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The concept of the hall in Old English poetry

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Kathryn Hume
Kathryn Hume
Affiliation:
Cornell University
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Extract

The range of cultural assumptions underlying Old English poetry and the sentiments and sources which inspired it, not to mention the methods of composition – oral or written – are subjects of vigorous dispute. Much that was once considered indigenous and Germanic is now being revalued in the light of Latin analogues and works accepted for a century as secular are being treated by many as Christian doctrinal discourses. Since the intellectual milieu is so uncertain a basis for interpreting controversial poems, other approaches are needed. One that suggests itself is the exploration of idea-complexes. When a theme or situation recurs in a number of poems, in widely differing contexts, patterns of association can be isolated and analysed. The theme of exile, for example, is a centre of a cluster of ideas. Another is the concept of the hall: what is looked to for safety and what is feared as a threat to that security make apt points of departure for a study of a culture's major assumptions. Moreover, because the hall is the focus for conflicting attitudes, the array of associations proves useful to a more general understanding of the nature of Old English poetry.

Type
Research Article
Information
Anglo-Saxon England , Volume 3 , December 1974 , pp. 63 - 74
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1974

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References

page 63 note 1 Cross, J. E. has discovered sources and analogues for many of the more memorable Anglo-Saxon topoi: see ‘The Old English Poetic Theme of The Gifts of Men’, Neopbilologus 46 (1962), 66–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar; ‘On The Wanderer lines 80–4: a Study of a Figure and a Theme’, Årsbok Vetenskaps-Societeten i Lund (1958–1959), 77–110Google Scholar; and ‘“Ubi sunt” Passages in Old English – Sources and Relationships’, ibid. (1956), 25–44. G. V. Smithers and Dorothy Whitelock relate the Wanderer-Seafarer personae to the religious peregrinus: see Smithers, G. V., ‘The Meaning of The Seafarer and The Wanderer’, MÆ 26 (1957), 137–53 and 28 (1959), 1–22Google Scholar, and Whitelock, Dorothy, ‘The Interpretation of The Seafarer’, The Early Cultures of North-West Europe (H. M. Chadwick Memorial Studies), ed. Dickins, B. and SirFox, Cyril (Cambridge, 1950), pp. 261–72Google Scholar. Beowulf has frequently been studied for Christian meanings, and even figures formerly thought to be purely secular, like Byrhtnoth of The Battle of Maldon, are being likened to saints see Blake, N. F., ‘The Battle of Maldon’, Neophilologus 49 (1965), 332–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 63 note 2 See Greenfield, Stanley B., ‘The Formulaic Expression of the Theme of “Exile” in Anglo-Saxon Poetry’, Speculum 30 (1955), 200–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For an analysis of numerous small centres of poetic thought, see Stanley, E. G., ‘Old English Poetic Diction and the Interpretation of The Wanderer, The Seafarer and The Penitent's Prayer’, Anglia 73 (1956), 413–66.Google Scholar

page 64 note 1 Though returns are not yet complete, the current state of information is summarized (with helpful illustrations) by Addyman, P. V., ‘The Anglo-Saxon House: a New Review’, ASE 1 (1972), 273–507Google Scholar. Additional material is available in Radford, C. A. Ralegh, ‘The Saxon House: a Review and Some Parallels’, MA 1 (1957), 27–38Google Scholar; Philip Rahtz, ‘The Saxon and Medieval Palaces at Cheddar, Somerset – an Interim Report of Excavations in 1960–2‘, ibid. 6–7 (1962–3), 53–66; a summary description of Old Yeavering, ibid. 1 (1957), 148–9; and Rosemary J. Cramp, ‘Beowulf and Archaeology’, ibid. pp. 57–77.

page 64 note 2 For an analysis of the hall and hall-life covering these and other points, see Whitelock, Dorothy, The Beginnings of English Society (Harmondsworth, 1952), pp. 88–92.Google Scholar

page 64 note 3 Helterman, Jeffrey (‘Beowulf: the Archetype enters History’, ELH 35 (1968), 1–20, esp. 6)CrossRefGoogle Scholar analyses the archetypal significances of the hall/gifstol combination.

page 65 note 1 All quotations and line references are to The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records, ed. Krapp, G. P. and Dobbie, E. V. K., 6 vols. (New York, 1931–1953)Google Scholar. The italics in this and other quotations are, of course, mine.

page 66 note 1 Wooden and partly wooden buildings such as halls were natural targets in war. Bede (HE III.16 and 17) mentions two instances of fire-razing by King Penda, though Aidan's prayers frustrated his attempt to incinerate the inhabitants of Bamborough. Of the four successive halls at Old Yeavering two were destroyed by fire, probably in battle by Cadwallon in 632 and by Penda in 651. Norse records are full of such incidents: a quick glance at Snorri Sturluson's Heimskringla turns up various forms of hall-burning five times in Ynglinga saga (chs. 14, 31, 36, 39 and 40), once in Hálfdanar saga Svarta (ch. 5), and twice in Haralds saga Hárfagra (chs. 12 and 34). Sigmundr's revenge on Siggeirr in Vǫlsunga saga and Guðrún's on Atli later in the same story are famous instances of hall-burning, as are the smaller scale incidents of the burning of Blund-Ketill and Njáll in their homes.

page 66 note 2 See, e.g., the laws of Inc (drawn up between 688 and 694), English Historical Documents 1, ed. Whitelock, Dorothy (London, 1955), 365.Google Scholar

page 68 note 1 That graves should be seen as dwellings is hardly unique to the Anglo-Saxons, but the range of resonances conjured up by wyrmsele or eorðsrcræf is far more extensive than those the author of The Grave was able to manipulate in his late, fragmentary poem, in so far as it can be judged. He had lost the complexities and grandeur inherent in using the hall as his unit, and only shuffles commonplaces about dwellings and houses adapted from the Soul and Body debate. Too late to be included in ASPR, this piece can be found, ed. Schröer, Arnold, in Anglia 5 (1882), 289–90.Google Scholar

page 69 note 1 Whether this topos has Latin or native roots is debatable, but I suggest that a distinction should be made between ruined halls and cities when that is possible, though the ambiguity of burb makes this difficult. Frankis's, P. J. article in ASE 2(1973)Google Scholar uncovers and analyses Latin analogues to the latter, but neither these nor the Gaulish Latin analogues cited by Chadwick, Nora K. (Poetry and Letters in Early Christian Gaul (London, 1955), pp. 122–8)Google Scholar seem to me to account fully for the range of particular features found in the Anglo-Saxon treatments of halls and their destruction. Some support for the idea of an indigenous, native tradition is found in Scandinavian material such as Snorri's Edda, Gylfaginning, ch. 52.

page 69 note 2 11.13; the edition cited is that of Plummer, C. (Oxford, 1896). The Old English Bede renders caenaculum as ‘heall’.Google Scholar

page 70 note 1 Because of the prevalence and grandeur of Roman ruins in Britain, we sometimes find the sort of cultural combination seen here of native lord and duguð with what is apparently a Roman rampart. The patterning on this wall, wyrmlicum fab, has always been a puzzle. The most recent editors, Dunning and Bliss jointly and Leslie, agree on a probable translation of ‘adorned with serpentine shapes’. Perhaps the phrase is no more than a vivid response to the effects of storm. In Volpone I.v Ben Jonson speaks of ‘an old smoked wall, on which the rain ran down in streaks’.

page 70 note 2 Introduction to The Seafarer, ed. Gordon, I. L. (London, 1960), p. 15.Google Scholar

page 71 note 1 ‘The Burial Mound in Guiblac A’, MP 58 (1960), 1–10.Google Scholar

page 72 note 1 Keenan, Hugh T., ‘The Ruin as Babylon’, Tennessee Stud. in Lit. 11 (1966), 109–17. On p. 115 he equates Heorot with the Grendelmere.Google Scholar

page 72 note 2 Among the most interesting of the studies which posit ultimate if sometimes reluctant rejection are those by Lee, Alvin A. (The Guest-Hall of Eden (New Haven, 1972))Google Scholar, Goldsmith, Margaret E. (The Mode and Meaning of ‘Beowuif’ (London, 1970))Google Scholar and Leyerle, John (‘Beowulf the Hero and the King’, MÆ 34 (1965), 89–102Google Scholar, and ‘The Interlace Structure of Beowulf’, Univ. of Toronto. Quarterly 37 (1967), 1–17)Google Scholar. Rogers, H. L. and Stanley, E. G. are more forceful and vigorous in condemning the heroic. See, respectively, ‘Beowulf's Three Great Fights’, RES n.s. 6 (1955), 339–55Google Scholar, and ‘Hæthenra Hyht in Beowulf’, Studies in Old English Literature in Honor of Arthur G. Brodeur, ed. Greenfield, Stanley B. (Eugene, Oregon, 1963), pp. 136–51.Google Scholar

page 73 note 1 Recent editors agree that gæstlic in this Context means ‘terrifying, awesome’. Smithers (‘Meaning’, pp. 141–2) implies that the terror is induced by the idea of the end of the world, when indeed all earthly goods will be destroyed. Possibly, though, the emotion is a response to the thought of the destruction rather than to its cause. The narrator finds ghastly to contemplate the idea that the buildings and treasures of once-great societies will stand unused, their potential wasted. (Weste, like idel in similar statements (87 and 110), can mean ‘unused, wasted, deserted, empty’ as well as ‘useless, desolate, devastated’.) His distress may be at ‘the pity of it’, rather than fear of what will happen to his soul on Judgement Day.

page 73 note 2 ‘Traditional Themes in The Wanderer and The Seafarer’, RES n.s. 5 (1954), 1–13, esp. 8.Google Scholar

page 74 note 1 The most thorough treatment of this is Alvin A. Lee's The Guest-Hall of Eden. He argues not just that heaven and hell are cast in terms of the hall but also that the hall is the submerged metaphor for the whole created world, as, for instance, in Cædmon's Hymn.

page 74 note 2 The fallacy of homogeneity is well analysed by R. S. Crane in response to ‘historical criticism’ and by Greenfield, Stanley B.. See, respectively, The Idea of ibe Humanities, 2 vols. (Chicago, 1967) 11, 236–60Google Scholar, and The Interpretation of Old English Poems (London, 1972), pp. 8–11.Google Scholar