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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 September 2008
When this article appears, a decade will have passed since the publication of Continuations and Beginnings, edited by E. G. Stanley, a collection of studies in Old English literature, three of which deal with aspects of Old English prose. Each of these essays is a superb and expert summary of recent scholarship by someone who has made major contributions in this field; and they may, therefore, serve as an approximate terminus a quo for main sections of the present survey of the état des questions which are of current concern in the study of Old English prose. One hears from time to time more-or-less facetious attempts at explication of the title Continuations and Beginnings and I hope not to have compounded an issue by playing on that heading myself. I take Stanley to have meant that the essays he edited are intended both as summaries of the achievements of English philologists who studied the prose of the Anglo-Saxons in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and as pointers to newer trends. By my title I mean to convey that I am concerned here primarily with current trends.
Page 225 note 1 London, 1966. Cited henceforth as C&B.
Page 225 note 2 Whitelock, Dorothy, ‘The Prose of Alfred's Reign’, C&B, pp. 67–103Google Scholar; Peter Clemoes, Ælfric’, pp. 176—209; and Dorothy Bethurum, ‘Wulfstan’, pp. 210–46. Portions of Rosemary Woolf's ‘Saints Lives’ (pp. 37–66) also treat prose writings, but vernacular prose hagiography has not been the subject of much published study since; Miss Woolf cites the most important recent contribution, Wolpers, Theodor, Die englische Heiligenlegende des Miltelalters, Buchreihe der Anglia 10 (Tübingen, 1964).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Page 225 note 3 The bibliography of this paper is selective; I have had to leave out of account a number of publications of value. For a more detailed review, see the sections which I have contributed to ‘The Year's Work in Old English Studies’ in the Old English Newsletter (published at the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, The Ohio State University) since 1968 (for the 1967 bibliography). For annual current bibliographies see the same periodical and ASE. Two useful bibliographies published in the last decade are The New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature, ed. George Watson 1 (1974), and Fred C. Robinson, Old English Literature: a Select bibliography, Toronto Med. Bibliographies 2 (1970). A major new bibliography by Robinson and Stanley B. Greenfield is soon to appear. I have excluded most publications on Anglo-Latin and have not attempted to touch on studies of laws, charters and other legal documents. This article was completed in June 1975; through the generosity of authors and editors I have been able to anticipate some publications which have appeared since.
Page 226 note 1 Studien zur englischen Philologie n.f. 3 (Tübingen, 1964); see Whitelock, , C&B, pp. 80–6 and 81Google Scholar, n. 1.
Page 226 note 2 Amongst the comparatively few reviews, see Knuth, A. M. L., Neopbilologus 50 (1966), 199–200Google Scholar; Latendorf, Marianne, Anglia 85 (1967), 449–55Google Scholar; and James Rosier, L., ASNSL 204 (1967–1968), 199–200.Google Scholar
Page 226 note 3 See also Brian Donaghey, S., ‘The Sources of King Alfred's Translation of Boethius’ De consolatione pbilosopbiae’, Anglia 82 (1964), 23–57Google Scholar. An important study of the Boethian tradition, not available to the authors of the studies under consideration here, is Courcelle, Pierre, La Consolation de Philosophie dans la Tradition Littiraire: Antécéidants et Posterité de Boèce (Paris, 1967).Google Scholar
Page 227 note 1 King Alfred and Boetbius: an Analysis of the Old English Version of the lsquo;Consolation of Philosophy’ (Madison, Wisconsin, 1968). Review: Carnicelli, Thomas A., Speculum 45 (1970), 314–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Page 227 note 2 King Alfred's Version of St Augustine's Soliloquies (Cambridge, Mass., 1969). Review: Meritt, Herbert D., Speculum 45 (1970), 661–3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Page 227 note 3 ‘King Alfred and the Latin MSS. of Orosius ‘History’, Classica et Mediaevalia 22 (1961), 69–105.
Page 227 note 4 ‘The Old English Orosius: the Question of Dictation’, Anglia 84 (1966), 255–304.
Page 227 note 5 ‘King Alfred and the Old English Translation of Orosius’, Anglia 88 (1970), 433–60. The same volume of Anglia contained another study denying that Alfred translated the Historia - this time based on comparative analysis of syntax: Elizabeth M. Liggins, ‘The Authorship of the Old English Orosius’ (pp. 289–322). The only major precursor of this position was Joseph Raith.
Page 228 note 1 For an important survey of William's knowledge about Alfred and his writings, see Whitelock, Dorothy, ‘William of Malmesbury on the Works of King Alfred’, Medieval Literature and Civilisation: Studies in Memory of G. N. Garmonsaay, ed. Pearsall, D. A. and Waldron, R. A. (London, 1969), pp. 78–93.Google Scholar
Page 228 note 2 ‘The Classical Additions in the Old English Orosius’, England Before the Conquest: Studies in Primary Sources presented to Dorothy Whitelock, ed. Peter Clemoes and Kathleen Hughes (Cambridge, 1971), pp. 237–51.
Page 228 note 3 ‘The Relationship between Geographical Information in the Old English Orosius and Latin Texts other than Orosius‘, ASE 1 (1972), 45–62. This article responds, inter alia, to René Derolez, , ‘The Orientation System in the Old English Orosius’, England Before the Conquest, ed. Clemoes and Hughes, pp. 253–68.Google Scholar
Page 228 note 4 Old English Studies in Honour of John C. Pope, ed. Robert B. Burlin and Edward B. Irving, Jr (Toronto, 1974), pp. 263–84.
Page 228 note 5 Above, pp. 149–71.
Page 228 note 6 ‘The Narrative Mode of The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle before the Conquest', England Before the Conquest, ed. Clemoes and Hughes, pp. 215–35. The second edition of Miss Clark's edition of Tbe Peterborough Chronicle: 1070–1154 (Oxford, 1970) has a chapter on the style of the later chronicles.
Page 228 note 7 The Genuine Asser, The Stenton Lecture 1967 (Reading, 1968.)
Page 229 note 1 ‘The Origin of Standard Old English and Æthelwold's School at Winchester’, ASE 1 (1972), 63–82, at p. 63.
Page 229 note 2 ‘The Authorship of the Account of King Edgar's Establishment of Monasteries’, Philological Essays: Studies in Old and Middle English Language and Literature in Honour of Herbert Dean Meritt, ed. J. L. Rosier, JL, Series Maior 37 (The Hague, 1970), 125–36.
Page 229 note 3 ‘Æthelwold‘s Translation of the Regula Sancti Benedicti and its Latin Exemplar’, ASE 3 (1974), 125–51, based on her Munich dissertation, Die Regula Sancti Benedicti in England und ibre altenglische Ubersetzung, Münchener Universitäts-Schriften, Texte und Untersüchungen zur englischen Philologie 2 (1973). See also the supplement by Gneuss, Helmut to the reprint of Die angelsächsiscben Prosabearbeitung der Benediktinerregel ed. Schröer, A., Bibliothek der angelsächsischen Prosa 2 (Darmstadt, 1964)Google Scholar. (The volumes in the Bibliothek der angelsächsischen Prosa and Sammlung englischer Denkmäler in kririschen Ausgaben which are in current use have been reissued, some with supplements.)
Page 229 note 4 Amongst recent studies of Winchester Latin, see Lapidge, Michael, ‘Three Latin Poems from Æthelwold's School at Winchester’, ASE 1 (1972), 85–137Google Scholar, and ‘The Hermeneutic Style in Tenth-Century Anglo-Latin Literature’, ASE 4 (1975), 67–111 (Winchester, at pp. 85–90 and 105–6). For the vitae of Æthelwold, see Three Lives of English Saints, ed. Michael Winterbottom, Toronto Med. Latin Texts (1972); review: Gneuss, HelmutN&Q 218Google Scholar (n.s. 20, 1973), 479–80. The ‘new’ hymnal and the glossed Expositio bymnorum are also related to Winchester in this period; see Gneuss, , Hymnar und Hymnen im engliscben Mittelalter, Buchreihe der Anglia 12 (Tübingen, 1968)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and ‘Latin Hymns in Medieval England: Future Research’, Chaucer and Middle English Studies in Honour of Rossell Hope Robbins, ed. Beryl Rowland (London, 1974), pp. 407–24.
Page 230 note 1 Symons's latest statement and other cautions against over-enthusiasm for the English monastic reform (notably by D. H. Farmer) are in Tenth-Century Studies: Essays in Commemoration of the Millennium of tbe Council of Winchester and ‘Regularis Concordia’, ed. David Parsons (Chichester, 1975).
Page 230 note 2 Early Eng. Text Soc. 259–60 (London, 1967–8). Reviews: Stanley, E. G., N&Q 215Google Scholar (n.s. 17, 1970), 262–6, and Godden, M. R., Anglia 89 (1971), 251–4.Google Scholar
Page 230 note 3 ‘Ælfric and the Old English Version of the Ely Parivilege’, England Before tbe Conquest, ed. Clemoes and Hughes, pp. 85–113.
Page 231 note 1 The Old English Illustrated Hexateuch, British Museum Cotton Claudius B. iv, ed. C. R. Dodwcll and Peter Clemoes, EEMF 18 (Copenhagen, 1974), 42–53- See further, below.
Page 231 note 2 Æfric's First Series of Homilies, Catholic, British Museum Royal 7 C. xii, fols. 4–218, EEMF 13 (Copenhagen, 1966).Google Scholar
Page 231 note 3 ‘The Common Origin of Ælfric Fragments at New Haven, Oxford, Cambridge, and Bloomington ‘, Old English Studies in Honour of John C. Pope, ed. Burlin and Irving, pp. 285–326.
Page 232 note 1 See Smetana, Cyril L., ‘Ælfric and the Early Medieval Homiliary’, Traditio 15 (1959), 163–204CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and ‘Ælfric and the Homiliary of Haymo’, Traditio 17 (1961), 457–69. In ‘Paul the Deacon's Patristic Anthology’, The Old English Homily and its background [provisional title], ed. Paul Szarmach, Smetana adds materially to our knowledge of Paul's work and of homiliary manuscripts in England. He also argues conclusively for the abandonment of the term homilia with reference to Ælfric's work. It was never used by him with reference to his own sermons but was arbitrarily substituted by Benjamin Thorpe. I had independently come to the same conclusion and have attempted in this article to use the terms homilia and sermo asÆlfric and Paul undoubtedly would have done.
Page 232 note 2 This is not to imply that Ælfric abandoned his old sources for new or that his notion of acceptable doctrine was subject to development. In at least one instance a source used in the First Series was not fully exploited before the composition of one of the last sermones; see Milton McC. Gatch, , ‘MS Boulogne-sur-Mer 63 and Ælfric's First Series of Catholic Homilies’, JEGP 65 (1966), 482–90.Google Scholar
Page 232 note 3 Amongst several articles in which this matter is discussed, see esp. ‘Ælfric – Mainly on Memory and Creative Method in two Catholic Homilies’, SN 41 (1969), 135–55. Also important for the subject of ‘retentive memory’ and the methodology of source study is Cross's Israel Gollancz Memorial Lecture, ‘The Literate Anglo-Saxon – On Sources and Disseminations’, Proc. of the Brit. Acad. 58 (1972), 67–100. This should be read closely by all who are concerned with source and textual criticism. Collectively, Cross's publications in number, quality and range (he has most recently moved from patristic to possible Irish sources) constitute one of the major contributions to Old English prose studies in the third quarter of the present century.
Page 232 note 4 Cross, J. E. summarizes his studies in this area in Latin Themes in Old English Poetry (Bristol, 1962).Google Scholar
Page 233 note 1 ‘.Ælfric's Prefaces: Rhetoric and Genre’, ESts 49 (1968), 215–23, and ‘Ælfric and the Brief Style’, JEGP 70(1971), 1–12.
Page 233 note 2 Homilies of Ælfric, p. 112.
Page 233 note 3 Ibid. p. 136.
Page 233 note 4 ‘.Ælfric's Old English Prose Style’, SP 66 (1969), 689–718. Dr Michael Lapidge suggests to me that a future searcher for possible Latin influences on Ælfric's style might want to examine the Translatio et miracula S. Swilbuni by Lantfred of Winchester (ed. unsatisfactorily in Acta Sanctorum for 2 July and by Sauvage, E. P. in AB 4 (1885), 367–410)Google Scholar, a mannered Latin prose document which Ælfric used as a source and whose author he probably knew.
Page 233 note 5 ‘Studien zur alliterierenden und rhythmisierenden Prosa in der älteren altenglischen Homiletik’, Anglia 80 (1962), 9–36.
Page 233 note 6 Kuhn, Sherman M., ‘Was Ælfric a Poet?’, PQ 52 (1973), 643–62Google Scholar; also ‘Cursus in Old English: Rhetorical Ornament or Linguistic Phenomenon?’, Speculum 47 (1972), 188–206.
Page 233 note 7 Clemoes, Peter, Rhythm and Cosmic Order in Old English Christian Literature: an Inaugural Lecture (Cambridge, 1970), pp. 17 and 24.Google Scholar
Page 234 note 1 ‘The Development of Ælfric's Second Series of Catholic Homilies’, ESts 54 (1973), 209–16.
Page 234 note 2 Gatch, Milton McC., Preaching and Theology in Anglo-Saxon England: Ælfric and Wulfstan (Toronto, 1976)Google Scholar, pt 11. In ‘The Achievement of Ælfric and his Colleagues in European Perspective’, in The Old English Homily and its Background, ed. Szarmach, I argue that there is no comparable phenomenon in the other vernacular languages before the end of the eleventh century.
Page 234 note 3 Studies in language. Literature, and Culture of the Middle Ages and Later [in honour of Rudolph Willard], ed. E. Bagby Atwood and Archibald A. Hill (Austin, Texas, 1969), pp. 182–9.
Page 234 note 4 Preaching and Theology, pt 111.
Page 235 note 1 ‘Wulfstan at York’, Medieval and Linguistic Studies in Honour of Francis Peabody Magoun, Jr, ed. Jess B. Bessinger, Jr, and Robert P. Creed (London, 1965; American ed. of the same year entitled Franciplegius), pp. 214–31.
Page 235 note 2 ‘The Handwriting of Archbishop Wulfstan’, England Before the Conquest, ed. Clemoes and Hughes, pp. 315–31.
Page 235 note 3 A Wulfstan Manuscript containing Institutes, Laws and Homilies, British Museum Cotton Nero A. i, EEMF 17 (Copenhagen, 1971).
Page 235 note 4 Ibid. p. 49.
Page 235 note 5 Dorothy Bethurum Loomis, ‘Regnum and Sacerdotium in the Early Eleventh Century’, England Before the Conquest, ed. Clemoes and Hughes, pp. 129–45.
Page 236 note 1 EETS 266 (London, 1972). Review: Dorothy Loomis, Bethurum, MÆ 43 (1974), 151–5.Google Scholar
Page 236 note 2 ‘Byrhtferth and his Manual’, MÆ 41 (1972), 95–109, including (at pp. 108–9) a collation of the Manual with the Ramsey, Computus (Oxford, St John's College 17).Google Scholar
Page 236 note 3 The Rhetorical Lore of the Boceras in Byrhtferth's Manual’, Essays in Honour of Herbert Dean Meritt, ed. Rosier, pp. 111–23.
Page 236 note 4 He states (p. 119, n. 37) that Ælfric's use of him is related to schemata but not tropi. The meanings of hiw included ‘shape’, ‘from’ (figura) as well as ‘colour’ see Ball, C. J. E. and Cameron, Angus, ‘Some Specimen Entries for the Dictionary of Old English’, A Plan for the Dictionary of Old English, ed. Roberta, Frank and Angus, Cameron (Toronto, 1973), pp. 329–47Google Scholar, and, on Ælfric Williams, Edna Rees, ‘Ælfric's Grammatical Terminology’, PML.A 73 (1958), 453–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Byrhtferth, like Ælfric, had his knowledge of rhetorical figures exclusively from the grammatical tradition. Murphy does not refer to Byrhtferth's teacher, Abbo, whose Quaestiones grammaticales (dedicated to the Ramsey community) contains at least one reference to the figura zeugma (c. 19; inadequately ed. Migne, Patrologia Latina 139, cols. 521–34). Abbo's grammatical work appears in some manucripts in connection with his computistical works (see Vyver, A. Van de, ‘Les Oeuvres Inédites d'abbon de Fleury’, RB; 47 (1935), 124–69, at pp. 128–9).Google Scholar
Page 237 note 1 The Old English Illustrated Hexateucb, ed. Dodwell and Clemoes. A useful survey of biblical translation (requiring some revision in the light of Clemoes's work) is Shepherd, Geoffrey, ‘English Versions of the Scriptures before Wyclif’, Cambridge History of the Bible 11, ed. Lampe, G. W. H. (Cambridge, 1969), 362–87.Google Scholar
Page 237 note 2 ‘The Hermeneutic Style’, pp. 90–5.
Page 237 note 3 These works are not treated in C&B. For an approximately contemporary survey of them, with special reference to the Blickling and Vercelli collections, see Milton McC. Gatch, , ‘The Eschatology of the Anonymous Old English Homilies’, Traditio 21 (1965), 117–65.Google Scholar
Page 238 note 1 Some editions might escape attention: Antonette di P. Healey in her Toronto dissertation (1973) has edited and discussed the Kentish sermon-translation of the Visio sancti Pauli (Ker, N. R., Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford, 1957)Google Scholar, no. 337, art. 4); a text edited by Anna Maria Luiselli Fadda (‘De descensu Christi ad inferos: una Inedita Omelia Anglosassone’, SM 3rd ser. 13 (1972), 989–1011Google Scholar (Ker 338, art. 33)), is related to several sermons and to the ‘liturgical drama’ discussed by Dumville, David N. (‘Liturgical Drama and Panegyric Responsory from the Eighth Century ? A Re-examination of the Origin and Contents of the Ninth-Century Section of the Book of Cerne’, JTS 23 (1972), 374–406CrossRefGoogle Scholar); Tristram, Hiidegard L. C. in her Freiburg i. B. dissertation, Vier altenglische Predigten aus der beterodoxen Tradition (Kassel, 1970)Google Scholar, has edited Ker 32 arts. 11 and 17, 38 art. 38, and 56 art. 31; and Vercelli xx has been edited by Szarmach, Paul, MS 35 (1973), 1–26 and 36 (1974), 493–4.Google Scholar
Page 238 note 2 ‘Translations of a Lost Penitential Homily’, Traditio 19 (1963), 51–78; see also ‘Sources of the Vernacular Homily in England, Norway, and Iceland’, Arkiv for Nordisk Filologi 75 (1960), 168–82. Another important article for the development of this line of criticism is Whitbread, L., ‘“Wulfstan” Homilies xxix, xxx and some Related Texts’, Anglia 81 (1963), 347–64.Google Scholar
Page 238 note 3 ‘An Old English Penitential Motif’, ASE 2 (1973), 221–33.
Page 238 note 4 Ibid. p. 222.
Page 238 note 5 ‘Old English Composite Homilies from Winchester’, ASE 4 (1975), 57–65.
Page 239 note 1 ‘Three Versions of the Jonah Story: an Investigation of Narrative Technique in Old English Homilies’, ASE i (1972), 183–92.
Page 239 note 2 ‘The Compilation of the Vercelli Book’, ASE 2 (1973), 189–207.
Page 239 note 3 Promised as EEMF 19.
Page 239 note 4 ‘Caesarius of Aries and the Vercelli Homilies’, Traditio 26 (1970), 215–23.
Page 239 note 5 ‘Hortatory Tone in the Blickling Homilies: Two Adaptations of Caesarius’, NM 70 (1969), 641–58.
Page 239 note 6 Above, pp. 105–19.
Page 239 note 7 ‘On the Blickling Homily for Ascension Day (no. xi)’, NM 70 (1969), 228–40.
Page 239 note 8 ‘ The Influence of the Catechetical Narratio on Old English and some other Medieval Literature’, ASE 3(1974), 51–61.
Page 240 note 1 Gatch, , ‘Two Uses of Apocrypha in Old English Homilies’, CH 33 (1964), 117–65.Google Scholar
Page 240 note 2 A study of Irish apocrypha is being conducted by Dumville, David N.; see ‘Biblical Apocrypha and the Early Irish: a Preliminary Investigation’, Prof. of the R. Irish Acad. 73C (1973), 299–338.Google Scholar
Page 240 note 3 Cameron, Angus, ‘A List of Old English Texts’, A Plan for the Dictionary of Old English, ed. Frank and Cameron, B. Prose, pp. 44–223Google Scholar. See also a supplement to the Ker Catalogue, above, pp. 121–31.
Page 240 note 4 E.g. ‘Amalarius Be becnum: a Fragment of the Liber Officialis in Old English’, ed. Joseph B. Trahern, Jr, Anglia 91 (1973), 475–8, and ‘Prayers from MS. Arundel 155’, ed. Jackson J. Campbell, Anglia 81 (1963), 82–117.
Page 240 note 5 E.g. ‘A Late Old English Handbook for the Use of a Confessor’, ed. Roger Fowler, Anglia 83 (1965), 1–34, and ‘The Old English Diets of Cato’, ed. R. S. Cox, Anglia 90 (1972), 1–42.
Page 240 note 6 Zur Gescbicbte des Reliquitnkullus in Altengland, Sitzungsberichte der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Phil.-Hist. Abt. (1943), Heft 8.
Page 241 note 1 ‘Some Notes on Anglo-Saxon Medicine’, Medical Hist. 9(1965), 156–99, and Medicine in Medieval England, Oldbourne Hist, of Science Lib. (London, 1967), pp. 18–20.
Page 241 note 2 Medieval English Medicine (London, 1974).
Page 241 note 3 Groningen Dissertation (Tilburg, 1972).
Page 241 note 4 Groningen Dissertation (Tilburg, 1972).
Page 241 note 5 ‘Anglo-Saxon Letters in the Eleventh Century’, Acta 1 (1974), 1–14.
Page 241 note 6 ‘Ælfric and the Vernacular Prose Tradition’, The Old English Homily and its Background, ed. Szarmach.
Page 242 note 1 ‘Late Old English Literature’, Tenth Century Studies, ed. Parsons, pp. 103–14 and 229–32.
Page 242 note 3 C. E. Hohler, ‘Some Service Books of the Later Saxon Church’, Ibid. pp. 60–83 and 217–27.
Page 242 note 4 See Bishop, T. A. M., English Caroline Minuscule, Oxford Palaeographical Handbooks (1971).Google Scholar
Page 242 note 5 Stanley Greenfield, B., A Critical History of Old English Literature (New York, 1965)Google Scholar, and Wrenn, C. L., A Study of Old English Literature (London, 1967)Google Scholar. A second, revised, edition of Greenfield's Critical History is in preparation. For a survey of cultural backgrounds in the period during which much of the prose was written, see Milton McC. Gatch, , Loyalties and Traditions: Man and bis World in Old English Literature (New York, 1971)Google Scholar.
Page 242 note 6 Boston, , 1908. Dorothy Whitelock's English Historical Documents, c. 500–1047 (London, 1955)Google Scholar contains a rich collection of translations from prose.
Page 242 note 7 Anglo-Saxon Prose (London, 1975).
Page 243 note 1 The Movement of English Prose (London, 1966).
Page 243 note 2 Ibid. p. 48. Among those who doubt whether the ‘Katherine Group’ can be described as metrical is Pope (Homilies of Ælfric, p. 106, n. continued from p. 105).
Page 243 note 3 On some of the characteristics of Anglo-Latin, see Lapidge, , ‘Three Latin Poems’ and ‘The Hermeneutic Style’. The first volume of A History of Anglo-Latin Literature has been published by W. F. Bolton (Princeton, 1967).Google Scholar