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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 September 2008
The Old English Descent into Hell fits uneasily into the poetic corpus remaining to us from Anglo-Saxon England. The poem is an oddity both thematically and genetically, and (insofar as it has attracted any attention at all) the history of its criticism has been an unrewarding search for sources. The Descent presents a sourcing problem at its most basic, for its parts are so disparate that it is difficult even to construct a horizon of expectations from which to read the work. I hope to suggest here a new analogue, as well as a new way of thinking about sources and analogues in Old English literary studies, that may prove fruitful. The more rewarding context for comparative study of the Descent into Hell is not textual, but pictorial; I argue that visual exegesis of the psalms reveals both the source and the nature of the connection between the poem's two primary topics. In particular, iconography derived from the enormously influential Utrecht Psalter (Utrecht, Universiteitsbibliotheek, 32) provides a structural model, if not for the composition of the text in the most direct sense, then certainly for both medieval and modern understanding of it.
1 An idiosyncratic exception to this general rule is Bradley, S. A. J., ‘Grundtvig's Palm Sunday 1867 and the Anglo-Saxon Descent into Hell’, Grundtvig-Studier (1993), 198–213Google Scholar, which makes unlikely use of the Old English poem to create a context for Grundtvig's even more perplexing prophecies. Bradley suggests that in the reassuring company of the Descent into Hell the nineteenth-century theologian's ‘prophetic optimism’ ‘look[s] less like the rambling of a mind unhinged and more like learning and wisdom’ (p. 208).Google Scholar The poem has had its defenders, but by far the greater number of readers has agreed with Shippey's, T. A. characterization of it as ‘a series of confident trespasses on the reader's good nature’ (Poems of Wisdom and Learning in Old English (Cambridge, 1976), p. 42).Google Scholar
2 Links between the visual and the narrative arts in the Anglo-Saxon period remain largely unexplored. See, however, Leyerle, J., ‘The Interlace Structure of Beowulf’, Univ. of Toronto Quarterly 37 (1967–1968), 1–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Renoir, A., ‘Judith and the Limits of Poetry’, ES 43 (1962), 145–55Google Scholar; Schroeder, P. R., ‘Stylistic Analogies between Old English Art and Poetry’, Viator 5 (1974), 185–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Stevick, R. D., The Earliest Irish and English Bookarts: Visual and Poetic Forms Before A.D. 1000 (Philadelphia, PA, 1994).Google Scholar
3 Most recent critical discussion of the Descent has centered on the troublesome ‘git lohannis’ in line 135. On the model of the elliptical dual in the first person, the phrase is construed most naturally to mean ‘you two (the other being John)’. This reading introduces a complex set of problems, however, since the poetic context would seem to indicate that John the Baptist is himself the figure speaking at this point. Scholars have attempted various solutions to this puzzle, ranging from the suggestion of an alternate speaker (see Holthausen, F., ‘Zur altenglischen Literatur. V’, Beiblatt zur Anglia 19 (1908), 49–53Google Scholar); to emendation of the line (see Crotty, G., ‘The Exeter Harrowing of Hell: A Re-Interpretation’, PMLA 54 (1939), 349–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar); to liberal construction of the syntax (see Kaske, R. A., ‘The Conclusion of the Old English Descent into Hell’, Paradosis: Studies in Memory of Edward A. Quain, ed. Fletcher, H. G. and Schulte, M. B. (New York, 1976), pp. 47–59Google Scholar). Trask, R. M., ‘The Descent into Hell of the Exeter Book’, NM 12 (1971), 419–35Google Scholar raises the possibility that the final speech is ‘a kind of dual peroration of the poet as persona as well as John’ (p. 422)Google Scholar; see also Anderson, J. E., ‘Dual Voices and the Identity of Speakers in the Exeter Book Descent into Hell’, Neophilologus 70 (1986), 636–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Hill, T. D., ‘Cosmic Stasis and the Birth of Christ: The Old English Descent into Hell, Lines 99–106’, JEGP 71 (1972), 382–9.Google Scholar
4 Earlier English critics of the poem, following Benjamin Thorpe in his 1842 edition of the Codex Exoniensis, refer to the poem as a Harrowing. The poem has long been known to German scholarship, however, as ‘Der Höllenfahrt Christi’ (after Grein, C. W. M., Bibliothek der angelächsischen Poesie in kritisch bearbeiten Texten und mit vollstäandigem Glossar, 4 vols. (Göttingen, 1857–1864)Google Scholar), and Dobbie makes an argument on this model for calling it a Descent (see Krapp, G. P. and Dobbie, E. V. K., The Exeter Book, ASPR 3 (New York, 1936), lxiGoogle Scholar). Most subsequent critics in English have adopted his suggestion.
5 See Campbell, J. J., ‘To Hell and Back: Latin Tradition and the Literary Use of the “descensus ad inferos” in Old English’, Viator 13 (1982), 107–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Turner, R. V., ‘Descendit ad inferos: Medieval Views on Christ's Descent into Hell and the Salvation of the Ancient Just’ Jnl of the Hist, of Ideas 27 (1966), 173–94.Google Scholar
6 Kirkland, J. H. calls the poem ‘a mere fragment’ (A. Study of the Anglo-Saxon Poem ‘The Harrowing of Hell’ (Halle, 1888), p. 5).Google Scholar Dobbie grants that the Descent is 'somewhat unusual in style and structure’, but he finally judges it ‘a complete poem” (The Exeter Book, p. lxiGoogle Scholar). Indeed, the text opens with a clearly articulated beginning (‘Ongunnon him on uhlan…’) and concludes equally clearly with a formulaic prayer (‘Sie þæs symle meotude þonc!’).
7 Kirkland's assumption that the poem is fragmentary stems directly from the absence of Satan. He imagined in a hopeful vein that the larger tradition of the Harrowing would have been represented in the Descent, were it complete: That the overthrow of Satan and these other incidents were fully treated in H. [the Descent into Heil] we are bound to believe…’ (‘The Harrowing’, p. 13Google Scholar). Although no modern reader would subscribe with such confidence to this speculation, his certainty does reflect the degree to which the devil has been expected in an Anglo-Saxon Harrowing.
8 That Anglo-Saxon England was especially captivated by demons is a commonplace of its criticism. To cite just one example, Woolf, Rosemary (‘The Devil in Old English Poetry’, RES ns 4 (no. 13) (1953), 1–12)Google Scholar explains the many literary manifestations of Anglo-Saxon demonology as a fortuitous correspondence between the Judeo-Christian Satan, leading his routed angels into exile, and an unfaithful retainer, condemned by a pagan heroic code to leave his lord's mead-hall. Satan could be explained in cultural terms already well established, and Anglo-Saxon Christianity often capitalized on this chance to ease the introduction of the new religion. The Descent into Hell provides a notable counter-example to Woolf's thesis, however.
9 The Gospel of Nicodemus exists in three versions, two Latin and one Greek, varying primarily in the order in which they present material and the relative weight given to each episode. For editions of the text in languages pertinent to the Descent into Hell, see Hulme, W. H., ‘The Old English Gospel of Nicodemus’, MP 1 (1903–1904), 579–614Google Scholar; Hulme, W. H., ‘The Old English Version of the Gospel of Nicodemus’, PMLA 13 (1898), 457–542CrossRefGoogle Scholar; ‘The Gospel of Nicodemus, or the Acts of Pilate’, The Apocryphal New Testament, ed. James, M. R. (Oxford, 1924), pp. 94–146Google Scholar; and ‘The Gospel of Nicodemus: Gesta Salvatoris, ed. Kim, H. C. (Toronto, 1973).Google Scholar
10 Campbell's main interest, in fact, is to show that none of the Old English poetic accounts of the Harrowing is demonstrably indebted to the Gospel of Nicodemus. Although the Gospel of Nicodemus had an enormous influence on poetry of the later Middle Ages, Anglo-Saxon writers seem to have drawn their ideas of the Harrowing from other sources.
11 The poem can be understood as an exploration of the tradition of universal stasis at liminal moments (Nativity, Resurrection, Harrowing) in Christ's life. See, for example, Hill, , ‘Cosmic Stasis’Google Scholar; Hieatt, C. B., ‘Transition in the Exeter Book Descent into Hell. the Poetic Use of a “stille” yet “geondflow[ende]” River’, NM 9 (1990), 431–8Google Scholar; and Raw, B., ‘Why Does the River Jordan Stand Still?’ Leeds Stud. in Eng. 23 (1992), 29–47.Google Scholar
12 ‘Then the Lord of mankind hastened to his journey; the heavens’ Protector would demolish and lay low the walls of hell and, most righteous of all kings, carry off the stronghold's populace. For that battle he gave no thought to helmet-wearing warriors, nor was his will to lead armoured fighting men to the stronghold gates. But the locks and the bars fell from those fortifications and the King entered in; onward he advanced, Lord of all the people, the multitudes’ Bestower of glory.’ Quotation of the Descent into Hellis taken throughout from Muir, B. J., The Exeter Anthology of Old English Poetry: an Edition of Dean and Chapter MS 3501, 2 vols. (Exeter, 1994).Google ScholarTranslation is taken, except where otherwise indicated, from Anglo-Saxon Poetry, trans. Bradley, S. A. J. (London, 1982).Google Scholar
13 Many critics have noted that the elision of a battle is unusual in this context. Wrenn, C. L. is most forthright (even disappointed?): ‘The Exeter book poem ends only with the welcoming of Christ by Adam, and has no fighting’ (A Study of Old English Literature (New York, 1967), p. 156).Google Scholar Although Stanley Greenfield asserts that ‘the most interesting aspect of this poem is its heroic-Christian mode of presentation of Christ's conquest of hell’, this peculiar reading was silendy dropped in Greenfield and Calder: see Greenfield, S. B., A Critical History of Old English Literature (New York, 1965), p. 141Google Scholar; and cf. Greenfield, S. B. and Calder, D. G.,. A New Critical History of Old English Literature (New York, 1986).Google Scholar
14 ‘The exiles came crowding, trying which of them might see the victorious Son – Adam and Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, many a dauntless man, Moses and David, Isaiah and Zacharias, many patriarchs, likewise too a concourse of men, a host of prophets, a throng of women and many virgins, a numberless tally of people.’
15 Holthausen, (‘Zur altenglischen Literatur. V’, p. 51)Google Scholar was the first to identify the ‘burgwarena ord’ as Adam, rather than John. A case can be made for either, but the choice of Adam solves the semantic problem of ‘git Iohannis’ (line 135). Choosing Adam invariably presents its own complications, however, for this speaker claims to have bathed in the Jordan with Christ. He prays: ond for Iordane in Iudeum – wit unc in þære burnan baþodan ætgædre. (131–2) This problem can be solved by an appeal to the apocryphal Vitae Adae et Evae, which establishes a tradition in which the first couple bathed in the river for forty days. An alternative hypothesis is given by Garde, J. N., who identifies the ‘burgwarena ord’ as David and proposes that John and David speak antiphonally throughout the final passage (Old English Poetry in Medieval Christian Perspective: a Doctrinal Approach (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 113–30).Google Scholar Many critics (Dobbie and Bradley, among others) accept Holthausen's identification, but John still seems to me the most likely speaker.
16 ‘Thanks be to you, our Prince, because you were willing to seek out us sinful men since we have had to languish in these bonds. Although the traitorous devil – he is an enemy abroad – ensnares many a brotherless exile, that man is not bound so closely beneath oppressive locks nor so cruelly beneath painful fetters that he may not quite easily acquire courage, when he trusts in his Lord's good faith, that he will ransom him from those bonds.’
17 Different translations of course treat the lacuna differently, but each must acknowledge a hostile presence, an enemy of man, in the missing word. Although the suggestion of an evil presence is less explicit in Shippey's more secular translation, for example, it is still present: ‘When they tie up the brotherless outcast, the man with no resources (?) – he is proscribed everywhere – he can never be so tightly shut up under hostile bars, or fastened so cruelly in evil chains, that he cannot take heart the easier if he believes in his lord's good grace, and that he will ransom him out of his bondage’ (Poems, p. 115Google Scholar; emphasis mine).
18 ‘By our greedy mind we have betrayed ourselves; therefore we deliver those sins in our hearts into the destroyer's hands and likewise to our foes we are forced to supplicate for peace.’
19 ‘Because Christ also died once for our sins, the just for the unjust: that he might offer us to God, being put to death indeed in the flesh, but enlivened in the spirit. In which also coming he preached to those spirits that were in prison.’ (All translations of the Vulgate Bible are taken from the Douai–Rheims version.)
20 Early elaborations of the doctrine of the Harrowing seem to have had their origin in this salvific idea. The release of the patriarchs, derived from biblical suggestions such as I Peter, seem to have formed the basis of the account, which only afterwards acquired the trappings of an epic battle. See MacCulloch, J. A., The Harrowing of Hell: a Comparative Study of an Early Christian Doctrine (Edinburgh, 1930), p. 227.Google Scholar The early history of the doctrine of the Harrowing does not explain completely the oddity of the Descent, however, since in Anglo-Saxon literary usage the Harrowing is nearly always a militaristic episode.
21 For the most detailed discussion of the liturgy as the ‘highest model for artistic imitation’ in the Descent, see Conner, P. W., ‘The Liturgy and the Old English “Descent into Hell”’ JEGP 79 (1980), 179–91, at 191.Google Scholar Conner claims that the Descent into Hell is ‘a conflation of materials from the Mass and Divine Office of Holy Saturday’ (p. 180).Google Scholar
22 Conner reports that the Vidi aquam replaces the Asperges me in the Easter Sunday procession as recorded in the early-tenth-century Hartker Antiphonary (St Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, 390 + 391), which has been linked to the Exeter Book through the antiphons unquestionably echoed in Christ I (ibid. pp. 189–90). See Antiphonaire de Hartker: manuscrits Saint-Call 390–391, ed. Froger, J., Paléographie musicale, 2nd ser. [Monumentale] I (Bern, 1970).Google Scholar
23 ‘Something different indeed from this those women would know when they turned on their way.’
24 See Kelly, H. A., The Devil at Baptism: Ritual, Theology, and Drama (Ithaca, NY, 1985)Google Scholar, who notes: ‘The liturgy of Good Friday, which commemorates the crucifixion and death of Christ, should, we might expect, lay great stress on the Savior's struggle with his chief adversary, the devil. Instead, however, as in the Gospels, the events are portrayed largely on the level of human guilt and antagonism’ (p. 213).
25 He admits as much in his discussion (‘Liturgy’, p. 181Google Scholar).
26 It is not clear which particular gospel forms the basis of this account, but Matthew (XXVIII.1–8) comes the closest.
27 ‘For in the dawning there came a throng of angels; the rapture of those hosts surrounded the Saviour's tomb. The earthy vault was open; the Prince's corpse received the breath of life; the ground shook and hell's inhabitants rejoiced. The young man awoke dauntless from the earth; the mighty Majesty arose, victorious and wise. The man John explained to hell's inhabitants; dauntless, he spoke rejoicing to the multitude about his kinsman's coming…’
28 ‘Interlace’, of course, is in its origins a term describing patterns common in the Anglo-Saxon visual arts, used by analogy to describe a feature of poetic practice in the period. The primary study of the sister arts in the Anglo-Saxon period capitalizes on this parallel: see Leyerle, , ‘Interlace Structure’.Google Scholar
29 See Izydorczyck, Z., ‘The Inversion of Paschal Events in the Old English Descent into Hell’, NM 91 (1990), 439–47.Google Scholar
30 The famous Palm Sunday sermon makes this distinction: ‘And his lic læg on byrgene þa sæterniht and sunnan-niht; and seo godcyndnys wæs on ðære hwile on helle…’ (‘And his corpse lay in the sepulchre the Saturday night and Sunday night; and the Divinity was during that while in hell…’) (Text and translation are taken from The Homilies of the Anglo-Saxon Church. The First Part, Containing the Sermones Catholid, or Homilies of Ælfric, ed. Thorpe, B., 2 vols. (London, 1844–1846) I, 216–17;Google Scholar my emphasis). In this position Ælfric is following such theologians as Augustine (PL 33, 834) and Jerome (CCSL 78, 381), who assert that Christ's presence in hell is only spiritual.
31 Izydorczyck, , ‘Inversion’, p. 444.Google Scholar He thinks the Descent in this respect an early example of subsequent theological developments in representations of the Harrowing, (p. 441).Google Scholar
32 Ibid. p. 440. ‘Our Lord, Holy Christ … rose from death in the middle of the night, and he journeyed below to the hell-dwellers because he wished to seize them from hell, and did so, and overcame the old devil’ (my trans.). This homily is printed in its entirety at the end of Hulme's edition of 1904 of the Old English Gospel of Nicodemus. Campbell says of this ‘poorly written’ homily that ‘the chronology is skewed in odd ways at several points’ (‘To Hell and Back’, pp. 141–2Google Scholar), and even imagines that the homilist was composing based on his memory of Harrowing-accounts rather than on any written copy-text.
33 ‘… for our example the Lord arose from the dead after his passion, after the bonds of his death, and after the bonds of hell's darkness; and he laid upon the prince of devils eternal torment and vengeance, and delivered mankind …’ (text and translation are taken from The Blickling Homilies, ed. Morris, R., EETS 58, 63, 73 (repr. as 1 vol., London, 1967), pp. 82–3Google Scholar).
34 See above for a discussion of the poem's liturgical qualities. Dobbie minimizes the importance of narrative in the course of his argument that the Descents primarily lyrical: ‘The poet's interest is not in an orderly and sequential narrative, but in a lyrical development of those aspects of his theme which lend themselves most readily to the lyric form’ (The Exeter Book, p. lxiiGoogle Scholar). Indeed the liturgy is often more interested in thematic associations than in strict chronology, but the Eastertide liturgy is among the most ‘plot-driven’ sequences. Critics have also tended to read the opening of the poem narratively, even if they read the end lyrically. Campbell agrees that the poem focuses on the ‘meaning of the events, rather than their order’, but contends that ‘a bit of narrative introduces this mainly thematic poem’ (‘To Hell and Back’, p. 150Google Scholar). Crotty also thinks ‘the interest of the poem, as it proceeds, shifts more and more from narrative to lyric and liturgy’ (‘Exeter Harrowing of Hell’, p. 356Google Scholar). Understanding even the account of the women's visit in a non-narrative context, as I seek to do here, integrates the composition as a whole along lyrical lines.
35 See Campbell for a detailed discussion of biblical and patristic support for the doctrine of the Harrowing. He discusses Ps. XV only in passing, however (‘To Hell and Back’, p. 120Google Scholar). Trask also mentions Ps. XV tangentially in connection to the Descent into Hell (‘Descent into Hell’, p. 423, n. 4Google Scholar).
36 Therefore my heart hath been glad, and my tongue hath rejoiced: moreover my flesh also shall rest in hope. Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; nor wilt thou give thy holy one to see corruption. Thou hast made known to me the ways of life, thou shall fill me with joy with thy countenance: at thy right hand are delights even to the end.’
37 See Augustine, , Ep. clxxxvii (PL 33, 833–4)Google Scholar; Jerome, , Tractatum in Psalmos series altera (CCSL 78, 382).Google Scholar These passages are quoted and discussed in Campbell, , ‘To Hell and Back’, pp. 117 and 120.Google Scholar
38 For an edition and discussion of the play, see Dumville, D. 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), 374–406.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Dumville points out the close relationship of the psalter to the development of the Harrowing-doctrine, and he notes that a full study of the subject would be valuable.
39 Dumville suggests that the two share a common Latin homiletical source (ibid. p. 375).
40 ‘Forseeing this, he [the patriarch David] spoke of the resurrection of Christ. For neither was he [Christ] left in hell, neither did his flesh see corruption. This Jesus hath God raised again, whereof we are all witnesses.’
41 ‘And therefore, in another place also, he [God] saith: Thou shah not suffer thy holy one to see corruption. For David, when he had served in his generation, according to the will of God, slept: and was laid unto his fathers, and saw corruption. But he whom God hath raised from the dead, saw no corruption.’
42 It is possible to illustrate the psalm without asserting a typological interpretation, and psalters outside the Utrecht tradition, from the early Christian to the late medieval period, sometimes did so. The Ormesby Psalter (c. 1320) is a late English example: the initial introducing Ps. XV depicts a Last Judgement (23v). See Cockerell, S. C. and James, M. R., Two East Anglian Psalters at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, Roxburghe Club (Oxford, 1926), pl. XX (a).Google Scholar
43 This point is made by DeWald, E. T., The Illustrations of the Utrecht Psalter (Princeton, NJ, 1932), p. 10.Google Scholar See also Dufrenne, S., Les Illustrations du Psautier d'Utrecht: sources et apport carolingien (Paris, 1978)Google Scholar; Gibson-Wood, C., ‘The Utrecht Psalter and the Art of Memory’, RACAR: Revue d'Art Canadienne/Canadian Art Rev. 14 (1987), 9–15Google Scholar; The Utrecht Psalter in Medieval Art: Picturing the Psalms of David, ed. van der Horst, K., Noel, W., and Wüstefeld, W. C. M. (‘t Goy-Houten, 1996)Google Scholar; and Wormald, F., ‘The Utrecht Psalter’, Francis Wormald: Collected Writings, ed. Alexander, J. J., Brown, T. J. and Gibbs, J., 3 vols. (Oxford, 1984–1988) I, 36–46.Google Scholar The facsimile edition is The Utrecht Psalter, ed. van der Horst, K. and Engelbrecht, J. H. A., Codices Selecti 75 (Graz, 1982).Google Scholar
44 Most artistic representations of the Harrowing of Hell in the Anglo-Saxon period, even some clearly derived in other respects from the Utrecht image, emphasize the battle between Christ and Satan. The Tiberius Psalter, for example, a manuscript roughly contemporary with the Harley Psalter and the Descent into Hell, depicts in its prefatory cycle a triumphant Christ trampling a marvellously unrepentant demon. The striking curve of Christ's body argues for its distant relation to the Utrecht image, but the Tiberius artist shows a more characteristic interest in developing the demonic aspect of the episode. For a general treatment of the Tiberius Psalter, see Wormald, F., ‘An English Eleventh-Century Psalter with Pictures: British Library Cotton MS Tiberius C.VI’, Francis Wormald: Collected Writings, ed. Alexander, J. J. et al. , I, 123–37.Google Scholar For a discussion of the psalter in this particular connection, see Openshaw, K. M., ‘The Battle Between Christ and Satan in the Tiberius Psalter’, Jnl of the Warburg and Courtauld Inst. 52 (1989), 14–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar, where she argues that the battle between Christ and Satan is the principle of thematic coherence for the psalter's illustrative programme. See also Openshaw, K. M., “Weapons in the Daily Battle: Images of the Conquest of Evil in the Early Medieval Psaltet’, Art Bull. 75 (1993), 17–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
45 See Hardison, O. B. Jr, Christian Rite and Christian Drama in the Middle Ages (Baltimore, MD, 1965).Google ScholarHardison, notes that the Quem quaeritis trope is ‘above all a resurrection play’ (p. 162).Google Scholar
46 G. Schiller locates the earliest instance of the Women at the Sepulchre in a wall-painting from Dura Europos, c. 250, now in the Yale Art Gallery, New Haven. For a reproduction, and general discussion of the development of this iconography, see Schiller, G., Ikonographie der christlichen Kunst, 5 vols. (Gütersloh, 1971) III, 18–30.Google Scholar
47 There are apparently no other medieval examples, visual or textual, of the holy women discovering an uncorrupted body inside Christ's tomb. The depiction of an open, empty tomb is a relatively late development in the iconographic tradition of this scene, but the inclusion of an uncorrupted body seems unique to the Utrecht Psalter and its derivatives.
48 The most thorough study of the Harley Psalter is Noel, W., The Harley Psalter (Cambridge, 1995).Google Scholar See also Gameson, R., ‘The Anglo-Saxon Artists of the Harley 603 Psalter’ JBAA 143 (1990), 29–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
49 It is perhaps significant that, of all the images illustrating this psalm, the Anglo-Saxon artist seemed especially interested in the captivating figure of Christ bending over the pit of hell. A dry-point outline of the figure is barely visible in the lower left margin of the Utrecht page – perhaps a trial or a means of transferring the picture from one manuscript to another.
50 The Harley Psalter is described only advisedly as a ‘copy’ of the Utrecht. Noel has shown that the production of the Anglo-Saxon book, a very complex interaction of many different scribes and artists over a period of some years, is more accurately conceived as an interpretation of the earlier codex than as an exact copy. Noel's Artist A is the illustrator of Ps. XV, and his Artist F of Ps. CXXXVIII.
51 ‘If I ascend into heaven, thou art there: if I descend into hell, thou art present. If I take my wings early in the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea: Even there also shall thy hand lead me: and thy right hand shall hold me.’
52 DeWald, , Illustrations, p. 60.Google Scholar
53 Harley Artist A used demons for effect when it interested him. Tselos credits him, for example, with the transformation of the Utrecht humanoid into a full-fledged demon in Ps. VI; see Tselos, D., ‘English Manuscript Illustration and the Utrecht Psalter’, Art Bull. 41 (1959), 137–49, at 139.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also Gameson, , ‘Anglo-Saxon Artists’, p. 38.Google Scholar
54 The Ps. CXXXVIII Harrowing introduces a hellmouth: one might argue that the demonic presence has been transferred from a bested Satan to a permanently gaping orifice. Christ's triumph, in this case, is not so much a defeat of Satan as a deprivation of Hell through the rescue of the patriarchs.
55 The illustrator of the Harley Psalter's Ps. CXXXVIII was especially likely to depart from his visual models. Noel observes that ‘while artists A-D2 followed the Utrecht Psalter extremely closely, artist F did not’ (Harley, p. 85Google Scholar).
56 Ibid.
57 That the morning was obviously suggestive of the Resurrection is illustrated by the Descent into Hell, in which both the angels of the Resurrection and the women start out ‘on uhtan’.
58 Gameson, R., The Role of Art in the Late Anglo-Saxon Church (Oxford, 1995), p. 67Google Scholar, traces the lineage of the picture from this verse.
59 In keeping with his characteristic attention to the text of the psalms, though, Artist F does not include Christ's uncorrupted body in the sepulchre that accompanies Ps. CXXXVIII. In the context of Resurrection proper, rather than incorruptability, it makes little sense.
60 Broderick's identification of Utrecht Psalter iconography in the illustration of Junius 11 demonstrates that the influence of die continental book in Anglo-Saxon England extends beyond the psalter that is its direct descendant, and even into one of the great poetic codices. See Broderick, H. R., ‘Observations on the Method of Illustration in MS Junius 11 and the Relationship of the Drawings to the Text’, Scriptorium 37 (1984 for 1983), 161–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
61 The motif of the Women at the Sepulchre, used in common by picture and poem, manifests itself in slightly different ways in each. Whereas the poet specifies the presence of Mary, and one other ‘eorles dohtor’ (9–11)Google Scholar, reflecting the textual tradition in one of its many variations (cf. Matt. XXVIII.1, Mark XVI.1, Luke XXIV.10 and John XX.1–10), the artist includes the three female figures more typical and in fact nearly ubiquitous in visual representations of the scene.
62 Gameson, R., ‘The Origin of the Exeter Book of Old English Poetry’, ASE 25 (1996), 135–85, at 179.Google Scholar The uncertain history of the Exeter Book continues to spark debate. Conner, P. W., Anglo-Saxon Exeter: a Tenth-Century Cultural History (Woodbridge, 1993)Google Scholar has provided very thorough documentation in support of his daring contention that the manuscript was produced in Exeter itself. Gameson's reading of the evidence is more cautious (and to my mind more persuasive), but even at his most conservative, Gameson posits an origin for the Exeter Book that preserves a link with die scriptorium at Christ Church: ‘We would seem, therefore, to be looking for a major scriptorium in the south-west which was active in the mid- to third quarter of the tenth century, which included a talented calligrapher who was skilled in the native tradition of script, which had connections with Canterbury and whose other products seem largely to have disappeared’ (‘Origin’, p. 179; emphasis mineGoogle Scholar).
63 For their learned and helpful advice at various stages during the preparation of this article, I would like to thank C. Cannon, R. Gameson, H. A. Kelly, M. Lapidge, N. E. R. Perkins and C. Sanok.