigm of the foolish and imprudent youth. Sempronius, even misguided as he is by “deadum anlicnyssum” (“dead images”), is still an ex'° “T have borne with you up till now as you are still a child, but you insult our

gods. ... Choose now Agnes, one of two things . .. make your offering [to Vesta] or you shall be associated with loathsome harlots and foully dishonored.”

| 145

'’ Agnes tells Sempronius that “Nis na godes wunung on dam gregum stanum ne on xrenum wecgum ac he wunad on heofonum” (“God’s dwelling is not in the gray stones, nor in brazen lumps, but in Heaven,” LS1.78).

Dabney Anderson Bankert , emplar of the wisdom of age. This makes his treatment of Agnes more ignoble, but it also elucidates his dramatic role. Age alone, Agnes explains, is no guarantee of wisdom: “Se zlmihtiga herad swidor manna mod ponne heora mycclan ylde and se

geleafa ne biS on gearum ac bid on glewum andgitum” (“The Al-

mighty approves the minds of men rather than their great age; and faith is not in years, but dwells in prudent understandings,” LS 1.176). Despite its miraculous content, then, the narrative dramatizes the conflict between viewpoints in consistent and

credible ways. -

Elfric links Agnes’s vita to Constantia’s by chronologically combining three parts of the Agnes legend.’* After her death, he explains, Agnes appears with a host of virgins to comfort her parents; this vision was “swide gewidmersod” (“widely spread,” LS

1.184). Later, during Constantine’s reign, Agnes’s story is related to his daughter Constantia, who, like her father, is heathen. She is also very ill, “on eallum limum egeslice wunda” (“with

terrible wounds in all her limbs,” LS 1.184). Hoping the saint can cure her, Constantia prays at Agnes’s tomb and is rewarded with a vision in which the saint appears and promises healing in exchange for Constantia’s conversion to the Christian faith and

| her pledge to remain a virgin. The narrative details of the transition, however, prepare readers for a story they do not get. A

woman’s adoption of the Christian faith and her attendant pledge of virginity are invitations to martyrdom in the virgin martyr genre, a convention with which readers are all too famil-

iar since Agnes’s story is so tightly linked to the Constantia/Gallicanus narrative. Yet Constantia’s circumstances differ , significantly from Agnes’s. She has a loving and apparently in-

dulgent father who is joyous over her cure; both are baptized gratefully, and Constantia has a church built for Agnes. The transition explains the spiritual connection between Agnes and Constantia, and provides the motivation for Constantia’s conversion and vow of chastity as well as for Constantine’s conversion. It is only at this point in the narrative that the manuscript rubric “Alia Sententia quam scripsit Terrentianvs” is inserted, '8 For these, see The Old French Lives of Saint Agnes and Other Vernacular Versions

of the Middle Ages, ed. Alexander Denomy (Cambridge, MA, 1938), pp. 65115. A new edition of the story of Agnes is by Carla Morini, ed., La passione di S. Agata di -lfric di Eynsham, Bibliotheca Germanica, Studi e testi (Ales-

sandria, 1993). 7 , 146

Reconciling Family and Faith

signaling a change in source but not in subject or theme. Yet in

this transition an important historical shift has occurred. Constantine is the first Christian emperor, a role that has significant implications for understanding the characters’ actions and the thematic import of the joined vitae. Terrentianus’s story concerns the wooing of Constantia by Constantine’s heathen general Gallicanus. His interest troubles Constantine, who knows his daughter “hrador wolde sweltan bonne ceorlian” (“would rather die than marry,” LS 1.188). Rec-

ognizing and sharing her father’s concern, Constantia offers a solution. Her father is to agree to the marriage and to ask that the general’s two daughters be allowed to live with her so that she might learn the general’s ways and they might learn hers prior to the nuptials. She also asks that her trusted advisors John and Paul accompany Gallicanus on his expedition against the Scythians. Her subsequent prayers for the conversion of Gallicanus and his two daughters are answered. The daughters convert immediately (the mechanism by which this occurs is unclear), and we learn the details of the general’s conversion from Gallicanus himself when he returns, victorious, from battle.

Outnumbered and besieged by the Scythians, betrayed by

his own troops after an ineffectual appeal to his gods, Gallicanus flees rather than surrender. It is at this desperate mo-

ment that John and Paul urge him to exchange a vow to

worship the Christian God for a victory. When Gallicanus

agrees, an angel appears bearing a cross and leading “fela englas ... On manna gelicnyssum merlice gewxpnode” (“many angels in the likeness of men, gloriously armed,” LS 1.190). With this angelic army he defeats the Scythians, many of whom he converts

in lieu of killing them. After relating the events, he advises Constantine that he has sworn never to marry but instead “gode mzge peowian on sodre ewfestnysse swa ic bam elmihtigan behet” (“to serve God in true devotion, as I vowed to the Almighty,” LS

I.192). When Constantine informs him that both his promised wife and his daughters are already Christian, Gallicanus rejoices, and with this the women are, as they say, “out of the saga.” They simply continue in virginity “merlice drohtniende 06 bet hi gewiton of worulde to criste” (“leading glorious lives, until

they departed from the world to Christ,” LS [.192). Narrative focus shifts completely to Gallicanus, who frees five thousand 147

Dabney Anderson Bankert

men, distributes his goods, wealth and estates to the poor, and with the holy Hilarion, serves the poor before being banished by Julian, “se ... arleasa widersece” (“the infamous apostate”), and

is killed by heathen in the desert (LS 1.192-94). Terrentianus’s story does not end here, however.

After Gallicanus’s death, John and Paul (Constantia’s spiritual advisors who successfully urged Gallicanus’ conversion), are martyred for refusing to sacrifice to idols and are buried in their house. The orders are given by Julian but carried out by “sumne hadenne wer terrentianus gehaten” (“a certain

heathen man called Terrentianus,” LS 1.194). Some time later the son of this Terrentianus, “mid sweartum deofle afylled” (“filled

with a black devil,” LS 1.194), runs raving to the saints’ burial

place. His repentant father goes to the sepulchers, confesses his sin, and is baptized, an act which effects his son’s cure. In short, Agnes is displaced by Constantia, Constantia is displaced by her suitor, and Constantine the family man is displaced by his general, who earns both earthly and heavenly rewards for his military victory, apostolic service, and glorious martyrdom for the faith. Gallicanus is, in turn, displaced by John and Paul, whose

martyrdom is the catalyst for the conversion of their executioner and the author of our story. This series of displacements presents a number of interpretive difficulties, the most troublesome of which are the very different models of female response to unwelcome marriage suits, and the usurpation of Eusebius’s popular story of Constantine’s conversion on the eve of his battle with Maxentius by his general. There is a limited critical tradition for A‘lfric’s Lives and it is, perhaps not surprisingly, relatively consistent in assessing the

collection’s function as chiefly mimetic and exemplary. A‘lfric

himself suggests as much when he expresses the wish in the Latin preface that the passions of the martyrs will both “refresh” and “revive” a weak faith (LS 1.1). Dorothy Bethurum takes this to mean that the Lives were intended to provide models of men and women who had “felt the charms of the older religion, but had steadfastly refused to be allured by its specious rewards”; thus the Lives collectively served as a call to

English Christians to “stamp out every trace of paganism.”™ '? Dorothy Bethurum, “The Form of 4 lfric’s Lives of Saints,” SP 29 (1932): 515-33, at 533. Bethurum bases this assumption on her detailed comparison of twelve of the collection’s Lives with versions from the Acta Sanctorum. , Her comparison, while outdated by the work of Zettel and others on the

148 ,

| Reconciling Family and Faith More specifically, Rosemary Woolf concludes that at the foun-

, dation of the virgin martyr narratives “lies the traditional and

reasonable idealisation of virginity” as a central virtue.” While such assessments are undoubtedly correct so far as they go, they do not adequately account for the uneasy fusion of the Lives of

Agnes and Constantia/Gallicanus; nor do they offer insight into the principles behind A‘lfric’s decision to combine them. To conclude that these two vitae are exemplary or that they are idealized models poses the questions: Exemplary of what? Idealized how?

Two more recent studies grapple with the complex descriptive and thematic difficulties which the virgin martyrs pose. - Raymon S. Farrar attempts to codify their structure by identifying eight topoi common to the Lives:*

1. Mention of the saint’s good character; 2. A challenge to her chastity, although her virginity is never lost;

| 3. An attempt to sway her by a figure of authority; 4. A series of speeches delivered by the saint either praising Christ, expounding doctrine, or rebuking | | the foolishness of pagans and the impotence of their gods;

5. A series of torments; God sometimes intervenes to protect her; 6. Martyrdom by a sword blow; 7. Postmortem miracles;

8. The erection of a church on a site associated with her.

Noting that critics may have overlooked the complex significance and aims of the genre, he nevertheless concludes that the virgin martyrs’ “unswerving refusal to sacrifice to pagan idols, despite threats and torture, marks them as exemplars of Worcester Legendary, demonstrates that Alfric “was interested in narrative

... and very little in homiletic material, and omitted all that did not contribute to effective story-telling” (p. 519). ? Rosemary Woolf, “Saints’ Lives,” in Continuations and Beginnings: Studies in — Old English Literature, ed. Eric Gerald Stanley (London, 1966), pp. 37-66, at 60.

| “1 Raymon S. Farrar, “Structure and Function in Representative Old English Saints’ Lives,” Neophilologus 57 (1973): 83-93, at 84. 149

Dabney Anderson Bankert

fortitude or perseverance.” Because A‘lfric’s treatment of Agnes “adhere[s] so closely to the series of topoi,” Farrar concludes that it is “freely interchangeable” with other Lives (such as those of Agatha or Lucy). He thus concludes that “their primary import may lie in a direction other than historicity.” That direction is chiefly mimetic: There might no longer be persecutions; but male or female, one is to be chaste, forgiving, steadfast in his faith

| ... whether historical or not, (the saint) is a quasiallegorical figure, manifesting some aspect of the Christian life — and the totality of hagiography may well provide a psychomachia of the ideal mental states (and their active consequences) of the practicing Christian — and hence reflecting, in miniature, Christ Himself. Beyond intellectual acquiescence to these ideas, there must be action. As Christ did, so has His saint. So also should the reader. The controlling vision is always salvation history.”

Farrar’s structural analysis leads him to conclude, not so differ-

ently from Bethurum and Woolf, that “elements of something akin to allegory are present and of greater value in comprehending saints’ lives than are questions of historicism or lack thereof.”** Yet his description of the reader’s duty to follow the

| pattern the saint sets is, I think, largely accurate. What remains unclear is which model a tenth-century reader would have followed. While the Life of Agnes does adhere to these topoi, we _ cannot ignore the peculiarities of exposition and the thematic

complications which its fusion with the Constantia/Gallicanus narrative presents. Spiritualizing the narrative content dehistoricizes and obscures those narrative particulars that distin-

guish one vita from another, and which readers of the

Agnes/Constantia pair cannot help but notice. Indeed, the _ pairing seems to insist on the comparison.

Leaving the question of historicity unanswered for the moment, I turn to Thomas J. Heffernan’s study Sacred Biography: Saints and Their Biographers tn the Middle Ages, which takes a

somewhat different approach.” His definition of the virgin martyr narratives takes into account the uncomfortable vio-

Ibid., pp. 83, 86. ,

4 Ibid., p. 86. |

3 Thid., p. 86, 87.

»” Thomas J. Heffernan, Sacred Biography: Saints and Their Biographers in the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1988). 150

Reconciling Family and Faith

lence and the often “iconographic” characterization. Heffernan defines the virgin martyr legend as “a sacred tale which used a depiction or a plethora of physical abuse in a sexually deviant but undeniably erotic manner to illustrate this young woman's triumph over Satan, herself, and finally, men.”*” He argues that, “(t]he attainment of the chaste bridal veil is accomplished only if the maid continually places her virginity at risk . . . she must continually flaunt her virginity as a prize for her antagonists in

her struggle towards saintly perfection.””’ This definition is compelling not for what it can help us understand about ‘Ifric’s Lives of Agnes and Constantia/Gallicanus, but rather for what it can not. Alfric’s account of Agnes omits the lurid torture that both earlier and later versions often contain (such as

the mutilation and severing of Agnes’s breasts), and the heightened erotic atmosphere. Agnes’s torture is limited to an attempt to burn her, from which God protects her, and the beheading is briefly and matter-of-factly told. Eroticism is evident in Agnes’s comparison of Christ with the unfortunate suitor, but is not extended to the physical treatment of her body. Nar-

ration of the attempted rape is rather benign, concerned chiefly with the way Agnes’s hair miraculously covers her body

and with the angel’s delivery of a shining garment which fits her “exactly” and which first dazzles the would-be rapists and then converts them (LS 1.178). Dialogue is emphasized instead;

the speeches of Sempronius and Agnes elaborate the gulf between pagan and Christian conceptions of one’s spiritual and social roles.. The march of Christian faith continued to transform those roles, and the juxtaposition of A‘lfric’s Lives of Agnes and Constantia textually illustrates this process. Because of this, the Lives resist the allegorical and insist on the his-

torical. |

In a study focused not specifically on the virgin martyrs, Peter Clemoes argues that A‘lfric’s purpose was made clear in _ his Memory of the Saints (one of the texts in the collection), which “places the passions of the martyrs in an historical perspective and relates them to the reader’s struggle against sin.”*° If the decision to combine the vitae of Agnes and Constan-

*’ Ibid., p. 281. 7 Thid., p. 278.

** Peter Clemoes, “The Chronology of Alfric’s Works,” in The Anglo-Saxons: , Studies in Some Aspects of Their History and Culture Presented to Bruce Dickins,

ed. Peter Clemoes (London, 1959), pp. 212-47, at 222. 151

Dabney Anderson Bankert

tia/Gallicanus was historically informed, as I believe it was, it is possible to resolve the contradiction which an exemplary reading creates. The Lives of Agnes and Constantia/Gallicanus are

out of sequence in liturgical time, but not in historical time. Agnes, a martyr of the era of Roman persecutions, intercedes for and converts future virgins like Constantia, who, as daughter of the first Christian emperor, has more personally palatable and socially useful options. Constantia’s vow of virginity is not a source of conflict as it is for Agnes, but rather the impetus for a series of events that win to the faith new warriors for Christ’s army. While Agnes’s virginity is austere, Constantia’s is constructive. The linked stories bridge, in narrative form, the historical distance between the early martyrs and those for whom

the early martyrs provided the models and inspiration. In the era of Roman persecutions, moreover, it was not virginity that conferred sanctity so much as the martyrdom such a vow typically provoked. Later, however, after the persecutions ended, martyrdom gradually came to be defined in other ways, one of

which was through chaste living. Sexuality was a force to be overcome in much the same way as had been the physical pain of torture and execution. Eventually, in late medieval hagiography, even marriage and submission to conjugal obligation comes to be defined as a form of martyrdom. The pairings illustrate, in narrative form, this shift in ideas of virginity and martyrdom.”” Constantia’s vow of virginity is her “martyrdom,” but

| she also engineers (and thus precipitates) another important conversion, that of General Gallicanus, whose miraculous military victory and subsequent proselytizing earns more converts to the faith. Terrentianus’s narration of his own conversion and

his son’s cure continues this vision of Christian faith as profoundly progressive. When combined, these two Lives reinstate and legitimate a programmatic historical reading, and they enact, in narrative form, a shift in the conception of virginity and of the criteria for martyrdom.” Within this historical model, however, another significant transformation is at work. Constantia is a pale rendering of the autonomous and powerful Agnes, and she abdicates at least a portion of the job of protecting her virginity to her father and *” For a good discussion of these changes, see Dyan Elliott, Spiritual Marriage: Sexual Abstinence in Medieval Wedlock (Princeton, NJ, 1993), pp. 228-31. © See Peter Brown, The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity (New York, 1988), especially pp. 322-427.

| 152

Reconciling Family and Faith

her spiritual advisors, John and Paul. She is content to be the quiet engineer behind the scenes and to relinquish her status as protagonist to her suitor, Gallicanus. Her vow of chastity is not the crisis on which the plot turns, and her suitor is converted without direct sexual conflict. Once her plan succeeds and Gallicanus converts, she slips into the background, leaving the active service and martyrdom to him. The conflict and suffering that infuse Agnes’s life are replaced by accommodation and service. The more ascetic virginity of Agnes is softened by her fusion with more recent, more productive, if muted models of behavior. It also implies that the more aggressive variety of virginity was more appropriate to a different and earlier dispensation. The austerity of the earliest virgin martyrs, then, of which Agnes is an exemplar, is chiefly important for its posthumous influence on later generations of women. In the same way, Gallicanus becomes an exemplar of the warrior turned advocate, tirelessly serving others. Moreover, Gallicanus is in the rather fortunate position of having already done his biological duty. He has grown children, and thus a vow of virginity and Christian service late in his life present minimal social conflict. Constantine loses his general, of course, but his own conversion

makes this loss acceptable. Gallicanus, then, represents a progression as well; his late conversion and vow of chastity and service are balanced by his earlier social roles as father and warrior. Because the exact sources for the Lives of Agnes and Con-

stantia/Gallicanus are unknown, we cannot be certain of the extent of A‘lfric’s changes, but in these two Lives, and in a number of others in the collection, the description of physical endurance and suffering is minimal. Despite David Knowles’s assertion that A‘lfric merely transmitted “full and unchanged what he had received,” as early as 1898 White regarded A'lfric’s

153

Dabney Anderson Bankert | claim to be a mere “translator” as a fabrication.” Alfric’s emphasis on Agnes’s words and deeds over her torture and martyrdom is not unique among the Lives, nor among his other works. In a comparison of twelve Lives with their Acta Sanctorum counterparts, Bethurum concludes that A#lfric is “careful to in-

trude no extraneous matter into the simple narrative.” He excludes sermons and homiletic material, and in the Life of St Sebastian, for example, “he omits or tones down the gruesome _ details of eternal punishment upon which Ambrose [vrecte Pseudo-Ambrose, his source] lingers.” More recently, and more to the point is Mary Clayton’s discussion of A‘lfric’s translation of Judith. She argues that his changes reflect his uneasi-

ness with “[t]he manipulativeness and sexual autonomy of his heroine,” and concludes that his inability to “deal with such a figure ... reveals a deep-seated anxiety with regard to women using their bodies in ways which had been firmly repressed by centuries of church prescriptions.” Thus, his uneasiness informs his attempt to “manipulate meaning ... to make safe that text, to contain and defuse it.” The method Clayton describes is consistent with the exposition of the two Lives under discussion here and with research on #lfric’s methods of work.”

*! David Knowles, The Monastic Order in England: A History of Its Development from the Time of St Dunstan to the Fourth Lateran Council, 940-1216, 2nd ed.

(Cambridge, 1966), pp. 61-64. In her 1898 study of Alfric’s work, White speaks directly to this issue: “In a very modest way A‘lfric has designated himself as a mere translator; but, in fact, even where he has followed the foreign originals, he has not simply translated. He has sometimes extended and more often abridged, and in both cases he has shown great tact” (p. 84). For specific examples, see her discussion of ‘lfric’s translation of Alcuin’s Interrogationes Sigewulfi, pp. 133-34; pastoral letters, p. 144; and biblical translations, pp. 148-49. * Bethurum, “The Form of #lfric’s Lives of Saints,” p. 520. * Ibid., p. 523; derives in part from a hymn to St Agnes by Prudentius as well as in an inscription preserved in a manuscript of his Peristephanon.

_ ™ Mary Clayton, “AElfric’s Judith: Manipulative or Manipulated?” ASE 23

(1994): 215-27, at 225.

* Clayton, “Elfric’s Judith,” p. 225. — * See, for example, J. E. Cross’s conclusions in “Alfric — Mainly on Memory

and Creative Method” that “4lfric’s firm control of the material is obvious in all he does, in omission, extension and adaptation, alerted by a knowledgeable mind devoted to the needs of the audience” (p. 155). See also Cross, “The Literate Anglo-Saxon,” especially pp. 82-96.

194

Reconciling Family and Faith

To conclude that the act of textually pairing the two vitae places them in historical perspective and urges an historical reading, however, is not to comprehend the full significance of the transformations the fusion wrought. In her recent study of late medieval virgin martyr legends, Karen Winstead observes

that: ,

Individual renditions of virgin martyr legends bring out certain meanings and obscure others. One text will kin-

dle outrage at the saint’s victimization by dwelling on her vulnerability; another will discourage compassion for the saint by dwelling on her persecutor’s anger and frustra-

tion rather than on her suffering. Some texts expatiate on the virgin’s contempt for marriage and say little of her as Christ’s bride, while others celebrate the virgin’s devo-

tion to an artfully humanized, divine bridegroom. Even as the hagiographer promotes certain readings, however,

latent alternatives remain open to the reader.”

While the paired stories of St Agnes and Constantia/St Gallicanus are exemplary in this respect, the pairing itself has a profound impact on interpretive options. By combining and thus historicizing these two vitae, Alfric also redefined gender roles. The always dogmatic and often brutal male persecutor of the virgin martyr genre becomes the enlightened Christian advocate whose heritage can be traced to Constantine. The proud and defiant virgin, on the other hand, becomes the much softened if effective force behind the conversion of her suitor. Constantia’s characterization and actions are reminiscent of St | Augustine’s mother, whose influence on her son is described in the Confessions, and of other Germanic and Anglo-Saxon women, such as Clovis’s wife Clotilda and Athelberht’s wife Bertha, whose quiet machinations play a significant part in the conversion of their husbands.” Although Winstead focuses on late medieval legends, the central premise of her study is par“Winstead, Virgin Martyrs, p. 13. * For Gregory of Tours’s story of Clovis and Clotilda, see his Libri historiarum

2.30, ed. Bruno Krusch and Wilhelm Levison, MGH SRM 1.1 (Hanover, 1951), pp. 75-76. For the story of Athelberht and Bertha, see Bede’s Ecclestastical History of the English People 1.25-26, ed. and trans. Bertram Colgrave and R. A. B. Mynors, Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford, 1969; reprint 1992),

pp. 72-79. See also the letter from Pope Boniface advising Queen ASelberga to use her influence to help convert her husband, King Edwin: Bede’ s Ecclesiastical History 2.11, ed. and trans. Colgrave and Mynors, pp. 17275.

2)

Dabney Anderson Bankert

ticularly appropriate here. “Like many paradoxical symbols,” she explains, “virgin martyrs lent themselves to the exploration of tensions and contradictions within medieval culture. On a host of issues — political, social, cultural, and economic — these legends could be construed simultaneously in radically different ways and thus serve conflicting interests.””” The Lives of Agnes and Constantia/Gallicanus could be construed in “radically different ways,” and their pairing suggests both recognition of the problem and an attempt to guide and thus prevent this.

The historical movement away from the era of institutional persecutions frees the virgin martyr tale to focus more narrowly and specifically on particular sources of crisis, and to rewrite the generic elements, recasting the suitor not as villain but as hero, and taming the aggressive virginity of the heroine.

A tenth-century audience would have been, by virtue of the combination, encouraged to read the pair progressively, inferring appropriate Christian behavior as dynamic and continually

evolving, determined by one’s own social circumstances and historical perspective. A‘lfric’s combination emphasizes that unlike the early virgins such as Agnes, whose influence on oth- —

ers was due to her torture and martyrdom, women in later

times could escape this fate. Constantia’s virginity is a form of martyrdom which ultimately has positive results for the Christian Church. Women who imitate her example can benefit the faith without suffering physical mutilation and death, and by exerting their influence on the men in their lives. The stories

map out, in their literal textual joining, progression and

change as integral to the individual’s reading of and response to Christian models. Both reveal a teacher at work, coaxing coherent Christian lessons from his materials. Alfric’s efforts in _ this regard point to an acute awareness of the apparent contradictions between hagiographic models and practical social re-

| alities.

The discourse of the Lives creates contexts within which lay readers in particular can locate themselves. The aggressive virginity Agnes professes, for example, is not likely to have been popular with A‘lfric’s patrons, who might have looked askance at attempts by wives and daughters to imitate their example. Daughters were a resource for forging alliances and building wealth. Young women who identified with Agnes might prove * Winstead, Virgin Martyrs, p. 12. 156

Reconciling Family and Faith

less dutiful than recalcitrant. Constantia’s Life offers an alternative construction of the benefit of virginity for the social body,

and the progressive model which the combined stories project | encourages readers to respond in ways that are consistent with contemporary cultural parameters for the workable fusion of family and faith.

197

Pearls before Swine:

fElfric, Vernacular Hagiography, and the Lay Reader E. GORDON WHATLEY

[Te West Saxon monk ‘lfric was one of the most prolific of

early medieval writers of vernacular literature, especially of homilies and saints’ Lives. To judge from their plentiful manuscript remains, his works were both popular and influential during the late-tenth and early-eleventh century, when he lived, and

for almost two centuries afterwards, when changes in the lan| guage rendered even his lucid cadences no longer easily intelligible.' His writings have never been neglected by modern | Anglo-Saxonists, but interest in him for a long time was mainly linguistic or stylistic or focused on the task of identifying the | richly varied array of his sources.” A notable contributor to so_ phisticated source studies of A‘lfric was Professor Jimmy Cross,

particularly in his investigations of the use by Alfric and his ' See Peter Clemoes’s appreciation of Alfric’s literary achievement, “£lfric,” in Continuations and Beginnings: Studies in Old English Literature, ed. Eric Ger-

ald Stanley (London, 1966), pp. 176-209. For manuscripts of 4lfric’s hagiographic homilies and legends, see the “List of Texts” in Roberta Frank and Angus Cameron, A Plan for the Dictionary of Old English, Toronto Old English

Series 2 (Toronto, 1973), pp. 44-76. For further bibliography on the historical contexts of some of these manuscripts, see Whatley, “Late Old English

, Hagiography, ca. 950-1150,” in Hagiographies: Histoire internationale de la lit-

57-65. :

térature hagiographique latine et vernaculaire en Occtdent des origines a 1550, ed.

Guy Philippart, Corpus Christianorum (Turnhout, 1994-), vol. 2, pp. 429-99, at 438-41. On adaptations of Alfric’s work by later homilists, see Malcolm

voce “Old English Composite Homilies from Winchester,” ASE 4 (1975):

* See the bibliographies by Stanley B. Greenfield and Fred C. Robinson, A Biblio-graphy of Publications on Old English Literature to the End of 1972 (Toronto, 1980), pp. 295-308; and Luke M. Reinsma, ifric: An Annotated Bibliography

, 158

(New York, 1987).

Pearls before Swine

contemporaries of Latin homiliaries from the Continent.” Such scholarship has now made possible a wider range of approaches to A‘lfric’s work, including cultural and historicist analysis,’ although Professor Cross himself offered some time ago a spirited model for interpretive criticism of this kind.”

Among the topics of concern in modern scholarship on fElfric has been the disapproval he voices, on several occasions, of some of the Latin sources favored in his time and earlier by

English readers and preachers. Specifically at issue are the Marian apocrypha and other hagiographical legends associated with major feasts of the Church. While some modern scholars have assumed that A‘lfric, in this role of censor, was acting on behalf of the Benedictine monastic party to eradicate the less educated, less discriminating practices of the pre-reform clergy, more recent studies, in particular those of Mary Clayton, have modified this view considerably. It now seems more likely, to judge from the evidence of surviving texts and manuscripts, that Alfric’s attitude was idiosyncratic rather than representative, since most of the works he disapproved of seem to have been quite acceptable to his contemporaries at reform centers such as Winchester, where A\lfric himself was schooled.° Clay* E.g., Cross, 4lfric and the Mediaeval Homiliary — Objection and Contribution,

Scripta Minora Regiae Societatis Humaniorum Litterarum Lundensis 1961-

1962:4 (Lund, 1961-62); Cross, “Source and Analysis of Some AIfrician Pas- |

ASE 21 (1992): 203-37. |

sages,” NM 72 (1971): 446-53. See also Joyce Hill, “4#lfric and Smaragdus,”

* For example, Joyce Hill, “4lfric, Authorial Identity and the Changing Text,”

in The Editing of Old English: Papers from the 1990 Manchester Conference, ed. D.

G. Scragg and Paul E. Szarmach (Woodbridge and Rochester, NY, 1994), pp. 177-89. See also the wide-ranging selection of papers on Alfric in Holy Men and Holy Women: Old English Prose Saints’ Lives and Thetr Contexts, ed. Paul E.

Szarmach (Albany, NY, 1996), and the recent valuable monograph by Clare Lees, Tradition and Belief: Religious Writing in Late Anglo-Saxon England, Me-

dieval Cultures 19 (Minneapolis, MN, 1999), which appeared too late for consideration here. » Cross, “Oswald and Byrhtnoth: A Christian Saint and a Hero Who Is a Christian,” ES 46 (1965): 93-109, especially 96-98. ° Clayton, The Cult of the Virgin Mary in Anglo-Saxon England, CSASE 2 (Cam-

bridge, 1990), pp. 248-53, 261-66; Clayton, “Homiliaries and Preaching in Anglo-Saxon England,” Peritia 4 (1985): 207-42; Clayton, “A‘lfric and the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary,” Anglia 104 (1986): 286-315; and Clayton, The Apocryphal Gospels of Mary in Anglo-Saxon England, CSASE 26 (Cambridge,

1998), pp. 110-11, 148-49. For the earlier view see especially Milton McC. Gatch, Preaching and Theology in Anglo-Saxon England: 4lfricand Wulfstan 159

E.. Gordon Whatley , ton has also sought to refute the view that A'lfric’s discriminat-

ing attitude was rooted in strong antipathy to the sensational content of apocryphal literature, arguing instead that in his wide reading of patristic auctores he had come across condem-

| nations of such texts, and therefore felt obliged to discourage their dissemination among the laity. Clayton’s work on Old English prose and its backgrounds is among the most important, original, and rigorous of the current generation of Anglo-Saxon scholarship, but her argument that Alfric was merely following his authorities rather than re-

acting to the suspect texts themselves seems to me to need some qualification and development, especially with reference

to Alfric’s treatment of the sources that he did endorse for

wide publication. That he was uniquely outspoken about such matters in his own generation and culture, and unusually fas-. tidious in his respect for authority, is undeniable, but the im-

pression I have gained from reading his hagiographic

compositions:in relation to their putative sources, and from Clayton’s own recent, subtle readings of Alfric’s Judith and Cuthbert,’ is that he was also highly sensitive to narrative and ideological content, and nervous about the unpredictable re- . sponses of readers and listeners who lacked not only his level of education but also his deeply invested commitment to Christi(Toronto and Buffalo, NY, 1977), pp. 120, 122-23. See also Joyce Hill, “Reform and Resistance: Preaching Styles in Late Anglo-Saxon England,” in De Vhomélie au sermon: Histoire de la prédication médiévale, ed. Jacqueline Hamesse

and Xavier Hermand (Louvain-la-Neuve, 1993), pp. 15-46. For a brief overview of the issue and further bibliography, see Whatley, “Late Old English Hagiography,” pp. 436-37. Essential studies on A‘lfric’s homilies and hagiog-

raphies in general include Malcolm Godden, “Aelfric & the Vernacular Prose Tradition,” in The Old English Homily & Its Backgrounds, ed. Paul E.

, Szarmach and Bernard F. Huppé (Albany, NY, 1978), pp. 99-118; Godden, “ZElfric’s Saints’ Lives and the Problem of Miracles,” in Sources and Relations: Studies in Honour of J. E. Cross, ed. Marie Collins, Jocelyn Price, and Andrew Hamer, Leeds Studies in English n.s. 16 (Leeds, 1985), pp. 83-100; Godden, “Experiments in Genre: The Saints’ Lives in A¢lfric’s Catholic Homilies,” in Holy Men and Holy Women, ed. Szarmach, pp. 261-87; and the articles by Frederick M. Biggs, Mary Clayton, Michael Lapidge, Hugh Magennis, and Ruth Waterhouse in the same volume. ” See Clayton, “Alfric’s Judith: Manipulative or Manipulated?” ASE 23 (1994):

215-27; and Clayton, “Hermits and the Contemplative Life in Anglo-Saxon England,” in Holy Men and Holy Women, ed. Szarmach, pp. 147-75, at 162-63.

See also Hugh Magennis, “A‘lfric and the Legend of the Seven Sleepers,” in :

ibid., pp. 317-31. |

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Pearls before Swine

anity in its specifically late Anglo-Saxon, monastic form. A full

treatment of this topic would require detailed study of the

works Alfric refused to translate in relation to those works he did make public in the vernacular. The present paper’s more limited goals are, first, to draw attention to some passages in fElfric’s hagiographic works that illustrate his awareness of and anxiety about unsupervised and ill-informed readings of sacred

literature, and, second, to discuss other passages from his hagiographic writings that reveal his active selection and re-

, shaping of sources to inhibit potentially problematic “reader responses.”

Despite the copious volume of his writings in the vernacu-

| lar, and despite the undoubted need for vernacular texts in a country where fluency in Latin was confined to a small minority

of the higher clergy, A‘lfric was ambivalent about providing English translations of sacred Latin texts for a wider public, except in a highly abridged and selective form, preferably embedded carefully in sermons, or hedged about with lengthy prefaces and judicious conclusions. On the one hand, he felt impelled to carry out the mission of the priesthood to teach God’s Word and the doctrines of the Church to all types of people;> but on the other hand, he had a highly developed awareness of the dangerous pleasures of biblical texts, and the profuse variety and instability of the many other kinds of literature, including hagiographic narratives, that Judeo-Christian

culture had called into existence. One of his most extended discussions of his position as

translator occurs in the well-known preface to his translation of

| a portion of Genesis. Apparently at some point in the 990s, while he was serving as schoolmaster and “mass-priest” at the Dorset abbey of Cerne, A‘lfric was asked for such a translation by one of his secular patrons, ealdorman A‘thelweard. In the preface, A‘lfric reveals the alarm he felt upon learning from * See Alfric’s English preface to Catholic Homilies 1, in A:lfric’s Catholic Homilies. The First Series. Text, ed. Peter Clemoes, EETS SS 17 (Oxford, 1997), pp. 174-77, especially lines 108-22; see also The Homilies of the Anglo-Saxon Church. The First Part, Containing the Sermones Catholict or Homilies of A:lfric, ed. Benjamin Thorpe, 2 vols. (London, 1844-46), vol. 1, pp. 6-8. (Thorpe’s edition, based on a later manuscript, is still useful for its facing-page translations.) All of Alfric’s prefaces have been separately edited, with a valuable introduction, and notes on the text, by Jonathan Wilcox, 4£lfric’s Prefaces, Durham Medieval Texts 9 (Durham, 1994). 161

E.. Gordon Whatley

/AEthelweard that the second half of the book had been translated already and thus was available for anyone to read and interpret in their own way. A‘lfric considers it dangerous (pleolic)

| to provide such translations. He worries about the likelihood that foolish (dysige) people will take the stories of the patriarchs literally instead of allegorically and use them as a justification for various practices abhorrent to the Christian Church but not uncommon in early medieval societies, such as polygamy, con-

cubinage, and incest or kin-marriages.” Nor were such herme-

neutic problems limited to the Old Testament. A‘lfric also remarks in the same preface that barely literate English priests _ of his time were known to cite the example of St Peter to justify the practice of sacerdotal marriage. Such priests, says #lfric, do

| not want to hear or know (hi nellad gehiran T ives of Saints no. 6, lines 216-52. Cf. Vita S. Mauri 8.46-53. *” See Eric John, “The Age of Edgar,” in The Anglo-Saxons, ed. James Campbell

(1982; reprint Harmondsworth, 1990), pp. 160-89, at 172-89, on monastic reform and the power of the crown. On the second wave of ecclesiastical

endowment, in Athelred’s reign, see Simon Keynes, The Diplomas of King : A‘thelred the Unready 978-1016. A Study in Their Use as Historical Evidence, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought, 3rd ser. 13 (Cambridge, 1980), pp. 198-200. ” Lives of Saints no. 6, lines 253-59; Vita S. Maur 9.54. * Vita S. Mauri 7.42. 179

E.. Gordon Whatley —

the Vita to insert into the Old English the Latin word priuilegium, the charter of privileges, and highlighting the unre-

| stricted nature of the gift itself:

Florus a cydde pam cyninge his willan . and be his leafan arerde on his agenum lande

| mynster . and munuc-lif. Swa swa maurus him dihte. __

and mid micelre are . pat mynster gegodode .

: and priuilegium sette on swutelre ge-witnysse . | and maure betehte pat mynster mid ealle to fullum freo-dome . for his sawle Searfe .””

The late Anglo-Saxon program of monastic foundation and refoundation did not go forward without opposition. Al| though muted during Edgar’s powerful reign, local resentment

at the new foundations erupted, sometimes violently, after his death.” Appropriately enough, Afric relates two episodes from |

the Vita S. Mauri in which forces hostile to Maurus’s new community are presented in demonic terms, threatening the monks

with destruction in the future, after accusing him of being a covetous foreigner.” Bishop Athelwold’s West Saxon monks must have seemed much the same to the landowners of East Anglia, for example, when the monks arrived to recreate the

*° “Florus then made known his desire to the king, and with his permission established on his own land a monastery and regular way of life [or an abbey and monastery], as Maurus directed him. And he endowed the monastery

with much property and drew up a charter in public testimony and he granted that monastery to Maurus in wholly unrestricted possession [freehold?]”: Lives of Saints no. 6, lines 144-150 (translation mine; Skeat’s trans-

lation misses some of the technical terminology, e.g. ar [line 147] as “property” or “landed property,” which Skeat translates “favour”; see DOE, SV. ar, are, C. and C.1.). Lines 144-46a summarize Vita S. Mauri 7.38-40, but

, lines 146b-50 paraphrase the first sentence of § 7.41: “Tunc clarissimus vir Florus scripto, iuxta consilium beati viri (ze. Mauri] testamento, tradidit ei omnia, & de suo iure in eius delegauit potestatem atque dominium.” ® See the classic account by D. J. V. Fisher, “The Anti-Monastic Reaction in the Reign of Edward the Martyr,” Cambridge Historical Journal 12 (1952): 254-70. Among the best known cases is the sacking of Evesham abbey and the ejection of its monks by ealdorman A‘lfhere of Mercia during the crisis of 975-79.

°! Lives of Saints no. 6, lines 186-215, 302-14, corresponding to Vita S. Mauri 7.44-45, 64-65. 180

Pearls before Swine

monasteries of Peterborough, Ely, and Thorney out of formerly secular estates.”

filfric’s Old English Life of Maurus, then, represents a partial truth, a carefully slanted image of monastic sanctity, emphasizing only those exterior features of the regular life with

which the laity had real contact, but witholding what A‘lfric calls the subtilia, the inner life and moral problems of the monks, so as to protect the “pearls of Christ” from possible disrespect. The Vita S. Maun, A lfric’s source, is a product of the Carolingian culture from which the Anglo-Saxons of the ecclesiastical reform party drew so much inspiration and literary ma-

terial.” While much too long for Alfric’s purposes and

therefore ripe for abridgment, its contents are not in need of any significant reshaping or censoring. Here, for once, we do not find any of the pointed omissions and manipulations that characterize his handling of some of the apostolic acts analyzed

above or older hagiographic works such as the Passio Apollnanis.”* AElfric’s Maurus faithfully conveys the spirit of his origi-

nal, sensum ex sensu, despite abbreviating it considerably, as promised in his Latin preface.” But as we have seen in the rewriting of the scenes in Peter and Paul, the rhetorical topos of translating “sense for sense” takes on a different meaning in many other parts of A‘lfric’s works, where he refashions the “sense” of his original into something he considers appropriate for the unlearned outside the cloister. This protective attitude underlies his approach to the Lives of Saints as a whole. Athelweard and Athelmer were evidently interested in tasting the monastic experience of reading, but if

we can trust the contents of the only apparently complete © In addition to Fisher, “Anti-Monastic Reaction,” see also Barbara Yorke, ed., Bishop thelwold: His Career and Influence (Woodbridge, 1988), p. 6 and nn. 40-42, for primary sources and other references. See, e.g., D. A. Bullough, “The Continental Background of the Reform,” in Tenth-Century Studies: Essays in Commemoration of the Millennium of the Council

of Winchester and “Regulars Concordia”, ed. David Parsons (London and Chichester, 1975), pp. 20-36, 210-14.

Lives of Saints no. 22, ed. Skeat, 4lfric’s Lives, vol. 1, pp. 472-86. A brief analysis is in Whatley, “Lost in Translation: Some Episodes in Old English Prose Saints’ Lives,” ASE 26 (1997): 187-208, at 189-92.

, & “Nec potuimus in ista translatione semper uerbum ex uerbo transferre, sed tamen sensum ex sensu . . . diligenter curauimus uertere” (Lives of Saints, Preface, lines 22-24, ed. Skeat, £lfric’s Lives, vol. 1, p. 4). 181

E. Gordon Whatley

manuscript, A‘lfric produced a collection that, while it does indeed draw most of its legends from the richer monastic calendars,”” is far from representative of the rich multiplicity of the Christian hagiographic tradition. The lay aristocrats who commissioned the work are given a narrow vision of the Christian

past that seems designed to mirror their own hierarchical Christian society of secular and clerical nobility. In the Lives collection not only are there no contemplatives, as Clayton has pointed out, but there are also no repentant prostitutes (Mary of Egypt), humble stone masons (Four Crowned Ones), fee-less _ physicians (Cosmas and Damian), or pregnant heroines (Perpetua and Felicity). And neither in the Lives of Saints nor in the Catholic Homilies does ALlfric ever mention the lowly birth and

occupation of St Peter himself. Instead, the Lives collection emphasizes secular kings and military saints from the same social caste as A.thelweard and A*thelmezr themselves, and noble ecclesiasts who are mainly monk-bishops and idealized versions of the leaders of the English reform party.”’ It is worth recalling that A£lfric’s successors did not alto-

gether follow his vigilant example with respect to apocryphal literature or the “pearls of Christ.” The Blickling Homilies and the Vercelli Book, generally thought to be the kind of undiscriminating books A‘lfric objected to, were copied and presumably used during his own time, the height of the reform era itself, although many of their contents are taken to be older. And while his own Catholic Homilies collection was apparently

® Lives of Saints, Preface, lines 5-9, 43-45. | *’ The small cluster of specifically women’s lives in the collection (Eugenia, Agnes, Agatha, Lucy, £thelthryth, Cecilia) deserves further study, particularly in relation to the much wider gallery of female saints whose legends were regularly read in later Anglo-Saxon monasteries; see Shari Horner, “The

Violence of Exegesis: Reading the Bodies of A‘lfric’s Female Saints,” in Veo- | lence against Women in Medieval Texts, ed. Anna Roberts (Gainesville, FL, 1998), pp. 22-43 and the essay by Dabney Bankert in this volume. Also notable is Alfric’s inclusion of three secular pairs of virgin spouses, Julzan and Basilissa, Cecilia and Valerianus, Chrysanthus and Daria, which may have been

intended as models for the secular nobility to follow. See Robert K. Upchurch, “The Hagiography of Chaste Marriage in lfric’s Lives of the Saints (unpubl. PhD diss., CUNY, 2001)

* Mary Clayton has remarked on this in various places with respect to the Marian apocrypha (e.g. Cult of the Virgin Mary, pp. 248-53) and more recently to the Vitae patrum: “Hermits and the Contemplative Life,” pp. 16263. 182

Pearls before Swine

very successful in replacing much of the earlier material available for preachers, nonetheless we find here and there, in eleventh- and twelfth-century copies of his homilies, scribes who

implicitly criticize or disregard A‘lfric’s protective attitude. These later scribes occasionally mingle copies of A‘lfric’s work,

despite his repeated warnings to the contrary,” with anonymous versions of the very narratives that he had sought to exclude. For example, in an important eleventh-century homiliary drawn largely from Alfric’s Catholic Homilies, CCCC 198, his Se-

ries I homilies on Andrew and Mary’s Assumption are dropped

in favor of the anonymous versions that occur in Blickling. Likewise, at Rochester in the early twelfth century a scribe omitted Alfric’s brief narrative account of the Holy Cross Invention legend, based on Rufinus, and substituted for it a prose render-

ing of the more colorful version, which is also found in Cynewulf’s poem Elene in the Vercelli manuscript.”

One cannot help thinking, however, that most upsetting of all for Alfric would have been the inclusion, in the sole surviving authoritative copy of Lives of Saints, of a faithful prose translation of the Latin Life of Mary of Egypt, the dissolute Egyptian

prostitute who became a penitent ascetic in the solitude of the desert beyond the River Jordan, east of Jerusalem.” Her legend See his prefaces to Catholic Homilies 1 (4lfric’s Catholic Homilies, ed. Clemoes, p. 177, lines 128-34; translated in Thorpe, Homilies, vol. 1, p. 9) and Lives of Saints, Preface, lines 74-76 (ed. Skeat, £lfric’s Lives, vol. 1, p. 6). See 4lfric’s

Prefaces, ed. Wilcox, pp. 70-71. ,

” The Old English Finding of the True Cross, ed. Mary-Catherine Bodden (Cambridge, 1987). On CCCC 198 and the Blickling Homilies, and on the manuscript contexts of the Holy Cross Invention, see D. G. Scragg, “The Corpus of Anonymous Lives and Their Manuscript Contexts,” in Holy Men and Holy Women, ed. Szarmach, pp. 209-30, at 212-14 and 216, regarding manuscripts H and U. 1 Lives of Saints no. 33B, ed. Skeat, 4lfric’s Lives, vol. 2, pp. 2-52. On the codi-

cological interest of this text in London, BL, MS Cotton Julius E. VII, see most recently Scragg, “The Corpus,” pp. 217-18; and Hill, “Dissemination,” p. 236. Mary of Egypt is mentioned by Clayton (“Hermits and the Contemplative Life,” p. 162) as representative of the contemplative tradition. See also the entry “Maria Aegyptiaca” by Hugh Magennis in Sources of AngloSaxon Literary Culture: A Trial Version, ed. Biggs et al., pp. 15-16. Iam grateful

to Hugh Magennis for sending me (after this paper was complete) an offprint of his stimulating study of “holy subversion” in Mary of Egypt, anticipating my initial point here; see “St Mary of Egypt and Alfric: Unlikely Bedfellows in Cotton Julius E. vii?” in The Legend of Mary of Egypt in Medieval 183

E.. Gordon Whatley

is not simply about a penitent prostitute. It devotes equal attention to a virtuous but not exactly humble monk named Zosimus who goes on a quest to find out if the world holds anyone superior to him in monastic disciplines; his quest leads him eventu-

ally into what can only be called a mid-life crisis, when he stumbles on the naked and sunburnt Mary in the trans-Jordan wasteland. The effect on Zosimus of Mary’s person and story

| are, to say the least, deeply and emotionally disturbing, and their “brief encounter” must be one of the strangest relationships in Western literature. Along with miraculous elements that one expects to find in a desert saint’s Life, the story has marked qualities of psychological immediacy and emotional intimacy, probing as it does the interior of the male monastic psyche in a fashion that is quite alien to Alfric’s taste and style. He might, however, have taken comfort in the fact that this particular manuscript does not seem to have been in the hands of

| laymen very long, if ever. There is good evidence that not long | after it was first compiled in the early eleventh century, it was safely inside the walls of the newly reformed abbey of Bury St Edmunds.”

Insular Hagiography, ed. Erich Poppe and Bianca Ross (Blackrock, Dublin, and Portland, OR, 1996), pp. 99-112.

, ® See N. R. Ker, Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford, 1957), p. 210; also G. I. Needham, “Additions and Alterations in Cotton Julius E VII,” RES 9 (1958): 160-64.

This paper is respectfully dedicated to the memory of Jimmy Cross. His published scholarship on 4lfric and the Old English Martyrology, and his personal advice and help, have played a crucial part in my work on the “Acta Sanctorum” portion of Sources of Anglo-Saxon Literary Culture, out of which my interest in Alfric’s hagiography of to this were read to the New York Medieval Clubhas ongrown. May 3,Versions 1996, and thepaper In-

ternational the University Notreand Dame, August 12, society 1999. I of amAnglo-Saxonists, grateful to thoseatpresent for their of advice encouragement. Reference should have been made earlier in this essay to the following publications, includes detailed sourcings Alfric’s homilies onrecent Clement and Peter which and Paul: Godden, £/fric’s CatholicofHomilies. : Introduction, Commentary, and Glossary, pp. 209-21, 308-18. 184

Sanctifying Anglo-Saxon Ealdormen:

Lay Sainthood and the Rise of the Crusading Ideal

JOHN EDWARD DAMON (oe than thirty Oswald, years ago, J. ofE.Northumbria, Cross published a study contrasting King who was venerated as a Christian saint throughout England and much of the Continent, and Byrhtnoth, Ealdorman of Essex and hero of The Battle of Maldon, whom Professor Cross aptly described as “a

hero who is Christian.”' In his essay, Cross clearly stated his hope that by showing “relevant contrasts and comparisons from [their] own age” he could return Byrhtnoth and the poem commemorating his death from the rarefied atmosphere of hagiography (where some critics wished to place them) to a more secure and lasting resting place among the Germanic heroes and heroic works of the Anglo-Saxon era. Despite occasional attempts to revive the concepts of Byrhtnoth as saint and The Battle of Maldon as hagiography, Cross’s hope has been real-

ized. Ealdorman and poem alike are seen today as a late flower- | ing of the heroic values and ideals intrinsic to the society of Old England. I have no desire to overturn a conclusion so ably argued and nearly universally accepted. I would like, however, to look again at Byrhtnoth and The Battle of Maldon, and a number

of other Old English and Anglo-Latin literary works of the tenth and eleventh centuries concerned with, and even written

by, Anglo-Saxon ealdormen, to see if they do not represent an' J. E. Cross, “Oswald and Byrhtnoth: A Christian Saint and a Hero Who Is Christian,” ES 46 (1965): 93-109, at 93. For the extent of Oswald’s cult, see Peter Clemoes, The Cult of St Oswald on the Continent, Jarrow Lecture 1983

(Jarrow, Tyne, and Wear, 1983). For recent scholarship on Oswald, see Oswald: Northumbrian King to European Saint, ed. Clare Stancliffe and Eric Cambridge (Stamford, 1995). 185

John Edward Damon | | other set of “relevant contrasts and comparisons from [their] own age,” through which the ealdorman of Essex and the poem honoring him can be better understood. This essay concerns five tenth- and eleventh-century eal-

dormen whose lives and/or deaths appear to have been touched by the call of lay sanctity. These five ealdormen stand

| out from other, equally powerful men in Anglo-Saxon society because their lives were translated into literature. In the literary

traces they left behind, whether works of their own or works about them (which include poems, visions, chronicles, dedications, even in one case a full-fledged vzia) we can see a sanctifying urge; some works reveal the ealdormen’s desires to sanctify their own lives, following paths normally reserved for clerics, while in other instances the works express a desire by their contemporaries to sanctify them. Taken as a group, these five men

: and the literary works associated with them provide striking evidence of a change in Anglo-Saxon piety closely related to the _ rise of the crusading ideal, but a change which was turned aside from its developing trajectory by two highly significant events:

the Norman Conquest of 1066 and Pope Urban II’s call to cru_ sade in 1097.

Scholars have long seen a connection between lay piety | and the idea of crusade. In a study of crusading historiography, Christopher Tyerman uses as a point of departure the words of the twelfth-century chronicler of the crusades, Guibert of Nogent, who, “in a famous phrase, described the First Crusade as a new path of salvation which allowed laymen to earn redemption without changing their status and becoming monks.”* In

order to understand the remarkable response of laymen throughout the Latin West to Urban II’s call to crusade of 1095, one must consider the religious aspirations of these laymen, the

values and concerns that could motivate them to undertake such an arduous and dangerous an enterprise. The “armed pilgrimage” to recover the Holy Land originated with the pope and the ecclesiastical estate, but its implementation depended upon the lay aristocracy, the noble and knightly classes. Jonathan Riley-Smith argues that idealism, not material gain, must have been a dominant motivating factor:

186 |

2 Christopher Tyerman, The Invention of the Crusades (Toronto, 1998), p. 8.

Sanctifying Anglo-Saxon Ealdormen

[I]t is worth remembering that, however popular the First Crusade was, it did not appeal to everyone by any means.

Most western Europeans did not respond at all to the pope’s summons. Even in the classes of nobles and knights, about whom we have the most information, the figure of, say, 13,000 respondents (of whom about half did not actually depart) represents a fraction of the total numbers: in England alone there were c. 5,000 knights; in

France and the French-speaking imperial territories at least 50,000. So we are concerned with the reactions not

, of an entire class but of a fraction of it, which makes the

argument for a general idealistic motivation more credible.”

It is that specific group of highly idealistic individuals within the broader class of laymen that should form the central focus of any analysis of the conditions under which crusading became a significant force in the Latin West. Those noblemen most central to the emergence of lay piety as a major force within the Western Church would logically represent those most likely also to heed the call to crusade. The role of laymen in the Church of the Latin West fluctuated greatly over time. As André Vauchez has argued, during

long periods relations between the ecclesiastical and lay estates | left laymen little role in the Church and in religion: “At certain times, lay people’s sanctity gained in importance, while at other

periods the holy bishops or monks seem to have completely eclipsed the ordinary faithful.”* Vauchez identifies the tenth and eleventh centuries as the crucial period during which the “problem of lay sanctity” developed, yet during this crucial period in the origins of the crusading movement, lay sanctity re-

mained a potential, rather than becoming a realized force within Western Christianity: The ordinary faithful layman could scarcely avoid the tri_ ple blemish implied, as far as the clerics were concerned, by participation in war, which led inexorably to the spill | 3 Jonathan Riley-Smith, The Crusades: A Short History (New Haven, CT, 1987), p. 12.

* André Vauchez, “Lay People’s Sanctity in Western Europe: Evolution of a Pattern (Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries) ,” in Images of Sainthood in Medieval Europe, ed. Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski and Timea Szell (Ithaca, NY, and London, 1991), pp. 21-32, at 21. 187

John Edward Damon

ing of blood; by sexual relations, even within the frame-

| work of legitimate marriage; and by the immoderate use of money. Although not excluded a priori from the

sphere of holiness, laymen could accede to it only in exceptional cases.”

These attitudes restricted the piety of laymen to a supportive role, reserving for clerics the status of sanctity. The absence of laymen from the realms of the saintly would have affected the

| most pious laymen most strongly. If we understand saints’ cults as providing models of holiness for the faithful, in addition to their obvious role as sources of power and prestige, the most pious laymen would clearly have lacked models for their own lives, other than the eventual abandonment of lay status for the more spiritually rewarding world of the monastery. The call to crusade provided such men with a new model for lay piety and sanctity that employed for holy purposes at least one of the three “blemishes” described by Vauchez, their “participation in

war, which led inexorably to the spilling of blood.” | Continental laymen, however, formed the core constituency of the First Crusade; what purpose can therefore be served by examining their Insular counterparts in a study of the role of lay piety in the rise of the crusading ideal? In his study England and the Crusades, Tyerman finds that “English involvement in the First Crusade was minimal and peripheral,” adding that — “lLojne of the most striking features of the First Crusade was its

self-consciously French character.”” There were Englishmen who joined in the First Crusade, but not all of these individuals would have been Anglo-Saxons; Normans played a vital role in

| the First Crusade, and surely some of those who joined the ranks of the first wave into the Holy Land must have been Anglo-Normans. Thirty years had passed since the Norman Con-

quest, and despite some claims to the contrary, exiled Englishmen are unlikely to have played a significant role in the first attack on the Holy Land.’ Moreover, much of the discus-

1988), p. 15. ,

> Ibid., p. 24. © Christopher Tyerman, England and the Crusades: 1095-1588 (Chicago, IL,

’ Two prominent Anglo-Saxons appear to have participated in the early crusades: Edgar the Atheling, nephew of Edward the Confessor and AngloSaxon claimant to the English throne, and Robert FitzGodwin (Godwinson). For conflicting views of Edgar’s role, see Steven Runciman, The First 188

Sanctifying Anglo-Saxon Ealdormen

sion of the conditions under which Urban’s summons ignited a widespread movement concerns conditions that have little or nothing to do with England during the same period. Unlike France, where a process of fragmentation of central authority coupled with a steady decline in external enemies

| led, over the tenth and eleventh centuries, to an era of unrestrained violence, Anglo-Saxon England spent the last centuries

of its cultural identity consolidating power in the hands of a central authority and dealing with a prolonged period of exter| nal invasion. Despite the powerful monarchical system France enjoyed under Charlemagne and his immediate successors, during the tenth century France experienced a period of decline in the power of its central authority that produced increasing internal, internecine violence. In contrast, the English remained disunited up through Alfred’s reign (871-99), following which the English monarchy underwent a process of consolidation and growth culminating in the unified and peaceful reign of Edgar (959-75). Scholars link France’s period of violent semi-anarchy to the rise of the crusading ideal. Riley-Smith argues that “in the response of the faithful to Urban’s preach-

ing the aspirations of churchmen and laymen suddenly coin-

cided. Behind this meeting of minds there were movements of | opinion on both sides which had their origins in the violence of

tenth-century France.”” If these conditions in France can be | linked to the success of the first call to crusade, England cannot represent a parallel situation for analysis of the rise of the idea of crusade.

England did experience violence in the tenth century, but

the pattern of conflict the two regions encountered shows greater difference than similarity. Both societies suffered from Viking invasions during the ninth century, but the French faced

| additional problems. “[I]n the later ninth century, Carolingian Crusade (Cambridge, 1951; reprint 1992), pp. 137, 162; and Tyerman, England and the Crusades, pp. 18-20, who places Edgar in the Holy Land in 1103

and discounts the speculation that exiled Anglo-Saxons in the pay of the Byzantine emperor participated in the First Crusade. On Robert, see ibid.,

, 189

pp. 18, 25, 27, 29, and 387 n. 93. * Jonathan Riley-Smith, The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading (London, 1986), pp. 2-3.

John Edward Damon | Europe seemed to be assailed on all sides by pagan enemies: Vikings in the North, Hungarians in the East, Moslems in

southern Italy and Spain and all along the Miditerranean shore.”” As these external threats dissipated over the course of

the tenth century in France, internal violence took its place. Georges Duby describes the process in some detail: - Now, in the course of the ninth century, the Carolingian

empire having expanded enormously, and the areas : | tempting for rapine thus having receded to considerable distances, the tribes led by the Franks ceased to be conquerors. .. . In a complete turnabout, this state was not

long in becoming the object of attack from without.

From that moment commenced an obscure movement

| that turned the whole military system — i.e. the predilec-

a tion to seize property by force, to engage in depredations (praeda) — inward upon itself. At the height of this phe-

: nomenon, we find Christian horsemen, as always, formed up under the banner of a chief, ready for pillage, sword in hand; but now they no longer rode off to join forces with the king in one great army; instead they sallied forth

from a thousand lairs, from those castles dotting the countryside, that had been built to ward off the invading foe. At first they did battle against the enemy, defending

the homeland. But when in the tenth century the inter

, vals between the waves of invasion grew longer, instead of laying down their arms they continued their rapine. Only the prey was different."

The result was a state of persistent, anarchic warfare that led, in

the late tenth and early eleventh centuries, not only to the popular movements known as the Peace of God and Truce of God, its most obvious results, but also to the willingness of both

clergy and laity to redirect military force from defense and, in the absence of any external threat, internecine conflict toward a distant spiritual enemy in the Holy Land.” » Maurice Keen, Chivalry (New Haven, CT, and London, 1984), p. 46. ’? Georges Duby, The Three Orders: Feudal Society Imagined, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (Chicago, IL, and London, 1982), p. 151. " Riley-Smith, First Crusade, pp. 2-6, 10-12; Carl Erdmann, “Peace of God, Church Reform, and the Military Profession,” in The Origin of the Idea of Cru-

| 190

sade, trans. Marshall W. Baldwin and Walter Goffart (Stuttgart, 1935; reprint Princeton, NJ, 1977), pp. 57-94.

Sanctifying Anglo-Saxon Ealdormen

If England cannot provide a parallel set of conditions to France, it can provide an instructive set of relevant contrasts. Because the Anglo-Saxon lay noblemen would not directly influence the course of the First Crusade, our ability to examine one strand in the development of crusading ideology — the increasing evidence of lay piety and an interest in lay sanctity

among the nobility — provides a counter model and, in a sense, a control group. Despite early and significant linkage between pious laymen’s death in battle while resisting pagan invasion and the hagiographic tradition of the martyrs, lay piety in England did not directly lead to crusading ideology. In addition, the piety of powerful ealdormen in late Anglo-Saxon England reveals a significant variant: a form of lay sanctity more closely related to the tradition of the holy confessors than to the path of martyrdom.

The most famous work concerning an Anglo-Saxon ealdorman is The Battle of Maldon, a poem that stands out from the corpus of Old English poetry in a number of ways. It is unique

among extant Old English historical poems for its focus on a contemporary battle fought not by a king but by an ealdorman, a powerful nobleman but none the less an underling. Other poems honor the exploits of warriors like Beowulf and Waldere who were not yet kings, but they look backward to a distant past _ and their heroes went on to become powerful rulers. Other poems commemorate contemporary events, for example the Batile of Brunanburh or the Death of Edgar, but these focus on the lives

and deaths of kings or their immediate families. If there was a genre of poetry immortalizing the deeds of contemporary nonroyal heroes, no other example of it survives. Another remarkable feature of The Battle of Maldon is the poem’s concern with a defeat rather than a victory. Heroic poems like Beowulfand The Fight at Finnsburg contain tragic elements, but the glorification

of a defeated army has more in common with Christian tales of martyrs than with the larger-than-life-size heroics of secular heroes. In fact, the event which the poem seeks to immortalize has the greatest affinity with accounts of the heroic defeats of Sts Oswald, Edwin, and Edmund, three Anglo-Saxon kings who died in battle fighting against pagan invaders and came to be

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regarded as “kings and martyrs.”"* In all of Anglo-Saxon literature, The Batile of Maldon comes closer than any other work to

extending the idea of martyrdom to a non-royal warrior cut down in battle while defending his homeland against pagan

| invaders.

_ This is not to say that the Maldon-poet’s intentions were hagiographic. As Cross successfully showed, the poem cannot

be taken as evidence that Byrhtnoth was ever regarded as a

saint. “Of course,” as Cross readily admits, “Byrhtnoth could have become a martyr-saint and warranted his passio, since the circumstances of his death fulfill the essential qualification for sainthood for those in the life active in this period of history.” One should, however, add the caveat that Byrhtnoth’s saintly credentials were deficient in one area: he was not saintly material because of his secular status in life."* There are many aspects of Byrhtnoth’s life that would have

- qualified him for sainthood. After all, he was a deeply religious man who became a major benefactor of religious institutions, two of which (Ely and Ramsey) added appreciably to his dossier -by recording in their chronicles the heroic actions they associated with his munificent bequests. In the Liber Eliensts he is praised as “the outstanding and glorious man” who was “inde- |

fatigable in warfare and battles against the enemies of the kingdom” and who “honoured the Holy Church and the servants of God everywhere and devoted the whole of his inheritance to their use.”'” Moreover, according to the monks: " Others besides Cross have noted similarities between Byrhtnoth and the martyred warrior saints, especially Edmund. See, for example, N. F. Blake, “The Battle of Maldon,” Neophilologus 49 (1965): 332-45.

'* Cross, “Oswald and Byrhtnoth,” p. 93. ‘“* Another possible flaw in the case for Byrhtnoth’s sanctity might be his often-discussed pride, the ofermod with which the Maldon-poet, and many gen-

erations of literary critics since, have taxed him. For an overview of this issue, see Helmut Gneuss, “The Battle of Maldon 89: Byrhtnod’s ofermod Again,” SP 73 (1976): 117-37. The word’s significance has become such a commonplace of scholarship that it warrants its own entry in the index to The Battle of Maldon AD 991, ed D. G. Scragg (Cambridge, MA, and Oxford, 1991), p. 305; the entry records six uses of the word, each in a different essay, and each of which turns the word to the author’s own rhetorical purpose. The significance of Byrhtnoth’s pride remains an open question.

192 \ |

“De Brithnodo viro singulari et glorioso . . . militie et bellis contra hostes regni assiduus . . . sanctam ecclesiam et Dei ministros ubique honorabat et

Sanctifying Anglo-Saxon Ealdormen

He also placed himself as a wall on behalf of religious

, houses against those who attempted to disturb the holy

places. For that religious man, taking his place in council,

resisted with great firmness the greed and madness of

certain leading men, who wanted to expel the monks.’° Byrhtnoth was clearly the model of a layman devoted to relig-

| ion. He also shared one key trait with the saintly King Edward

the Confessor, the next-to-last Anglo-Saxon monarch whose cult broke new ground in English hagiography by presenting a king reaching sainthood through exemplary performance of his duties rather than through entrance into monastic life or a martyr’s death. Like Edward, Byrhtnoth left behind no heir, making him eligible for claims to sanctity based on pious chastity.'’ There was also the matter of his death. He died under conditions that had elevated more than one Anglo-Saxon to the ranks of the holy, defending the region under his care from an invasion by men whom the Maldon-poet twice describes as “heathen.”'® in eorum usus totum patrimonium suum conferebat”: Alan Kennedy, ed. and trans., “Byrhtnoth’s Obits and Twelfth-Century Accounts of the Battle of Maldon,” in The Battle of Maldon AD 991, ed. Scragg, pp. 59-78, at 66-67.

© Ibid., p. 67: “Murum quoque pro religiosis conventibus semper se contra eos opponebat qui loca sancta inquietare conabantur. Nam avaritie et vesanie quorundam primatum, monachos eicere ... vir iste religiosus in sinodo constitutus cum magna constantia restitit.” '” Although Byrhtnoth’s marriage was childless and he left behind no heir, he appears to have had a daughter who may have been illegitimate. See Margaret A. L. Locherbie-Cameron, “Byrhtnoth and His Family,” in The Battle of Maldon AD 991, ed. Scragg, pp. 253-62. '® hepene .. . hadene”: The Battle of Maldon, lines 55, 181. Quotations of the poem are taken from The Anglo-Saxon Minor Poems, ed. Elliott van Kirk

Dobbie, ASPR 6 (New York and London, 1942), pp. 7-16. Cross argues forcefully and at some length that the Maldon-poet does not use especially derogatory language for the Vikings, concluding that bepen “is another term for the enemy and, in view of this, and of the other words for the Scandina-

vians, heben need have no other connotation in the poet’s comment at Byrhtnoth’s death” (“Oswald and Byrhtnoth,” p. 109). None the less, the term does contrast sharply with the explicitly Christian language Byrhtnoth . himself employs immediately before the poet refers to them as heathen the second time: “Gebancie pe, deoda waldend, / ealfra para wynna pe ic on worulde gebad. / Nu ic ah, milde metod, maste pearfe / pat pu minum gaste godes geunne, / pet min sawul to de sidian mote / on pin geweald, beoden engla, / mid fripe ferian. Ic eom frymdi to pe / pet hi helsceadan hynan moton” (lines 174-80). The 193

John Edward Damon | In what way then was Byrhtnoth deficient as a candidate for sanctity? I would submit that his deficiency lay precisely in his status as ealdorman. He was neither fish nor fowl, neither royal enough on one hand to join Oswald, Edwin, Edward, and Edmund and a host of others as a “king and martyr,” nor on the other hand pious enough to have abandoned his secular duties and earned sainthood by joining the even more numerous host of confessors. A careful examination of all relevant accounts of native Anglo-Saxon saints has produced no instance of a secular leader who was neither a king nor a prince who came to be regarded as a saint without first abandoning his secular role in favor of the religious life. Ealdorman Byrhtnoth, it would seem, slipped through the cracks of contemporary sainthood.

The position taken here may seem to fly in the face of much contemporary wisdom on the question of sanctity. Most scholars working in the field of hagiography today seem to ac-

cept power dynamics as the operative model of the path to sainthood. As Cross cogently argued, “if [Byrhtnoth’s] case for sainthood had obtained influential backing his violent death in a just Christian cause would have been sufficient reason for a martyr’s crown.”'” Perhaps the power differential between king

land. | and ealdorman did underlie the hagiographic pattern that excluded laymen from sainthood. This study is not so much concerned with causes as with results. The case of Byrhtnoth points out one fault line in the edifice of sanctity in Anglo-Saxon Eng-

In England, hagiographers had long offered the hope of immediate resurrection to royalty, in particular to kings. The path to sainthood of kings like Edwin and Oswald, who died defending Northumbria against pagan invaders, lay not in renunciation of the world but in the performance of their royal duties. One benefit of such cults was the reassurance they gave to kings that their actions were pleasing to God, just as the cults of confessors attested to the value and worth of the various identification of the heathen who kill him with the hellspawn whom he prays may not deter his soul from reaching heaven is emphasized by the continuation of alliteration on A into a second line, making bepen and

helsceadan parts of a two-line alliterative pattern. " Cross, “Oswald and Byrhtnoth,” p. 93.

19400

Sanctifying Anglo-Saxon Ealdormen

types of clergy. A king could be both a secular hero (protecting

with arms the fatherland) and also one of Christ’s chosen saints. The positive results of royal cults did not, however, ex-

tend downward to a king’s lay followers. |

The result, it would seem, was a potential crisis of faith for Anglo-Saxons who were neither royalty nor clergy. Trained to

fight, encouraged by the Church to use their arms to protect | society, laymen none the less lacked unambiguous models affirming the sanctity of their endeavors. Medieval hagiographers sometimes used the earthly warfare of a saint who had been a soldier to invest the spiritual struggle with the manliness, heroism, and drama of physical combat, but they showed the saint _ definitively rejecting the warlike life he had led. As models for living, these texts provided no moral support for the warriors upon whose martial prowess Christian society depended, unless they subsequently renounced their earthly responsibilities.” One result of such scruples on the part of hagiographers was to

leave men on whom the Church depended for its physical safety without a reciprocal sense that their struggles on behalf of the Church were acceptable in God's eyes.

There is considerable evidence for a resulting crisis of faith among the Anglo-Saxon warrior elite. In the early eighth century, as he wound up his sweeping account of the ecclesias-

tical history of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, Bede expressed concern that the ideals of Christianity he valued so highly had none the less begun to have a corrosive effect on Anglo-Saxon war-preparedness.”' He included in the last pages of his masterwork brief words of caution about the state of peace Northumbria was then experiencing: °° One major exception often cited by scholars is the Frankish Life of St Gerald of Aurillac by Odo of Cluny (BHL 3411), written during the first half of the

tenth century, a work most likely known to the Anglo-Saxons. Yet even there, in the vita of a lay noble whose society and times frequently required him to take up arms, warfare itself is not sanctified, since Odo describes how Gerald’s battles were won miraculously by armies who bore their weapons reversed. Anglo-Saxon ealdormen can hardly have seen such ac-

counts as models for their own behavior. *! Bede, Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum [hereafter HE] ed. and trans. J. E. King, Baedae Opera Historica, 2 vols., Loeb Classical Library (London, 1930; reprint 1976), vol. 1, pp. 2-505; vol. 2, pp. 2-389. 195

John Edward Damon | As such peace and prosperity prevail in these days, many

of the Northumbrians, both noble and simple, together with their children, have laid aside their weapons, preferring to receive the tonsure and take monastic vows rather than study the arts of war. What the result of this will be the future will show.”

Although Bede expressed concern about the tendency of Anglo-Saxon laymen to abandon military for religious life, he also recorded many accounts of laymen of every class who abandoned secular for spiritual duties, putting down their swords and armor in favor of a monk’s habit and prayerbook or the staff of a pilgrim, and many of these men were subsequently venerated as saints. A reader of Bede’s own writings might easily be filled with a zeal to emulate so many saintly men in taking

up the holy warfare of the saints. |

| The problem did not end with Bede’s warning. Peter Hunter Blair argues that a study of the period between Bede’s note of caution “and the appearance of the Northmen sixty

years later” would “tend to confirm Bede’s fears about the outcome of a flight from secular responsibilities to the more re-

stricted world of monasteries.”* It is tempting to link the

| overwhelming success of the Vikings in their attacks on England in the ninth century to the sort of military unpreparedness that bothered Bede. As Hunter Blair argues, “Bede knew well enough that if society needed regiments of men and women to

| wage spiritual warfare within their monasteries, it had no less a need for those who could draw their swords on the battlefields of this world in defense of their own kingdom.”** Bede spoke

* “Qua adridente pace ac serenitate temporum, plures in gente Nordanhymbrorum, tam nobiles quam privati, se suosque liberos depositis armis satagunt magis accepta tonsura monasterialibus adscribere votis, quam bellicis exercere studiis. Quae res quem sit habitura finem, posterior aetas videbit” (HE 5.23, ed. King, vol. 2, p. 372). A similar, more detailed statement of Bede’s concerns appears in a letter to Bishop Egbert, in which he describes the creation of many monasteries-in-name-only, false institutions which weakened the kingdom militarily while providing no real spiritual benefit. See Bede, “Venerabilis Bedae Epistola ad Ecgberctum Antistitem,” in

Baedae Opera Historica, ed. and trans. King, vol. 2, pp. 446-89. , > Peter Hunter Blair, “From Bede to Alcuin,” in Famulus Christi: Essays in Commemoration of the Thirteenth Centenary of the Birth of the Venerable Bede, ed.

196 , ; |

Gerald Bonner (London, 1976), pp. 239-60, at 239. ** Ibid., p. 240.

Sanctifying Anglo-Saxon Ealdormen

on this issue from a somewhat privileged position, however; he

himself would not have been expected to defend the nation against invading armies. That was someone else’s job. Bede wanted men to man the battlements of Anglo-Saxon society, but he would not have joined them. As later thinkers would codify the problem, there were two separate classes of men involved: those who fought, the bellatores, and those who prayed, the oratores.” Bede did not want the bellatores to quit their ap-

pointed tasks and become oratores. Contradictory as it may sound, Bede did not want the whole nation to follow his own example. The “problem” as Bede defined it — bellatores abandoning

their duties for the more “rewarding” tasks of the oratores, and thereby leaving society ill-defended — undoubtedly declined over time. The first wave of Viking invasions probably put an end to it, at least for a while. Monasteries were juicy targets for the raiders, and pious pacifism becomes less attractive when one’s life is on the line. However, a careful examination of literary texts by or about tenth- and eleventh-century Anglo-Saxon ealdormen reveals that they had concerns similar to those that motivated the laymen of Bede’s time. The very men on whom society (including the institutions of the Church) relied for de-

fense had not been given unequivocal assurances that their path in life was equally pleasing in the eyes of God as those of their clerical or royal counterparts. Byrhtnoth could have provided one part of that assurance, had he come to be regarded as a Saint, but history clearly shows he did not. It is true that his headless body was taken by the monks of Ely and entombed with honor in their monastery. We know that his bones were later translated, along with those of the pious abbots of Ely, to a

new place of honor under the common heading confessores

, * For analysis of the tripartite division of society, see Duby, The Three Orders, and Timothy Powell, “The ‘Three Orders’ of Society in Anglo-Saxon Eng-

land,” ASE 23 (1994): 103-32; cf. Alice Sheppard, “Noble Counsel, No Counsel: Advising Ethelred the Unready,” pp. 393-422 below. The terminology of the three orders was employed by three major Anglo-Saxon writ-

ers: King Alfred, Alfric, and Wulfstan. For an opposing view of the problem, see Giles Constable, “The Orders of Society,” in Three Studies in Medieval Religious and Social Thought (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 249-360. , 197

John Edward Damon

Christi.” Yet despite all this there never was a St Byrhtnoth. As

an insufficiently powerful leader in both secular and spiritual realms, he will forever remain an almost-saint, one who slipped through the cracks.

Lay sanctity represented one means of closing those cracks, and during the tenth and eleventh centuries tentative steps were taken by or on behalf of Anglo-Saxon ealdormen to bridge the gap, to reassure powerful laymen that their actions on behalf of the Church and society were pleasing in the eyes of God and could gain them a place in heaven. Byrhtnoth represents an early example of the linkage between death in battle and sanctity, despite his failure to achieve sainthood. The new wave of Viking invasions of the late-tenth and eleventh centu-

| ries sorely tested Anglo-Saxon churchmen’s ideals of nonengagement in earthly warfare. Faced with a bitterly violent foe, any tendency toward abandonment of earthly heroism among the Anglo-Saxon nobility would represent a threat to AngloSaxon society and the continuity of the established Church in England. The lay piety of Byrhtnoth presented an important model to his peers, while at the same time his engagement in military affairs provided for society’s defense against external enemies. His heroic death in battle represented only one aspect of his exemplary role in Anglo-Saxon society.

A contemporary of Byrhtnoth whose career mirrored many aspects of his, but whose death could not be claimed as a martyrdom, was Atthelwine, ealdorman of East Anglia. 7thelwine came from a family closely connected to the royal house of Wessex, his being at least the third generation in his family

to hold important positions as ealdormen under the descendants of Alfred.”’ His father Athelstan gained the by-name “Half King” for his central role in English political affairs. According to Cyril Hart, “Athelstan ‘Half King’ at the height of his power governed in virtual autonomy a province the size of Normandy, and owned in addition extensive estates outside his ealdordom; as the most influential advisor of a teenage monarch he became * See Kennedy, “Byrhtnoth’s Obits,” pp. 65-68; Elizabeth Coatsworth, “Byrhtnoth’s Tomb,” in The Battle of Maldon AD 991, ed. Scragg, pp. 279-88.

, *” Both the Ramsey Chronicle and the Vita s. Oswaldi of Byrhtferth of Ramsey refer to A‘thelwine as being of royal descent. See Cyril Hart, “Athelstan

‘Half King’ and His Family,” ASE 2 (1973): 115-44, at 125 n. 7. , 198

Sanctifying Anglo-Saxon Ealdormen

for a while virtually the regent of all England, and subsequently he fostered one of the athelings.”** Athelstan also was an ardent supporter of the English Church.

Like his father, Athelwine contributed strong leadership to both the secular and ecclesiastical governance of England. His political power seems to have grown at least in part out of his close personal relationship with his foster brother, King Edgar.” The by-name by which he is remembered, Dei amicus,

indicates his equally close ties to Anglo-Saxon religious institutions.” He played a dominant role in the foundation of Ramsey, one of the reformed institutions created during the reign of King Edgar. Alan Thacker describes A‘thelwine’s role in the early history of Ramsey as equaling that of St Oswald: Oswald’s influence was rivalled only by that of Ealdorman

AEthelwine, who provided much of the original endowment. Like Oswald, A‘tthelwine came often to the institution he had so lavishly enriched, and indeed it was his

custom to accompany the saint on his annual visits. He |

stayed with the monks during his final sickness, and unlike Oswald was actually buried in the monastery.” |

His role in founding and supporting Ramsey mirrors Byrhtnoth’s important patronage of Ely, and indeed both men appear in Ramsey’s chronicle. These two ealdormen also shared leading roles in two poli-

tico-religious struggles of their day: resistance to the “antimonastic reaction” that followed the death of Edgar, and the defense of England against the Viking invasions. The movement against the growing power of the reformed monasteries began under the reign of Edgar but reached a crescendo after his death. According to Hart, We find A:lfhere of Mercia dominant in the closing years

of Edgar’s reign, throughout the brief reign of Edward the Martyr and in the early years of Athelred ‘Unraed’. * Ibid., p. 116. ” Tbid., pp. 123-24. ” For an assessment of the authenticity of the by-name, see ibid., p. 138. Hart considers it unlikely to have been a later invention. — “' Alan Thacker, “Saint-Making and Relic Collecting,” in St Oswald of Worcester:

Life and Influence, ed. Nicholas Brooks and Catherine Cubitt (London and New York, 1996), pp. 244-68, at 246. 199

John Edward Damon His anti-monastic inclinations were held in check during

Edgar’s lifetime, but afterwards only Athelwine and Byrhtnoth and their supporters were left to oppose him.”*?

Together, Aithelwine and Byrhtnoth won the struggle against fElfhere, and together with A.thelwine’s brother Alfwold and one of the other ealdormen discussed in this study, Atthelweard of Wessex, brought about what Hart terms “the reconstruction of the status quo ante.”*’ Their endeavors to defend and support

| the reformed monasteries were matched by their defense _ against the external threat posed by the Danes. {I]f we scrutinize the course of events recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle we shall find that the stability of the

kingdom remained virtually intact until the deaths of Byrhtnoth and Athelwine in 991 and 992 respectively. Until then, the Vikings could mount raids that penetrated only short distances and for short periods from the seaboard; thereafter, they were able to cross the country with impunity. Danegeld was not raised to buy them off

until after Byrhtnoth had died at Maldon, and Athelwine, already a sick man, was preparing at Ramsey for his

end.”

This pair of pious and powerful laymen lived closely linked lives, together forming a shield against invasion from without and a support against anti-religious activities within. Yet their radically different deaths only a year apart may account for the differing degrees to which the clerics they aided promoted each man’s sanctity after death.

Like Byrhtnoth, Athelwine figures prominently in the chronicles of Ramsey and Ely, but he also appears in a major hagiographic text written at Ramsey honoring the life of

, Oswald. Cyril Hart says that “no other ealdorman of the tenth * Hart, “Athelstan ‘Half King,’” p. 135, who cites D. J. V. Fisher, “The AntiMonastic Reaction in the Reign of Edward the Martyr,” Cambridge Historical Journal 10 (1952): 254-70. °° Hart, “Athelstan ‘Half King,’” p. 135.

* Ibid., p. 135. For another interpretation in the changing approach to the Danish invasion, see John Damon, “Advisors for Peace in the Reign of Ethelred Unred,” in Peace and Negotiation: Strategies for Coexistence in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, ed. Diane Wolfthal, Arizona Studies in the Mid-

dle Ages and the Renaissance 4 (Turnhout, 2000), pp. 57-78.

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century or earlier has had his activities recorded in such detail for posterity,” but it is in the Vita s. Oswaldi that the definite sense emerges of the desire of some clerics to sanctify one of these pious laymen.” A#:thelwine’s prominent place in the Vita

: s. Oswaldi has led Alan Thacker to conclude that its author, _ Byrhtferth of Ramsey, sought to promote the sanctity of the

ealdorman as well as the saintly archbishop. Pointing out that Ramsey lacked the body of St Oswald and therefore the focal point for a miracle-based cult, Thacker suggests that in A‘thelwine, Byrhtferth and the Ramsey community saw a likely substitute: Byrhtferth appears to have hoped that some compensation could be found for the lack of Oswald’s body in the development of a veneration for Ealdorman /A‘thelwine. In particular, his long and emotive account of the eal-

| dorman’s last illness and death looks very much as if it was intended to lay the groundwork for a cult. If so, the hagiographer’s ambitions were never realized.”

Thacker also finds it significant that Ramsey staged an important hagiographic event on the date of thelwine’s death, with

| the result that, “[t]hough he himself was not venerated, the date of Ethelwine’s obit had thus become a major local feast.”*’

It seems significant that of this first pair of ealdormen, Byrhtnoth and A‘thelwine, the man whose death took place in a monastery came closer to sanctification than the man who died like a military martyr in battle against pagans. In England, the

role of the confessor, rather than that of the martyr, was applied most consistently to the noble practitioners of lay piety. Yet A‘thelwine’s death at Ramsey also accords more closely to

the pre-crusading route to holiness of laymen throughout the Latin West: the abandonment of secular duties for the more | spiritually secure atmosphere of the monastery. Signs of a possible turning away from secular responsibilities to spiritual concerns can be discerned in the life of another

major ealdorman often connected to Byrhtnoth and thel| * Hart, “Athelstan ‘Half King,” p. 136. © Thacker, “Saint-Making,” p. 257.

*” Tbid., p. 258. Thacker also suggests that “the cult of a certain #lflad” that

did develop at Ramsey may have been devoted to Athelwine’s wife, Athelflzed: ibid., p. 257.

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wine, A‘thelweard of Wessex. Hart includes A‘thelweard in the group of ealdormen responsible for the widespread recovery of

the pro-monastic party after “A‘lfhere’s death in 983 and his

brother-in-law’s banishment two years later.” Like them,

AEthelweard aligned himself strongly with the Church and its values. However, unlike Byrhtnoth, he is not remembered for his prowess in battle and his embodiment of heroic secular values. His first literary traces appear in a treaty signed between King Athelred and the invading Viking army in 994, not long after the deaths of Byrhtnoth and Athelwine, in which he is credited with having provided the model on which the peace

| accord was drawn up: the truce was to be “in accordance with

the terms which Archbishop Sigeric and Ealdorman /A‘thelweard . ...made, when they obtained permission from the king to purchase peace for the districts which they had rule over.” By purchasing peace A‘thelweard responded very differently to the Viking invasion than Byrhtnoth, his counterpart in Essex, who, according to the Maldon-poet, rejected forcefully the idea : of buying a truce when it was suggested to him by the invading

Danes. | |

Akthelweard next appears in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as one of those entrusted with bringing Olaf Tryggvason, leader of the Vikings and later king of Norway, to a meeting with King Ethelred at which Olaf accepted Christianity and swore never

to return as an invader to England. Olaf abided by the agreement, converting Norway on his return there, and never again raising arms against the English. Unfortunately for the AngloSaxons, however, Olaf was only one leader among many, and the peace policies promoted by Athelweard came to be regarded as disastrous when viewed from the perspective of a history which included four Viking kings of England.

/Ethelweard left behind other records. In addition to his involvement in such unheroic pursuits as buying peace and promoting the conversion of Viking leaders, he is remembered

for his scholarship: he learned to read and write Latin and © translated one version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, leaving to ** Hart, “Athelstan ‘Half King,’”” p. 135.

39 Quoted by Simon Keynes, “The Historical Context of the Battle of Maldon,” in The Battle of Maldon AD 991, ed. Scragg, pp. 81-113, at 92.

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posterity the text known as #thelweard’s Chronicle.“ He also became the patron of the most prolific writer of his day, Alfric of Eynsham, who dedicated his compendious translation into Old English of Latin accounts of the Lives of Saints to Athelweard

and his son Athelmer, saying that he had completed the work at their request and for their benefit.”’ In it he included the Lives of a number of Roman and Greek military martyrs, men like “The Forty Soldiers, Martyrs,” “St Maurice and His Companions” in the Theban Legion, and St Sebastian, all of whom were laymen when they died for the faith, and none of whom was royal. Despite A‘lfric’s attempts to reassure the two secular leaders that their actions on behalf of society and the Church were pleasing to God, A‘thelweard’s son A*thelmer, after becoming an ealdorman himself during the late days of the Viking invasions, eventually resigned his secular post to become a

monk in Alfric’s monastery at Eynsham, an institution

AEthelmer himself founded. Displeased with the course of secu-

lar affairs, Athelmzr chose the more secure path of monastic piety. There is no evidence, however, that anyone promoted either the peace-making and scholarly A:thelweard or his son Asthelmeer as candidates for sanctity.

Then there is the case of Leofric, Earl of Mercia, who served under King Edward the Confessor and died in 1057, nine years before the Battle of Hastings, for whom there is con-

vincing evidence of active support for an elevation to sainthood, in the form of a remarkable document known as the Visz0 Leofrici, “The Old English Vision of Leofric, Earl of Mercia.”

Its unknown author, presumably a cleric (although the text is ” AEthelweard, Chronicon -Ethelweardi: The Chronicle of thelweard, ed. A. Campbell (London, 1962). ! £lfric’s Lives of Saints, ed. W. W. Skeat, 4 vols., EETS OS 76, 82, 94, 114 (London, 1881-95; reprinted in 2 vols., Oxford, 1966), vol. 1, pp. 46. * A. S. Napier, ed. and trans., “An Old English Vision of Leofric, Earl of Mercia,” Transactions of the Philological Society (1907-10): 180-88. Significant stud-

ies of this work include Phillip Pulsiano, “Hortatory Purpose in the OE Viszo Leofrict,” MAE 54 (1985): 109-16; Milton McC. Gatch, “Miracles in Architec-

tural Settings: Christ Church, Canterbury and St Clement’s, Sandwich in the Old English Viston of Leofric,” ASE 22 (1992): 227-52; and Milton McC. Gatch, “Piety and Liturgy in the Old English Viszon of Leofric,” in Words, Texts and Manuscripts: Studies in Anglo-Saxon Culture Presented to Helmut Gneuss, ed. Michael Korhammer (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 159-79. 2.03

| John Edward Damon | written in Old English, not Latin), recorded a series of miraculous visions seen by the powerful Anglo-Saxon nobleman.

Although Leofric left no direct evidence of his own scholarly pursuits, the nature of the Visto Leofrict indicates a literary _ consciousness in its subject as well as its creator. The first vision

involves the crossing of a bridge, a motif associated with the passage to the afterlife in other medieval vision narratives.” In Leofric’s vision, a voice assures him that he will successfully | cross the bridge, as he does:

| Him puhte to sodan on healf-slapendon lichaman, na eallinga swylce on swefne, ac gyt gewisslicor, p[zt] he sceolde nede ofer ane swide smale bricge, | seo wes swipe lang, J per arn swide feorr beneodan egelisc water, swylce hit ea were. pa pa he mid

he hu.* , ,

pam gedraht wes, pa cwad him stefn to, “Ne forhta pu. Eade bu pa bricge oferferest.” Mid pam pa weard he sona ofere, nyste

The easy crossing of the bridge seems to indicate Byrhtnoth’s

easy acceptance into heaven, a concept reinforced by later events in the vision. He is led by a guide to “anum swyée wlitigan felde ) swyée fegeran, mid swetan stence afylled.”* The field is filled

with a great crowd of people dressed in “snawhwitum réafe” in front of whom a figure dressed as a priest and identified as St Paul is peforming the mass. These elements identify the field as

heaven, reached by the safe passage across the bridge. So far the images reflect standard elements in medieval otherworld journeys, and many of them may have been derived, directly or indirectly, from Gregory the Great’s Dialogues, especially what

| Carol Zaleski’s refers to as the “most influential of Gregory’s anecdotes of return from death”: the account of a soldier’s

*8 See Carol Zaleski, Otherworld Journeys: Accounts of Near-Death Experience in Medieval and Modern Times (New York and Oxford, 1987).

“Tt seemed to him truly, in half-sleeping condition, not altogether as in a | dream, but still more clearly, that he must needs cross a very narrow bridge, and it was very long, and there ran far below it a terrible water, as though it were a river. When he was troubled about this a voice said to him, “Do not be afraid. Thou wilt easily cross the bridge.” With that he was forthwith across, he knew not how”: Napier ed. and trans., “An Old English Vision of Leofric, Earl of Mercia,” pp. 182-83. , *«1 A] very beautiful and very fair field filled with a sweet odour” (ibid.).

204

Sanctifying Anglo-Saxon Ealdormen

death and and return. According to Zaleski, “[i]t was thanks largely to this widely read account that the bridge — as the setting for a psychomachia or symbolic confrontation with deeds —

became such a prominent feature of the medieval otherworld landscape.” Zaleski’s list of the archetypal elements in that narrative could just as easily be applied to Leofric’s vision: “the river of hell, the flowery meadows of paradise, the white-clothed throngs in heaven, the test-bridge.”*” The only image missing is what Zaleski terms “the externalization of deeds,” in which vivid, material representations of good and evil deeds vie for the dead person’s soul. Leofric’s easy passage across the bridge thus seems to suggest a very pure state of the ealdorman’s soul. Yet Leofric is led further, to a select group who challenge his presence among them: ba ladde he hine furdor pat hi coman par par seton six arwurolice menn, swide wurdlice gefratewod. ba cwzd heora an,

“Hwet sceall pas fula mann on ure ferreddene.” pa yswarode him ober 3 cwxd, “He mot beon mid us, he is niwan gefullod burh dadbote, 7 he cym6 to us on pere priddan gebyrtide.””

It is tempting to associate this group of “arwurdélice menn, swide wurolice gefrzetewod,” with the company of the saints, but such

an identification remains highly speculative. Just as in the case

of Byrhtnoth, this unique document does not prove that Leofric was regarded as a saint. It does, however, indicate that | someone wished to promote the image of Leofric, an exceptionally pious laymen, as a possible candidate for sainthood in much the same way that Byrhtferth and the community at Ram-

* Zaleski, Otherworld Journeys, p. 30.

47 Then [the guide] led him further, till they came to where six venerable

, men were sitting, very worthily clad. Then one of them said, “What is this foul man doing in our company?” Then another answered him, “He may be with us, for he has been baptized afresh by penitence, and he will to us on the third “gebyrd-tid’”: Napier, ed. and trans., “An Old English Vision of Leofric, Earl of Mercia,” pp. 182-83. The last term is obscure, but Pulsiano has interpreted it as referring to the third of three “birth-days”, namely the days of baptism, penitence, and “resurrection from death — a birth which recalls the original ‘newness’ of life in Baptism”: Pulsiano, “Hortatory Pur- - pose in the OE Visio Leofrici,” p. 112. 205

John Edward Damon

sey presented Aithelwine, Dei amicus, as a possible lay saint.”

This vision, in conjunction with the three other visions presented in the Visto Leofrict, would have played an important role in establishing its subject’s sanctity.

Leofric, like Athelwine Dei amicus, adhered more closely to the saintly model of the confessor than the holy martyr. His engagement in an active life shaped by the performance of duties to God and country reflects the tradition of lay sainthood. Laymen in general were associated with the vita activa and the path of Martha, while the monastic life reflected the vita contemplativa of Mary.* The writers of texts like the Visio Leofrici, the Vita s. Oswaldi, and The Battle of Maldon, and a translator of the vitae of lay saints like A‘lfric, were all taking steps, however

tentative, toward offering to warrior noblemen, as representatives of laymen committed to both secular and spiritual values and institutions, hope of the same direct, unmediated salvation through sainthood that kings and clerics enjoyed. At the same time, ealdormen like #thelweard and Athelmer, Byrhtnoth, /Ethelwine, and Leofric were taking steps to align their lives with the spiritual ideals of the Church, thereby combining the active and contemplative paths. Milton Gatch comments on this

phenomenon in connection with Leofric of Mercia: | In the tenth and eleventh centuries, on the Continent and also in England, a number of laymen are described as exemplary not only for their devotion to the public duties with which birth had invested them but also for their efforts to support the religious order and to incorporate in their own lives the disciplines of monasticism. St Gerald of Aurillac (865-909) is a notable example, championed by Odo of Cluny. 4lfric of Eynsham’s patrons, the ealdorman A‘thelweard and his son A‘thelmzr, seem to have gathered a number of English books that would allow them to model the monastic office and, thus, to have modelled themselves to this ideal of a noble vita mixta. To

** According to Gatch, there “may have been an effort to develop a cult for Leofric, perhaps at Coventry, where he and his wife had made magnificent contributions to the fabric of the church and were buried, perhaps more generally in Mercia, as survival of [the manuscript containing the Viszo Leofrict} at Worcester may suggest”: Gatch, “Piety and Liturgy,” pp. 161-62.

* Giles Constable, “The Interpretation of Mary and Martha,” in Three Studies, pp. 1-141, at 72.

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Sanctifying Anglo-Saxon Ealdormen

that number the Visto Leofrict clearly attempts to elevate the earl of Mercia.”

If lay sanctity, one obvious goal of this “noble vita mixta,” had ever truly flowered, it could have offered the descendants of

these ealdormen the hope of immediate transport to heaven after lives spent in exemplary performance of their earthly duties.

We will never know where this tendency in Anglo-Saxon society would have led if the cataclysmic events of 1066 had not ended the Anglo-Saxon era. The call to crusade also provided a type of pressure-release valve for the fault-line I have described as fracturing Anglo-Saxon society. In the Norman era, warriorsainthood would become synonymous with the wearing of the crusader’s cross. Fundamental changes disrupted the developing pattern. There is, however, the remaining evidence of that

last ealdorman I mentioned in my introduction, ealdorman number five. For, in fact, one Anglo-Saxon nobleman holding the status of ealdorman or ear! did come to have a full-fledged vita, promoting in no uncertain terms its subject’s sanctity, written for him following his death. Earl Waltheof of Northumbria, the last Anglo-Saxon noble to serve under the new regime of William the Conqueror, was beheaded in 1075 for acts of treason against his new Norman overlords.”' According to Forrest S. Scott, Waltheof, like other ealdormen whose careers exempli-

fied lay piety, was an active supporter of the Church: | Waltheof was a generous patron of the church and made grants to Lincoln, Durham and St Edmunds as well as Crowland; and although among many other motives he may have been impelled by the common one of wanting

to improve his position in the next world, there seems no

reason to doubt that his interest in assisting monastic life was genuine. Beneficiaries are, it is true, inclined to speak well of their benefactors and the praises of the Crowland

historians [responsible for his vita] must be read with | much reserve, but the more modest opinion of the

” Thid., p. 162. | Vita et passio Waldevi comitis, ed. J. A. Giles, Veta quorundum Anglo-Saxonum: Onginal Lives of Anglo-Saxons and Others Who Lived Before the Conquest, Publi-

cations of the Caxton Society 16 (London, 1854; reprint New York, 1967), pp. 5-10.

207

John Edward Damon : Thorney tradition, that he was “a saintly man and a lover of all justice,” can be more readily accepted.”

The author or authors of Waltheof’s vita had more than just his pious reputation to support a claim for their subject’s sanctity, for this last Anglo-Saxon ealdorman was beheaded in 1075 for acts of treason against his new Norman overlords, a death that

they characterized as the passion of a martyr, including the claim that his beheading interrupted Waltheof’s final prayer, which was subsequently completed by the severed head.”

, One interesting detail that emerges from a study of the vita and cult of Waltheof is the connection to one of England’s

most renowned soldier saints, Guthlac of Croyland. A warrior in his youth, Guthlac rejected that life first in favor of the monas- | tery and later an isolated hermit’s cell..* According to the author of the Vita et passio, Waltheof was buried at Croyland shortly after his death: “Post quindecim autem dies, Juditha

uxore ejus petente regeque permittente, Ulketelus abbas

Croilandiz corpus sancti comitis adhuc integrum et ita cruentatum ac si eadem die vir Dei interemptus est, Croilandium de-

ferri fecit, 1psumque in capitulo monachorum reverenter

sepelivit.”””" A later abbot of Croyland, Ingulf, inspected the body, and after finding signs of miraculous preservation, had the body translated to a place of higher honor, after which a vision revealed that both Guthlac and his own patron saint, Bartholomew, accepted Waltheof’s presence among the holy dead: Sequenti vero nocte, quum idem abbas de his et aliis quz

miraculose acciderant in lecto suo devota mente tractaret, tandem, somno obrepente, vidit in visione sanctos * Forrest S. Scott, “Earl Waltheof of Northumbria,” in Archaeologia Aeliana or Miscellaneous Tracts Relating to Antiquity, ed C. H. Hunter Blair (Newcastle upon Tyne, 1952), pp. 149-213, at 211-12. ”’ Vita et passio Waldevi comitis, ed. Giles, p. 2.

** See Mary Clayton, “Hermits and the Contemplative Life in Anglo-Saxon England,” in Holy Men and Holy Women: Old English Prose Saints’ Lives and Their Contexts, ed. Paul E. Szarmach (Albany, NY, 1996), pp. 147-75, for a provocative argument concerning attitudes toward the contemplative life in late Anglo-Saxon England, especially in works by 4lfric. > Vita et passio Waldevi comitis, ed. J. A. Giles, p. 2: “After fifteen days, however, after the king had granted his wife Judith’s request, Ulfketel, abbot of Croy-

land, had the holy earl’s body carried to Croyland, still fresh and even bloody as if on the day the man of God had been killed, and entombed with reverence in the chapel of the monks.” 208

Sanctifying Anglo-Saxon Ealdormen

Dei Bartholomeum apostulum et Guthlacum confessorem, albis sacerdotalibus indutos, secum ad sancti comitis tumulum assistentes. Apostolus vero, ut videbatur,

Caput comitis corpori redintegratum accipiens, dicebat, “Acephalus non est.” Cui santus Guthlacus, qui ad pedes stabat, respondit, “Comes hic fuit.” Apostolus autem inceptum versum metricum perfecit, dicens: “At modo rex est.””°

The dialogue between the apostle and the soldier saint presents

the elevation of the earl to sainthood as also an elevation to kingship, so that Waltheof, who had been merely a comes, an earl and the follower of a lord, is now a king himself. This pas-

sage underscores the connection between regal status and sainthood, and the corresponding denigration of laymen, even of a pious layman who followed what Gatch calls the “noble vita mixta.”

Of all the Anglo-Saxon bellatores who approached sainthood, clearly Waltheof came the closest to being venerated as a saint. Needless to say, the anonymous Vita et passio Waldevi comi-

tis and the cult it attempted to inaugurate found few (if any) adherents among England’s new Norman power elite. The group of powerful laymen profiled in this study all left behind literary traces of an Anglo-Saxon movement of lay piety and incipient lay sanctity related to, but significantly different from, the crusaders’ path to holiness. © Ibid., pp. 3-4: “Truly the next night, when in his own bed the same abbot was turning over with troubled mind these and other things that miraculously had taken place, at last, sleep having crept up on him, he saw in a vision the holy men of God the apostle Bartholomew and the confessor Guthlac, dressed in priests’ white garments, standing by themselves near the tomb of the holy earl. The apostle truly, as it seemed to him, the earl’s head rejoining in wholeness with the body, said, “He is not headless.’ Saint Guthlac, who was standing at the feet, to him responded, “The earl has gone.’ The apostle, however, finished the metrical verse already begun, say-

ing, ‘But now he is a king.’” ]

. 209

The Old English “Macarius” Homily, Vercelli Homily IV,

| and Ephrem Latinus, De paenitentia

CHARLES D. WRIGHT , | 'HE sources relation can of Old vernacular to their ,FLatin takeEnglish a variety of forms.homilies Some homilies may translate directly one or more Latin texts — whether from

complete versions or through extracts in florilegia' — while others, the so-called composite homilies, simply draw together materials which had already been translated in previous vernacular homilies.* Some homilies, of course, might have com-

bined both independently translated material from Latin ' The often indirect relation between Old English sermons and their Latin sources is well illustrated by the case of Vercelli Homily III, whose ultimate sources were reconstructed by Joan Turville-Petre, “Translations of a Lost Penitential Homily,” Traditio 19 (1963): 51-78, showing that the immediate

source was a lost Latin sermon in which these extracts had already been patched together. That sermon was subsequently discovered by Helen D. Spencer, “Vernacular and Latin Versions of a Sermon for Lent: ‘A Lost Penitential Homily’ Found,” MS 44 (1982): 271-305. On the collection in which it survives, which furnished material for several Old English homi-

(London, 1987). , ,

lies, see J. E. Cross, Cambridge Pembroke College MS. 25: A Carolingian Sermonary Used by Anglo-Saxon Preachers, King’s College London Medieval Studies 1

> For detailed studies of some composite homilies, see M. R. Godden, “Old English Composite Homilies from Winchester,” ASE 4 (1975): 57-65; D. G. Scragg, “Napier’s ‘Wulfstan’ Homily XXX: Its Sources, Its Relationship to the Vercelli Book and Its Style,” ASE 6 (1977): 197-211; Jonathan Wilcox, “Napier’s ‘Wulfstan’ Homilies XL and XLII: Two Anonymous Works from Winchester?” JEGP 90 (1991): 1-19; and Mary Swan, “Old English Made New: One Catholic Homily and Its Reuses,” Leeds Studies in English n.s. 28 (1997): 1-18.

210 |

“Macarius,” Vercelli IV, (7 E. Latinus, De paenitentia

sources with recycled material from existing Old English homilies, and it is not always easy, or possible, to determine which homilies or parts of homilies are composite, or precisely how

vernacular homilies which overlap are related to each other. Donald G. Scragg has done much to sort out the relationships of the substantial overlapping material in the corpus of Old English anonymous homilies,’ but some conclusions are inevitably insecure, especially in the absence of any Latin sources to which they might be compared. A good example of this difficulty is Vercelli Homily IV, whose introduction overlaps considerably with another, apparently composite homily known as the “Macarius” soul-and-body homily. Vercelli IV itself survives in more than one copy. In addition to the Vercelli Book version,’ another complete text occurs among the marginal entries in Cambridge, Corpus Christi

College MS 41, from the first half of the eleventh century,” while a fragment survives in a twelfth-century part of the composite manuscript Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 367, pt. II.” What scholars have called the Old English “Macarius” homily — because its main source is a story concerning the desert father Macarius, although his name is not given in the Old

English — survives in a manuscript from the third quarter of

the eleventh century, Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS ,

* The composite material in many Old English anonymous homilies is briefly indicated by D. G. Scragg, “The Corpus of Vernacular Homilies and Prose Saints’ Lives before 4lfric,” ASE9 (1979); 223-77. * Ed. D. G. Scragg, The Vercelli Homilies and Related Texts, EETS OS 300 (Lon-

don, 1992), pp. 87-107. The manuscript is no. 941 in Helmut Gneuss’s “A Preliminary List of Manuscripts Written or Owned in England up to 1100,” ASE 9 (1981): 1-60; see also N. R. Ker, Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon (1957; reprinted with addenda, Oxford, 1991), no. 394. For a facsimile of the manuscript, see Celia Sisam, The Vercelli Book (Vercelli Biblioteca Capitolare cxvii), EEMF 19 (Copenhagen, 1976); Vercelli IV occurs on

fols. 16v-24v. On the homily’s relation to other texts in the manuscript, see Scragg’s Introduction, pp. xxiv-xxv, updating his earlier analysis in “The Compilation of the Vercelli Book,” ASE 2 (1973): 189-207, reprinted with a new postscript in Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: Basic Readings, ed. Mary P. Richards (New York, 1994), pp. 317-44. > Ker, Catalogue, no. 32, art. 9; Gneuss, “List,” no. 39 (provenance Exeter). ® Tbid., no. 63, art. 10. 211

Charles D. Wright

201, pp. 179-262.’ This part of Corpus 201, from Exeter, contains the Latin text of the Capitula of Theodulf of Orleans, to-

gether with an Old English translation, with the Macarius homily intervening.” The manuscript was once bound together with two manuscripts which seem to have been created as companion volumes for it, Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS

191 (Exeter, s. x3/4),’ containing the Rule of Chrodegang of Metz in both Latin and Old English translation,’” and Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 196 (Exeter, s. xi2)'’ containing a portion of the Old English Martyrology’ and an incomplete translation of the apocryphal Vindicta Salvatoris."*

Although both Vercelli IV and the Macarius homily are in

the main soul-and-body homilies, the eschatological legends

| they transmit are otherwise unrelated. Moreover, as Rudolf | Willard has noted, in the Macarius homily the address of the soul to its body takes place at the hour of death, whereas in Vercelli IV it takes place at the Last Judgment."* The transfer of

the address to the Last Judgment is found also in Assmann Homily XIV, but there are no more specific correspondences between these two homilies either. Vercelli IV is unique in the ’ Tbid., no. 50, art. 2; Gneuss, “List,” no. 66 (Revised dates for these manuscripts from 2" ed., see n. 29 below). Foliation follows Mildred Budny, Jnsular, Anglo-Saxon, and Early Anglo-Norman Manuscript Art at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge: An Illustrated Catalogue, 2 vols. (Kalamazoo, MI, 1997), vol. 1, pp. 475 and 485.

* Both versions of the Capitula and the Macarius homily are edited by Hans

, Sauer, Theodulft Capitula in England, Munchener Universitats-Schriften 8 (Munich, 1978); for the homily see pp. 411-16, with notes at pp. 468-70. ” Ker, Catalogue, no. 46; Gneuss, “List,” no. 60. '° The Old English Version, with the Latin Original, of the Enlarged Rule of Chrodegang, ed. A. S. Napier, EETS OS 150 (London, 1916). '' Ker, Catalogue, no. 47; Gneuss, “List,” no. 62. 2 Das altenglische Martyrologium, ed. Ginter Kotzor, 2 vols., Abhandlungen der

Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Phil.-hist. Klasse, Neue Folge 88

(Munich, 1981). ,

'S For the Old English version of the Vindicta Salvatoris, see Two Old English Apocrypha and Their Manuscript Source: “The Gospel of Nichodemus” and “The

| Avenging of the Saviour,” ed. J. E. Cross et al., CSASE 19 (Cambridge, 1996); the Corpus manuscript is discussed (by Thomas N. Hall) on pp. 76-77, and the text it includes is collated in the edition. '* Rudolf Willard, “The Address of the Soul to the Body,” PMLA 50 (1935): 957-83, at 965 and 979. 212

“Macarius,” Vercelli IV, © E. Latinus, De paenitentia

soul-and-body tradition in a number of ways — including its description of a bizarre series of transformations in the form (hiw) of a good and a bad soul — and has no known sources, though there are echoes of two popular eschatological themes,

| the Seven Heavens and the Three Utterances of the Soul.'” The

vision of departing souls in the Macarius homily, on the other

hand, is closely paralleled in a Latin sermon printed by Ba- | tiouchkof, and was borrowed from the Macarius homily by the author of Napier Homily 29."°

The Macarius and Vercelli homilies do, however, share an

introductory exhortation to tears and penitence which contrasts the transitory joys of this world with the eternal torments of the next in an extended series of rhetorical contrasts in the form “Her bid . . . ac per bié. .. .” The verbal correspondences between the two texts are so close that it is clear that one homilist must have borrowed from the other. The Vercelli Book version of the exhortation is more expansive than the one in the Macarius homily, however, and D. G. Scragg and Malcolm Godden have assumed that the latter is an abbreviation of the Vercelli homily, though not directly of the Vercelli Book text itself.'”

| There is nothing inherently implausible in the assumption that the Macarius homily depends on a version of the Vercelli homily. The relative dates of the manuscripts in which they survive are not, of course, decisive evidence of the priority of the |

Vercelli Book version. The Macarius homily is regarded by Hans Sauer as a late West-Saxon copy of an Anglian original '® For these, see Charles D. Wright, The Irish Tradition in Old English Literature, CSASE 6 (Cambridge, 1993), pp. 26465. | '© Wulfstan: Sammlung der ihm zugeschriebenen Homilien nebst Untersuchungen tiber

thre Echthett, ed. A. S. Napier, Sammlung englischer Denkmaler 4 (Berlin, 1883; reprinted with a bibliographical addendum by Klaus Ostheeren, Dublin, 1967), pp. 140/9-141/25. See Julius Zupitza, “Zu ‘Seele und Leib,’” Ar-

chiv 91 (1893): 369-404, at 370-81; further references are cited by

Ostheeren (p. 339). Zupitza thought that the translation in Napier 29 was independent, but Karl Jost, Wulfstanstudien, Schweizer anglistische Arbeiten 23 (Bern, 1950), pp. 206-7, argued that the Macarius homily was the source for Napier 29.

'7 See Scragg, “The Corpus of Vernacular Homilies,” pp. 229 and 256; Malcolm Godden, review of Sauer, Theodulfit Capitula in England, in ME 48 (1979): 263-65, at 265. 213

Charles D. Wright | dating from the first half of the tenth century.” If so, the original of the Macarius homily antedates the Vercelli Book, and its assumed dependence on a version of Vercelli IV would actually constitute evidence that the Vercelli homily significantly antedates the manuscripts in which it survives. As far as I can see, the chief reason for assuming the priority of the Vercelli ver- sion is that abbreviation is felt to have been a more common procedure than expansion in the production of variant versions

| of vernacular homilies in Old English; but one scholar, at least, has suggested (without argument or elaboration) that the Vercelli homily “seems to be an expanded version.”’” Unfortunately, there is no decisive textual evidence for the priority of | one version over the other, without which philology and textual criticism cannot break the impasse. This is where a third drab

_ discipline, source studies, comes in. , ,

| No sources have previously been discovered for this introductory exhortation, but in fact the material these homilies share draws upon a discourse or sermon on penitence attributed (though perhaps wrongly) to the Syriac Father Ephrem of Edessa, who died in A.D. 373.” As it happens, the possibility that works attributed to Ephrem were known in Anglo-Saxon

England has been the subject of considerable scholarly research and speculation, notably in two articles by Thomas Bes'* Sauer, Theodulfi Capitula in England, p. 94, citing Lars-Gunnar Hallander, Old English Weak Verbs in -sian: A Semantic and Derivational Study (Stockholm, 1966), pp. 49 and 56 n. 3, and Klaus R. Grinda, “Arbeit” und “Muiihe”: Untersuchungen zur Bedeutungsgeschichte altenglischer Worter (Munich, 1975), p. 150.

Sauer analyzes the linguistic forms in the homily at pp. 210-11, noting that _ the evidence for an Anglian original and an early date comes from the vocabulary rather than from phonology and accidence. Sauer lists the distinctively Anglian words and phrases at p. 272. Franz Wenisch, Spezifisch anglisches Wortgut in den nordhumbnschen Interlinearglossterungen des Lukasevangeliums, Anglistische Forschungen 132 (Heidelberg, 1979), pp. 15233 and 327, classifies the homily as an originally Anglian composition, but

at one point (p. 57) limits this judgment to the introductory section it shares with Vercelli IV (cf. Sauer, Theodulfi Capitula in England, p. 215).

9 Hallander, Old English Verbs in -sian, p. 49. , * For a convenient sketch of Ephrem’s life and works, see the introduction to St. Ephrem the Syrian: Selected Prose Works, trans. Edward G. Mathews, Jr. and

214 |

Joseph P. Amar, ed. Kathleen McVey, Fathers of the Church 91 (Washington, DC, 1994), which also contains a list of major editions and translations and a very full bibliography. See also R. Murray, “Ephrem,” in Theologische Realenzyklopddie9 (1982), pp. 755-62.

“Macarius,” Vercelli IV, & E. Latinus, De paenitentia

tul and Patrick Sims-Williams.*' Since the question has remained unresolved, I would like to survey the scattered evidence that has been cited hitherto, before proceeding to an analysis of the Ephremic source of these two homilies.

Ephrem was a remarkably prolific author whose surviving Syriac works include homilies, biblical commentaries, and especially hymns.** Many of his works were translated into Greek, and some that are assumed to be genuine survive only in Greek

translation.*” At the same time, many of the Greek and Latin “Ephremic” works are almost certainly spurious, or based only

partially or loosely, if at all, on genuine Syriac works of Ephrem.” When speaking of the influence of “Ephrem the Syrian,” therefore, scholars are often speaking about a corpus of

Graeco-Latin writings attributed to him, many of which are similar in style and spirit to Ephrem’s genuine works, but do *' Thomas H. Bestul, “Ephraim the Syrian and Old English Poetry,” Anglia 99

(1981): 1-24; Patrick Sims-Williams, “Thoughts on Ephrem the Syrian in Anglo-Saxon England,” in Learning and Literature in Anglo-Saxon England: Studies Presented to Peter Clemoes on the Occasion of His Sixty-fifth Birthday, ed.

Michael Lapidge and Helmut Gneuss (Cambridge, 1985), pp. 205-26, _ reprinted with original pagination and addenda in his Britain and Early Christian Europe: Studies in Early Medieval History and Culture (Aldershot,

1995). Jane Stevenson’s “Ephraim the Syrian in Anglo-Saxon England,” Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies 1.2 (July 1998) came to my attention after the present paper was completed. *2 See Sebastian Brock, “A Brief Guide to the Main Editions and Translations of the Works of St. Ephrem,” The Harp: A Review of Syriac and Oriental Studies

3 (1990): 7-29. Most of the Syriac, Greek, and Latin texts are edited by J. S. Assemani, Sancti Ephrem Syrt Opera Omnia quae exstant . . . Graece, Syriace, Latine, 6 vols. (Rome, 1732-46). “For an inventory of the Greek versions, see CPG, vol. 2, 366-468 (nos. 39004175); for the De paenitentia (also titled De patientia) see p. 376 (no. 3915). See also D. Hemmerdinger-Iliadou, “Ephrem grec — Ephrem latin,” in Dictoonnatre de spiritualité, ascétique et mystique: Doctrine et histoire, ed. M. Viller et

al., 17 vols. (Paris, 1932-95), vol. 4, cols. 800-19; Democratie [liadou, “Ephrem: Versions grecque, latine et slave. Addenda et corrigenda,” Annuaire de l’Assoctation d'Etudes Byzantines 42 (1975-76): 320-73.

215 ,

** According to Sebastian P. Brock, “The Syriac Background,” in Archbishop Theodore: Commemorative Studies on His Life and Influence, ed. Michael Lapidge, CSASE I1 (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 30-53, at 40, “Very little, how-

ever, of the extant Ephrem Graecus and Ephrem Latinus is genuine Ephrem, and in most cases probably did not even start out in Syriac.”

Charles D. Wright

not necessarily correspond closely (or at all) to Syriac originals

composed by Ephrem himself. |

Of particular interest to Anglo-Saxonists is a corpus of six Latin sermons attributed to Ephrem, five of which are based more or less closely on Greek originals.*” Defensor of Ligugé extracted sententiae from two of these, the De die iudiciu and the

De compunctione cordis or Sermo asceticus, in the seventh century,”

and there are manuscripts of the larger corpus dating to the eighth century.*’ There are no Anglo-Saxon manuscripts of the

* See CPL, no. 1143; H. J. Frede, Kirchenschriftsteller. Verzeichnis und Sigel, 3rd

ed., Vetus Latina 1/1 (Freiburg, 1995), pp. 446-48; Hemmerdinger-Iliadou,

“Ephrem grec — Ephrem latin,” col. 816. The six Latin sermons were printed by Kilian Fischer (Kilianus Piscator), Lib Sancti Effrem De/ Compunctione Cordts/ Judicio Dei et Resurre. etc./ Beatitudine Anime/ Penitentia/ Luc-

tamine Spiritali/ Die Iudicy (Freiburg-im-Breisgau, not after 1491): Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke, 2nd ed. (Stuttgart, 1968- ), vol. 8.2, no. 9334;

I have used a copy in the University of Illinois library. These sermons are: De compunctione cordis (inc. “Dolor me compellit dicere”; sometimes divided into two books, the second beginning with “Venite karissimi mihi venite pa-

tres et fratres”); De die tudici et de resurrectione (inc. “Gloria omnipotenti Deo”); De beatitudine animae (inc. “Beatus qui odio habuerit hunc mundum”); De paenitentia (al. De patientia, inc. “Dominus noster Iesus Christus descendit de sinu patris”); In luctaminibus (inc. “In luctaminibus huius saeculi nullus sine agone”); and De die tudicz (inc. “Venite dilectissimi fratres exortationem meam”). In manuscripts the De compunctione cordis sometimes begins and sometimes ends the collection (but is also sometimes lacking), while the remaining five sermons usually appear in the same or-

der. ,

| *© See J. Kirchmeyer and D. Hemmerdinger-Iliadou, “Saint Ephrem et le ‘Liber Scintillarum,’” Recherches de science religieuse 46 (1958): 545-50. There

are also extracts from the homilies in Smaragdus’s Diadema monachorum and Florus of Lyon’s florilegium on the Pauline Epistles; see Paul-Irénée _ Fransen, “Les extraits d’Ephrem latin dans la compilation des XII péres de Florus de Lyon,” RB 87 (1977): 349-71. The extracts in Florus are from four of the six opuscula of Ephrem Latinus and from a spurious Liber de paenttentea (CPL, no. 1143a), not to be confused with the De paenitentia of the corpus of six Ephremic sermons. *7 Manuscripts are listed by Albert Siegmund, Die Uberlieferung der griechischen

chnstlichen Literatur in der lateinischen Kirche bis zum zwolften Jahrhundert, Abhandlungen der Bayerischen Benediktiner-Akademie 5 (Munich, 1949), pp. 67-71, supplemented by Hemmerdinger-Iliadou, “Ephrem grec — Ephrem latin,” col. 818. See also n. 45 below, and Pierre Petitmengin, “Notes sur des manuscrits patristiques latins, I: Fragments patristiques dans

, 216

le ms. Strasbourg 3762,” Revue des études augustiniennes 17 (1971): 3-12. Bes-

tul, “Ephraim the Syrian,” pp. 10-11, points out that the ninth-century Vati-

can manuscripts Pal. lat. 212 and 220 contain the spurious Dicta sancti Effrem (CPL, no. 1145), not the corpus of sermons, as Siegmund implies.

“Macarius,” Vercelli IV, © E. Latinus, De paenitentia

corpus as a whole, however, although a Salisbury manuscript dating from the turn of the twelfth century (Cathedral Library, -— 28

| MS 131) does preserve all six,” and another post-Conquest Salisbury manuscript (Cathedral Library, MS 9) contains extracts from the sermon De die iudicii.*” There is only one preConquest manuscript of Ephrem Latinus (London, Lambeth Palace Library, MS 204), which contains part of the De compunctione cordis.””

Despite the paucity of manuscript evidence, it was once assumed that various Ephremic works circulated in AngloSaxon England, since Gustav Grau claimed that they influenced certain Old English poems on the theme of the Last Judgment,

including Chnst III, for which Cook also cited a possible

Ephremic source.”’ But Grau’s judgment was not the last, for later scrutiny of the parallels he adduced has not been favorThe oldest manuscript containing the complete corpus is Rome, Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Barb. lat. 671 (s. viii?; CLA, vol. 1, no. 64).

*8 Gneuss, “List,” no. 732. See Teresa Webber, Scribes and Scholars at Salisbury . Cathedral c. 1075-c. 1125, Oxford Historical Monographs (Oxford, 1992), p.

167. Webber indicates that the folios containing De paenitentia (21r-23r,

| with fol. 24 blank) were supplied by a hand of s. xii!. * Gneuss, “List,” no. 699. See Webber, Scribes and Scholars, p. 161 and n. 29. The forthcoming revision of Gneuss’s “List” adds another manuscript of s. xi/xii, Cambridge, University Library, Ee. 1. 23, fols. 1-69 [no. 2.8], which also contains all six sermons. On this manuscript see Richard Gameson, The Manuscripts of Early Norman England (c. 1066-1130) (Oxford, 1999), p. 57 (no. 20). Gneuss now eliminates Salisbury 131 as post-1100. I am grateful to

Professor Gneuss for allowing me to consult a draft copy of the revised “List,” and for drawing my attention to Gameson’s notice. I have also followed Gneuss's revised dating for several manuscripts cited herein. »” Gneuss, “List,” no. 510 (Christ Church Canterbury?, Ely?, s. xil). For two Old English glosses, see Ker, Catalogue, no. 277, item b. Rouen, BM, MS 1385 (U. 107), fols. 28-85 (Ker, Catalogue, no. 376; Gneuss, “List,” no. 927) has another partial copy of the De compunctione cordis added to an eleventhcentury Winchester manuscript, but the addition, as Bestul (“Ephraim the Syrian,” p. 14) notes, may have been made on the Continent. *! Gustav Grau, Quellen und Verwandtschaften der dlteren germanischen Darstellun-

gen des Jungsten Gerichtes, Studien zur englischen Philologie 31 (Halle, 1908); A. S. Cook, ed., The Christ of Cynewulf, 2nd ed. (Boston, 1909), pp.

, xiv and 189-90. Part of the Ephremic text De compunctione is translated in Daniel G. Calder and M. J. B. Allen, Sources and Analogues of Old English Poetry: The Major Latin Texts in Translation (Totowa, NJ, 1976), pp. 86-93, from Kilian Fischer’s printing. 217

| Charles D. Wright able. Thomas Bestul in 1981 concluded that “there is little in , favor of the view that Ephraim was a direct source for any Old English literary text.”** Frederick M. Biggs, in his revision of Cook’s notes on Chnst I/[, is more receptive than Bestul to the possibility of Ephremic influence, but does not think that any _ single parallel affords convincing proof.”

Some more concrete, but still minor, evidence has been discovered in Latin writings from Anglo-Saxon England. The Canterbury commentaries from the school of Theodore and Hadrian, recently published by Bernhard Bischoff and Michael Lapidge, cite Ephrem by name in explaining how pearls are formed when lightning strikes pearl-oysters swimming on the top of the Red Sea.™ As Lapidge points out, this notion appears

in a Greek homily attributed to Ephrem, though not in the original Syriac hymn on which it is loosely based. Lapidge suggests that several other ideas in the Canterbury commentaries

may be indebted to works attributed to Ephrem, but none is distinctive enough to be sure.” Ephrem is also named as an authority in the Laterculus Malalianus, which Jane Stevenson has

recently attributed to Theodore, in connection with a version | of the so-called “Ordinals of Christ.” There are Syriac versions of the Ordinals, but apparently not within any of the surviving works of Ephrem, so it is impossible to say whether the version cited by the author of the Laterculus was taken from a genuine

or spurious Ephremic text. Stevenson finds several other themes and images in the Laterculus which are characteristic of

Ephrem’s writings, though again none that can be traced to a

* Bestul, “Ephraim the Syrian,” p. 22. “’ Frederick M. Biggs, The Sources of Christ III: A Revision of Cook's Notes, OEN Subsidia 12 (Binghamton, NY, 1986), pp. 2-3. “4 Biblical Commentaries from the Canterbury School of Theodore and Hadnan, ed.

| Bernhard Bischoff and Michael Lapidge, CSASE 10 (Cambridge, 1994), p. 402 (EvII.29); the Greek source, the Sermo adversus haereticos (CPG, vol. 2,

no. 3949) is cited in the note on the passage, p. 514; on this tradition see Friedrich Ohly, “Die Geburt der Perle aus dem Blitz,” in his Schriften zur mittelalterlichen Bedeutungsforschung (Darmstadt, 1977), pp. 293-311. See also

Sebastian Brock, “St Theodore of Canterbury, the Canterbury School and the Christian East,” The Heythrop Journal 36 (1995): 431-38. ,

” See Bischoff and Lapidge, pp. 234-35. | 218

“Macarius,” Vercelli IV, & E. Latinus, De paenitentia

specific source. She concludes, however, that Ephrem “significantly influenced the author of the Laterculus.””°

There is certainly nothing unlikely on a priort grounds that Archbishop Theodore, a native of Tarsus who possibly had vis-

ited Edessa — the Canterbury glosses, at any rate, inform us how big Edessa cucumbers can get — would have been familiar with some of Ephrem’s works, presumably in Greek but possibly even in Syriac.” Sull, the concrete evidence, while tantalizing, is

very limited, and we have no proof that Theodore brought to Anglo-Saxon England manuscripts of any Ephremic work, genuine or spurious, Greek or Syriac.”” Some Ephremic writings, or at least extracts, had certainly arrived there by the early ninth century, however, for Patrick Sims-Williams has shown that prayers in the Book of Cerne (Cambridge, University Library, MS LI. 1. 10, s. ix am.) and in the Harley Prayerbook (London, BL, MS Harley 7563, ca. 800; CLA, I, 204) draw on the De compunctione and De paenitentia, respectively.” The Harley

manuscript prayer Deus altissime, which occurs also in fuller *° See Jane Stevenson, The “Laterculus Malalianus” and the School of Archbishop Theodore, CSASE 14 (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 69-70, 183-84 (quotation from

p. 69); other parallels are cited in Stevenson’s commentary at various points (see the entries for Ephrem Syrus in her index). See now Stevenson, “Ephraim the Syrian.” *7 See Bischoff and Lapidge, p. 35; see also Lapidge, “The Career of Archbishop Theodore,” in Archbishop Theodore, ed. Lapidge, pp. 1-29, at 7-8. ““ Lapidge (Biblical Commentaries, p. 239) speculates tentatively that “a small

corpus of Greek Ephremic texts [including those used by Theodore and by the compilers of the Cerne and Harley Prayerbook prayers] ... was available at the school of Canterbury in the late seventh century and was used selectively for various exegetical and devotional purposes, including translation into Latin.” * Sims-Williams, “Thoughts on Ephrem the Syrian,” pp. 221-26. The Book of Cerne prayer is no. 45 (beginning “Domine deus meus et saluator meus .. .”), followed by “Incipit oratio ad dominum sancti effremis,” introducing no. 46, which bears no known relation to any work of Ephrem; Sims-Williams suggests that the attribution has been misplaced and that “Incipit” should read “Explicit.” As Sims-Williams shows, Cerne no. 45 is confected from two separate passages in the De compunctione, but he concludes that “It is impossible to say whether the excerpting was done in England” (p. 224). See now also Sims-Williams, Religion and Literature in Western England, 600-800, CSASE 3 (Cambridge, 1990), pp. 303-4, and Donald Bullough, “Alcuin and the Kingdom of Heaven,” revised version reprinted in his Carolingian Renewal: Sources and Heritage (Manchester, 1991), pp. 169 and 212-13, nn. 2930. 219

Charles D. Wright

form in certain Continental prayerbooks but with attribution to Ephrem,” is taken from the conclusion of the De paenitentia; but as Sims-Williams points out, “one cannot know whether the Deus altissime was extracted in England or came [t]here from

elsewhere as a separate prayer.””' : Further parallels between the De paeniientia and the intro-

ductory exhortation common to the Macarius and Vercelli homilies demonstrate that another substantial portion of this Ephremic sermon, at the very least, was available in tenthcentury Anglo-Saxon England. No Syriac original of the sermon De paenitentia has survived, if there ever was one. It does survive

in Greek and is attributed to Ephrem in the Greek manuscript tradition as well as the Latin. The correspondence with the Macarius and Vercelli homilies is set forth below. I italicize ma~ terial which is unique to Vercelli [V and unparalleled in the Latin, and underline material in Vercelli IV which is paralleled in the Latin but not in the Macarius homily. The significance of words in bold type will be explained momentarily. In the Latin text I have expanded abbreviations and supplied punctuation. “Macarius” homily, ed. Vercelli IV, ed. D. G. Ephrem Latinus, De

| Fischer, Libri Sancti

Hans Sauer: Scragg: paenitentia, from Kilian

Effrem ... (Freiburg-imBreisgau, n.d.), sig. C4rAv:

(Il. 1-54) (Il. 1-11) ... Effundamus lachry-

Ic bidde eow and eadmod- Men ba leofestan, ic eow mas donec tempus est lice lare, men pa lzofestan, bidde 3 eadmodlice leere suscipiendi lachrymas

pet ge wepen on pisse pet ge wepen 7 forbtien on ne euntes in seculum medmiclan tide for eowr- pysse medmiclan tide for illud sine aliqua utilitate

um synnum, forpan pe on eowrum synnum, for pan plangamus. Ibi enim bam toweardan life ure ne biod eowre tearas 7 lachryme pro nihilo re-

tearas for naht beod ge- eowre hreowsungaputabuntur. for noht .

tealde. getealde on pere toweard- Quantum hic orauean worulde. rimusdominus. tantum remittet

® See Bischoff and Lapidge, Biblical Commentaries, p.238n.151. —,

*! Sims-Williams, “Thoughts on Ephrem the Syrian,” p. 226. 7

| 22.0

“Macarius,” Vercelli IV, & E. Latinus, De paenitentia Her gehyrd Drihten pa pe Her gehyré dryhten pa pe Hic enim audit nos

hine biddad, hine biddad, - deprecantes, hic remittit nobis rogantibus se.

, and him sylled heora synna yj him syld hira synna_ Hic delet peccata nostra si

forgyfnessa. forgifnesse. resipiscamus.

Hic enim est obsecratio, ibi nihil horum.

Hic remissio, ibi requisitio.

Her he is swide forebyrdig Her he is swide forebyrdig Hic longanimitas, ibi se-

rede., swide redeibi iam Hic remissio, ofer us; ac he is per swide for us, ac he bid eft us ueritas.

supplicium.

7 egesful 7 ongryslic pam synfullum gemeted on dam domdege per eal manna cyn to gelapod 1s.

Her is his mildheortnes Her he is swide mildheort, Hic misericordia, ibi iu-

ofer us; ac per is se eca ac par bid se eca dom dictum.

dom. unawended. Nis nenig medsceat to pas deorwyrpe on ansyne pet ber pone dom

onwendan mege, butan he

her hwethwuga to gode gedo. ,

Her is seo lanlice Her is sio lenelic{e}] Hic temporalis abunwinsumnes; wynsumnes, 7 eft ascortap. dantia, Mis enig man... (Il. 18-19)

Her is lytfelu] blis on pis middangearde. Peah hwa

lifle... (Il. 23-38)

Her ne meg nan yfel ece beon, for pan peos woruld nis

ece. Her 1s lytelu unrotnes,

ac per is seo syngale near- ac per is singalo nearones. jj iugis angustia. ones. 221

Charles D. Wright

Her synt pisse weorolde Her syndon lytle wynlust- Hic voluptas, ibi torwynlustas; ac per synt pa as, ac per syndon pa ecan MeENta. —

ecan tintregu. tintrego pon forworhton. Hic auaricie, ibi vindicte sunt.

Her is hlehter; ac per is se Her bid ungledlic hleahter, Hic risus, ibi vero luc-

ungeendoda heaf. ac per is se ungeendoda "US. heaf palm] pe her mid unribte gytstap.

Hic contemptus, ibi vero ignis eternus.

Der beod ponne ure hregla Per beod ure hregla fret- Hic ornatus vestium, fretwodnes on pam ecan_ wednesse _ fyre widnode. ibi cruciatus vermium.

| 7 ures lichoman glengo on ,

| pone ungeendodan cyle gehwyrfed pam pe her pam nacodan menn wrigelses for-

wyrned 7 pone bregleswed-

lan on Godes naman gecnawan nele.

Her is ures modes upa- Per bid ures modes on- Hic elatio,

hafennes; media, pe we her mid uphafene beod, on ecum

fyre genyderod. ibi autem humiliatio.

222.

“Macarius,” Vercelli IV, & E. Latinus, De paenitentia

Pa pe her biod mid uncystum gefylled pera

elmesena Godes beboda, pa | beod per cwylmed in ecum ,

fyre. Da pe ber swidost mid wo wrensiap, pa biod per on mestre nearonesse forpylmed.

Pa pe her hiora lichaman

mid mestum unribtum

byldaé6 7 pet on odrum mannum mid wo gestrud-

tab } pes on geornessum beod Hic rapine, ibi vero

bu bie mest _reaflaca stridor dentium. Hic

gereafien, pa biop per omnia deaurata, ibi ac per is bere pystro dym- swidost gehefte on para autem caligo tenebrar-

nes. bystra dimnesse. Da pe her UL Hic datur negligenlliceSY oferautem Godes ribt tiumnon penitentia, ibi UNE iam erit inricsiap, pa biod per on dulgentia.

mestum racentegum. (Il. 57-79)

Ongytad nu pas, men pa Ongytab nu, men pa leof- Cognoscentes itaque haec leofestan, pe eow towearde estan, hwylce nearonesse pa OMNia, fratres,

synt, and symble beo ge forworbton habbad. Bion we de salute vestra estote sorhfulle for eowre sawle symle sorgfulle for ure solliciti.

helo. sawle helo. , Non infigatur mens vestra in presentibus bonis,

ne oblectet nos terrena

delectatio, ne ibi sit amara nostra ploratio

dum hic nolumus sanari per modicas lachrymas. In hoc breui tempore per penitentiam remittit nobis dominus omnia.

Wepad on pisse worulde, Wepen we on pisse Plange hic modicum bet ge ne purfen eft wepan medmyclan tide, pet we ne charissime mihi ne plan-

gas ibi in secula secupone ungeendedan wop. purfon eft wepan pone un| Humiliare orum. Humiliarehjhic ne Geeadmedad eow her, pet geendo[daln wop. Geead- a; Limilieris in exterge ne syn per genidrade, medden we us [hler to joribus tenebris et imand pet ge ne syn sende on Geode, pet we ne sien eft mitaris in ignem inexpa ytemestan pistro and on genydrode on helle wite. tinguibilem. pat unadwescedlice fyr.

223

Charles D. Wright Eala, men pa leofestan, Eala ge, men pa leofestan, Quis non plangat nos et hwa is efre swa heardre hwa is efre swa heardre quis non defleat? heortan, pet he ne mage heortan pat he ne mage _ wepan pa toweardan witu wepan pa toweardan witu J

and him pa ondredan? him pa ondredan? Odientes enim vitam diligimus mortem. Reputa

in temetipsum frater et

vides que sunt vtilia

anime tue.

Hwet is us la selre on Hwet, us is la selre on Quid melius est, in prepisse weorolde, bonne we pysse worulde pet we senti seculo pro peccato symble ure synna hreowe symle ure synna hreowe plangere et penitendo don and hi mid zlmessan don 3 hie mid zlmessan crebrius obsecrare, aut

|magon ; . ; sinegenesan? aliqua vtilitate de.

: lysan, pat we purh pa_ lysen, pet we eft ne purfon ibi in ignem eternum zlmessan pa ecan tintrega pa ecan witu prowian. flere? Nis nanes mannes ond-

medla to pes mycel on ,

pysse worulde pet he ne scyle deades byrigean.

Per presentes namque lachrymas indulgentiam consolationemque mereberis, ibi autem lachry-

, me eruntdebitum tibi ad penam | propter decem milium talentorum. Sed

tu in hac vita parum quid roga deum vt mul-

ta debita anime tue

remittat. Si autem nol-

ueris in presenti red, dere ex multis pauca, ibi | redditurus es cum mul-

, debita....

. tis cruciatibus omnia

Forbon pe beos worold ge- Seculum namque hoc wit, and ealle ba pe on hyre transit et omnia que in synd, and ponne mid ure 4 mid ure sawle anre we e0 sunt et a nobis ratio sawle anre we sculon Gode sculon riht agyldan on pam = delictorum exigetur zlmihtigum riht agyldan. myclan dome.

224

“Macarius,” Vercelli IV, ~ E. Latinus, De paenitentia Wa is hyra ponne earmre, gif bio ana stent, ealra goda

deda wana, on domes dege | beforan Gode.

tamquam scientibus bona

et facientibus mala. Hic enim contemnimus sed ibi cruciamur quia dilec-

tioni eius et regno eius | pertulimus [leg. pretulimus (Pattie)] terram et que in ea sunt omnia.

Aurum et argentum ...

erunt ibi (transposed below).

Ne meg per ponne gefult- Par ponne ne meg se Non liberabit frater propmian se fader pam suna, feder helpan pam suna, ne rium fratrem nec iterne se suna pem fader; ac [se] sunu pam feder, ne UM pater fillum suum, sceal ponne anra gehwilc nan meg odrum. Ac anra sed vnusquisque stabit

.; in ordine suo tam in vita

efter his agenum gewyrht- gehwylcum men sceal beon a :; ; quam in incendio...

gewyrhtum. ,

um beon demed. demed efter his agenum

Multi vero homines qui terrena diligunt et cor- —

ruptibilia et mens illo-

rum lugiter in rebus

caducis affixa est et velut irrationabilia tumenta di-

uersis voluptatibus sua

nutriunt corda, existimantes se immortales

esse in hoc seculo vano. Men pa leofestan, utan ge-

, : pencan hu God pysne midon to eardianne: he 1s ufor ponne lellware and movor dangeard hefo gestapelod us

ponne heofon, 7 pes middan-

geard is swa betweoh pam

twam on pam midle. | 225

Charles D. Wright | Eala, pu man, hwet dest Quid agis, o homo? Quid

pu pet pu ne sy pam velut insensatum iumentdumban nytene gelic? um versaris in mundo? Gepencen we eac hu we synt

on dysne middangeard geset- : te: we syndon nydor pon[n]Je

: Godes englas 7 gewisran

Gepenc and ongyt hu ponne nytenu. Lytel ts Sapientem et discretomicel gedal God betweox betwyh mannum ¥ nyten- rem creauit te deus nec us gesceop. He sende on um butan andgite. Py us assimilaris vel illlis [ne ba sawle andgyt, pat nafad sealde dryhten pat andgyt velis assimilari his, Salis-

pat nyten. pe he wolde pet we on- Dury an quibus deest geaton his willan 7 ure sawle Pree ne helo... .

Eala, pu man, waca and Vigila o homo, miserere

gebide and miltsa pe pa tui, esto quasi sapiens hwile pe pu mege! quia propter te de celo Gemun, pet Drihten for deus excelsus aduenit vt be of pam hean heofone te a terrenis eleuaret ad celos.

on pas neowlan gesceaft niderastah, to pam pet he

be to pam uplican life

geladde. In nuptiis celestis sponsi vocatus es... Ne meg us ponne ure gold (Aurum et argentum ne ure seolfer gefylstan of non liberabit nos ab illo bem welerimmum tntreg- igne terribili. Vestes et um and pem unadwesced- delicie condemnationem licum ligum and pem un- nostram erunt ibi.) deadlicum wyrmum, pba hwettad hyra blodigan ted to pon, pet hig butan zlcre mildheortnisse urne lichoman wundian and slitan,

bonne pa byman syngad Tuba enim celestis tubi-

and hig micelre stemne cinabit et dicet, ciaé and cwedad, zrost to

bam sodfestan: “Arisaé, Surgite, dilectissimi dei ge Cristes ba gecorenan! et Christi, ecce aduenit

| 2.26

, Efne nu eow cym®d se rex celestis | heofenlica cyning,

“Macarius,” Vercelli IV, ( E. Latinus, De paenitentia reddere vobis requiem et gaudium in vitam eternam pro labore et afflictione institutionis vestre. Surgite, videte Christum

and ge pone undeadlican regem, sponsum immor-

brydguman geseod, pone talem quem dilexistis. ge er lufadan, pes willan Ipsum enim desideran-

ge er on eordan worhtan. tes facti estis incole super terram. Surgite,

; | vobis_ parauit. [Salisbu Arisad, and geseod pone 131 adds: Surgite videte micclan and pone andrisn- regem magnum et miralican cyning! bilem. ] videte regnum eius quod

Surgite, videte insatiabil- | em dominum quem dilexistis, pro quo tribulationes passi estis, propter quem et frugaliter vitam vestram finistis. Venite nunc et videte eum cum multa fiducia quem desiderastis. Exultate cum eo leticia inenarrabili et gaudium vestrum nemo tollet a vobis.

; Venite fruimini que ocu-

Cumad nu and onfod swilc lus non vidit nec aures wuldor swilce eage ne ge- audiuit nec in cor homiseah, ne eare ne gehyrde, nis ascendit, que donat ne on mannes heortan ne vobis ipse desiderabilis

astah, swilce eow God to- , dominus.

deg forgyfé!”

The first thing to observe is that virtually all the material paralleled in Ephrem’s work is present in both the Macarius homily and the Vercelli homily. It seems highly unlikely that, had the author of the Macarius homily abbreviated the Vercelli homily, he would have consistently omitted — either by chance or by systematic independent comparison with the Latin — just those portions that also do not occur in Ephrem. More conclusively, the parallels between Ephrem and the Macarius homily 227

Charles D. Wright

continue well beyond the point that the Vercelli homily shifts to completely unrelated material. The conclusion must be, _ then, that the author of the Vercelli homily was drawing on an earlier version of the Macarius homily, expanding especially on the rhetorical sequence of oppositions between this world and | the next in the form her bid . . . per bid, based on the Latin hic... 2bt sequence in Ephrem. The Vercelli homilist adds several fur_ ther contrasts of his own in the same simple rhetorical form (lines 37-47 and 102-13, omitted above), and also adds short elaborative clauses to several of the common items, revealing his stylistic tendency towards explanation and prolixity.” There are two readings in Vercelli IV, however, which pre-

serve something from Ephrem that is not also in the Macarius homily. The contrast in Vercelli [IV between pride of mind or modes onmedla here and its humbling in the next world (lines 30-31) better preserves Ephrem’s contrast between elatio and humiliatio than does the Macarius homily, which pairs modes upahafennes with the gloom of dark, pystro dymnes, a term drawn from Ephrem’s later contrast between omnia deaurata and caligo tene-

brarum. The Vercelli homily also refers to the gloomy darkness of the next world, but contrasts it instead with reaflac (line 36),

robbery, evidently reflecting Ephrem’s phrase Hic rapine, although Ephrem contrasts this not with caligo tenebrarum but with

stridor dentium. If, as I have argued, an earlier version of the

| Macarius homily, not Ephrem’s Latin text, was the Vercelli

homilist’s immediate source, it is necessary to explain how these apparently independent parallels with Ephrem in Vercelli IV arose. The explanation is not far to seek. As T. S. Pattie has

| pointed out in his study of the Greek and Latin manuscripts of

the De paenitentia, “The frequency of rhetorical repetition, especially in lines 142-56 [referring to the hic . . . 1bt sequence] makes the text particularly vulnerable to omission by haplography.”* Both of the passages in question occur in the sequence singled out by Pattie, where the repetition of ber b16 ... per bid * Donald G. Scragg has pursued the implications of this discovery for stylistic analysis, focusing on the Vercelli homilist’s use of doublets: Dating and Style in Old English Composite Homilies, H. M. Chadwick Memorial Lectures 9 (Cambridge, 1998), pp. 3-11. * T. S. Pattie, “Ephrem the Syrian and the Latin Manuscripts of ‘De Paenitentia,’” British Library Journal 13 (1987): 1-24, at 7. See also Pattie, “Ephraem’s

‘On Repentance’ and the Translation of the Greek Text into Other Lan_ guages,” British Library Journal 16 (1990): 174-86. 2.28

“Macarius,” Vercelli IV, & E. Latinus, De paenitentia

| To return now to the evidence that the Macarius homily affords for the transmission of Ephrem’s works (or Ephremic

works) in Anglo-Saxon England, there is no proof, obviously, that anything more than those portions of De paenitentia translated by the homilist were available to him. Still, the homilist does make use of material corresponding to a rather large section from the middle of the De paenitentia, so it would be reasonable to assume that at least this sermon, of the six belonging to the standard Ephremic collection, was available at an An-

glian center by the middle of the tenth century. We have already seen that other briefer extracts from the sermon De paenitentia circulated independently as a Latin prayer; however, as far as I have been able to determine, while a few of the other sermons of Ephrem Latinus sometimes did circulate independently, the complete text of De paenitentia (i.e., discounting brief extracts) has survived almost exclusively in manuscripts of the

larger collection.” While this does not prove that the standard five (or four) companion pieces would also have been available at the same Anglo-Saxon center, such an assumption would be consistent with the transmission history of the work. Finally,

although the one eleventh-century English manuscript of the complete collection, Salisbury 131, is post-Conquest, its read*® For lists (unfortunately neither complete nor wholly reliable) of manuscripts containing the complete collection or individual sermons, see Siegmund, Die Uberlieferung, pp. 69-70; S. Mercati, “Animadversiones in Roberti

Valentini Dissertationem de Septem Sermonum Ephraem Versione Quadam Antiqua,” Bessarione 36 (1920): 177-91. Published catalogues do not always specify which sermons are included under a heading such as

“liber (libri) Effrem,” so this judgment is necessarily tentative. In a few manuscripts the De penitentia is accompanied by only two or three sermons, but I have not noted a manuscript containing only this sermon. According

. to E. Stevenson and I. B. De Rossi, Codices Palatini Latini Bibliothecae Vaticanae, vol. 1 (Rome, 1886), Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS

Pal. lat. 186 (s. ix) contains a section headed “S. Effrem opuscula de paenitentia,” but the use of the plural and the number of folios occupied by these “little works” (5-34) suggests that more than just the one sermon Is included. David Ganz, “Knowledge of Ephraim’s Writings in the Merovingian and Carolingian Age,” Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies 2.1 (January

1999) appeared after the present paper was completed. Ganz, drawing on unpublished work by Pattie, includes a full list of manuscripts through the tenth — century. Among these, De paenitentia appears with all five other sermons in seven manuscripts, with four others in four manuscripts, with three others in two manuscripts, and with two others in just one manuscript other than Pal. lat. 186. 229

Charles D. Wright

ings belong to a distinctive English family which Pattie has defined from variant readings in nineteen manuscripts from the twelfth century and later.*” The English family, in turn, is closely related to a pair of manuscripts, London, BL, MS Harley 3068 and Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, MS Clm 11340,

and Pattie argues that these two groups must have had a common ancestor. The Macarius homily appears to reflect that common ancestor, as is revealed by two distinctive readings

highlighted in bold type above. The first is the sentence,

“Arisaé, and geseod pone micclan and pone andrisnlican cyning!”

(Mac. Hom., ll. 46-47), which directly translates a sentence found in both the English family and in the Harley and Munich .

manuscripts: “Surgite videte regem magnum et mirabilem.” The second is the phrase “seo syngale nearones” (Mac. Hom., I. 9), where the word syngal reflects the addition of zugis to angustia in the Harley and Munich group (as well as in the Kilian

Fischer printing), a reading characteristically omitted by the manuscripts of the English family, including Salisbury 131.*” Confirmation of the precise textual tradition underlying the

the De paenitentia. |

Macarius homily, however, will have to await a critical edition of

In his 1985 study of the influence of Ephremic texts in Anglo-Latin, Sims-Williams wondered “whether it is only the relative inaccessibility of the Latin ‘Ephrem’ that has prevented

students of late Old English prose from finding sources

there.”*’ Subsequently J. E. Cross discovered a parallel in the Ephremic sermon De compunctione for the notion in an Old English Rogationtide homily that the various classes of the elect and reprobate will literally carry the fruits of their particular virtues and sins before God at the Last Judgment.” As I have shown above, the sermon De paenitentia was certainly drawn upon by another tenth-century homilist. Additional discoveries * Pattie, “Ephrem the Syrian,” pp. 9-10.

7 The addition of iugis in an unclassified manuscript, BL Harley 3060 (?France, s. x), fol. 133, is visible in Pattie’s fig. 2 (“Ephraem the Syrian,” p. 11). *® Sims-Williams, “Thoughts on Ephrem the Syrian,” p. 207.

* See his Preface to the reprint of Joyce Bazire and J. E. Cross, Eleven Old English Rogationtide Homilies, King’s College London Medieval Studies 4 (London, 1989), p. viii, with reference to their Homily 3, lines 102-12. 230

“Macarius,” Vercelli IV, & E. Latinus, De paenitentia

may ultimately enable more confident assertions about the

availability of Ephrem Latinus in Anglo-Saxon England.”

The discovery of an Ephremic source for the first part of the Macarius sermon may help explain why it prefaces an Old English version of the Capitula of Theodulf, as part of a volume which was bound together at an early date with the Old English

translation of the Rule of Chrodegang. At first glance, these seem to be wholly fortuitous combinations.”' But Thomas Bestul has argued that the most likely context for the influence of Ephrem’s works was the tenth-century Benedictine Reform and the associated transmission from Continental reform centers of works dealing with monastic and clerical regulation and ascetic spirituality.”* Although Sauer judges that the Macarius homily and the Old English translation of the Capitula of Theodulf do

not have a common origin,” their circulation together, far

from being haphazard, mirrors the tenth- and eleventh-century

Continental circulation of Ephremic sermons in anthologies including works of advice to and prescriptions for monks and clergy, such as Cassian’s Collationes, Smaragdus’s Diadema mona-

chorum, Theodulf’s Capitula and Chrodegang’s Regula canonicorum.”* There would seem to have been a copy at Fleury, since a series of brief extracts from three of the sermons, including

De paenitentia, was incorporated there into a florilegium at” For evidence of the use and circulation of Ephrem Latinus on the Continent see (in addition to the works cited above, n. 26): André Wilmart, “La fausse lettre latine de Macaire,” Revue d’ascétique et de mystique 3 (1922): 411-

19; Gustave Bardy, “Le souvenir de Saint Ephrem dans le haut moyen age latin,” Revue du moyen age latin 2 (1946): 297-300; L. Bailly, “Une traduction

latine d’un sermon d’Ephrem dans le Clm 3516,” Sacris Erudin 21 (197273): 71-80; Margot Schmidt, “Influence de Saint Ephrem sur la littérature latine et allemande du début du moyen-age,” Parole de [ Onent 4 (1973): 325-41; Schmidt, “Einflusse der ‘Regio dissimilitudinis’ auf die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters,” Revue des études augustiniennes 17 (1971): 299313. See now Ganz, “Knowledge.”

°' Godden (see above n. 17) criticizes Sauer for including the Macarius homily in his edition of the Old English translation of Theodulfi Capitula on the grounds that it “has no connection with the Caprtula of Theodulf except that it happens to occur alongside that text in the only extant MS” (p. 265). * Bestul, “Ephraim the Syrian,” pp. 22-24. * Sauer, ed., Theodulfi Capitula, p. 92.

4 See Bestul, “Ephraim the Syrian,” p. 23 and n. 77. Ganz, “Knowledge,” §§ 14-16, notes that in the early manuscript tradition Ephrem’s works also often appear “in a context of monastic spirituality.” 231

Charles D. Wright

tached to Benedict of Aniane’s Concordia regularum.” Indeed, Fleury, which was under Theodulf’s abbacy from 798 to 818,

| and which under Abbo of Fleury (988-1004) profoundly influenced the Anglo-Saxon Benedictine Reform,” would have been

a likely source (though hardly the only possible one) for trans- | mission of the Ephremic corpus to Anglo-Saxon England in the second half of the tenth century. The Macarius homily itself, however, may well antedate the Reform movement, and we might therefore look instead to earlier centers of cultural con- _ tact between England and the Continent such as Fulda, Lorsch, or Werden, as possible transmitters of these sermons, which in the eighth and ninth centuries were also frequently combined with monastic regulations.’ These texts belong together, then, precisely because they are complementary. If the compilations of Theodulf and Chrodegang prescribe external behavior and °° See Raymond Etaix, “Un florilége ascétique attribué indument a Saint Benoit d’Aniane,” RB 88 (1978): 247-60, at 255. As Etaix points out (p. 258), two later copies of the Ephremic corpus survive from Fleury: Orléans, BM, MSS 345 (s. xi) and 333 (s. xi 7n.). For these two manuscripts, which were also noted by Bestul (“Ephraim the Syrian,” p. 23 n. 76), see now Marco Mostert, The Library of Fleury: A Provisional List of Manuscripts (Hilversum, 1987), pp. 182 and 177. °° See Marco Mostert, “Le séjour d’Abbon de Fleury a Ramsey,” Bibliothéque de l'Ecole de Chartes 144 (1986): 199-208.

7 Ina manuscript of Werden provenance (Berlin, Staatsbibliothek PreuBischer Kulturbesitz, MS Theol. fol. 355, s. ix2/3 France), the sermons are preceded by 36 capitula of the reforming Council of Aachen of 816; ed. J. Semmler, Corpus Consuetudinum Monasticarum | (Siegburg, 1963), pp. 453-68. For this manuscript see Valentin Rose, Verzeichnis der lateinischen Handschriften der kgl. Bibliothek zu Berlin, 3 vols. (Berlin, 1883-1919), vol. 2.1,

pp. 89-95; Richard Drodgereit, Werden und der Heliand: Studien zur Kulturgeschichte der Abtet Werden und zur Herkunft des Heliand (Essen, 1951), pp. 37-

38. Ganz, “Knowledge,” § 14, referring to the Werden manuscript and to Paris, BN MS lat. 13440 (CLA, vol. 5, no. 662), states that “perhaps there is ! a link between the reform councils at the start of [the reign of] Louis the Pious and an interest in Ephraim.” He also suggests (§ 12) that the south and central German manuscripts “may well reflect the place of Ephraim among the Anglo-Saxon missionary foundations.” Works of “Ephrem” were listed in library catalogues from Fulda (ca. 800) and Lorsch (ca. 850): see Paul Lehmann, Fuldaer Studien, Sitzungsberichte der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Phil.-hist. Klasse, 1925, no. 3 (Munich, 1925), at p. 49; Gustav Becker, Catalog: Bibliothecarum Antiqut (Bonn, 1885), p. 112. For other references to works (unfortunately often simply designated “liber” or “libri”) by Ephrem in early medieval library catalogues, see Becker, Catalog, pp. 27, 29, 67, 128, and 151; Siegmund, Die Uberlieferung, pp. 68-69.

232

“Macarius,” Vercelli IV, ~ E. Latinus, De paenitentia

observance for clergy, Ephrem’s highly-wrought admonition to tears and penance attempts to regulate the desires of the interior man, while the soul-and-body legend it prefaces dramatizes the consequences of failure to do so. For the Exeter scribes who combined them, these texts might thus have seemed to provide

interior man.” |

a program of reform for both body and soul, the exterior and

| In this paper I have attempted to suggest by means of a concrete example the continuing importance and vitality of source studies, which J. E. Cross did so much to advance and foster in his long career as an Anglo-Saxonist.” As I hope to have shown, the discovery of a Latin source can help clarify (if not always resolve) fundamental problems of textual criticism and literary history. In the case of Vercelli IV and the Macarius homily, the Ephremic source has allowed us to establish their relative chronological priority, and thereby to confirm the linguistic judgment that the Macarius homily is considerably older than the sole manuscript in which it survives — certainly older, we may now state, than Vercelli Homily IV, which happens to have survived in an earlier manuscript. The identification of

| this Latin source has had implications for textual criticism, enabling us to distinguish certain textual losses in the late copy

of the Macarius homily that have disturbed the contrast between certain pairs of items in the rhetorical opposition be-

*® Sauer suggests similarly that to the compiler or scribe of Corpus 201, the homily appeared to be “eine passende Einleitung zu einer Sammlung von

Vorschriften fir den richtigen Lebenswandel von Priestern und Laien” (Theodulft Capitula, p. 92). For the contrast between “exterior man” and “interior man” in monastic spirituality, see André Derville, “Homme inte- — rieur,” in Dictionnaire de spiritualité, vol. 7, cols. 653-74; P. Aubin, “Intériorité et extériorité dans les Moralia in Job de S. Grégoire le Grand,” Recherches de science religieuse 62 (1974): 117-66; Mark Sheridan, “Models and Images of Spiritual Progress in the Works of John Cassian,” in Spirttual Progress: Studies in the Spirituality of Late Antiquity and Early Monasticism, ed. Jeremy Driscoll and Mark Sheridan, Studia Anselmiana 115 (Rome, 1994), pp. 101-25, at

105-10. ,

” For recent overviews of the methodology and significance of source studies in the field, see Thomas D. Hill, “Introduction,” in Sources of Anglo-Saxon Literary Culture: A Trial Version, ed. Frederick M. Biggs, Thomas D. Hill, and

_ Paul E. Szarmach (Binghamton, NY, 1990), pp. xv-xxix; Katherine O’Brien O'Keeffe, “Source, Method, Theory, Practice: On Reading Two Old English Verse Texts,” Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester 76.1

(1994): 51-72; and D. G. Scragg, “Source Study,” in Reading Old English _ Texts, ed. Katherine O’Brien O’Keeffe (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 39-58. 2.33

Charles D. Wright

tween this world and the next. The identification of any Latin source has obvious consequences for stylistic analysis as well, revealing how an Old English writer has adapted the structure and rhetoric of a Latin original. In this case it has also afforded a tertium comparationis that brings into relief the more prolix stylistic tendencies of the somewhat later Old English author of Vercelli IV who, in turn, borrowed and adapted his predecessor’s vernacular translation.” Again, knowledge of the text’s Ephremic source has helped explain the manuscript context of the Macarius homily by providing a more concrete rationale and some precedent for its combination with regulations intended to reform the clerical life. Finally, source identification can also contribute to our understanding of Anglo-Saxon intellectual history and spirituality by making it possible to trace a given text’s circulation and influence at specific times and in specific historical contexts. To judge from the prayer in the Book of Cerne and the contexts of the transmission of the ex_ hortation shared by these two Old English homilies, the distinctive spirituality of the Ephremic sermon De paenitentia made a contribution to the discourse of private prayer in Anglo-Saxon England as early as the ninth century, to the admonitory rhetoric of the pulpit in the tenth, and finally to the devotional reading of the cathedral chapter in the eleventh.

See Scragg, “Dating and Style.” 234

Irish Homilies A.D. 600-1100 MARTIN MCNAMARA, M.S.C.

I. Extant Evidence W! shall return to a more detailed examination of the available evidence below. Here I list it summarily: 1. The Instructiones of St Columbanus (ca. A.D. 612-15) 2. The Cambrai Homily (ca. 700)

3. Catechesis Celtica Homily In nomine Det summi on the

Empty Tomb (ca. 800?) ,

4. Catechesis Celttca Homily In nomine Dei summi for Palm Sunday

5. Seven Homilies In nomine Dei summi (s. vill ex., cd. 790x800?)

6. The Homily in Old Irish (ca. 800)

7. The Cracow Homily Collection (s. viii) |

8. The Verona Homily Collection (s. viii-ix) 9. The Catechesis Celtica Collection (s. x)

10.The Homily Collection of the Leabhar Breac and Related Texts (ca. 1050x1100)

[[. History of Research

Relatively little systematic work has been done on the © |

Irish tradition of homilies and related literature. The Instructiones (Sermones) of Columbanus, the Cambrai Homily and the Old Irish Homily have been available in print for almost a century.' Frederick Mac Donncha (first under the direction of Pro' Columbanus’s Instructiones are printed in PL 80, 229-60; the most recent critical edition is by G. S. M. Walker, ed., Sanct« Columbani Opera, Scriptores

Latini Hiberniae 2 (Dublin, 1957), pp. 60-120. The “Cambrai Homily” is edited by Whitley Stokes and John Strachan, Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus: A Collection of Old-Irish Glosses, Scholia, Prose, and Verse, 2 vols. and supplement |

(Cambridge, 1901-10; reprint Dublin, 1987), vol. 2, pp. 244-47. The so235

Martin McNamara, M.S.C.

fessor Kathleen Ni Mhaol Croin [Mulchrone] and later with Professor Gearoid Mac Eoin as director) has made a detailed examination of a group of related homilies now extant in the Leabhar Breac, the Lebor na hUidre, the Book of Lismore and the

Yellow Book of Lecan, first in an M.A. thesis, then in a Ph.D.

dissertation,” and in later studies.° In a doctoral dissertation completed in 1982 Jean Rittmueller made a detailed analysis of one of the homilies in the Leabhar Breac.* R. E. McNally before

his death in 1978 prepared for publication editions of the | Catechesis Celtica and the Verona and Cracow homily collections,

the last two accompanied by introductions. He had also prepared for publication an edition of seven Hiberno-Latin sermons accompanied by a detailed introduction. This study was published posthumously.” In 1970 Hildegard L. C. Tristram presented a doctoral dissertation on four Old English sermons from the heterodox tradition, with commentary, German translations and a glossary, together with three further texts as an called “Old Irish Homily” was published by John Strachan, “An Old-Irish Homily,” Eriu 3 (1907): 1-10. I wish to thank Aer Lingus for sponsorship of

, this paper.

2 F. M. Mac Donnchadha, “Bunts Beathaf Bhrighde, Cholm Cille, Chiardin, Ghrigdéir, agus Mhartain as Leabhar Mhic Carthaigh Riabhaigh (LMC), an Leabhar Breac (LB) agus Leabhar Bui Leacain (LBL)” (unpubl. M.A. thesis, University College Galway, 1965); Mac Donnchadha, “Na Hoimili sa Le-

abhar Breac (LB) i Lebor na Huidre (LU), i Leabhar Mic Carthaigh

Riabhaigh (LMC) agus i Vita Tripartita Sancti Patricii (VIP): a mBunits, a n-Udar agus a nData” (unpublished PhD dissertation, National University

| of Ireland, 1972). :

| > F, Mac Donncha, “Medieval Irish Homilies,” in Biblical Studies: The Medieval Trish Contribution, ed. Martin McNamara, Proceedings of the Irish Biblical Association 1 (Dublin, 1976), pp. 5-71; Mac Donncha, “Seanmdireacht in Eirinn 6 1000 go 1200,” in An Léann Eaglasta in Eirinn 1000-1200, ed. M. Mac Conmara (Dublin, 1982), pp. 77-95; Mac Donncha, “Data Vita Tripartita Sancti Patrici,” Eigse 18 (1980): 125-42; 19 (1983): 354-72.

4 Jean Rittmueller, “The Leabhar Breac Latin and Middle-Irish Homily ‘In

| Cena Domini’: An Edition and Source Analysis” (PhD dissertation, Harvard University, 1984; UMI Dissertation Information Service; University Microfilms, Ann Arbor, 1989). > RE. McNally, “In Nomine Det Summ: Seven Hiberno-Latin Sermons,” Tradztio 35 (1979): 121-43 (prepared for publication by James J. O’Donnell, with

, the help of information provided by Mary F. Wack, both then of Cornell |

, University).

236

Trish Homilies A.D. 600-1100

appendix.’ In a later study of the Sex aetates mundi in the Anglo-

Saxon and Irish tradition, she examined the [rish homiletic tradition as found in the Catechesis Celttca, two further Irish homilies (the Cambrai Homily and the so-called Old Irish Homily, published and translated by John Strachan in 1907), the sermons of the Lebor na hUidre, homilies using lives of saints, and the sermons in the Leabhar Breac. Her study ends with a sec-

tion on the origins and development of Insular preaching.’

Thomas L. Amos has done a doctoral dissertation on medieval sermons.” He is preparing an edition of the Cracow Homily collection, and has already edited that collection’s homily on the Pater Noster, together with an introductory study of the Cracow collection.” P. O Néill has made a study of the background to

the Cambrai Homily." Hildegard Tristram has recently re-

| turned to the subject, concentrating on verbal artistry and method of composition. "!

The most recent study of sermons in Old and Middle Irish has been made by Geardid Mac Eoin in an essay with observations on some Middle Irish homilies,'* and in another on ° H.L. C. Tristram, Vier altenglische Predigten aus der heterodoxen Tradition, mit Kommentar, Uebersetzung und Glossar sowie drei weiteren Texten 1m Anhang (Dis-

sertation, Albert-Ludwigs-Universitat zu Freiburg-im-Breisgau, 1970). ” Hildegard L. C. Tristram, Sex Aetates Mundi. Die Weltzeitalter bei den Angelsachsen und den Iren. Untersuchungen und Texte, Anglistische Forschungen 165 (Heidelberg, 1985), pp. 133-52. ® Thomas Leslie Amos, “The Origin and Nature of the Carolingian Sermon” (unpublished PhD dissertation, Michigan State University, 1983). ” Thomas L. Amos, “The Catechesis Cracoviensis and Hiberno-Latin Exegesis on the Pater Noster,” Proceedings of the Irish Biblical Association 13 (1990): 7799.

10 Padraig P. O Néill, “The Background to the Cambrai Homily,” Eriu 32 (1981): 137-47.

'' Hildegard L. C. Tristram, Early Insular Preaching: Verbal Artistry and Method of

Composition, Sitzungsbericht der Osterreichischen Akademie der Wissen-

schaft, Phil.-Hist. Klasse, Bd. 623, Veroffentlichungen der Keltischen Kommission 11 (Vienna, 1995), pp. 1-71. Tristram’s monograph contains a study of Anglo-Saxon and Irish homilies, the patristic background to verbal artistry in preaching and sermons and a study of Irish texts from Columbanus’s Instructiones onward from this point of view. An appendix contains selections from ten of the Irish texts. 2G. Mac Eoin, “Observations on Some Middle-Irish Homilies,” in Irland und Europa 1m frithen Mittelalter: Ireland and Europe in the Early Middle Ages, ed. Proinsias Ni Chathain and Michael Richter (Stuttgart, 1996), pp. 195-211. 237

Martin McNamara, M.S.C.

the theme of the Last Things in a number of Early and Middle Irish texts.'* The texts examined are the Cambrai Homily, the

, Old Irish Homily, the Tenga Bithnua (“The Evernew Tongue”) from ca. 900, the “I'wo Sorrows of the Kingdom of Heaven,” the

Fis Adamnain (“Vision of Adamnan”), Saltair na Rann (ca. 998), , the homily known as “The Tidings of Doomsday,” and a collection of homilies in the Leabhar Breac “from the twelfth century and later,” with special mention of the homilarium or collection studied by Frederick Mac Donncha, to which a date of ca. 1100

is assigned. Not everyone would regard all these pieces, of course, as homilies or sermons. They do, however, have traits which permit us to look on them as belonging to the homiletic tradition. Mac Eoin notes that these texts he has examined are not to be regarded as if each were an independent item. They form part of a homiletic tradition in the Irish language which continued from the ninth to at least the twelfth century. Saltair | na Rann and Fis Adamndin borrow material from “The Two Sorrows of the Kingdom of Heaven,” though not necessarily from these texts as we now have them. The “Tidings of Doomsday” borrowed its account of heaven and hell from Saltair na Rann. It would appear that a homiletic tradition existed from which

| these texts drew. The same holds true for the formula used to end a sermon. We find it in its Old Irish form in the Old Irish Homily dated by Strachan to the ninth century: “Ro-isam flaith ind rig-sin, ata-rowllem, ata-rothrebam in secula seculorum. Amen”

_ (“May we arrive at the kingdom of that king, may we merit it, may we inhabit it zn secula seculorum. Amen”). It occurs in its later

Middle Irish form in Tenga Bithnua, and again in Bethu Patraic (“The Life of Patrick”). The same formula is found in seven of the thirty-six homilies of the Leabhar Breac, all of which Mac Donncha believes were part of the homiliartum. The same for-

mula is given in poetic form in Saltair na Rann. At the end of his essay Mac Eoin remarks that this formula, together with the textual history and the vocabulary occurring in the texts down through the centuries, shows that there was a continuity in the homiletic tradition during the Old and the Middle Irish period,

| from the ninth to the twelfth century. |

238 | |

'3G. Mac Eoin, “Na Criocha Déanacha i Seanmdoiri na Sean- agus na Mean-

Ghaeilge,” Diagacht / Theology 2 (1997): 20-26.

Irish Homilies A.D. 600-1100

IT, Titles

The title of this essay contains the term “homilies.” The word could be replaced by “sermons,” since for the Middle Ages it is not easy to draw a clear-cut distinction between the two terms.” But even with the alternative term we must realize that it would

be a dangerous point of departure to attempt to bring the available Irish material on Christian instruction within any of these terms. What is required in the first instance is that we survey the material available to us. After this an attempt can be made to situate the individual pieces in medieval Irish society. We can then study the structures of the items and finally draw what conclusions seem indicated by the evidence. | We cannot say that there was a single approach to Chris-

tian instruction and exhortation in the early Irish Church. Catechetical compositions may have been regarded as of a manifold nature. We may get a glimpse of their approach in what appears to be a Hiberno-Latin text of Irish origins preserved in Rome, Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Pal. lat. 277 under the title Questiones tam de novo quam de veteri: testamentum, wrongly ascribed to Isidore.’ The work was composed ca. 750. Towards the end we find the following: Septem sunt modis [szc!] praedicationis, id est docendo, persuadendo, increpando, arguendo, terrendo, mulcen-

do et promittendo. Hoc est, docendo discipulis, persuadendo personis, increpando superuis, arguendo contrariis, terrendo trepidis, mulcendo iracundis, promittendo prauis et bonis, prauis tormenta, bonis uitam aeternam.’” '* See De U’homélie au sermon: Histoire de la prédication médiévale, ed. Jacqueline

Hamesse and Xavier Hermand (Louvain-la-Neuve, 1993). Ed. R. E. McNally in Scriptores Hiberniae Minores. Pars [, CCSL 108B (Turnhout, 1973), pp. 185-205.

'" Ibid., p. 204. “The modes of preaching are seven, namely by teaching, by persuading, by reproving, by testing, by frightening, by appeasing and promising. That is to say, by teaching disciples, by persuading persons, by reproving the proud, testing by opposites, frightening the restless, appeasing the angry, making promises to the wicked and to the good, torments to the wicked and to the good eternal life.” 239

Martin McNamara, M.S.C.

We may now examine the manner in which these Irish compositions are described in the works, themselves.

omelia (umelia) Three occurrences of this term are found in the Catechesis Celtica as titles of compositions: Omelia in domenica die Palmarum (fol. 3rb); Omelia in cena Domini (fol. l6va); Incipit umelia de ora-

tione dominica (fol. 9v). In the first two instances, the term oc-

| curs in homilies found verbatim in the sermon collection | preserved in Cambridge, Pembroke College MS 25 (s. xi2 or xi ex.). These homilies of the Catechesis Celtica collection seem to

be drawn from the Pembroke-type sermonary and cannot be said to represent Irish tradition.'’ The same may be true of this occurrence of umelia, although this is less clear.'” We thus have no clear evidence of the use of the term homuilia in early Irish tradition. It does not appear to have ever passed over as a loan word into Irish.”

sermo, sermoin (senmoir) | The word sermo, naturally, exists in early Hiberno-Latin texts, but in the general Latin sense as “speech, discourse,” etc., rather than in the technical one in which we are considering it here. The term occurs in the technical sense in the heading of a mid-eleventh century bilingual Irish-Latin Sermo ad reges in the Leabhar Breac.*? In Middle Irish texts of the mid-eleventh cen-

tury and later, the term occurs under the form sermoin or sen-

moir as a loan word in Irish, often in conjunction with the

earlier term precept (procept), with the same meaning. It occurs 17 See M. McNamara, “Sources and Affiliations of the Catechesis Celtica (MS Vat. Reg. lat. 49),” Sacris Erudiri 34 (1994): 187-237, at 192-93, 206, 208. ' 18 See ibid., pp. 192, 202. 9 Even in the modern language, the Irish for “homily” is given as seanmozr or aitheasc. see T. De Bhaldraithe, ed., English-Irish Dictionary (Dublin, 1959), p. 343. Mac Donnchadha’s use of hoimili (see n. 2 above) is an ad hoc creation. 0 The Passions and the Homilies from Leabhar Breac, ed. Robert Atkinson, Todd Lecture Series 2 (Dublin, 1887), pp. 151-62, lines 3948-4367; Latin at pp. 414-18.

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Irish Homilies A.D. 600-1100

| in the general sense of “utterance” or “preaching the Gospel.” | Thus in the Passion of the Image of Christ, it is used in the context “when the people heard that utterance [in serméin-sin]”;*! and in the Irish translation of the Gospel of Nicodemus (ch. 12.1) we read: “that speech [sermon-si] is like the speech of Golias [2 sermoin Goltas] .”

In a text on the Ten Commandments” which is later and probably from the thirteenth century,” it is used in the technical sense of “sermon”: “St Bernard in his sermon [2 1a sherméin] says... .”*? We find it also in combination with the earlier term procept where earlier texts have the form precept. Thus in the Passion of Philip, “Philip was teaching and preaching [oc sermoin 7 oc procept] in Scythia.”*’ In a slightly later text from ca. 1150, the Acallamh na Senorach, a similar construction occurs: “a

haithle na senmora 7 in procepta” (“after the sermon and the preaching”).”’

praedicatio, praeceptum, precept (procept) Our earliest texts in the genre we are considering are — from St Columbanus (+ 615), which in the critical edition are | entitled /nstructiones as a collection, with each individual one an instructio, which the editor translates as “sermon.”* How they were entitled in the original and in the textual tradition is not clear. The word stands at the opening of the first item in the collection, but with the rather general meaning of “teaching”: “Instructionis valde necessariae curam gerens, primum ante *! Ibid., p. 47, line 239; English trans. p. 284. * Ibid., p. 123, line 2940; English trans. p. 370. * Tbid., pp. 245-59, at 256, lines 7295-7821; English trans. pp. 478-95, at 491.

4 See M. Mac Conmara (McNamara), ed., An Léann Eaglasta in Eirinn AD 1200-1900 (Dublin, 1988), p. 118; also G. Murphy, Duanaire Finn U1, Irish Texts Society 43 (Dublin 1941; reprint 1953), p. cviti. 25 Passions and Homilies, ed. Atkinson, p. 256, line 7714. °° Ibid., p. 110, line 2484; English trans. p.356. 7 Acallamh na Senérach, ed. Whitley Stokes, Irische Texte 4.1 (Leipzig, 1900),

| 241

p. 131, line 4830. For occurrences and meanings of the term, see also the texts in Dictionary of the Irish Language (Dublin, 1983) [hereafter DIL], sv. sermoin, senmotr.

*® Sancti Columbani Opera, ed. Walker, pp. xxxix-xliv, 60-121.

Martin McNamara, M.S.C.

omnia, quod omnibus scire primum est, dicere breviter licet.” Instructiones is here rendered by Walker as “teaching”: “Since I bear the responsibility for needful teaching, first of all I may briefly speak of the first thing for all to know.” The second text

in the collection edited by Walker opens by referring to the previous one as a sermo, which Walker renders as “discourse.”*”

We have spoken above of the Hiberno-Latin text from ca. A.D. 750 on the septem modi praedicationis. In the Penitential (§

| 29), which forms part of Columbanus’s Rule, in the context of the Sunday liturgy, mention is made of praedicatio and praeceptum, both clearly in the sense of “sermon, homily”:

: Ante praedicationem vero die dominica toti, exceptis cer-

: tis necessitatibus, simul sint conglobati, ut nullus desit

numero praeceptum audientium, excepto coco ac portario,

qui et ipsi, si possint, satis agant ut adsint, quando toni

truum evangelii auditur.

Walker renders this as follows: But before the sermon on the Lord’s Day let all, except for fixed requirements, be gathered together, so that none is lacking to the number of those who hear the exhortation,

except for the cook and porter, who themselves also, if

| they can, are to try hard to be present when the gospel bell is heard.”

In the expanded text of Columbanus’s Rule (IX), written after the time of Columbanus himself, the liturgical exhortation or

sermon is twice referred to as praeceptum: , Si quis voluerit die sabati praeparet oblationem domynt cae; consummato lavacro commutare sacerdotes si facile.fuerit, diacones autem aut ante praecepitum aut post praeceptum ministerium oportunum perficiant.

9 emenso sermone, “in the previous discourse” (Sancti Columbani Opera, ed.

Walker, pp. 66-67). It must be noted that there have been, and still are, doubts as to whether Jnstructio 2 is a genuine work of Columbanus; see n.— 49 below.

” Sancti Columbani Opera, ed. Walker, p. 181.

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Trish Homilies A.D. 600-1100

Walker here renders the word as “exhortation”: If any wishes, let him prepare the offering of the Lord’s Day on the day of the Sabbath; when the ablutions are over the priests are to change, if it is possible, but let the deacons perform their proper service either before or after the exhortation.”'

The paragraph following reads: Si quis viderit somnium inmundum aut coinquinatus fuerit aut penitens, quando detur praeceptum, stare praecipi-

tur. In magnis autem solempnitatibus quando audiant sonum sedere in cottidiano praecepto paene mediante iubentur sedere.”

Walker renders praecepto as “exhortation”: If anyone has had an unclean dream, or has been defiled, or is doing penance, when the exhortation is given, he is

bidden to stand. But on the great festivals, when they hear the signal to sit during the daily exhortation, when it is about half-way through, they are told to sit.

In these texts the term praeceptum is taken in an early and classical meaning of praecipere, “to give rules, admonish, inform, instruct, teach,” and of praeceptor as “teacher” (see also Luke 5:5; 8:24, 45; 9:33; 17:13; 21:7).

The term procept occurs as the heading to a homily on the Maccabees in the eleventh-century collection of homilies Procept na Machaabdai.”” The same term also occurs as the heading of another of these homilies on St Gregory (praecept Grigoir) in Dublin, Trinity College MS H. 2. 17."

In Old Irish the word precept is used in the sense of the act or function of teaching openly, by word of mouth. It is also

employed of preaching as part of a divine service and in the * Tbid., pp. 156, 157; see pp. Ili for the date of the expansions (these must have been added in the two centuries following Columbanus’s death, for they appear in manuscript C, which is a manuscript of the early ninth century). “ Ibid., p. 156; trans. p. 157. ** Passions and Homilies, ed. Atkinson, p. 222, line 6489.

a Grosjean, “Quelques textes irlandais sur saint Grégoire le Grand,” Revue Celtique 46 (1929): 223-51, at 233. 243

Martin McNamara, M.S.C. | sense of “sermon.” Thus already in the Ancient Laws of Ireland, among the duties of the Church is listed “praicecht [= precept] 7 oiffrenn” (“preaching and offering Mass”).” In the homilies of the Leabhar Breac (ca. 1050) it occurs in the form procept in the sense of preaching the word of God, “procept bretbri

Dé”*" especially preaching in a liturgical context: “celebrad 7 procept brethri Dé’ (“celebrating the divine office and preaching the word of God”).* The fuller text merits citation here, since we shall return to it again. It occurs in the homily for the feast of St Michael:

Three refections only are required to be done in the fes- | tivals of holy saints and righteous: the first is the celebra-

tion [of the Divine Office], and preaching the word of

| God [celebrad 7 procept brethn: Dé]; the second is the sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ on behalf of the Christian people; the third is the giving of food and clothes to the poor and needy of the great Lord of the elements.”

We have a similar usage in the slightly later work from the last quarter of the eleventh century, Aisling Meic Con Glinne (“The

| Vision of Mac Con Glinne” § 46):

* For both usages, see DILsy. precept. * See Corpus Iuris Hibernici 2, ed. D. A. Binchy (Dublin, 1978), p. 503, line 11: “tst lanamnacht uil tter in eclais 7 a mainchu : praicecht 7 oiffren” (“This is the

social and legal relationship between the Church and the monastic order, preaching and Mass offering”). See also ibid., p. 152, line 15 (glosses on laws), and the earlier edition with translation in Ancient Laws of Ireland. Senchus Mor, ed. W. Hancock et al., 6 vols. (Dublin and London, 1865-1901;

reprint Buffalo, NY, 1983), Part 2, vol. 2, pp. 344-45. | *’ In a homily on the resurrection of Christ, ed. Atkinson, Passions and Homilies, p. 140, line 3554; English trans. p. 388.

33 Ibid., p. 371. The Irish word celebrad derives from the Latin celebratio. According to Charles Plummer, ed., Vitae Sanctorum Hiberniae, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1910; reprint 1997), vol. 1, p. cxv n. 14, in the Latin lives of the Irish saints, the Latin words celebrare, celebratio, and in the Irish lives the Irish words celebraim, celebrad, if used without qualification, refer almost without exception to the canonical hours, and not, as in later usage, to Mass. See also the note

on celebradin DIL. ,

°° Passions and Homilies, ed. Atkinson, p. 218, the relevant phrase at line 6371;

English trans. p. 456. , , 244

| Insh Homilies A.D. 600-1100 “Not so, indeed,” said Mac Conglinne. “We fasted last

night. The first thing we shall have tomorrow is preaching [precept].” And they waited until morning. Few or

, many as they were, not one of them went out thence until the time of rising on the morrow, when Mac Conglinne

himself got up and opened the house. He washed his hands, took up his book-satchel, brought out his psalter, and began preaching [precept] to the hosts. And historians, and elders and the books of Cork declare, that there was neither high nor low that did not shed three showers of tears while listening to the scholar’s preaching [procept).

When the sermon [precept] was ended, prayers were offered for the king, that he might have length of life, and

that there might be prosperity in Munster during his

reign. Prayers were also offered up for the lands, and for the tribes, and for the province as well, as is usual after a

sermon [d aithle preceptai].*° | We may note here again that the preaching is in the context of the Divine Office, not of Mass. This is also the case in earlier passages in the same work (Aisling §§ 21, 27), in contexts reminiscent of the homily of the Leabhar Breac cited earlier: (§ 21) There are th ree things, about which there should be no grumbling in the Church, that is new fruit, and new ale, and Sunday eve portion. For however little is ob-

tained on Sunday eve, what is nearest on the morrow is psalm-singing [sailm do ghabhail], then bell-ringing, celebration [of the Divine Office] with preaching offering of Mass [celebrad le precept 7 oiffrend] and feeding the poor. ...

(§ 27) We have not tolled bells, neither have we celebrated [the Divine Office], nor preached, nor offered Mass [ni dernsamm celebrad no precept no oiffrend|. The poor

have not been satisfied by us with food against the Sunday, nor have we refreshed ourselves.” 40 Aisling Meic Con Glinne, ed. K. H. Jackson (Dublin, 1990), p. 23, lines 701-14; cf. the earlier edition by Kuno Meyer, Azslinge Meic Conglinne. The Vision of

, MacConglinne. A Middle-Insh Wonder Tale (London, 1892), pp. 58-59. For the _ date, see Jackson’s edition, p. xxvi. Jackson (p. 52, note to line 229) notes that with regard to the term he writes as precept, in the manuscripts the second and third letters (re) are always expressed by a suspension, which could mean the common alternative procept. Meyer in his edition varies the writing between precept and procept.

| Aisling Meic Con Glinne, ed. Jackson, p. 10, lines 313-15; Aislinge Meic Conglinne, ed. Meyer, pp. 26-29.

2A

Martin McNamara, M.S.C.

IV. The Setting of Early Insh Homilies and Conferences

| It is not easy to determine the original setting of the early Irish homiletic texts which we are studying. The Western Church (Ordo Romanus XI, from the mid-sixth or early seventh

century) made provision for a homily after the deacon had proclaimed the Gospel. Other texts of the Ordines Romani (Ordo

Romanus XIII) mention the reading of sermons of the Fathers of the Church after the reading of stated books of Scripture proper to the season or to the saint’s feast.” We have little, if any, information on the place of the homily or the instruction in Irish liturgy or in the Irish Church or monastic life. As has already been noted, the Ancient Laws of Ireland (Senchus Mor)

state that the Church has the duty of preaching and offering Mass.*” There are also some regulations or desiderata regarding

| learning and instruction in the so-called Rule of Mochuta, a work also known as the Rule of Fothaid na Canoine. This Rule is a met-

rical composition consisting of a series of regulations in nine sections on the rules governing Christian and monastic life. It treats respectively of the duties of all believers, of the bishop, the abbot, the priest (sacart), the confessor (anam cara), the monk (manach), the Culdee or cleric of the enclosure (do Céliu Dé n6 di clerech réclesa), the orders of meals and the refectory, and the duties of the king. Stress is laid on the obligations which many of the persons have of what is referred to as forcetal

| (a verbal noun from forcain, “teaches, instructs”). The word forcetal ordinarily means “teaching, instruction, admonishing,” but it occasionally can also mean “learning, studying.” In the Rule in question, forcetal can, at least on occasion, be rendered as “preaching.”** The bishop (epscop) is admonished to be at-

| tentive to forcetal (quatrain 4), i.e. “teaching,” or possibly ” See Réginald Grégoire, “Omelia,” in Dizionario patristico e di antichita cristi-

ane, ed. Angelo Di Berardino, 2 vols. (Marietti, 1983), vol. 2, cols. 24672472, at 2469; English translation as “Homily,” in Encyclopedia of the Early Church, ed. A. Di Berardino, trans. A. Walford, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1992), vol. 1, pp. 394-95. * See n. 36 above. “ For this word see DIL sy. forcetal.

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Trish Homilies A.D. 600-1100

“preaching,” and is to be learned in Sacred Scripture when in holy orders (quatrain 5). The abbot of a church is reminded that he must not be a candle under a bushel; his learning must be without a cloud over it (quatrain 5). He must attend to the instruction (ticosc) of young people. He must devote himself to continual preaching of the Gospel (precept soscéli) to instruct all,

to the offering of the Body of the Great Lord on the holy altar (quatrain 13). Teaching or preaching is not listed among the duties of the priest (quatrains 38-44), who, however, is admonished not to be ignorant, to have his learning right, to be studious, to be learned in rules and laws. His role with its duties and dignity with regard to Baptism, Communion, Confession and the sacrifice (sacarbaicc) are mentioned. The admonition addressed to the anam cara is more detailed. Among other things it gives directions as follows:

(Quatrain 69) Teach [tincchosc] the unlearned. .. . (Quatrain 74) Sing the requiems [of the people] which are of great value; attend every [canonical] hour when the bell recalls. (Quatrain 75) When the men of life [fir betha]* come to celebrate [the canonical hours] with vic-

oe tory, you should go there and let each take his turn after the abbot. (Quatrain 76) Sunday and Thursday are suitable days for Mass (azfrind), though it may be (said) daily after seeking forgiveness for every fault. ... (Quatrain 79) It should be offered on solemnities, on feasts of apostles, of great martyrs and holy confessors. . . .*°

The section of the Rule on the Céli Dé (Quatrains 18-29) is not , an admonition, but is in the first person plural. Among other things we read: ® A rare expression; see DIL sx. betha, col. 90, lines 23-24, with reference to examples from LL (the 1880 facsimile of the Book of Leinster), line 31378; TTr (Togail Troi, ed. Whitley Stokes [Calcutta, 1881]), line 562; and BB (the facsimile of the Book of Ballymote [1887]), fol. 240b39 (cited in DIL

E, col. 118, line 49) in conjunction with éluthach, a fugitive, a survivor: eluthach no fer bethad. See also DIL, col. 118, lines 57-65. The expression may

by similar to mac bethad, “a son of life,” a righteous man (often referring to a professed religious); see DIL sv. mac (macc), cols. 74-75.

* The text of the Rule of Mochuta is edited by Whitley Stokes and Kuno Meyer in Archiv fiir celtische Lexicographie 3 (1907): 312-20 (text only). See also the edition and translation by “Mac Eclaise” in The Insh Ecclestastical Re-

cord 4th ser. 27 (1910): 495-517. A partial translation is given by Peter O’Dwyer, Towards a History of Irish Spirituality (Dublin, 1995), pp. 72-78.

247

Martin McNamara, M.S.C.

(Quatrain 22) We celebrate [the canonical hours] and

we reprove [celebram } cuimdrigem] without difficulty or ) trouble. ... (Quatrain 24) Each order goes to its duties as is proper, as is commanded for all, from Terce to None.

(Quatrain 25) Those in orders to prayer, to Mass as is right, the learned ones to teach [or “preach”? ], as is their strength [znt aes graid dond airnaigthi, donn aithfrind co cert, / aes léginn do forcital feib ata a neart).

By forcetul, teaching rather than preaching is probably intended | here.

| _ The Leabhar Breac sequence “celebrad J procept bréthri Dé (“celebration of the Divine Office and preaching the word of God”) and the related sequence “celebrad, procept, 01 ffrend’ (“celebration of the Divine Office, preaching, offering Mass”) of Aisling Meic Con Glinne seem to indicate that preaching was a feature of the public recitation of the Divine Office on Sundays and on saints’ feast days. And in point of fact the Aisling notes that Mac Con Glinne preached after taking out his Psalter from

his book satchel. | Columbanus’s /nstructiones, presumably, were for his monastic community. From the contents of certain homilies in such collections as the Catechesis Celtica and the Leabhar Breac,

one can presume that individual homilies were intended for a particular liturgical celebration, although it does not seem possible to determine whether this was for a religious or monastic community. The tenth-century Catechests Celtica is a collection of

diverse pieces, some of them homilies, others clearly not. The

collection cannot be regarded as a homiliary or sermonary. Frederick Mac Donncha believes that a set of homilies in the Leabhar Breac and in some other manuscripts once formed an eleventh-century homiliary. With regard to this one could observe that while the individual items may be regarded as homi-

lies, it might be going beyond the evidence to speak of the collection to which they once belonged as a homiliary. The col-

lection in question could have contained material other than | homilies, just as the Catechesis Celtica does.

248

, Insh Homilies A.D. 600-1100 | V. The Indwidual Homiletic or Catechetical Pieces 1. The Instructiones of Columbanus (ca. 612 x 615) Thirteen sermons have been transmitted under the name of Columbanus in two Turin manuscripts (from Bobbio) and in a manuscript from St Gallen.*” Columbanus’s authorship of all or some’ of these sermons has been questioned in the last cen*” See Walker, Sancti Columbani Opera, pp. xxxix-xliv, 60-121.

* Alb. Hauck, “Ueber die s. g. Instructiones Columbani,” Zeitschrift fiir kirchliche Wissenschaft und kirchliches Leben 6 (1885): 357-64, at 357-58.

* O. Seebass, “Uber die sogennanten Instructiones Columbani,” Zeitschrift fiir Kirchengeschichte 13 (1892): 513-34; Seebass, “Uber die Handschriften der Sermonen und Briefe Columbas von Luxeuil,” Neues Archiv 17 (1892): 24559; Seebass, “Uber die beiden Columbas Handschriften der Nationalbibliothek in Turin,” Neues Archiv 21 (1896): 739-46. Seebass believes that only two sermons (nos. 3 and 11) are authentic works of Columbanus. E. Dekkers, Clavis Patrum Latinorum, 3rd ed. (Turnhout, 1996), p. 358 (no. 1107), doubts the genuineness of Jnstructio 2 (“genuina non uidetur”), referring to Fr. Glorie’s analysis of the sermones extravagantes of Eusebius Gallicanus in Eusebius Gallicanus. Collectio Homiliarum, ed. Glorie, 3 vols., CCSL 101-101B

(Turnhout, 1970-71), vol. 1, p. xiv, and to Adalbert De Vogtié’s analysis of the fontes of Instructio 2 in “Sur une série d’emprunts de saint Columban a Fauste de Riez,” Studia Monastica 10 (1968): 119-123. Instructio 14, Dekkers

, remarks, is to be put among the letters of Columbanus as. Epistula 6 (n. iiii). Instructio 15 is not authentic; it belongs to the collection of Eusebius Gallicanus as Homilia 38 (ed. Glorie in CCSL 101A, pp. 435-49; PL 50, 836-41; PL 50, 883-87). The most recent, and most authoritative, examination of the question is that of Clare Stancliffe, “The Thirteen Sermons Attributed

to Columbanus and the Question of their Authorship,” in Columbanus: Studies on the Latin Wnitings, ed. Michael Lapidge (Woodbridge, 1997), pp. 93-312. She takes all thirteen sermons as genuine, and explains the Faustus (of Riez) reference through use of Faustus’s writings: “Whether Colum-

banus encountered Faustus’s sermons in Ireland or in Gaul, however, makes no difference to our conclusion: that Columbanus himself was the author of all the thirteen sermons which we have been considering; and that he composed them, as a series, for his monks in northern Italy towards , the end of his life, between his arrival in Lombardy late in 612 and his death in 615. Once correctly attributed, these sermons take their place as the only coherent exposition of Irish ascetic spirituality to have come down to us from the formative period of early Irish monasticism” (p. 199). With regard to content, Sermons 1 and 2 belong together (p. 127). Lapidge and

Sharpe (BCLL, no. 1251) had relegated the thirteen Jnstructiones to the status of pseudo-Columbanian “dubia,” suggesting a fifth-century date for them. With Stancliffe’s study, the editor Michael Lapidge can now write: “The thirteen Instructiones . . . are comprehensively analysed and shown be249

Martin McNamara, M.S.C.

tury. Walker defends Columbanus’s authorship of all thirteen sermons. He is doubtful about the genuineness of two other sermons (Instructiones 16, “De homine misero,” and 17, “De octo vitiis principalibus”) which he prints with a translation in his appendix.” Jean Laporte, on the other hand, defends their authenticity.”"’ Walker considers almost certainly spurious an Exhortation “to obey the rules of divine obedience which we have learned from the ancient fathers” found under Columbanus’s name in St Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, MS 1346 (s. xvii). The author of Instructio 2 (§ 2.1) quotes from a certain Faustus, to whom he says he was entrusted as a student. Some would

take this person to have been Faustus of Riez, the British scholar who wrote in Gaul in the fifth century.”’ Walker notes

that the Faustus in question may have been Columbanus’s teacher Comgall, since Faustus was the Latin name used by Comgall of Bangor.” J. W. Smit, without going into the ques-

tion in detail, doubts that Columbanus is the author of the sermons attributed to him.” Michael Lapidge and. Richard

Sharpe (BCLL, no. 1251) ascribe the Jnstructiones to a Pseudo-

Columbanus and assign them a fifth-century date. |

In Walker’s opinion, the whole series of thirteen sermons _ which he accepts as genuine was preached by Columbanus during his residence at Milan (612-15).°° In his view, the disputes in yond reasonable doubt to be the genuine work of Columbanus” (Lapidge, Columbanus, p. ix). ” Walker, Sancti Columbani Opera, pp. |xii, 208-13.

‘1 Jean Laporte, “Etude d’authenticité des oeuvres attribués 4 s. Columban,” Revue Mabillon 45 (1955): 1-28, at 5-28; cf. the continuation and conclusion of this article by Laporte in Revue Mabillon 46 (1956): 1-14; 51 (1961): 3546.

*° Walker, Sancti Columbani Opera, pp. |xi-lxii. He believes the Exhortation was most probably composed by some imitator, for whom Columbanus, already

a saint, naturally occupied an exalted place in the Church. He prints it, with translation, in the Appendix (pp. 206-9). *’ See A. G. Engelbrecht, Studien tiber die Schriften des Bischofs von Reii Faustus (Vienna, 1889), pp. 77-78. The genuineness of this Instructio 2 is called into

question by Fr. Glorie and E. Dekkers; see n. 49 above. ,

** Walker, Sancti Columbani Opera, p. xiliii. © J. W. Smit, Studies on the Language and Style of Columba the Younger (Colum-

| 2.50

banus) (Amsterdam, 1971). * Walker, Sancti Columbani Opera, p. xliii.

Trish Homilies A.D. 600-1100

which Columbanus engaged with the Arians at the Lombard | Court will explain the preoccupation of the first sermon with the doctrine of the Trinity. Walker also notes that the sermons frequently echo the thoughts, though seldom the exact expressions, of Hilary’s De trinitate. Against this background, he continues, the remaining sermons develop an appeal for practical religion which is perfectly in accord with Columbanus’s known character and views. Much use, he remarks, is made of Cassian, and some of Jerome, Augustine, Caesarius of Arles, Gregory the

Great and the Penitential of Finnian. In a concluding remark he says that as a further argument in favor of Columbanus’s authorship it may be noted that there is a marked similarity between the type of biblical text quoted in the sermons and that ,

used in his other works.””

Hildegard L. C. Tristram examines the thirteen sermons of Columbanus regarded as genuine by Walker against the background of the patristic principles on Christian preaching and pastoral addresses.” The most influential of the Fathers (from among Hilary of Poitiers, Sulpicius Severus, Augustine,

Jerome, Caesarius of Arles, and Gregory the Great) was Augustine of Hippo. Tristram believes that Augustine’s recommendation of verbal artistry, textual borrowing, and the use of

fiction for religious purposes is of prime importance for the understanding of the rhetoric and composition of the later, carefully structured pastoral address in Anglo-Saxon and Irish.” The first Insular preacher she knows of who preached according to these principles, though in a distinctly Insular manner, is Columbanus, in his thirteen Latin /nstructiones. All the elements of the later bombastic style can be found here, but not yet in so

elaborate a fashion as in the later Irish and English sermon rhetoric. Tristram believes that Columbanus is likely to have acquired his excellent command of Latin in Ireland. It is also possible that he acquired the eclectic method and the taste for verbal aesthetics and the emotional grand style in Ireland, through the rhetorical exercises taught in his home monasThid., pp. xliii-xliv. ** Tristram, Early Insular Preaching, pp. 29-32. Tristram examines the patristic evidence at pp. 19-28.

™ Ibid., p. 28. 251

Martin McNamara, M.S.C.

tery.” In the conclusion to her treatment of Columbanus’s sermons, Tristram says that it seems to her that the earliest Insular preaching, as a specific type of early medieval preaching that surfaced in writing for the first ttme with Columbanus, is in one way or another a conflux of both pre-literate native Irish and learned Continental traditions.” Despite the contributions of these studies, it must be confessed that we are still only at the beginning of an examination

of the sermons generally accepted to be the work of Columbanus. We need a greater analysis of their content.

2. The Cambrai Homily (ca. A.D. 700) The Irish Cambrai Homily is preserved in the manuscript Cambrai, BM, MS 679 (formerly 619). The manuscript contains part of the Collectio canonum Hibernensis, copied by a Con-

tinental hand from a manuscript in an Irish hand. Into this manuscript was inserted by chance a leaf containing part of an Irish homily. It is by this chance that our oldest homily in the Irish language has been preserved. A. Structure of the Homily

i. The homily opens with the words “In nomine Dei summi.” This expression, found in other Irish homilies and other works also, is probably intended as a heading, indicat-

| ing in the original composition a change of topic within the original collection. | li. Scriptural quotation: “Si quis vult post me venire, abneget semetipsum et tollat crucem suam” (Matthew 16:24), serving

as the point of departure and presenting the theme of the

discourse that follows.

lil. An exordium, giving the speaker of the quotation (Christ), his audience (all humanity), and Christ’s purpose

: *l Tbid., p. 32. | © Ibid., pp. 29-30.

* The “Cambrai Homily” is edited and translated by Stokes and Strachan, Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus, vol. 2, pp. 244-47; cf. the description at p. xxvi.

See also O Néill, “The Background to the Cambrai Homily.” , 252

Irish Homilies A.D. 600-1100

in so addressing his audience (a call to renunciation): “This is the word which our Lord Jesus says to every one of the human race and that he banish from himself his vices and his sins, and that he gather virtues and receive stigmata and signs of the Cross for Christ’s sake. . . .”

iv. The body of the homily. Here the homilist spells out for us

the meaning of the central phrases of the scriptural citation “abneget senetipsum; tollat crucem suam,” and thus urges us to follow Christ. In developing his topic he makes use of four texts from Paul on the central topic (Galatians 6:2; Romans 11:15; 1 Corinthians 12:26; 2 Corinthians 11:29). The major part of this section is devoted to the presentation of Christian life as martyrdom, a three-fold martyrdom. The text ends abruptly on this theme: “Now there are three kinds of martyrdom which are precious in God’s eyes, for which we obtain rewards if we fulfill them, castitas in tuwuentute, continentia in habundantia.”

beyond the present text. |

v. The ending is apparently lost, but may not have gone far B. The Three Kinds of Martyrdom: White, Blue (glasmartre) and Red

In the course of his reflection on Paul’s words from 2 Corinthians 11:29, given in inverted order, “Quis scandilizatur

et ego non uror? Quis infirmator et ego non infirmor?” the homilist presents the doctrine of Christian martyrdom as follows:

The holy apostle has said . . . that everyone’s sickness is

sickness for him; . . . everyone’s infirmity was infirmity for | him. Even so it is fitting for everyone of us that he suffer | with everyone in his hardship and in his poverty and in his infirmity. We see in these wise words of the sage that fellow-suffering is counted as a cross. Now there are three

kinds of martyrdom which are counted as a cross for a person, that is to say, white martyrdom, and blue martyrdom (glasmartre), and red martyrdom. This is white martyrdom for

a person, when he separates for the sake of God from everything he loves, although he suffer fasting or labour thereat. This is blue martyrdom (glasmartre) for him when by means of them [fasting and labor] he separates from his desires, and suffers toil and penance and repentance. 253

Martin McNamara, M.S.C. This is red martyrdom for him, endurance of a cross or de-_

struction for Christ’s sake, as has happened to the apostles in the persecution of the wicked and in the teaching

of the law of God. These three kinds of martyrdom are comprised in the carnal persons who resort to good repentance, who separate from their desires, who pour forth their blood in fasting and in labour for Christ's sake. Now there are three kinds of martyrdom, which are precious in God’s sight, for which we obtain rewards if we

fulfill them, castitas in tuuentute, continentia in habundan- , tia.”

We have an almost contemporary Hiberno-Latin text on the three-fold martyrdom in the commentary on the Psalms in Codex Vaticanus Palatinus 68 (ca. A.D. 700), in the comment on Psalm 44:9. Its presentation of the three martyrdoms is remarkably similar to that in the Cambrai Homily. It reads: Myrra et gutta et cassia. id est haec genera pigmentorum III colores habent, id est rubicunditatem et iacintitatem et candiditatem, quae significant III martiria, unum effussionis sanguinis, alterum flagillorum, tertium pallidum quod in ieiunis uigilisque perficitur.” |

The Irish doctrine of the three kinds of martyrdom and the colors representing them had probably a long and varied history. It is probable that there were various presentations of the doctrine, without complete unanimity as to what constituted any particular one of the three kinds of martyrdom. We find another manifestation of this teaching in the Catechesis Celtica (Rome, Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Reg. lat. 49, fols. 32v-35v), in a text with a series of reflections very

Irish in character on the Gospel for Low Sunday, and in particular on John’s vision of the twelve precious stones on the

walls of the New Jerusalem: |

8 Stokes and Strachan, Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus, vol. 2, pp. 246-47. , | Glossa in Psalmos. The Hiberno-Latin Gloss on the Psalms of Codex Palatinus Latinus 68 (Psalms 39:11-151:7). Critical Edition of the Text together uith Intro-

duction and Source Analysis, ed. M. McNamara, Studi e testi 310 (Vatican

City, 1986), p. 100. “Myrrh and aloes and cassia. These three dyes have three colors, to wit redness and hyacinth color and whiteness, which signify the three martyrdoms, one of the shedding of blood, the second of whippings, the third pale which becomes a reality in fastings and in vigils.” 254

Irish Homilies A.D. 600-1100

Item uidit XII lapides preciosos super muros ciuitatis, et hostia uidit cum multis coloribus, id est alii colores igniti, alii aquati, alii iacinthi, ali rubni, ali candidi, alii porporet. Quibus lapidibus comparantur actus sanctorum, quando per martinia probantur et per plures necessitates: aliis actibus probatis per babtismum, altis per iacintha mar-

tiria, aluis per rubra martiria ensium persecutor pro

amore Dei uel per sanguinem pudoris dando confes-

sionem ductoribus animarum, ut est: Confitemini peccata uestra alterutrum.”

It is possible that the origins of this Irish theology of the three

kinds of martyrdom may go back to an allegorical interpreta- , tion of the colors of the veil of the tabernacle as presented in the book of Exodus. This point was made by Clare Stancliffe. She believes that a good starting point for a consideration of the colors red (crimson) and white of the threefold martyrdom scheme is provided by the chapters in Exodus describing the tabernacle (Exodus 25-28), in which there is constant reference to hyacinthus, purpura, coccum bis tinctum and byssus. How right

she was is made clear, I believe, by the following text of the Reference Bible:

® Ed. André Wilmart in Analecta Reginensia: Extraits des manuscrits latins de la reine Christine conserves au Vatican, Studi e testi 59 (Vatican City, 1933), pp. 47-58, at 56. The three kinds of martyrdom (red, white, and blue [glas]) are

also mentioned in the Old Irish Penitential 3.1, ed. E. J. Gwynn, “An Irish Penitential,” Eriu 7 (1914): 121-95, at 152, line 22; English trans. by D. A. Binchy in The Insh Penitentials, ed. Ludwig Bieler, Scriptores Latini Hiber-

niae 5 (Dublin, 1963), pp. 265-66. See also the tract “De operibus sex dierum” in Munich, Clm. 6302, fols. 49r-64r, on the explanation of the “three” (!) colors of the rainbow: “albus : martyrium cotidianum, rubicunduts: sanguinis effusio, 1acentinos: penitentia, niger : mors,” quoted and discussed by

Bernhard Bischoff, “Wendepunkte in der Geschichte der lateinischen Exegese im Fruhmittelalter,” Sacris Erudin 6 (1954): 189-279; reprinted in his Mittelalterliche Studien: Ausgewdhlte Aufsdtze zur Schriftkunde und Literaturgeschichte, 3 vols. (Stuttgart, 1966-81), vol. 1, pp. 205-73, trans. Colm O'Grady, “Turning-Points in the History of Latin Exegesis in the Early Middle Ages: A.D. 650-800,” in Biblical Studies: The Medieval Irish Contribu-

255 |

tion, ed. Martin McNamara (Dublin, 1976), pp. 74-160, at 103.

"’ Clare Stancliffe, “Red, White and Blue Martyrdom,” in Ireland and Early

Mediaeval Europe: Studies in Memory of Kathleen Hughes, ed. Dorothy White-

lock, Rosamund McKitterick and David Dumville (Cambridge, 1982), pp. 21-46, at 32.

Martin McNamara, M.S.C. Tabernaculum [Exodus 26:1], id est ecclesia. . .. Pelles arie-

tum [Exodus 25:2; cf. 35:7, 23], protectio propositorum in ecclesia. Ali rubr in martirio sanguinis; alii iacinctini in adflictione corporis. . . 7

(The full biblical text of Exodus 25:2 has “pelles arietum rubr_ i-

catas pelles ianthinas et ligna sethim”; Exodus 37:7, 23 has “pelles arietum rubricatas et ianthinas.”) This interpretation of the colors of the veil is probably dependent on Eucherius, who in his Formulae spiritalis inielligentiae interprets hyacinthus alle-

gorically as “confessorum liuores” (with reference to Exodus 35:5-6).°° The Irish glas of glasmartre corresponds to the Latin tacintinus and should most probably be understood as “blue” rather than “green.”” While some of the equivalents in this schema of allegorical interpretation had early become standard, as can be seen from Eucherius’s formulae spiritalis intellegentiae (“arietes, apos-

toli uel ecclesiarum principes,” etc.),”” the immediate source here in the Reference Bible is Isidore, Quaestiones in Vetus Testamentum, Exodus (PL 83, 313-18), apart from the reference to “alu rubri in martyrio sanguinis, alii iacinctini in adflictione corporis.” Isidore’s own allegorical interpretation of hyacinthus is quite different (PL 83, 317A). The interpretation of the Reference Bible presupposes the entire text of Exodus 25:4-5. It may well be that it was in such an allegorical interpretation of

| the colors of the tabernacle furnishings that the Irish doctrine and formulation of the glasmartre, martyrium hyacinthinum (“blue” rather than “green” martyrdom) originated, with an influence from Eucherius.

*” See the review of Stancliffe’s essay by the present writer in The Heythrop Journal 26 (1985): 80-82. * Eucherius of Lyon, Formulae spiritalis intelligentiae, ed. Kar! Wotke, CSEL 31 (Vienna, 1894), p. 53.

DIL sy. glas, defines the adjective glas as “descriptive of various shades of light green and blue, passing from grass-green to grey,” and gives instances _ _of the meaning “blue, greenish blue, greyish blue.”

256 |

” Eucherius, Formulae spiritalis intelligentiae, ed. Wotke, p. 28.

Irish Homilies A.D. 600-1100

C. The Heading “In nomine Det summi”

These words at the beginning of the Cambrai text might be taken as the opening words of the homily, followed by the scriptural quotation Si quis uult.”’ More likely, however, it is a heading introducing a new piece. We find such a heading attached to other homilies that are probably Hiberno-Latin, to be examined in greater detail below. Thus in the homiletic piece on the Empty Tomb in the Catechesis Celtica (Reg. lat. 49, fol. 20va): “CCCLITI. I. In nomine Dei summi. Amen. Vespere autem

sabbatt usque hodiernum diem.” This is a composition which is very probably of Irish origin. (The opening “CCCLII. I.” indicates that the text is no. 352 in the first Canon Table, that with all four Gospels. It is Matthew 16:1-3 and par.) The words occur | again in the Catechesis Celtica (fol. 30r): “Secundum Mattheum, secundum Marcum, secundum Lucam. In nomine Dei summi. CCVI. CXVIT. CCXXXII. Cum appropinquasset Hierosolimis [Mat-

thew 21:1].” Going on the criteria generally used in such matters, this item, which is in the nature of a spiritual commentary on the Gospel for Palm Sunday, does not have any particular Irish affiliations. R. E. McNally has published from two manu-

scripts seven pieces which he calls homilies, and which he (most probably rightly) regards as Hiberno-Latin. In one of the manuscripts, each of the pieces is headed In nomine Dei summi, in the other only the first (and thus the entire collection). Not all the pieces so headed can be shown to have Irish affiliations.

, Thus in Montpellier, Ecole de Médicine, MS 55 (ca. A.D. 800), an apocryphal text on the birth of Mary (feast 8 September) is headed: “In nomine Dei summi. Incipit natiuitas sanctisimae

Mariae genetricis Dei et Domini nostri Christi secundum | carnem quod est VI Idus Septembris.””

Passing from literary composition to manuscripts, we find In nomine Det summi introducing manuscripts, or written on the upper margin of opening pages, as in the Antiphonary of Bangor. Such a custom is taken by some as having been used espe-

| 257 | ” P.O Néill, “The Background to the Cambrai Homily,” p. 138. ” The text has been edited by J. M. Canal-Sanchez, “Antiguas versiones latinas del Protoevangelio de Santiago,” Ephemerides Mariologicae 18 (1968): 431-73; see also Jean-Daniel Kaestli, “Le Protévangile de Jacques en latin. Etat de la question et perspectives nouvelles,” Revue d’Histotre des Textes 26 (1996): 41-

102, at 69. ,

Martin McNamara, M.S.C.

cially, if not exclusively, by Irish scribes.” We find an early example of an almost identical formula introducing Cummian’s letter on the Paschal controversy (De controversia paschalt), ca. 632-33: “In nomine Dei summi confido.”” It is found in gram-

matical manuscripts, e.g. “In nomine Dei summi incipiunt

partes orationis.””” Three manuscripts of the Vulgate Job with this incipit, one of Italian and two of Freising origin, may possi-

bly have been ultimately of Irish origin. However, another _ manuscript of Job from Monte Cassino Abbey (no. 21) with this_

_incipit does not appear to have any Irish connections.” Furthermore, some texts of Ordo XIIIB of the Ordines Romani (e.g.

the manuscripts sigled NRTVX), without any apparent Irish connection, begin with these same words “In nomine Dei

summi.”””

The conclusion from the evidence still seems to indicate that the invocation In nomine Dei summi is connected, but not exclusively so, with Irish usage and tradition.

“ Thus F. E. Warren, ed., The Antiphonary of Bangor, 2 vols., HBS 4, 10 (London, 1893-95), vol. 2, p. 35; McNally, “In Nomine Det Summi,” pp. 123-24. See also M. McNamara, “The Text of the Latin Bible in the Early Irish Church: Some Data and Desiderata,” in Ireland and Christendom. The Bible and the Missions, ed. Proinsias Ni Chathain and Michael Richter (Stuttgart, 1987), pp. 7-55, at 33-34.

™ Cummian’s Letter De Controversia Paschali and the De Ratione Conputandi, ed.

Maura Walsh and Daibhi O Croinin, Studies and Texts 86 (Toronto, 1988), with references to the occurrences of this usage at p. 56 n. 1; cf. the older

edition at PL 67, 969B. |

® St Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, MS 876, p. 1. This example together with others are given by L. Holtz, ed., Donat et la tradition de l’enseagnement grammatical: Etude sur U’Ars Donati et sa diffusion (IV°-IX® siécle) (Paris, 1981). See also M. Walsh and D. O Croinin, ed., Cummian’s Letter, p. 56 n. 1.

© For the Job manuscripts, see McNamara, “The Text of the Latin Bible,” pp 33-34.

™ See Michel Andrieu, ed., Les Ordines Romani du haut moyen age, 5 vols., Spicilegium sacrum Lovaniense, Etudes et Documents, fasc. 11, 23, 24, 28, 29 (Louvain, 1960), vol. 2, p. 500. It also occurs as the introductory colo-

phon to Gelasian Sacramentaries; see Donald Bullough, “Roman Books and Carolingian Renovatio,” in Renaissance and Renewal in Christian History,

ed. Derek Baker, Studies in Church History 14 (Oxford, 1977), pp. 23-50. See also Antoine Chevasse, “In Nomine Dei Summ. Une piéce composée par Alain de Farfa,” RB 89 (1970): 308-9. 258

Trish Homilies A.D. 600-1100

Celtica (ca. 800?) |

3. The Easter Homily In nomine Dei summi of the Catechesis

The collection commonly known as the Catechesis Celtica is

found in the tenth-century Vatican manuscript Reg. lat. 49. A catechetical treatment of the New Testament account of the Empty Tomb (Matthew 28:12-15) at fols. 20val8-22vb40 begins as follows: “CCCLII. I. In nomine Dei summi. Amen. Vespere autem sabbati usque in hodiernum diem.”

A. Content and Structure | The text as we have it now begins with an indication of the place of the Gospel pericope in question in the Canon Tables, i.e. item 352 in Canon Table 1, covering all four Gospels. It then goes on to give the incipit and explicit of the pericope. B. Threefold Exposition: Historical, Spiritual, Moral

While there is no formal structure indicated within the piece, it is clear that the compiler intended a threefold exposition of the Gospel passage. He first covers the literal exposition in extenso, from the incipit to the explicit on fols. 20val18-22vb, ending “usque in hodiernum diem. id est de quo scripsit Matheus,

uel usque ad consummationem seculi.” In the next line (fol. 22vb) a capital U begins a new treatment of the same pericope: “Uespere sabbati,” an exposition of a spiritual nature, although not explicitly so stated. This goes on to the end of the pericope nocte (Matthew 28:15) at fol. 23rb32. The text immediately con-

tinues without break or new capital: “Moraliter sepulchrum Domini sanctam aeclesiam significat.” Evidently a third exposition has begun, giving the moral application. This goes on for

eleven lines, to fol. 23va2, where there is a break, with a line ending left blank. A new paragraph with a capital D then be-

gins: “Duo sepelierunt Christum,” which is obviously a con- | tinuation of the moral exposition. The structure of the original has not been respected by the copyist.

259

Martin McNamara, M.S.C.

C. Interest in Grammar and Gospel Harmonization. , A notable feature in the historical exposition is the interest in grammatical questions and in Gospel harmonization (concordantiae) , notable features of early Irish Gospel exegesis. D. Sources

Unlike other items in the Catechesis Celtica, presumed sources of the first (historical) exposition of this text are noted : in the margins by the abbreviations Hir.,, Ag., Man., Sedo., and Amb. In the text itself “Arcul[fus]” is also indicated as a source.

Source analysis indicates a close relationship with (indeed almost a direct dependence on) the commentary on Matthew entitled Liber questionum in evangelits (LQE) for both the histori-

cal and spiritual exposition. For grammatical analysis, Matthew 28:la is cited in Greek (fol. 20va) much more extensively than in the LQE. The longer Greek text is found in Frigulus’s commentary on Matthew (printed in PL 102, 1120), on which the Catechesis text probably here depends. Since Frigulus is now seen as a source for LQE, it may be that the Catechesis tradition was using Frigulus rather than LQF. Besides LQE (or Frigulus) the homiletic exposition also uses Virgilius Maro’s Grammar. The marginal source indication Man. probably stands for Manchianus, who was very likely the seventh-century Irish exegete of that name.

E. Irish Affiliations a The Irish affiliations of the entire text are clear: the nam- | ing of Man[chianus] and Arculf, the use of Virgilius Maro, interest in grammar and Gospel harmonization, and an emphasis on the threefold sense of scripture. F. Date: A Multt-Layered Text

It appears that the present text is the result of growth over centuries. Some of the material in the first (historical) exposition seems Irish and very old, possibly going back to the sev- enth century. The combination of the historical and spiritual explanations of the text could also be old, as it is found in the LQE. The moral exposition (the sources of which have as yet not been identified) seems a later addition to this. 260

Irish Homilies A.D. 600-1100 G. Nature and Purpose of the Homiletic Exposition

As found now in the Catechesis Celtica, this item seems to

have been used for a scholar’s study. The indication of the Gospel Canon Table at the beginning suggests this. The text 1s

| not presented as a homily, but rather as a triple exposition of the narrative of the Empty Tomb.

4. The Catechesis Celtica Homily (?) In nomine Dei summi for

Palm Sunday |

This exposition of Matthew 21:1-11 (the Gospel reading for Palm Sunday) in the Catechesis Celtica (fols. 30ra7-30val1) is headed and begins as follows: “Secundum Mattheum, secundum Marcum, secundum Lucam. In nomine Dei summi. CCVI. CCVIT. CCXXXI. Cum appropinquassent Hierosolimis. . . .” It con-

| tains a spiritual interpretation of the Gospel passage. It is quite , different from another exposition of the same text in the same codex (fols. 14rb-16va). Unlike the Easter Homily Jn nomine Det

summi discussed above, this exposition has little connection with LQE and has no apparent Irish affiliations. The sources of its spiritual exposition have not been identified. The item has

no homiletic structure. It may have been drawn from some

larger commentary on Matthew. Inclusion of the Canon Tables,

| indicating the position of the pericope in the Canon Tables for | the three Synoptic Gospels, seems to indicate that in the present collection of the Catechesis Celtica it served some scholarly purpose.

5. Seven Hiberno-Latin Homilies /n nomine Det summi (ca. 790x800?)

| R. E. McNally has edited seven pieces which he calls sermons or homilies from the two Vatican manuscripts Pal. lat. 990 and Pal. lat. 212 (s. ix!).” In the first of these manuscripts, each piece is introduced by the words “In nomine Dei summi,” ”’ McNally, “In Nomine Dei Summi.” These homilies have been translated into English by T. O’Loughlin, “The Celtic Homily: Creeds and Eschatology,” Milltown Studies 41 (1998): 99-115 (together with an introduction and notes with source indication). 261

Martin McNamara, M.S.C.

while in Pal. lat. 212 only the first sermon is so introduced. At the beginning of his essay, McNally notes that these pieces are worthy of publication because the amount of homiletic litera-

ture coming from Irish circles at this early time is not very great, and because a careful consideration of them is apt to

| throw light on the Irish literary method. They reveal various internal characteristics which are known to be symptomatic of the Hiberno-Latin element, and they present sufficient material to allow one to study closely how the Irish used sources in the preparation of their homilies. The approach of our anonymous author to Scripture stands in the Antiochene rather than the Alexandrian tradition. Thus his interest is in the literal more than in the spiritual sense of the text, and in this he shows a certain affinity with the Irish exegetes of this period.” McNally expresses similar sentiments at the end of his introduction. These seven short pieces, he writes, linked together by their manuscript tradition and by the common superscription “In nomine Dei summi,” share the same spirit and techniques. The collection as a whole reveals the influence of the Irish tradition, for example in abbreviations, in scriptural variants, in the superscription, in style, and in method. Literary parallels that can

be established between these documents and other works known to be Hiberno-Latin in character tend to assimilate

them to the Irish sphere of influence, whose presence here is unmistakable. It is likely that the collection originated in the last decade of the eighth century, perhaps even somewhat earlier; and in accord with the evidence of the manuscript the place of origin can be reasonably located in the upper or middle Rhine valley, a locale which at that time was still frequented by Insular peregrint. The personal identity of the author is unknown. He was probably Irish by nationality, but certainly a product of that culture; he was a monk in orders with an interest in various apostolic tasks, preaching and catechizing especially. His homiletic work is not original; it tends to be prosaic, at times even ordinary, largely basic, awaiting expansion and development. The collection represents an ancient witness to

the character of preaching in the period before the

Carolingian reform had set in.” ” Ibid., p. 121, with reference to Bischoff’s “Wendepunkte” essay. ” Ibid., p. 132. 2.62

Trish Homilies A.D. 600-1100

McNally gives a summary treatment of each piece, with indications of Irish origins or affiliations. The first piece is on the theme of tustitta and on the consequences of fidelity and the neglect of God’s law. The events at the deathbed are vividly presented. Two opposing armies, one white-clad (angels), the other jet black (demons), argue for possession of the dying person’s soul. This section of the text is in a tradition of the deathbed dialogue (“The Bringing Forth of the Soul”) well represented in Irish tradition, even though it differs in its presentation.” The second piece is primarily directed to the laity. In it there is a question of obligation to family, wife, children and parents. The congregation intended seems to be lay rather than monastic. There is mention of confession of sins to a priest, and confession seems to be accepted as frequent and private.

6. The Old Irish Homily (ca. 800) The text known as the “Old Irish Homily” was first published by Kuno Meyer™ and later, with translation, by John Strachan.”’ It is generally dated to ca. A.D. 800. A. Structure and Contents

i. Opening. There is no exordium with a biblical text, for which reason the composition cannot be described as a homily. The contents are not an exposition of any particular text, as the

Cambrai Homily is. The text opens by a declaration of thanks |

(“We give thanks”) to God, Lord of heaven and earth, for his mercy and for his forgiveness, for his charity and for his benefits which he has bestowed on us in heaven and on earth. It then adduces biblical and non-biblical citations to illustrate these truths. We are told that it is our duty to give thanks; doing so we become God’s temple. Not to do so makes us the inhabitation of the devil. Thanksgiving and God’s kingdom imply re"' On these texts, see Martin McNamara, The Apocrypha in the Irish Church (Dublin, 1975), pp. 109-10, 127-28 (nos. 91E, 91F, 102). * Kuno Meyer, “Eine altirische Homilie,” Zeitschrift fiir celtische Philologie 4

(1903): 241-43, at 241-42. ,

*§ Strachan, “An Old-Irish Homily” (as n. 1 above). 263

Martin McNamara, M.S.C. ceiving Christ’s people and Christ himself. Examples of the _ likenesses of the kingdom of God and of hell in this world are given. The text then passes to judgment and the day of Doom.

Next come an exhortation to strive after the kingdom of

righteous strive after”: | | heaven and a description of “the kingdom which the saints and It is a fair blossom for its great purity, it is a course of an ocean for its great beauty, it is a heaven full of candles (?) for its exceeding brightness, it is the hue of the eye for its fairness and its exceeding pleasantness, it is a flame for its

beauty, it is a harp for its melodiousness, it is a banquet for its abundance of wine. . . . Blessed is the person who shall reach the kingdom where is God himself, a king, great, fair, powerful, strong, holy, pure, righteous, keen ... merciful, charitable, beneficent, old, young, wise, no-

ble, glorious, without beginning, without end, without age, without decay.

ii. Ending. For its ending, the Irish text has a prayer to | reach heaven, which will become a traditional one in similar Irish texts: “May we arrive at the kingdom of that king, may we merit it, may we inhabit it 7m secula seculorum. Amen” (“Ro-isam flaith ind rig-sin, ata-rotllem, ata-rothrebam in secula_ seculorum. Amen’). B. Sources

i. Scripture. The author cites the following scriptural texts bearing on his subject: Psalm 144:10; Daniel 3:57 (Benedicite); Matthew 10:40 combined with Luke 10:16; and Matthew 25:41, 34. Some of his biblical texts have Irish readings, such as “Con-

fitentur [= confiteantur] tibi, Domine, omnia opera tua et sancti tui confitentur [= RFI (conftteantur), for Vulgate and Old Latin benedicant] tibi” (Psalm 144:10). In the quotation “possidete regnum quod uobis paratum est ab origine mundi,” from Matthew 25:34, the phrase “regnum quod uobis paratum est” agrees with Irish DR against Vulgate paratum uobis regnum, and the phrase “ab origine mundi” agrees with Irish DER, and with

. c, d, ff, d against Vulgate a constitutione mundi. The text also includes the rare reading “Ite maledicti” for Matthew 25:41,

264

which agrees with d (Codex Bezae) of the Vetus Latina, against Vulgate discedite a me maledicti. We also have an unidentified text

Irish Homilies A.D. 600-1100

cited as Scripture: “For even sinners God deprives not of his present benefits.” As Scripture says, Bonus est Deus qui dat tustes et iniustis bona terrae in commune. This may be a paraphrase of Matthew 5:45. li. Unidentified Sources. There are two citations from a person or writing called “Peter”: (1) “As Peter says: Animam gratias agentem ac familiarem sibi facit Deus”; (2) “As Peter says: Ingratam

[MS ingraciam] animam malus possidet demon.” It is unclear whether in these texts the author or his tradition is paraphrasing 1 Peter or drawing on some text in which Peter speaks, for instance the Clementine Recognitions.

There is also an unidentified Latin text, which may be a paraphrase, or a variant of, part of the Gloria in excelsis. “It is of that thanksgiving that they say: T1bi gratias agunt anima nostra pro uniuersis beneficiis tuts.”

The author sees a likeness of heaven and hell in ordinary events of this world:

There are, moreover, likenesses of the kingdom of heaven and of hell in this world. The likeness of hell therein, first, i.e. winter and snow, tempest and cold, age and decay, disease and death. The likeness of the king-

dom of heaven therein, however, summer and fair weather, blossom and leaf, beauty and youth, feasts and feastings, prosperity, and abundance of every good.

No source for this has been identified. In part it resembles somewhat a text of the Catechesis Celtica on the five hells (fol. 20ra3 1-37):

V inferni sunt: I. dolor, II. senectus, III. mors, III. sepulcrum, V. pena. Dolor comparatur inferno, quia si habuisset homo omnes substantias quibus homines in hoc mundo uti solent, letus fieri non potest ut dicit filrus Serac: Non est census super censum salutis corporis. II. Senectus assimilatur inferno, quando V sensus in exitum

exeunt. Nam oculi caliginant, aures sordescunt, gustus non bene discernit, oforatus uitiatur, tactus rigescit: sed et dentes denudantur, lingua balbutiat, pectus licoribus grauatur, pedes tremore et tumore tumescunt, manus ad opus debilitantur, canities floret, et corpus omne infirma-

tur, sed sensus diminuitur. [III is missing; the text is

probably incomplete.] Sepulcrum etiam infernus est, ubi terra terrae redditur, cibi cadauer uermibus ex-

265 |

Martin McNamara, M.S.C.

hauritur; ubi limo caro miscetur, ubi aures et os et oculi III impletionibus replentur: primo cruore, II uermibus,

- III humo; ubi ossa arida redatis pulueri carnibus rema-

| nent. [V is missing. ] ,

7. The Cracow Homily Collection (s. viii) Attention was first drawn to the Cracow collection (Cracow, Cathedral Chapter, MS 140 Kp [olim 43]) by Pierre David, who considered the contents to be Irish monastic conferences of the eighth century.” In an introductory page of the manuscript (p. 5) there is a dedication to a Bishop Aron (Aron eps), who was naturally enough assumed to have been Aaron, Bishop of Auxerre (ca. 800). This led to an association of the entire collection with Irish circles in the environs of Auxerre (for instance the monastery of Moutier-en-Puisaye). However, more detailed examination of the manuscript has indicated northern Italy (possibly the area of Verona or Aquileia) as its place of origin, but still around the year 800 (later eighth or early ninth century). Furthermore, the page mentioning Bishop Aaron is a later insertion, and probably refers to Aaron Bishop of Cracow (1046-50).® Contemporary research has also shown that the Cracow manuscript (with twenty-five items or catecheses) is but

one representative of a catechesis or sermon collection originating about 750x800, of which seven manuscripts are now known, the original complete collection of thirty-four cateche-

ses being now extant only in one manuscript, namely Karlsruhe, Badische Landesbibliothek, MS Augiensis CXCVI.” An edition of this collection with a full study of its sources and transmission history is in progress by Thomas L. Amos.

“ Pierre David, “Un recueil de conférences monastiques irlandaises du VIII© siécle,” RB 49 (1937): 62-89. 8 See McNamara, “Sources and Affiliations,” pp. 195-96. *’ See Amos, “The Catechesis Cracoviensis and Hiberno-Latin Exegesis” (as n. 9 above).

| 2.66

Insh Homilies A.D. 600-1100

8. The Verona Homily Collection (s. vili-ix) The Verona Homily Collection has been studied by Lawrence T. Martin, who has published a critical edition of the

work.”’

9. The Catechesis Celtica Collection (s. x) We have already examined above two items from the collection known as the Catechesis Celtica, the name given to the contents of the Vatican codex Reg. lat. 49. The manuscript is of

the later tenth century and may have been transcribed in Ireland.® In any event, examination of its contents shows that the

work has very strong Irish affiliations, and a number of the pieces at least seem to have originated in Ireland.” Of the fifty-

five items which comprise the collection, twenty-four have strong Irish affiliations and ten probable but less clear Irish affiliations. Sources for eighteen of the fifty-five items have not

been identified and are without proven Irish connections. Three or four of the items seem to come from a Pembroke-type homiliary.

The contents of the collection are varied, including some homilies and a number of items of a catechetical nature which could serve as homilies or as sources for homilies. The collec-

tion probably represents a complex history and varied tradi-

tions. Even the material with clear Irish connections is not all of ” See Lawrence T. Martin, “The Verona Homily Collection and Its Irish Connections,” in Medieval Sermons and Soctety: Cloister, City, University, ed. Jacqueline Hamesse, Beverly Mayne Kienzle, Debra L. Stoudt and Anne T.

Thayer, FIDEM Textes et Etudes du Moyen Age 9 (Louvain-la-Neuve, 1998), pp. 25-34; L. T. Martin, “The Catechesis Veronensis,” in The Scriptures and Early Medieval Ireland: Proceedings of the 1993 Conference of the Soctety for

Hiberno-Latin Studies on Early Insh Exegesis and Homiletics, ed. Thomas O’Loughlin, Instrumenta Patristica 31 (Steenbrugge and Turnhout, 1999), pp. 151-61; and the recent edition by L. T. Martin, Homiliarum Veronense, CCCM 186, Scriptores Celtigenae 4 (Turnhout, 2000). I understand that a separate edition has been prepared by Brygida Kurbis for publication in the Monumenta Poloniae Historica.

8 See McNamara, “Sources and Affiliations.” ™ See M. McNamara, “The Irish Affiliations of the Catechesis Celtica,” Celtica 21

(1990): 291-334; McNamara, “Sources and Affiliations.” | 267

Martin McNamara, M.S.C. oe one kind. There are different schemata of the senses of Scripture. A comment on Psalm 1 (fols. 9ra-9va) knows of the Irish system of a twofold historical sense, referring to a secunda intentio and intentione secundae historiae, and interpreting the verse historialiter. To this it adds a moral reference (moraliter), by which non-literal senses are designated.” A catechetical or homiletic composition on Matthew 20:29-34 (the two blind | men from Jericho) presents a threefold sense: historia, mistetum — (mirabile) and moraliter.”' The homily headed De cena Domini (fols. 17r-18v)” has internal references to the forms of interpretation: “moraliter, utrum figura an historia an sensus esse credi oportet haec oblatio.””” A. Homilies According to a Multiple Sense of Scripture

While there is no clearly worked out plan, it seems that the tradition enshrined in the Catechesis Celtica is working towards the presentation of homilies or catechetical compositions according to the multiple sense of Scripture, in general first the historical sense, then the spiritual, to which occasionally a moral reference is added. I illustrate this from sections of the work with Irish connections. Thus the lengthy treatment of Luke’s account of the birth of Christ (Luke 2:1-20) at fols. 30va31v, 48r-49vb can be taken as one, two or three distinct pieces.”

It was probably first intended as a single item. First the entire pericope is cited and commented on in a “historical” manner, although without any reference to the approach; next comes a second full interpretation of a spiritual nature, but without use of the term. After this we have a third section on Christ’s birth, including a passage on the two advents, first in humility, then in — ” On the comment of Psalm 1, see McNamara, “The Irish Affiliations,” pp. 305-9.

! Fols. 47v and 24ra. On this item, see McNamara, “Sources and Affiliations,” p. 225; Jean Rittmueller, “MS Vat. Reg. lat. 49 Reviewed: A New Description and a Table of Textual Parallels with the Liber Questtonum in Euangelits,” Sacris Erudiri 33 (1992-93): 259-305, at 288-89.

” Analecta Reginensia, ed. Wilmart, pp. 34-38; see also Rittmueller, “MS Vat. Reg. lat. 49 Reviewed,” pp. 276-77; McNamara, “Sources and Affiliations,”

p. 208. ,

% Analecta Reginensia, ed. Wilmart, pp. 35-36.

* Ibid., pp. 93-106; see also McNamara, “Sources and Affiliations,” pp. 231-32; Rittmueller, “MS Vat. Reg. lat. 49 Reviewed,” pp. 292-93. 268

| Irish Homilies A.D, 600-1100 glory. There is a lengthy exposition of John 20:26-31, the Gospel passage for Low Sunday (fols. 32va-35vb), which seems to be in accord with a triple interpretation, literal, in misterio, in moralitate.” A long exposition, which seems to be the literal one, is. followed by another on the eight days and the twelve gates of

| the city (the new Jerusalem), which appears to be a spiritual interpretation. Then comes the exposition of the twelve gates ad moralitatem (MS mortalitaitem, corrected here by Wilmart). There is a lengthy exposition of the Cana pericope (John 2:111) at fols. 45va-47ra,”° the first interpretation obviously literal, followed by another introduced as spiritualiter, ending with a moral (moraliter) interpretation of the colors of the clothes of the Magi. We have a particularly informative case on the exposition of the Palm Sunday Gospel reading, including Jesus’s cleansing of the temple (Matthew 21:1-17) at fols. 14ra-1l6ra, 16ra-16va."’ The homily or catechetical piece gives first what is the literal exposition of the passage, followed by what is the spiritual interpretation, without indication in either case of the sense of Scripture being used. In both it follows closely the LQE or the sources (Frigulus?) behind it. Immediately on this there follows another item, introduced as moraliter, which gives the moral application of the pericope. In this moral interpretation, the LQE plays only a small part, though verbatim, in the opening lines. The sources of the remainder have not been traced.”

Obviously, the compiler is here interested in presenting a homiletic or catechetical composition, keeping with the plan of a threefold sense of Scripture. We have a similar example in the

homiletic material for Easter Sunday, treated above in no. 3. The first section, headed In nomine Det summi, contains the “his- , torical” interpretation and is very much in the Irish tradition. ” The two last mentioned seem to be intended in Analecta Reginensia, ed. Wilmart, p. 50, line 119: “Domus clausa in qua uenit Christus ad apostolos

conuenit misterio et moralitate [MS mortalitate] in aeclesia dei, illis qui possident eam.” The manuscript should probably be corrected here as later in the text (pp. 46, 57). °° Ibid., pp. 72-79. 7 See McNamara, “Sources and Affiliations,” pp. 206-7; Rittmueller, “MS Vat.

Reg. lat. 49 Reviewed,” pp. 272-76.

: ° The moral exposition of the Catechesis Celtica should, however, be com-

169-70 (Irish), p. 422 (Latin). |

pared with that of the Leabhar Breac, ed. Atkinson, Passions and Homilies, pp.

269

Martin McNamara, M.S.C.

After this comes another full exposition, without characterization of approach, but clearly the spiritual interpretation. Next

| comes an exposition introduced as moraliter. , | B. Pembroke-Type Homilies and Pembroke-Type Influences |

| In the Catechesis Celtica collection there are two compositions with the heading omelia: Omelia in dominica die Palmarum (fols. 13r-14r) and Omelia in cena Domini (fols. 16v-17r).” These homilies have some characteristics not found elsewhere in the Catechesis Celtica, for instance the address fratres karissimi. Both _ pieces also occur verbatim (rubrics included) in the so-called Pembroke-style homiliary in Cambridge, Pembroke College MS 25 (s. xi2 or xi ex.; provenance Bury St Edmunds) and in Chartres, BM, MS 25 (Saint-Pére, Chartres, s. x-xi; now extant only in

fragments).'” It seems clear that in this instance we have bor-

not vice versa. |

rowings by the Catechesis Celtica collection from the homiliary, A further homily in the Catechests Celtica collection (fols.

Qv-10v) is headed Inelia de oratione Dominica.""' While

this particular homily has affiliations with the LQE and with the

homily on the Pater Noster in the Irish Leabhar Breac (for instance on the reasons why this prayer is said silently), this homily, or at least the first portion of it and the title, may have come

from some outside collection. |

In this context we may return to the Catechesis Celtica catechetical treatment on the Gospel for Palm Sunday (Matthew 21:1-17) on Palm Sunday and Jesus’s cleansing of the temple (fols. 14ra-l6ra, 16ra-l6va). This has a literal and spiritual interpretation, without designation of the nature of the exposition, followed by another exposition introduced as moraliter. The first two expositions have close connections with the ” See McNamara, “Sources and Affiliations,” p. 192. 1 On this collection, see J. E. Cross, Cambridge Pembroke College MS. 25: A Carolingian: Sermonary Used by Anglo-Saxon Preachers, King’s College London Medieval Studies 1 (London, 1987).

'! The opening words are blotched by ink and difficult to read. They have been so read by André Wilmart in his Codices Reginenses Latint, 2 vols. (Vatican City, 1937), vol. 1, p. 117. For this item see Rittmueller, “MS Vat. Reg.

lat. 49 Reviewed,” pp. 267-68; McNamara, “Sources and Affiliations,” pp. — 202-3.

2.70

Irish Homilies A.D. 600-1100

LQE and are in the tradition of the Irish Leabhar Breac homily for Palm Sunday.'”* However, the spiritual and historical expositions also have sections in common with Sermons 26 and 27 respectively of the Pembroke 25 Homiliary.'”’ In the spiritual exposition, the address fratres carissimi (with a c) occurs once, but is paralleled only in the Pembroke Homiliary Sermon 26,

not in LQE.'" The explanation would appear to be that the

Catechesis Celtica tradition has here again been influenced by the Pembroke-type Homiliary, as it has in the homily on Palm Sunday immediately preceding (Omelia in dominica die Palmarum) and in the Omelia in cena Domini which follows. The words fratres

carissimt appear three times in the moral exposition, again it | |

would appear through influence from the Pembroke tradition. They also occur in a Catechests Celttca homily on the parable of the workers in the vineyard (fols. 6rv, 7vb, 8rv), which, however, _ is entirely borrowed from Gregory’s Homilies on the Gospels. The

expression does not appear to belong to the central Catechesis Celtica tradition.”

C. Development towards Exegetical Homilies in the Catechesis Celtica.

Apart from the three items explicitly so designated, and possibly a few others, the Catechesis Celtica does not contain homilies or sermons in the proper sense of those words. We

may, however, regard a number of the items it carries as

catechetical compositions. I believe that the tradition it represents is moving towards exegetical homilies, a presentation that is heavily dependent on the explanation of Scripture as developed by the Fathers and in the Irish schools. Some of the items simply reproduce patristic texts (for instance Gregory the Great ™ See McNamara, “Irish Affiliations,” pp. 314-15; McNamara, “Sources and Affiliations,” pp. 206-7. See Cross, Cambridge Pembroke College MS. 25, pp. 28-29; Rittmueller, “MS

Vat. Reg. lat. 49 Reviewed,” pp. 272-75. |

On this section of the Catechesis Celtica, fols. 15vb16-16ra9 (“Domus mea...

Uos ... latronum. Illud ... amen” = Pembroke 25, art. 26, fols. 55v2456r26), see Rittmueller, “MS Vat. Reg. lat. 49 Reviewed,” p. 274; Cross, Cambridge Pembroke College MS. 25, p. 29.

The expression fratres carissimi does occur in the Leabhar Breac, e.g. at the end of the Latin homily for Palm Sunday, with the corresponding Irish phrase “A braithre inmaine’: Passions and Homilies, ed. Atkinson, p. 171 (Irish), p. 425 (Latin). 271

Martin McNamara, M.S.C.

on the Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard). Others reproduce verbatim a literal, or a literal and spiritual, exposition of a

| biblical pericope from a medieval commentary, as for instance from the LQE. Together with this we also note a further development, towards inclusion of a third exposition on the moral

sense of the passage. |

D. Irish Homiletic Elements in the Catechesis Celtica as a Preparation , for Eleventh-Century Irish Homilies

In the development of Irish homiletics, the Catechesis Celtica is important also as a witness to special terminology, turns of phrase, formulaic endings to catechetical texts, and such like. The formulaic ending, expressing a prayer to enjoy eternal life in the company of the blessed, is quite common in this collection. One such ending reads: “Rogamus Deum omnipotentem ut mereamur possidere illam beatitudinem in saecula saeculorum. Amen” (fol. 5lra). The Irish element in the Catechesis Celtica gives new insight into tenth-century Irish

ecclesiastical culture. It also helps us better understand the flowering of this homiletic method in the eleventh-century Irish and Hiberno-Latin homilies.

10. The Homily Collection of the Leabhar Breac, the Book of Lismore and Related Texts (ca. 1050)

A. Identification of the Collection , : Homilies of various kinds are found in different Irish

| manuscripts. The diligent researches of Frederick Mac Donncha have revealed that among these there are some thirty-six homilies that belong together. These seem to be the work of a single person and appear to have originally formed part of a homiliary. There are eleven homilies de tempore, on Gospel readings for Sundays and feast days throughout the year:'”° ‘© A list of the Passions and Homilies of the Leabhar Breac edited by Atkinson, Passions and Homilies, is given by James F. Kenney, Sources for the Early History of Ireland. Part I. Ecclesiastical, rev. ed. with addenda by Ludwig Bieler (New York, 1966), pp. 739-40, with some additional references in the notes. 272

Irish Homilies A.D. 600-1100

1. Indibe Crist (Circumcision): Leabhar Breac 2. Epifania Domini: Leabhar Breac

3. De ieiunio Domini in deserto (First Sunday in Lent): Leabhar Breac

4. Domnach na hImrime (Palm Sunday; Triumphal Entry): Leabhar Breac

Breac

5. Cédain in Braith (Spy Wednesday): Leabhar Breac

6. In cena Domini (The Lord’s Supper): Leabhar Breac

7. Pais in Coimded (The Lord’s Passion, for Good Friday): Leabhar Breac'”’

8. A homily on the Resurrection, conjoined to Pais in Coimded without any separate heading: Leabhar 9. An untitled homily on the Incredulity of Thomas for

, Low Sunday: Leabhar Breac

, 10. De die Pentecostes: Leabhar Breac

11. [Don Ta]rmcrutta (Tarmchruthu), on the Trans- | figuration: Leabhar Breac

There are also twenty sermons for the sanctorale, on lives of saints, which can be divided between Irish saints and non-Irish saints:'”” Inish Saints:

1. Adomnan: Brussels, Bibliotheque Royale, MS 419022, and other manuscripts” 2. Bearach (Bairre): various manuscripts 7 Passions and Homilies, ed. Atkinson, pp. 124-43, lines 2977-3656, in two sections headed respectively “In ernail tanaise for Pats in Chotmded sund secundum Mathaeum’ (“The Second Account of the Passion .. .”) and “In tres gné

in-so” (“The Third Account”). The opening section on the Passion in the Leabhar Breac, ed. Atkinson, Passions and Homilies, pp. 113-24, lines 25712976, headed “Pasio Domini Nostri Iesus Christi incipit,” is the Gospel of

Nicodemus chs. 1-11. On this homily see also A. Dooley, “The Gospel of Nicodemus in Ireland,” in The Medieval Gospel of Nicodemus: Texts, Intertexts, and Contexts in Western Europe, ed. Zbigniew Izydorczyk, Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies 158 (Tempe, AZ, 1997), pp. 361-401, at 376-78.

' For details regarding the manuscripts and editions of these saints’ lives, see the relevant entries in Kenney, Sources. '” Betha Adamndin: The Irish Life of Adamnan, ed. Maire Herbert and Padraig

O Riain, Irish Texts Society 54 (London, 1988). The Life of Adamnan survives in a single paper manuscript, Brussels, Bibliotheque Royale, MS 419022, fols. 29r-33v, compiled by Micheal O Cléirigh, mostly in the years 162829, at various locations. See Kenney, Sources, pp. 443-44 (no. 224). 273

Martin McNamara, M.S.C. | 3. Beinin (Benignus): various manuscripts

| 4. Bréanann (Brendan): Book of Lismore 5. Brigid: Book of Lismore 6. Ciaran: Book of Lismore

, 7. Colm Cille: Book of Lismore

| 8. Colman Mac Luacain: various manuscripts 9. Finnian of Clonard: Book of Lismore

, 10. Mochua: Book of Lismore

11. Patrick: Book of Lismore and other manuscripts ,

12. Senan: Book of Lismore Non-lrish Saints:

13. George: Leabhar Breac

14. Gregory: various manuscripts’

15. The Maccabees: Leabhar Breac 16. Martin of Tours: Leabhar Breac'''

| 17. Feast of St Michael: Leabhar Breac 18. Appearance (Revelatio) of St Michael: Leabhar Breac 19. Passion of Peter and Paul: Leabhar Breac 20. Passion (Césad) of Stephen: Leabhar Breac

An additional five homilies are concerned with the duties of the Christian life: 1. Almsgiving: Leabhar Breac 2. Charity: Leabhar Breac 3. Fasting: Leabhar Breac 4. Sermo ad reges (on the duties of kings): Leabhar Breac 5. Pater noster. Leabhar Breac

Three are on the Last Things :

| 1. Scéla Lai Bratha (“Tidings of Doomsday”): Lebor | na hUidre

2. A Dialogue between the Soul and the Body: Leabhar Breac'"*

'!? See Grosjean, “Quelques textes irlandais” (as n. 34 above). ''! Published by W. S[tokes], “A Middle-Irish Homily on S. Martin of Tours,” Revue Celtique 2 (1873-75): 381-402.

'? Passions and Homilies, ed. Atkinson, pp. 266-73, lines 8080-8354 (Irish); English trans. pp. 507-14. Latin texts of Leabhar Breac omitted by Atkinson _ have been edited by H. Gaidoz, “Le débat du corps et de l’ame en Irlande,” : Revue Celtique 10 (1899): 463-70, at 466-70. 274

Irish Homilies A.D. 600-1100

3. Fis Adomnain (“The Vision of Adamnan,” on the afterlife): Leabhar Breac, Lebor na hUidre and other manuscripts Nine of these are bilingual homilies (in Latin and Irish) in the Leabhar Breac. Most of the saints’ lives are in the Book of Lismore.''” One, “The Tidings of Doomsday,” is in Lebor na hUidre.

Mac Donncha begins his study with the Leabhar Breac texts, in particular the Latin-Irish texts, which are nine in number. The Irish versions are seen to be the work of one man because of certain sentences or phrases translated in the same way in different homilies; because of certain words being used in the same way (a similarity of style throughout); because of formulae used, usually based on the Latin of the homilies, among

which we could mention an elaborate method of quotation; because of the tendency to reduce two or more slightly different phrases to one identical one; and because of identical or similar additions of words and phrases, some demanded by Irish syntax, some for the sake of clarity, or as commentaries or

explanatory glosses. The Latin texts likewise seem to be the work of one man, an eclectic in fact, for though Mac Donncha has traced many sentences and passages to their origin in pa-

tristic literature, he has never found any complete homily of

the Fathers reproduced here. He believes that they were writ- | ten or compiled in Ireland and are the work of their translator. If we accept the fact that they were produced with a view to the provision of this Irish homiliarium, then the indications are clear enough that the author of the Latin and Irish texts is one and the same man. The Latin texts all follow very much the same plan. We have a quotation from Scripture, say Matthew 21:1-14 giving the account of Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem. This is followed by a straight commentary, the historical sense, at the end of which we get, in all but two of them, a list of prefigurations and prophecies of the event, such as: Haec Saluatoris equitatio figurata est, quondam quando Zora[ba]bel et Iesus filius Iosadach, Cyro permittente, cum equitatu Ierosolyman uenerunt. Esdras quoque et ' From the Book of Lismore, Whitley Stokes edited the Lives of Patrick, Colm Cille, Brigid, Senan, Finnian of Clonard, Findchua of Brigown, Brennain son of Finnlugh, Ciaran of Clonmacnois, and Mochua of Balla: Lives of Saints from the Book of Lismore, ed. and trans. W. Stokes, Anecdota Oxoniensia (Oxford, 1890). 275

Martin McNamara, M.S.C. | Ne[he]mias [cum] turbis in figuram huius aduentus

Ierosolymam uenerunt. Prophetatum quoque a > Za[{cha]ria propheta, sicut Matthaeus hic dicit: “Ecce rex tuus uenit tibi mansuetus et sedens super asinam. .. .”

Some of the prefigurations are far-fetched indeed, whether they be of Irish or non-Irish origin. Here we must note that in . two cases those lists are given in Irish only, though they are introduced in Latin. Next follow the spiritual sense and the moral

sense or practical application, followed by an eschatological conclusion, i.e., heaven for those who follow the teaching and hell for those who do not. In one case the eschatological conclusion is omitted, its place being taken by the anagogical sense. Perhaps what I have called the eschatological conclusion should be regarded as the anagogical sense, though it is not formally declared in the homilies to be such. In five of the nine homilies we find these senses given, but not in the other four because they would not suit.

The other homilies, the Latin of which is not found in the Leabhar Breac, are linked with the Latin-Irish ones, and are seen

to be the work of the same author, being written in the same style, having some sentences or phrases the same, the lists of exemplars (prefigurations) being very characteristic, and especially in their exordia and perorationes, which are all modeled on

the same pattern. Among these homilies, he notes, are the pas-

sions of the martyrs and the so-called lives of the saints. | B. Structure of the Homilies

i. The exordia, including treatment of divine author, human author, and with formulae for denoting context.

| ii. The body of the homily. For biblical passages this can be an exposition according to the multiple senses of scripture; for

non-biblical subject matter, demands of Christian life, the life | of a saint, a vision, a description of Doomsday or such like. ili. Perorationes, consisting of a stylized ending, the last element of which is a little prayer. C. Leabhar Breac Bilingual Homilies.

A feature of the Leabhar Breac homilies in question is that

they are bilingual, in Latin and in Irish, and further that the 276

Trish Homilies A.D. 600-1100

two languages are interwoven. The Latin text of an entire sentence, a phrase or at times just a few words, is given and imme-

diately translated into Irish. The following opening of the homily on the Last Supper (Jn cena Domini) illustrates (the Latin noted by roman type, the Irish translation by italics): Prima autem die azimorum accesserunt discipuli ad Ihesum dicentes: Ubi uis paremus tibi comedere pascha? Hi cét 16 autem na némdescata tancatar a apstail do chomairle fri

bIsu,7 is ed ro rdidset fris. Cia airmm inad dil lett coro erlamaigemm duit in chdisc 7 coro thormala? At thesus dixit. Is ¢

_ frecra dorrat Isu forrasum: Hite in ciuitatem ad quendam 4 dicite ei. Ercid isin cathraig céaraile nduine, 7 apraid ris: Magister dicit: Tempus meum prope est. Apud te facio pascha cum discipulis meis. Atbe(i)r Magister: [s comfocus maimser. Ocutso dognim in chfisc co ndesciplaib. Et fecerunt

discipuli sicut praecepit illis Ihesus, & paruert pascha. 7 dorénsat na discipuil amal ro erdil Isu forru, 7 ro erlamaigset in chdisc.

Uespere autem facto discumbebat cum discipulis | suis .xii. O thanic autem fescor, dessid-su oc méis 7 a da apstal .x.

immalle fris. Et edentibus illis dixit. 7 a mbdtar ic préind, daroine Isu in taircetulsa doib co nd-epert: Amen amen dico uobis quia unus uestrum me traditurus est. Atberimm co fir fir frib, al -su, is aen uaib nom mairnfese.

In the following English translation, the interwoven Latin text is represented by a series of double dashes (===): Now on the first day of the unleavened bread his disciples came for counsel to Jesus, and what they said to him was:

“What is the place in which you want us to prepare for you the Passover and so that you may eat?” === The answer that Jesus gave to them was === “Go into the city

to a certain man and say to him === ‘Magister says my time is near. At your house I am making the Passover with

(my) disciples’ === And the disciples did as Jesus enjoined them, and they prepared the Passover === Now

when evening came, Jesus sat at table and his twelve apostles together with him === And while they were eating Jesus made this prophecy to them and said === “I say truly, truly, to you,” said Jesus, “it is one of you who will betray me.” 277

Martin McNamara, M.S.C.

The Irish text of the homily In cena Domini, without the Latin, is

also preserved in Paris, BN, MS Celtique [vii (written 1497), fols. 74r-117v.""* It would appear that for all the bilingual Leadhar Breac homilies, the Latin and Irish texts were originally fully

independent. The intermingling found in the present Leabhar

| Breac manuscript must be explained by some circumstance within the tradition that has transmitted these texts to us.'”

The Latin compositions are probably the more original of the two. These seems to have arisen as a later stage of the tradition

attested in the Catechesis Celtica.

D. Biblical Exegesis in the Homilies

The homilies are structured around a multiple sense of Scripture. This is, naturally, clearest when the entire homily is on a biblical text or theme. It is also visible, however, in the

treatment of the biblical text in the prefaces to saints’ lives. | i. Homilies structured on a fourfold sense of Scripture. This

structure occurs in the third account of the resurrection of Christ in the Leabhar Breac. “This is the plain literal meaning | [etargna fhollus] of this lesson”;''® “As to the mystical interpretation [mad iar sians]”;''’ “This lesson has also a moral sense [etargna béta]”;''® “as to the anagogical sense [mad iar n-agagéig].”'"°

Likewise in the homily for Low Sunday, on the incredulity of Thomas (John 20:26-29), in Irish and Latin:’*? “Haec est historia [etargna fbollas] huius lectionis”;'*! “Haec lectio sensum habet spiritualem, ad Christum et ad ecclesiam pertinentem. Mystice , '™ On this text see Rittmueller, “The Leabhar Breac Latin and Middle-Irish

Homily ‘In Cena Domini,’” pp. 41-58. :

' In saying this, it is recognized that the question of such intermingling of Latin, with immediate Irish translation, may be a larger one. It is a feature

"7 Thid. |

of the preface to the Pars prima of the Vita tripartita of Patrick, edited from London, BL, MS Egerton 93 and other manuscripts by K. Mulchrone, in

Bethu Phatratc. The Tripartite Life of Patrick. 1. Text and Sources (Dublin, 1939). "© Passions and Homilies, ed. Atkinson, p. 137; trans. p. 385.

"8 Tbid., p. 139; trans. p. 388. "” Ibid., p. 140; trans. p. 389.

Thid., pp. 227-34. '*! Tbid., p. 231 (Irish), p. 469 (Latin).

, 2.78

Trish Homilies A.D. 600-1100

ergo. ... Haec iuxta sensum dicta sunt [etargna siansaide 1.e. runda chiallmbar, is cubaid fri Crist 7 fris-in eclais. . . . Is e sin etargna shian-

saide]”;'** “moraliter . . . iuxta moralem intelligentiam [mad iar

mbétaid . . . etargna besta]”;'* “per anagogen [mad tar nanagoig].”'** The homily for Epiphany has explicitly a threefold

sense, but adds a Latin text ending on eternal life. Although the text is in Irish, the indication of the form of interpretations is in Latin: “Hec iuxta litteram dicta sunt; ceterum iuxta spiri-

| tualem intelligentiam”;’* “Hic est spiritualis sensus huius lec-

tionis. Moraliter uero.... Hic est moralis sensus huius

lectionis.”'*°

, ii. Homilies structured on a threefold sense of Scripture. We have

a clear structure according to a threefold sense in the homily for Palm Sunday,'”’ a homily in Latin and Irish, although the reference to the historical form of interpretation is in Latin only: “Haec est historia huius lectionis. Haec lectio habet et spiritualem sensum ad Christum et ad ecclesiam pertinentem.”'** The spiritual exposition ends in Latin (“Hic est sensus huius lectionis spiritualis”) and in Irish (“Js e sin etargna siansaide

na liachtan-sa”).'*” The moral exposition is introduced “Haec lectio habet et moralem sensum,” in Irish “etargna moralla.” The ending is indicated in Latin as moralis sensus, in Irish as etargna bésta.'”

ii. Homilies structured on a twofold sense of Scripture. The

multiple sense structure is found even in the introductory material to saints’ lives, as for instance in the Irish and Latin Praefatio in primam partem to the Vita tripartita sancti Patric, on the introductory Bible text (Isaiah 9:2), which is interpreted first 2 Thid., pp. 230-32 (Irish), pp. 468-69 (Latin). ' Tbid., pp. 232-33 (Irish), pp. 469-70 (Latin). 4 Tbid., p. 233 (Irish), p. 470 (Latin). 5 Thid., p. 238. 6 Thid., pp. 239, 240. '°7 This has also a threefold exposition in the Catechesis Celtica, although only the third (moraliter) is explicitly mentioned. "8 Passions and Homilies, ed. Atkinson, p. 167 (Irish), pp. 422-23 (Latin). ' Tbid., p. 423; Irish p. 169. '™ Tbid., p. 170 (Irish), pp. 423-24 (Latin). 279

Martin McNamara, M.S.C.

tuxta historiam (“mad tar stair’) and then iuxta spiritualem intelli-

gentiam (“mad iar sians”).' E.. Date and Author of the Homilies

Frederick Mac Donncha believes that this corpus of homi-

| lies is the work of one man. The author of this homiliarium was

, very well versed in Scripture and was quite familiar with patristic literature. He had a profound knowledge of Latin and had access to a well-stocked library.'"* He was equally at home in

Irish and Latin. Accepting an eleventh-century date for the homilies, Mac Donncha is of the opinion that the author probably was Mael-Isu O Brolchain (+ 1086), a scholar known

for his wisdom, piety, learning and knowledge of Latin and Irish. He was well known as a poet. He was of the community of Armagh, in northern Ireland, but died in Lismore in the south of Ireland. Mac Donncha thinks that possibly death intervened before Mael-Isu could finish his work, with the result that most likely we have only a fraction of what was intended. The unfinished condition of several homilies with large passages of un-

translated Latin adds to the impression of a work never

finished. One of the homilies in the collection is the Life of Adam-

nan. This has been critically edited by M. Herbert and P. O Ri-

ain.'* With regard to the date to be assigned to it, they note that there are three main dating criteria for texts of this kind: form, language, and most importantly content. The language of the text, including the homiletic material, has a generally homogeneous character. Analysis of the language indicates that

the Life belongs to the early part of the Middle Irish period (i.e. 900 to 1200). In other words, the linguistic evidence suggests that the text was composed in the tenth century." The _ evidence of the contents on the internal and external affairs of the church in which it was written point in the same direction. In the authors’ opinion, examination of the contents leads one | to believe that the Life of Adamnan was composed at some date '§! In Bethu Phatraic, ed. Mulchrone, pp. 2-3.

: 280 |

'*? Mac Donncha, “Medieval Irish Homilies,” p. 67. 8° Herbert and O Riain, ed., Betha Adamndin.

4 Tbid., pp. 5-6.

Trish Homilies A.D. 600-1100

between 956 and 964.'” In their examination of the first of their criteria for dating, i.e. form, they note Mac Donncha’s view that the homiletic matter in Irish lives (including the Vita tripartiia of Patrick and the Life of Adamnan) represents a later, possibly eleventh-century, addition. In favor of this argument, which implies that a single editor (or team of editors) was at work, is the remarkable agreement between the various examples of exordia (introductions) and perorationes (conclusions). They go on, however, to remark that verbal agreement of this kind could equally presuppose the existence of original model introductions and conclusions, on which all later versions ulti-

mately depend. In their view, a final verdict on the question must await the results of a systematic examination of the corpus of homilies along these lines.'”° G. Mac Eoin has recently published observations on some of the Leabhar Breac homilies, in particular those studied by —

Frederick Mac Donncha.’ He finds a very close relationship between the Fis Adamndin and the Homily on the Dialogue between the Soul and the Body (no. XXXVI in Atkinson’s edition). The evidence indicates that the Fis Adamnain is the primary text and the homily the secondary. However, he continues, there is no need to view the relationship in terms of borrowing, for the correspondences noted between the Fis and the homily are of the kind found between the various homilies

| | of the homiliarium, all of which were composed by the same author. Mac Eoin then studies the relationships between the homily Scéla Lat Bratha (“Tidings of Doomsday”), found only in the manuscript known as Lebor na hUidre, and the long poem known as Saltair na Rann (“Psalter of the Quatrains”), composed about the year 988. The homily is clearly dependent on the Saltair, thus giving post 988 as a date for its composition. A terminus ad quem is provided by the manuscript Lebor na hUidre,

which was written before 1106. A study of loan words in the Passions and Homilies leads Mac Eoin to conclude that the first of the three parts of the homily “Passio Domini / Pais an Chowm-

ded” has so many late loan words as to indicate a date of ca.

"6 Tbid., p. 4.

' Tbid., p. 8.

'*7 Mac Eoin, “Observations on Some Middle-Irish Homilies.” 281

Martin McNamara, M.S.C. | 1350 for its composition.'” Of the homilies studied by Mac Donncha, and believed by him to belong to the homiliarium, twelve have no loan words from English or French or any later

| Latin borrowings; four show only loan words which had entered | the language before the twelfth century.” F. General Conclusion on the Leabhar Breac-Type Homily Collection

The research on these homilies begun by Frederick Mac Donncha a little over three decades ago (1965) deserves to be taken up anew and completed. Each one of the homilies might profitably be considered individually, both with regard to the body of the work and in conjunction with the stylized exordium and peroratio. The Hiberno-Latin homiletic tradition to which these homilies are witness also deserves separate examination, as do its relations to the corresponding section of the Catechesis Celtica. Mac Donncha ended his 1976 paper noting that a new edition of the homilies was highly desirable. Atkinson’s edition,

apart from being out of print, is unsatisfactory. | VI. Relationship between Late Medieval Irish and Anglo-Saxon Homilies

While this is not the place to enter into the question of the relationships of Anglo-Saxon to Latin and Hiberno-Latin texts (a branch of learning to which Professor Jimmy Cross - made such significant contributions), the perceived similarities between the vernacular Anglo-Saxon and Irish homilies of the

tenth and eleventh centuries may at least be mentioned. As a conclusion to her study of the matter, H. L. C. Tristram notes that she is not convinced, at the present stage of knowledge, that the Irish homiletic masterpieces in the eleventh-century Lebor na hUidre and in the more pedestrian homilies in the Leabhar Breac were in any way influenced by English models, _ whether Benedictine homiletic writing 1n the vernacular in the

| tenth and early eleventh century or by earlier Anglo-Latin '* Ibid., pp. 210-11. This first part (ed. Atkinson, Passions and Homilies, pp. 113-24, lines 2571-2976) contains the prologue and chs. 1.1-13.3 of the

282, |

Gospel of Nicodemus. |

' Mac Eoin, “Observations on Some Middle-Irish Homilies,” pp. 209-10.

Irish Homilies A.D. 600-1100

homiletics of the eighth century. On the other hand, she would say that Ireland did exert influence on Old English vernacular homily writing, but not directly. In a complex cultural process, both England and Ireland in the tenth and eleventh centuries were indebted zndependently to Continental models, and, among them, to Hiberno-Latin preaching styles mediated to them by the later Carolingian homiliaries.'*’ VIT. General Conclusion

In this essay an overview of proven or presumed Irish homiletic material for the half-millennium ca. 600 to 1100 has —

been given. The material in the Irish language from ca. 800 to

1100 shows the existence of a continuous homiletic or

catechetical tradition. To this Irish tradition we can add the Latin text of the bilingual Latin-Irish homilies of the Leabhar Breac and likewise one entire section of the catechetical material in the Catechesis Celtica. The relationship to this of the other Latin tradition as witnessed by the sermons of Columbanus and of the catechetical material in such collections as the Catechesis Cracoviensis and the Catechesis Veronensis remains to be deter-

mined. The same holds true for certain other sermons presumed by some scholars to be Hiberno-Latin in origin. The problems inherent in the use of these as evidence for medieval

Irish culture and tradition form part of the larger question of the Irish origins or affiliations of the material brought to our attention by Professor Bischoff, whose positions and conclu- | sions have been called into question, most recently by Michael Gorman." Tristram, Early Insular Preaching, p. 39. ‘4! Michael Gorman, “The Commentary on the Pentateuch Attributed to Bede in PL 91.189-394 (Second Part),” RB 106 (1996): 255-307, at 290-93. Gorman discusses (and critiques) Bischoff’s method in greater detail in “A Critique of Bischoff’s Theory of Irish Exegesis: The Commentary on Genesis in Munich Clm 6302 (Wendepunkte 2),” JML 7 (1997): 178-233. There is a severe criticism of Gorman’s essay by G. Silagi, “Notwendige Bemerkungen

zu Michael Gormans ‘Critique of Bischoff’s Theory of Irish Exegesis,”

Peritia 12 (1998): 87-94; see also Michael Herren, “Irish Biblical Commentaries before 800,” in Roma Magistra Mundt: Itineraria culturae mediaevalis.

Melanges offerts au Pere L. E. Boyle a Voccaston de son 75e anniversaire, ed. J. | Hamesse (Louvain-la-Neuve, 1998), pp. 391-405; and Charles D. Wright, "Bischoff's Theory of Irish Exegesis and the Genesis Commentary in Munich clm 6302: A Critique of a Critique," JML 10 (2000): 115-75. 283

Martin McNamara, M.S.C.

oo The time seems ripe for a systematic study of the Irish homiletic tradition, and in its various manifestations: in the vernacular Irish, in the Latin tradition so obviously related to

this (as found in the Leabhar Breac and in part of the Catechests Celtica), and in the broader tradition as witnessed in the Latin tradition from Columbanus onwards.

284 |

An Unpublished Homily on the Transfiguration RAYMOND ETAIX

ViraBeneventan Brown has publishedpreserved an exemplary a manuscript withoutdescription shelfmark inofthe Museo del Duomo in Salerno.' This is a magnificent homiliary

| of large size (473 x 330 mm.), with decorated initials, which dates to s. xii/xili and which was probably written at or in the vicinity of Salerno. It contains readings for Lent from Ash Wednesday to the Saturday after the third Sunday of Lent. The final text is fragmentary, and the manuscript lacks a conclusion for this part of the liturgical year. One or more readings are provided for each day, most often homilies on the Gospel, for a total of sixty texts. Professor Brown correctly identifies each one

and has scrupulously reproduced the titles, incipits and explicits. In addition, she indicates parallels with twenty other homililaries in Beneventan script. Her study confirms the impression

| one often gets from this type of manuscript: they share similar features, they cite the same sources, but it is impossible to establish strict genealogical ties between them. An original collection cannot be reconstructed that would have been added to

| and adapted over time. Each witness has its own idiosyncrasies, and this is what makes each one interesting. This is the case with the Salerno manuscript, which shows demonstrable lines

of filiation with homiliaries from Monte Cassino and

Benevento, but which cannot be connected with any one in particular. We would simply point out something which the learned Professor Brown overlooked: that one series of fourteen sermons for the second Sunday certainly derives from the old Roman Homiliary.” [Editor’s note: This essay was translated from the French by Thomas N. Hall. ] ' Virginia Brown, “A Homiliary in Beneventan Script at Salerno,” La Specola 1

| 285 (1991): 9-47.

— * Salerno Homiliary, arts. 21-37 correspond to Alanus of Farfa I, arts. 56, 57, , 63, 66, 59, 58, 60, 61, 62, 72, 69, 66, and 53. This enumeration of texts from

the Homiliary of Alanus of Farfa, a witness to the Roman Homiliary, is

Raymond Etaix

The Salerno manuscript transmits its share of rare texts. We draw attention in particular to the Pseudo-Augustinian sermons Mai 3 and 4 (arts. 14 and 43), two extracts from the commentary on Matthew by Hilary of Poitiers (arts. 38 and 41), Sermo 43 by Epiphanius Latinus (art. 39), a pastiche of Jerome

and Origen on Matthew (art. 46), and Sermo 112a (Caillau II.11) by St Augustine (art. 48), known until now by only two

other witnesses.” But the most extraordinary piece in the collection is a beautiful sermon on the Transfiguration which is other-

wise unknown. Professor Brown has duly remarked that it is unedited, and I am especially grateful to her for allowing me to publish it, although the credit for its discovery should go to her. This sermon, untitled, is intended for Saturday of the first week of Lent."

| Salerno Homiliary, art. 18 (fols. 56r- &r) 1. Historia lectionis euangelicae, dilectissimi, quam hodierna die nascentis ecclesiae filios spiritus ueritatis edocuit, ita ueritatem utriusque naturae quae in Christo est euidenter asser-

uit, ita futurae beatitudinis speciem demonstrauit, quod a fidelium cordibus omne scrupulum dubitationis exclusit et ad © consequendam tantae beatitudinis gloriam eorum animos uehementer accendit. Ait enim: Assumpsit Iesus Petrum, lacobum et Tohannem fratrem etus et ducit illos in montem excelsum seorsum et

transfiguratus est ante eos, et resplenduit facies eius sicut sol et uestimenta eius facta sunt candida tamquam nix (Matthew 17:1-2). Sci-

endum est autem, dilectissimi, quod mediator Det et hominum

| homo Christus Iesus (1 Timothy 2:5), unius cum Patre scientiae, , eiusdem aequalitatis et gloriae, futurorum omnium praescius et given by Réginald Grégoire, Homéliaires liturgiques médiévaux: Analyse de ~ manuscrits, Biblioteca degli “Studi Medievali” 12 (Spoleto, 1980), pp. 12788.

* This is an authentic sermon, not a Pseudo-Augustinian one, as Brown claims. This is the only correction to be made to an article that is otherwise remarkable in every way. * It follows Bede’s Homilia 1.24 on the Transfiguration, which is introduced by the incorrect title “Sermo Domini Effrem monachi,” a title that does not apply to the unedited sermon but which is that of the well-known Pseudo-

copy. , 286

Ephrem text beginning “De regionibus messis” (CPG 3939), a text that must have been included in the exemplar, but which the scribe did not

An Unpublished Homily on the Transfiguration

mortis suae ab aeterno cum Patre dispositae non ignarus, discipulorum animos in passione sua nouerat perturbandos et de ignominia crucis suae, de contumelia passionis, de horrore supplicii in eorum cordibus maximum scandalum praeuiderat generandum. 2. Unde et beatus Petrus apostolorum eximius, futurae ecclesiae fundamentum, cum a uoce ueritatis didicisset traden-

dum gentibus, illudendum a turbis et crucis patibulo Dei Filium configendum, noui supplicii horrore perculsus et formidine mortis exterritus, pietatis affectu et deuotione ardentius fidei incitatus, magistrum suum et Dominum reprehendere non dubitauit dicens: Propitius esto tht Domine et non fiat istud (Matthew 16:22). Quid ergo mirum si carnales adhuc discipuli nec in petra fidei solidati, uisa Domini sui morte, fuerant perturbandi, cum princeps senatus apostolici’ ex solo auditu morlis elus stupuerit et pene motum sit ecclesiae fundamentum, si petra immobilis sola denuntiatione mortis pene commota est, discipulorum infirma corda inspectione tanti supplicii poterant non turbari? Ut igitur Redemptor noster discipulorum animos a futuro passionis suae scandalo praemuniret, ut contra temptationis laqueos uigilantes eos et sollicitos redderet, semper illos doctrinae salutaris eloquio et operum miraculis instruebat. 3. Unde et eos solus in montem assumpsit et transfigurati

corporis claritatem atque susceptae humanitatis gloriam demonstrauit, ut imminente passionis articulo, cum uiderent Dei Filium, diuinitatis maiestate celata et uirtutis suae potestate retracta, supplicio horrendae mortis addictum, nequaquam in illius morte scandalum sustinerent, quem in monte uiderant tanti splendoris gloria circumfusum, nec turbaret mentem eorum uoluntariae humilitas passionis quibus in monte declarata fuerat tantae sublimitas dignitatis. Ad confirmandam igitur tantae fidei ueritatem de conualle miseriae et lacrimarum > The origins of the title princeps apostolorum given to St Peter are studied by Pierre Batiffol, Cathedra Petri, Unam sanctam 4 (Paris, 1938), pp. 188-95; and Charles Pietri, Roma Chnstiana: Recherches sur V’Eghse de Rome, son organtsation, sa politique, son idéologie de Miltiade a Sixte IT (311-440), 2 vols., Biblio-

théque des écoles francaises d’Athénes et de Rome 224 (Paris, 1976), vol. 2, pp. 1463-66. In his article “Princeps senatus,” Arctos 7 (1972): 207-18, J. Suolahti examines only the Roman institution. The CLCLT allows one to locate the phrase “Beatus apostolici senatus” in a sermon by Peter Damian: Sermo 6.14, ed. Io. Lucchesi, CCCM 57 (Turnhout, 1983), p. 34. 287

Raymond Etaix

(cf. Psalm 83:7) in montem excelsum ualde mons ipse uirtutum praecipuos apostolorum, Petrum et Iacobum et Iohannem assumpsit et secundum naturam susceptae humanitatis coram eis transfiguratus est et facies elus sicut solis iubar emicuit atque uestium eius claritas uelut niuium candor effulsit. Transfiguratus est autem non quod substantiam uerae carnis amiserit, sed quod gloriam nostrae uel suae resurrectionis ostendit. Talis enim tunc in monte apparuit qualis post resurrectionem futurus erat et qualis in iudicio cunctis apparebit electis. In hac autem claritate et gloria, dilectissimi, quae in Iesu Christi carne apparuit, et apostolorum fides est contra passionis scandala roborata, et spes nascentis ecclesiae confirmata, ut uniuersa ecclesia secure speraret et crederet se tantae gloriae participatione laetandam et dignitatem glorificationis et claritatis quae praecessit in capite secura expectaret in membris, sicut scriptum est: Lusti fulgebunt sicut sol in regno Patris sui (Matthew 13:43).

4. Ut autem huius mira Dei ueritas in apostolorum cordibus multorum testimonio plenius fundaretur, apparuerunt illis Moyses et Helias cum eo loquentes de excessu eius quem completurus

erat in Hierusalem (Matthew 17:3; Luke 9:31). Merito uero Redemptor noster in medio Moysi et Heliae transfiguratus appa-

ruit, ut ei lex et prophetae testimonium perhiberent.

Humanitatem denique Redemptoris nostri quae hodie in

praesignauit. |

monte glorificata apparuit, et prophetae in multis oraculis |

_ praedixerunt, et Moyses sub multarum figurarum uelamine 9. Unde in huius rei praefiguratione in Exodo scriptum est quod cum Moyses accepta lege de monte descenderet et duas tabulas testimonii manu teneret, facies eius cornuta et glorifi-

cata apparuit ex consortio sermonis Det. Videntes autem filit Israel — cornutam faciem Moysi timuerunt prope accedere (Exodus 34:29-30).

_ Moyses iste, dilectissimi, qui aquaticus interpretatur,® uerum Moysen, id est Redemptorem nostrum significat, qui ex aquis humani generis carnem assumpsit et ad aquas Iordanis baptizandus adueniens, paternae uocis testimonio esse Dei Filius ° I am very grateful to Mr. Tom Hall for having drawn my attention to an article that sheds some light on the curious expression “Moyses qui aquati-

cus interpretatur”: Noel Swerdlow, “Musica Dicitur a Moys, Quod Est Aqua,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 20 (1967): 3-9. 288

An Unpublished Homily on the Transfiguration

cunctis innotuit. Hic de monte descendit et duas tabulas secum

-tulit, cum Christus a sede paternae gloriae ueniens nostrae mortalitatis speciem semetipsum inaniendo suscepit, qui duas tabulas secum tulit, quia ueteris scilicet et noul testamenti idem est auctor, mediator et Dominus. Moyses uero faciem cornutam et clarificatam habuit ex consortio sermonis Det. Moysi facies nostri

est humanitas Redemptoris, per quam nobis tamquam per faciem uisus est et uisibilis mundo apparuit. Haec autem non ex se, sed ex consortio sermonis Dei glorificata fult, quia ex eo lesu Christi humanitas gloriam et claritatem cepit, quod sermoni et Verbo Dei in unionem personae coniuncta fuit pariter et unita. Moysi autem nostri facies tunc reuera cornuta fuit, quando Iesus in medio Moysi et Heliae discipulis coram astantibus com-

munem sui corporis habitudinem in praeclaram gloriae

speciem transformauit, cum facies eius sicut sol resplendutt et uestimenta eius facta sunt candentia tamquam nix. Unde et Moyses qui |

eum in cornuta facie praefigurauerat uiuus, mortuus, sed gloriose resuscitatus apparuit, ut quod praesignauerat opere testaretur in uoce, et cui sub umbra sacrificiorum et sub uelamine figurarum testimonium dixerat, manifestata ueritate ei uilua uoce testimonium perhiberet. Videntes autem fil Israel clari- — tatem uultus Moysi temuerunt prope accedere, quia apostoli, ueri

Israel filii, partim nouitate miraculi, partim tonitruo paternae

| uocis exterriti, proni in faciem corruerunt. Sic igitur Redemptor noster transformatus in claritate, transfiguratus in gloria, miro fulgoris splendore coruscans, non duorum uel trium (cf. Matthew 18:16), sed plurium est testimonio confirmatus. Helias enim illum in prophetia, Moyses in lege, apostoli de terra, Pater enim declarauit ex nube dicens: Hic est filtus meus dilectus in quo

mihi bene complacuit (Matthew 17:5). | 6. Vos autem, fratres carissimi, qui iam in Christi morte nullum scandalum sustinetis, qui Redemptorem nostrum ex humilitate mortuum et in gloria resurrexisse et creditis et gaudetis, exemplo fidelium discipulorum cum Iesu in monte ascendite, per uirtutum gradus ad caelestia festinate. Nihil in infimis placeat, nihil in hac miseriae conualle delectet, et quia uestra conuersatio in caelis est (cf. Phil 3:20), omnis intellectus uester dirigatur ad superos, omnis intentio ad superna festinet. Sed quia peccatorum moles et talentum plumbi (cf. Zacharias

5:7) uos deprimit et terrestris inhabitatio grauat et deicit in 289

Raymond Etaix

conflatorio conscientiae uestrae, igne sanctae compunctionis plumbum iniquitatis dissoluite et camino paenitentiae quicquid in uobis est faeculentum et terrestre purgate, ut ab iniquitatis rubigine depurati et per paenitentiam a peccato onere releuati, libero uirtutum gressu per scalam lacob (cf. Genesis 28:12) in montem excelsum ualde contemplatione possitis ascendere et Redemptorem nostrum in medio Moysi et Heliae diuinitatis et humanitatis gloria decoratum oculis mentis ualeatis aspicere atque illius felicitatis et gloriae mereamini esse participes, quae nostro iam refulsit in capite Domino Iesu Christo, cui est honor et gloria per omnia secula seculorum. Amen.

The text is transmitted in good shape and presents no major difficulties. Passages that raise questions are rare: at the beginning of § 4 Auzus is surprising in the phrase huius mira Det ueritas. 1am not sure what the author is alluding to when in § 5 he affirms that our Redeemer, the true Moses, ex aquis human generis carnem assumpsu, and a little further on when he says that

Moses bore witness in uoce, uiua uoce. Towards the end of § 5 there may be a lacuna since two instances of enim follow one

another in close proximity. |

In the same sentence the phrase apostoli de terra might be clarified by two passages from Chromatius of Aquilea: | 1. Chromatius, Tractatus 54A, lines 124-30: “Oportebat

enim ut Dominus totius mundi, id est caelestium, terrestrium et infernorum, de omni loco testes haberet. De caelo in uoce sua Pater testis est; de terra tres apostoli eliguntur; ab inferis quoque Moyses ad testimonium uocatur, quia Moyses morte functus est. Et ne ullus locus a testimonio Domini uacaret, etiam Helias de paradiso testis adducitur.”’

2. Chromatius, Sermo 22, lines 18-23: “Videte et hic myste-

rium: quomodo Filius Dei Deus caeli et terrae et inferorum ostenditur. De caelo Pater Filio testimonium perhibet; de terra tres apostoli testes eliguntur; Moyses ab inferis testis uocatur quia Moyses mortem gustauit. Et ne ullus locus a testimonio Christi uacaret, etiam Helias, qui

290 ,

’ Spicilegium ad Chromatii Aquileiensis Opera, ed. J. Lemarié and R. Etaix, CCSL

9A Supplementum (Turnhout, 1977), p. 631.

An Unpublished Homily on the Transfiguration

necdum mortem gustauit, de paradiso testis adductus est, ut Deus caeli, terrae, paradisi et inferorum undique et de omni loco testes haberet.””

But above all it is with Tractatus 51 of St Leo the Great” that the homily demonstrates connections:

1. Leo, lines 12-13: “ad hoc discipulos suos doctrinae monitis et operum miraculis inbuebat.” Cf. Salerno homily, end of § 2: “semper illos [discipu-

los] doctrinae salutaris eloquio et operum miraculis instruebat.”

2. Leo, lines 19-20: “Ad confirmandam ergo hutus fidei salubritatem.”

tae fidei ueritatem.” ,

Cf. Salerno homily § 3: “Ad confirmandam igitur tan-

3. Leo, line 57: “claritatem illis suae gloriae demonstrauit.”

Cf. Salerno homily, beginning of § 3: “transfigurati

corporis claritatem atque susceptae humanitatis gloriam demonstrauit.”

4. Leo, line 59: “corporis, quo Diuinitas tegebatur, potentiam nesciebant.”

Cf. Salerno homily § 3: “diuinitatis maiestate celata et uirtutis suae potestate retracta.”

5. Leo, lines 68-71: “Aperit ergo Dominus coram electis

testibus gloriam suam, et communem illam cum caeteris corporis formam tanto splendore clarificat, ut et facies eius solis fulgori similis, et uestitus candori niuium esset aequalis.”

Cf. Salerno homily § 5: “discipulis coram adstantibus

communem sui corporis habitudinem in praeclaram | gloriae speciem transformauit, cum facies eius sicut sol resplenduit et uestimenta eius facta sunt candentia tamquam nix.” * Raymond Etaix, “Nouvelle édition des sermons XXI-XXII de saint Chromace d’Aquilée,” RB 92 (1982): 105-10, at 109. ” Sancti Leonis Magni Romani Pontificts Tractatus Septem et Nonaginta, ed. Antonius Chavasse, CCSL 138A (Turnhout, 1973), pp. 296-303. 291

Raymond Etaix

6. Leo, lines 72-75: “ut de cordibus apostolorum crucis scandalum tolleretur, nec conturbaret eorum fidem

uoluntariae humilitas passionis, quibus reuelata esset | absconditae excellentia dignitatis.”

, Cf. Salerno homily § 3: “nequaquam in illius morte scandalum sustinerent . . . nec turbaret mentem eorum uoluntariae humilitas passionis, quibus in monte declarata fuerat tantae sublimitas dignitatis.”

7. Leo, lines 75-76: “Sed non minore prouidentia spes sanctae Ecclesiae fundabatur. .. .”

Cf. Salerno homily § 3: “et spes nascentis ecclesiae

confirmata.”

8. Leo, lines 77-81: “[ut] eius sibi honoris consortium membra promitterent, qui in capite praefulsisset. De quo idem Dominus dixerat. ... Tunc iusti fulgebunt

sicut sol in regno Patris sui.” Cf. Salerno homily § 3: “[dignitas] quae praecessit in Capite secura expectaret in membris, sicut scriptum est: Iusti fulgebunt sicut sol in regno patris sui.”

9. Leo, lines 89-90: “Moyses enim et Helias, lex scilicet et prophetae.” Cf. Salerno homily § 4: “in medio Moysi et Heliae . . . lex et prophetae.”

10. Leo, lines 96-97: “et quem sub uelamine mysteriorum praecedentia signa promiserant.”

, Cf. Salerno homily, end of § 4: “Moyses sub multarum figurarum uelamine praesignauit.”

Even if the last two examples are doubtful, there are demonstrable literary contacts between the two texts. The question is to determine which is the older and which has made use of the other. I confess there was a moment when I suspected Leo was the borrower. It is true that the pope uses very few sources; the list drawn up by A. Chevasse is quite short.” There is nevertheless a very clear case: when he was in the process of composing Tractatus 95 on the Beatitudes, St Leo certainly either had before his eyes or in his memory the third Tractatus on Matthew ’° Sancti Leonis . . . Tractatus, ed. Chavasse, p. 612.

292

An Unpublished Homily on the Transfiguration

by Chromatius of Aquileia. But if the Salerno text predates St Leo, its author would be one of the first Latin writers to employ the terminology of the nature and personhood of God with the sense that became classic in Christology, which would certainly be very surprising. But most of all there is a decisive argument that demolishes my original hypothesis: the Salerno homily reproduces verbatim a passage from the Venerable Bede: Bede, In Lucam 3, lines 1523-26: “Transfiguratus saluator non substantiam uerae carnis amisit, sed gloriam futurae

uel suae uel nostrae resurrectionis ostendit, qui qualis tunc apostolis apparuit talis post iudicium cunctis apparebit electis.”"’

Salerno homily § 3: “Transfiguratus est autem non quod substantiam uerae carnis amiserit, sed quod gloriam nostrae uel suae resurrectionis ostendit. Talis enim tunc in monte apparuit qualis post resurrectionem futurus erat et qualis in tudicio cunctis apparebit electis.”

The sermon therefore cannot go back to the patristic era. Its undeniable literary qualities prevent one from assigning it to the dark period of the seventh and eighth centuries, or even to the beginning of the ninth. It is earlier than the twelfth or thirteenth century, the date of its unique copy. Its method of using sources by adapting them prompts one to regard it as a work more likely from the second half of the ninth century than from the eleventh or twelfth century. Whatever the case, it will enrich the repertoire of texts devoted to the Transfiguration, of which few representatives are known in Latin, as the article by H. J. Sieben’* and the two collections of translations by M.

'' Bedae Venerabilis Opera. Pars I. Opera Exegetica 3, ed. D. Hurst, CCSL 120 (Turnhout, 1960), p. 205; also as Bede, In Marcum 3, lines 40-43, ed. Hurst,

p. 543. Bede here depends on Jerome: “Qualis futurus est tempore iudicandi talis apostolis apparuit. Quod autem dicit: transfiguratus est ante eos, nemo putet pristinam eum formam et faciem perdidisse uel amisisse corporis ueritatem”: In Mattheum 3, lines 232-35, ed. D. Hurst and M. Adriaen, S. Hieronymi Presbyteri Opera. Pars I Opera Exegetica 7, CCSL 77 (Turnhout, 1969), p. 147.

'" H. J. Sieben, “Transfiguration du Seigneur. II. Les commentaires spirituels,” in Dictionnaire de spiritualité vol. 15 (Paris, 1991), cols. 1151-60. 293

Raymond Etaix | Coune’™ have shown. But one cannot forget the Carolingian homilies catalogued by H. Barré"* or that the enormous compilation of Fr. Combéfis remains very useful." If the first part of the homily is relatively conventional — the purpose of the

, Transfiguration was to sustain the faith of the disciples in the face of the scandal of the Passion — the second part, which develops the parallel between Moses and the Redeemer, is completely original, and no part of it appears anywhere else.

'’ M. Coune, Joie de la Transfiguration d’aprés les péres d’Orient, 2nd ed., Spiritu-

alité orientale 39 (Abbaye de Bellefontaine, 1989); and Grace de la Transfiguration d’apres les péres d’Occident, Vie monastique 24 (Abbaye de Bellefontaine, 1990). We might observe that the term “péres” is here used in a broad sense since it goes all the way up to Gregory Palamas and Innocent III.

'4 Henri Barré, Les homéliatres carolingiens de Vécole d’Auxerre, Studie e testi 225 (Vatican City, 1962), p. 314. ' Fr, Combéfis, Bibliotheca patrum concionatoria, 8 vols. (Paris, 1662), vol. 2, pp. 343-67, and vol. 7, pp. 583-626.

294

Pembroke College 25, Arts. 93-95 PAUL E. SZARMACH

(y)* Forster initiated source of Vercelli HomilynearXX when he pointed out instudy his ground-breaking monograph in the Morsbach festschrift that the homily derives in significant part from Alcuin’s Liber de virtutibus et vitiis.' For some two generations of scholarship this source relationship was a donnée as several scholars, this writer included, assumed a 1:1 relationship without intermediaries.” Then in 1986 Profes' Max Forster, “Der Vercelli-Codex CXVII nebst Abdruck einiger altenglischer Homilien der Handschrift,” in Festschrift fiir Lorenz Morsbach dargebracht von Freunden und Schilern, ed. F. Holthausen and H. Spies, Studien zur englischen Philologie 50 (Halle, 1913), pp. 21-179, at 82. * See, e.g., my “Vercelli Homily XX,” MS 35 (1973): 1-26, which directly links the Old English to the Latin text in PL 101, 613-38, and the follow-up article with corrections, “Revisions for Vercelli Homily XX,” MS 36 (1974):

493-94. It is an old axiom of source study that the texts in the PL are not what the Middle Ages necessarily knew, but in this case my investigation of the manuscript tradition of the Leber suggests that Frobenius, whom Migne followed in PL 101, 613-38, produced a highly reliable text for study, particularly impressive given that Frobenius’s Opera Omnia edition of Alcuin

came forward in 1777. The standard edition of Vercelli XX is now The Ver- |

celli Homilies and Related Texts, ed. D. G. Scragg, EETS OS 300 (Oxford, 1992), pp. 329-46, who prints appropriate passages from Pembroke College 25 at the foot of the page. Other editions include mine in Vercelli Homilies IX-XXIII, Toronto Old English Series 5 (Toronto, 1981), pp. 77-82; and Eleven Old English Rogationttide Homilies, ed. Joyce Bazire and James E. Cross,

Toronto Old English Series 7 (Toronto, 1982; reprint 1989), pp. 25-39. Cross and Bazire print the CCCC MS 162 version of Vercelli XX. Other pertinent articles are my “The Vercelli Homilies: Style & Structure,” in The Old English Homily ©& Its Backgrounds, ed. Paul E. Szarmach and Bernard F. Huppé (Albany, NY, 1978), pp. 241-67, especially 249-50; Clare Lees, “The Dissemination of Alcuin’s De Virtutibus et Vitis Liber in Old English: A Pre295

Paul E. Szarmach | sor J. E. Cross announced the discovery that Cambridge, Pembroke College MS 25 was in fact witness to an intermediary redaction, and he offered further commentary in his monograph

published the next year.’ In a study of the Latin tradition of | Alcuin’s Liber | adduced more information concerning the text

of Vercelli XX and its source relations. While it is hard to

imagine that there could be — or need be — another chain in the links of relationships, for scholars would have now apparently accounted for the preponderance of the verbal evidence, there is a narrow possibility that another witness to the text of Pembroke College 25 art. 93 might establish with a few closer details a sharper “descent of forms.” The sharp, vertical so to

| speak, relationship from Alcuin to Pembroke to Vercelli should not prove to be the only concern for source critics, however, for there is a horizontal aspect too, viz., that the relations of arts. 93-95 as homiletic redactions of Alcuin’s Liber are part of the overall source picture as well.” It is at this time only speculation

that if one can trace about a third of Alcuin’s treatise to the vernacular tradition via Pembroke 25 art. 93 with certainty, then perhaps arts. 94 and 95 also found their way to the ver-

nacular tradition by the same or a similar route. What would be liminary Survey,” Leeds Studies in English n.s. 16 (1985): 174-89, especially 176-77; Helen L. Spencer, “Vernacular and Latin Versions of a Sermon for Lent: ‘A Lost Penitential Homily’ Found,” MS 44 (1982): 271-305.

* See the notice on “Anglo-Saxon England and Ireland: Cambridge Pembroke College ms 25,” Hiberno-Latin Newsletter 1.1 (Fall 1986): 8-9; and Cross, Cambridge Pembroke College MS. 25: A Carolingian Sermonary Used by An-

glo-Saxon Preachers, King’s College London Medieval Studies 1 (London, 1987). Independently of Professor Cross, I discovered the relationship between Pembroke College 25 art. 93 and Vercelli XX in 1982. * Paul E. Szarmach, “The Latin Tradition of Alcuin’s Liber de Virtutibus et Vitus, Cap. xxvii-xxxv, with Special Reference to Vercelli Homily XX,” Med:aevalia 12 (1989 for 1986): 13-41. > M.R. James, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Pembroke

College (Cambridge, 1905), pp. 25-29, divides up the contents of the manuscript differently. I join with Professor Cross in keeping the scribal number-

ing scheme. See also Professor Cross’s comments in “Towards the Identification of Old Engish Literary Ideas — Old Workings and New Seams,” in Sources of Anglo-Saxon Culture, ed. Paul E. Szarmach with the assistance of Virginia Darrow Oggins, Studies in Medieval Culture 20 (Kalamazoo, MI, 1986), pp. 77-91, at 85.

296 ,

Pembroke College 25, Arts. 93-95

necessary to pursue this line would be a sermon-to-sermon search in the vernacular for any hitherto unfound evidence for

the presence of the rest of the treatise, embodied in arts. 94 and 95, somewhere. With electronic searching coming onto the

horizon, some future scholar may find the search only an idle afternoon’s work.® The snare, of course, is the existence of commonplace themes, such as the kinds of fasting, which may have many sources, especially proximate ones. A reasonable guess at the moment is that no extensive text such as Vercelli XX is likely to materialize to represent the other parts of Alcuin’s Liber, though commonplace passages such as those on fasting and almsgiving may prove to be Alcuin-specific.’ Still, in

order to place Pembroke 25 arts. 94 and 95 in the tradition, they first have to appear in the discussion and not as mere ad- | Juncts to art. 93, which has its importance from the Vercelli XX connection. It is accordingly the intention of this article to of-

fer a working edition of the three Pembroke pieces that may prove a reliable baseline for further work on the importance of Alcuin’s Liber to the vernacular tradition by means of homiletic

adaptation. A recapitulation of the Latin tradition will serve as a necessary introduction. Written at Tours during Alcuin’s (+ 804) last years and addressed to Count Wido, the Liber is an ethical manual intended to instruct a layman ad perpetuam proficere salutem.” The more ° The reader will have to imagine one tongue firmly implanted in his cheek, for the computer world always oversells its products. " Cf. Joan Turville-Petre, “Translations of a Lost Penitential Homily,” Traditio 19 (1963): 51-78, at 59-60. Roland Torkar, ed., Eine altenglische Ubersetzung von Alcuins De Virtutibus et Vitits Kap. 20 (Liebermanns Judex), Texte und Un-

tersuchungen zur englischen Philologie 7 (Munich, 1981), offers a survey of the Liber in English literature on pp. 22-36. See also Lees, “The Dissemination of Alcuin’s De Virtutibus et Vitiis Liber,” pp. 176-77.

* The discussion in this paragraph follows and distills the more detailed exposition of the Latin textual tradition in my Mediaevalia 12 article on “The Latin Tradition,” pp. 14-20. Richard Newhauser now defines and describes the genre of this kind of treatise in his masterful survey thereof: The Treatise

| on Vices and Virtues in Latin and the Vernacular, Typologie des Sources du Moyen Age Occidental 68 (Turnhout, 1993). Though this genre has many more examples in the later Middle Ages, Newhauser considers Alcuin here and there, as on pp. 26, 77-78, 116-18, 156-57. 297

Paul E. Szarmach

than 140 manuscripts — some thirty-five whole or partial witnesses are of the ninth or tenth century — attest to the popu-

| larity of this treatise throughout the medieval period. The distribution of the ninth- and tenth-century witnesses admits of five classes. Class I manuscripts (thirteen in number) contain the treatise in its fullest form, viz., thirty-five chapters, an intro-

_ ductory letter to Wido, a list of chapters, and the peroratio. Troyes, BM, MS 1742, which is a Class I manuscript datable after 799 and assignable to Tours when Alcuin was there, offers a serviceable base text despite several eyeskips and odd readings. The earliest Latin witness in England is London, BL, MS Cotton Vespasian D. VI (Ker no. 207; Gneuss no. 189), datable to

the middle of the tenth century and assignable to St

Augustine’s Canterbury (so Ker).” Some thirty Old English glosses to this witness mean that the text was alive and well in Kent, but this version of the Liber lacks the letter to Wido, the list of chapters, and the peroratio. This loss of the envelope, so to

speak, detaches the text from Alcuin, Wido, and the original circumstances of composition, however real or rhetorical, and makes the Liber a simple treatise, not, as originally, a treatise in the form of a letter. This mutation of form represents, in effect, another recognizable stage in the transmission history (= Class II manuscripts). Avranches, BM, MS 81 (Gneuss no. 783), from the second half of the eleventh century, is the only other witness to the Liber as such.

Pembroke College 25 (Gneuss no. 131) arts. 93-95 represent another mutation of the original treatise, while the entire

Pembroke manuscript represents the later continuation of a Carolingian sermonary tradition in a collection known as the Homiliary of St Pére de Chartres. M. R. James dates Pembroke — 25 to the 1020s, which makes it later than the Vercelli Book (by

anybody’s estimate of the date of Vercelli), but the homiletic adaptation of Alcuin’s treatise seems to have been done within

” I offer a facsimile page with facing discussion in “British Library, Cotton Vespasian Dwi, fol. 62v,” OEN 20.1 (1986): 32-33. 2.98

Pembroke College 25, Arts. 93-95

a generation after Alcuin’s death in 804."” The three pieces appear thus: Art. 93 (fols. 173r7-175r27): Predicatio bona de viii. vitiis idemque virtutibus Art. 94 (fols. 175r28-177v24): Predicatio de preceptis Dei Art. 95 (fols. 177v25-180r12): Item alia

None of the pieces indicates its original author or its pre- | existence as a part of Alcuin’s Liber by layout, design, or other manuscript features. Alcuin’s opening letter to Wido, the table of contents, and the peroratio operis are absent from the Pembroke version. Art. 93 offers the Liber, cap. xxvii-xxxv; art. 94 _ offers cap. 11, 11, IV, V1, Vil, Vill, 1X, X, Xi, XIi1, XIV, XV, XVi, XVii; art.

95 continues with cap. xvill, XiX, XX, XXi, XXil, XXIV, XXV, XXVI.

The omitted chapters are: i, De sapientia; v, De lectionis studio; xi,

De compunctione cordis; xxii, De superbis. Cap. v and xi would | seem to have more relevance to a monastic audience, and thus

their omission might be a concession to a lay audience, but then again the original treatise was directed to a layman who was count of the Marca Brittaniae and heavily invested in bellicts rebus.'' Then too sapientia and superbia would seem to be as uni-

versal a theme as any other in those brought forward in the homiletic form.

For a description of the entire contents of this manuscript with an emphasis on source relations, see Cross, Cambridge Pembroke College MS. 25, pp. 17-

43, particularly 43. Henri Barré, Les homéliaires carolingiens de U école @ Auxerre. Authenticité, inventatre, tableaux comparatifs, initia, Studi e testi 225

(Vatican City, 1962), pp. 17-24, discusses the Homiliary of St Pére de Chartres, which gives its name to the tradition of which Pembroke College 25 is a later witness. Chartres, BM, MS 25 (formerly 44), though the earliest wit-

ness to this homiliary tradition (s. x-xi), was an apparent victim of the American air raid on Chartres in 1944, now surviving as fragments. See also James, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Mansucnipts in the Library of Pembroke Col-

lege, pp. 25-29. Frederick M. Biggs opens up a new Pembroke 25 connection

for Old English prose with his “Alfric as Historian: His Use of Alcuin’s Laudationes and Sulpicius’s Dialogues in His Two Lives of Martin,” in Holy Men and Holy Women: Old English Prose Saints’ Lives and Their Contexts, ed. Paul E. Szarmach (Albany, NY, 1996), pp. 289-315. '! Or, as Troyes 1742 would deliciously have it, inbecillibus rebus. 299

Paul E. Szarmach

These textual puzzles regarding audience, the ninthcentury redactor’s methods, and form need further elaboration. The first and most obvious observation is that this trio of

| sermons in Pembroke 25 is an attempt to render the whole treatise rather than any run of individual pieces based on chap- | ters in the Alcuinian text. Alcuin’s Liber, as a florilegium of

chapters on morals and ethics, has in its genesis and in its Nachleben strong and complicated filiations with the homiletic tradition. Wallach, e.g., has discussed the relations of several chapters with Augustine and Pseudo-Augustine, not to mention

the supposed debt to Defensor, and has described various Carolingian appropriations of the treatise, most notably by Hrabanus, fourteen of whose homilies have parallels with twenty-five of Alcuin’s chapters.'* Jean-Paul Bouhot has seen the

| adaptation of Alcuin’s chapters in Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, MS Clm 14445, Part III, where, typically, an individ-

ual chapter is presented as a sermon.” This method of extraction has its bald counterpart in Old English, where cap. xiv and xxvi of the Liber appear translated in the miscellany London, BL, MS Cotton Tiberius A. III (Ker no. 186; Gneuss no. 363) without any particular evidence of adaptation.'* The redactor of Pembroke College 25 has therefore chosen to ab-

breviate and adapt to homiletic purpose rather than merely to | extract, thus suggesting some impulse towards retaining the thrust of the overall Alcuinian treatise while balancing it within some sort of perhaps now undefinable limit dictated by the circumstances of presentation. Arts. 93, 94, and 95 are of comparable length, taking up respectively 128, 137, and 128 lines of manuscript text. '* Luitpold Wallach, Alcuin and Charlemagne: Studies in Carolingian History and Literature, Cornell Studies in Classical Philology 32 (Ithaca, NY, 1959; revised and reprinted New York and London, 1968), pp. 236-50. '3 Jean-Paul Bouhot, “Un sermonnaire carolingien,” Revue d'Histoire des Textes

4 (1974): 181-223, with Alcuinian influence summarized on pp. 205-6. ,

, '* See for comparison my “Cotton Tiberius A.iii, Arts. 26 and 27,” in Words, Texts and Manuscripts. Studies in Anglo-Saxon Culture Presented to Helmut

| | 300

Gneuss, ed. Michael Korhammer with the assistance of Karl Reichl and Hans Sauer (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 29-42. Art. 26 is a direct translation of

Cap. XIV. ,

Pembroke College 25, Arts. 93-9)

The division into three sermons can be considered in some sense an expected thematic division. Cap. xxvii-xxxv form a natural subdivision on the eight capital sins and the four cardinal virtues that, in cap. xxxv, contend with them. The extrac-

tion of these chapters from the treatise is a self-evident possibility, as the manuscript tradition suggests in Paris, BN, MS lat. 2183, fols. 64-66v (s. x/xi) and Rome, Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS lat. 650 (s. x), which present only

Cap. xxvii-xxxv. There is, however, a difficulty in the original |

treatise that Alcuin never seemed to have solved or considered in any particular way. Cap. xxii, xxili, xxiv offer treatments De | invidia, De superbis, and De tracundia, which are in some measure in conflict with the exposition in the eight capital sins portion. In fact, Dom Rochais saw the existence of the duplication as proof that the eight capital sins portion (cap. xxvii-xxxv) was

not an integral part of the original treatise. The existence of the early Troyes 1742 is evidence against Dom Rochais’s argument. Rather, it looks as if Alcuin did not have scholastic rigor in constructing his pre-scholastic ethical manual; it is not clear, e.g., why cap. xx and xxi, which treat of judges and false witnesses respectively, should easily find their way into a treatise aiming to direct a reader/hearer to eternal salvation.” At least

the Pembroke redactor modulated the duplication by simply dropping out the treatment of cap. xxiii.

The method of abbreviation evident in changing the trea| tise into three sermons is in part a function of the Latin source. ~The Pembroke redactor has an easy time of it in art. 93 because Alcuin has himself followed a relatively clear presentational method. Problems of textual transmission as well as the rhetorical cues necessary to make the prose function as a sermo— | introduction, simple transitions, and close — put aside, the pattern is simple: 1) introduction and description of the sin; 2) enumeration of other sins and faults engendered by the sin; 3) mention of virtues and practices that can overcome the capital sin. The Pembroke redactor adds almost nothing to the text he '® It was Torkar, Eine altenglische Ubersetzung, who discovered that the Old English text “Iudex” derives from cap. xx. 301

Paul E. Szarmach

receives, except when he gratuitously reminds his audience that

falling angels were turned into devils and adds 1 Corinthians 4:7 to the citation of John 5:15 in the treatment of vana gloria. Otherwise, abbreviation by compression or excision is the main feature: elimination of two full sentences in the already brief treatment of fornicatio, the elimination of the citation of the Lord’s Prayer in ira, the shortening of monastic themes in the treatment of that most monastic sin accidia, and the downplaying of martial imagery in the important transition paragraph that moves the audience from the eight sins, zmpietatis duces, to

| the four cardinal virtues, duces glorissimi. Here it would seem that “less is more” as the Pembroke redactor seems to make changes that would make a monastic hamartological scheme more relevant to a lay audience.

The remaining two-thirds of the treatise do not allow for so easy an abbreviated treatment. Alcuin’s treatment is not so unified in cap. i-xvil, which is the field for art. 94. Cap. ii-iv are the three theological virtues, made formidable in later medieval moral discussion, but Alcuin does not link the three with that umbrella description. The disappearance in Pembroke 25 of cap. 1, De sapientia, which one could see perhaps in Alcuin as the first principle or major premise of his treatise (and a theme that would certainly appeal to Alfred the Great!), is a curious absence; one can only guess that the theme might have been too abstract. Cap. v, De lectionis studio, and cap. xi, De compunctione cordis, offer two very monastic themes, evidently suitable

for the fighting Wido but not for his later counterparts. What remain are themes of peace, themes of confession, themes of salvation, and themes of Christian practice, as the chapter titles will make clear. Alcuin gives no particular clue as to why one chapter follows another or why he has chosen this ordering of chapters rather than any other, though some collocations, such as confession and penitence seem generally obvious enough. The Pembroke 25 redactor announces no particular order ei-

| 302

ther, sometimes using item as his only cue to move from one theme to another. Many large chapters are significantly re_ duced in size. Cap. xvii, on almsgiving, which would be a theme

Pembroke College 25, Arts. 93-95

very suitable for a lay audience, is reduced by well more than half. Cap. xiv, on avoiding later conversion to God, is similarly drastically cut. What is left out from cap. xiv is arguably the most lively passage in the whole Liber, the imagined dialogue between presumptive Alcuin and Wido — or the “author” and

any reader/hearer — on the importance of converting in a timely manner:

Conuertere ergo et paenitentiam age. “Cras,” inquies [Wido], “conuertar”. . . Forte respondes: “Cras, cras.” O uox corbina! Corbus non redit ad arcam; columba redit.

The mocking raven-speech is the most imagistic passage in the work. Its absence from a potential performative situation could be in line with the redactor’s straightforward impulses — might he have been afraid or too shy to imitate the voice of the corbina before his likely hearers, as the text demands? See the appropriate passage in art. 94, below, for a text for full comparison.

Art. 95, which is the middle third of the Liber, comprising Cap. Xvill-xxvi, continues the Alcuinian loose structure up to, but not including the close. The opening treatment of chastity, an abbreviation and re-ordering of the Latin, yields to a sharply

truncated treatment of “fraud” with an emphasis on avarice, including the iconographic “Auarus uir inferno est similis qui numquam impletur.” As noted above, two chapters on the judicial process, one on judges and one on false witnesses, now fol-

low. While their inclusion in the original treatise and here in Pembroke 25 art. 95 can hardly meet any requirement for formal coherence, they may, in Alcuin, be a concession to the original addressee, Wido, who was likely involved in issues of government. Wido presumably took Alcuin’s very practical advice on how to get the truth out of lying witnesses: “Si falsi testes

separantur, mox mendaces inueniuntur.” The audience for Pembroke 25 did not receive this tip, nor did they learn about the four ways by which justice is subverted, viz., “timore, cupidi-

tate, odio, amore.” Presumably the redactor of art. 95 readily saw the idiosyncratic nature of the two chapters and compressed them. Envy, anger, and the pursuit of human praise (but not the Alcuinian treatment of the proud, which follows 303

Paul E. Szarmach

after envy) come next. At the end of what is Alcuin’s cap. xxv | on human praise the redactor shows some independence and his sense for an ending when he adds “Non uos laudent quia _ nihil boni agere potestis, nisi quod Deus donauit uobis.” More significantly, the redactor turns Alcuin’s cap. xxvi, De perseuerentia bont operis, into a successful closing exhortation. The text of

cap. xxvi appears below for a full contrast with art. 95. Essentially, the redactor adds a transitional statement on the theme of fighting evil to the end for victory that dovetails nicely with an abbreviation of Alcuin’s theme of persevering to the end.

The citation from Matthew further continues this theme to a form of the traditional closing. In short, the redactor ends at

the end. |

, The redactor’s rendering of Alcuin’s Liber quite obviously had a positive response in the eleventh century. Art. 93, likely placed first for its strong rhetorical hold on the sinning imagination and for its comparatively prurient interest in sin, is a liv-

| ing, busy text. Two different hands mark divisions: one separates words joined by the main hand; another marks reading pauses between major sense units with a thick, vertical line

or by a “virgule.” This latter, or perhaps yet another hand,

makes some five corrections in the text. The rubricator was a corrector, marking for deletion of a of ae, while inserting red lemma signs in two places, evidently to mark important sections of the text. Another later hand, thin and comparatively delicate, lists vices in the appropriate places. Perhaps one of these

erased h before odio and onus. The nota signs in blue in the : margin of fol. 174v call attention to aspects of the virtues. This | interest in virtues and vices has its parallel in Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MSS 162 art. 36 and 303 art. 44, which also receive notice of later commentators. In art. 94 a similar level

of intervention in and around the original text continues. There are many and various notae in the margins, vertical strokes in the text to mark off sentence divisions, marks to di-

| vide words written together by the main hand, and titles to mark off minim 7 But art. 95, despite its neat finish, inspires very few interventions. On two of its full pages there are no 304

Pembroke College 25, Arts. 93-95

marginalia, early or late, and on fol. 178v a sign like a hand (a maniculus) marks the passage “O homo” etc. One may count

about six corrections, some by the main hand. , The three texts that follow aim to present a readable, working edition that stays close to manuscript orthography. I attempt to give as good a record as possible of the interventions in Pembroke 25, attempting as well to correct and amplify the notes that appeared in Mediaevalia 13 for art. 93. I offer no con-

tinuous Latin from Troyes 1742, which is the best witness to Alcuin’s work, because the demands on space would be exorbitant. Mediaevalia 13 offers that record for art. 93, of course. Here, for exemplary contrast, I offer only cap. xiv and xxvi, keyed as notes to the appropriate sections in arts. 94 and 95.

304

Paul E. Szarmach

1 Gonut-Qunaucem mata-opa Rreame crete commen contay _ Redanc quia ofine confeflione suempoentenar acy deme

_ friarum Langaone morari fuerme nonueniune adeadee

___ titam fedpreapranair adpoend deernd “Qrequa pocnanot

_ [9 J&ecanerenotoporest femp FF kins oBeama pnapelia,

| bolo placow aeqpadinfernum mabane-neno fibuencie

_| wa pooscennat dom aoe pha Spore qaise pre

_ Pecora fpbia Quire regina eb omaai males pqod angi ___ceaulerune desielgindemonch:Quue fopefic cxconcempes

_ mandatoy di fre enam quando acwlle men{deoph:bomf

E iimobontenes iver eens eee gina areata mila feaccomiauen humleafwincere

por Corpor eft din wen quode gula-quacett _ erumnofim ured dewth func lbionit homo ppeceati

rar plaborom ae epletmormQaporis

[_ ssnoniol Dumville, “English Square Minuscule Script: The Mid-Century Phases,” ASE | 93 (1994): 133-64, at 134.

4 A bifolium has been lost from near the end of this text, between what are now fols. 31 and 32. In their edition, Mary Clayton and Hugh Magennis supply 42 lines of text from a second manuscript, about the right amount to fill the missing bifolium: see The Old English Lives of St Margaret, ed. Clayton and Magennis, CSASE 9 (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 214-16; cf. p. 192.

> This text is nearly complete, ending at the bottom of fol. 39v, “corpora eorum deuorata sunt. passa est haec beata luliana die idus februariaus temporibus maximiani tyranni et perfecto [corrected to praefecto] eleusio reg[. . .].” Only the closing phrases are incomplete. The last folio of the quire has been cut away. One irregular feature of the manuscript is that

, 328

| Codicology of Two Paris Manuscripts

as texts for the Invention (BHL 4169) and Exaltation of the | Cross (BHL 4178).° A study of the make-up of the volume may shed some light on the problematic relationship of the lastmentioned texts. The earlier part of the manuscript consists of 39 folios and

contains three quire marks all in the centers of the bottom | margins of the folios on which they occur: an uncial d (fol. | 13r), an e (fol. 21r), and an f (fol. 29r). Moreover, the first folio of the manuscript, both because of its layout and its partial mutilation, appears to be the beginning of the medieval volume.’ There is no disruption in the texts (the passio of Christopher and the beginning of the Invention text) until fol. 12v, where the Invention text breaks off suddenly. Fol. 13 begins the

text of the Exaltation with an enlarged T. Finally on fol. 18r, the Exaltation text ends, and is followed by the rubric “explicit inventio sancte crucis.” From these observations, two related questions arise: how much of the Invention text has been lost, and did the manuscript combine these two texts, as the rubric following the Exaltation suggests?

In answer to the first, I would argue that we have lost a gathering of four leaves following fol. 12. The signature d on | fol. 13 implies that it was preceded by three gatherings. One of these is obviously fols. 5-12, a normal gathering of 8, and a sec-

| ond is apparently fols. 1-4, which consists of a bifolium (fols. 1 and 3), and two single sheets (fols. 2 and 4). A comparison of

beginning midway through this text, but at the beginning of the last quire, the number of lines per page changes from 16 to 20. ° See E. Gordon Whatley’s entries on these saints in the Sources of Anglo-Saxon Literary Culture: Volume One: Abbo of Fleury, Abbo of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, and

Acta Sanctorum, ed. Frederick M. Biggs, Thomas D. Hill, Paul E. Szarmach

, and Whatley (Kalamazoo, MI, 2001), a volume dedicated to the memory of J. E. Cross.

” This folio contains two shelfmarks that show the manuscript was once in Colbert’s collection (“Codex Colbert ... 6120”) and in the Royal Library (“Regius 4427.2.2”). 329

Frederick M. Biggs | the manuscript to the text printed by Mombritius’ suggests the missing material would have covered approximately four folios: the scribe writes the equivalent of 10 lines of Mombritius’s text

on each page, and 88 lines of Mombritius’s text are missing :

from the manuscript. |

The correspondence between the manuscript and Mom-

| britius is not precise enough, however, to determine whether the scribe would have had room to include an explicit for the Invention and a rubric introducing the Exaltation. An interesting parallel to this problem occurs on fol. 6r, where within the passio of Christopher, the scribe provides the rubric “oratio sancti christophori,” and then begins the prayer with an enlarged inital D, but one that is smaller than those used at the beginnings of new texts. The moderate size of the T on fol. 13r and the rubric on fol. 18r both suggest that although both texts

would have been present in their entirety, the manuscript linked them closely as if they were conceived as a unified pair.

8) Sanctuarium seu Vitae Sanctorum, ed. Boninus Mombritius, 2nd ed., 2 vols. (Paris, 1910; reprint Hildesheim and New York, 1978), vol. 1, pp. 376-79.

339 ! ,

Links between a Twelfth-Century Worcester (F. 94) Homily and an Eighth-Century Hiberno-Latin Commentary (Liber questionum in evangeliis)' JEAN RITTMUELLER

| en JimmyofCross by letter, years ago, as I was commentary undertaking an edition an eighth-century Hiberno-Latin on Matthew known as the Liber questionum in evangeliis (LQE).' Af-

ter introducing himself as an “old” Anglo-Saxonist, he went on * Iam indebted to the librarians and staff of the following institutions for allowing me to study their manuscripts either in person or through photographs or microfilm: the Universitats- und Landesbibliothek SachsenAnhalt in Halle; the Fulda Bischofliches Priesterseminar; the Photographs in the E. A. Lowe Collection at the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, made from negatives in the Bodleian Library, Oxford; the Archives du Loiret and the Bibliothéque Municipale, Orléans; the Bibliothéque Nationale, Paris; the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vatican City; and the Vatican Film Library at St Louis University in St Louis, Missouri. The late Professor Bernhard Bischoff told me of the existence of the LQE fragment at Fulda. Professor Cross provided me with a transcription of the homily on Matthew 10:16-22 from Worcester, Cathedral Library, F. 94. ' My edition of the Liber questionum in evangeliis (hereafter LQE) is forthcoming in the Scriptores Celtigenae subseries of CCCM. It contains a fuller discussion of LQF’s origins and affiliations. For further bibliography and more

detailed information about the characteristics of LQE, see Bernhard Bischoff, “Wendepunkte in der Geschichte der lateinischen Exegese im Friahmittelalter,” Sacris Erudiri 6 (1954): 189-279; reprinted in his Mittelalterliche Studien: Ausgewahlte Aufsatze zur Schriftkunde und Literaturgeschichte, 3 vols. (Stuttgart, 1966-81), vol. 1, pp. 205-73, at 244-45; trans. Colm O’Grady, “Turning-Points in the History of Latin Exegesis in the Early Middle Ages: A.D. 650-800,” in Biblical Studies: The Medieval Irish Contribution, ed. Martin

McNamara (Dublin, 1976), pp. 74-160, at 113-14 (nos. 16I and 16II); and BCLL, no. 764, An expanded bibliography can be found in Joseph F. Kelly, “A Catalogue of Early Medieval Hiberno-Latin Biblical Commentaries (I]),” Traditio 45 (1989-90): 393-434, at 410-11 (no. 79). For the identification of Paris, BN, MS lat. 2384 as a manuscript transcribed at Saint-Denis, see Jean

, 331

Jean Rittmueller | to alert me to the exegetical similarities between LQE and two homilies on the Holy Innocents and on St Michael in an eleventh-century Bury homiliary with the shelf mark Cambridge, Pembroke College MS 25. He was then — and continued to be — a kind and generous scholar, helpful to those working in his own and in other fields. He was then — and continued to be — interested in the use homilists made of biblical commentaries, and appreciative of the role Hiberno-Latin exegesis played in Anglo-Latin, Anglo-Saxon, and early post-Conquest religious literature. He used his deep knowledge of these bodies of writing to draw attention to specific textual relationships that others not so well versed in this material might miss.

Jimmy raised the subject of this paper with me in a letter written in early 1989. I returned to it repeatedly as I became increasingly familiar with Hiberno-Latin exegetical material, and as I identified the characteristics of LQE that confirmed it as a Hiberno-Latin bible commentary, intended as a reference work for authors, teachers, and homilists. Working in the first quarter of the eighth century, its anonymous Irish redactor gathered together all available patristic and native commentary for Matthew's twenty-eight chapters, borrowing much of it from

| another comprehensive commentary on Matthew by Frigulus (Irish “Fergal”), an alleged Hiberno-Latin commentator who | _ flourished in the late seventh or early eighth century. The LQE redactor altered frequently, though in minor ways, Frigulus’s

usually more faithful renderings of patristic exegesis, but he | also added commentary from the work of the seventh-century | Hiberno-Latin writer Aileran, he interspersed additional

shorter observations and other native exegesis between sections

of text borrowed from Frigulus, and he substituted readings from the Irish Bible-text tradition for the more standard Vulgate readings found in Frigulus, whose commentary already employed a large number of Irish Bible-text variants. As conVezin, “Reims et Saint-Denis au IX€ siécle,” RB 94 (1984): 315-25. Regard- | ing fragments F + D, “written in an Anglo-Saxon center in Germany” ac-

cording to CLA, vol. 8, no. 1181 and CLA Suppl., no. **1181, Herrad ,

Spilling, “Angelsachsische Schrift in Fulda,” in Von der Klosterbibliothek zur Landeshibliothek. Beitrage zum zwethundertjahrigen Bestehen der Hesstschen Lan-

desbibliothek Fulda, ed. Artur Brall (Stuttgart, 1978), pp. 47-98 (at 61 and n.

38) notes that the script of these fragments suggests strongly that they

originated in the neighborhood of Fulda. ,

332

Links between a Twelfth-Century Worcester (F. 94) Homily, etc.

firmation of its Irish origins, LQF contains at least three Old Irish words and phrases: one belonging to the commentary itself (anagogién, “spiritual sense”); the second an Archaic Old Irish word added as a gloss datable to the first half of the eighth century, and now embedded in the body of the text (rédiguth, “a leveling, smoothing”); a third interlinear gloss also in Archaic Old Irish (dilse cimbeto, “a captive’s due”). Its Insular and Continental manuscript witnesses also preserve distinctively Irish pa-

leographical features, and an examination of its text transmission is persuasive of an Irish origin. The categorization of LQE as an indisputable product of the early Irish church enables scholars to speak not only about LQF’s sources and affilia-

tions, but also about its terminological and theological |

innovations, without having constantly to raise a flag of uncertainty about its geographical and intellectual origins.

In his letter, Jimmy sent me his transcription of a homily on Matthew 10:16-22 from a twelfth-century Worcester homiliary (Worcester, Cathedral Library, MS F. 94, fols. 157v-161r),°

noting the existence of a common error in three texts: the Worcester homily (at fol. 160rb); Paschasius Radbertus, Expositio in Matheo, Book 6 (written between 852 and 855)°; and the * Professor Cross dated Worcester F. 94 and its two companion volumes (F. 92 and F. 93) to the beginning of the twelfth century in a talk given at the 1989 International Congress on Medieval Studies at Kalamazoo, Michigan. Of this collection, Mary Clayton, “Homiliaries and Preaching in AngloSaxon England,” Peritia 4 (1985): 207-42, writes (at 220): “Worcester, Cathedral Library, MSS 92, 93, and 94 are companion volumes, the first covering the temporale of Paul the Deacon from Advent to Easter, the second from Easter to Advent and a third, the sanctorale, from the feast of St. Philip and James the Less (3 May) to St. Andrew (30 November), followed by a commune sanctorum.” John Kestell Floyer and Sidney Graves Hamilton, Catalogue of Manuscripts Preserved in the Chapter Library of Worcester Cathedral,

Worcestershire Historical Society (Oxford, 1906), pp. 46-47, also date the three companion volumes to the twelfth century and provide a general description of the contents and of the binding, covers, and notes on the flyleaves. A detailed table of contents is given by Heinrich Schenkl, Bibliotheca Patrum Latinorum Britannica (Vienna, 1898; reprint Hildesheim, 1969), nos. 4320-22, who dates F. 92 to the eleventh century and F. 93 and F. 94 to the twelfth century. Helmut Gneuss, “A Preliminary List of Manuscripts Written or Owned in England up to 1100,” ASE9 (1981): 1-60, at 47 (no. 763) dates F. 92 to the second half of the eleventh century, does not name its provenance, and is silent on the dating of F. 93 and F. 94. * Paschasius Radbertus, Expositio in Matheo, ed. Beda Paulus, 3 vols., CCCM 56, 56A, 56B (Turnhout, 1984). Radbertus wrote the introductory sections 333

Jean Rittmueller

mid-ninth-century LQF manuscript Orléans, BM, MS 65 (62), from Fleury (hereafter O, cf. the copy in Paris, BN, MS lat. 2384 [Saint-Denis, s. ix med.], hereafter S). In their exegesis of Mat-

thew 10:22, all three texts attribute a quotation from Mark 13:13 to Luke (see note 12 below). Other shared passages also show the closeness of the relationship of the three texts (Rad-

| bertus through his reliance on LQE), and, in Jimmy’s words, - “the error confirms the relationship.” He concluded tentatively that the Worcester text “copies a source” which LQE “abbreviates and abstracts”; cf. LQE (5S, fols. 29vb29-30rb13 = O, p. 123, : line 17-p. 125, line 13). Looking for parallels, he had examined the fifth-century Pseudo-Chrysostom Opus imperfectum in Matthaeum,’ Hrabanus Maurus’s Commentarius in Matthaeum (writ-

ten 821-22),° and three Hiberno-Latin commentaries: the seventh-century Pseudo-Jerome Expositio quatuor Evangeliorum,”

the eighth- or ninth-century commentary on Matthew in Vienna, Osterreichisches Nationalbibliothek, MS 940,’ and the eighth- or ninth-century Catechesis Cracoviensis in Cracow, Ca-

thedral Library, MS 43.° But to no avail. He asked whether I might know of a source for the shared exegesis. There the matter stood until January 1994, when Professor

Joseph Kelly of John Carroll University gave me access to his microfilm copy of the only known manuscript of a late seventhor early eighth-century commentary on Matthew by the Irishman named Frigulus (Halle, Universitats- und Landesbibliobetween 823 and 826, Books 1-4 by 832, Books 5-8 between 852 and 855, and Books 9-12 between 860 and 863. Cyrin Maus summarizes the history of the revision of this commentary and of other works by Radbertus in his

| Phenomenology of Revelation (Dayton, OH, 1970), p. 19. a

* Pseudo-Chrysostom, Opus imperfectum in Matthaeum (PG 56, 611-946). * Hrabanus Maurus, Commentarius in Matthaeum (PL 107, 727-1156). © Pseudo-Jerome, Expositio in Mattheum, Recensio 1 (PL 30, 531-60; PL 114,

861-88). For a fuller description, see Bischoff, “Turning-Points,” pp. 108-9 (no. 11A); BCLL, no. 341; Kelly, “Catalogue,” pp. 397-400 (no. 56A). ” See Bischoff, “Turning-Points,” pp. 115-17 (no. 171); BCLL, no. 772; Kelly,

“Catalogue,” pp. 409-10 (no. 77). ,

* Pierre David gives an incomplete edition of the Catechesis Cracoviensis in “Un recueil de conférences monastiques irlandaises du VIII€ siécle,” RB 49 (1937): 62-89. Dr. Thomas L. Amos is working on a new edition of these catechetical pieces. For further information, see Bischoff, “urning-Points,” p. 95; BCLL, no. 802.

334 |

Links between a Twelfth-Century Worcester (F. 94) Homily, etc.

thek Sachsen-Anhalt, MS Quedlinburg 127 [Upper Italy, s. ix2], hereafter Q).” In his work on the fragmenta Friguli in Smaragdus’s Collectanea, Kelly had earlier shown that LQE draws upon

Frigulus or that both draw upon a common source.” A complete collation which I made of Frigulus with LQE, with Radber-

tus, and with shared patristic exegesis convinced me that

Frigulus was the prime direct source for the bulk of LQF’s patristic and non-patristic exegesis. Frigulus was also the origin of the misattribution of Mark 13:13 to Luke which Jimmy mentioned in his letter."

Could Frigulus be Jimmy’s common source used independently by the LQF redactor and by the Worcester homilist?

In determining whether the Worcester homily should be counted among the Frigulus or the LQE testimonia for the Matthew 10:16-22 pericope (Jesus’s exhortation and warning to his ” For a fuller discussion of Frigulus, see Bischoff, “Turning-Points,” pp. 12023 (no. 20); BCLL, no. 645; Kelly, “Catalogue,” pp. 408-9 (no. 76); and Jutta Fliege, Die Handschriften der ehemaligen Stifts und Gymnasiumbibliothek Quedlinburg in Halle, Universitats und Landesbibliothek Sachsen-Anhalt in Halle a. d. Salle, Band 25 (Halle-Saale, 1982), pp. 218-20.

0 Joseph F. Kelly, “Frigulus: An Hiberno-Latin Commentator on Matthew,” RB 91 (1981): 363-73, at 367-69.

'' The misattribution of Mark 13:13 to Luke appears in the exegesis of Matthew 10:22 as follows:(a) Frigulus (Q, fol. 45ral0-12): “QUI AUTEM PERSEVERAVERIT. Non in tradendo patrem uel fratrem. Cautius Lucas hoc dicit: Qui autem sustinuerit [Mark 13:13], id est persequutionem.” (b) Worcester F. 94, fol. 160rb: “QUI AUTEM PERSEVERAVERIT ... Non in traditione patris uel fratris. Cautius autem Lucas hoc dicit: Qui autem sustinuerit usque ad finem hic saluus erit, id est, Qui sustinuerit persecu-

tionem.” (c) LQE (S, fol. 30rb4-7 = O, p. 125, lines 5-7): “QUI

PERSEVERAVERIT. Non in traditione supradicta quod Lucas manifestius dicit: Qui autem sustinuerit, id est persecutionem.” (d) Radbertus, Expositio 6, CCCM 56A, p. 599, lines 1364-68: “QUI PERSEVERAVERIT ...Non..

. in tradendo scilicet fratrem aut filium sed qui perseuerauerit in fide nominis Christi quod Lucas manifestius dicit: Qui sustinuerit, id est... persecutiones.” LQE also borrowed two other misattributions from Frigulus. The bold-faced portions of the LQE text below coincide with Frigulus. Unfortunately, Radbertus omits the exegesis for these two passages: (a) LQE (on Matthew 8:24): “DORMIEBAT in pupi supra ceruical [Mark 4:38] ut Lucas narrat in quo designatur adsumpti hominis et de potentia securitas sed magestate uigilat”; LQF (S, fol. 26ra22-24) = Frigulus (Q, fol. 38vb22-

24); LQE (QO) is defective here. (b) LQE (on Matthew 9:2): “ III uiri [om. S] quos Lucas dicit III euangelistae [cf. Mark 2:3]”; LQE (S, fol. 24rb13-14 = O, p. 113, lines 9-10) = Frigulus (Q, fol. 40rb10-11). 335

Jean Rittmueller

. disciples, “Go your way; behold I send you out as lambs in the midst of wolves”), I will first describe the place that the two relevant primary LQE manuscript witnesses (S and QO) have in the LQE stemma. Next, I will establish whether Radbertus used a manuscript of LQE rather than of Frigulus. Third, I will sug-

gest from which part of the textual tradition the LQE manuscript known to Radbertus may have come. Fourth, I will try to determine whether the Worcester homily is Frigulus-based or LQE-based, and, finally, if LQF-based, from which branch of the tradition its LQF manuscript source originated. I, What Is the LQE Hiberno-Continental Textual Tradition?

The LQE witnesses for the pericope discussed in this section are two mid-ninth-century manuscripts from Saint-Denis (S$) and Fleury (O), derived through a common exemplar from a lost manuscript that contained the misreading errarent for erraueritt in Matthew 18:12 (the Parable of the Lost Sheep). It also contained instances of an Irish scribal practice known as cenn fo eitte (“head under wing”).'* According to this practice, a scribe would enter a new lemma or sentence plus two oblique strokes

(//) on the first half of a line (line la), write the next part of the sentence on the following line (line 2), continue it in the Space remaining on the half-empty line above (line 1b), and finish it on line 3. If a later scribe did not see the oblique strokes or did not understand the practice, he would write the text continuously, with gibberish resulting. S and O share at

| least four instances of this error, which is one reason I believe © these two manuscripts rely on a common immediate exemplar.'’ (Conjunctive errors in the exegesis under consideration " A description of cenn fo eitte appears in R. I. Best, “Introduction,” The Commentary on the Psalms with Glosses in Old-Irish Preserved in the Ambrosian Library

(MS. 901 inf.) (Dublin, 1936), p. 30.

'* The four examples of cenn f6 eitte miswritten in S and O are found in the

| following passages: (1) in the exegesis of Matthew 18:12 (the Ninety-Nine Sheep), described in the text of this paper; (2) in the exegesis of Matthew 19:30 (the Rich Young Man), where S, fol. 48ra34-37 = O, p. 191, lines 1-3 =

| Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Reg. lat. 49, fol. 7rb8-13; cf. Frigulus (Q, fol. 63vb16-19); (3) in the exegesis of Matthew 24:1-2 (Christ’s Prediction concerning the Temple), where LQE manuscript fragment C, fol. Avb5-13 = S, fol. 62ra39-42 = O, p. 223, lines 3-5; Frigulus is de336

Links between a Twelfth-Century Worcester (Ff. 94) Homily, etc.

will provide additional confirmatory evidence of the close relationship between S and O.) One instance of a missed cenn fo eitte in the LQF (S and O) exemplar contains the misreading errarent for the errauerit of Matthew 18:12. The misreading errarent 1s also preserved in a late-eighth-century fragment of LQE written

at an Anglo-Saxon center in Germany (Dresden, Sachsische Landesbibliothek, MS R 524m, destroyed in 1945, hereafter D), whose scribe did, however, correctly interpret the cenn fo eittte although he did not preserve the practice, as the following parallel texts illustrate:

1. Jerome, Jn Matheum 3 (on Matthew 18:12), pp. 160-61, lines 577, 590, 601-4: “ERRAVERIT UNA. .. . Hoc est

humanum genus... . In eo autem quod dicit: NON

EST VOLUNTAS ANTE PATREM VESTRUM UT

PEREAT UNUS DE PUSILLIS ISTIS [Matthew 18:14],

quotiens aliquis perierit de pusillis, ostenditur quod non uoluntate Patris perierit.”

| 2. Frigulus (Q fol. 61lra5-9): “VADIT [Matthew 18:12].

Carnem adsumens uenit in mundum. QUAERERE. Per , uirtutes et passionem. SIG NON EST VOLUNTAS

[Matthew 18:14]. Ad hoc parabolam proponit et apparet quod non uoluntate Dei quis perit. Aliter. ALICUI [Matthew 18:12]. Domino .C. OVES. Genus humanum. UNA. Numerus inperfectorum. XCVIIII. Plenitudo sanctorum apud semet ipsos. .. .”

3. The hypothetical reconstructed exemplar (k) of the

Hiberno-Continental branch, which in-cludes D, S, and

O, with abbreviations here expanded parenthetically and lemma (., and ..,) and end-of-sentence (:-) markers added: *_Vadit c(um) i(n)

carnem uenit:-., Querere p(er) uirtutes & passionem is (homines ante correctionem). , * It is possible that there is a superscript “s’ between the preceding and following words.

—— * meum: meam Vulg.

* memor. nemo Vulg.

que (abbreviated q; thus perhaps also qui. See W. M. Lindsay, Notae Latinae: An Account of Abbreviation in Latin MSS. of the Early Minuscule Period (c. 700850) (Cambridge, 1915; reprint Hildesheim, 1963), pp. 242-43): quz Vulg.

© The final ein erwere and the min manus which follows are joined in ligature, which may be a clue to identifying the exemplar, if it has survived. There is

no fini at the end of this second traditional reading, which is joined to the third without interruption. 9! in circuitum (with K*): in circuitu Vulg. °° Memento: Memento quaeso Vulg.

*" seduces: reduces Vulg. Nonetheless there may be an indication that a later corrector tried to change the first s to r or perhaps to signal a variant or mistake.

coagolasti (with S*): coagulasti Vulg.55. conpagisté: conpegisti Vulg.

366

An Eighth-Century Text of the Lectiones in vigilis defunctorum

uestisti me et ossibus et neruis conpagisti”” me. Vitam et miseri-

cordiam tribuisti mihi et uisitatio tua custodiuit spiritum meum. finit.

Responde mihi: quantus”’ habeo iniquitates et peccata scelera mea et delicta ostende mihi. Qur” faciem tuam abscondis et arbitrares”’ me inimicum tuum? Contra solium™ quod uento rapitur, ostendisti” potentiam et stibulam™ siccum” persequerens,” scribis enim contra me amaritudinis” et comsummere”™ me uis peccatis /172r/ aduliscentiae®’ m[a]e,™ posuisti in neruo[s] pedem meum et obseruasti omnes semitas meas, et uestigia pedum meorum considerasti: quila] quasi pu-

trido” consumendus sum, et quasi uestimentum, quod co-

medit” a tinea.

” conpagistt: conpegisti Vulg.

”’ This reading begins with the last two words of verse 22. *” quantus: quantas Vulg. * Qur. Cur Vulg. ” arbitrares: arbitraris Vulg.

” solium: folium Vulg. The first letter is clearly s, not *! ostendisti. ostendis Vulg.

" stccum: siccam Vulg. | " stibulam: stipulam Vulg.

" persequerens. persequeris Vulg. Note the use of the participle for the finite verb. ” amaritudinis. amaritudines Vulg.

*° comsummere. consumere Vulg. | °” aduliscentiae. adulescentiae Vulg. ** meae Vulg.

putrido: putredo Vulg. ” comedit: comeditur Vulg.

367

Denis Brearley

- Homo natus de muliere preue” uiuens tempore, repletur”™ multis miseriis quasi flos egreditur et conteretur” et fugit uelut umbra, et numquam in eodem statu permanet. Et dignum di-

cis’ super huiuscemodi aperire oculos tuos et adducere eum tecum in iudicio?” Qui potest facere mundum de inmundo conceptum semine? Nonne tu qui solus es? Breui” dies hominis sunt, numerum” mensuum”® ei” apud te est: constituisti terminos eius qui praeterire non poterunt.” Recede pau-

lolum® ab eo ut quiescat, donec optata ueniat.” FINIT

Quis mihi hoc tribuat ut in inferno protegas me ut abscondas me, donec perueniat™ furor tuos™ et constituas mihi tempus in quo recorderis mei? Putas me” mortuus® homo rursum uiuit?*’

Cunctis diebus, quibus nunc milito ex[s]pecto donec ueniat

inmutatio mea. Vocabis et ego respondebo tibi: opera™ manuum tuarum [sum] porregis” dexteram [tuam]. Tu ” preve (or praeve): brevi Vulg. , ” repletur (with L and others): repletus Vulg. ® conteretur (with L and others): contentur Vulg.

"” judicio dicis: ducis Vulg. , (with AS): in iudictum Vulg. ® Brevi: Breves Vulg.

| ” numerum: numerus Vulg. 8 mensuum (with C and others): mensum Vulg.

” For the abbreviation efor eius, see Lindsay, Notae Latinae, pp. 3437. * pote (with a suspension sign over the e).

*' paulolum: paululum Vulg. | * Vulg. to the end of the usual pericope. *8 herveniat. pertranseat Vulg.

| ** tuos: tuus Vulg. , , * Putas me. Putasne Vulg. *° mortua>us. mortuus Vulg. | 8” vivit (with W): vivet Vulg.

368 |

°° opera (with two ninth-century manuscripts and others): opert Vulg. pborregis. porriges Vulg: porrigis CLS and others.

An Eighth-Century Text of the Lectiones in vigilis defunctorum

quidem gressus meus” denumerasti,”’ sed parcis” peccatis meis.”” Signasti quasi in sacculo delicta mea sed curasti iniquitatem meam. FINET

Spiritus meus adtenuabitur, dies mei breviabuntur et solum mihi superest sepulchrum. Non peccaui et in amaritudinibus /172v/ moratur oculus meus. Libera me et pone m{a] e”* iuxta te et cuius uir” magnus pugnat” contra me.

, Dies mei transierunt, cogitationes m[aJe”’ disipata” sunt, torquentes cor meum. Noctem uesterunt” in diem et rursum post tenebras spero lucem. Si sustenuero,’” infernus domus mf[aJe"! in tenebras'” straui lectum'” meum. Pu| tridini'” dixi pater meus et mater mea, et soror mea uermibus. meus (abbreviated as ms with a line over it): meos Vulg. "! denumerasti (with K): dinumerasti Vulg. ” parcis (with CL and others): parces Vulg.

> Verse 17 then follows, which is not included in the “Roman use” of the Vigil or Office of the Dead. ™ bone me (with C).

® cuius vir. cuiusvis Vulg. The rin vir may represent a confusion between Insular rand s. Chas cutus vult. ” pugnat (the 1951 Rome edition records this reading only for the editio prin-

ceps of Moguntiae, 1462): pugnet Vulg. |

ligature. ,

” mae written out in full, not mé as elsewhere. 98 disipata: disstpatae Vulg.: dissipata A*.

: ” westerunt. verterunt Vulg. The medial st is written with the classic Carolingian ' sustenuero: sustinuero Vulg.

'! m[ ale: mea Vulg. (a simple case of inverted letters in the exemplar). ' tenebras. tenebris Vulg. ' lectum (with C and others): lectulum Vulg.

' putridini: putredini Vulg. , 369

Denis Brearley

Vbi est ergo praestolatio mea et patientia mea'” Tu es, Domine, Deus meus.'” FINIT

'” Pelli meae, consumptis carnibus, adhaesit os meum et derelicta sunt tanto modo!” labia circa dentes meos. Miserimini!™ mei, miseri[ri]mini mei. Saluo!’® uos amici mei quia manus Domini tetigit me. Quare persequimini me sicut Deus et carnibus meis saturamini? Quis mihi tribuat ut scribant sermones mei? Quis mihi det ut exarentur'" stilo ferreo et plumbi lamina uel certe sculpantur in silice?

| | Scio enim quod Redemptor meus uiuit'!? et in nouissimo de terra resurrecturus’'’ sum:'" et rursum circumdabor pelle mea, ' A single letter (perhaps m) has been scraped out. Vulg. reads patientiam meam quits considerat? to the end of verse 14. See the following note. ™ Ottosen, The Responsories and Versicles, pp. 57-58, explains: “According to the

Vulgate the biblical text ends with a question to which there is no answer: et patientiam meam quis considerat? Here and commonly elsewhere this sentence reads... patientia mea? Tu es domine deus meus. This version of the biblical text with a non-biblical addition gives the passage an entirely new meaning.” See also Lawrence L. Besserman, The Legend of Job in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, MA, 1979), p. 62.

'” The eighth reading (sixth in the compacted form presented here) is written out undivided. In some centers it was divided to provide a ninth reading: Lectio viii = lob 19:20-24; Lectio ix = Iob 19:25-27. "8 tanto modo: tantummodo Vulg.

, '” Miserimini: Miseremini Vulg. ' Salvo: Saltim Vulg. (Stuttgart 1994; other editions saltem).

'" add. Vulg. | | '? vivit (with LS): vivat Vulg. "3 rvesurrecturus (with AS): surrecturus Vulg.

4 sum: sim Vulg.: Sum LX and others. Sum is also the reading given for this verse in the extracts from Job incorporated into Alcuin’s florilegium De laude Det, probably compiled at York during the final quarter of the eighth century: see Richard Marsden, The Text of the Old Testament in Anglo-Saxon

| England, CSASE 15 (Cambridge, 1995), p. 229. 379

| An Eighth-Century Text of the Lectiones in vigiliis defunctorum et in carne mea uidebo Dominum.'"” Quem uisurus sum ego ipsi''° et oculi mei conspecturi[s]''’ sunt et non alius: Reposita est haec spes in sinu meo. FINET.

The scribe finishes the Lectiones at this point. Beginning on

the very next line, three lines have been added by another scribe to complete this folio. These lines take the form of a probatio pennae''* and do not have a direct relationship to the Lectiones defunctorum.''” The text is that of an antiphon used at the

feast of the Ascension and at other times. Is it only a coinctdence that this manuscript also contains a sermon for the feast of the Ascension? The possibility exists that the antiphon was copied here for liturgical use. The question of whether the readings for the Vigil of the Dead were also used at a celebration of an Office of the Dead held after this or at the office of another day remains unanswered.

' Dominum: deum Vulg. (addition of meum not in the 1994 Stuttgart edition but in the 1592, 1593, and 1598 editions of the Vulgate). 1° ipst: ipse Vulg.

''’ The extra letter s may be the repetition of an abbreviation for the following word sunt.

8 This is the opinion of Professor Etaix: see the remarks preceding note 1 above.

'” The probatio pennae contains the text of the antiphon Audistis quia dixi used for the feast of the Ascension, at Pentecost, on the Octave of Pentecost, on feria ii of Pentecost, and on feria vi of Pentecost: see Corpus Antiphonalium

Offic, ed. Renatus-Iohannes Hesbert, 6 vols., Rerum ecclesiasticarum documenta, Series maior, Fontes 7-12 (Rome, 1963-79), vol. 3 (Invitatoria et

Antiphonae), p. 62 (no. 1520). At none of these offices is there a specific commemoration of the dead. The probatio pennae was not written by any of the scribes of the main text. It reads: “AN: Audistis quia dixi uobis: uado et et uenio ad uos si d[ig]ligeretis me, gauderetis utique, quia ua ad Patrem meum, quia Pater magor me est. Al.” The text in Clim 6233 corresponds to Hesbert’s edition except

for the ending, which in Hesbert continues: “. . . quia vado ad Patrem meum” (Corpus Antiphonalium Offic, vol. 3, p. 62); ACO read “. . . quia ad Patrem vado.” Since Clm 6233 also contains a homily for the Ascension beginning on fol. 138, perhaps this antiphon may have been used liturgically for the feast of the Ascension. 371

Denis Brearley

| Analysis of Variants The variants are classified below according to the readings found in the major manuscript groups used for the collation and are therefore designed to identify as closely as possible the nature of the biblical text used to compile the Lectiones.

Index of Variants The term “variant” here refers to readings not retained in elther the main text of the 1951 Rome edition or the 1994 Stutt-

gart edition of the Vulgate. Variants are listed below in alphabetical order for the sake of convenience and without necessary regard for linguistic phenomena. The small Roman numerals in parentheses following each variant refer to one of | the nine readings (i to 1x) of the Lectiones in which the variant occurs. This list does not include cases where the Anglo-Saxon corrector of Clm 6233 has changed or corrected a letter either by scraping or overwriting. The format of entries in this index follows, in general, the section on orthography in Albert Blaise, Dictionnaire Latin-Frangais des auteurs chrétiens (Paris, 1954), pp. 31-32.

a superfluous: quz[ a] (iv)

: a for e: conpagisti (iii); pugnat (vill) a for i: opera (vi) (a legitimate variant reading) b for p: obprimas (ii); stebulam (iv) cc for ct: only in the title lecciones

e cedilla mistaken: m[a]e (i, ii, iv, vil twice but also written out mae once)

efor ae: queres (ii); tedet (il) e for i: que (ii); arbitrares (iv); denumerasti (vi); sustenuero (vii); finet (vi, ix) ifor a: u2uit (ix)

i for e: uidit for uidet (i1); amaritudinis for amaritudines (iv); aduliscentiae for adulescentiae (iv); putrido for putredo (iv, vii); breui for breue (v); utuct for uruet (vi); porregis for porreges (vi); parcis for parces (v1); miseriminifor miseremini (viii twice); zpse for tpse (1x)

372 |

An Eighth-Century Text of the Lectiones in vigilais defunctorum

i for u: dicis for ducis (v) m for mm: lamina (viii) m for n: comsummere (iv); putas me for putasne (vi)

mm for m: comsummere (iv) |

m for s (mistaken case): numerum for numerus (v) | o for u: calomnieris (ii); coagolasti (111) paulolum (v); tuos for tuwus (vi); meos for meus (abbreviated) (vi); tanto modo for tantu modo (viil)

p superfluous: condem| p] nare (11)

p for b: preue for breue (v) | q for c: gur (i, ii, Iv) |

| r for s (an Insular paleographical symptom): cuzus wir

for cutusuis (vii) |

S missing: qui (v); breusx (v); lectuum (vii)

s extra or superfluous: neruo[s] (iv); ex[s] pecto (vi)

s for f (an Insular paleographical symptom): solzwm for folium (iv)

| s for r (an Insular paleographical symptom): seduces for reduces (ili); uesterunt for uerterunt (vii) | ss for s: casseum (iil)

u for a (due to grammatical error): meum for meam (ii); siccum (iv)

u for i: sum for sim (ix) u for o: custus for custos (i); gquantus for quantos (iv) syn-

copated forms: ni (viii);

(d) other forms or different words: aufferas (1); etiam for ecce (i, due to mistaken abbreviation); memor for nemo (ii); numerum for numerus (v); peruentat for pertranseat (vi); saluo for saltum (viii); Dominum for Deum (ix, mistaken abbreviation).

All examples in which the Anglo-Saxon scribe corrected a reading are noted in the apparatus of this edition.

Conclusions | At first reading the liturgical pericopes in Clm 6233 appear to be sloppily copied, but when the errors are classified as above, the actual readings of the Lectiones in vigiltis defunctorum in Clm

6233'*° appear rather to be the result of several complex and interacting factors. There are well over a hundred separate examples where readings differ from the currently received text Here compacted into six lections from the usual nine. 374

An Eighth-Century Text of the Lectiones in vigilis defunctorum

of the Vulgate. Most of the significant variants are found often in groups in other contemporary or earlier manuscripts. Unfortunately, neither the paleographical features of the manuscript nor the evidence of the readings allows us to say with certainty how many previous stages or exemplars went into the composition of Clm 6233. However, it is certain that each successive scribe would have been tempted to change a less familiar read-

ing to a more familiar one characteristic of the manuscripts known in his own region or to that found in a manuscript belonging to his own monastic scriptorium. The probability that this is what happened increases with the number of readings peculiar to a particular region. But if the text of the readings here has been copied from a

single exemplar, then we find ourselves at the end of a complex | textual history of accretion over accretion. Three regions have

been singled out as ones that figure most prominently in the text’s history. Some, but only some, of the variants found in some of the nine readings are easily and economically explained if we postulate an Insular exemplar at an early stage in

the transmission.’*' Evidence from the other texts found in this same manuscript (the Matthew Commentary and the sermons)

supports that conclusion.'~ Still other variants are typical of

what one would expect to find in a Spanish exemplar. Bern- | hard Bischoff's conclusion from the paleographical appearance and history of Clm 6233 was that “scheint der Text durch ein spanisches oder merovingisches Medium gegangen zu sein.” Before the manuscript passed into the south German scripto-

rium where the extant copy was made, it should not then be surprising that still other changes were introduced that were typical of manuscripts written at Lorsch and St Gall and other '"' Namely A. In Lection i, for example, there seems to be a strong influence of A, while in Lections iv and v none of the distinctive readings from A have been adopted. = See D. Brearley, “The Lemmata from the Gospel of Matthew in Clm 6233 and Their Irish Affiliations,” in The Scriptures and Early Medieval Ireland, ed. Thomas O’Loughlin (Turnhout, 1999), pp. 9-27. ' Bischoff, Die siidostdeutschen Schretbschulen und Bibliotheken in der Karolingerzett. 2. Die vorwiegend osterretchischen Diozesen, 3rd ed. (Wiesbaden, 1980),

pp. 137 and 221 (Nachtrdge). The shibboleth for Bischoff was the confusion of the Spanish abbreviation pro for per, which does occur elsewhere in this manuscript. 379

, Denis Brearley centers where Insular activity has been recorded during this period.

| The early history of the Lectiones in vigiliis defunctorum in Clm 6233 is still shrouded in mystery. The accounts and theories of Callewaert, Sicard, Paxton, Ottosen, and McLaughlin

offer no clear explanation of how the present text — in my opinion the product of many stages of accretion and revision —

made its way from obscure beginnings in Rome at the end of the seventh century, through an Insular stage in transmission, and then made its way back to southern Germany within less than a century. What we can say with certainty is that the inclusion of the Lectiones in vigiliis defunctorum in this manuscript testifies to the increased popularity of the celebration of the Vigil of the Dead

in southern Germany by the last third of the eighth century, | and that it also witnesses to the many and varied changes which could be introduced into a liturgical text, considerably altering its appearance from the text of the book of Job as it appears in extant contemporary or earlier Bibles.

376

Liturgical Echoes in Laxdeoela saga ANDREW HAMER

()™sagas of theofmost familiar problems facing the critic of the Icelanders ([slendingasogur) is how one assesses what is history and what is an author’s own creation. The unemotional style in which these sagas were written rarely provides an explicit clue, so that the critic must be wary of making extravagant claims about such matters as characterization, plot, and ethical framework, and must always reckon with the possibility that the saga author was constrained by historical fact. Only when suspiciously neat literary structures, cross-references and symmetries are visible, or when modzfted allusions, echoes of, and references to other texts are identifiable, can a critic be

confident that the author has independently controlled the narrative. Jimmy Cross, whose first academic work was in Norse, and who frequently stated his belief that medieval Iceland was a society “at the end of the line of transmission of ideas,” was al-

ways pleased to hear of the discovery of a Latin source for, or

analogue to, a passage in one of the /slendingasogur. | Laxdela saga seems fairly quickly to have gained a reputa- _

tion in Iceland for historical reliability. The author of Njdls saga, written in the 1280s, certainly borrowed from it, while Grettis saga, written towards the end of the fourteenth century, makes explicit reference to it as a source: “as is told in Laxdela saga.”' Indeed, Laxda@la saga may lay claim to having a more eas-

ily postulated historical base than most. The saga twice cites Ari Porgilsson “the Learned” as its authority, and Ari (born 1067) was fostered until the age of six by his grandfather, Gellir Porkelsson. Gellir was the son of Laxdela’s great heroine, Gudrun, | Grettis saga Asmundarsonar, ed. Gudni Jonsson, Islenzk Fornrit 7 (Reykjavik,

1936), ch. 10, referring to the death of Unnr the Deep-minded. For a discussion of the importance of Laxdela saga as a source for Njals saga, see Einar Ol. Sveinsson, ed., Brennu-Njals saga, Islenzk Fornrit 12 (Reykjavik, 1954), pp. xxxix-xl, Ixix-]xx, Ixxii-Ixxiii. 377

Andrew Hamer

by her fourth husband, Porkell Eyjélfsson, and Ari was fostered at Helgafell, the farm that Guértin and Porkell had owned. Ari was the author of Islendingabék (the Book of the Icelanders), and cites as his authority for a statement there, his paternal uncle, Porkell Gellisson, Guértin’s grandson. This was clearly a family

with an abiding interest in history, and it is therefore highly probable that information concerning the dynasty, including Gudrun, was passed down to Ari, and later formed a part of _ Laxdela, when that saga was written down in the 1240s.

, The closing words of the saga, which have been entirely ignored by critics, tell of Ari’s father Porgils, and uncle Porkell: en Porgils ... drukknadi ungr 4 Breidafirdi ok allir peir, er 4 skipi varu med honum. Porkell Gellisson var it mesta

nytmenni ok var sagdr manna frddastr. Ok lykr par nud -sOgunni (ch. 78).”

It was a historical fact, therefore, that Ari’s father died by drowning. What I wish to say in this paper is that the author of Laxdela used that historical fact to end his narrative with a fi-

nal, poignant reminder of a major theme he had explored in his work: the theme of shipwreck leading either to drowning or survival.

Firstly, those who did not survive. Laxdela saga numbers seventeen people, apart from Ari’s father Porgils, who meet their deaths by drowning. And in addition to these, there are a number of anonymous crew-members who also drown.

i) In chapter 18, Porsteinn the Black dies together with

nine others, mostly members of his family and

household. Their deaths are caused by the returned spirit of the recently deceased Viga-Hrappr, which

* ‘Dorgils was drowned in Breidafj6rér when still a young man, and all his crew with him. Porkell Gellisson was a most worthy man, and was stated to have been a man of great learning. And there this saga ends.” Quotations from the saga are taken

from Laxdela saga, Halldors pettir Snorrasonar, Stifs pattr, ed. Einar OL. Sveinsson, Islenzk Fornrit 5 (Reykjavik, 1934); English translations are quoted from Laxdela saga, trans. with an Introduction by Magnus Magnusson and Hermann Palsson (Harmondsworth, 1969). 378

Liturgical Echoes in Laxdela saga

haunts the area, on this occasion in the form of a large seal that swims around the doomed boat.

li) In chapter 30, Geirmundr and his baby daughter die, together with their anonymous crew. They drown on a voyage undertaken after Geirmundr curses the sword that will later be used to kill one of Laxda@la’s major heroes, Kjartan Olafsson.

iii) In chapter 35, Pordr Ingunnarson, his mother, and

their anonymous companions drown in a storm

conjured up by witches.

iv) In chapter 37, the sorcerer Hallbjérn Kotkelsson is executed for his crimes by drowning. He curses the land just before the sentence is carried out.

v) In chapter 51, Audunn festargarmr drowns together with his whole crew. He is cursed just before he sets out on his last voyage.

In every case of drowning mentioned so far, then, apart from that of Ari’s father Porgils, witchcraft (cursing and spells) is in-

volved. There is one other drowning in the saga, that of Gudéruin’s fourth husband (and Ari’s great-grandfather), Porkell Eyjolfsson. There are supernatural events associated with

this death, too, but before examining these, I would like to mention one great survivor of shipwreck, Unnr the Deepminded.

Shortly after the saga opens, Unnr and her family are living in the north of Scotland, having been forced to flee from their ancestral lands in Norway after the battle of Hafrsfjordr. _ Unnr is apparently already elderly, since she has grown-up grandchildren. Her son is killed by the Scots, and once again the family is forced to flee. Unnr is a widow, and the death of her son robs the family of its sole adult male, and so she must act as head of the dynasty. She has a ship built in secret, and the family sails for Iceland, stopping off en route in Orkney and the Faroes, at each of which places Unnr marries one of her granddaughters to a local man. According to the saga (ch. 5), Unnr finally “made land in the south of Iceland, at Vikrarskeid; the ship was wrecked there, but there was no loss of life or cargo” (ok kemr skipi sinu fyrir sunnan land a Vikrarskew; par brjota 379

Andrew Hamer

pau skipit t span; menn allir heldusk ok fé). In Iceland Unnr establishes a wealthy household, which she controls until she is very

old. Now she arranges the marriage of her grandson Olafr feilan, and at the wedding feast bequeathes her estate to him. _ She dies the same night. Var nu drukkit allt saman, brullaup Oldfs ok erfi Unnar. Ok inn sidasta dag bodsins var Unnr flutt til haugs pess, er henni var buinn; hon var l6g6 i skip { hauginum, ok

mikit fé var { haug lagt med henni; var eptir pat aptr kastaér haugrinn (ch. 7).

We turn now to the death by drowning of Porkell Eyjolfsson, Gudrin’s fourth husband. Chapter 74 of Laxdela saga describes how Porkell makes a journey to Norway in order

to obtain timber to rebuild the church at Helgafell. Einar Olafur’s opinion is that the saga account of this journey is _ probably not historical. Instead, the timber was probably either brought back from Norway to Iceland in the Autumn of 1025 by Gellir, the son of Porkell and Gudrun, or sent back by Gellir

| Helgafell.* |

if he remained in Norway. According to this view, Porkell drowned while bringing Gellir’s timber round the coast to

The saga states that this timber had been given to Porkeil by King Olafr Haraldsson (St Olafr). The king is later shocked to discover that Porkell plans to build a church equal in size to that which he himself is building in Nidards. His suggestion that it would be appropriate if Porkell were slightly to reduce

the size of his church meets with an arrogant response. The

| king is provoked into prophesying:

° “Now the feast combined the celebration of Olaf’s wedding and Unn’s fu neral. On the last day of the feast, Unn’s body was carried to the burial mound that had been prepared for her. She was laid in a ship inside the mound, and a load of treasure was laid there with her. Then the burial

mound was closed.” oo

* For the arguments behind Einar Olafur’s views, see the Introduction to his ed., Laxdela saga, p. lii. 380

Liturgical Echoes in Laxdela saga

“En ner er bat minu hugbodi, at menn hafi litla nytsemd vidar pessa, ok fari pvi firr, at bu getir gort neitt mannvirki ér vidinum” (ch. 74).”

The king’s fears are confirmed, and Porkell dies on Maundy | Thursday. The first half of the king’s prophecy is shown to have

been fulfilled (ch. 76) when, after Porkell’s drowning, “very little of the church-timber was ever recovered” (fatt ena nddisk

af kirkyuviinum). ;

But it is King Olafr’s words immediately preceding this prophecy that strike the modern reader as particularly ominous, with their accusation that Porkell is guilty of pride, and the implication that his pride will be his downfall: | “Bedi er, Porkell, at pu ert mikils verdr, enda gerisk pu

nu allstérr, pvi at vist er pat ofsi einum béndasyni, at

| keppask vid oss; en eigi er pat satt, at ek fyrirmuna pér vidarins, ef pér verdr audit at gera kirkju af, pvi at hon veror eigi sva mikil, at par muni of pitt allt inni liggyja” (ch. 74).°

The king’s remarks are ironic and understated, with their implication that Porkell will not in fact succeed in building a church. But seen in retrospect, and after the account of Por| kell’s fate, they acquire a further level of irony. Porkell is last seen with his men, after their deaths (ch. 76), “standing in | front of the church” (ok stddu uti fyrir kirkju). It is as though the implication of the king’s words is that, if the larger, planned church could not contain Porkell and his pride, how could the smaller, existing church at Helgafell do sor

To any educated Icelander of the thirteenth century, how-

ever, there would have been a further level to the reading of the narrative of the events surrounding Porkell’s death. Porkell > “But I have the feeling that people will have little benefit from this timber, and that you will be most unlikely to build anything with it at all.”

° “You are a very remarkable man, Porkell; but now you are getting above yourself, for it is sheer effrontery for a peasant’s son to vie with us. It’s not

| true that I begrudge you the timber — if you are destined to build a church with it; for it will never be large enough to contain all your arrogance.” 381

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died by drowning, and was later seen standing in front of the church, on the Thursday before Easter, Maundy Thursday.’ Gudrun receives her first warning of disaster from a ghost she encounters at that point on her way to church where the outside world meets the churchyard (ch. 76): “And as she passed through the lich-gate she saw a ghost standing in front of her” | (ok er hon gekk ¢ kirkjugardshliéit, pd sd hon draug standa fyrir sér). It is

therefore when she is within the churchyard that she thinks she sees her husband and his men standing in front of the church. The word kirkjugaydr translates the Latin atrium ecclesiae,’ and

mention of a group of men standing here, in front of the

church, on Maundy Thursday, would have alerted educated

Icelanders to the liturgy for that day. Maundy Thursday was the only day in the Church’s calen-

dar when penitents (apart from the seriously ill) might receive absolution of either venial or mortal sins.’ The liturgy for the

Reconciliation of Penitents begins with the following rubric: | “The bishop or his deputy is to go in procession to the doors of | _ the church to reconcile the penitents. And those who are to be reconciled are to be present in the atrium of the church ... let the bishop or his deputy begin, ‘Come! Come!’”"® The arrogant

Porkell and his men would have been instantly recognizable as occupying the position of penitent sinners, waiting outside the church before being admitted for confession and absolution. The deeper significance that educated Icelanders would have read into the picture of Porkell and his men outside the church ” The English name Maundy Thursday is derived from the Latin dies mandati; other names for the day are feria quinta paschae and cena Domini. For a discussion of the importance of this day within the Church calendar, see the article “Maundy Thursday,” in A Dictionary of Chnstian Antiquities, ed. William Smith and Samuel Cheetham, 2 vols. (London, 1875-80; reprint 1968), vol. 2, pp. 1160-61.

* Richard Cleasby, Gudbrand Vigfusson, and William Craigie, An IcelandicEnglish Dictionary, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1969), sv. kerkyugardr. 9 A Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, ed. Smith and Cheetham, art. cit.

382

'° The Sarum Missal, ed. J. Wickham Legg (Oxford, 1916), p.102: “pergat episcopus uel eius uicarius ad ianuas ecclesie cum processione ad reconcilian-

dum penitentes. Sintque presentes in atrio ecclesie qui reconciliandi sunt ... INcipiat episcopus uel eius uicarius. Venite. Uenite.” This quotation provides an early example of a widely used model, and the rubric appears to be standard.

Liturgical Echoes in Laxdela saga | is therefore the following: the church at Helgafell is symbolic of

the wider Church, and Porkell and his men have died un- | reconciled through that Church with God. Unless once more called into that Church, through a post-mortem miracle of God's grace, they are doomed to wait eternally outside the doors. The full horror of King Olafr Haraldsson’s prophetic words now becomes clear: “pvi at hon verdr eigi sva mikil, at par muni of pitt allt inni liggyja.”

The moral lesson to be read in the account of these events is reinforced by the symbolism attached to a church’s buildings

| and site, the significance of which was expounded in homilies for the dedication of a new church. The symbolic role of the churchyard is explained as follows in the Church Dedication Sermon (“Jn dedicatione tempeli. Sermo”) in the Old Norwegian Homily Book:

Garér umm kirkiu merkir varéveizlu pessa allra godra luta | er nu ero her talder. En ba megum vér vel varéveita pessa

| alla goda luti. ef vér hyggium at vercum peirra er fyrir ds ero farnir or heimi. sva at god dgme styrki os til eptirlikingar. en ill dome vare és vid syndir."

The deaths of Porkell and his men, and Gudrtn’s vision of them standing in the churchyard, offer her the chance to learn that she urgently needs to repent of her own sins; this is a lesson she takes to heart. We are told that in the period after DPor-

kell’s death,

“The churchyard represents the guardianship of all these good things which have now been recounted. And we may certainly guard all these good things if we reflect on the deeds of those who have passed away from this earth before us, so that a good example may strengthen us to follow suit, while a bad example may warn us from sinning.” “Jn dedicatione tempeli. Sermo,” ed. Gustav Indrebg, Gamal norsk homiliebok. Cod. AM 619 49, Norsk historisk kjeldeskriftfondet, Skrifter 54 (Oslo, 1931, reprint 1966) [hereafter GNH], pp. 95-99, at 98. 383

Andrew Hamer | Gudrtin gerdisk trikona mikil. Hon nam fyrst kvenna saltara 4 Islandi. Hon var longum um natr at kirkju 4 boenum sinum (ch. 76).” |

These words introduce into the narrative the spirit of humility

| and penitence that was lacking in Porkell Eyjolfsson, and which is to be the controlling factor in Gudrun’s behavior during her final years.

Given that Porkell drowned on Maundy Thursday, Gudrun, who knew the Psalter by heart, could not have failed to see a symbolic significance in his death. Psalm 68, appointed to be sung at Matins (first Nocturn) on that day, begins as follows:

Save me, O God, for the waters have risen up to my

neck. I sink in muddy depths and have no foothold; |

I am swept into deep water, and the flood carries me

away. I am wearied with crying out, my throat is sore, my eyes grow dim while I hope in my God.”

We are told of Guéran that as an old woman she continues her life of penitential grief, and that towards the end of her life, so it is said, she went blind: Nu tekr Gudrun mjok at eldask ok 11f61 vid slika harma,

sem nu var fra sagt um hrid. . . . Gudrun vard gomul kona, ok er pat sogn manna, at hon yr6i sjonlaus. Gudrun andadisk at Helgafelli, ok par hvilir hon (ch. 78).

During the Middle Ages, it was considered possible to be

saved only in the Church. According to Jean Daniélou, the '? “Gudtin became a deeply religious woman, and was the first woman in Ice-

land to learn the Psalter. She would spend long hours in the church at night saying prayers.” 'S Biblia Sacra iuxta Vulgatam versionem, ed. Robert Weber, 3rd emended ed. (Stuttgart, 1983), p. 852: “Salvum me fac Deus quoniam intraverunt aquae

usque ad animam meam. Infixus sum in limum profundi et non est substantia. Veni in altitudines maris et tempestas demersit me. Laboravi clamans, raucae factae sunt fauces meae: defecerunt oculi mei dum spero in Deum meum” (LXX).

384. |

'* “Guértin now began to get very old, and lived in such sorrow as has now been described. . .. Gudrun grew to be very old, and people say she became blind. She died at Helgafell, and lies buried there.”

Liturgical Echoes in Laxdala saga

aphorism “outside the Church there is no salvation” began with St Cyprian: “It is as possible for a man to be saved outside the Church as it was possible to be saved outside the ark of Noah.” St Cyprian here employs the typological connection between

the ark of Noah and the Church. That this connection is not merely commonplace but standard may be inferred from Daniélou’s comment that “St Jerome will merely echo this unanimous tradition when he writes: ‘The ark of Noah was the type of the Church” (PL 23:185A)."° Patristic tradition not only

| identified the Church typologically with the ark, into which the Christian is received at baptism, but saw in the flood a type of the waters of baptism, with their symbolic purging and drown-

ing. The Middle Ages had the authority of Scripture for this belief: “In the ark a few persons, eight in all, were brought to safety through the water. This water prefigured the water of baptism through which you are now brought to safety” (1 Peter

3.20-21).17 |

Medieval orthodox tradition saw the Ark of the Church as sailing on a voyage of pilgrimage,'* and recognized Faith as the force that preserved each pilgrim from shipwreck: “Since Christ

is in each man’s heart by faith, it is signified to us, that the heart of him who forgets his faith is tossed as a ship in this world’s tempest” (in hujus saeculi tempestate).'” The hearts of the baptized faithful are therefore safe from being overwhelmed in '° Jean Daniélou, From Shadows to Reality: Studies in the Biblical Typology of the Fathers, trans. Wulstan Hibberd (London, 1960), p. 98. Elsewhere, Daniélou

quotes Gregory of Elvira: “For as no one escaped from the flood save those who were inside the ark, so also no one will be able to escape the divine judgement save him who is sheltered by the ark of the Catholic Church” (pp. 90-91). 6 Tbid., p. 99.

Biblia Sacra iuxta Vulgatam versionem, ed. Weber, p. 1868: “in diebus Noe cum fabricaretur arca in qua pauci id est octo animae salvae factae sunt per : - aquam. Quod et vos nunc similis formae salvos facit baptisma.” '® Augustine, De civitate Det 15.26, writing of the ark: “Without doubt this is a symbol of the City of God on pilgrimage in this world” (in hoc saeculo). The English translation is from Concerning the City of God: Against the Pagans, by

Henry Bettenson, with an Introduction by David Knowles (Harmondsworth, 1972), p. 643. '" Saint Augustine: Expositions on the Book of Psalms, A Select Library of the Ni-

cene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, First Series 8 (New

| York, 1888; reprint Grand Rapids, 1956), p. 156; the Latin is at PL 36:517. 385

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the storm of this world’s passions. But what of those Christians who, like Porkell and Gudrun, yield to their passions of pride

and jealousy to such an extent that their sins are serious enough to cause them spiritual shipwreck? The Church’s teach-

ing is that penance is the means by which the souls of these people might be rescued from drowning, a point made explicit in the liturgy for Maundy Thursday. The intercessory prayer at

the service of the Reconciliation of Penitents states: “look down upon this thy servant who has been overwhelmed by the hostile tempest of this world” (ab infesta seculi tempestate).“ From the time of St Jerome, penance was referred to as “a second plank after the shipwreck.””' This image was to become so standard

that the Council of Trent was able to declare: “If anyone ... shall say that ... penance is not rightly called a second plank after the shipwreck, let him be anathema.”””

Gudrun, old and blind, in danger of spiritual drowning, | but grieving and penitent, reaffirms her faith by her fasting and praying, and by learning the Psalter. She is later confirmed in her hope of salvation when she is granted what she believes is a “good sign” (géér fyrirburérinn). Her beloved granddaughter,

Herdis Bolladottir, has a dream in which she is visited by an unpleasant-looking old woman. The crone begs Herdis to persuade Gudrun to cease her nocturnal vigils: “Seg bu pat Ommu pinni, at mér hugnar illa vid hana, pvi

at hon broltir allar netr 4 mér ok fellir 4 mik dropa sv heita, at ek brenn af Oll” (ch. 76).

In Guodrtin’s case, her tears are made the instrument through which divine mercy operates to receive her back fully into the Church. The witch protests that the tears scald her: “ek brenn af dll.” The burning out of the devilish from a possessed victim is a recurring motif in narratives of exorcism, and the motif was °° John M. T. Barton, Penance and Absolution, Faith and Fact Books 51 (Lon-

, don, 1961), pp. 71-73.

*' Ibid., p. 47. The first plank is baptism. * Ibid., p. 46.

** “Tell your grandmother I’m very displeased with her, for she tosses about on top of me every night, and lets fall on me such searing drops that ’m burning all over.” 386

Liturgical Echoes in Laxdela saga

certainly known in Iceland, as Thomas D. Hill has pointed out, noting its occurrence in Dorvalds pattr viéforla and Snorri’s Heims-

kringla, as well as here in Laxdela saga.”* A further example is

found in Nekolaus saga Erkibyskups I, chapter 6, where a pos- | sessed man is told by the saint to cross himself: “And when he crossed himself, an unclean spirit was seen departing from him, as though burnt and scorched” (£n er hann signdi stk, pa var senn fara fra bonum obreinn andi sva sem brendr ok svidinn).”” God's “be-

loved friend” (dstvinr) Olafr Tryggvason has the same power to

burn the demonic. In chapter 321 of the “great” saga, two of the king’s retainers one night come across a group of trolls rehearsing the woes they have suffered since Olafr and Christianity arrived together in Norway. One tells how he attempted to

wrestle with the king in order to injure him: | en sa... setti suo fast hendr at sidum mer at mer meztti eigi uerra vid verda poat per hendr hefde uerit geruar 6r gloanda iarnne . .. en po kuomumzst

ek or hondum honum med mikille naud ok miog

brunninn.””

The scalding of the evil crone by Gudrun’s tears is the first of two exorcistic motifs in Laxdela saga. Following the witch’s appearance in Herdis’s dream, and the subsequent exhumation of her skeleton, her bones are “taken far away to a place where people were least likely to pass by” (vdru pau bein ford langt ¢ brott,

par sem sizt var manna vegr). The demonic, having been cast out from the cleansed penitent, is now exiled far from human habt** Thomas D. Hill, “Tormenting the Devil with Boiling Drops: An Apotropaic Motif in the Old English Solomon and Saturn [and Old Norse-Icelandic Literature,” JEGP 92 (1993): 157-66. ” Nikolaus saga Erkibyskups I, ed. C. R. Unger, Hetlagra manna sggur: Fortaellinger og legender om hellige mend og kvinder, 2 vols. (Christiania [Oslo], 1877), vol. 2, p. 28. °° Olafs saga Tryggvasonar in mesta, ed. C. R. Unger and Gudbrandur Vigfusson, Flateyjarbok: En samling af norske konge-sagaer, 3 vols. (Christiania [Oslo],

1860) [hereafter Flat.], vol. 1, p. 399. The speaker is “one of those unclean spirits” (@inn af peim vhreinum ondum). “But he ... grasped my sides so firmly in his hands that it couldn’t have been worse for me though those

hands had been made of red-hot iron. ... I escaped out of his hands, although in great distress, and badly burnt.” 387

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tation, another motif that learned Icelanders would recognize from narratives of exorcism. The following example of the motif is from Andreas saga Postola II.

Pa baud heilagr Andreas dioflunum sva segiandi: “Fari per i purra iord ok pa staéi, sem eingi grodr ma upp vaxa, ok gerit eingum manni mein.”*’

The trolls in the episode referred to above from the “great” saga of Olafr Tryggvason complain that since Olafr arrived in Norway, they have been forced to leave their homes. They are now found living in a cave (Flat. 1.398-99):

hefir hann drepit suma vine uora . . . en ellt oss burt af uorum ziginbygdum ok enn uvist at ver megim her j

nadum uera firir honum j pessi vtlegd.” | The ambition of these trolls is to do people harm (at gera nokhkurum mein: Flat. 1.399; compare the phrase gerit eingum manni mein from Andreas saga above), and they have some success in

| this until they are formally exorcized by the king. Using the | cross, sacred relics and holy water, he finally purges the land of them for good. In the case of Oldafs saga Tryggvasonar, as also in

Laxdela saga, exorcism removes the demonic from the places

where Christians travel:

Eftir pat for Olafr konungr a land med allt hit bezsta lid

sitt ... ok hreinsade med helgum benum ok guds fulltinge allt par er peir foru af ollum uettum ok uhreinum ondum (Flat. 1.400).”° 27 Andreas saga Postola II, ch. 6, ed. C. R. Unger, Postola sogur. Legendariske : fortellinger om apostolernes liv deres kamp for kristendommens udbredelse samt deres

, martyrdgd (Christiania [Oslo], 1874), p. 361. See also the parallel passage in Andreas saga Postola I, ch. 7, ed. Unger, Postola ségur, p. 324. “Then the holy Andreas commanded the devils, saying: “Go into a dry land, to a spot where nothing may grow, and do harm to no one’.” 8 “he has killed some of our friends ... and driven us away from our native dwellings. And it is still uncertain that we will be able to remain here in this

exile in peace, because of him.” |

® “After that King Oldfr went ashore with all his best troops . . . and with holy

prayers and the help of God he cleansed wherever they travelled of all

| 388

ghosts and unclean spirits.”

Liturgical Echoes in Laxdela saga

The author of Laxda@la saga shows his readers three possible human fates: the witch’s bones, eternally exiled far from the

church, represent the fate of the anti-Christian and demonic; the fate of the sinful Christian who dies without absolution is represented by Porkell Eyjolfsson, who silently waits in the churchyard for the invitation to enter the church and be reconciled; and Gudrun, praying in hope within the church at Helgafell, represents the reconciled Christian, who is safe within the bosom of the Universal Church, fully restored to the altar, and therefore symbolically (since “the altar represents Christ”*’) restored to Christ Himself. It had been the exiling of the witch’s bones that had cleared her path to the altar, representing the moment when her penance is rewarded by the throwing to her of “the second plank.”

Laxdela saga closes therefore with the image of an old woman nearing the end of her spiritual voyage through life. On her journey she has experienced four marriages, each of them in different ways, and to differing degrees, spiritually unsatisfactory. She has also known pride and anger, great dangers to her soul’s well-being; and finally, she has suffered spiritual ship-

wreck and the loss of her earlier, unregenerate self. Now reestablished in the ship of the Church, and steered by faith, she continues to live in penitence, grieving for her past sins. Her mingled tears and hope are orthodox, the tears caused by “the remembrance of past sins” (minning lidinna misverka), and by her

| “contemplation of her exile in the wretchedness of this life” (at-hugi ut-legdar sinnar { vesold pessa lifs); on the other hand, she

hopes with “eagerness for her heavenly fosterland, to come there as quickly as possible” (girnd yfirlegrar fostr-iardar at . . . komesc pangat sem sctotast) .”'

* “In dedicatione tempeli. Sermo,” ed. Indrebg, GNH, p. 96: “Altare merkir Crist.”

*! Reasons for weeping are quoted from Vmm tar-melti (“Concerning melting into tears”), ed. Indrebg, GNH, p. 9. This is a section of Cvedtu-sending Alquini diaconi (“The Deacon Alcuin’s Message of Greeting”), the Norse translation of Alcuin’s De virtutibus et vitis liber (PL 101:613-38). The rele-

vant section in the original (§3) is entitled De compunctione cordis (PL 101:621) and reads: “Quatuor sunt qualitates affectionum, quibus cogitatio

justi taedio salubri compungitur, hoc est, memoria praeteritorum facinorum, recordatio futurarum poenarum, consideratio peregrinationis suae 389

Andrew Hamer | In this way, Laxdela saga ends as it had begun: in order to escape from mortal dangers, an old woman, Unnr the DeepMinded, builds a ship for herself and sets sail for a new homeland, Iceland, where she and her dependants may enjoy safety forever. During her voyage, Unnr sets up marriage contracts; her voyage ends in shipwreck, although everything within the ship, lives and cargo, is saved. In Laxdela saga, Unnr’s and other early voyages to Iceland are motivated partly by a reluctance to spend any more time in the familiar, but dangerous, world of Norway, Scotland, and the Orkneys, and partly by faith , in the good reports that have been received of the new land. Bjorn ok Helgi vildu til [slands fara, pvi at peir pdttusk badan mart fysiligt fregnt hafa; sogdu par landskosti g66a, ok purfti ekki f¢ at kaupa; kéllu6u vera hvalrétt mikinn ok Jaxveidar, en fiskast66 Ollum missarum (ch. 2).”*

The obvious difference between the journeys made by Unnr and Gudrun is that Unnr’s is a material voyage, while Gudrun’s is a spiritual pilgrimage. In Unnr’s case, the shipwreck is actual, but everyone survives, so that the dynasty might enjoy the relative safety of Iceland in perpetuity. Gudrun’s is a spiritual shipwreck, which drowns the sinful part of her, but leaves the real treasure, her soul, intact and hopeful of eternal safety.

: At the end of her life, Unnr, in accordance with pagan ritual, is given a second vessel, in which to make the voyage into eternity: Var nu drukkit . . . erfi Unnar. Ok inn sidasta dag bodsins var Unnr flute til haugs pess, er henni var buinn; hon var log6 i skip i hauginum, ok mikit fé var { haug lagt med henni; var eptir pat aptr kastaér haugrinn (ch. 7).

Guoértin, on the other hand, has no need of such material treasures with her on her final voyage; as a penitent Christian in hujus vitae miseria, desiderium supernae patriae, quatenus ad eam quantocius valeat pervenire.”

* “Bjorn and Helgi wanted to go to Iceland, for they claimed to have heard

, tempting reports of it; they said that there was excellent land there to be had for the taking, with an abundance of stranded whales and plenty of salmon, and good fishing-grounds all the year round.” 390

Liturgical Echoes in Laxdela saga

— ever since she was thrown “the second plank” — she has had

no concern with worldly pleasures, nor indeed with worldly cares. Unnr’s final acts discharge her last material responsibilities. She arranges the marriage of her grandson, and settles as

far as possible the future welfare of her estate, by handing it over to him at his wedding feast. Gudrun’s final concerns, on the other hand, are penitential, and for the ordering of her spiritual affairs. Her need is to ensure as far as possible the fu_ ture welfare of her soul, in the hope that, having sailed to her last destination in the ship of the Church, she too might celebrate, at the hour of her death, one final marriage feast. For the nun, the consecrated virgin, as much as for the celibate widow, carnal pleasures yield place to the betrothal of a spiritual marriage with Christ which will be celebrated through eternity.’ Gudrtin is both widow and nun, and would have been consecrated as the latter in a ceremony that was “in several respects like a wedding. A ring was put on the candidate’s finger and a wedding crown on her head. One of the responses which

she had to make ran: ‘I love Christ into whose bed I have entered.’”” Augustine points out that Christ has always been the spiritual husband of these widows, members as they are of His bride, the Church: “In reality, He was their Spouse, not carnally but spiritually, when they were still subject to their husbands in obedience and fidelity. The Church itself, of which they are members, is likewise His Bride.”” And he urges the widow Juliana, and her daughter Demetrias, a nun, to: “Strive faith-

fully, therefore, to please and to unite youselves to that King | who has desired the beauty of his unique Spouse (viz. the Church) of which you are the members.””” *3 See, for example, Alfred C. Rush, “Death as Spiritual Marriage: Individual and Ecclesial Eschatology,” Vigtliae Christtanae 26 (1972): 81-101.

“ G. Rattray Taylor, Sex in History, 2nd ed. (London, 1959), p. 42, where the

reference is to the medieval ceremony. ,

“ Augustine, De bono viduitatis, quotations here are from the English translation “The Excellence of Widowhood,” in Saint Augustine: Treatises on Various Subjects, trans. Mary Sarah Muldowny et al., ed. Roy J. Deferrari, The Fathers

of the Church: A New Translation 16 (Washington, DC, 1952; reprint 1981), pp. 265-319, at 294.

“” Tbid., p. 310. Elsewhere, Augustine states that in her acceptance of the veil

when preparations were being made for her marriage, Demetrias had shown that she preferred a spiritual embrace to that of a man (“nuptiis iam 391

Andrew Hamer

When the young Gudrun had dreamed of two coverings for her head (a headdress and a gold helmet) and two rings / bracelets, Gestr Oddleifsson, who had the gift of prophecy, had explained these images to her as symbols of her four future husbands (ch. 33). His prophetic interpretations of her dreams had prompted her bleak comment, “Yet it’s a grave thought, if all this is to come to pass” (En mikit er til at byggja, ef petta allt skal

eptir ganga). The author of Laxde@la saga implicitly returns to

these former symbols of Gudrun’s future husbands when he tells of her becoming a nun and anchoress. The humble veil covering her head, and Christ’s ring on her finger, are prophetic symbols of her future marriage, flawless and eternal, to Christ as a member of His Church.

Where does all this leave Porgils Gellisson, the father of Ari the Learned, whose death marks the closing words of Laxdela saga? The author devotes the twenty or so lines between the notices of the deaths of Gudrtin and Porgils (ch. 78) to a sketched outline of the life of Gellir Porkelsson, son of the

former and father of the latter: “many remarkable things are

| told of him. He plays a part in many other sagas, although very | little is said of him here” (er mart merkiligt frd honum sagt, bann kemr ok vid margar sogur, pott hans sé hér litt getit). But the author

does tell us two things: that Gellir died while on his way home from a pilgrimage to Rome, having received the last rites, and

that “he had a very distinguished church built at Helgafell” (Hann lét gera kirkju at Helgafellt virduliga mjok). We therefore have

cause to be hopeful that Porgils was granted an eternal home.

paratis sancta Demetrias spiritualem sponsi illius praeferret amplexum”): Ibid., p. 270 n. 17. 392

Noble Counsel, No Counsel: Advising Ethelred the Unready ALICE SHEPPARD

RATHER seeking to some furtherrecent reduce or restore reputation of than Ethelred II, as studies havethe done, this

, essay begins with manuscript and paleographical evidence that

| suggests a single chronicler, working either at the end of Ethelred’s reign or at the beginning of Cnut’s, composed the Ethelred annals as a unified narrative.’ This unity, the chronicler’s retrospective analysis, and the political climate of the period complicate the traditional understanding of the Ethelred annals as the story of an unred king.” The Anglo-Saxon chronicler claims that Ethelred loses his kingdom because of poor policy: “Ealle pas ungeszlda us gelumpon purh unredes” (“All these miseries

happened to us because of poor policy”).” Yet both the chroni' For a full account of Ethelred’s reputation, its development and treatment, see Simon Keynes, “The Declining Reputation of King Athelred the Unready,” in Ethelred the Unready: Papers from the Millenary Conference, ed. David Hill, BAR British Series 59 (Oxford, 1978), pp. 227-53.

2 | quote from the C manuscript of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ed. Charles Plummer, Two of the Saxon Chronicles Parallel, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1892-99) [hereafter ASC], vol. 1, p. 122. Plummer (vol. 1, p. 166) notes changes in handwriting in the entry for 978 (the year of Edward’s death and Ethelred’s accession) and again in that for 1041. Other comments on the handwriting of manuscript C may be found in M. K. Lawson, Cnut: The Danes in England in the Early Eleventh Century (London and New York, 1993), pp. 5055; and Keynes, “The Declining Reputation,” pp. 227-53, especially 229-31. Keynes recounts stylistic and verbal evidence that suggests a single author, but he also remarks (at p. 245 n. 19) upon a stylistic break in the entry for 1017. Keynes goes so far as to suggest 1016-17 as a plausible date (p. 245 n.

19) and London as a place of origin (p. 232). Keynes draws greatly on Cecily Clark, “The Narrative Mode of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle before the Conquest,” in England Before the Conquest: Studies in Primary Sources Presented

to Dorothy Whitelock, ed. Peter Clemoes and Kathleen Hughes (Cambridge, | 1971), pp. 215-35, reprinted in Words, Names and History: Selected Writings of Cecily Clark, ed. Peter Jackson (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 3-19. ,

| 393

* ASC, I, 141.

Alice Sheppard

cler’s language and the annals themselves identify Ethelred’s poor relations with members of his nobility — that is, his lordship relations, not his kingship or diplomatic skills — as the chronicler’s principal grievance.’ In this context, the narrative of Ethelred’s military and diplomatic weakness becomes a screen across which the chronicler projects a discussion of lordship and sociopolitical order. As articulated in the works of A‘lfric and Wulfstan, ecclesi-

astical philosophies of consensual kingship provide a solid |

framework for understanding the connections between kingship and sociopolitical order. The chronicler discards these approaches, however, implying that kingship with its focus on government is insufficiently powerful to reinforce the fraying

: political and social fabric of Ethelred’s kingdom. In contrast, the heroic ethos promotes a mutual and personal lordship | which because of its moral, social, and political dimensions frequently serves to secure order on a variety of levels. Seeking to affirm what he perceives as a weakened bond between lord and

man, the Anglo-Saxon chronicler brings the ethics and language of Germanic heroic poetry to bear on his account of Ethelred’s reign. This is not to suggest, however, that the chronicler literally thought adopting the heroic ethos would relieve Ethelred’s difficulties. Rather, the return to the heroic _ forms part of the chronicler’s rhetorical strategy to create political and social unity among his readers from their shared understanding of the relations between lord and man.

Identifying common ground among members of the chronicler’s audience is, however, not easy. There are no formal indications that the Ethelred annals were issued directly

* The distinction between lordship and kingship is key. Although this essay will consider contemporary notions of kingship, it will ultimately suggest that theories of kingship conflict with ideas of heroic lordship. In this respect, my approach differs from that of W. G. Busse and R. Holtei, “Beowulf and the Tenth Century,” Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 63 (1981): 285329, who read Beowulf as relevant to the tenth century by comparing ideals of kingship in the poem with the events of Ethelred’s reign. 394

Noble Counsel, No Counsel: Advising Ethelred

from Cnut’s court; most of the chronicler’s readers would therefore have been monks or members of the Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian aristocracies. These nobles, in view of the recent conquest, had no tradition of working or even existing together; they were therefore less likely to read a history of Anglo-Saxon England in the same way. Susan Reynolds explores this diversity in readership, arguing that chronicles relating the history of a country were less likely to be understood as simple national histories.” Rather, perceiving how ideals buried in narratives of the past can be used both to explain present circum-

stances and to shape future relationships, these diverse communities interpret historical texts as works which unify and

affirm their group identity.” Thus when the Anglo-Saxon chronicler asks his readers to re-imagine the events of the recent past bearing in mind concepts of heroic lordship, he asks them to locate in the ideals of a literary heritage common to Dane and Anglo-Saxon both the foundations of a larger political and social order and the basis for a smaller aristocratic community. From this point of view, the Ethelred annals serve as a retrospective critique of Ethelred’s reign and, more significantly, as a forward-looking foundation narrative, a narrative of kingdom-making for Cnut. The virtually contemporary work of A‘thelweard provides a

context for the claim that narratives of the past facilitate the building of community in the present.’ Drawing primarily on

the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, thelweard wrote a Latin history of |

his country from the Creation to the death of Edgar.” In the > For this discussion of the relationships between kingdom, community, law, tradition, identity, and historical narrative, I draw on Susan Reynolds, Kingdoms and Communities in Western Europe, 900-1300 (Oxford, 1984); and Rey-

nolds, “Medieval Ongines Gentium and the Community of the Realm,” History 68 (1983): 295-309. ° Tbid.; and Amy G. Remensnyder, Remembering Kings Past: Monastic Foundation Legends in Medzeval Southern France (Ithaca, NY, 1995), pp. 1-15. ” All quotations (including translations) are from The Chronicle of A:thelweard,

ed. and trans. A. Campbell (London, 1962). Atthelweard’s presence is recorded in the ASC entry for 994 when he brings Olaf to Ethelred; he is also mentioned in the Danish-Anglo-Saxon peace treaty of that time (Campbell, p. xiv).

* For a study of some of the relations between historical narrative and conquest, see Pauline Stafford, Unification and Conquest: A Political and Social 395

Alice Sheppard ©

dedication to Matilda, his cousin, Athelweard offers the text as

a “clearer exposition” of “what is known of [their] common family and also about the migration of [their] nation.”” Noting that Matilda will find “by way of example so many wars and slay-

ings of men and no small wreck of navies on the waves of the ocean, especially with reference to the arrival of [their] ancestors in Britain from Germany,” Athelweard seeks to “dwell in plain style upon [their] family in modern times and upon the re-affirmation of [their] relationship.”'” He proceeds with a genealogy that connects Matilda to King Alfred of Wessex and concludes by asking her to “bring information (about the family) to [his] ears, for [she has] not only the family connection

but the capacity... .”'' Just as translating the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle brought him closer to Matilda, so Matilda’s own historical inquiries will bring her (and eventually A‘thelweard) closer to the more distant members of their family, in turn re-

uniting these relatives with Athelweard and Matilda.

But Athelweard does not conceive of history simply as a means of strengthening the bond between members of his family. From reading the moral exempla in the battles of the past, Ethelweard expects Matilda to be able to interpret her society more fully. Understanding the influence of her family in the ~ past, she will be able to perceive her family’s importance in the present. For Athelweard, therefore, historical narrative creates an identity for his family by tracing its importance in national history; it builds community among the living members of that History of England in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries (London and New York,

1989), pp. 3-17.

” Chronicle of Athelweard, ed. Campbell, p. 1: “De notitia equidem communis prosapiae, generis quoque et migratione, ut ante breuiter per epistolam in-

sinuauimus tibi, nunc cooperante deo ab ipsius principio mundi annalem

sumentes ritum, dilucidius explicare oportet. .. .” | ' Ibid.: “Quin etiam de priscorum aduentu parentum a Germania in Brittaniam, tot bella, tot caedes uirorum, classiumque periclitationem gurgite oceani non paruam, in subpositis paginulis facilius inuenire potes exemplar. Ergo prosapia de moderna et de iteratione propinquitatis nostrae in presenti epistola sine nexilitate exorno, qui et quomodo et unde propinqui... .” ' Tbid., p. 2: “[SJed uestrum hoc opus est innotescere auribus nostris, quae non solum affinitate sed et potestate uideris obpleta, nulla intercapedine prohibente.” 396

Noble Counsel, No Counsel: Advising Ethelred

family by affirming their connection to their lineage. Yet the power of historical writing need not be limited to the smaller group of a family. Analogically, the Ethelred annals appear to operate for the community of Cnut’s aristocrats in the same ways in which A‘thelweard’s Chronicle functions for his family.

Just as Aithelweard’s work grants Matilda (and also his larger audience) a means of understanding the present through the past, so the chronicler offers his readership a means of understanding the culture of Anglo-Scandinavian England through a

, retrospective account of the Conquest. Just as A‘thelweard’s Chronicle builds a unifying identity for his family, so the AngloSaxon chronicler’s account of Ethelred’s reign builds a unifying

identity for Cnut’s nobles and the conquered Anglo-Saxons.

| From the perspective of the chronicler’s aristocratic readers, then, the terms under which Ethelred can be judged a poor lord are central to the creation of the community of Cnut’s

kingdom. |

| The conventional understanding of the reign of Ethelred II derives from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle entry for the year 1011.

The chronicler opens with a report of the year’s events: after the Vikings overran eleven counties, the king and his council

negotiated peace. Then, departing from his narrative, the

chronicler asserts, “Ealle pas ungeszl6a us gelumpon purh unredes”

(“All these miseries happened to us because of poor policy”).’”

Recognizing the irony of a king named A‘thelred or “noble

counsel” being denounced for his unred (“lack of counsel”), many scholars have allowed the chronicler’s claim to become the prism through which they view Ethelred’s reign.'” Generally, the broader events of the Ethelred annals support such a

reading. In the entries for the years preceding 1011, the chronicler records a variety of reactions to the Viking raids: no military response (980, 981, 982, 988, 9977); defeat (991 — Mal-

don, 999, 1001, 1004 — Thetford, 1006 — Kennet, 1010); a military response hampered by treachery (992 — Alfric, 993 — Frena, Godwine, and Frythegyst, 998 — no specified leader, 1003 — A‘lfric again, 1009 — Wulfnoth, 1010 — no leader would collect an army, “Thurcetel Mare’s Head led a flight”); * ASC, vol. 1, p. 141.

18 Again, Keynes, “The Declining Reputation,” provides a full account of how scholarship has treated the problem of Ethelred’s reputation. 397

Alice Sheppard , | military responses hindered by poor organization (999 — king and witan, 1010 — king and witan); peace negotiations or tribute (994 — Olaf’s baptism, 1002 — king and witan, 1006 —

king and witan, 1007, 1009). Under this schema, Ethelred’s weakness is easily attributed to unredas.

Yet by focusing on the word unred, these scholars fail to take into account the full complexity of the chronicler’s claim: “Ealle bas ungesalda us gelumpon purh unrades. bet mann nolde him to timan gafol bedan oppe wid gefeohtan” (“All these miseries hap-

pened to us because of poor policy, namely that at the appropriate time we wanted neither to offer them tribute nor to fight | against them”).'* Its obvious rhetorical power aside, the chronicler’s statement is clear as far as unredes, but ambiguous when read in full.’ If we translate bet in an explanatory sense, e.g. as

, “namely,” the chronicler implies that the king and his council-

| ors saw and pursued only two courses of resistance: buying peace and fighting for peace. He does not say that either is intrinsically wrong, only that the wrong strategy is followed at the wrong time. In this case, an argument that “policy” alone lies behind Ethelred’s weakness is sustainable.

| The narrative content of the annals themselves, however, reveals the weakness of this reading. Although the chronicler lists the major events of each year, he does not place them in the political and social contexts that would concisely support the conclusion that policy lies behind the king’s weakness.”° '4 ASC, vol. 1, p. 141 (still reading from the C manuscript). Only manuscript

, C offers the choice odde wid gefeohtan, and in thus suggesting a lack of sapzentia and fortitudo adds a heroic note, important for my reading as a whole, to

the chronicler’s complaint. On this topos in Old English, see Robert E. Kaske, “Sapientia et Fortitudo as the Controlling Theme of Beowulf,” SP 60 (1958): 423-56, reprinted in An Anthology of Beowulf Criticism, ed. Lewis E. Nicholson (Notre Dame, IN, 1963), pp. 269-310; and Pedro Gonzalo Abascal and Antonio Bravo Garcia, “Sapientia et Fortitudo in the Anglo-Saxon Epic Heroes and in Ifric’s English Saints,” SELIM 3 (1993): 72-102. A paper by Thomas D. Hill on “The Crowning of Alfred and the Topos of Fort tudo and Sapientia in Asser’s Life of Alfred’ (Neophilologus, forthcoming)

explores how this topos both structures Asser’s text and marks Alfred’s journey to legitimate kingship. '> I am indebted to Professor Wayne Harbert of Cornell University for a private conversation concerning the translation of this sentence. '© The following brief sketch of Ethelred’s reign is drawn from my reading of four essays on different aspects of Ethelred’s rule: Robin Fleming, Kings 398

Noble Counsel, No Counsel: Advising Ethelred

During the 980s, for example, the annals have two primary : themes: notices of Viking raids and ecclesiastical appointments or deaths. The annal for 986, in which the chronicler states that | the crops were blighted and that Ethelred destroyed the diocese of Rochester, forms the only exception to this pattern. De-

spite a flurry of activity at court as Ethelred, a young king, | recovered from a succession crisis and secured his place on the throne, the chronicler does not explain how the appointments or the raid on Rochester — which Simon Keynes has analyzed as the result of animosity between the king and A‘lfstan bishop of Rochester — related to the king’s political position."” In the 990s, the chronicler weaves into his narrative brief

notices of royal and civil appointments, punishments for certain noblemen, treachery on the part of others, tribute pay-

ments, and the negotiations that resulted in a cessation of

hostilities between Olaf and the king.'” Although he concedes Ethelred’s success in removing the threat of Olaf, the chronicler again does not explain how the events of these years af-

fected either life at court or the country in general. In his

account of the early 1000s, furthermore, while noting signs of disruption among Ethelred’s nobility, treachery, the king’s retribution, and still more new appointments, the chronicler does not discuss how the interactions of these events may have altered the king’s ability to respond to the raiders. Thus focusing only on the raids and, as he does so, highlighting the absence and Lords in Conquest England (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 3-52, provides an | analysis of the alliances among members of the aristocracy and king that were sealed by obligations of kinship and landholding and traces their demise in the reign of Cnut; Simon Keynes, The Diplomas of King 4thelred “the Unready,” 978-1016 (Cambridge, 1980), pp. 163-231, focuses on diplomatic

activity and social context; Simon Keynes, “The Historical Context of the Battle of Maldon,” in The Battle of Maldon, AD 991, ed. Donald Scragg (Cambridge, MA, and Oxford, 1991), pp. 81-113, provides an overview of the reign, centering on the Battle of Maldon; and Pauline Stafford, “The Reign of Athelred II: A Study in the Limitations of Royal Policy and Action,” in Ethelred the Unready, ed. Hill, pp. 15-46, focuses on the king’s political responses to key events and the political and social context in which the king worked. '” Keynes, The Diplomas, p. 178. Keynes suggests (p. 174) that Ethelred would have been about twelve years old upon accession.

'’ The text of the treaty is edited by Keynes, “The Historical Context,” pp. 104-7.

399

Alice Sheppard

of a decisive response from the king, the chronicler persuasively portrays Ethelred as an ineffective king. Nonetheless, he does not explicitly attribute this weakness to “thelred’s policy.

| A brief consideration of the narrative the chronicler chooses to omit — the history of Ethelred’s attempts to halt the Viking raids through diplomatic means — underscores the idea that this picture of Ethelred’s political incompetence is a deliberate construction.’”” In 991, for example, the king drew up a

treaty with Richard duke of Normandy, dissolving hostilities between Anglo-Saxon England and Normandy and stating that neither would use their land as a base for Viking operations. He

strengthened this agreement by marrying Emma, Richard’s sis- . ter, in 1002. The chronicler mentions Emma’s arrival in England, but he does not discuss the treaty or the significance of the king’s marriage. In the early 990s, Ethelred continued to

| advance and promote new families and change the environment of his court; desiring to tighten his control over his king-

dom, he appointed three new ealdormen.” These appoint-

ments, too, are missing from the annals. In 1000, the chronicler offers his readers an account of the

' king’s punishing raid on Cumberland, but this was less another incident of royal injustice than an effort to discipline those in Strathclyde and the Isle of Man who in the past had helped the Viking raiders from Dublin.”) Between 1002 and 1006, the problem of coordinating the defense of his realm led Ethelred to appoint Ulfcytel to East Anglia and Uhtred of Bamborough to the northern regions.” Again in an effort to organize the safety of a particularly troubled region, Ethelred in 1007 reversed a twenty-year-old policy of dividing the responsibility for Mercia, placing it all under Ealdorman Eadric’s control. He

16. . ,

pledged his daughters in marriage for the loyalty of these " For an account of Ethelred’s “viking policy,” see Theodore M. Andersson, “The Viking Policy of Ethelred the Unready,” Scandinavian Studies 59 (1987): 284-95, reprinted with a response by Phyllis R. Brown in AngloScandinavian England: Norse-English Relations in the Period before the Conquest,

ed. John D. Niles and Mark Amodio (New York and London, 1989), pp. 13*” Keynes, The Diplomas, pp. 186-201; Stafford, “The Reign,” p. 29. | *! Keynes, “The Historical Context,” p. 93; Stafford, “The Reign,” p. 30.

, | 400

22 Unlike the other men, however, Ulfcytel seems not to have held the rank of ealdorman.

Noble Counsel, No Counsel: Advising Ethelred

| men.” But even though in the tenth and eleventh centuries marriages of princesses to nobles are rare, the chronicler, taking these appointments and marriages out of their political and social contexts, ignores Ethelred’s attempts to use politics to secure his ealdormen’s loyalty and therewith the defense of his kingdom.” All claims to the contrary, therefore, policy is neither the single cause of Ethelred’s many defeats nor the explicit

focus of the chronicler’s narrative. , In 1011, however, the chronicler claims, “Ealle pas

ungeszléa us gelumpon purh unredes. pat mann nolde him to timan

| gafol bedan opbe wid gefeohtan” (“All these miseries happened to us because of poor policy, namely that at the appropriate time we wanted neither to offer them tribute nor to fight against them”).”’ If instead of translating pet as “namely,” we take it to mean “with the result that,” the new translation suggests that the chronicler separates the unredas or “policies” from the strategies of fighting and paying tribute: the king and his council devised a number of ways of dealing with the invaders, but they were deemed unred (“poor”). This left them to choose between fighting and negotiating, but they did not want (mann nolde) to carry out either of these strategies at the opportune moment.” That the council should not want to carry out the king’s wishes points to a division between king and witan and ** Later annals of the ASC reveal that Ethelred’s trust was misplaced; even Cnut, though he at first appointed him to Mercia, distrusted Eadric. On the other hand, Uhtrzd was so loyal to Ethelred that Cnut was not able to gain his surrender. Fleming, Kings, p. 34, citing the author of De obsessione Dunelm, translates Uhtrzed’s response as follows: “I shall serve King /thelred faithfully as long as he shall live. He is my lord and also my father-in-law, by

whose gift I have riches and honor enough. I will never betray him” (emphasis by Fleming). As indicated later in this essay, the personal tie Uhtraed feels to Ethelred is rare. Ulfcytel’s relationship to his king is the subject of later discussion in this essay. ** For more on the lives of these women and other Anglo-Saxon women who made political marriages, see Pauline Stafford, “The King’s Wife in Wessex, 800-1066,” Past and Present 91 (1981): 3-27. » ASC, vol. 1, p. 141. *® Interestingly enough, such an interpretation implies that, as the chroniclers

in Alfred’s reign suggest, tribute is an appropriate strategy if it is a policy that both king and witan approve. This reading runs counter to interpretations of these annals which locate the chronicler’s disgust in the payment of tribute. 401

Alice Sheppard

thus to a weakness in the king’s relationship to his advisors.

When in 1014 the witan recall Ethelred from exile, the

chronicler describes their reasoning clearly: “him nan leofre hlaford nere ponne heora gecynda hlaford. gif he rihtlicor healdan wolde

bonne he er dyde” (“no other lord was dearer to them than their

born lord, if he ruled more justly than he had before”).?’ In response, Ethelred promises “pat he heom hold hlaford beon wolde. 3 alc pzra pinga betan pe hi ealle ascunudon. 4 zlc pera pinga forgifan beon sceolde pe hi{m] gedon 06de gecweden ware. wid pam

be hi ealle anredlice buton swicdome to him gecyrdon” (“that he

would be a loyal lord to them, and make amends for all the things that they all hated, and that all the things that had been done or said against him would be forgiven, provided that they all turned to him resolutely without any betrayal”).* In this account of Ethelred’s misfortunes, the chronicler explicitly ascribes the king’s weakness not to any unred (poor policy or lack of counsel), but to a lack of loyalty between king and people; neither is faithful to the other. The chronicler thus implies not that Ethelred pursues poor policy but that he is unable to sustain productive relationships with those around him. In other words, Ethelred’s primary fault lies in his relations with his nobles.

| For the chronicler, Ethelred’s lordship is doomed from the start. Recounting how the king came to the throne, the

chronicler explicitly connects Ethelred’s consecration in 979 to a traditional symbol of doom manifested at first in the shape of a comet; the Anglo-Saxons’ doom is then realized in their vul-

nerability to the Viking invasions. The chronicler allows the first raids (980 and 981) to pass without comment. On the occasion of the third attack in 982, however, he turns from his sketch of the Anglo-Saxons’ defenselessness to continental

| European history. In 982, the emperor, Otto, made an expedition to Southern Italy where he joined battle against an army of Saracens, who came, like the Vikings, from the sea and desired, like the Vikings, to plunder Christian shores. Drawing an unfa*” ASC, vol. 1, p. 145. Although I have translated gecynda as “born,” it can also have the sense of family relationship. The familial dimension of the heroic relationship between lord and man is discussed more fully below. ** Ibid.

402

Noble Counsel, No Counsel: Advising Ethelred

vorable comparison between Otto and Ethelred, the chronicler remarks that Otto, despite being weakened, engages the invaders in battle and heroically wins the field. Though uplifting, this account of Otto’s military prowess is

less than accurate. Otto did mount such an attack, but it was not in response to raiders, as the chronicler suggests; rather the Saracens enjoyed the support of a Byzantine court that preferred Saracen to Western control of Southern Italy.” Furthermore, Otto was not victorious; he suffered a humiliating defeat and seems only just to have escaped with his life. Yet the

chronicler continues, constructing a genealogy that links Otto | to Edward the Elder and ultimately to Ethelred himself. This connection further condemns Ethelred: earlier annals of the Chronicle credit Edward with uniting the kingdom and winning the submission of the Danes who had settled in his land. Thus establishing Otto’s membership in the West Saxon ruling dynasty, a family with a tradition of victories against the Vikings, and therewith contrasting Otto’s and Ethelred’s responses to the assaults on their people, the chronicler implies that Ethelred’s inaction has betrayed his people, his lineage, and his of-

fice.” He implies, furthermore, that Ethelred’s physical presence on the battlefield would improve his lordship relations.

Within the chronicler’s narrative, such a solution seems acceptable. If the Anglo-Saxons could put the invaders to flight,

they might prevent future raids. But if fighting is the primary means of sustaining the relationship between lord and man, it also constructs a view of lordship that conflicts with contemporary ecclesiastical philosophies of kingship. In the governmental theory articulated by figures like Afric and Wulfstan, it is not clear that the king was free to fight. With the exceptions of Wulfstan’s Institutes of Polity and A‘lfric’s translation of the Pseudo-Cyprian De duodecom abusivis saeculi, there are no extant ” For a more detailed account of the problems of this annal, see Plummer’s note in ASC, vol. 2, p. 169.

” The chronicler thus draws on standard views of kingship as a regulated office, on which see Janet Bately, “Kingship and Empire,” in Carolingian Culture: Emulation and Innovation, ed. Rosamond McKitterick (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 52-88. 403

Alice Sheppard

vernacular treatises on government and kingship.” Instead, late tenth- and early eleventh-century discussions of kingship can be found in a wide variety of texts, including homilies, laws, pastoral epistles, and heroic poetry.” This generic variety results in a pluralistic understanding of kingship; nonetheless, many of

these texts share an explicit expectation that government

should be shared and that its burdens — spiritual, military, and political — would then be divided among a king and his coun-

cilors. In his homily on the Maccabees, for example, A‘lfric invokes three social estates or classes, the laboratores, oratores, and _ bella-

tores. those who work, those who pray, and those who fight.” The same distinction can also be found in his pastoral letter to Wulfstan bishop of York and again in the Letter to Sigeweard, which prefaces his translation of the Old English Heptateuch.™ Building on this principle, Wulfstan uses his legalistic [nstetutes of Polity to discuss the duties of all classes of men, including the ©

king.’ He declares, quoting Alfric almost verbatim, “purh unwisne cyning folc wyrd geyrmed for oft, nes ene, for his misrede. ‘1 Alfric, De octo vitiis et duodecim abusivis saeculi, ed. Richard Morris, Old Eng-

. lish Homilies and Homiletic Treatises . . . of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries, EETS OS 29, 34 (London, 1868; reprint 1969), pp. 296-304; PseudoCyprian, De duodecim abusivis saecul, ed. S. Hellmann, Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur 34 (Leipzig, 1909), pp. 1-62; Wulfstan, Die “Institutes of Polity, Civil and Ecclesiastical”: Ein Werk Erzbischof Wulfstans von York, ed. Karl Jost, Schweizer Anglistische Arbeiten 47 (Bern, 1959).

* For a general understanding of the relationship between Church and society, see Pauline Stafford, “Church and Society in the Age of Alfric,” in The Old English Homily & Its Backgrounds, ed. Paul E. Szarmach and Bernard F.

| Huppé (Albany, NY, 1978), pp. 11-42.

33 Elfric, Passio Machabeorum, ed. W. W. Skeat, Alfric’s Lives of Saints, EETS OS

76, 82, 94, 114 (London, 1881-1900; reprinted in 2 vols., Oxford, 1966), vol. 2, pp. 120-22, lines 812-18. The motif is studied more fully by Georges Duby, The Three Orders: Feudal Society Imagined, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (Chicago, IL, and London, 1982); and Timothy Powell, “The “Three Orders’ of Society in Anglo-Saxon England,” ASE 23 (1994): 103-32. “4 HElfric, Letter to Sigeweard, ed. S. J. Crawford, The Old English Version of the Heptateuch, A:lfric’s Treatise on the Old and New Testament and His Preface to Genesis, EETS OS 160 (London, 1922; reprint 1990), pp. 71-72, lines 120720. For the letter, see Powell, “The “Three Orders’ of Society,” p. 112. * Wulfstan, I Polity 24-29 and II Polity 31-36, ed. Jost, pp. 55-56, repeats these distinctions.

404

Noble Counsel, No Counsel: Advising Ethelred

burh cynincges wisdom folc wyrd gesalig and gesundful and sigefest”

(“The people are made miserable very often by a foolish king, not just once, because of his misguidance. Through a king’s wisdom, the people are blessed, prosperous, and victorious”) .”° In other words, both the people’s welfare and their success depend on the king’s ability to protect them through his wisdom, not his military skill. Thus in the theoretical world of #lfric and

Wulfstan, social and political order are maintained when all military undertakings are left for the warrior class, while the king, working in conjunction with his councilors, focuses on civil and ecclesiastical matters.*”

Even when the problem of the Viking invaders enters the king’s administrative realm, A‘lfric and Wulfstan insist that the king retain his advising role; he should be guided by his council, even as he advises others. In his homily Post Ascensionem Domini, Alfric stresses the mutual and public relationship between king and councilors. Just as it is the witan’s duty not to hide their red, “bes behofad se cyning pet he clypige to his witum, /and be heora rede, na be rununge fare” (“it behooves the king to

embrace his wise men and act according to their counsel, not according to whispering”). In the letter prefacing his translation of the New Testament, A‘lfric, discussing ways of coping with the evil of the sixth age of the world, advises the witan “[to] “ Wulfstan, I Polity 13-14, ed. Jost, p. 47. The quote is taken from Afric, Feria Secunda. Letania Maiore (CH I1.19), ed. Malcolm Godden, £lfric’s Catholic Homilies. The Second Senes. Text, EETS SS 5 (Oxford, 1979), p. 183: “Det folc bid geselig purh snoterne cyning. sigefest. and gesundful. Surh gesceadwisne reccend; And hi beod geyrmede durh unwisne cyning. on manegum ungelimpum. for

his misrede” (“The people are blessed in a wise king, victorious and pros- ©

perous through a discriminating ruler. And they are made miserable on many occasions by a foolish king, because of his misguidance”). 37 The distinction between theory and practice is crucial. Even Alfred, who is remembered as a “wise” king and a good warrior, would not have been able

to pursue his studies if he had not been an effective soldier. This suggests

that the ideas of leadership articulated in monastic communities differ from those popular in aristocratic communities; it further explains why Ethelred may not have been so popular with his men. I am grateful to Professor Paul Hyams of Cornell University for this insight. “’ FElfric, Dominica post Ascensionem Domini, ed. J. C. Pope, Homilies of 4lfric: A Supplementary Collection, 2 vols., EETS OS 259, 260 (London, 1967-68), vol.

1, p. 380, lines 46-47. 405

Alice Sheppard | smeagan mid wislicum gebeahte, bonne on mancinne to micel yfel bid, hwilc pera stelenna pes cinestoles were tobrocen, 7 betan pone sona”

(“in times when there is too much evil among mankind, to con-

sider with wise thoughts the pillar of the throne which is broken and mend it immediately”). For Alfric, the best way to support the throne, the symbol of social and political order, is to enforce the division of labor explained in the three estates. fElfric expresses this position more extremely in his Wyrd-

- writeras fragment, where he cites a number of texts and Christian examples to argue that, like King David, the king should share authority: “for pan de an man ne mag eghwar beon, and etsomne / ealle ping aberan, peah de he anweald hebbe” (“for one man

cannot be everywhere and bear everything at once, even though he has authority”).*” He should, like David, stay away

from the battlefield lest he weaken his country by not being available to take care of other business. A‘lfric is quite explicit on this point. David’s thegns turn to him, saying “Ne scealt du nzfre heonon ford / mid us to gefeohte, pinum feore to plyhte, / belaste pu adweesce Israhela leohtfet: — / pet wes Dauid him sylf be

6am de hi sedon swa” (“You shall never henceforth/go with us to

battle, to endanger your life / lest you extinguish the light of Israel: — / that was David himself about whom they spoke so”)."1 The importance of the king’s administrative role is stressed again in Wulfstan’s Institutes of Polity, where Wulfstan, drawing on Sedulius Scottus’s De rectoribus christianis, a central text in the mirrors for princes genre, lists both the eight pillars which support just kingship and the ideal qualities and traits of

a good king; not one is explicitly military.” Given that these expressions of Anglo-Saxon kingship clearly suggest that the king should not fight, the chronicler, despite the thrust of his © Elfric, Letter to Sigeweard, ed. Crawford, Heptateuch, pp. 71-72, lines 1204-20. ” £lfric, Wyrdwriteras, ed Pope, Homilies of £lfric, vol. 2, p. 728, lines 45.

* Ibid., vol. 2, p. 730, lines 47-50. For an explanation of the traditional typo-

logical interpretation of David and other exemplary kings, see Hans Hubert Anton, Furstensptegel und Herrscherethos in der Karolingerzeit, Bonner Historische Forschungen 32 (Bonn, 1968), pp. 419-46. *” Wulfstan, I Polity 16-23 and II Polity 23-30, ed. Jost, pp. 52-54; Sedulius Scottus, Liber de rectoribus christiants, ed. S. Hellman, Quellen und Untersuchungen zur lateinischen Philosophie des Mittelalters 1 (Munich, 1906), pp. 19-

9).

406

Noble Counsel, No Counsel: Advising Ethelred

text, presumably did not expect Ethelred to head every campaign.

The potential conflict between a theory of kingship in which the king is supposed to stay away from the battlefield and

an ideal of personal lordship in which fighting helps the king maintain his relationships underscores the ideological and not literal importance of fighting.“ Given the prominence of fighting in the annals in general and in the entries for 1003 and 1004 in particular, such a distinction is significant. In 1003, the Anglo-Saxons respond to the Danish threat by gathering a mycele fyrde of Wiltunscire 7 of Hamtunscire. 7 swide anredlice wid pes heres werd weron. Da sceolde se ealdorman A‘lfric ledan pa fyrde. ac he teah ford pa his ealdan wrenceas. Sona swa hi weron swa gehende pet egder heora on oder hawede. pa gebrad he hine seocne. 7} ongan hine brecan to spiwenne. J cwed bet he gesiclod ware. 7} swa pet folc becyrede pat he ladan sceolde swa hit gecweden is. Donne se heretoga wacad ponne bid eall se here swide gehindred. Da Swegen geseah pat hi anrede neron. 7} ealle toforan. pa ledde he his here into Wiltune. + hi 6a buruh gehergodon 3 forbernde. 7 eodon pa to Searbyrig. | panon eft to sx. ferde per he wiste his yOhengestas.“ ® Richard P. Abels, Lordship and Military Obligation in Anglo-Saxon England

(Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA, 1988), pp. 79-96, explores how tenthcentury Anglo-Saxon kingship stressed the personal connection between king and subjects and thus made “royal lordship” an essential part of kingship. Drawing on this framework, his discussion of the language of V Ethelred 35 and some of Ethelred’s later codes notes how Wulfstan used the language of lordship to encourage Ethelred’s men to be faithful. He suggests (p. 94) that this tenth-century blending of lordship and kingship was particularly important to Alfric and Wulfstan and that this blurring foreshadows Cnut’s 1020 promise of faithful lordship. * ASC, vol. 1, p. 135... . great army from Wiltshire and from Hampshire, and they were very resolute towards the [Viking] army. Then Ealdorman ¢lfric was to lead the army, but he performed his old tricks. As soon as they were so close that each could gaze at the other, then he pretended he was sick, and he pretended to vomit, and said that he had fallen ill. And he thus betrayed the people that he was to lead. As the saying goes, “When the general is cowardly, then all the army is weakened.’ When Swein saw that they were not resolute and that they were all dispersed, then he led his army into Wilton, and they ravaged and burnt the town. And then they went to Salisbury and from there they went back to the sea to where he knew his ships were [emphasis mine]. Plummer prints the proverb in bold type, but since 407

Alice Sheppard

When the army first gathers, the chronicler notes that they faced the Danes anredlice (“resolutely, bravely”). After A£lfric’s

escape, Swein is able to tell that the army is no longer anred, and on the basis of that perception — the chronicler uses a causal pa... ba construction — he launches a successful attack. At first glance, therefore, this annal seems to blame the AngloSaxon rout on the lack of courage caused by Ealdorman /‘]fric’s performance. But the chronicler’s language is not as simple as his narrative: the meaning of Old English anred changes with its context. For homiletic and religious texts, it can range from “not afraid” or “brave” to “fervently committed,” usually towards God.* In political texts and the various manuscripts of _ the Chronicle, however, it tends to mean “loyal,” “faithful,” and “committed” to a lord or king.*° Placing the annal in this latter context adds a second dimension to the chronicler’s criticism. Whereas the initial translation implies that the Anglo-Saxon defeat is caused by the cowardice of A‘lfric and his men, this latter context suggests that the defeat results not from a lack of

bravery, but from a lack of commitment to their leader. The chronicler underscores the correlation between bravery and lordship relations by re-articulating his position in the

form of a proverb: “Donne se heretoga wacaé bonne bid eall se here

swide gehindred” (“When the general is cowardly, then all the army is weakened”). Commentators on this entry have noted that the maxim forms part of a longer tradition of gnomic sayings which make the army’s success depend on their leader’s

I wish to stress the syntactical construction of pa... pa, I have reverted to

, - Roman type.

*® For example, #lfric, Homilies of 4lfric, ed. Pope, vol. 2, p. 731, lines 96-97:

“we sceolon secan zt Gode sylfum urne red / mid anredum mode.” For other examples, see the relevant entry of Antonette DiPaolo Healey and Richard L. Venezky, A Microfiche Concordance of Old English (Toronto, 1980).

* See, for example, the entry for 1014 cited in this essay and, again, the appropriate entry of the Toronto Concordance of Old English. James E. Cross, “Mainly on Philology and the Interpretative Criticism of Maldon,” in Old English Studies in Honour of John C. Pope, ed. Robert B. Burlin and Edward B.

Irving, Jr. (Toronto and Buffalo, 1974), pp. 235-54 and especially p. 241, discusses anred in its heroic context. 408

Noble Counsel, No Counsel: Advising Ethelred

bravery.*’ In addition to these mainly Latin axioms, Thomas D.

Hill has identified a similar vernacular tradition that can be | traced as far back as the Alfredian translation of Gregory’s Regula pastoralis.” Studying the differences between the Old

English and Latin sayings, Hill suggests that vernacular manifestations of this proverb came to be associated with Alfred’s effective resistance to the Danes. By drawing on the vernacular form of this proverb, therefore, the chronicler asks the reader

to compare Ethelred and Alfred. Such a comparison raises again the question of the role of lordship in the 1003 defeat. As

explored above, the chronicler’s language suggests that Ealdorman A‘lfric was a poor leader, but the larger context of the vernacular proverb extends this comparison to Ealdorman ‘]fric’s lord: Ethelred. Unlike Alfred, who took the field and was able (for the most part) to secure the loyalty of his aristocracy, Ethelred seems unable to win the hearts of his men, whether he

fights or not.” |

Long understood as a carefully shaped response to the

drama of 1003, the chronicler’s account of 1004 proposes a solution to the problems with Ethelred’s lordship. In 1004, Swein and his fleet arrive in Norwich:

| , Pa geredde Ulfkytel wid pa witan on East Englum. pet him betere weron pat man wid pone here frides ceapode.

| er hi to mycelne hearm on pam earde gedydon. forpam pe hi unwares comon. j he fyrst nefde pet he his fyrde gegadrian mihte. Da under pam gride be heom betweonan beon sceolde. pa besteal se here up fram scipon. 7} wendan

heora fore to peodforda. Da Ulfcytel pat undergeat. pa

seonde he pet man sceolde pa scipu toheawan, ac hi abrudon pa de he to pohte. 7 he pa gegaderode his fyrde diglice swa he swydost muhte. ... pa com Ulfcytel mid * Bibliography of the discussion and parallels may be found in Thomas D. Hill, “‘When the General is Brave .. .”: An Old English Proverb and its Vernacular Context,” Anglia 119 (2001): 232-36.

| * Ibid.

* Evidence for treachery among Alfred’s men as revealed in Alfred’s laws is discussed by Janet L. Nelson, “‘A King across the Sea: Alfred in Continental Perspective,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 5th ser. 36 (1986): 45-

| 409

, 68, especially 52-53.

Alice Sheppard | | his werode. pat hi per togedere fon sceoldon. 3 hi per togedere feastlice fengon. 7 mycel wel per on egdzre

| hand gefeoll. Der ward East Engla folces seo yld ofslagen. ac gif pet fulle maegen pare were. ne eodan hi | nxfre eft to scipon. swa hi sylfe sedon. pet hi nefre wyrsan hand plegan on Angelcynne ne gemitton ponne Ulfcytel him to brohte.”

After delegating responsibility for defending East Anglia to UIfcytel, Ethelred seals this contract by marrying Ulfcytel to one of

_ his daughters. Although Ulfcytel accepts the responsibilities of this position, he is unprepared for the invaders. He and his council decide, therefore, like their king and his witan, to pursue a strategy of appeasement. But when the Danes break the truce, Ulfcytel, acting without his council, prepares for combat. _ Like Ethelred, Ulfcytel then delegates, asking a subordinate to carry out his plan. Again like Ethelred, Ulfcytel is betrayed by those he designates to replace him. Yet in response to this sec- | ond act of treachery, Ulfcytel, unlike Ethelred, decides again

without his council to go to war in person. But though the

chronicler would like his readers to see individual heroic action as an alternative to systemic paralysis, he does not interpret Ulfcytel’s willingness to fight as a better strategy than Ethelred’s

attempts to,negotiate: after all, Ulfcytel loses both the battle and most of his high-ranking nobles. Instead, the chronicler, adopting throughout the language and literary techniques of *” ASG, vol. 1, pp. 135-36. “Then Ulfcytel and the councilors in East Anglia decided that it would be better for them if they bought peace with the army before they did too much damage to the country, for they had come unex-

pectedly and he had not had the time to gather his army. Then, under cover of the truce which was supposed to be between them, the army crept inland from the ships and they wound their way to Thetford. When Ulfcytel learned this, then he ordered that the ships be hacked up, but those whom he designated for this failed. And then he gathered his army secretly, as quickly as he could. . .. Then Ulfcytel and his troops arrived in order to do battle there. And they joined battle resolutely there, and there was much slaughter on both sides. There the chief men of the East Anglian people

were killed. If, however, their [the Anglo-Saxons’] full strength had been | there, they [the Vikings] would never have made it back to their ships. As , they said themselves, they had never met worse fighting in England than that which Ulfcytel dealt them.” 4IO

Noble Counsel, No Counsel: Advising Ethelred

Old English poetry, uses this annal to promote a philosophy of

heroic lordship. |

The chronicler draws first from the diction of heroic po-

etry.”' Ulfcytel arrives at the battle scene with a werod, not a here — the usual designation for the Viking army — or even a fyrd,

the common term in the Chronicle for the Anglo-Saxon army.

When the two armies meet, the chronicler remarks that they togedere feastlice fengon (“they fell upon each other resolutely”),

and the handplegan (“hand-to-hand fighting”) of the battle results in much wel (“slaughter”). At the end of the battle, furthermore, the yld (“chief men”) of East Anglia lie dead on the field. Though zelde can mean simply “old” or “elders,” it is often (but not exclusively) used in heroic poetry to describe warriors

or noble leaders. In addition to adopting the vocabulary of Old English heroic poetry, the chronicler brings this entry to a close with a familiar heroic topos: there is much slaughter on both sides, the invaders have never encountered such fierce fighting, and though the Anglo-Saxons lose both the battle and many of their leaders, they win glory. By casting the story of Ulfcytel’s defeat in the language and therefore the ideology of heroic poetry, the chronicler suggests that Ulfcytel acts not because he is

brave (though he clearly is), nor because he seeks glory

(though he obtains it), but because, according to the ideals of heroic lordship, he is obliged to.** In accepting his appointment and marrying Ethelred’s daughter, Ulfcytel enters into a relationship of obligation to his king. Ulfcytel’s willingness to fight is therefore not a measure of his bravery but a symbol of his commitment to his moral, social, and political obligations as articulated in the Germanic heroic ethos. Conversely, for the chronicler, a lack of visible commitment to his people lies be- _

hind Ethelred’s weak relationships with his men, and these poor relationships lie behind the loss of the kingdom. | The Battle of Maldon, a virtually contemporary exploration

of the mutual responsibilities of lord and man, connects fighting as a measure of the relationship between lord and man with the claim that Ethelred’s kingdom founders because of the *! Clark, “The Narrative Mode of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,” p. 13.

* For a full discussion of the vocabulary of mutuality and obligation in the heroic code, see D. H. Green, The Carolingian Lord: Semantic Studies in Four Old High German Words: Balder, Fro, Truhtin, Herro (Cambridge, 1965). All

Alice Sheppard

king’s inability to create strong relationships with his men.” When Byrhtnoth, the defending ealdorman, learns of the in-

| vading army’s appearance on his coastline, he gathers an army and proceeds to the shore.” The Vikings and the Anglo-Saxons

find themselves on opposite sides of a river, separated by a causeway that Byrhtnoth controls; both sides are frustrated. In

order that they might do battle fairly, Byrhtnoth offers the Danes free passage across the causeway and loses the resulting battle. Traditionally, scholars have focused on the questions of Byrhtnoth’s pride and bravery — why he let the Danes cross over — and the loyalty of those men who chose to die on the

field with their lord. Such readings tend, however, to interpret | the obligations of heroic lordship as a given. They ask neither

| how Byrhtnoth inspires such loyalty, nor what drives Byrhtnoth’s own zeal.

Our understanding of the Germanic heroic ethos suggests that relationships of lordship are sealed with the exchange of gifts. The lord offers his men treasure, protection, and his favor. In return, the men offer their loyalty and their lives. The Beowulfpoet draws on this ethos to shape Wiglaf’s speech to Beowulf’s faint-hearted retainers:

“Ic Sat mal geman, per we medu pegun, bonne we geheton ussum hlaforde

in biorsele, de us bas beagas geaf, | bet we him 6a gudégetawa gyldan woldon, gif him pyslicu pearf gelumpe,

helmas ond heard sweord. De he usic on herge geceas . to dyssum sidfate. . . .” (lines 2633-39)” 8 By including The Battle of Maldon in this discussion, I do not mean to suggest that the Maldon-poet shaped his work as a critique of Ethelred’s king-

ship, only that the lord-retainer relationships described in the poem complement the chronicler’s analysis. * A clear account of Byrhtnoth’s tactics can be found in Richard Abels, “English Tactics, Strategy and Military Organization in the Late Tenth Century,” in The Battle of Maldon, AD 991, ed. Scragg, pp. 143-56.

> Beowulf and The Fight at Finnsburg, ed. Frederick Klaeber, 3rd ed. (Boston, , 1950). “I remember that meal where we drank mead, / When we promised

our lord / In the beer-hall, the lord who gave us these rings, / That we would repay him with our armor, / If he found himself in such need [of] / 412

| , Noble Counsel, No Counsel: Advising Ethelred Despite the many parallels between Wiglaf’s and #lfwine’s situations, speeches, and memories, the sense of obligation implicit in these transactions derives, for the Maldon-poet, not, as for the Beowulfpoet, from the exchange of material goods and

service, but from an explicit appreciation of the mutual and emotional relationship between lord and man.””

At the beginning of the extant fragment of the poem, the

Maldon-poet relates Byrhtnoth’s military preparations. Byrhtnoth instructs his men in battle techniques, he prepares them for the fight and, stressing his relationship to them, reinforces the Anglo-Saxons’ sense of community. His first move —

: sending away the horses — provokes one of his men to express his loyalty and bravery. Not only is this usually an effective tactic — it theoretically prevents his soldiers from escaping — it also

, serves to unite the ealdorman, retainers, and soldiers; they are now, symbolically, all bound to the same fate. The poet under-

scores this unity by extending the community of soldiers to their leader. When Byrhtnoth alights from his own horse, the Maldon-poet comments that Byrhtnoth “lihte pa mid leodon per him leofost was, / ber he his heordwerod holdost wiste” (“dismounted amongst the people where it most pleased him to be

/ where he knew his household companions to be most

loyal”).”” To highlight the strength of Byrhtnoth’s relationship to his men, the poet stresses that not only does the ealdorman spend time with his retainers, he is also comfortable with them; furthermore, he, unlike Ethelred, knows them well enough not

, only to know who will be faithful to him, but also who will be most faithful to him. Although the poet suggests Byrhtnoth has a close relation-

ship to his men, the community of his army is less secure than the above analysis suggests. After Byrhtnoth’s death, some of

the Anglo-Saxon army flee the field, shattering the unity of

journey. ...” : Helmets and sharp swords. / For he chose us from his troops / For this

© The political content of many relationships formed by gift-giving in Beowulf is explored by John M. Hill, “Beowulf and the Danish Succession: Gift Giv-

(1982): 177-97.

7 ing as an Occasion for Complex Gesture,” Medievalia et Humanistica n.s. 11 “The Battle of Maldon, in Maldon, ll. 23-24. All text and translation are from this edition.” 413

Alice Sheppard , those remaining. But the poet does not criticize Byrhtnoth for

poor leadership; instead he focuses on how the remainder, drawing on strategies similar to the ones their leader used, seek

to rebuild the unity of the army. lfwine, son of A‘lfric, speaks ,

first: .

“Gemun|[ap] pa mala pe we oft et meodo spraecon, bonne we on bence beot ahofon, hzled on healle, ymbe heard gewinn: nu meg cunnian hwa cene sy. Ic wylle mine zxpelo eallum gecypan, bet ic wes on Myrcon miccles cynnes; wes min ealda fader Ealhelm haten, wis ealdorman woruldgeszlig.

| Ne sceolon me on pare peode pegenas ztwitan pet ic of Sisse fyrde feran wille, ,

| eard gesecan, nu min ealdor liged | forheawen at hilde. Me is bat hearma mast: he wes zgder min mag and min hlaford.” (lines 212-24)”

Understanding that Byrhtnoth forged his relationship to his men through personal relations, Zlfwine makes an emotional plea to his companions. He begins with the first person plural

pronoun, drawing the men into community with him, _ Byrhtnoth, and each other, reminding them of what they once shared and of the promises they made to their lord in front of each other. Then, replicating the divisions among Byrhtnoth’s men, Alfwine splits this community with a challenge: “nu meg cunnian hwa cene sy” (“now it can be seen who is brave”).”” Yet

despite the fact that they made their promises in a public arena, A‘lfwine claims that he is not motivated by his companions’ opinion; rather, he feels shame only in his private realm. “Remember the times that we often made speeches over mead, when we , raised pledges while sitting on a bench, warriors in the hall, about fierce encounters: now we can test who is brave. I intend to make known my no-

ble lineage to all, that Iam of a great family amongst the Mercians; my grandfather was called Ealhhelm, a wise and prosperous ealdorman. Thegns will not be able to taunt me in that nation that I meant to desert this militia, to seek my homeland, now that my leader lies dead, cut to pieces in battle. That is the greatest anguish for me: he was both my kinsman and my lord.”

*? Maldon, line 216. 414

Noble Counsel, No Counsel: Advising Ethelred

He is descended from a great Mercian family, and it is in the context of his family that he will be judged. A‘lfwine implies that to betray his lord would be tantamount to denying his noble family heritage. He concludes dramatically: “Me is pet hearma mest: he wes egder min meg and min hlaford” (“That is the

greatest anguish for me: he was both my kinsman and my lord”)."" By rhyming me and he, the poet draws attention to a , sudden change in the subject of his sentences. Alfwine, now in the dative me, cedes place to Byrhtnoth when, stressing their

relationship with the repeated use of min (“my”), he reveals that he sees his lord as a family member. The emphasis on the personal, private, and yet contractual nature of his relationship renders A‘lfwine persuasive. One by one, the men pledge their loyalty to Byrhtnoth, each encouraging the other to fulfill his obligations to his lord.” But the Maldon-poet goes even further. Not only does the

sense of obligation through personal and family relationship characterize the reciprocal quality of the relationship between

Byrhtnoth and his men, it also describes ealdorman

Byrhtnoth’s relationship to his lord, King Ethelred. When

Byrhtnoth delivers his beot to the Vikings, the poet describes him as yrre and anred (“fierce and resolute”). When Byrhtnoth is depicted in the throes of battle, he is again described as anred (“resolute,” “committed”).°’ For the Maldon-poet, though, as James E. Cross has noted, these phrases indicate Byrhtnoth’s stature as a hero, they also refer to his commitment to his retainers and his king.” At the moment of crisis in the battle, a moment when heroic poets might traditionally distinguish or strengthen the hero by referring to his lineage or outstanding deeds, the Maldon-poet chooses to define Byrhtnoth in terms of

his relationship to his king. When Byrhtnoth is mortally wounded, therefore, the poet identifies him as Apelredes pegen Maldon, lines 223-24. *' It is noteworthy that the men fight explicitly for their lord Byrhtnoth, not Ethelred, their king.

© Maldon, line 44. , " Maldon, line 134. |

415 |

** Compare also the use discussed earlier in notes 45 and 46, and Cross, “Mainly on Philology,” p. 241.

Alice Sheppard

(“Ethelred’s thegn”) or A¢pelredes eorl (“Ethelred’s earl”), emphasizing Byrhtnoth’s loyalty to his lord even in death.” For the

poet, then, Byrhtnoth is motivated and inspired by his understanding of and commitment to his relationship to his lord. In this context, Byrhtnoth becomes the center of a chain of loyalty formed according to his recognition and acceptance of his ob-

ligations. Just as the relationship between lord and man prompts Byrhtnoth’s faithfulness to his king, so it also encourages Byrhtnoth’s men to be loyal to him. Thus even as the poet praises Byrhtnoth and his men for their bravery, he also interprets that bravery as a measure of the relationship between lord

and retainer. |

In contrast, the chronicler suggests that Ethelred neither __- practices nor inspires such faithfulness. In the annal for 1011,

| the chronicler shows the king performing the rites of AngloSaxon government. Ethelred decides on policy with his coun- | cilors; he delegates, presumably with the approval of his coun- | cilors. The result is failure, however. His nobles betray him, and

his council makes poor decisions. Even when, as in 1006 and 1009, the king enters the fray, he is unable to demonstrate the qualities of lordship that would lead his troops to victory. In this

| picture of defeat, the chronicler implies that although Ethelred understands government in the abstract, he cannot create in his social and political relationships the sense of personal obligation which would convince his people to be loyal to him and hence enable him to govern successfully. Such an interpretation of the chronicler’s narrative up to 1014 resonates with the promise Ethelred makes to his people on his return from exile

in France. | During Ethelred’s absence, Swein dies and the Danes elect

Cnut as their king. The Anglo-Saxon witan interprets these events as a succession crisis and reacts by inviting Ethelred to return to the throne, but not without conditions. In response to

the witan’s request for rihtlicor (“more just”) rule, Ethelred promises “peat he heom hold hlaford beon wolde. 7 alc pzra pinga

| 416

betan pe hi ealle ascunudon. 9 ezlc pera pinga forgifan beon sceolde pe hi[{m] gedon 066e gecweden ware. wid bam pe hi ealle anredlice bu-

ton swicdome to him gecyrdon” (“that he would be a loyal lord to

© Maldon, lines 151, 203.

Noble Counsel, No Counsel: Advising Ethelred

them, and make amends for all the things that they all hated, and that all the things that had been done or said against him would be forgiven, provided that they all turned resolutely to him without any betrayal”).” By explicitly exchanging his forgiveness and faithfulness for his people’s fidelity, Ethelred renegotiates his commitment to his people in terms of mutual loyalty.°’ Suggesting that the promise is satisfactory to witan, people, and king, the chronicler notes that Ethelred was well received. But the king must still win his kingdom. When FEthelred learns that the people of Lindsey have be-

trayed him by offering Cnut provisions and horses, he gathers an army and launches a successful attack, surprising both his people and the Danes. At first, it seems that Ethelred is triumphant. By taking the field and leading his men to victory it seems that the king has finally earned his kingdom. Furthermore, Ethelred forces Cnut into a position where, the chroni-

cler remarks, the Dane is obliged to betray those who had helped him.” While this comment portrays Ethelred as a more worthy ruler than his rival, in the chronicler’s world fighting and winning are less significant than creating, acting upon, and remaining loyal to the relationships of lordship they symbolize. Thus when Ethelred, this time acting without his witan, resorts to paying tribute, the chronicler adds this deed to a list of the & ASC, vol. 1, p. 145. In a reading of II Cnut 69-82, which Wulfstan drew up, Simon Keynes discusses what this might actually have meant, suggesting that this section of Cnut’s code specifically addresses the injustices of Ethelred’s reign: “The section is introduced as being the mitigation (lhtingc) by which Cnut wished ‘to protect all the people from what they were hitherto

oppressed with all too greatly” (Keynes, “Crime and Punishment in the Reign of King A2thelred the Unready,” in People and Places in Northern Europe 500-1600: Essays in Honour of Peter Hayes Sawyer, ed. lan Wood and Niels

Lund [Woodbridge, 1991], pp. 67-81, at 75-76). This section of IT Cnut deals with very practical aspects of life.

°’ Though it is tempting to interpret rhtlicor legalistically, it is unlikely that the witan meant Ethelred to follow the law more closely. Although the one fully extant version of VIII Acthelred exists only in a manuscript dated 1014,

legal scholars are not certain what role written laws played. On this and VIII 4thelred, see Patrick Wormald, “/Athelred the Lawmaker,” in Ethelred the Unready, ed. Hill, pp. 47-80. Paul Hyams in conversation points out that OE riht need not necessarily refer to written texts. ® This betrayal resonates strongly with the texts discussed below where Cnut, like Ethelred, promises to be a “loyal lord” to his people. 417

Alice Sheppard | , | other evils afflicting the realm: Ethelred has betrayed his people again. He closes the narrative with a description of rampant

| treachery: Ealdorman Eadric deceived Sigeferth, Atheling Edmund flouted the king’s will, and then Eadric joined Cnut. As these events suggest, for the chronicler, Ethelred is not and never will be a reformed and ideal king.

Although for Cnut and his supporters the political benefits of portraying Ethelred as a weak king are obvious, propaganda alone explains neither why the Anglo-Saxon chronicler should

be interested in framing an account of Ethelred’s reign in terms of the mutual and personal relationship between man and lord, nor how his narrative could have meaning as a history

| for Cnut and his Danish nobility as well as the conquered Anglo-Saxons. In 1016, Edmund Ironside and Cnut agree to share the kingdom, and in the next year, Cnut becomes the de facto ruler of all England.” He gains a country that had suffered famine, deprivation, and the ravaging of Viking raids. Whereas previous Anglo-Saxon societies had been marked by a network of social alliances, formal loyalties, and multiple extended kinships, writers like A‘lfric, Wulfstan, and the chronicler felt that the treachery and rivalries of the preceding years had strained

the ties that bound the nobility to each other and to their

king.” Indeed, the problems of loyalty, obligations, and relationships that shape the Ethelred annals are reflected both in the chronicler’s account of Cnut’s succession and the texts in which the Danes and Anglo-Saxons formally negotiate peace. 1017. Her on pisum geare feng Cnut cyning to eall Angel

cynnes rice. } hit to deld on fower. him sylfum West Seaxan. 7} purcylle East Englan. 7 Eadrice Myrcean. 73 Irce

Nordéhymbran. 3 on pisum geare wes Eadric ealdormann

ofslagen. 7 Noréman Leofwines sunu ealdormannes. 4 /MSelword AXdelmeares sunu pes gretan. 3 Brihtric /Elfgetes sunu on Defenanscire. 7 Cnut cyng aflymde ut AEdwig xdeling. 7 eft hine het of slean. 3 pa to foran kt * An account of Cnut’s accession from both Danish and Anglo-Saxon perspectives can be found in Lawson, Cnuwt, pp. 9-48.

” Fleming, Kings, pp. 37-39; Fleming (pp. 49-50) also cites Alfric, De oratione Moysi, in which the gradual collapse of a social order centred on kinship is noted. Wulfstan’s Sermo Lupi may also be interpreted in this context. 418

Noble Counsel, No Counsel: Advising Ethelred

Aug het se cyng feccan him Atdelredes lafe pes odres cynges him to cwene Ricardes dohtor.”

Although Cnut’s conquest actually happened by stages, the

chronicler describes the Danish leader’s accession as if it were a

single event. Cnut takes the kingdom, divides it, orders the death of many prominent nobles, and before August Ist (the chronicler is precise) orders Emma of Normandy to become his wife and queen.” Linking his clauses only with and, the chronicler portrays Cnut’s accession as swift and violent, suggesting how aware the Danish leader was of the need to unseat permanently the traditional relationships and loyalties of the AngloSaxon leading families and begin again, creating new relations of lordship with officials who did not have such deep roots.” Two works closely associated with Archbishop Wulfstan reflect how the issues of loyalty and lordship relations may have been perceived among members of the king’s administration. Apparently drawn up by Wulfstan but not necessarily endorsed by the king, Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 201 is a legalistic text that conveys what it claims are the provisions of the

1018 peace treaty.”

" 1017. Here in this year, King Cnut acceded to the whole Anglo-Saxon kingdom, and he divided it in quarters. He took Wessex for himself, gave Thorkell East Anglia, Eadric Mercia, and Eric Northumbria. And in this year, Ealdorman Eadric was killed, and Northman, son of Ealdorman Leofwine, and A*thelweard, son of Athelmezr the Stout, and Brihtric, son of Elfheah of Devonshire. And King Cnut banished Atheling Eadwig and afterwards commanded him to be killed. And then before August Ist, the king commanded Richard's daughter, the widow of the former king, Ethelred, to be fetched as his queen. ® ASC, vol. 1, p. 155.

* On Cnut’s earls, see Simon Keynes, “Cnut’s Earls,” in The Reign of Cnut: King of England, Denmark, and Norway, ed. Alexander Rumble (London, 1994), pp. 43-88.

Discussion of authorship and the relationship of this manuscript to Cnut’s other lawcodes may be found in Dorothy Whitelock, “Wulfstan and the Laws of Cnut,” EHR 63 (1948): 433-52; Whitelock, “Wulfstan’s Authorship

of Cnut’s Laws,” EHR 70 (1955): 72-85; and M. K. Lawson, “Archbishop |

Wulfstan and the Homiletic Element in the Laws of Athelred II and Cnut,” EHR 107 (1992): 565-86, who notes that Cnut himself is not said to have any formal connection with the text. 419

Alice Sheppard

In nomine Domini. Dis is seo gerednes, pe witan gereddon 7 be manegum godum bisnum asmeadon; and

bet wes geworden sona swa Cnut cyngc mid his witena | gepeahte frid 7 freondscipe betweox Denum 7 Englum fullice gefestnode. ... bonne is pet xrest, pet witan gereddan, pet hi ofer ealle opre pingc enne God zfre wurdodon J enne Cristendom -anredlice healdan 3 Cnut cyngc lufian mid rihtan 7 mid

trwydan... .” :

The second document appears to be a letter from the king, who in 1019, having traveled to Denmark to protect his people _ from a source of danger there, now writes to promise his people his loyalty and his support for the Church and laws of the land:” Cnut cyning gret his arcebiscopas 7 his leodbiscopas 4

| Purcyl eorl 3 ealle his eorlas 4 ealne his peodscype,

lande freondlice. |

twelfhynde 7 twyhynde, gehadode 3 lewede, on Engla"J ic cyde eow, pat ic wylle beon hold hlaford. . . .

Pa cydde man me, pat us mara hearm to fundode, bonne

us wel licode; 3 pa for ic me sylf mid bam mannum pe mid , foron into Denmearcon, pe eow mest hearm of com; J bat habbe mid Godes fultume forene forfangen, pet eow | ® Ibid. “In the name of God. This is the counsel the council decided on and considered with the help of many good examples; and that happened as soon as King Cnut, with the advice of his councilors, established a complete peace and friendship between Danes and Anglo-Saxons.” Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, ed. F. Liebermann (Halle, 1903), p. 278. The translation is from A. G. Kennedy, “Cnut’s Law Code of 1018,” ASE 11 (1983): 72-81.

* Again, the manuscript history of this text is complicated. Lawson, “Archbishop Wulfstan and the Homiletic Element,” pp. 565-86, explains that in addition to the sections quoted here, the text discusses inter alia church rights, adherence to Edgar’s laws, and the keeping of fasts and festivals.

| 420

Noting that it concludes with an Amen, Lawson also suggests that the text in its extant form was intended to be preached: “It may originally have been an oral message from the King, put into written form by an ecclesiastic for

circulation to the shire courts, and then redrafted into its present state by Wulfstan” (p. 584).

Noble Counsel, No Counsel: Advising Ethelred

nxfre heonon ford panon nan unfrid to ne cymd, pa hwile be ge me rihtlice healdad 9 min lif by6.”

The author of CCCC 201 is concerned with ensuring the people’s loyalty to the king. Drawing on the emotional and legalistic overtones of the heroic ethos, the writer promises that the people will hold anredlice (“resolutely”) their faith to God and that they will love their new king mid ribtan 7 mid trwydan

| | (“rightly and faithfully”). At almost the same time, the transcriber or publisher of Cnut’s 1019 letter is concerned with the

loyalty of people and king to each other. As if in response to

| the concerns of the 1018 text, the writer suggests that, like Ethelred, Cnut will be a bold blaford (“loyal lord”).” He then as-

sures his readers that the king will perform his obligations to his new people. By using forms of the first person plural pronoun, the writer implies that the king places the Danes and Anglo-Saxons on an equal footing. He renders the contract between king and people explicit. If the Anglo-Saxons promise to love and be faithful to their new king, then Cnut, demonstrating that he has already shown some commitment to his new people and thus emphasizing their obligation to him, promises that he will always defend them as long as they love him and as long as he lives.” ” The text may be found in Die Gesetze, ed. Liebermann, p. 273. “In friendship, King Cnut greets his archbishops, and diocesan bishops, and Earl

Thorkel and all his earls, and all his people in England, the men worth 1200 in wergild and those worth 200, the ecclesiastics and the laymen. I make it known to you that I will be a loyal lord.... When I was informed _ that more danger was heading towards us than we would like; then I, myself, together with the men who were travelling with me, went to Denmark,”

where the most danger to you was coming from; and I have, with God's help, taken preventative measures that there will never henceforth be any hostility to you from there, as long as you are loyal to me and as long as I live.”

*® This promise resonates strongly with the annal for 1014, where, as noted earlier, Cnut is forced to betray the Anglo-Saxons who helped him. More importantly, the language of this promise blurs the distinction between Cnut’s self-presentation as king and his obligations as lord. Again, see Abels, Lordship, pp. 79-96.

™ The problem of a king’s promise to defend his people is taken up more fully by Pauline Stafford, “The Laws of Cnut and the History of AngloSaxon Promises,” ASE 10 (1982): 173-90. A421

_ Alace Sheppard

Placed in the environment of other texts also concerned with engendering loyalty in social and political relationships, the chronicler’s narrative of a king who could not earn his people’s loyalty becomes part of a contemporary discussion of lordship. The cultural anxieties captured in Wulfstan’s Sermo Lupi seem, in the early years of Cnut’s reign, to have been allayed and replaced by new concerns. Rather than focus on the moral significance of breaches of faith between man and lord — the hlafordswicung of the Ethelred years — Wulfstan in his work for Cnut feels free to concentrate on defining the principal tenets and practical parameters of lordship. Specifically, chapters 69-83 of II Cnut deal with protecting the people from | misused power in relationships of lordship and from the whims of a king who would seize too much power.” In comparison to Wulfstan’s work and the homiletic and legalistic texts discussed above, the Ethelred annals do not focus on the institutional

| dimensions of lordship. Instead, the chronicler bypasses the provisions of practical, theoretical, and legal lordship, seeking

to convince his Danish and Anglo-Saxon readers that their shared understanding of the importance of a personal relation_ ship between lord and man can form the basis of community and found a united Anglo-Scandinavian kingdom.

*” For more discussion of this segment of II Cnut, see Stafford, “The Laws of Cnut,” p. 177.

422

Gildas and Glastonbury: Revisiting the Origins of Glastonbury Abbey ALF SIEWERS

ps paper was first date readtoatre-examine a conference on Mother’s Day, an appropriate the legendary origins of what has sometimes been considered the Mother Church of English Christianity, namely the original chapel at Glastonbury Abbey, dedicated to both Christ and Mary. It was doubly ap-

propriate to examine this issue during a symposium on Irish | and Anglo-Saxon literary cultures in honor of J. E. Cross be-

cause many of the English legends of the abbey’s origin

emerged from, or have been claimed to emerge from, a Celtic context. And they have been derided as a result. H. P. R. Finberg probably states overtly the feeling implicit in much Anglocentric scholarship on the issue when he writes that “[t]owards the close of the eleventh century Welsh writers began to inter-

est themselves in Glastonbury . .. [and] the monstrous edifice , of fiction was then to all intents and purposes complete.”'

Twentieth-century scholarship has treated the sources of the legends, largely in oral tradition and monastic recordkeeping, as what in critical jargon would be called marginalized and de-privileged. The result has been a consensus attitude that _ the legends are nothing more than a “rank forgery,” to use a phrase David Dumville aimed at one aspect of the corpus.’ However, a new postmodern spin on the evidence can rehabilitate this tradition. The leverage for such a re-centering 1s pro-

vided by recent reinterpretation of British archeological evidence. Also, in the context of today’s multicultural studies,

we are better equipped to re-privilege the tradition, with its Celtic and oral associations, as a form of mythic history. We do ' H. P. R. Finberg, West-Country Historical Studies (Newton Abbot, 1969), pp. 86-87.

; Quoted by Michael Costen, The Origins of Somerset (Manchester, 1992), p. 8. 423

Alf Siewers | | not feel the same compulsion as some earlier generations of twentieth-century scholars to discard the sources for being beyond the margins of history as defined by traditional Western scholarship. A similar approach can be taken simultaneously to re-center Gildas’s account of the coming of Christianity to Britain, which can be posited as an early analogue to the Glastonbury tradition. Glastonbury Tor thrusts up some five hundred feet above the Somerset Levels. Its unique topography has fueled speculation that it may have had prehistoric religious associations in a

| British landscape known for the continuity of such tradition across eras of religious change. A pattern of protrusions on its sides has provided a basis for a controversial theory that it may have been the site of a Neolithic labyrinth.” Fragments of associated legendary material in medieval texts raise the possibility of its association with pre-Christian Celtic mythology.” And the | site has been revered successively and simultaneously as a sacred site within the Christian tradition by Catholic, Anglican and non-conformist faiths. In post-Christian Britain it has also © become a site of New Age pilgrimage, evidenced by the crystal shops in the town and the annual rock music festival on its out-

skirts. |

Glastonbury would thus seem to be well established as a sacred place on the order of numinous landscapes in traditions ~such as the Native American, a site with a remarkable capacity to draw together often otherwise conflicting traditions. But modern scholarship has savaged its claims to such a position. The extant detailed Christian account of its history as a sacred

, place dates to William of Malmesbury’s writings in the twelfth century and to elaborations of the same in the thirteenth. The tradition of a primitive Christian presence at the site, as described by William’s late and interpolated text, seems absurd. > Philip Rahtz, “Pagan and Christian by the Severn Sea,” in The Archaeology and History of Glastonbury Abbey: Essays in Honour of the Ninetieth Birthday of C.

A. Ralegh Radford, ed. Lesley Abrams and James P. Carley (Woodbridge,

| 424

1991), pp. 3-37, at 26; Ronald Hutton, The Pagan Religions of the Ancient Bnit-

ish Isles: Their Nature and Legacy (Cambridge, MA, 1991), p. 107. |

* Alfred K. Siewers, “‘A Cloud of Witnesses’: The Origins of Glastonbury Abbey in the Context of Early Christianity in Western Britain” (unpublished MA thesis, University of Wales at Aberystwyth, 1994), pp. 74-80.

| Gildas and Glastonbury The tradition was largely written off by modern scholars as the result of Anglo-Norman political forgery. But in recent years there have been important changes in the way the archeological evidence regarding early Christianity

in Britain has been seen, changes that affect the context in which the Glastonbury tradition can be viewed. These changes

: in archeological interpretation were spurred in part by the desire to re-examine the material evidence from the perspective of a new skepticism regarding literary accounts. However, the archeological reinterpretations themselves in turn justify a new

| look at the literary material, analyzing the latter less from the standpoint of a lack of historicity and more as a different way of viewing history, a way of seeing that may reflect cycles of events

in symbolic terms, and may be seen as an extension of preChristian mythology in an area of western Britain that remained close to the Celtic cultural zone in early medieval times.

First, let us briefly survey the changes in interpretation of the archeological evidence. During much of this century it was assumed by many scholars that Christianity in Roman Britain was a religion of the urban upper class, limited in extent, and

that it soon disappeared with the evacuation of the legions in

the early fifth century. That view has changed. Dorothy Watts’s 1991 re-survey of archeological evidence for Romano-British Christianity concluded that there was an even distribution of probable rural and urban Christian sites, and that neither exhibited signs of substantial wealth. Watts also found that most of the probable Romano-British church sites with pre-Christian religious associations were in rural areas, and that there were indications of a significant continuity of sacred sites from pagan to early medieval Christian times.” She concluded that “one of

the reasons for establishing a Christian church at a particular site was, consciously or unconsciously, to preserve that tradition

of sanctity.”’ Many of the sites exhibiting such continuity are located in southwestern Britain. Cannington Cemetery is one of > See, for example, C. H. Slover, “Glastonbury Abbey and the Fusing of English Literary Culture,” Speculum 10 (1935): 147-60.

| 425

° Dorothy Watts, Christians and Pagans in Roman Britain (London, 1991), pp. 18, 107-13, 184, 211, and 217-20. ” Watts, p. 108.

Alf Siewers | the most important examples. Located in Somerset not far from Glastonbury, it shows an apparent continuity of probable Christian burials dating from the fourth to the seventh century. As a result of her re-examination of material originally surveyed ten years earlier by Charles Thomas, Watts upgraded the ranking of the Glastonbury region in terms of its density of probable Romano-British Christian sites, raising it from the third-highest to the second-highest category.” Kenneth Dark in his controversial 1994 book Civitas to Kingdom: British Political Continuity 300800 went a step beyond Watts, concluding that “Christianity was far more widespread in the Romano-British countryside than elsewhere in the West,” and that it was “strongest among the

poor.”

| Meanwhile, Thomas had turned his attention to the in-

scribed memorial stones of early medieval Britain. In a 1994 book he presented a detailed theory about how these stones probably represent a pattern of Irish migration to post-Roman Britain that coincided with a reinvigoration of Christianity in the island’s western Celtic zone.” Thomas pointed to the Sanas Chormaic, written ca. 900, which lists purported Irish strongholds in western Britain in the late Roman and early medieval period. Included in this list is a mention of Glastonbury as an Irish religious center. '!

In addition to revisions in the interpretation of early Brit-

| ish Christianity from an archeological perspective, there has

also been a reinterpretation of evidence at Glastonbury itself. Philip Rahtz, the excavator of Glastonbury Tor’s summit, in recent years has presented a revised interpretation of his findings, positing that early medieval remains atop the Tor were probably those of an eremetical Christian community.” Earlier, he had posited them as being secular because of the evidence of significant meat consumption there, but he later reversed his ° Watts, pp. 218-19. ” Kenneth Dark, Civitas to Kingdom: British Political Continuity 300-800 (London, 1994), pp. 36, 38. '° Charles Thomas, And Shall These Mute Stones Speak? Post-Roman Inscriptions in Western Britain (Cardiff, 1994), pp. 245, 324.

'' Thomas, p. 44. " Philip A. Rahtz, “Pagan and Christian by the Severn Sea,” in The Archaeology and History of Glastonbury Abbey, ed. Abrams and Carley, pp. 3-38, at 32-33.

426

Gildas and Glastonbury

views based on evidence of meat-eating at other early Insular monastic sites. Archeological excavations at the later abbey site at the base of the Tor, while inconclusive, indicate the possibility of a Romano-British presence there, including a probable Roman-era well at the corner of the original chapel site.” Such a well could have been a focus of pre-Christian religious devotion, given its placement relative to later development of the church and abbey, as well as the strong Celtic tradition of sacred wells."*

If we examine the Glastonbury tradition from the standpoint not of historicity but of mythic history, exhibiting a continuity with forms of Celtic and Germanic tradition, we can find

a mythic paradigm that matches the archeological evidence. The basic structural model for the Glastonbury legend is the theme of a sacred site that was once lost and then refound. And

this basic structure of the tradition is found more than a century before William of Malmesbury’s original text, in the Life of Dunstan by the anonymous “B.,” written ca. 1000. B.’s account

tells us that the old church at Glastonbury was not made by human skill, “though prepared by heaven for the salvation of mankind . . . consecrated to Christ and the holy Mary his mother, as God himself, the architect of heaven, demonstrated by many miracles and wonderful mysteries.” According to this account, it was rediscovered by the earliest “neophytes of the catholic law.” The area of Glastonbury is also described in terms

similar to descriptions of the Celtic Otherworld in legends. It tells of “a certain royal island known locally from ancient times as Glastonbury . . . spread wide with numerous inlets, surrounded by lakes full of fish and by rivers, suitable for human use and, what is more important, endowed by God with sacred gifts.” After rediscovery of the old church there, B. tells us, “crowds of the faithful came from all around to worship and humbly dwelt in that precious place.”"”” '’ Philip A. Rahtz, Glastonbury (London, 1993), pp. 28, 84-87. 't See, for example, Francis Jones, The Holy Wells of Wales (1954; reprint Cardiff, 1992).

’ Quoted by Antonia Gransden, “The Growth of the Glastonbury Traditions and Legends in the Twelfth Century,” JEH 27 (1976): 337-58; reprinted in her Legends, Traditions and History in Medieval England (London and Rio

Grande, OH, 1992), pp. 153-74, at 159. , 427

Alf Stewers

St Dunstan’s tenth-century floruit at Glastonbury was marked by influence from Irish teachers to whom Dunstan supposedly credited his own education. And, as already mentioned, the Sanas Chormaic indicates the existence of a tradition

associating Glastonbury with Ireland at the end of the ninth century. William’s original text, as best as it can be reconstructed, also indicates a strong Celtic presence at Glastonbury. According to his account, the old church was built in the sec-

ond century or earlier, and his report of an early medieval ef- : fort by Celtic Christians to re-dedicate the old church suggests a period of disuse.'° William in turn emphasizes the reuse of the

site by the Anglo-Saxons, citing as evidence both monuments

and a charter existing in his day which reflected an earlier Celtic presence.’’ In addition, the surviving text of a purported eighth-century Anglo-Saxon Glastonbury charter uses biblical

language from a pre-Vulgate text used in Celtic regions." , The paradigm of the tradition, stripped of later multiplied

detail, is simple: it is the story of an older, lost church refound. It parallels the legend of the Holy Grail and of enchanted wastelands in Celtic lore. It echoes what is known about the regeneration of pagan sites in Britain as Romano-British Christian sites, and the reuse of the latter as early Christian sites. It also oddly echoes the historical rediscovery (or reinvention) of Glas-

tonbury as a sacred site by various Christian and “post-

Christian” traditions. Criticisms of the Glastonbury tradition as unhistorical have

focused on the lack of corroboration from other sources, mainly Bede. But Bede focuses on only certain areas of England

and on a particular project that was in part concerned with denigrating the Celtic British Church, and there are sometimes conflicting partisan traditions in the works of other historiog-

raphers. Western British traditions, for example, claim that © John Scott, ed. and trans., The Early History of Glastonbury: An Edition, Translation, and Study of Wilham of Malmesbury’s De antiquitate Glastonte ecclesie

(Woodbridge, 1981), pp. 42-51, 54-55, 60-65; Joseph Stephenson, trans., Gesta regum, vol. 3 pt. 1 of The Church Historians of England, 5 vols. (London, 1854); reprinted as The Kings before the Norman Conquest (Lampeter, 1989), p. 20. 7 Scott, trans., The Early History of Glastonbury, pp. 84-85, 88-89.

428

‘8 James Armitage Robinson, Somerset Historical Essays (London, 1921), pp. 5153.

Gildas and Glastonbury

Eadwine of Deira was converted by the Britons, in direct contradiction to Bede’s account.’ Western Britain was at the center of tremendous political and cultural flux between AngloSaxon and Celtic zones in the early Middle Ages, a process that

is imperfectly understood but is increasingly being seen as | more of a kind of cultural hybridization than a clearcut annihilation of Celtic influence by Anglo-Saxon warriors. As Brian

| Hope-Taylor has noted regarding the culturally ambiguous remains of what he calls the Anglo-British archeological site at Yeavering, “[{i]t often serves political propagandists well to obscure identities.”~” And Lesley Abrams leaves us with this useful warning regarding Glastonbury traditions: “So much has been

lost that the absence of earlier corroboration . .. must not be used to draw conclusions from silence.” _ | One written voice that has survived from early medieval Britain with potential insight into the Glastonbury question is Gildas, who is now thought to have written his De excidio Britan-

niae about the year 500.“ In it we find a strange account of Christianity coming to Britain late in the reign of Emperor Tiberius, by 37 A.D. Gildas writes in his eighth section:

| Interea glaciali frigore rigenti insulae et velut longiore terrarum secessu soli visibili non proximae verus ille non

de firmamento solum temporali sed de summa etiam caelorum arce tempora cuncta excedente universo orbi praefulgidum sui coruscum ostendens, tempore, ut scimus, summo Tiberii Caesaris, quo absque ullo impedimento eius propagabatur religio, comminata senatu nolente a principe morte delatoribus militum eiusdem, radios suos primum indulget, id est sua praecepta, Christus.” " D. P. Kirby, The Earliest English Kings (London, 1992), pp. 78-79, 85. * Brian Hope-Taylor, Yeavering: An Anglo-British Centre of Early Northumbria,

Department of the Environment Archaeological Reports 7 (London, 1977), p. 294.

*! Lesley Abrams, “St. Patrick and Glastonbury Abbey: nihil ex nihilo fit?” in Saint Patrick A.D. 493-1993, ed. David N. Dumville, Studies in Celtic History 13 (Woodbridge, 1993), pp. 233-44, at 240. 2 Patrick Sims-Williams, “Gildas and the Anglo-Saxons,” CMCS 6 (1983): 1-30. *> Gildas: The Ruin of Britain and Other Works, ed. and trans. Michael Winter-

bottom (London, 1978), p. 91. 429

Alf Siewers

Or in Michael Winterbottom’s translation: Meanwhile, to an island numb with chill ice and far removed, as in a remote nook of the world, from the visible

sun, Christ made a present of his rays (that is, his precepts), Christ the true sun, which shows its dazzling bril-

liance to the entire earth, not from the temporal firmament merely, but from the highest citadel of heaven, that goes beyond all time. This happened first, as we know, in the last years of the emperor Tiberius, at a time when Christ’s religion was being propagated without

hindrance: for, against the wishes of the senate, the emperor threatened the death penalty for informers against soldiers of God.**

Gildas’s account could well be an echo of the tradition cited by Tertullian, writing ca. 200, that Christianity in his time had already spread to places in Britain inaccessible to the Romans.” Likewise, another early Church father, Origen, who like many

of the Alexandrian scholars was enamored of the druids, wrote in the third century of how Celtic areas of Europe had been especially receptive to Christianity (presumably at an early date), because he said their native religion had involved a sense . of the unity of the Godhead.”” Now, Gildas’s words, among the few surviving from Dark

Age Britain, have not gone unused in the controversy over the Glastonbury tradition. Partisans of an early origin of Glastonbury have argued that Gildas’s account supports their view. The consensus of modern scholarship, however, has ignored Gildas’s undetailed report, which largely goes unmentioned in historical surveys of Christianity in Britain. On this point, religious historians have taken their cue from modern commenta-

tors on Gildas who have either interpreted his words as indicating that Christianity came to the world during the reign of Tiberius, or that Gildas was hopelessly muddled and unreliable as a historian on all counts. The first analysis of the passage seems to involve too much special pleading, however. Gildas does seem clearly to be talking about the coming of Christianity ** Winterbottom, pp. 18-19.

> S. Ireland, Roman Britain: A Sourcebook, 2nd ed. (London and New York, 1996), p. 209. °° Peter Berresford Ellis, The Druids (Grand Rapids, MI, 1995), p. 114.

430

Gildas and Glastonbury

to Britain specifically, and a partial analogue in Eusebius’s Chronicon could not be a source for that part of his statement.”’

And while Gildas is still regarded as a dubious historian by twentieth-century standards, he has increasingly been rehabilitated. Nicholas Higham and John Casey among others have indicated that Gildas’s history has its own internal logic (even if

not a modern historical structure) that can be made to fit a

plausible hypothesis of fifth-century events. , | Casey has fit Gildas’s narrative into a framework of archeo-

logical evidence,” and Higham has indicated how Gildas’s muddled accounts of the building of the northern walls may relate to his own location in the southwest and his familiarity with post-Roman construction of boundary dykes there, such as the Wansdyke, behind which Glastonbury and other southwest

locations would have been sheltered.” While later tradition viewed Gildas as the son of a Pictish king, thus born in the

north, it also associated him with Glastonbury as well as with |

Brittany, all probable areas of operation for a fifth-century Brit ish Christian. Higham and Dark have made strong cases for his having been based during most of his career in the southwest.” Thus when Gildas uses the phrase ut scimus (“as we know”) in his passage regarding the coming of Christianity to Britain, he could well be referring to a tradition current in the late-fifth or early-sixth century among Christians in southwestern Britain.

If there was a tradition in Gildas’s time regarding an early introduction of Christianity into western Britain, it may have formed part of the developing cultural identity of the western Britons as Christian Celts beset by pagan Anglo-Saxons. In fact the development of an early monastic community at Glaston-

bury in such a relatively un-Romanized corner of the West 27 Hugh Williams, ed., Gildae de Excidio Britanniae, Fragmenta, Liber de Paenitentia, Accedit et Lorica Gildae, 2 vols., Cymmrodorian Record Series 3 (London, 1899), vol. 1, p. 22.

*“ J. Casey, “The End of Fort Garrisons on Hadrian’s Wall: A Hypothetical Model,” in L’armée romaine et les barbares du [Tle au Vile siecle, ed. F. Vallet and M. Kazanski (Paris, 1994), pp. 259-67.

” Nicholas Higham, Rome, Britain and the Anglo-Saxons (London, 1992), pp. 153-68.

” Nicholas Higham, “Gildas, Roman Walls, and British Dykes,” CMCS 22 (1991): 1-14; Dark, Civitas to Kingdom, pp. 258-66. 431

Alf Siewers

Country with possible Celtic religious associations could in itself

have been part of a cultural reaction against the collapsed Roman order. Gildas, despite his rhetorical Romanitas, was no enthusiast regarding Roman ways, as can be seen by the passage _ immediately preceding his account of the coming of Christianity to Britain in which he discusses Roman oppression. The tra-

dition of an early Christian mission to Britain may have reflected a nostalgic view of a primitive kind of frontier Christi-

anity, which could have found support in traditions such as those preserved in the writings of Tertullian and Origen. It is not impossible that the tradition could have become focused early on upon a monastic site at Glastonbury, which itself could have been a sacred landscape in earlier Celtic pagan and Romano-British Christian traditions. Gildas’s own incredible-sounding words are, in their broad

concept of an early date for Christian origins in Britain, if any-

thing supported by recent reinterpretations of archeological

. material as indicating more widespread evidence of Christianity in late Roman Britain than previously assumed. Likewise, the broad outline of the Glastonbury tradition can be seen as reflecting a cyclical process involving the reuse of sacred sites which seems to have been typical of British traditions. By regarding such traditions more on their own terms, and by seeing them in the context of vernacular mythic tradition rather than modern or Classical definitions of historicity, they can be appreciated more effectively in relation to the broad outlines of

archeological interpretation. All in all, it takes less special pleading to accept the broad outline of the Glastonbury tradition on its own terms, given the totality of the known archeo-

logical and historical and cultural contexts, than to reject it , entirely on the basis of narrowly focused analysis regarding its historicity. The Glastonbury legend as myth may reflect an his-

| torically plausible memory of contact between Irish-Welsh migrants and a remnant of earlier Romano-British Christianity. As myth, it may be seen as a symbolic representation of cycles of religious change. And as a mythic framework of narrative, like the Arthurian cycle to which it has been linked, it has erupted into our own sense of historicity as a cultural influence that has taken on the force of fact, a potent symbol of spiritual continuity across cultures and ages. 432

A Bibliography of the Writings of J. E. Cross 1985-2000

r YHE following bibliography supplements the “Bibliography of the Writings of J. E. Cross” printed in Sources and Relations: Studies in Honour of J. E. Cross, ed. Marie Collins, Jocelyn

Price, and Andrew Hamer, Leeds Studies in English n.s. 16 (Leeds: School of English, University of Leeds, 1985), pp. 358-

62, which accounts for nearly all of Cross’s publications through 1984. Only one 1984 publication was omitted from that list: an article entitled “Source, Lexis and Edition,” in Medieval Studies Conference Aachen 1983: Language and Literature, ed.

Wolf-Dietrich Bald and Horst Weinstock, Bamberger Beitrage zur Englischen Sprachwissenschaft 15 (Frankfurt am Main: Verlag Peter Lang, 1984), pp. 25-36. All publications subsequent to 1984 are here listed in chronological order, ending with those still scheduled to appear. 1985 “On the Library of the Old English Martyrologist,” in Learning and Literature in Anglo-Saxon England: Studies Presented to Peter Clemoes on the Occasion of His Sixty-Fifth Birthday, ed.

Michael Lapidge and Helmut Gneuss (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), pp. 227-49.

“The Use of Patristic Homilies in the Old English Martyr-

, ology,” ASE 14 (1985): 107-28. 1986

| “Identification: Towards Criticism,” in Modes of Interpretation in

| Old English Literature: Essays in Honour of Stanley B.

Greenfield, ed. Phyllis Rugg Brown, Georgia Ronan |

Crampton and Fred C. Robinson (Toronto, Buffalo, NY, and London: Toronto University Press, 1986), pp. 229-46. 433

J. EB. Cross

“The Latinity of the Ninth-Century Old English Martyrologist,” in Studzes in Earlier Old English Prose, ed. Paul E. Szarmach (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1986), pp. 275-99.

“Towards the Identification of Old English Literary Ideas — Old Workings and New Seams,” in Sources of Anglo-Saxon

Culture, ed. Paul E. Szarmach with the assistance of

Virginia Darrow Oggins, Studies in Medieval Culture 20 (Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 1986), pp. 77-101.

“An Unpublished Story of Michael the Archangel and Its Connections,” in Magister Regis: Studies in Honor of Robert

Earl Kaske, ed. Arthur Groos (New York: Fordham

| University Press, 1986), pp. 23-35. 1987 Cambridge Pembroke College MS. 25: A Carolingian Sermonary Used

by Anglo-Saxon Preachers, King’s College London Medieval

Studies 1 (London: King’s College London, 1987). | “The Insular Connections of a Sermon for Holy Innocents,” in Medieval Literature and Antiquities: Studies in Honour of

Basil Cottle, ed. Myra Stokes and T. L. Burton (Woodbridge and Wolfeboro, NH: D. S. Brewer, 1987), pp. 5770.

— 1988 Review of Andrea B. Smith, The Anonymous Parts of the Old English Hexateuch: A Latin-Old English / Old English-Latin Glos-

sary (Woodbridge and Dover, NH: D. S. Brewer, 1985) in — Speculum 68 (1988): 232.

1989 |

“The Use of a Passio S. Sebastiani in the Old English Martyrology, Mediaevalia 14 (1988): 39-50.

“Wulfstan’s Incipit de Baptismo (Bethurum VIII A): A Revision of Sources,” NM 90 (1989): 237-42.

434 |

Bibliography 1985 - 2000

(with Alan Brown) “Literary Impetus for Wulfstan’s Sermo Lupt,” in Studies in Honour of H. L. Rogers, ed. Geraldine Barnes, Sonya Jensen, Lee Jobling, and David Lawton, Leeds Studies in English n.s. 20 (Leeds: School of English,

University of Leeds, 1989), pp. 271-91. | ed. (with Joyce Bazire), Eleven Old English Rogationtide Homilies, King’s College London Medieval Studies 4 (London: King’s College London, 1989). A reprint of the 1982 edition with a new Preface by J. E. Cross.

1990

Entries on “Laurence of Novara” and “Ralph D’Escures” in Sources of Anglo-Saxon Literary Culture: A Trial Version, ed.

Frederick M. Biggs, Thomas D. Hill and Paul E. Szarmach, Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies 74 | (Binghamton, NY: Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies, 1990), pp. 133, 157.

“Hiberno-Latin Commentaries in Salisbury Manuscripts,”

Hiberno-Latin Newsletter 3 (1990): 8-9. |

199] |

“Missing Folios in Cotton MS. Nero A. I,” Britesh Library Journal 16 (1990): 99-100.

“A Sermo de Misericordia in Old English Prose,” Anglia 108 (1990): 429-40.

“Wulfstan’s De Anticristoin a Twelfth-Century Worcester Manuscript,” ASE 20 (1991): 203-20.

1992 “De festiuttatibus anniand Ansegisus , Capitularium Collectio

(827) in Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts,” Liverpool Classical Monthly 17.8 (1992): 119-21.

“A Newly-Identified Manuscript of Wulfstan’s ‘Commonplace

Book’: Rouen, Bibliotheque Municipale MS 1382 (U. 109) fols. 173r-198v,” JML 2 (1992): 63-83. 435

1993 |

JE. Cross

“Atto of Vercelli, De pressuris ecclestasticis, Archbishop Wulf-

stan, and Wulfstan’s ‘Commonplace Book,’” Traditio 48 (1993): 237-46.

ed. (with Jennifer Morrish Tunberg), The Copenhagen Wulfstan Collection. Copenhagen Kongelige Bibliotek Gl. Kgl. Sam. 1595,

EEMF 25 (Copenhagen: Rosenkilde and Bagger, 1993). Cross co-authored the “Introduction” (p. 13) and wrote the section on “Contents of the Manuscript” (pp. 14-23).

(with T. N. Hall) “The Fragments of Homiliaries in Canterbury Cathedral Library MS. Addit. 127/1 and in Kent, County Archives Office, Maidstone, MS. PRC 49/2,” Scriptorium 47 (1993): 186-92.

(with Alan Brown) “Wulfstan and Abbo of Saint-Germain-desPrés,” Mediaevalia 15 (1993 for 1989): 71-91.

1996 “Bede’s Influence at Home and Abroad: An Introduction,” in Beda Venerabilis: Historian, Monk & Northumbrian, ed. L. A.

J. R. Houwen and A. A. MacDonald, Mediaevalia Groningana 19 (Groningen: Egbert Forsten, 1996), pp. 17-29.

“English Vernacular Saints’ Lives before 1000 A.D.,” in Hagiographies: Histotre internationale de la _ littérature hagiographique latine et vernaculaire en Occident des origines a

1550, 2 vols., ed. Guy Philippart, Corpus Christianorum (Turnhout: Brepols, 1994-96), vol. 2, pp. 413-27.

(with T. N. Hall) “Fragments of Alanus of Farfa’s Roman Homiliary and Abridgments of Saints’ Lives by Goscelin in London, British Library, Harley 652,” in Bright is the Ring of Words: Festschrift fur Horst Weinstock zum 6). Geburtstag, ed. Clausdirk Pollner, Helmut Rohlfing and

Frank-Rutger Hausmann, Abhandlungen zur Sprache _ und Literatur 85 (Bonn: Romantischer Verlag, 1996), pp. 49-61.

436

Bibliography 1985 - 2000 ©

(with Andrew Hamer) “Source-Identification and Manuscript Recovery: The British Library Wulfstan MS. Cotton Nero Ai, 131v-132r,” Scriptorium 50 (1996): 132-37.

| ed., Two Old English Apocrypha and Their Manuscript Source: | “The Gospel of Nichodemus” and “The Avenging of the Saviour,” CSASE 19 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). Cross wrote the “Introduction” (pp. 3-9), a

_ portion of Chapter 2, “The Manuscript: Saint-Omer, Bibliotheque Municipale, 202” (pp. 21-35), and Chapter 4, “Saint-Omer 202 as the Manuscript Source for the Old English Texts” (pp. 82-104), and edited the Old English and Latin texts of the two apocrypha (pp. 131-293).

1997 (with Andrew Hamer) “/A‘lfric’s Letters and the Excerptiones Ecg— berhti,” in Alfred the Wise: Studies in Honour of Janet Bately on

, the Occasion of Her Sixty-Fifth Birthday, ed. Jane Roberts and

, Janet L. Nelson with Malcolm Godden (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1997), pp. 5-13.

| 1999 ed. and trans. (with Andrew Hamer), Wulfstan’s Canon Law Collection, Anglo-Saxon Texts 1 (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1999).

“On Hiberno-Latin Texts and Anglo-Saxon Writings,” in The Scriptures and Early Medieval Ireland: Proceedings of the 1993 Conference of the Soctety for Hiberno-Latin Studies on Early Irish

Exegesis and Homiletics, ed. Thomas O’Loughlin, Instru-

menta Patristica 31 (Steenbrugge: In abbatia s. Petri;

Turnhout: Brepols, 1999), pp. 69-79. |

| 2000 “Vernacular Sermons in Old English,” in The Sermon, ed. Beverly Mayne Kienzle, 3 vols., Typologie des sources du

| moyen age occidental 81-83 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2000),

| 437 | vol. 2, pp. 561-96.

J. E. Cross

| “The Notice on Marina (7 July) and Passiones S. Margaritae,” in Old English Prose, ed. Paul E. Szarmach with the assistance of Deborah Oosterhouse, Basic Readings in Anglo-Saxon England 5 (New York and London: Garland,

2000), pp. 419-32.

forthcoming

Entries on “Abbo of Saint-Germain-des-Prés” (with Alan Brown): “Amalarius of Metz,” “Pseudo-Basil,” “Claudius of Turin,” “Council of Aachen,” “Eadmer,” “Fulbert of Chartres”

(with Richard Pfaff), “Gaudentius of Brescia,” “Ivo of Chartres,” “Jesse of Amiens,” “Homily on the Prologue to the

| Gospel of John,” “Martyrology,” “Odo of Cluny” (with

Thomas N. -Hall), “Patrick of Dublin, Bishop,” “Paul the Deacon” (with Thomas N. Hall), “Prosper of Aquitaine,” “Speculum Augustini,” and “Speculum Gregorii” for future

volumes of Sources of Anglo-Saxon Literary Culture (Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications).

_ 438

Index Aaron, bishop of Auxerre, 266 feast of Anne and Joachim, Aaron, bishop of Cracow, 266 107; feast of the Dormition of

Abbo of Fleury, 232 Anne, 107 Abelard, 352 Anne of Bohemia, 130

Acallamh na Senorach, 241 Anselm, archbishop, 122-23, 135

Acts of Andrew and Matthew, 169 Anselm of St Saba, abbot, 122-23, Acts of John the Evangelist, 165, 168 126, 128 Acts of Peter and Paul, 168-69, 172 | Antiphonary of Bangor, 257

Adomnan, St, 273 Antony, St, Life of, 174 Adon of Vienne, Martyrology, 62 Apt, 128 Agatha, St, 139, 150 Arculf, 260 ©

Agnes, St, 117, 139-46, 148-57 Ari Porgilsson, 377, 379, 392 Aisling Meic Con Glinne, 244—45, Asclepius, 65-66

248 Asser, Life of Alfred, 394, 398

Albold, abbot, 121 Aubrey, John, Remazines of GentilAlcuin, Liber de virtutibus et vitiis, isme and Judaisme, 52-60

295-325, 389 Augustine, Confessiones, 155; De

Aldhelm, 5, 142; De virginitate, bono viduitatis, 391-92; De civi-

142 tate Det, 41, 48, 385; De consensu

Alexander IT, pope, 120-21 evangelistarum, 339, 340; De serAlfred the Great, king, 189, mone Domini in monte, 166-67, 197-98, 302, 396, 398, 401, 339-40, 342; Enarrationes in

405, 409 Psalmos, 385, 343; Sermo 112a

Alpheus, 109-11, 115-16, 132-33 (Caillau II.11), 286; Tractatus |

Amathia, 112 in lohannem, 119

Ambrose, De fide, 343 Pseudo-Augustine, Sermo 25(a) ad

Pseudo-Ambrose, Sermo 48, 141, fratres in eremo, 117 , |

154 Pseudo-Augustine, Sermo 155, 47

Ancient Laws of Ireland: see Pseudo-Augustine, Sermo 194, 119

Senchus Mor Pseudo-Augustine, Sermo Mai 3, Andreas, 47, 169 986

Andreas saga Postola IT, 388 Pseudo-Augustine, Sermo Mai 4, Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 200, 202, 2986 393-403, 407-11, 416-19, 422 Audunn festargarmr, 379 Anne, St, 109-11, 115-18, 124, Alfhere of Mercia, 199 127, 132-33, 136-37, churches J fric, 46, 158-84, 197, 203, 208, dedicated to, 107-8, 129; cult 394, 398, 404-5, 407, 418: as of, 104, 113, 126-31; feast of, translator, 154, 163, 206, 403; 127-30; feast of Anne’s Con- Catholic Homilies, 141, 163-65, ception of Mary, 107, 124, 128; 439

Index | 168, 170-71, 173—74, 182-83; Elfric, ealdorman, 407-8 English Preface to, 161, 183; Elfstan, bishop, 399 homily for Quinquagessima AElfwine, 413-15 (CH1.10), 39; homily for the FElfwold, 200 2nd Sunday after Pentecost Ethelberga, queen, 156

(CH 1.23), 41; homily on St AEthelflzd, 201 :

John the Baptist (CH1.25), AEthelmeer, 173, 181-82, 203, 206,

171; homily on Sts Peter and 419

Paul (CH1.26), 164, 168-73, Ethelnoth, archbishop, 120 , 175, 181-82; homily on St AEthelred II, king: see Ethelred

Clement (CH1I.37), 163-64, AEthelstan Half-King, 198 166, 168; homily on St Andrew Athelweard, ealdorman, 161-63,

(CH1.38), 164, 183; second 173, 176, 181-82, 200, 202, homily for Palm Sunday (CH 206, 395-97, 419; Chronicle, 11.14), 173; homily for Monday 203, 395-96 in Rogationtide (CHII.19), /Ethelwine, ealdorman, 198-202 405; homily on the Assumption /AXthelwold, bishop, 163, 180 of Mary (CHII.29), 183; homily on St Martin (CHTIL.34), “B,” Life of St Dunstan, 427-28

171; De oratione Moysi, 418; Baldwin, abbot of Bury St Edhomily Post Ascensionem Domini munds, 113-14, 117-24, 135 (Pope 9), 405; Letter to Sigefyrth, Bartholomew, St, 208 162, 174; Letter to Sigeweard, Battle of Brunanburh, 191 404-6; Letter to Wulfstan, 404, Battle of Maldon, 185, 191-92, 206,

Lives of Saints, 138-57, 168, 399, 408, 411-16

, 173, 175, 179, 181-82, 203; Bearach, St, 273

manuscripts of, 138, 174, 183; Bede, Ep. ad Ecgberctum, 196; His-

Preface to, 140-41, 148, toria ecclesiastica, 156, 195-97, - 167-68, 171, 174, 183; Life of 428-29; Hom. 1.24 in Evang.,

St Basil (LS 3), 175-76; Life of 30, 37, 286; In Lucam, 293; In

Sts Julian and Basilissa (LS 4), Proverbia Salomonis, 167; Marty- , 171, 182; Life of St Cuthbert, rologium, 62 160; Life of St Eugenia (LS2), | Pseudo-Bede, Hom. III.57, 119 176, 182; Life of St Martin (LS —_ Pseudo-Bede, Martyrology, 62 31), 176; Life of St Maurus (LS __ Beinin, St, 274 6), 175-81; Sermon on Peter’s _—Benedict of Aniane, Concordia

Chair (LS 11), 162; Passzo regularum, 232 Macchabeorum (LS 25), 163, Benedict of Nursia, 177; Regula,

404; Memory of the Saints, 151; 175,177 : translation of Genesis, 141, Benedictine Reform, 176, 232 161-62; translation of the Hep- Beowulf, 191, 165, 412 tateuch, 404; translation of Ju- Beowulf, 43, 47, 191, 394, 398,

dith, 154, 160; Wyrdwniteras 412-13

fragment, 406 Berengar, 352 440

Index

Bertha, wife of King 4thelberht, Cassiodorus, 352

155-56 Catechesis Celtica, 235-37, 240,

Bethu Patraic, 238, 280 248, 254, 257, 259-61, 265, , Blickling Homilies: see Homilies, 267-72, 278-79, 282-84 anonymous, in OF Catechesis Cracoviensis, 283, 334 Boethius, De consolatione Philoso- Cecilia, St, 139

phiae, 18 Cenn fo eitte, 336-38

Boniface, pope, 156 Cerne, 161

“Book of Cerne”: see Manu- Chartres, 128 scripts, Cambridge, University | Christ II, 27-49, 217-18

Library, Ll. 1. 10 Christopher, St, 328-30

Book of Lismore, 236, 272, Chrodegang, Regula canonicorum

, 274-75 (= Rule), 212, 231-33 -Bréanann, St, 274 Chromatius of Aquileia, Sermo 22, Brigid, St, 274-75 290; Tract. 3, 292-93; Tract.

“Bringing Forth of the Soul,” 263 54A, 290

Burchard of Worms, Decretum, Chronicle of Evesham, 129

53—56, 59-60 Chrysanthus, St, 139

“Bury Psalter”: see Manuscripts, Pseudo-Chrysostom, Opus imperRome, Vatican City, BAV, Reg. fectum in Matthaeum, 334

lat. 12 Ciaran, St, 274-75

Bury St Edmunds, 106, 113-14, Clement of Alexandria, 106 117-24, 126, 130-31, 135-36, Clementine Recognitions, 265

184, 207; customary of, 123 Cleophas, 110-11, 115-16 Byrhtferth, Ramsey Chronicle, 198; Clotilda, wife of Clovis, 155-56

, Vita S. Oswaldi, 198 Cnut, king, 120, 133, 393, 395, Byrhtnoth, ealdorman, 185, 397, 399, 401, 407, 416-22

192-94, 197-202, 204-6, Collectio canonum Hibernensis, 252,

412-16 344, 346-47

Colm Cille, St, 274-75

Caesarius of Arles, Sermo 57, 28 Colman Mac Luacain, St, 274 Cambrai Homily, 235, 237-38, Columbanus, Instructiones, 235,

252, 254, 257, 263 237, 241-53, 248-52; Rule, 242

Cannington Cemetery, Somerset, | Comgall of Bangor, 250

425-26 Constantia, St, 139-42, 146-53, :

Canterbury, 63, 120, 125-27, 155-57

130-31, 134-35, 173, 218-19; Constantine, emperor, 139-40,

Christ Church Cathedral, 123, 146-48, 153, 155

135; St Augustine’s Abbey, 128, | Constantine, pope, 108

135, 298 Constantinople, 63, 107-8

| sat

“Canterbury Benedictional”: see | “Cotton-Corpus Legendary”: see

Manuscripts, London, BL, Manuscripts, London, BL, Cot-

Harley 2892 ton Nero E. I

Cassian, 251; Collatio, 232 Council of Trent, 386

Index | Cracow Homily Collection, Emeria (Esmeria, Hymeria), 112,

235-37, 266, 326-28 115-17, 132-33 ,

Cross, 16, 47, 122; Exaltation of, Emma of Normandy, 400, 419

329; Invention of, 183, 329 Ephrem (“the Syrian”) of Edessa, : Cummian, De controversia paschah, 214-20, 227

258 Ephrem Latinus, De beatitudine

Cynewulf, Elene, 183 animae, 216; De compunctione Cyprian, 174, 384-85 cordis (= Sermo asceticus) ,

Pseudo-Cyprian, De duodecim abu- 216-17, 219, 231; De die rudicii,

stvis saeculi, 403 , 216-17; De die tudicii et de resurrectione, 216; De paenitentia,

Daniel, 165 210-34; In luctaminibus, 216

Darius, 165 Epiphanius Latinus, Sermo 43, 286

De obsessione Dunelm, 401 Ethelred II, king, 133, 179, 199,

Death of Edgar, 191 202, 393,422 Defensor of Ligugé, 216, 200 Eubula, 65

Deor, 17-19 Eucherius of Lyons, Formulae spiri-

Diana, 66 talis intelligentiae, 256 Dominicus, scribe, 359 Eufrosinus, 65 Domitian, emperor, 165 Eugenia, St, 139

Dream of the Rood, 13-16 Eusebius, Chronicon, 431 Durham Proverbs, 21 Eusebius/Rufinus, Historia ecclesiastica, 109

Eadmer of Canterbury, 125-26 Eustorgius, 64, 67-68

Eadric, ealdorman, 400-1, Evesham, 130

418-19 Exeter, 125, 127, 130, 212

Eadwine, king, 429 “Exeter Benedictional”: see Edgar, z«theling, 188 | Manuscripts, London, BL, Edgar, king, 179-80, 189, Add. 28188 199-200, 420 Exeter Book, 8, 16—17, 19, 28, 50,

Edmund, etheling, 418 56 Edmund, St, 120—22, 191-92, 194

Edward the Confessor, king, Faustus of Riez, 249-50

113-14, 188, 193-94, 199, 203 Pseudo-Faustus, Vita §. Maur,

Edward the Elder, king, 403 176-77

Edwin, king, 156, 191, 194 Felix, bishop, 121

Elene. see Cynewulf, Elene Fight at Finnsburg, 191 Elisabeth, St, 112, 115-17, 127, — Finnian, St, 274—75 |

132-33 Fis Adamndin, 238, 275, 281 Eliu, 112 Florus of Lyons, 178-79, 216

Fly, 181, 192, 197, 199-200 Francia, 176 Emerentia (Emmerencia), Frigulus, 269, 332; Commentary

116-17 on Matthew, 260, 332, 334-37,

Emerentiana, 117 339-40, 342-54 442

Index

Fulbert of Chartres, Sermo 4, 119 Harold, king of Russia, 63 Havamal, 13, 43—44

Galen, 65-66 Haymo of Auxerre, Commentary Galerius Maximianus, emperor, on the Pauline Epistles, 108;

64-66 Epitome historiae sacrae, 109-12, 155-56 Heiric of Auxerre, homiliary of,

Gallicanus, St, 139-42, 146-53, 134

Geirmundr, 379 108

Gellir Dorkelsson, 377, 380, 392 Helgafell, 378, 389, 392

George, St, 274 Heliand, 43 , Gerald of Aurillac, St, 206 Herbert Losinga, bishop, 121 Gestr Oddleifsson, 392 : Hercules, 66 |

Gilbert of Sempringham, 137 Herdis Bolladsttir, 386-87 Gildas, De excidio Britanniae, 424, Herfast of Thetford, bishop, 135

499-39 Hermippius, 66

Glastonbury, 423-32 Hermogrates, 66 Gloucester, 126 Hermolaus, 65-66 Godfrey, sacrist, 121 Hilarion, 148 Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, 118,127, Hilary of Poitiers, Commentary

134 on Matthew, 286; De trinitate,

Gregory I the Great, pope, 46, 251

951, 271, 274, 352; Cura pastor. | Pseudo-Hildefonsus, Sermo 7, 119 alis, 167; Dialogi, 176, 179, 204, | Hippocrates, 65-66 Homiliae in Evangelia, 271; Hom. Historia monachorum, 175-76

2 in Evang. , 39; Hom. 40 in Homiletic Fragment 2, 16-19

Evang., 42; Homiliae in Homiliary of St Pére de Chartres, Ezechielem, 113-14; Moralia in 117, 298

Tob, 33, 359 Homilies, anonymous, in OE:

Gregory XIII, pope, 130 Assmann Hom. 14, 212; Bazire Gregory of Elvira, 385 & Cross Hom. 9, 35; Bazire & Gregory of Tours, Libri historia- Cross Hom. 10, 36-37; Blick-

rum, 156 | ling Hom. 2, 39; Blickling

Grettis saga Asmundarsonar, 377 Hom. 7, 28, 32; Blickling Hom.

Guibert of Nogent, 186 8, 31-32; Blickling Hom. 10,

Guthlac, St, 208 , 32-33; Blickling Hom. 13, 118; Gudrtin, 377-80, 382, 384-87, Blickling Hom. 15 (Peter and

389-99 Paul), 168, 170-72; Irvine Hom. 6, 37; “Macarius” Soul-

Hallbjorn Kotkelsson, 379 and-Body Hom., 210-34,

Hannah, 106 Napier Hom. 29, 213; Vercelli “Harley Prayerbook”: see Manu- Hom. 3, 210; Vercelli Hom. 4,

| scripts, London, BL, Harley 210-34; Vercelli Hom. 8,

7563 28-31; Vercelli Hom. 10, 20,

Harold, king of England, 63 22-25, 31-32; Vercelli Hom. 443

Index

20, 295-97; Vercelli Hom. 21, 110-11, 115-16, 132-33

32, 38 Journey Charm, 127

Hrabanus Maurus, 300; Commen- Jove, 66

tarius in Matthaeum, 334; Marty- Julian, emperor, 148 | rology, 62 Julian, St, 139 | Juliana, St, 174, 328 Iacupo da Varazze (Jacobus de Justinian I, emperor, 107 Voragine), Legenda aurea, 105 Justinian II, emperor, 108

In nomine Dei summi, 235, 257-59, ;

261, 269 Kjartan Olafsson, 379

Ingulf, abbot of Croyland, 208

| Isidore of Seville, Etymologiae, 48; Lanfranc, archbishop, 114, 121,

Quaestiones in Vetus Testamen- 125, 135 | _ tum, 256; Synonyma, 24 Laterculus Malalianus, 218-19 Islendingabok, 378 Laxdela saga, 377-92 Islendingasdgur, 377 Le Mans, 177 - Leabhar Breac homilies, 235-39,

James the Greater, 110-11, 244-45 248, 269-79, 281-84

115-16, 133 Lebor na hUidre, 236-37,

James the Less (Justus), 110-11, 274—75, 281-82

115-16, 133 Lectiones in vigiltis defunctorum,

Jerome, 106, 108, 109, 251, 355, 358, 365-76

385-86; Adversus Helvidium de Leo the Great, pope, Tract. 51, Mariae virginitate perpetua, 106; 291; Tract. 95, 292 In Mattheum, 286, 337, 339-40, Leofric, earl, 203—6 343-47; In Osee, 346; Life of Hi- “Leofric Missal”: see Manu-

larion, 174; Life of Paul the scripts, Oxford, Bodleian Li-

, Hermit, 174 brary, Bodley 579 Pseudo-Jerome, Expositio quatuor Liber Eliensis, 192

evangeliorum, 334 Liber questionum in evangelts, Jerusalem, 107, 165, 183 260-61, 269~72, 331-54

Jesus Christ, passim London, 125

. Joachim, 106, 110-11, 115-16, Lord’s Prayer, 26

| 127, 132-33 Lucy, St, 139, 150 Jocelin of Brakelond, Chronicle, ,

122 Maccabees, 274

John of Freiburg, Defensorium An- — Mael-Isu O Brolchain, 280

nae, 105 Manchianus, 260

John the Baptist, 115-17, 132-33 Manuscripts: Avranches, BM, 81,

John the Evangelist, 110-11, 298; Brussels, Bibliothéque

115-16, 133, 165 Royale, 1050, 114; Cambria,

Joseph, husband of Mary, 106, BM, 679, 252; Cambridge,

110-11, 115-16, 132-33 University Library, LI. 1. 10, Joseph, son of Mary Cleophas, 919, 234; CCCC 41, 127, 211; 444

Index

CCCC 162, 304; CCCC 191, 142; London, BL, Cotton Ti212; CCCC 196, 212; CCCC berius A. III, 300; London, BL, 198, 183; CCCC 201, 211-12, Cotton Titus D. XXVII, 124; 419-21; CCCC 270, 128; CCCC London, BL, Cotton Vespasian

367, pt. II, 211; CCCC 391, D. VI, 298; London, BL, Cot127; Cambridge, Pembroke ton Vespasian D. XII, 135; College 24, 118-20; Cam- London, BL, Cotton Vespasian bridge, Pembroke College 25, D. XIV, 131-34; London, BL,

117-18, 120, 210, 240, 270-71, Cotton Vitellius D. XVII, 63, 295-325, 332, 359; Cambridge, 142; London, BL, Cotton VitelSt John’s College 35, 113-15, lius E. XVIII, 124, 128; Lon120, 134; Cambridge, St John’s don, BL, Harley 863, 127; College 42, 118; Chartres, BM, London, BL, Harley 1005, 121; 25, 270, 299; Cologne, Dom- London, BL, Harley 2892, 125; bibliothek, 123, 356; Cracow, London, BL, Harley 3068, 230; Cathedral Chapter Library, 43, London, BL, Harley 7563, 219; 334; Cracow, Cathedral Chap- London, Lambeth Palace Liter Library, 140 Kp, 266; Dres- brary, 204, 217; London, Lam-

den, Sachsische beth Palace Library, 362, 135;

Landesbibliothek, R 52", 332, London, Lambeth Palace Li337-38, 342-43, 354; Frank- brary, 427, 127; Lyon, BM, 628,

fort, Stadt- und Universitatsbib- 108; Monte Cassino Abbey, 21,

liothek, Praed. 43, 118; Fulda, 258; Montpellier, Ecole de Bischofliches Priesterseminar, Médicine 55, 257; Munich, theol. 7/1, 332, 342-43, 354; Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Halle, Universitats- und Lan- Clm 6233, 355, 358-61, 363, desbibliothek Sachsen-Anhalt, 365-76; Munich, Bayerische

Quedlinburg 127, 334-35, Staatsbibliothek, Clm 11340, 339-52; Hereford, Cathedral 230; Munich, Bayerische

Library, O. 6. IV, 112; Staatsbibliothek, Clm 14445,

Karlsruhe, Badische Landes- 300; Orléans, BM, 65, 334-54; bibliothek, Augiensis CXCVI, Orléans, BM, 333, 232; Orlé266; Karlsruhe, Badische Lan- ans, BM, 345, 232; Oxford, Baldesbibliothek, K 506, 118; Le liol College 240, 118; Oxford, Havre, BM, 330, 124; London, Bodleian Library, Ashmole BL, Add. 28188, 125; London, 1280, 114—15; Oxford, Bodle-

BL, Cotton Caligula A. XIV, ian Library, Bodley 579, 125; 127; London, BL, Cotton Julius Oxford, Bodleian Library, E. VII, 138-42, 183; London, Rawlinson C. 697, 135; Paris, BL, Cotton Nero E. I, Part 1, BN, Celtique I. vii, 278; Paris, 138, 142, 149, 164; London, BN, lat. 1772, 112; Paris, BN, BL, Cotton Nero E. I, Part 2, lat. 2183, 301; Paris, BN, lat. 64, 138, 142, 149, 164; Lon- 2384, 331, 334-52, 354; Paris, don, BL, Cotton Otho B. X, BN, lat. 2833 A, 356; Paris, BN, 445

Index | lat. 5574, 328-30; Paris, BN, Conception, 122-26, 128, 136; lat. 12,292, 336-37, 340-42, feast of the Nativity, 107,

354; Paris, BN, lat. 13,408, 118-19, 123, 125; feast of the , 326-28; Rome, Vatican City, Presentation in the Temple,

BAV, Barb. lat. 671, 217; Rome, 107; feast of the Purification, Vatican City, BAV, lat. 650, 301; 123; Immaculate Conception

Rome, Vatican City, BAV, lat. of, 126; relics of, 177 651, 108; Rome, Vatican City, Mary Cleophas, 109-11, 115-16,

BAV, Pal. lat. 212, 216, 261-62; 132-33

Rome, Vatican City, BAV, Pal. Mary, daughter of Salome, lat. 220, 216, 261; Rome, Vati- 109—11, 115-16, 132-33 can City, BAV, Pal. lat. 277, Mary Magdalen, 108-9, 115-16, 239; Rome, Vatican City, BAV, 133, 137 Reg. lat. 12, 123; Rome, Vati- Mary of Egypt, OE Life of (LS can City, BAV, Reg. lat. 49, 254, 33B), 183-84 259, 267, 336; Rome, Vatican Matilda, 396-97

City, BAV, Reg. lat. 537, 118; Maundy Thursday, liturgy, |

Rouen, BM, 1385 (U. 107), 381-84, 386 217; St Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, | Maurice, prior, 137 - 1346, 250; Salisbury, Cathedral §Maurus, St, 176

Library, 9, 217; Salisbury, Ca- Maxentius, 148. thedral Library, 131, 217, 230; Maxims I, 27, 42

Salisbury, Cathedral Library, Mercury, 66 222, 64; Troyes, BM, 1742, Michael, St, 274, 332

298-99, 301, 305, 318-19, 324; Middle Irish homilies, 237 Vienna, Osterreichische Na- “Missal of New Minster, Winches-

tionalbibliothek, 940, 334; Vi- ter”: see Manuscripts, Le

enna, Osterreichische Havre, BM, 330

Nationalbibliothek, 1659, 112; “Missal of St Augustine’s Abbey”:

Worcester, Cathedral Library, see Manuscripts, CCCC 270 F. 94, 331, 333-36, 343-354; Mochua, St, 274-75 Wurzburg, Universitatsbiblio- Monte Cassino, 177

thek, M. p. th. qu. 46, 112 Moses, 115, 132-33, 288-90

Margaret, St, 328 | Munich Commentary on MatMariu saga og Onnu, 105, 117 thew, 358-59, 375

Martin of Tours, St, 274

Martyrologium Hieronymianum, 61 Naples, 108

Martyrologium Romanum, 61 Nebuchadnezzar, 165

Mary (BVM), 106, 109-11, Nero, emperor, 168-71

115-16, 118, 120-24, 127, Nikolaus saga Erkibyskups I, 387 132-33, 136; Assumption of, Njals saga, 377 118-20; feast of the Annuncia- Norman Conquest, 186, 188 tion, 123; feast of the Assump- Notker, Martyrology, 62 tion, 123; feast of the 446

Index

Odo, abbot of Glanfeuil, 176—77: Manuscripts, Cambridge,

Vita S. Maun, 176-81 Pembroke College 25

Odo of Cluny, Life of St Gerald of Peter, St, 142, 165, 274, 287

Aurillac, 195, 206 Peterborough, 181

Office of the Dead, 355-57, Physiologus latinus, 343

_ 361-62, 369, 371 “Portiforium of St Wulstan”: see

Olafr feilan, 380 Manuscripts, CCCC 391 Olafr Haraldsson, king of Norway — Procept na Machaabdai, 243

_ (St Olafr), 380-81, 383 Procopius, 107

Olafr Tryggvason, 202, 387-88 Protevangelium of James, 105, Oldafs saga Tryggvasonar in mesta, 106-7, 118

387-88 Prudentius, hymn to St Agnes,

Old English Martyrology, 63, 212 154; Penstephanon, 154 Old Icelandic Homily Book, 131

Old Irish Homily, 235-38, 263 Questiones tam de novo quam de

Old Norwegian Homily Book, vetert testamentum, 239 Church Dedication Sermon, Quo Vadis, 169, 172 383, 389

Ordinals of Christ, 218 Ralph d’Escures, bishop and

Ordines Romani, 246, 258, 357 archbishop, 121, 131-32; ser-

Ording, abbot, 122 mon on the Assumption of the Ordo defunctorum, 356, 358 BVM, 122, 131-32

Origen, 106, 430, 432; Commen- Ramsey, 125, 192, 199-201, 205-6

tary on Matthew, 286 Reading, 126 |

Osbert of Clare, 128 Reconciliation of Penitents, 382,

Oswald, St, 185, 191, 194, 386

199-201 Reference Bible, 255-56 ,

Otto, emperor, 402-3 Richard II, king, 130 Riddles, Old English: Exeter Pantaleon, St, 61-103 Riddle 28 (John Barleycorn), Paschasius Radbertus, Expositio in 92; Exeter Riddle 45 (Dough),

Matheo, 333-36, 339-52, 354 50-60; Exeter Riddle 86 (One-

Passio Apollinaris, 181 Eyed Garlic Peddlar), 59 Passio Clementis, 164 Robert II, abbot, 121, 123

Passio Nerei et Achillei, 168 Rochester, 131, 134-35, 183, 399

Passio S. Gallicani, 142 Roger of York, archbishop, 137 Patrick, St, 274-75; Vita tripartita Roman Homiliary, 285

of, 278-79, 281 Rome, 105, 107

Paul, St, 142, 165, 204, 253, 274 Rufinus, 183 Paul the Deacon, homiliary of, Rule of Fothaid na Canoine, 246

118-19 | Rule of Mochuta, 246—48

Peele, George, The Old Wives’ Rupert of Deutz, 63, 352 Tale, 56-57

Pembroke-style homiliary: see St Albans, 126 447

Index

Saint-Denis, 119, 331, 334, 336, Thomas de Marlebarwe, abbot,

338, 341, 352-54 129

Saint-Germain-des-Prés, 119 Thorney, 181 Saint-Vivant-sous-Vergy, 108, 128 Tiberius, emperor, 429-30

| Salerno Homiliary, 285-86 “Tidings of Doomsday,” 238, Salome, 110-11, 115-16, 132-33, 274—75, 281

135, 137 Trajan, emperor, 164

Salomites, 137 ‘Transfiguration, sermon on, Saltair na Rann, 238, 281 285-94

Sanas Chormaic, 426, 428 Transitus Mariae, 118

Sarah, 106 Trinubium Annae, 104-37

Sarum Missal, 382 “Two Sorrows of the Kingdom of Seafarer, 11, 14, 19-20, 45 Heaven,” 238

Sedulius Scottus, De rectoribus

christianis, 406 Porgils Gellisson, 378, 392

‘Sempronius, 140, 143-45, 151 Porkell Eyjdlfsson, 378-85, 389

Senan, St, 274-15 Porkell Gellisson, 378

cenchus ib, king, 1 65 Porsteinn the Black, 378 Sex aetates m un di, 937 Porér Ingunnarson, 379

Sigeferth, 418

Sigebert, king of East Anglia, 121 Porvalds pattr vidforla, 386

Sigeric, archbishop, 202 Ubi sunt topos, 4-5, 23

Simon, bishop, 128 Uhtreed of Bamborough, 400-1 Simon de Luton, abbot, 122 Ulfcytel, 208, 400-1, 410-11

Simon Magus, 168-71 Unnr the Deep-minded, 379-80, Smaragdus, Collectanea, 335; Dia- 390-91 dema monachorum, 216, 232 Urban I, pope, 186, 189 Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla, Urban VI, pope, 130

386-87 Usuard, Martyrology, 61

Solomon and Saturn, Prose, 48 . Stephen, St, 274 Vainglory, 51 | Stigand, archbishop, 122 Verba seniorum, 175 Swein (Forkbeard), 407-9, 416 Vercelli Book, 16, 182-83, 211, 213-14, 298

Tenga Bithnua, 238 Vercelli Homilies: see Homilies,

Terrentianus, 139, 141, 147-48, anonymous, in OE

152 Verona Homily Collection,

Tertullian, 430, 432 235-36, 267

Theodore of Canterbury, arch- Viga-Hrappr, 378

bishop, 218-19 Vigil of the Dead, 355, 357-58,

- Theodulf of Orleans, Capitula, 369, 371, 376 .

912, 931-33 Vindicta Salvatoris, 212 448

Index

Virgilius Maro, Grammar, 260 Winchester, 120, 124, 126, 128,

Virgin martyr legends, 139, 146, 130, 159

149, 151, 155-56 Worcester, 126-27, 130

Visio Leofrict, 203—4, 206-7 “Worcester Legendary,” 142, 149; Vita et passto Waldevi comitis, 207-9 see also “Cotton-Corpus Leg-

Vitae patrum, 174-76, 182 endary”

Wulfstan of Winchester, Vita S.

Waldere, 191 Ethelwoldi, 163

Waltheof, earl, 207-9 Wulfstan of Worcester and York,

Wanderer, 1-26 bishop and archbishop, 22, Wiglaf, 412-13 stitutes of Polity, 403—6

Wido, count, 297-99, 302-3 197, 394, 405, 407, 417-21; InWilliam I the Conqueror, king,

114, 207 Yeavering, 429

William IT Rufus, king, 114 Yellow Book of Lecan, 236 William of Malmesbury, 424, 427

William of Worcester, 121 Zebedee, 110-11, 115-16, 133

Winchcombe, 125-26 Zosimus, 184 |

449

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