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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 January 2023
‘Cuð is gehwilcum menn
þæt þis lif is geswinc-ful and on swate wunað.
þis lif bið alefed on langsumum sarum
and on hætum ofþefod and on hungre gewæht
mid mettum ge-fylled and modig on welum
mid hafen-leaste aworpen and ahafen þurh iugoðe,
mid ylde gebiged and to-bryt mid seocnysse
mid unrotnysse fornumen and geangsumod þurh cara.’
[‘It is known to every man that this life is full of hardship and it dwells in sweat. This life is given over to long-lasting pains and dried up by heat, weakened by hunger, filled with food, made proud by wealth, degraded by poverty, raised up by youth, bowed down by old age, broken down with sickness, overwhelmed with sadness and afflicted by sorrows.’]
With these words, St Cecilia in Ælfric’s rendition of her vita sums up how everyone will suffer from pain, heat, hunger, poverty, sorrow and old age. Since these factors affect everyone in this life, Cecilia maintains, everyone should want to be a Christian and attain Heaven, where such things are absent.
Naturally, old age did not affect everyone in equal measure and much depended on a person’s way of life, occupation and social standing. After the discussion of the general merits and drawbacks of old age in chapters 2 and 3, the present chapter and the three following take into account some of these more specific parameters. These four chapters show how old age affected the lives and representations of four specific groups: saints, warriors, kings and women, respectively. How were older members of these groups portrayed in the cultural record, and what does this reveal about the expected roles of the elderly in Anglo-Saxon England? Since the representation of a person’s old age is also influenced by the conventions and traditions of the particular text type in which their lives were recorded, due attention will also be given to the nature of the source material used in each chapter.
Anglo-Saxon hagiography
The lives and deeds of saints were chronicled in hagiography. This genre enjoyed great popularity in the Anglo-Saxon period; around a hundred saints’ lives survive in Old English and still more in Latin.
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