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The architectural interest of Æthelwulf's De Abbatibus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

H. M. Taylor
H. M. Taylor
Affiliation:
Cambridge, England
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Extract

The purpose of this article is to describe the architectural evidence contained in a ninth-century poem which has recently been published in a new critical edition. The poem relates to a Northumbrian abbey dependent on Lindisfarne and its content provides some welcome additions to the present small number of contemporary descriptions of churches and their fittings. The poet, who was a member of the community, describes in some detail two churches of the abbey as well as a greater church which he saw in a vision. The poem is dedicated to Egbert, bishop of Lindisfarne 803–21, who would presumably be familiar with the abbey; and this dedication therefore serves not only to date the poem within the first quarter of the ninth century but also to indicate indirectly that it should be free from the wilder exaggerations that have sometimes brought discredit on contemporary descriptions of buildings.

Type
Research Article
Information
Anglo-Saxon England , Volume 3 , December 1974 , pp. 163 - 173
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1974

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References

page 163 note 1 Æthelwulf: De Abbatibus, ed. Campbell, A. (Oxford, 1967). I am indebted to Professor Clemoes for having drawn my attention to this publication.Google Scholar

page 163 note 2 Ibid, preface and pp. xiii–xv.

page 163 note 3 For specific detail about borrowings, see ibid. pp. xxxi and xliv–xlviii; for the borrowing from Aldhelm, p. xlvi.

page 164 note 1 Apart from a few instances, to each of which attention is drawn, my translation is taken directly from the published text, with kind permission from Professor Campbell and the Oxford University Press, to each of whom my gratitude is here acknowledged. In each case of divergence from the published translation I have given in a footnote the original Latin (OL), Professor Campbell's translation (CT) and my reasons for preferring an alternative. The line numbers of the Latin text are cited after each passage.

page 164 note 2 The section-headings form part of the original text: ibid. p. xxi, n. 3. A dedication to St Peter and St Paul was very common both on the continent and in England and sometimes one or other name came to be abandoned.

page 164 note 3 OL: exterius tabulas perfundens segmine plumbi; CT: ‘putting “tables” outside on the roof of lead’. The use of tabula to mean a sheet (of lead) is known in medieval Latin usage in the eleventh century, and it seems the most natural meaning here.

page 165 note 1 OL: porticus in medio; CT: ‘in the midst of a portico’. There is good evidence that the word porticus was used by Anglo-Saxon and other early medieval writers with the special meaning of a subsidiary room opening from the main body of a church. This church is specified as having only one altar and the altar is specified as being in the middle of a porticus. There therefore seems little doubt that the poet is here using the word to mean the particular subsidiary room that we would describe as the sanctuary. For a discussion of the meaning which Bede attached to this word see Brown, G. Baldwin, The Arts in Early England II, Anglo-Saxon Architecture, 2nd ed. (London, 1925), pp. 88–90Google Scholar, or Venerabilis Bedae Opera Historica, ed. Plummer, C. (Oxford, 1896) 11, 80, 333 and 369.Google Scholar

page 165 note 2 OL: porticibus; CT: ‘porticoes’. Here and later I have preferred to use the neutral word porticus in order to avoid the danger of words with special meanings such as chapels, aisles, transepts, nave or chancel.

page 166 note 1 OL: porticibus magnis minimis induxit apertis; CT: ‘and he opened the porticoes great and small and let me in’. I have preferred not only to use the neutral word porticus (see preceding note), but also to translate apertis in the sense ‘standing open’ rather than to imply of necessity that there were doors which needed to be opened.

page 166 note 2 See above, p. 165, n. 2.

page 166 note 3 See ibid.

page 167 note 1 OL: ad culmen cellae; CT: ‘to a high place in the church’ (with a footnote that the poet seemed now to be back at the place where he had asked about Hyglac). Elsewhere in the poem culmen is used of the roof and we know from records and surviving remains that upper chambers were used for treasuries and other purposes.

page 168 note 1 Lines 278–9 and 302–5 are in a section headed ‘Concerning Brother Cwicwine’, the worker in iron (De fratre cuicuino ferrario).

page 168 note 2 This is the burial of Eanmund, the first abbot.

page 168 note 3 This is the burial of Sigwine, the fifth abbot.

page 168 note 4 The interpretation of the word medio, even in such apparently clear phrases as in medio ecclesiae or in media ecclesia, is open to some slight doubt. See, e.g., Oswald, F., ‘In Medio Ecclesiae’, Frübmittelalterliche Studien 3 (1969), 313–26,Google Scholar where the general conclusion is that, while sometimes excavation proves that the geometrical centre is intended, it is sometimes the case that a position anywhere on the central axis was referred to by the words in medio ecclesiae.

page 168 note 5 See preceding note and above, p. 165, n. 1.

page 169 note 1 See Taylor, H. M., ‘The Anglo-Saxon Cathedral Church at Canterbury’, ArchJ 124 (1970), 101–30, esp. fig. 2.Google Scholar See also observations by Gilbert, E. and Gem, R. in ArchJ 125 (1971).Google Scholar

page 172 note 1 For a recent account of hanging bowls, with a full bibliography and suggestions about other uses and possible development of decoration, see Elizabeth, Fowler, ‘Hanging Bowls’, Studies in Ancient Europe, ed. Coles, J. M. and Simpson, D. S. A. (Leicester, 1968), pp. 287–310.Google Scholar

page 172 note 2 Biddle, M. and Quirk, R. N., ‘Excavations near Winchester Cathedral, 1961’, ArchJ 119 (1962), pp. 84–6.Google Scholar

page 173 note 1 Bede, HE 111.25.

page 173 note 2 Evidence for one-cell rectangular wooden churches has been found in England at Stafford (St Bertelin) and at Wharram Percy. Many examples have been recorded on the continent.

page 173 note 3 Taylor, H. M., ‘The Position of the Altar in Early Anglo-Saxon Churches’, AntJ 53 (1973), 52–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 173 note 4 P. 168, n. 2.