¹ Sawyer, P.H., ‘The Wealth of England in the Eleventh Century’, TRHS 15 (1965), 145–64.Google Scholar

² Ibid. See also Loyn, H., Anglo-Saxon England and the Norman Conquest (London, 1962), esp. p. 212Google Scholar, and Yorke, B., ‘Æthelwold and the Politics of the Tenth Century’, Bishop Æthelwold: his Career and Influence, ed. Yorke, B. (Woodbridge, 1988), pp. 65–88, at 68.Google Scholar

³ Hinton, D., ‘Late Saxon Treasure and Bullion’, Ethelred the Unready, ed. Hill, D., BAR Brit, ser. 59 (Oxford, 1978), 135–58.Google Scholar

⁴ See esp. Little, L. K., Religious Poverty and the Profit Economy in Medieval Europe (London, 1978).Google Scholar

⁵ The passage does not appear at the relevant place in the standard edition, The Homilies of the Anglo-Saxon Church: the First Part, containing the Sermones Catholici or Homilies of Ælfric, ed. Thorpe, B., 2 vols. (London, 1844–1846) 1, 202Google Scholar, since Thorpe omitted most Gospel passages; it is to be found in the facsimile edition, Ælfric's First Series of Catholic Homilies (British Museum Royal 7 C. Xii, fols. 4–218), ed. Eliason, N. and Clemoes, P., EEMF 13 (Copenhagen, 1966), 70v.Google Scholar

⁶ The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., prepared by Simpson, J.A. and Weiner, E.S.C. (Oxford, 1989)Google Scholar; Bosworth, J. and Toller, T.N., An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary (London, 1898)Google Scholar, and Toller, T.N., Supplement (London, 1921).Google Scholar

⁷ Mincoff, M. K., Die Bedeutungsentwicklung der ags. Ausdrücke für Kraft und Macht, Palaestra 188 (Leipzig, 1933), 149–53.Google Scholar

⁸ A Microfiche Concordance to Old English, compiled by Venezky, R.L. and Healey, A. diP. (Toronto, 1980)Google Scholar, has proved an invaluable resource in this survey.

⁹ ‘They went then from the council as the rice queen, bold in cities, had commanded them.’

¹⁰ ‘A certain man was rich in possessions, of noble family, a rice senator.’

¹¹ Bischofs Wærferth von Worcester Übersetzung der Dialoge Gregors des Grossen, ed. Hecht, H., Bibliothek der angelsächsischen Prosa 5 (Leipzig, 1900), 317Google Scholar, line 10, and 88, line 5.

¹² Ibid. p. 181, line 21.

¹³ The Old English Orosius, ed. Bately, J., EETS ss 6 (London, 1980).Google Scholar

¹⁴ King Alfred's West-Saxon Version of Gregory's Pastoral Care, ed. Sweet, H., 2 vols., EETS os 45 and 50 (London, 1871) 1, 180–6.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Ibid. p. 184, lines 5 and 8.

¹⁶ Boethius, , De Consolatione Philosophiae 111, pr. ii, ed. Bieler, L., CCSL 94 (Turnhout, 1957), 38–40.Google Scholar

¹⁷ King Alfred's Old English Version of Boethius De Consolatione Philosophiae, ed. Sedgefield, W. J. (Oxford, 1899), pp. 58–60.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Ibid. pp. 63–4.

¹⁹ There is a further textual problem here. The work survives in two copies, the Bodley manuscript of the twelfth century and the Cotton manuscript of the tenth, badly damaged in the Cotton fire but previously collated by Junius. In one instance (p. 63, line 28) where the Cotton manuscript had ‘se anweald and se wela’ the Bodley copy has ‘se anwald’; similarly where the Cotton manuscript had ‘his rice and his wela’ (p. 63 line 18) the Bodley manuscript has ‘his rice’, rice being a noun meaning ‘office, authority’. It may be that the Bodley scribe or an editor omitted wela, perhaps deliberately because of its ambiguity. The other, more interesting possibility is that Alfred himself originally wrote just anweald or rice and subsequently added the phrase ‘and se wela’ to clarify the concept. The Cotton text represents Alfred's second version of the work, with the metres turned into verse, and it would not be surprising if he revised the prose parts at the same time. Another view of the phrase is offered by Winter, W., ‘Zur Methode einer bedeutungsgeschichtlichen Untersuchung’, Festschrift für Walter Hübner, ed. Riesner, D. and Gneuss, H. (Berlin, 1964), pp. 26–39, at 33.Google Scholar

²⁰ Sedgefield, W. J., King Alfred's Version of the Consolations of Philosophy done into Modern English, (Oxford, 1900), pp. 66 and 68.Google Scholar

²¹ Sedgefield, , King Alfred's Old English Version, p. 159.Google Scholar

²² Mincoff, , Die Bedeutungsentwicklung, p. 150.Google Scholar

²³ Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed. Colgrave, B. and Mynors, R. A. B. (Oxford, 1969), pp. 226–8Google Scholar. ‘He rejoiced to hand over at once, to, any poor man he met, the gifts which he had received from kings or rich men of the world. He used to travel everywhere, in town and country, not on horseback but on foot, unless compelled by urgent necessity to do otherwise, in order that, as he walked along, whenever he saw people whether rich or poor, he might at once approach them and, if they were unbelievers, invite them to accept the mystery of the faith; or, if they were believers, that he might strengthen them in the faith, urging them by word and deed to practise almsgiving and good works.…Neither respect nor fear made him keep silence about the sins of the rich, but he would correct them with a stern rebuke. He would never give money to powerful men of the world, but only food on such occasions as he entertained them; on the contrary he distributed gifts of money which he received from the rich, either, as we have said, for the use of the poor or for the redemption of those who had been unjustly sold into slavery’ (translation ibid. pp. 227 and 229).

²⁴ Bede in fact seems to mean property in general by pecunia, not money as Colgrave and Mynors render it; there was of course no money in the sense of coinage in the Northumbria of Aidan's time.

²⁵ The Old English Version of Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed. Miller, T., 2 vols., EETS os 95 and 96 (London, 1890–1) 1Google Scholar, 160–2. The significant words are italicized.

²⁶ Vercelli Homilies ix–xxiii, ed. Szarmach, P. E., Toronto Old English Ser. 5 (Toronto, 1981), 15Google Scholar. The homilist's translation of terra by bocland (that is, land held as a permanent possession and free of obligations) in this passage suggests that he was well aware of the ways in which land-ownership and wealth were linked in his own time.

²⁷ Ibid. p. 83.

²⁸ Scragg, D.G., ‘The Compilation of the Vercelli Book’, ASE 2 (1973), 189–207, esp. 201 and 204.Google Scholar

²⁹ The Blickling Homilies, ed. Morris, R., 3 vols., EETS os 58, 63 and 73 (London, 1874–1880), 53.Google Scholar

³⁰ Ibid. p. 197. The Latin source is printed in PL 95, 1522.

³¹ The Gospel according to Saint Mark in Anglo-Saxon and Northumbrian Versions, ed. Skeat, W. W. (Cambridge, 1871), p. 80.Google Scholar

³² The significance of word-pairs for analysis of semantic developments is discussed by Winter, ‘Zur Methode’, p. 31.Google Scholar

³³ Die angelsächsischen Prosabearbeitungen der Benedictinerregel, ed. Schröer, A., Bibliothek der angelsächsischen Prosa 2 (Kassel, 1888), 45 and 102.Google Scholar

³⁴ The Old English Version, with the Latin Original, of the Enlarged Rule of Chrodegang, ed. Napier, A. S., EETS os 150 (London, 1916), 33, line 21 and 70, line 6.Google Scholar

³⁵ ‘A priest who is a merchant and through that rises from a poor man to a wealthy one, and from a man of low status to a man of high status, is to be shunned like a disease.’

³⁶ References to Ælfric's work are to The Homilies of the Anglo-Saxon Church: the First Part, containing the Sermones Catholici or Homilies of Ælfric, ed. Thorpe, B., 2 vols. (London, 1844–1846) 1Google Scholar, for the first series of Catholic Homilies, identified as CH I followed by homily number and pages in Thorpe's edition; to Ælfric's Catholic Homilies: the Second Series, Text, ed. Godden, M., EETS ss 5 (London, 1979)Google Scholar, for the second series, identified as CH II followed by homily number and line number; Ælfric's Lives of Saints ed. Skeat, W. W., EETS os 76,82,94 and 114 (London, 1881–1900, rptd as two vols. 1966)Google Scholar, identified as LS followed by item number and line number; and Homilies of Ælfric: A Supplementary Collection, ed. Pope, J. C., 2 vols., EETS os 259–60 (London, 1967–1968)Google Scholar, for the later homilies, identified as Pope followed by homily number and line number.

³⁷ CH I xxiii, 328–38; CH II xiv, 335; CH I xviii, 256; Pope xxvii, 86.

³⁸ CH II vii, 52–112. For the Latin source see Becker, W., ‘The Latin Manuscript Sources of the Old English Translations of the Sermon Remedia Peccatorum’, MÆ 45 (1976), 145–52.Google Scholar

³⁵ CH II xxv, 90; CH I xxvii, 400.

⁴⁰ CH I xxxiv, 578.

⁴¹ CH I viii, 176.

⁴² CH I xxxii, 478.

⁴³ LS xxxii, 232.

⁴⁴ Defensor's Liber Scintillarum, with an Interlinear Anglo-Saxon Version, ed. Rhodes, E. W., EETS os 93 (London, 1889), 181 line 21Google Scholar; Der Lambeth-Psalter: eine ae. Interlinearversion des Psalters in der HS 427 der erzbischöflichen Lambeth Palace Library, ed. Lindelöf, U., 2 vols. (Helsinki, 1909–1914), Ps. IX.29.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Yerkes, D., The Two Versions of Wærferth's Translation of Gregory's Dialogues: an Old English Thesaurus, Toronto Old English Ser. 4 (Toronto, 1979), nos. 370, 1466 and 2327.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Byrhtferth's Manual ed. Crawford, S.J., EETS os 177 (London 1929), 140.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ The Homilies of Wulfstan, ed. Bethurum, D. (Oxford, 1957), p. 271, line 116.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Ibid. p. 364.

⁴⁹ Two of the Saxon Chronicles Parallel, ed. Plummer, C. and Earle, J., 2 vols. (Oxford, 1892) 1, 222.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ On Winchester vocabulary, see Gneuss, H., ‘The Origin of Standard Old English and Æthelwold's School at Winchester’, ASE 1 (1972), 63–83Google Scholar; Hofstetter, W., Winchester und der spätaltenglische Sprachgebrauch (Munich, 1987)Google Scholar, and ‘Winchester and the Standardization of Old English Vocabulary’, ASE 17 (1988), 139–61.Google Scholar

⁵¹ See the discussion, with objections, by Schabram, H., ‘Ae Wlanc und Ableitungen’, Studien zur englischen und amerikanischen Sprache und Literatur. Festschrift für Helmut Papajewski, ed. Buchloh, P.G., I. Leimberg and H. Rauter (Neumünster, 1974), pp. 70–88.Google Scholar

⁵² Ris, R., Das Adjektiv ‘reich’ im mittelalterlichen Deutsch (Berlin, 1971).Google Scholar

⁵³ Ris (ibid. p. 54) and Mincoff, (Die Bedeutungsentwicklung, p. 152)Google Scholar both touch on the possibilities of a connection with social change; Little, L.K., ‘Pride Goes Before Avarice: Social Change and the Vices in Latin Christendom’, AHK 76 (1971), 16–49, mentions (at 45, n. 95)Google Scholar the dual meaning in French and suggests a connection with economic and social developments.

⁵⁴ See the lawcode known as Griô, §21, in Die Gesetze der Angelsächsen, ed. Liebermann, F., 3 vols. (Halle, 1903–1916) 1, 472.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ King Alfred's Old English Version of Boethius, pp. 40–1.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ LS xxv, 812–32; Die Hirtenbriefe Ælfrics, ed. Fehr, B. (Hamburg, 1914), letter 2aGoogle Scholar; and The Old English Heptateuch, ed. Crawford, S. J., EETS os 160 (London, 1922), 71–2.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Duby, G., Les trois ordres ou l' imaginaire du féodalisme (Paris, 1980)Google Scholar, translated as The Three Orders, Feudal Society Imagined, by Goldhammer, A. (Chicago, 1980), p. 101.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ I owe this point to Professor P.A.M. Clemoes, whose advice and comments on an earlier draft of this article are gratefully acknowledged.

⁵⁹ CH II xix.

⁶⁰ Cross, J.E., ‘The Literate Anglo-Saxon – on Sources and Disseminations’, PBA 58 (1972) and separately, esp. pp. 26–8 and 33–6.Google Scholar

⁶¹ Acta Apostolorum Apocrypha, ed. Lipsius, R. A. and Bonnet, M., 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1891–1898) 1, 151.Google Scholar

⁶² Blickling Homilies, ed. Morris, , p. 185.Google Scholar

⁶³ CH I xxvi, 378. ‘I taught the rican that they should not exalt themselves nor set their hope on false riches, but only on God. I taught the middling people that they should be satisfied with their sustenance and clothing. I commanded the poor that they should rejoice in their destitution.’

⁶⁴ CH II xix, 228–44. ‘Again, the teacher of nations taught the rich that they should not exalt themselves in lofty pride nor set their hope on the treacherous treasures, but trust in God, the giver of good things.… For merchants it is proper that they should maintain the truth and not sell their souls through false oaths, but praise their goods without terrible perjury. The same apostle exhorted also the middling people that they should be satisfied with their sustenance and clothing. He taught the poor that they should be patient in the poverty of their lives and always be cheerful.’

⁶⁵ CH II vii, 67–70.

⁶⁶ Sermo lxi.4 (PL 38, 410).

⁶⁷ CH I xviii, 254.

⁶⁸ Ælfric's Colloquy, ed. Garmonsway, G. N. (London, 1939), p. 33Google Scholar. A very similar point is made about the later commentator Honorius Augustodunensis by Webb, D. M., ‘A Saint and his Money: Perceptions of Urban Wealth in the Lives of Italian Saints’, The Church and Wealth, ed. Shells, W. J. and Wood, D., Stud, in Church Hist. 24 (Oxford, 1987), 61–73Google Scholar. She comments that ‘to Honorius the merchant and the rich man were not entirely the same. He addresses himself separately to the dives’, and goes on to suggest that the dives proper is for Honorius only ‘the possessor of what we might term traditional, landed, wealth’ (p. 62).

⁶⁹ Leisi, E., ‘Gold und Manneswert im Beowulf’, Anglia 71 (1952–1953), 258–73Google Scholar; ‘es ist unmöglich, auf Altenglisch von jemandem zu sagen: “Er ist reich, aber ein schlechter und unglücklicher Mensch” weil im Begriffe “reich” Tugend oder Glück oder beide schon eingeschlossen ist’ (p. 260).

⁷⁰ King Alfred's Old English Version of Boethius, ed. Sedgefield, , pp. 40–1Google Scholar. On King Alfred's wealth see Maddicott, J.R., ‘Trade, Industry and the Wealth of King Alfred’, Past and Present 123 (1989), 3–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar. I acknowledge gratefully Dr Maddicott's advice on matters of Anglo-Saxon history; his capacity for directing one to the crucial study of any topic one mentions never fails to impress.

⁷¹ See, for instance, McGurkin, J. A., ‘The Vine and the Elm-Tree: Patristic Interpretation of Jesus' Teachings on Wealth’, The Church and Wealth, ed. Sheils, and Wood, , pp. 1–14Google Scholar, and Hengel, M., Eigentum und Reichtum in der frühen Kirche, (Stuttgart, 1973)Google Scholar, translated by Bowden, J. as Property and Riches in the Early Church: Aspects of a Social History of Christianity (London, 1974)Google Scholar. (I owe the latter reference to Dr Joyce Hill of Leeds University.)

⁷² CH I viii, 130.

⁷³ CH I xiii, 204. ‘He sent the rican empty away: the rican are those who in their pride love the earthly riches more than the heavenly ones. Many rice men prosper with God, those who do as is written: the rice man's riches are his soul's redemption. His riches are his soul's redemption if he uses the transitory treasures to buy the eternal life and the heavenly riches with God.’

⁷⁴ Venerabilis Bedae Homiliae, ed. Hurst, D., CCSL 122 (Turnhout, 1955), 265–7Google Scholar (Horn. i.4).

⁷⁵ The main source is Augustine's, commentary on the Sermon on the Mount, ed. Mutzenbecher, A., CCSL 35 (Turnhout, 1968)Google Scholar; in developing an opposing idea, Ælfric takes some suggestions from Haymo of Auxerre (PL 118, 778).

⁷⁶ CH I xxxvi, 548–50.

⁷⁷ PL 184, 440–2.

⁷⁸ CH II xxv, 72–83.

⁷⁹ LS xvi, 326–32. I give the text as the scribe originally wrote it, without the interlinear additions, and with the punctuation modernized for the sake of clarity. ‘The third virtue is largitas, that is generosity in English; that one should spend wisely, not out of worldly vanity, the things which God lent one to enjoy in this life. God does not wish that we should be greedy misers, nor either that we should cast away our possessions out of worldly vanity, but distribute them with discretion, as it pleases our lord, and if we give alms do it without boasting.’

⁸⁰ CH I xviii, 256. ‘It is one thing for someone to be rich if his ancestors have bequeathed possessions to him; it is another if someone becomes rich through greed. The latter's greed is accused before God, not the former's wealth, if his heart is not inflamed with greed.’

⁸¹ Sermo lxi (PL 38, 412).

⁸² Lebecq, S., ‘Ælfric et Alpert: Existe-t-il un discours clerical sur les marchands dans l'europe du Nord à l'aube du Xl^e siècle?’, CCM 27 (1984), 85–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Colledge, E., ‘An Allusion to Augustine in Ælfric's Colloquy’, RES ns 12 (1961), 180–1Google Scholar, suggests Augustine as an influence on Ælfric's defence of the merchant.

⁸³ Matthew IX.10; Luke XV.l; Luke XVIII.9–14.

⁸⁴ Homiliae, ed. Hurst, , 1.21.Google Scholar

⁸⁵ PL 95, 1376.

⁸⁶ See the relevant verses in The Gospel According to St Matthew in Anglo-Saxon, Northumbrian and Old Mercian Versions, ed. Skeat, W. W. (Cambridge, 1887)Google Scholar, and The Gospel According to St Luke in Anglo-Saxon and Northumbrian Versions, ed. Skeat, W. W. (Cambridge, 1874).Google Scholar

⁸⁷ CH I xxiv, 338; CH II xxxii, 8.

⁸⁸ CH II xxviii, 6–7.

⁸⁹ ‘Zwei Homilien des Ælfric’, ed. Brotanek, R. in his Texte and Untersuchungen zur altenglischen Literatur und Kirchengeschichte (Halle, 1913)Google Scholar, Horn, i; ‘leader and chief of those worldly men who openly and wrongly robbed’.

⁹⁰ CH II xxxii.

⁹¹ CH II xvi, 130–38. ‘Gregory expounded this Gospel-text and asked why Peter or any of the others took up again what he had before abandoned. Truly, Peter was a fisherman before his conversion and Matthew was a toll-collector. Peter returned to his fishing and Matthew never after his conversion sat at the toll-seat, for it is one thing to acquire a living through fishing and another to gather money through tolls. There are some occupations which can be followed without sins and some which can only with difficulty, or not at all, be pursued without sins. It is therefore necessary to one who resolutely turns to God that his heart does not renew the occupations which turn him from God. Peter had an unperilous occupation before his conversion and he also therefore without peril returned to his fishing.’

⁹² Lawson, M.K., ‘The Collection of Danegeld and Heregeld in the Reigns of Æthelred II and Cnut’, EHR 99 (1984), 721–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁹³ Possibly the same kind of uncertainty about the whole area of taxes and duties explains why it was that when Ælfric, borrowed from the Latin legend St Paul's account of his social teaching he did not include St Paul's assurance to Nero that he had taught everyone to pay their taxes: ‘docui possidentes reddere tributum cum sollicitudine; docui negotiatores reddere vectigalia ministris reipublicae’ (‘I taught landowners to pay taxes diligently, and I taught men of business to pay duties to the servants of the state’).