1 - The Eynsham ‘letter’ and the study of Ælfric

Summary

Even at the height of his literary activity, to the question ‘What do you do?’, Ælfric of Eynsham (c. 955–c. 1010) is easily imagined responding in words like those of his fictitious monastic novice in the Latin Colloquy, or classroom dialogue. Ælfric there has the boy say, when confronted with this question (‘Quid habes operis?’): ‘Professus sum monachus, et psallam omni die septem sinaxes cum fratribus, et occupatus sum lectionibus et cantu.’ Though the Colloquy then proceeds to describe the work of numerous other, secular professions, the schoolmaster eventually returns to the novice, this time to pose a different question: which of the occupations is best? The boy again answers in terms of which Ælfric himself doubtless approves: ‘mihi uidetur seruitium Dei inter istas artes primatum tenere, sicut legitur in euangelio: “Primum querite regnum Dei et iustitiam eius, et hçc omnia adicientur uobis.”’ Such assertions of primacy are of course commonplace in monastic literature, and the Colloquy, a school exercise, hardly presented its author an occasion to expound a nuanced theory of monkhood. The novice's words nevertheless remind us of an obvious yet often forgotten truth: to Ælfric, the ‘greatest prose writer of the Anglo-Saxon period’, the role of author was inevitably subsumed into his vocation as a monk and mass-priest, whose chief occupation was to worship God in the liturgy and carry out other duties laid down by the Rule of St Benedict.