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Unfulfilled promise: the rubrics of the Old English prose Genesis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Benjamin C. Withers
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Extract

The Old English prose Genesis contains a series of innovative rubrics, unparalleled in the Vulgate tradition, which divide the story of Genesis into a series of holy biographies of the patriarchs Noah, Abraham and Joseph. These rubrics, added to the text in the eleventh century, use formulaic language derived from contemporary documents such as Anglo-Saxon wills and thereby regulate how Genesis was to be read and interpreted by an aristocratic layman or novice monk. The rubrics blend ancient Hebrew narratives, stories of the saints and the legal conventions familiar to the reader in order to portray ‘sacred history’ as an unbroken, legally sanctioned inheritance. They emphasize the Covenant of God with Abraham and the people of Israel and assure the contemporary reader that he too will inherit an unfulfilled promise manifested in God's covenant with the patriarchs.

Type
Research Article
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Anglo-Saxon England , Volume 28 , December 1999 , pp. 111 - 139
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1999

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References

1 These manuscripts are described by Ker, N. R., Catalogue of Manuscripts containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford, 1957; repr. with suppl. 1990)Google Scholar and listed by Gneuss, H., ‘A Preliminary List of Manuscripts Written or Owned in England up to 1100’, ASE 9 (1981), 1–60Google Scholar. A facsimile of Claudius B. iv has been published in The Old English Illustrated Hexateuch: British Museum Cotton Claudius B.IV, ed. Dodwell, C. R. and Clemoes, P. A. M., EEMF 18 (Copenhagen, 1974)Google Scholar. The text is ed. Crawford, S. J.The Old English Version of the Heptateuch, Æfric's Treatise on the Old and New Testament and his Preface to Genesis, EETS os 160 (London, 1922; repr. 1969 with the text of two additional manuscripts transcribed by N. R. Ker).Google Scholar

2 See Crosby, R., ‘Oral Delivery in the Middle Ages’, Speculum 2 (1936), 88–110CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Camille, M., ‘Seeing and Reading: Some Visual Implications of Literacy’, Art Hist. 8 (1985), 26–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Cf. Brilliant, R., ‘The Bayeux Tapestry: a Striped Narrative for their Eyes and Ears’, Word and Image 7 (1991), 113–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 See O'Keeffe, K. O'Brien, Visible Song: Transitional Literacy in Old English Verse, CSASE 4 (Cambridge, 1990)Google Scholar. I am also expanding the sense of ‘community of texts’ as it is discussed by Stock, B., The Implications of Literacy: Written Language and Models of Interpretation in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (Princeton, NJ, 1983).Google Scholar

4 I am here concerned with the relationship of oral and literate patterns in the Old English vernacular similar to those explored by O'Brien, O'Keeffe, Visible Song, pp. 6–14.Google Scholar

5 ‘We never really confront a text immediately, in all its freshness as a thing-in-itself. Rather, texts come before us as the always-already read; we apprehend them through sedimented layers of previous interpretations, or – if the text is brand new – through the sedimented reading habits and categories developed by those interpretive traditions’: Jameson, F., The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act (Ithaca, NY, 1981), p. 9.Google Scholar

6 Ideology refers to ‘the means through which man gives meaning to his social world and thereby makes it available to his practical activity’: Patterson, L., Negotiating the Past the Historical Understanding of Medieval Literature (Madison, WI, 1987), p. 54.Google Scholar

7 A paraphrase of all seven books is found in only one manuscript, Bodleian Library, Laud Misc. 509. For this reason, to refer to the texts as they are found in other manuscript contexts as being part of the Old English ‘Heptateuch’ is a misnomer. Only the Laud manuscript can accurately be called a ‘Heptateuch’; the other paraphrased texts must be seen in the contexts of their own unique compilations to be more accurately understood, as I argue below.

8 Marsden, R., ‘Old Latin Intervention in the Old English Heptateuch’, ASE 23 (1994), 229–64.Google Scholar

9 Claudius B. iv and Laud Misc. 509. The initial folio of Claudius B. iv has been lost but was transcribed by Robert Talbot in his notebook, Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 379. See Graham, T., ‘Early Modern Uses of Claudius B.IV: Robert Talbot and William L'Isle’, The Old English Hexateuch: Aspects and Approaches, ed. Barnhouse, R. and Withers, B. (Kalamazoo, MI, forthcoming).Google Scholar

10 Clemoes, P., ‘The Chronology of Ælfric's Works’, The Anglo-Saxons: Studies in Some Aspects of Their History and Culture Presented to Bruce Dickins, ed. Clemoes, P. (London, 1959), pp. 212–47Google Scholar; repr. as The Chronology of Ælfric's Work (Binghamton, NY, 1980)Google Scholar; Clemoes, P., ‘The Composition of the Old English Text’, The Old English Illustrated Hexateuch, pp. 42–53Google Scholar, concludes that Ælfric was responsible for Genesis I–III, V.32, VI–IX, XIII–XXII; Numbers XII-end (except XIII.5–17) and Joshua (except I.1–10 and XII).

11 In his Preface to Genesis, Ælfric states that he has translated the story of Creation up to Isaac (Genesis XXIV) and that ‘some other man’ had translated the rest. P. Clemoes, in The Old English Illustrated Hexateuch, credits ‘Anonymous’ with filling the gaps in Genesis IV-V.31, X-XI, XXIV.15- XL.25, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers I-XII and Deuteronomy. Clemoes proposed that the paraphrase was gathered together and compiled by one man, the Ramsey monk and scholar Byrhtferth. Baker, P., ‘The Old English Canon of Byrhtferth of Ramsey’, Speculum 55 (1980), 22–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar, rejects Clemoes's attribution, concluding that the non-Ælfrician portions of the paraphrase were translated and compiled by some other anonymous author, probably from the monastery at Ramsey. At present we are left with an agreed division of the text into distinct sections translated by different authors; one is definitely Ælfric of Eynsham, the other an unknown ‘anonymous’ scholar, possibly Byrhtferth or someone else at Ramsey. See now Marsden, R., ‘Translation by Committee?: the “Anonymous” Text of the Old English Hexateuch’, The Old English Hexateuch, ed. Barnhouse, and Withers, (forthcoming).Google Scholar

12 One (Lincoln, Cathedral Library, 298 no. 2) consists of two leaves containing the text of Numbers IX.1-XVI.2. Crawford, S. J., ‘The Lincoln Fragment of the Old English Version of the Heptateuch’, MLR 15 (1920), 1–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar, dates the leaves to ‘not later than the third quarter of the eleventh century’ and states that its text corresponds to that found in Laud Misc. 509 ‘with phonological variations’. Two other fragments, these preserving portions of the text of Exodus, are the sole remains of another manuscript of the translation. One fragment, now in the Pierpont Morgan Library, contains portions of Exodus XVI.16, XVI.17-XVII.13, XXIX.46-XXXII.24. Crawford reports that the other fragment, formerly at Norwich but now lost, contained Exodus IX.20-X.9; XIII.19-XIV.23. The translation continued to be influential into the twelfth century. Several exegetical annotations, in Latin and English, were added to the text of Claudius B. iv. One twelfth-century manuscript, Cambridge, University Library, Ii. 1. 33, contains a portion of the beginning of Genesis (to XXIV.22), which belongs to a different recension of the paraphrase text: see Chase, F. H., ‘A New Text of the Old English Genesis’, ASNSL 100 (1898), 241–66Google Scholar. See also Crawford, , Heptateuch, pp. 424–39Google Scholar, and Raith, J., ‘Ælfric's Share in the Old English Pentateuch’, RES ns 3 (1952), 305–14.Google Scholar

13 Ker dates the ‘two heavy, uncalligraphic, round hands’ to the ‘middle part of the first half of the eleventh century’ (‘xi1’ in his shorthand notation): Catalogue, p. 179.Google Scholar Ker's date is accepted by Gneuss, , ‘Preliminary List’, p. 22 (no. 315)Google Scholar. Art historians, following the lead of Francis Wormald, prefer to date the pictures on stylistic criteria to the 'second quarter of the eleventh century’: Wormald, F., English Drawings of the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries (London, 1953), p. 67 (no. 26)Google Scholar. For an assessment of Wormald's dating, see Withers, B., ‘A Sense of Englishness: Claudius B. iv and Colonialism in the Mid-Twentieth Century’, The Old English Hexateuch, ed. Barnhouse, and Withers, .CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14 Ker, , Catalogue, pp. 422–4 (no. 344).Google Scholar Readings variant to Claudius B. iv are given by Crawford, Heptateuch.

15 Ker, , Catalogue, pp. 82–90 and 224–9, and Raith, ‘Ælfric's Share’.Google Scholar

16 See above, n. 11.

17 Laud Misc. 509 is attributed to Christ Church by Crawford, Heptateuch, p. 440Google Scholar. Claudius B. iv was first attributed to St Augustine's by James, M. R., The Ancient libraries of Canterbury and Dover (Cambridge, 1903), no. 95Google Scholar. Corpus 201 has been attributed to the New Minster by Bishop, T. A. M., English Caroline Minuscule (Oxford, 1971), p. xv, n. 2.Google Scholar

18 See Frantzen, A. J., Desire for Origins: Nem Language, Old English, and Teaching the Tradition (New Brunswick, NJ, 1990), pp. 1–27.Google Scholar

19 See de Bruyne, D., Sommaires et rubriques de la Bible latine (Namur, 1914)Google Scholar; Gibson, M. T., The Bible in the Latin West (Notre Dame, IN, 1993), pp. 10–11Google Scholar. For the Vulgate in Anglo-Saxon England, see Marsden, R., ‘The Old Testament in Late Anglo-Saxon England: Preliminary Observations on the Textual Evidence’, The Early Medieval Bible: its Production, Decoration and Use, ed. Gameson, R., Cambridge Stud. in Palaeography and Codicology 2 (Cambridge, 1994), 101–24Google Scholar; and Marsden, , ‘Old Latin Intervention’, pp. 229–30.Google Scholar

20 Only one complete Latin Bible from late Anglo-Saxon England is extant today, London, BL, Royal 1. E. VII + VIII. The manuscript dates from the tenth century with eleventh-century replacements for leaves lost at the beginning of Genesis. In this manuscript the capitula are marked in the text with an ink capital. Temple, E., Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts 900–1066 (London, 1976), no. 102, pl. 319Google Scholar; Heimann, A., ‘Three Illustrations from the Bury St. Edmunds Psalter and their Prototypes’, Jnl of the Courtauld and Warburg Inst. 29 (1966), 39–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Marsden, , ‘The Old Testament in Late Anglo-Saxon England’, pp. 109–19;Google Scholar and idem, ‘Old Latin Intervention’, pp. 236–7.Google Scholar

21 Genesis, as well as other books of the Hexateuch, was read starting at Quadragesima, to provide a historical context for the events of the Passion recounted in the Gospels. Readings from these books were a prominent part of Matins: see Hughes, A., Medieval Manuscripts for Mass and Office; a Guide to their Terminology (Toronto, 1982), p. 22.Google Scholar

22 As I explain elsewhere (‘Present Patterns, Past Tense: Text and Illustration in London, British Library Cotton Ms. Claudius B.iv’, unpubl. PhD dissertation, Univ. of Chicago, 1994), Claudius B. iv contains a variety of visual and textual devices that signal an underlying structure for the narrative and motivate the reader/viewer to understand the biblical text in terms of his or her knowledge of other textual or visual experiences.

23 For a general history of the use of decoration and initial to mark textual divisions in the Middle Ages, see Nordenfalk, C., ‘The Beginnings of Book Decoration’, Essays in Honor of George Swarzenski, ed. Goetz, O. (Chicago, IL, 1951), pp. 9–20.Google Scholar

24 I will examine these differences below. Some textual variants are noted by Crawford, , Heptateuch, pp. 424–39.Google Scholar Raith examines the differences in more detail in ‘Ælfric's Share’.

25 Dodwell and Clemoes' facsimile, Old English Illustrated Hexateuch, illustrates the arrangement of this page, although the black and white photographs of the facsimile disguise the addition of the writing at the top of the page, belonging to a twelfth-century annotator, which now fills the space originally left for the rubric.

26 Dodwell and Clemoes, Old English Illustrated Hexateuch, 1r.

27 Untranslated texts to all the quotations from Claudius B. iv, Laud Misc. 509 and Otho B. x can be found in Crawford, Heptateuch. The translations, where no other authority is cited, are my own.

28 The Laud manuscript begins with a now faded four-line red initial to Ælfric's Preface to Genesis. The text of the Preface runs continuously into the rubricated Genesis Incipit. A large two-line green initial ‘O’ marks the start of the Old English text. Throughout the Laud manuscript, the text is punctuated by black ink, one line initials. Occasionally a larger one-and-one-half-line initial marks sections of the text, though without breaks in the text lines.

29 ‘Here is made known (or manifested) the mercy of Almighty God and his miracles, how he saved Noah and his wife and his offspring at that great flood.’ Crawford, , Heptateuch, p. 99, note to V. 32.Google Scholar

30 ‘Here is made known (or manifested) the mercy of Almighty God and his miracles, how he chose Abraham and gave his blessing to him and his offspring.’ Ibid. p.114.

31 Ibid. p. 170.

32 ‘Here Almighty God testified his mercy which he promised Abraham, in Joseph, Abraham's offspring.’

33 Not recorded by Crawford; see Raith, , ‘Ælfric's Share’, p. 305.Google Scholar

34 Text recorded by Wanley, H., Antiquæ literaturæ septentrionalis liber alter…catalogus (Oxford, 1705), p. 192Google Scholar. See Crawford, , Heptateuch, pp. 5–6Google Scholar, and Raith, , ‘Ælfric's Share’, p. 305.Google Scholar

35 See Withers, ‘Present Patterns, Past Tense’, where I argue that Ælfric's Preface may be seen as an integral component of both the Laud and Claudius manuscripts, in which case the text would be divided by the rubrics into five parts. Structurally the Preface serves as a textual intermediary between the Old Testament history and the contemporary Anglo-Saxon reader and in this sense is analogous to the shorter rubricated passages that I discuss in this paper.

36 Medieval authors recount several methods for structuring history. For a brief survey of the possible formulations, see Jones, C. W., Saints' Lives and Chronicles in Early England (Ithaca, NY, 1947), p. 24Google Scholar, and Farrar, R. S., ‘Structure and Function in Representative Old English Saints' Lives’, Neophilologus 57 (1973), 83–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

37 ÆElfric, , Treatise on the Old and New Testaments. The Old English text and William Lisle's translation of the treatise are printed in Crawford, Heptateuch, pp. 15–75; see esp. pp. 24, 26, 35 and 39.Google Scholar

38 Ælfric, , Treatise on the Old and New Testaments, p. 28.Google Scholar

39 In arguing for a meaningful interplay between the past as recorded in scripture and lived experience for the Anglo-Saxon audience, I follow a line of study formulated by Bernstein, D., The Mystery of the Bayeux Tapestry (Chicago, IL, 1986), p. 178Google Scholar, and Howe, N., Migration and Mythmaking in Anglo-Saxon England (New Haven, CT, 1989)Google Scholar. A continentally based study of similar reuse of the past can be found in Nichols, S., Romanesque Signs: Early Medieval Narrative and Iconography (New Haven, CT, 1983), pp. 1–14.Google Scholar

40 As found in Ælfric's Grammar as quoted in Bosworth, J. and Toller, T. N., An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary (Oxford, 1898), p. 531.Google Scholar My findings on this matter are reinforced by Brilliant, ‘The Bayeux Tapestry’, pp. 113–18.Google Scholar

41 Bosworth, and Toller, , Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, p. 531Google Scholar; Brilliant, , ‘The Bayeux Tapestry’, p. 118Google Scholar. This is the sense of her in the context of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle where it marks the start of the annual entries: see Clemoes, P., ‘Language in Context: Her in the 890 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle’, Leeds Stud. in Engl. ns 16 (1985), 27–36Google Scholar; Waterhouse, E. R., ‘Stylistic Features as a Factor in Detecting Change in the Ninth Century Anglo-Saxon Chronicle’, Parergon 27 (1980), 3–8Google Scholar; Meaney, A. L., ‘St. Neot's, Æthelweard, and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: a Survey’, Studies in Earlier Old English Prose, ed. Szarmach, P. E. (Albany, NY, 1986), pp. 193–243, at 205.Google Scholar

42 Clemoes, , ‘Language in Context’, p. 28. I owe this reference to Allen Frantzen.Google Scholar

43 It is the third person singular present tense form of the infinitive sweotolian. See Bosworth, and Toller, , Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, p. 951;Google Scholar see also Venezky, R. and Healey, A. diPaolo, A Microfiche Concordance to Old English (Newark, DE, 1980), fiche S0033, 195–9.Google Scholar

44 The existence of Old English words and word-groupings that functioned as ‘Old English legal jargon’ is postulated by Campbell, A., ‘An Old English Will’, JEGP 37 (1938), 133–52Google Scholar. Harmer, F. E. (Anglo-Saxon Writs (Manchester, 1952), pp. 85–92)Google Scholar notes other examples of word-groupings which retain specific legal overtones across textual genres. In particular, she discusses the use of alliteration, rhyme and parallelism in formulas that serve as mnemonic devices for the audience of the text. In this she sees ties between the construction of legal documents and church sermons. Lowe, K. A., ‘Swutelung/swutelian and the Dating of an Old English Charter (Sawyer 1524)’, N & Q ns 38 (1991), 450–2Google Scholar, argues that the phrase ‘Her is geswutelod on þissum gewrite hu’ can be localized to Winchester, Old Minster and the years 963–75. N. Brooks sees a similar dependence on formulas in other Anglo-Saxon legal documents, noting that the formulaic character of the Anglo-Saxon writ derives from ‘generations of oral messages to the folk courts’: ‘Anglo-Saxon Charters: the Work of the Last Twenty Years’, ASE 3 (1974), 211–31, at 219.Google Scholar

45 Venezky, and Healey, , A Microfiche Concordance to Old English, fiche S0033, 195–9Google Scholar. The Concordance also records one instance of the phrase with a variant spelling of the verb, her swuteleð. The phrase is recorded with the verb in the past tense four times, Her is geswutelod; for the importance of these four instances, see Lowe, ‘Swutelung/swutelian’

46 Sixteen examples of this formulaic beginning can be found in Whitelock, D., Anglo-Saxon Wills (Cambridge, 1930): nos. V, VII, IX, XII, XV, XVI(2), XVII, XVIII, XXII, XXIV, XXVI, XXVII, XXXII, XXXVII and XXXVIIIGoogle Scholar. Another example is furnished by Whitelock, D. and Ker, N., The Will of Æthelgifu: a Tenth Century Anglo-Saxon Manuscript (Oxford, 1968)Google Scholar; and The Charters of Burton Abbey, ed. Sawyer, P. H. (Oxford, 1979), pp. 53–6 (no. 29)Google Scholar. The same phrases frequently appear in charters. A few examples suffice: see Harmer, , Anglo-Saxon Writs, no. XXGoogle Scholar, and Lowe, , ‘Swutelung/swutelian, p. 451, n. 10.Google Scholar Some examples differ in spelling and word order; the nature and importance of these differences are still to be considered. Campbell, (‘An Old English Will’, p. 138, n. 1)Google Scholar considers the phrase ‘her is geswutelod an þis gewrit’ and its variants to be a later form of the formula ‘cyðo & writan hato’ and its variants. In his opinion, ‘such a formula shows the writing was highly important’.

47 Although my examples are from Ecclesiastics, the same phrase also occurs in the wills of secular figures (both men and women): see Whitelock, , Anglo-Saxon Wills, nos. XVII, XXII, XXVII and XXXII.Google Scholar

48 Translated by Whitelock, , Anglo-Saxon Wills, pp. 52–3:Google Scholar ‘Here it is made known how Archbishop Ælfric drew up his will. First as his burial fee, he bequeathed to Christ Church the estates at Westwell and Bourne and Risborough. And he bequeathed to his lord his best ship and the sailing tackle with it, and sixty helmets and sixty coats of mail.’ Whitelock in her commentary to her translation points out that the war equipment is not the archbishop's heriot, as he later on in the document makes provisions for its payment. The archbishop's concern with what we consider the attributes of the warrior may provide further evidence of the permeable boundary between the realms of the layman and the ecclesiastic that I discuss below.

49 ‘It is made known here in this document how Bishop Ælfric wishes to assign his property which he acquired under God and under King Cnut his dear lord…’ (trans. Whitelock, , AngloSaxon Wills, pp.70–1Google Scholar).

50 Boulay-Hill, A.du, ‘A Saxon Church at Breamore, Hants.’, ArchJ 55 (1898), 84–7Google Scholar, and J. T. Micklethwaite, ‘Some Further Notes on Saxon Churches’, ibid. (1898), 340–9. See also Brown, G. B., The Arts in Early England, 5 vols. (London, 1903) II, 234–9Google Scholar; V. C. H. Hampshire and the Isle of Wight 5 vols. + Index (London, 1900–1914) IV, 598–601Google Scholar; , A. R. and Green, P. M., Saxon Architecture and Sculpture in Hampshire (Winchester, 1951), pp. 5–8 and 36–9Google Scholar; Fisher, C. A., The Greater Anglo-Saxon Churches (London, 1962), p. 392Google Scholar; , H. M. and Taylor, J., Anglo-Saxon Architecture, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1965) I, 94–6Google Scholar; Fernie, E., The Architecture of the Anglo-Saxons (London, 1982), pp. 112–14;Google ScholarLowe, , ‘Swutelung/swutelian’, p. 451, n. 10Google Scholar; Okasha, E., ‘The English Language in the Eleventh Century: the Evidence from Inscriptions’, England in the Eleventh Century, ed. Hicks, C., Harlaxton Med. Stud. 2 (Stamford, 1992), 333–45Google Scholar; and , R. and Gameson, F., ‘The Anglo-Saxon Inscription at St. Mary's Church, Breamore, Hampshire’, ASSAH 6 (1993), 1–10.Google Scholar

51 A third translation has been published by Okasha, , ‘The English Language in the Eleventh Century’, p. 337.Google Scholar This translation, which reads ‘Here the agreement which…reveals…’, has been rejected by , R. and Gameson, F., ‘Anglo-Saxon Inscription’, p. 9, n. 29.Google Scholar

52 Green and Green attribute this translation to Andrews, W. J. (p. 6–7).Google Scholar Du Boulay-Hill offers the same translation without reference to previous authority (‘A Saxon Church’, p. 86Google Scholar). Most recently, this interpretation has been affirmed by , R. and Gameson, F., ‘The Anglo-Saxon Inscription’, p. 2.Google Scholar

53 Napier, A. S., ‘Contributions to Old English Lexicography’, TPS 32 (1903–1906), 265–358, at 292.Google Scholar For the alteration in the church fabric, see Green, and Green, , Saxon Architecture, pp. 5–8Google Scholar, and Taylor, and Taylor, , Anglo-Saxon Architecture 1, 94–6.Google Scholar

54 Du, Boulay-Hill (‘A Saxon Church’, p. 86)Google Scholar suggests that the inscription carries ‘legal rather than scriptural language, perhaps the fulfilment of a church-building vow.’ A third interpretation of the inscription is offered by Deanesly, M., The Pre-Conquest Church in England (London, 1961), pp. 349–51Google Scholar; she suggests that the inscription dates to the twelfth century and records the gift of the church to canons regular. A similar claim is attributed to Rev. E. P. Dew by Boulay-Hill, du (‘A Saxon Church’, p. 86).Google ScholarBoulay-Hill, Du, and Taylor, and Taylor, , Anglo-Saxon Architecture 1, 94–6Google Scholar, dismiss these claims. See also Green, A. R. who suggests a textual parallel with Titus I.2–3 (Saxon Architecture, pp. 6–7).Google Scholar

55 , R. and Gameson, F., ‘The Anglo-Saxon Inscription’, p. 1.Google Scholar

56 Ibid. p. 6.

57 An exception is Okasha, , ‘English Language in the Eleventh Century’, p. 337Google Scholar. According to Toller's supplement to the Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, the word is found only in the context of the Breamore arch inscription. The authority cited for its meaning is Napier, , ‘Contributions’, p. 292Google Scholar, who simply defines the term as ‘agreement, covenant’. Boulay-Hill, Du (‘A Saxon Church’, p. 86)Google Scholar explains the term as the ‘late form of the word “gecwidrœden” – “compact”, “covenant”’.

58 Bosworth, and Toller, , Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, p. 382.Google Scholar They note that Ælfric uses the term as a gloss for Latin conspiratio. The Dictionary of Old English also notes the gloss ‘conspiratio’ which derives from the Latin-Old English glossary in Antwerp, Plantin-Moretus Museum 47 + British Library, Add. 32246. I am grateful to Peter Baker, Patrizia Lendinara and Greg Rose for their help with this matter.

59 Hazeltine, H. D., ‘Preface’, in Whitelock, Anglo-Soxon Wills, p. xv, n. 5.Google Scholar

60 Bosworth, and Toller, , Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, s.v. ‘ræd’ (pp. 781–3), ‘ræden’ (p. 783), and ‘(ge)cwid’ (p. 180).Google Scholar

61 Hazeltine, , ‘Preface’, in Whitelock, Anglo-Saxon Wills, p. xiii.Google Scholar

62 I am not sure if the unusual aspect of ‘gecwidrcœdness’ as an abstract feminine noun derived from another abstract feminine noun ‘gecwidrœden’ would affect its interpretation.

63 The Breamore inscription refers the reader or the audience to the continued relevance of a legal obligation. God's covenant with Noah not to destroy the earth certainly qualifies as this kind of promise. The inscription may also refer to another Old Testament promise, God's covenant with Abraham. The ritual actions – probably baptism, or perhaps, but not very likely, the mass – that would take place below the arch or within the space of the chancel that the arch effectively frames would have been perceived as a partial fulfilment of the covenant given to Abraham. Green, and Green, (Saxon Architecture, p. 8)Google Scholar postulate that the porticus was used as a side chapel, although they note that no signs of an altar have been found. See also , R. and Gameson, F., ‘The Anglo-Saxon Inscription’, p. 6.Google Scholar

64 I have yet to find any specific discussion of the diplomatics of ‘authenticating agent’ in terms of an originator of a document in Anglo-Saxon wills. The usefulness of a document which makes no mention of any person to give, witness (or possibly receive) the ‘covenant’ seems limited.

65 Hazeltine, , ‘Preface’, in Whitelock, Anglo-Saxon Wills, pp. xiii–xxxGoogle Scholar. Campbell, ‘An Old English Will’, disputes this claim; citing the presence of many different donees in the typical Anglo-Saxon will. Campbell declares that the will ‘establishes its possessor in the right to future ownership, and makes known the claim of all donees…the contractual settlement has been set aside …” (p. 134, n. 5). See also Danet, B. and Bogoch, B., ‘From Oral Ceremony to Written Document: the Transitional Language of Anglo-Saxon Wills’, Language and Communication 12 (1992), 95–122, at 97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

66 Wills are ‘after-the-fact records of the binding event’: Danet, and Bogoch, , ‘From Oral Ceremony’, p. 97.Google Scholar

67 Sheehan, M., The Will in Medieval England (Rome, 1963), p. 53Google Scholar. Hazeltine, , ‘Preface’Google Scholar, suggests that the will could be read to the witnesses who were present at the original oral act in order to strengthen its legal standing (p. xvii). In the terminology of modern ‘Speech Act’ analysis, wills are ‘public constitutive acts’ which seek to ‘represent, in writing, acts of declaration’: see Danet, and Bogoch, , ‘From Oral Ceremony’, pp. 95–122Google Scholar; Danet, B. and Bogoch, B., ‘“Whoever Alters This, May God Turn His Face from Him on the Day of Judgement”: Curses in Anglo-Saxon Wills’, Jnl of American Folklore 105 (1992), 132–65, at 139 and 143CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Their arguments are based, in part, on the theories of Searle, J., Speech Acts: an Essay in the Philosophy of Language (Cambridge, 1969).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

68 A stone fragment with the letters ‘ðes’ is reported by du Boulay-Hill, Green and Taylor and Taylor (see above, p. 121, n. 50). The letters on the fragment are ‘of similar size and form’ to the surviving inscription on the south arch. The fragment may have come from either of the two altered arches, north porticus and central arches: see Taylor, and Taylor, , Anglo-Saxon Architecture I, 95Google Scholar; Rodwell, W. and Rouse, E., ‘The Anglo-Saxon Rood and other Features in the South Church of St. Mary's Church, Breamore, Hampshire’, AntJ 64 (1984), 298–325, at 317CrossRefGoogle Scholar; , R. and Gameson, F., ‘The Anglo-Saxon Inscription’, p. 2.Google Scholar

69 Bosworth, and Toller, , Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, p. 191.Google Scholar

70 Fokkelman, J. P., Narrative Art in Genesis (Amsterdam, 1975), pp. 238–41Google Scholar. Fokkelman points out that the major narrative theme that unites the stories found in the Genesis collection is the history of God's Blessing on the Israelites. In his terms, the Blessing literally ‘generates’ the story of the ‘generations’ of Abraham's children.

71 Hazeltine, ‘Preface’, notes the descriptive import of the word gewrit (Whitelock, Anglo-Saxon Wills, p. xiii), while Campbell, ‘An Old English Will’, lists the varying formulas that call attention to the importance of the written document (p. 138, n. 1). I am grateful to Toby Baldwin for calling this replacement to my attention.

72 ‘The spoken word is always an event, a moment in time, completely lacking the thing-like repose of the written word’: Ong, W. J., Orality and Literacy: the Technologizing of the Word (London and New York, 1982), p. 75CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Jauss, H. R., ‘Literary History as a Challenge to Literary Theory’, Tomaras an Aesthetic of Reception, trans. Bahti, T. (Sussex, 1982), pp. 3–45Google Scholar; and, most recently, Lees, C. A., ‘Working with Patristic Sources: Language and Context in Old English Homilies’, Speaking Two Languages: Traditional Disciplines and Contemporary Theory in Medieval Studies, ed. Frantzen, A. J. (Albany, NY, 1991), pp. 157–80, at 165–7.Google Scholar

73 Danet, and Bogoch, , ‘“Whoever Alters This”’, p. 153.Google Scholar

74 Ong discusses the ‘unifying sense’ of the spoken word: Orality and Literacy, p. 73.Google Scholar

75 ‘Some men are afflicted for the miracles of God, as Christ said of some blind man, when his disciples asked him, for whose sins the man was thus born blind. Then said Jesus, that he was born blind not for his own nor his parents' sins, but because that God's miracles might be manifested through him. And he forthwith mercifully healed him, and manifested that he is the true Creator, who opened the unshapen eye-rings with his salutary spitde’: The Homilies of the Anglo-Saxon Church: the First Part, Containing the Sermones Catholici, or Homilies of Ælfric, ed. and trans. Thorpe, B., 2 vols. (London, 1844–1846) I, 4741–5 (no. xxxi).Google Scholar

76 Sheehan, , Wills, pp. 49–50Google Scholar; Hazeltine, , ‘Preface’, in Whitelock, Anglo-Saxon Wills, p. xvii.Google Scholar

77 Bosworth, and Toller, , Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, p. 191.Google Scholar See also Venezky and Healey, Microfiche Concordance, fiche C0015.

78 Bosworth, and Toller, , Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, p. 191.Google Scholar

79 Weitzmann and Kessler consider the depiction of the active figure of the Creator as one of the hallmarks of the Cotton Genesis iconographical tradition. I would suggest that the inclusion of the figure of God as an active figure in the story can have more to do with the desire of the artist to stress God's role as a protagonist, as a principal subject and main focus of the action than with a proposed line of iconographical descent: see Weitzmann, K. and Kessler, H., The Cotton Genesis, British Library Codex Cotton Otho B. VI (Princeton, NJ, 1986)Google Scholar. A recent assessment of Weitzmann and Kessler's study may be found in Lowden, J., ‘Concerning the Cotton Genesis and Other Illustrated Manuscripts of Genesis’, Gesta 31 (1992), 40–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

80 Much of the following discussion is indebted to Turner, L. A., Announcements of Plot in Genesis, Jnl for the Study of the Old Testament, Supp. Ser. 96 (Sheffield, 1990), 170Google Scholar. For the sense of fulfilment perceived in the Hexateuch as a whole, see von Rad, G., The Problem of the Hexateuch and other Essays, trans. Dicken, E. W. T. (New York, 1966).Google Scholar

81 Genesis XXII.17–18.

82 See Clines, D. J. A., What does Eve Do to Help and Other Readerly Questions to the Old Testament, Jnl for the Study of the Old Testament, Supp. Ser. 94 (Sheffield, 1990), 49–66.Google Scholar

83 Genesis XLI.46–56.

84 The differences found in the rubrics of the various manuscripts were first discussed in depth by Raith, ‘Ælfric's Share’.

85 ‘Here almighty God testifies his mercy which he promised to Abraham and to Joseph and to Abraham's offspring.’ Otho B. x once had a rubric similar to that in CCCC 201. Unfortunately most of the text was lost in the Cotton fire of 1731, but Humphrey Wanley recorded the rubric before the manuscript's destruction: ‘Her cydde god ælmitig his mildheortnysse þe he Abrahame behet and losepe Abrahames ofspringe’ (my emphasis).

86 This similarity, I suggest, reopens the question of the priority of the texts as shown in Clemoes' stemma, especially in regards to the introductory rubrics.

87 ‘And he (Joseph) made them swear to him, saying: God will visit you, carry my bones with you out of this place: And he died being a hundred and ten years old. And being embalmed he was laid in a coffin in Egypt’ (Genesis L.24–5).

88 An abbreviated version of the book of Joshua is found in both the Claudius B. iv and Laud manuscripts.

89 ‘Joseph died when he was one hundred and ten years old, and they buried him with spices. He was taken to his homeland from the land of Egypt into his own kind, and he was buried in the midst of his own kin, where his body rests until the present day. Praise and glory be to the benevolent Saviour forever and ever.’ The ending to Otho B. x is now lost due to the destruction of much of the manuscript in the fire of 1731; the same ending may have been found in the text of Corpus 201, since the two manuscripts are closely related textually (see Raith, ‘Ælfric's Share’, p. 306). The relation of the ending of Otho B. x as recorded by Wanley and the ‘standard’ text is unclear. Otho may well be a variation from the ending of Genesis in an exemplar of the Laud and Claudius text, therefore suggesting a possible reduction of the ending in the later Laud and Claudius versions.

90 The theme of Joseph's bones seems to have had some circulation in pre-Conquest England. For the poetical troping of the finding of Joseph's bones, see the prayer of Judas in the Old English poem ‘Elene’ as discussed by Emerson, O. F., ‘The Legend of Joseph's Bones in Old and Middle English’, MLN 14 (1899), 331–4Google Scholar; Schwartz, R., ‘Joseph's Bones and the Resurrection of the Text: Remembering in the Bible’, PMLA 103 (1988), 114–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For the attentive reader, as I suspect the author of the passage above was, the mention of the fate of Joseph's bones echoes the final verse of Joshua from Claudius B. iv. There, in a passage which elaborates the text of the Vulgate, we find: ‘Iosepes ban witodlice, ðe Israhela bearn broht(on) of Egypta lande, hi bebyrigdon on Sichem, on ðæs landes dæle ðe Iacob bohte æt Emores sunum, Sichemes fæder; hit wæs gehloten to Iosepes bearna lande (for ðam de Iacob hit sealde Iosepe is sune at is forsyðe)’ (Claudius B. iv, 155r).

91 ‘… Oð þisne andweardan dæg’.

92 ‘Praise and glory be to the benevolent Saviour always forever and ever’. Raith, (‘Ælfric's Share’, pp. 306 and 313) points out the links between this phrase and homiletic endings.Google Scholar

93 For the spiralling effect in the Christian notion of time and history, see Hahn, C., ‘Picturing the Text: Narrative in the Life of the Saints’, Art Hist. 13 (1990), 1–33, at 2–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also Higgins, A., ‘Medieval Notions of the Structure of Time’ Jnl of Med. and Renaissance Stud. 19 (1989), 227–50.Google Scholar

94 Raith, (‘Ælfric's Share’, p. 307), associates ‘Numbers xiii–xxvi(xxxi)Google Scholar of the Old English Pentateuch’ with Ælfric's reference in his homily ‘De falsis diis’ to his translated account of the Israelites' forty-year sojourn in the desert. Clemoes agrees that Numbers was translated by Ælfric in a way that duplicates and ‘goes beyond’ his treatment of the theme in De populo Israhel. Clemoes, , Chronology, p. 30.Google Scholar

95 I suggest that the rubrics of the Old English paraphrase were added in imitation of the practice of rubricating saints' lives; possibly the rubrics became connected to the Joseph text, and hence to the rest of Genesis, through the former's association with the various lives and homilies in Otho B. x and Corpus 201.

96 Ker, , Catalogue, pp. 90–1Google Scholar, and Whitelock, D., ‘Wulfstan and the Laws of Cnut’, EHR 63 (1948), 433–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The homilies are ed. Napier, A. S.Wulfstan: Sammlung der ihm zugeschreibenen Homilien (Berlin, 1883)Google Scholar. The lists of saints’ resting-places are ed. Liebermann, F., Die Heiligen Englands (Hanover, 1889) nos. 1 and 9Google Scholar; see also Rollason, D. W., The Mildrith Legend: a Study in Early Medieval Hagiography in England (Leicester, 1982), esp. pp. 28, 57–8Google Scholar, and idem, ‘Lists of Saints' Resting-Places in Anglo-Saxon England’, ASE 7 (1978), 61–93, esp. 79–82Google Scholar. For the possible role the text known as the ‘Secgan’ played in the unification of England, see Rollason, D. W., Saints and Relics in Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford, 1989), pp. 133–63, esp. 158.Google Scholar

97 Ker, , Catalogue, pp. 229–30Google Scholar; Ælfric's Lives of Saints, ed. Skeat, W. W. 4 vols., EETS OS 76, 82, 94 and 114 (London, 1881–1900; repr. in 2 vols., London, 1996).Google Scholar

98 As reconstructed by Ker, , Catalogue, p. 226.Google Scholar

99 ‘In the days of the noble King Eadgar when, by God's Grace, Christianity was thriving well in the English nation under that same king, God by many miracles revealed Saint Swithun, (showing) that he is illustrious. His deeds were not known before God Himself manifested them’ (trans. Skeat, , Lives of Saints, p. 440, lines 1–6).Google Scholar

100 A few lines later Ælfric characterizes these actions more completely as ‘swutelu[m] wundrum and syllicum tacnum’ (Skeat, , Lives of Saints p. 442, line 13Google Scholar).

101 The text is ed. Thorpe, , Homilies I, 8–28Google Scholar. See also Day, V., ‘The Influence of the Catechetical “narratio” on Old English and Some Other Medieval Literature’, ASE 3 (1974), 51–61, at 56–9Google Scholar; Hurt, J. R., ‘A Note on Ælfric's Lives of Saints, no. XVI’, ES 51 (1970), 231–4.Google Scholar

102 Ed. and trans. Crawford, S. J., Exameron Anglice or the Old English Hexameron, Edited with an Introduction, a Collation of all the Manuscripts, a Modern Translation, Parallel Passages from Other Works of Ælfric and Notes on the Sources, Bibliothek der angelsächsischen Prosa 10 (Hamburg, 1921).Google Scholar

103 Hurt, , ‘A Note’, p. 233Google Scholar, adds ‘the Old Testament Saints, Christ and his apostles, and the martyrs and confessors of the period since the crucifixion epitomize in their lives the travails of the pious in these three ages’ (the Fall, the Incarnation, and the coming Last Judgement).

104 Hanning, R. W., The Vision of History in Early Britain from Gildas to Gregory of Monmouth (New York, 1966), p. 33.Google Scholar

105 ‘Sermo de initio creaturæ;, ad populum, quando volueris’, in Thorpe, , Homilies 1, 8–9Google Scholar. This characterization of the text is quoted from Day, , ‘Catechetical “narratio”’, p. 58Google Scholar. Hurt, , ‘A Note’, p. 231Google Scholar, suggests that Ælfric's homily De memoria sanctorum may have played a similar role as introduction and initiation.

106 Richards, M. P., ‘The Manuscript Context of the Old English Laws: Tradition and Innovation’, Studies in Earlier Old English Prose, ed. Szarmach, P. E. (Albany, NY, 1986), pp. 171–92, at 178.Google Scholar

107 Ibid. p. 180.

108 K. Jost has suggested that the Joseph story which is found in these two manuscripts bears traces of an earlier homily based on the patriarch's life: ‘Unechte Ælfric-Texte’, Anglia 51 (1927), 177–219, at 217–18Google Scholar. Crawford, (Heptateuch, p. 427)Google Scholar discounts this theory based on a perceived derivation of the Otho text from the Claudius B. iv and Laud ‘standard’ version of the paraphrase.

109 Farrar, ‘Structure and Function’.

110 Carrasco, M., ‘Sanctity and Experience in Pictorial Hagiography: Two Illustrated Lives of Saints from Romanesque France’, Images of Sainthood in Medieval Europe, ed. Blumenfeld-Kosinski, R. and Szell, T. (Ithaca, NY, 1991), pp. 33–66, at 34Google Scholar. See also Gerould, G. H., Saints' Legends (Boston, 1916), p. 24Google Scholar; Hahn, , ‘Picturing the Text’, p. 3Google Scholar; Farrar, , ‘Structure and Function’;Google Scholar and Bethurum, D., ‘The Form of Ælfric's Lives of Saints’, SP 29 (1932), 515–33Google Scholar. Bethurum suggests that the metrical alliteration that marks Ælfric's homilies creates a direct link or comparison between the Saints and early Germanic heroes ‘with the idea of replacing the latter with the former’ (p. 533).

111 Skeat, , Lives of Saints, pp. 337–63Google Scholar; Hurt, , ‘A Note’, pp. 231–9Google Scholar; Farrar, , ‘Structure and Function’, p. 88.Google Scholar

112 Woolf, R., ‘Lives of Saints’, Continuations and Beginnings: Studies in Old English Literature, ed. Stanley, E. G. (London, 1966), pp. 37–67.Google Scholar

113 Crawford, , Heptateuch, p. 79, lines 74–7Google Scholar. ‘Joseph, who was sold into Egypt and rescued that people from the great famine, betokens Christ who was sold to death for us and rescued us from the eternal hunger of torments of hell’ (my translation). For Ælfric's references to Joseph in his other works, see Richards, M. P., ‘Fragmentary Versions of Genesis in Old English Prose: Context and Function’, The Old English Hexateuch, ed. Barnhouse, and Withers, .Google Scholar

114 Hunter, M., ‘Germanic and Roman Antiquity and the Sense of the Past in Anglo-Saxon England’, ASE 3 (1974), 29–50, at 46Google Scholar, argues that the Anglo-Saxons saw the past as a ‘heroic, idealized present’, with different periods and cultures mingled and confused with one another; ‘an imperfect awareness of the difference between the past, however alien, and the present’.

115 In Erich Auerbach's terms, a ‘figura’ is an event or story that has ‘a dual valence as both real in itself and incomplete’ (quoted by Parrar, , ‘Structure and Function’, p. 88Google Scholar).

116 I owe this last point to discussion with Toby Baldwin.

117 Preface to Genesis, ed. Crawford, , Heptateuch, p. 79Google Scholar. For commentary on Ælfric's concern for interpretation, see Fowler, D. C., The Bible in Early English Literature (London 1976), pp. 99–103Google Scholar; Greenfield, S. and Calder, D., A New Critical History of Old English Literature (New York, 1986), pp. 83–5Google Scholar. Hurt, , ‘A Note’, p. 234Google Scholar, observes that ‘the best saints’ lives, including Ælfric's, had a double concern with both historical fact and spiritual truth, and their often sensational or garish actions were designed to reveal an “inner truth” usually masked by the confused surface of ordinary life.’

118 This same concern for continuity is found in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Clemoes, , ‘Language in Context’, p. 31Google Scholar, writes, ‘the series of year numbers starting from Christ's birth must have been significant in its own right and its significance must have lain in its very continuity…This was not the history of cause and effect; it was a declaration of continuity.’

119 Farrar, , ‘Structure and Function’, p. 88.Google Scholar

120 Ibid.

121 Ibid.

122 Clanchy, M., From Memory to Written Record: England 1066–1307 (London, 1979)Google Scholar; Keynes, S., ‘Royal Government and the Written Word in Late Anglo-Saxon England’, The Uses of Literacy in Early Medieval Europe, ed. McKitterick, R. (Cambridge, 1990), pp. 226–57.Google Scholar

123 Of course, the texts found in the Otho and Corpus manuscripts were read by a monk or a member of the clergy. The ultimate audience, however, may still have included a substantial lay population: see Gatch, M. McC., Preaching and Theology in Anglo-Saxon England: Ælfric and Wulfstan (Toronto, 1977), pp. 37–59Google Scholar, and Clayton, M., ‘Homilaries and Preaching in Anglo-Saxon England’, Peritia 4 (1985), 207–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

124 For a more pessimistic view of lay literacy in regard to the poetic text of Genesis found in Junius 11, see Lucas, P. J., ‘Ms. Junius 11 and Malmesbury, Part 1’, Scriptorium 34 (1980), 197–220, at 211–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

125 But now see Wormald, P., ‘Anglo-Saxon Society and its Literature’, The Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature, ed. Godden, M. and Lapidge, M. (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 1–22, at 18:Google Scholar ‘clerics could be as hard to distinguish from laity as in earlier times …’

126 There is also an increasing appreciation for the ‘pragmatic literacy’ or ‘text-dependency’ of the Anglo-Saxon laity; see Keynes, ‘Royal Government and the Written Word’.

127 The Chronicle of Æthelweard, ed. Campbell, A. (London, 1962).Google Scholar

128 This is recorded in Ælfric's preface printed in Lives of Saints, ed. Skeat, , pp. 4–7.Google Scholar

129 Leofgar, bishop of Hereford, died on 16 June 1056. See the entry in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for the year 1056 in Earle, J. and Plummer, C., Two of the Saxon Chronicles Parallel, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1892–1899) I, 186–7.Google Scholar

130 Fisher, D. J. V., ‘The Anti-Monastic Reaction in the Reign of Edward the Martyr”, Cambridge Historical Jnl 12 (1950–1952), 254–70Google Scholar. See also Stafford, P., Unification and Conquest (London, 1989), 45–69, esp. 58Google Scholar; and the contributions in John, E., Orbis Britanniae and Other Studies (Leicester, 1966).Google Scholar Part of the reason for this association seems to be the intellectual debt that English churchmen owed to continental reform movements. On the Continent, reform centres such as Cluny protected their spiritual independence by forming mutually advantageous ties to powerful secular figures.

131 Wormald, , ‘Anglo-Saxon Society and its Literature”, pp. 14–15.Google Scholar

132 Howe, Migration and Mythmaking, points to the power of myth, especially a myth of communal migration, as one means by which the Anglo-Saxon sense of community and cohesiveness developed. Howe perceives this myth-making as a dynamic, multi-dimensional process which informs the Old English poem Exodus. In this work, the poetic, historical tradition of the migrated Germanic tribes fuses with the biblical story of Exodus, tribal history merges with Christian allegory, and the identity of the Anglo-Saxon folc blends into that of God's chosen people, the Israelites. For an analysis of another influential textual construct of Anglo-Saxon unity, see Powell, T. E., ‘The “Three Orders” of Society in Anglo-Saxon England”, ASE 23 (1994), 103–32.Google Scholar

133 Dumbrell, W. J., Covenant and Creation: an Old Testament Covenantal Theology (Exeter, 1984), p. 43.Google Scholar

134 In Ælfric's words, Of þam woruldmannum witodlice beoð on twa wisan gemodode and mislice gelogode, sume beoð gecorene, sume wiðercorene’: Homilies of Ælfric: A Supplementary Collection, ed. Pope, J. C. 2 vols., EETS os 259–60 (Oxford, 1967–1968), 596 (no. xviii).Google Scholar

135 ‘Everyone may the more easily withstand the future temptation, through God's support, if he is strengthened by book learning, for they shall be preserved who continue in faith to the end’: Ælfric, ‘English Preface’, ed. and trans. Thorpe, , Homilies I, 4–5.Google Scholar Quoted and discussed by Grundy, L., Books and Grace: Ælfric's Theology (London, 1991), pp. 1–10.Google Scholar

136 See Wormald, , ‘Anglo-Saxon Society and its Literature’, p. 18.Google Scholar

137 ‘The shepherds that watched over their flock at Christ's birth betokened the holy teachers in God's church, who are the spiritual shepherds of faithful souls: and the angels announced Christ's birth to the herdsmen, because to the spiritual shepherds, that is to the teachers, is chiefly revealed concerning Christ's humanity, through book learning: and they shall sedulously preach to those placed under them, that which is manifested to them, as the shepherds proclaimed the heavenly vision’: Ælfric, ‘Sermon on the Nativity of our Lord’, ed. and trans. Thorpe, , Homilies 1, 36–7.Google Scholar

138 Cohen, A. P., The Symbolic Construction of Community (London and New York, 1989), p. 100.Google Scholar

139 Moore, R. I., The Formation of a Persecuting Society: Power and Deviance in Western Society, 950–1250 (Oxford, 1987)Google Scholar. For an analysis of the political ramifications of language and dialect in early Anglo-Saxon England, see Toon, T. E., ‘The Socio-Politics of Literacy in Early England: What I Learned at our blaford's Knee’, Folia Linguistica Historica 6 (1985), 87–106.Google Scholar

140 I would like to thank Toby Baldwin, Christina von Nolcken, Michael Camille, Robert Nelson, Jonathan Alexander, Peter Baker and Malcolm Godden for reading and commenting on various aspects of this paper. Most importantly, my deepest gratitude goes to Allen Frantzen for his careful attention to the arguments presented here.