11 - Ælfric’s Legacy

Summary

There are clear verbal parallels between certain passages in DTA and in Byrhtferth's Enchiridion, written early in the second decade of the eleventh century. This is perhaps not too surprising, given that Ælfric and Byrhtferth were both heavily dependent on the works of Bede. Table 2 below shows parallels between DTA and the Enchiridion as highlighted by Baker and Lapidge, together with their assumed source(s). Particularly in the longer passages, we have, in passing, the chance to admire the way in which Ælfric edits and abbreviates Bede without losing the sense of the original. The first passage shows similarities of wording between Ælfric's version and Byrhtferth’s, but is perhaps too short to enable firm conclusions to be drawn. In the fourth passage, Byrhtferth's wording may have been influenced by DTA, but does not represent a major divergence from Bede's DNR. In the case of the second and third, however, it seems inconceivable that, had Byrhtferth created his own independent paraphrase of Bede and/or Hrabanus, he would have produced a version so close to Ælfric’s. Even here, however, we can see evidence that he kept one eye on his Latin sources; his curious reference, at the beginning of the third extract, to seafarers as the repository of esoteric knowledge results from no more than a comical mis-reading of Bede's animantium cerebra maritimarum (‘the brains of sea creatures’). It is not surprising, then, that Byrhtferth's text differs from any known version of DTA, and it would be futile at this stage to speculate on the ancestry of the text which he had available. Moreover, if Ælfric's work was generally known and respected at Ramsey (and we have little evidence on the matter), then Byrhtferth's use of DTA is surprisingly limited, given the number of points at which they cover the same ground. It is possible, of course, that he had access only to part of the text of DTA, or to extracts. As stylists, Ælfric and Byrhtferth are often poles apart, with the latter sometimes adopting an arcane vocabulary, perhaps in imitation of the ‘hermeneutic’ style popular among Latin writers of the period. On the other hand, it is equally possible that he was not always comfortable with Ælfric's approach to his material, particularly where the latter diverges from his sources (compare their respective teaching on comets, outlined on p. 54 above).