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Lost in translation: omission of episodes in some Old English prose saints' legends

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

E. Gordon Whatley
E. Gordon Whatley
Affiliation:
The City University of New York
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Extract

The following article explores one way of using Latin sources to increase our understanding and appreciation of the surviving corpus of vernacular prose hagiography in Anglo-Saxon England. Although the saints' legends in prose make up a significant portion of the Old English literary remains, they have been relatively neglected in comparison with the saints' legends in Old English verse, such as Andreas, Guthlac A and Guthlac B, and Cynewulf's Elene. As the standard bibliographies reveal well enough, the prose texts have been studied mainly from the perspectives of language, stylistics, codicology and basic Quellenforschung, and much less than the verse texts for their literary, historical or broadly cultural interest. This is particularly true of the twenty-nine anonymous legends, some of which are not readily accessible in printed versions, and most of which need re-editing. But even the hagiographic writings of Ælfric, which are better known, have been read only occasionally for their narrative content perse. Primary emphasis has fallen instead on Ælfric's considerable stylistic and prosodic achievements. Moreover, the two most recent monographs on Ælfric's intellectual and doctrinal concerns hardly touch on his saints' legends.

Type
Research Article
Information
Anglo-Saxon England , Volume 26 , December 1997 , pp. 187 - 208
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1997

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References

1 Among recent exceptions to the trend are Holy Men and Holy Women: Old English Prose Saints' Lives and Their Contexts, ed. Szarmach, P. E. (Albany, NY, 1996)Google Scholar; Clayton, M. and Magennis, H., The Old English Lives of St Margaret, CSASE 9 (Cambridge, 1994)Google Scholar and The Anonymous Old English Legend of the Seven Sleepers, ed. Magennis, H., Durham Med. Texts 7 (Durham, 1994).Google Scholar

2 The ‘Sanctorale’ list of anonymous prose legends in A Plan for the Dictionary of Old English, ed. Frank, R. and Cameron, A. (Toronto, 1973), pp. 101–5Google Scholar, comprises thirty-five texts, but some of these are fragmentary, lost or have no hagiographic narrative content: e.g., Augustine (B3.3.2), John the Baptist (B3.3.12), Margaret II (B3.3.15), Maty Purification (B3.3.19), Maty (B3.3.22), Quintin (B3.3.33).

3 For bibliographical information on old and recent editions, including several by continental scholars, see Whatley, E. G., ‘Late Old English Hagiography ca. 950–1150’, Hagiographies: Histoire Internationale de la littérature hagiographique latine et vernaculaire en Occident des origines à 1550, ed. Philippart, G. (Turnhout, 1994–) II, 429–99, at 452–9.Google Scholar

4 Gatch, M. McC., Preaching and Theology in Anglo-Saxon England: Ælfric and Wulfstan (Toronto and Buffalo, 1977)Google Scholar; Grundy, L., Books and Grace: Ælfric's Theology, King's College London Med. Stud. 6 (London, 1991).Google Scholar

5 Gerould, G. H., Saints' Legends (Boston and New York, 1916), p. 94.Google Scholar

6 See ÆElfric's preface to his first series of Catholic Homilies, ed. Thorpe, B., The Homilies of Ælfric, The First Part, 2 vols. (London, 1844–1846) I, 1–2.Google Scholar The anonymous hagiographic sermons seem to be addressed to unlearned congregations, e.g. those in the Blickling collection, ed. Morris, R., The Blickling Homilies, EETS os 58, 63 and 73 (Oxford, 1874–1880; repr. as 1 vol., 1967).Google Scholar

7 Gerould, , Saints' Legends, p. 94.Google Scholar

8 Lapidge, M., ‘The Saintly Life in Anglo-Saxon England’, The Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature, ed. Godden, M. and Lapidge, M. (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 243–63, at 258.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also Lapidge's valuable discussion of brevitas, linking Ælfric's Latin and English writing, in Wulfstan of Winchester: The Life of St Æthelwold, ed. Lapidge, M. and Winterbottom, M. (Oxford, 1991), p. cl.Google Scholar

9 For a different perspective on the relationship between interpretation and vernacular translation, see the important monograph by Copeland, R., Rhetoric, Hermeneutics, and Translation in the Middle Ages: Academic Traditions and Vernacular Texts, Cambridge Stud. in Med. Lit. 11 (Cambridge, 1991).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 Ælfric's Lives of Saints, ed. Skeat, W. W., EETS os 76, 82, 94 and 114 (Oxford, 1881–1900, repr. as 2 vols., 1966) I, 472–87.Google Scholar I refer to ÆLS no. xxii as Apollinaris, citing passages by the line numbers in Skeat's edition.

11 The standard edition is Acta Sanctorum, Iul. V, 344–50, numbered BHL 623 in Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latino, 2 vols., Subsidia Hagiographica 6 (Brussels, 1898–1901)Google Scholar and Novum Supplementum, ed. Fros, H., Subsidia Hagiographica 70 (Brussels, 1986).Google Scholar The Acta Sanctorum version has been identified as very similar to Ælfric's source; see Ott, J. H., Über die Quellen der Heiligenleben in Ælfrics Lives of Saints I (Halle, 1892), pp. 54–6Google Scholar; Zettel, P., ‘Ælfric's Hagiographical Sources and the Latin Legendary Preserved in B.L. MS Cotton Nero E. i + CCCC MS 9 and Other Manuscripts’ (unpubl. DPhil dissertation, Oxford Univ., 1979), pp. 226–7.Google Scholar For the probable seventh-century date of the legend, see Delehaye, H., ‘L’hiagiographie ancienne de Ravenne', AB 47 (1929), pp. 5–30, at 6.Google Scholar

12 Passio S. Apollinaris, § 9; Acta Sanctorum, Iul. V, 346A.Google Scholar

13 Passio S. Apollinaris, §§ 33–4; Acta Sanctorum, Iul. V, 349–50.Google Scholar

14 Passio S. Apollinaris, §§ 8–9, 12–13, 24–5 (first and second exiles) and 26–35 (return, last retirement and martyrdom); Acta Sanctorum, Iul. V, 345–50.Google Scholar

15 We do not know for certain that Ælfric's copy of the Passio S. Apollinaris contained the episodes he omits from his Apollinaris, but they are present in the copy of the passio in the Cotton-Corpus Legendary, with which Ælfric's hagiographic works have been most closely linked (BL Cotton Nero E. i, vol. 2, 49r–52r).

16 Passio S. Apollinaris, §§ 10–12; Acta Sanctorum, Iul. V, 346.Google Scholar

17 Into these few lines Ælfric compresses the substance of almost two columns (§§ 16–21) of the Bollandists’ edition: Acta Sanctorum, Iul. V, 347–8.Google Scholar

18 Ælfric, Apollinaris, lines 130b–134, summarizes §§ 20 and 21 of the Latin passio, softening the emphasis on revenge by saying that the Christians acted thus to ‘defend’ (bewerian) the saint. But Ælfric's retention, without adverse comment, of this extreme act of Christian violence is startling, in view of his strictures elsewhere on the virtue of patiently suffering violence and insult (Maurice, ÆLS. no. xxviii, lines 125–49). The early Bollandists condemn the massacre outright (Acta Sanctorum, Iul. V, 348, n. i).Google Scholar On the subject of divine retribution on the persecutors of the saints, see Delehaye, H., Les passions des martyrs et les genres littéraires, 2nd ed., Subsidia Hagiographica 13B (Brussels, 1966), 217–18Google Scholar, and Sigal, P-A., ‘Un Aspect du culte des saints: le chåtiment divin aux XIe et XIIe siècle d'après la littérature hagiographique du Midi de la France’, Cabiers de Fanjeaux 11 (1976), 35–59.Google Scholar

19 Passio S. Apollinaris, §§ 16 and 28–9: Ælfric's Apollinaris, lines 98–127 and 167–92.

20 See his English Preface to ÆLS, lines 39–40, 52 and 71: Ælfric's Lives, ed. Skeat, I, 4–6.Google Scholar

21 Ibid p. 5.

22 Dubois, J. and Renaud, G., Édition pratique des martyrohges de Bède, de l' Anonyme lyonnais et de Florus (Paris, 1976), p. 134.Google ScholarQuentin, Cf. H., Les Martyrologes historiques du Moyen Age (Paris, 1908), pp. 63–4.Google Scholar

23 BHL 3723. The text and translation cited and quoted below is that of Colgrave, B., Felix's Life of Saint Gutblac (Cambridge, 1956).Google Scholar On Æthelbald, see below, pp. 194–8.

24 The best edition of the poems is The Guthlac Poems of the Exeter Book, ed. Roberts, J. (Oxford, 1979).Google Scholar

25 Das angelsächsische Prosa-Leben des heiligen Gutblac, ed. Gonser, P., Anglistische Forschungen 27 (Heidelberg, 1909).Google Scholar Translations are mine. It is important to consult Jane Roberts's dissertation: Crawford, J., ‘Guthlac: an Edition of the Old English Prose Life, together with the Poems in the Exeter Book’ (unpubl. DPhil dissertation, Oxford Univ., 1967).Google Scholar For a full translation, see Swanton, M., Anglo-Saxon Prose (London and Totowa, NJ, 1975), pp. 39–62.Google Scholar

26 In addition to the discussions by Gonser and Crawford (see previous note), see also Roberts, J., ‘The Old English Prose Translation of Felix's Vita sancti Guthlaci’, Studies in Earlier Old English Prose, ed. Szarmach, P. E. (Albany, NY, 1986), pp. 363–79.Google Scholar The most recent edition of the Vercelli extract is The Vercelli Homilies and Related Texts, ed. Scragg, D. G., EETS os 300 (Oxford, 1992), 381–94.Google Scholar

27 Guthlac, ed. Gonser, , pp. 100–3.Google ScholarCf. Colgrave, , Felix's Life, pp. 60–4.Google Scholar On the manuscript tradition of Guthlac's Latin source, see Crawford, , ‘Guthlac: an Edition‘, pp. 70–82Google Scholar, and Bolton, W. F., ‘The Manuscript Source of the Old English Prose Life of St. Guthlac‘, Archiv 197 (1961), 301–3.Google Scholar On the translator's changes to the exordium of the preface, see below, n. 44.

28 E.g., the anonymous Mary of Egypt,'s Lives, ed. Skeat, II, 2.Google Scholar

29 Cf. Guthlac, ed. Gonser, , p. 111, lines 87–91Google Scholar, and Guthlaci, Vita S., ch. xxi: Colgrave, Felix's Life, p. 84, lines 14–22.Google Scholar See also below, n. 31.

30 Colgrave, , Felix's Life, p. 19Google Scholar; Roberts, , ‘The Old English Prose Translation‘, p. 364.Google Scholar

31 Colgrave, , Felix's Life, pp. 116–22Google Scholar; Guthtac, ed. Gonser, , pp. 140–5.Google Scholar The main passages cut are parts of Felix's chs. xxxviii (Colgrave, , p. 120, lines 15–24Google Scholar) and xxxix (p. 122, lines 18–31), along with smaller omissions. Felix's echoes of Bede and Jerome in these passages, noted by Colgrave, deserve closer study.

32 Ibid. p. 166, line 8. The larger context is quoted below, with the equivalent Old English text.

33 ad corpus ipsiuspervenit (Colgrave, Felix's Life, p. 164, line 4) is expanded to: ferde þa þider to þære stove, þær þæs godes iveres lichama on wæs (’[he] journeyed to the place wherein was the body of the man of God‘). Guthloc, ed. Gonser, , p. 170, lines 4–6.Google Scholar

34 Colgrave, , Felix's Life, pp. 166–7Google Scholar: “Do not be sad, for the days of your miseries have passed away, and the end of your afflictions is at hand; for before the sun has passed through its yearly course in twelve revolutions you shall be given [variant ‘shall rule’] the sceptre of your kingdom.” It is related that he not merely prophesied to him about his kingdom, but also revealed to him in order the length of his days and the end of his life. On the other hand Æthelbald said: “My lord, what sign will there be to me that all these things will happen thus?” Guthlac answered: “This shall be a sign to you: when tomorrow comes, before the third hour, food will be given to relieve those who dwell in this place, from an unhoped-for source.” As the holy man uttered these words, the light which had appeared before him departed from his sight. The event followed the words without delay; for before the third hour of the day arrived, they heard the signal [i.e. bell] sounded at the landing-stage and they saw some men bringing thither unhoped-for food. Then Æthelbald, remembering all the things which had been said to him, believed with unwavering faith that they would happen, and placed unshakeable confidence in the prophecies of the man of God: nor did his faith deceive him. For from that time until the present day, his happiness as king over his realm has grown in succeeding years from day to day.’

35 Guthlac, ed. Gonser, , p. 172Google Scholar: ‘“But do not be down-hearted, for the days of your miseries are passed away, because before the sun has travelled around its circuit of twelve months, you will rule this kingdom, for which you have long struggled.” And not only did he predict that kingdom for him, but also he revealed to him the whole length of his life. These wonders God performed on account of the merit of the holy man, after he was departed and buried.’ The translator's skilful editing of the penultimate sentence, omitting mention of Æthelbald's finem, may be attributed perhaps to the discretion of hindsight, since, unknown to Felix writing at the height of the king's power and prosperity, Æthelbald was eventually murdered by his retainers. See Colgrave, , Felix's Life, p. 7Google Scholar, and Albertson, C., Anglo-Saxon Saints and Heroes (New York, 1967), p. 217, n. 62.Google Scholar

36 See below, p. 197.

37 Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed. Colgrave, B. and Mynors, R. A. B. (Oxford, 1969), pp. 174–82Google Scholar; Colgrave, B., The Earliest Life of Gregory the Great (Lawrence, KA, 1968), pp. 98–100.Google Scholar

38 Cf. Colgrave, , Earliest Life, p. 100Google Scholar, lines 6–7: ‘si verum probaret sibi quod promisit…’

39 I Sam. X.1 and 7: ‘Hoc tibi signum, quia unxit te Deus in principem … Quando ergo evenerint signa haec omnia tibi …’; cf. Colgrave, , Felix's Life, p. 166Google Scholar, lines 8–10: ‘“Domine, quod signum mihi erit, quia omnia sic eveniant?” Guthlac respondit: “Signum tibi hoc erit…”’ The miracle by which Guthlac convinces Æthelbald appears to be modelled, at least in part, on the more elaborate episode that follows the verses cited above from I Sam. X. In each case, the ‘sign’ that the promised kingship will come to pass is a predicted encounter with some men bearing food at a stipulated time in the immediate future.

40 See Colgrave's, marginal citations, Felix's Life, p. 150.Google Scholar

41 Ibid. p. 150: ‘After Guthlac had spoken such words as these to him, from that time Æthelbald placed his hope in the Lord. Nor did an idle hope deceive him; for all these things which the man of God had prophesied about him happened in this very way, in this very order and setting, and not otherwise, as the actual outcome of present events proves.’

42 Guthlac, ed. Gonser, , p. 160, lines 23–5Google Scholar: “When he heard these words, Æthelbald at once strengthened his hope and faith in God himself, and he trusted and believed all the things that the holy man predicted.’

43 Colgrave, , Felix's Life, pp. 166–7Google Scholar: ‘remembering all the things that had been said to him, [he] believed with unwavering faith that they would happen, and placed unshakeable confidence in the prophecies of the man of God’.

44 See the translator's changes to Felix's preface, emphasizing the orthodox faith of the king and the author: ibid. p. 60, lines 1 and 4; Guthlac, ed. Gonser, , p. 100, lines 1 and 4–5.Google Scholar

45 See, e.g., Colgrave, , Felix's Life, p. 142Google Scholar, lines 19–22, p. 146, lines 2–5; cf. Guthlac, ed. Gonser, , pp. 155, 157.Google Scholar

46 The Old English Life of Machutus, ed. Yerkes, D., Toronto Old English Ser. 9 (Toronto, 1984), p. xxv.Google Scholar His edition of the Old English text and its Latin source is quoted and cited below, using his continuous pagination system only. Punctuation and translations are mine, and some abbreviations are silently expanded. Portions of lost text supplied conjecturally by Yerkes are in parentheses.

47 On the Brendan episodes in the Latin lives of Machutus, see Machutus, ed. Yerkes, , pp. 16–31Google Scholar, and cf. the anonymous shorter Vita Maclovi (DHL 5117), chs. vii, ix–xiii: Borderie, A. de la and Plaine, F., ‘Deux vies inédites de S. Malo’, Bulletin et mémoires de la Société archéologique du département déIlle-et-Vilaine 16 (1883) 137–312, at 274–81.Google Scholar The ultimate source of such episodes is presumably an early recension of the eighth-century Navigatio Sancti Brendani (BHL 1436). For bibliography, see Lapidge, M. and Sharpe, R., Bibliography of Celtic-Latin Literature 400–1200 (Dublin, 1985), pp. 105–6 (no. 362).Google Scholar

48 For the different forms of the saint's name, and the possibility that he represents a conflation of two different figures, see Machutus, ed. Yerkes, , p. xxvi.Google Scholar

49 Yerkes, Ibid. p. xlii, is more definite about the provenance than the date, but he implies it was in the late tenth century.

50 Yerkes, , ‘The Provenance of the Unique Copy of the Old English Translation of Bili, Vita Sancti Machuti’, Manuscripta 30 (1986), 108–11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

51 See Poulin, J.-C., ‘Les Dossiers de S. Magloire de Dol et de S. Malo d'Alet (province de Bretagne)’, Francia 17 (1990), 159–209, at 160–78Google Scholar, which supersedes all earlier studies; also Lapidge, and Sharpe, , Bibliography, p. 226Google Scholar (no. 825).

52 The standard printed edition of the whole text (Yerkes prints only part) is that of Lot, F. in his Mélanges d'histoire bretonne (VIe-XIe siècle) (Paris, 1907), pp. 340–430.Google Scholar Another useful but rarer edition is that of Le Due, G., Vie de Saint Malo, évêque d'Alet: Version ecriteparle diacre Bili, Dossiers du Centre regional archeologique d'Alet, B–1979 (Rennes, 1979Google Scholar), with a French translation.

53 Chapter numbers are cited below from Lot, Mélanges. Le Due, Vie de Saint Malo, has the same chapter numbers and divisions.

54 Machutus, ed. Yerkes, , p. 88, lines 15–18 and 22–8.Google Scholar

55 Ibid. pp. 81–3. Yerkes does not comment; Le Due, , Vie de Saint Malo, p. 160, n. 3Google Scholar, suggests a leaf has been lost from the Old English text. But the Latin passage left untranslated in the Old English is not long enough to account for a page, much less a folio.

56 Machutus, ed. Yerkes, , p. 80Google Scholar; ch. lxii in Lot, , Mélanges, p. 389.Google Scholar For other hagiographic episodes in which a saint exposes the deceptions or secrets of other clergy, see, e.g., Colgrave, , Felix's Life, pp. 132–6Google Scholar, and Gregory the Great's Dialogi II.xii–xiii: de Vogüé, A. and Antin, P., Grégoire le Grand, Dialogues, 3 vols., Sources Chrétiennes 259, 260 and 265 (Paris, 1978–1980) II, 174–6.Google Scholar

57 See Machutus, ed. Yerkes, , pp. 78–80Google Scholar, for the Latin and Old English versions of the miracles of the boil healed by Machutus's saliva and the wren that built its nest in the saint's cowl. Lot, , Mélanges, pp. 388–90.Google Scholar

58 Hereford, , Cathedral Library p. vii.Google Scholar 6, 62r (I am grateful to Michael Lapidge for access to his microfilm copy). See also Poulin, , ‘Les Dossiers’, pp. 171–2.Google Scholar Although abridged, this version, overlooked in all editions, appears to be an important witness to the Latin textual tradition behind the Old English version, e.g., in having what seems to be a superior version of the episode De interfecto infantulo (cf. Machutus, ed. Yerkes, , pp. 64–6).Google Scholar Hereford also has the episode De morte principis filium occidentis, of which the main source manuscripts have no text, merely a tide in one table of contents (cf. Machutus, ed. Yerkes, , pp. xlvi and 67).Google Scholar See also Poulin, , ‘Les Dossiers’, pp. 169, 172.Google Scholar

59 Machutus, ed. Yerkes, , p. 81, lines 4–8Google Scholar: ‘Who can properly describe the great power of the words that came out of his mouth when he preached to the people? Such was his preaching, and such the natural fervour in all who listened to his preaching and his teaching.’ Problematic is gecyndetic oabryrdnes which with some diffidence I render ‘natural fervour’ (‘procreative excitement’ seems an unthinkable alternative in the context). That preaching should arouse excitement is to be expected, but that this should be termed ‘natural’ seems strange. Perhaps the original reading was godcyndelic, ‘godly’. Godcund and its compounds are used frequently by the Machutus author in similar contexts. See Yerkes's glossary, Ibid. pp. 130–1.

60 E.g., DE AMMONITIONE EIVS(ch. lxvi in Lot, , Mélanges, pp. 392–3)Google Scholar, Machutus, ed. Yerkes, , pp. 88–9Google Scholar, and the other sermons (pp. 104–5), which correspond to nothing in the Latin and which neither Yerkes nor Neil Ker could fit into the sequence of folios.

61 Gneuss, H., ‘The Origin of Standard Old English and Æthelwold's School at Winchester’, ASE 1 (1972), 68–83.Google ScholarCf. Machutus, ed. Yerkes, , pp. xxxvi–xxxix.Google Scholar

62 The importance of the issue at Winchester is reflected in Ælfric's account (based on that of Lantfred, BHL 7944–5) of the translation of the relics of St Swithun, in Lives of Saints no. xxi, lines 21–94 (Ælfric's Lives, ed. Skeat, 1, 442–6Google Scholar; see also Needham, G. I., Lives of Three English Saints (London, 1966), p. 62Google Scholar and note on line 23).

63 The Cult of the Virgin Mary in Anglo-Saxon England, CSASE 9 (Cambridge, 1990), 261–6.Google Scholar

64 Another possibility, suggested to me by Andy Orchard, is that if Machutus were aimed at the younger students of the Winchester school, it would be natural to omit episodes containing adult sexual allusions.

65 Machutus, ed. Yerkes, , p. 92, lines 29–30 and 1–16Google Scholar; ch. lxviii in Lot, , Mélanges, p. 394.Google Scholar

66 E.g., Machutus, ed. Yerkes, , p. 72, lines 11–21Google Scholar (ch. Iv in Lot, , Mélanges, p. 386Google Scholar) are not rendered into Old English. There are also some interesting additions to the material provided in the Latin life, notably two lyrically homiletic passages: Machutus, ed. Yerkes, , pp. 75Google Scholar (lines 12–21) and 97 (lines 4–19).

67 Ibid. pp. 56–60, entitled DE SERUO EIUS IN LITTORE LIGATO, Lot, , Mélanges, pp. 379–81.Google Scholar

68 Machutus, ed. Yerkes, , p. 56Google Scholar, lines 25–31 and 1–3; Lot, , Mélanges, ch. xliii, pp. 379–80Google Scholar: ‘And so St Machutus returned to the palace with the joyful messengers, who had gone there with him at the king's command. And when King Judicael heard his servants’ account of the miracles that almighty God had granted to that man who held the world in contempt, although he [i.e. the king] had had it in mind to do so for a long time, he received the blessing of St Machutus, gave and guaranteed to him many gifts and many landed estates, and holding the world in contempt committed himself to a life of penitence.’

69 Machutus, ed. Yerkes, , p. 57Google Scholar, lines 16–20: ‘St Machutus returned with the messengers to the king's courts. And when the king heard his messengers describe the miracles that almighty God had granted to St Machutus, he immediately received the saint's blessing [and] gave [him] many gifts.’

70 Du Cange, C., Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis, ed. Favre, L., 10 vols. (1883–1887) III, 32Google Scholar, Decumbitio vel Discumbitio. Other variant spellings are dicumbitio, dicambitio, etc. For its occurrence in a tenth-century Breton charter, see Brett, C., ‘A Breton Pilgrim in England in the Reign of King Æthelstan’, France and the British Isles in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Essays by Members of Girton College, Cambridge, in Memory of Ruth Morgan, ed. Jondorf, G. and Dumville, D. (Woodbridge, 1991), pp. 43–70, at 62–4.Google Scholar

71 ‘In qua insula dum habitabat, multas didonationes combitiones deo per seruos suos donante accepit.’ Machutus, ed. Yerkes, , p. 58, lines 11–13.Google Scholar The corrupt reading didonationes combitiones is emended by Lot, , Mélanges, p. 379Google Scholar, to donationes dicombitiones (the Hereford manuscript has only donationes). But, as David Dumville has suggested to me, donationes here would originally be an interlinear gloss on dicombitiones, later incorporated into the text by mistake, at a subsequent stage of transmission, to produce the garbled phrase above.

72 See Riché, p., ‘De l'ilot d'Aaron à Saint-Malo d'après les sources hagiographiques et his-toriques’, Annales de la Société d'histoire et d'archéologie de l' arondissement de Saint-Malo, Année 1972 (1973), pp. 132–42Google Scholar, who compares Machutus's retreats to the isle of Aaron to Martin of Tours's fondness for Marmoutiers. Riché does not otherwise comment on the various episodes in question here.

73 Machutus, ed. Yerkes, , p. 58Google Scholar, lines 14–17; Lot, , Mélanges, ch. xliv, p. 380Google Scholar: ‘Et communi iure cum seruo suo Riuan nomine uiuebat, et ad mensam simul sedebant, ut et mutuo licet seruus ren-nuebat calciament[a] eius Sanctus Machu detrahebat.’ (‘And he lived on terms of equality with his servant Rivo, and they would sit down to dinner at the same time, and in turn, although the servant protested, St Machutus would take off the other's shoes.’) Cf. Vita S. Martini, ch. 2, § 5, in Fontaine, J., Sulpice Sévère: Vie de Saint Martin, 3 vols., Sources Chrétiennes 133–5 (Paris, 1967–1969) I, 254–6Google Scholar: ‘[Martinus] … uno tantum seruo comite contentus, cui tamen uersa uice dominus seruiebat, adeo ut plerumque ei et calciamenta ipse detraheret, cibum una caperent, hie tamen saepius ministraret.’ (‘He contented himself with only one servant to wait on him, and even then, reversing roles, the master would serve the servant, to the extent that generally he was the one who pulled off his servant's shoes and cleaned them, and they would take their meals together, and usually Martin was the waiter.’)

74 Machutus, ed. Yerkes, , p. 58Google Scholar, lines 17–25; Lot, , ch. xliv, Mélanges, p. 380.Google Scholar The ass would obediently fetch and carry provisions from neighbouring villages without having to be driven by a human being and accompanied only by a little dog.

75 The Blickling Homilies, ed. Morris, , p. 213Google Scholar, lines 1–6, rendering Vita S. Martin I, ch. 2, §§ 5–6Google Scholar, ed. Fontaine, , Vie de Saint Martin 1, 254–6.Google Scholar See also Vercelli Homilies, ed. Scragg, , p. 292, lines 21–5.Google Scholar

76 Ælfric's Catholic Homilies, ed. Godden, M., EETS ss 5 (London, 1979), 288Google Scholar, lines 14–18 Ælfric's version is more drastically abbreviated than that of the anonymous homily, but he still finds room for the servant anecdote.

77 Ælfric's Lives, ed. Skeat, II, 220–2, especially lines 35–9.Google Scholar

78 Yerkes's edition is purely textual and has no explanatory notes or commentary on the narrative content of the Old English or Latin texts.

79 These include Sigebert of Gembloux's Vita S. Maclovii (BHL 5119): PL 160, cols. 729–6 (see Poulin, , ‘Les Dossiers’, p. 169Google Scholar), and the ninth- or tenth-century anonymous short vita (BHL 5117), ed. de la, Borderie and Plaine, , ‘Deux vies’, pp. 267–93Google Scholar, apparently composed at Saintes and sharing a common source with Bili's Vita S. Machuti.

80 Lot, , Mélanges, pp. 475–6Google Scholar, Gaidoz, citing H., ‘La “crapandine” dans le Roman de Pérédur’, Zeitschrift für Celtische Philoloeie 6 (1908) 1180–7.Google Scholar

81 Machutus, ed. Yerkes, , pp. 58–60Google Scholar, lines 25–31 and 1–12 (I have inserted into Yerkes's Latin text the emendations, in italics, and some of the punctuation, from Lot, , Mélanges, pp. 380–1Google Scholar, ch. xlv): ‘While they [i.e. Machutus and his servant] were living there and serving God faithfully, many people were hostile towards [or jealous of] him. They yoked his servant Rifa's arms and feet together and laid him in front of the incoming tide. And a crowd of them hid [the saint's] horse and put a mare at the mounting block, saying to him: “O holy Machu, behold, your servant is drowning in the sea! Come forth if you want to see him live!” And coming outside, anxious about his servant, he mounted the mare, desiring to make haste, and came to the place where [Rifa] was tied up, and he snatched him away from there, and put the mare back in its place. And those malicious people came and laughed at the saint, saying, “Take your mare into your bed-chamber!” And he desired to leave the place and the district, and he cursed the man called Guorguecan, who had insulted him, to the ninth generation.’

82 BHL 5117, ch. xxi, ed. De La, Borderie and Plaine, , ‘Deux vies’, pp. 286–7Google Scholar, where ‘Riwa’ is identified as Machutus's baker and the hostility of the locals is aroused by the saint's land acquisitions. See also Sigebert's, Vita S. Machuti (BHL 5119), ch. xix, PL 60, cols. 741–2.Google Scholar

83 Le Duc, , Vie de Saint Malo, p. 129.Google Scholar

84 Machutus, ed. Yerkes, , p. 59, lines 5–17Google Scholar: ‘When however he was living there and serving God with his servant, whose name was Rifa, many bore him (Machutus) malice, and they set down his servant before the waves of the sea and tied his arms and feet, and said to him (Machutus), “Alas, holy Machutus, now your servant will be swallowed up in the sea. Go forth if you wish him to live.” And he then felt great anxiety for his servant, (and) came to the place where he lay bound, and rescued him from there. And the malicious ones, they came to him and derided the saint. Then he wanted to leave behind that place and that country, and he cursed the man whose name was Gworguecant (the one who had done him harm) to the ninth generation.’

85 See above, n. 82.

86 For an example of judicious omission in verse hagiography Cynewulf's (Juliana), see Magennis, H., ‘Treatments of Treachery and Betrayal in Anglo-Saxon Texts’, ES 76 (1995), pp. 1–19, at 7.Google Scholar An earlier draft of the present study was presented to the graduate seminar at the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Celtic, University of Cambridge in 1994. I am grateful to Michael Lapidge for arranging the session and for various kinds of help, and to the other members of the Department for their valuable comments.