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Old English literature and the liturgy: problems and potential

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Milton MCC. Gatch
Affiliation:
The University of Missouri, Columbia

Extract

A number of recent scholarly publications hint that students of Old English are coming to believe that knowledge of medieval liturgies might provide keys for unlocking some of the secrets of literary monuments. A prospectus for such pursuits is set out by the Reverend Cyril L. Smetana in a forthcoming article on further ramifications of the use of the homiliary of Paul the Deacon by Ælfric: It has long been recognized that the Anglo-Saxon poets were influenced by the liturgy and that hymns, homilies and antiphons inspired some of the best poetry.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1977

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References

page 237 note 1 ‘Paul the Deacon's Patristic Anthology’, to appear in Ælfric and the Old English Homily, ed. Szarmach, Paul E.Google Scholar. Missals, in the modern sense of the term, did not exist in Anglo-Saxon England, however; and several of the other genres of liturgical books in this list have left few traces.

page 237 note 2 Hymnar und Hymnen im englischen Mittelalter, Buchreihe der Anglia 12 (Tübingen, 1968)Google Scholar. See also Gneuss's, ‘Latin Hymns in Medieval England: Future Research’, Chaucer and Middle English Studies in Honour of Rossell Hope Robbins, ed. Beryl, Rowland (London, 1974), pp. 407–24Google Scholar. A subsequent study, of just the sort needed, has been Korhammer, Michael, Die monastischen Cantica im Mittelalter und ibre altenglischen lnterlinearversionen, Texte und Untersuchungen zur Englischen Philologie 6 (Munich, 1976).Google Scholar

page 238 note 1 Perhaps the novice's best introduction to the complexities of liturgical research (and the foibles of some who undertake it) is the biography of Edmund Bishop, the greatest English student of liturgical history (Nigel, Abercrombie, The Life and Work of Edmund Bishop (London, 1959)).Google Scholar

page 238 note 2 ‘Some Service-Books of the Later Saxon Church‘, Tenth-Century Studies. Essays in Commemoration of the Millennium of the Council of Winchester and ‘Regularis Concordia’, ed. David, Parsons (London and Chichester, 1975), pp. 6083 and 217–27Google Scholar. I have also included some allusions to personal correspondence with Mr Hohler. His views on the level of culture in late-Saxon England are extreme in their negativism.

page 238 note 3 Incidentally, one of the favourite connections has gone: it is now argued forcefully that Alcuin was not the author of the ‘Supplement’ to the Gregorianum, though there is disagreement as to who was in fact responsible for it see Jean, Deshusses, ‘Le “Supplément” au Sacramentaire Grégorien: Alcuin ou Saint Benoît d'Aniane?Archiv für Liturgiewissenschaft 9 (1965), 4871Google Scholar; Klaus, Gamber, ‘Der fränkische Anhang zum Gregorianum im Licht eines Fragments aus dem Anfang des 9. Jh.’, Sacris Erudiri 21 (19721973), 266–89.Google Scholar

page 239 note 1 On the evidence for this period, see Willis, G. G., ‘Early English Liturgy from Augustine to Alcuin’, Further Essays in Early Roman Liturgy, Alcuin Club Collections 50 (London, 1968), 189243.Google Scholar

page 239 note 2 ‘Liturgical Drama and Panegyric Responsory from the Eighth Century? A Re-examination of the Origin and Contents of the Ninth-Century Sections of the Book of Cerne’, JTS 23 (1972), 374406.Google Scholar

page 240 note 1 The date of the arrival of the Vercelli Book in Italy may be indicated by a neumed text of distinctively eleventh-century Italian type which appears in a blank space in the manuscript (Kenneth, Sisam, Studies in the History of Old English Literature (Oxford, 1953), pp. 113–16)Google Scholar. The source of Advent x (Christ I) is now known only from a local Italian antiphonar (Simon, Tugwell, 39 (1970) 34)Google Scholar. In the latter case the evidence is based on an antiphonary from Ivrea as reported in Corpus Antiphonalium Officii, ed. Renato-Joanne, Hesbert, 4 vols., Rerum Ecclesiasticarum Documenta, Series Maior: Fontes 7–10 (Rome, 19631970)Google Scholar; but it is conceivable that the antiphon was, whether locally or widely, in use in England.

page 240 note 2 To draw attention by way of a minor fault to an otherwise stimulating and expert article, see Colin, Chase, ‘God's Presence through Grace as the Theme of Cynewulf's Christ II and the Relationship of this Theme to Christ I land Christ III’, ASE 3 (1974), 87101Google Scholar. By way of calling attention to ‘the idea of a threefold coming of Christ, past, present and future’ as ‘a convention of later Anglo-Saxon spirituality’, Chase cites (p. 97, n. 4) the Gregorianum as ed. Ménard, H. (repr. PL 78, cols. 25–582) and (p. 98, n. 1) the Benedictional of Archbishop RobertGoogle Scholar. Had he been able to consult the authoritative edition of the Gregorianum (Le Sacramentaire grégorien, ed. Jean, Deshusses I, Spicilegium Friburgense 16 (Fribourg, 1971Google Scholar)), he would have observed that at least two of the four benedictions he quotes are not part of the Gregorianum or its ‘Supplement’. Further research on the benedictions might, in fact, have brought him closer to English sources and to recognition that observance of Sundays ante natalem Domini or ‘in Advent’ is a late development.

page 240 note 3 As Appendix 7 in Compotus Rolls of the Obedientiaries of St Swithun's Priory, Winchester, ed. Kitchin, G. W., Hampshire Record Soc. (1892), pp. 171–98.Google Scholar

page 240 note 4 The only recent study, save the remarks by Gneuss cited in the following note, is a useful paper by Hall, J. R., ‘Some Liturgical Notes on Ælfric's Letter to the Monks at Eynsham’, Downside Rev. 93 (1975), 297303.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 240 note 5 As Gneuss also notes, Hymnar und Hymnen, p. 120.

page 241 note 1 Med. Classics (London, 1953). New editions of the fragmentary Old English version of Regularis Concordia and the interlinear gloss of London, British Library, Cotton Tiberius A. iii are needed. For a bibliography on these texts, see B.10.5.1, B.10.5.2 and C.27 in Angus, Cameron, ‘A List of Old English Texts’, A Plan for the Dictionary of Old English, ed. Roberta, Frank and Angus, Cameron (Toronto, 1973), pp. 25306.Google Scholar

page 241 note 2 Amalarii episcopi opera liturgica omnia, ed. Michaele, Hanssens Ioanne, 3 vols., Studi e Testi 138–40 (Vatican, 19481950)Google Scholar. Bateson's confusion on Ælfric's use of Amalarius is due to the unavailability of this text and of Hanssens's study of its history. Many of her unfortunate editorial decisions, especially concerning sentence and paragraph structure, are also to be laid to the unavailability of good texts of Lib. off. and the Concordia. A new study of knowledge of Amalarius in England would be most helpful.

page 241 note 3 It is the opinion of Dom Thomas Symons that Æthelwold ‘arranged and codified the legislation agreed upon at the Council’ of Winchester. He has modified somewhat his earlier view that the bishop of Winchester was only the council's amanuensis but still sees Dunstan as the major figure behind the conception of the Concordia; see ‘Regularis Concordia: History and Derivation’, Tenth-Century Studies, ed. Parsons, , pp. 3759 and 214–17, at 42–3.Google Scholar

page 241 note 4 It may also be noted that the text occupies two entire gatherings and may have had an existence separate from the rest of Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 265. To my unpractised eye, the hand of the Eynsham text looks very like that of another manuscript associated with Ælfric: Boulogne-sur-Mer 63.

page 241 note 5 Consuetudines Monasticae, ed. Bruno, Albers, 5 vols. (Stuttgart, 1900; Monte Cassino, 19031912)Google Scholar. New editions are appearing in Corpus Consuetudinum Monasticarum, ed. Kassius, Hallinger (Siegburg); vol. 1Google Scholar contains a catalogue of incipits of early customaries.

page 242 note 1 Some lections for Nocturns are also outlined in The Portiforium of Saint Wulstan (Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, MS. 391), ed. Anselm, Hughes, Henry Bradshaw Soc. 89–90 (19581960), 11, 25 ffGoogle Scholar. The manuscript is from Worcester, c. 1065–6. I am grateful to Professor Gneuss for this reference.

page 242 note 2 Gneuss has studied this aspect of the document in Hymnar and Hymnen; see especially the tables at pp. 60 ff.

page 242 note 3 I take it that this passage also refutes Holder's contention that ‘the tone of [Ælfric's] letter to the monks of Eynsham seems to preclude the possibility that he was their head’ (‘Some Service-Books’, p. 73).

page 242 note 4 See my Preaching and Theology in Anglo-Saxon England: Ælfric and Wulfstan (Toronto, 1977), p. 131Google Scholar, and Michael, Lapidge, ‘The Hermeneutic Style in Tenth-Century Anglo-Latin Literature‘, ASE 4 (1975), 67111, at 101.Google Scholar

page 242 note 5 The nearest approach to the latter task is in J. B. L. Tolhurst's introductory vol. 6 of The Monastic Breviary of Hyde Abbey, Winchester, Henry Bradshaw Soc. 80 (1942); but most of the materials treated by Tolhurst are much later and there is only occasional reference to the scanty evidence from the Anglo-Saxon period.

page 242 note 6 ArchJ 114 (1957), 2869.Google Scholar

page 243 note 1 For reports of Biddle's work see ArchJ 119 (1962)Google Scholar and AntJ 44 (1964) ffGoogle Scholar. See also Biddle, , ‘Felix Urbs Winthonia: Winchester in the Age of Monastic Reform’, Tenth-Century Studies, ed. Parsons, , pp. 123–40 and 233–7Google Scholar, and Quirk, , ‘Winchester New Minster and Its Tenth-Century Tower‘, JBAA, 3rd ser. 24 (1961), 1654.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 243 note 2 ‘Cynewulf's Image of the Ascension’, England Before the Conquest: Studies in Primary Sources Presented to Dorothy Whitelock, ed. Peter, Clemoes and Kathleen, Hughes (Cambridge, 1971), pp. 293304, at 301–2.Google Scholar

page 243 note 3 For these churches, Clemoes refers to , H. M. and Joan, Taylor, Anglo-Saxon Architecture, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1965)Google Scholar; a rather different dating and interpretation of the Brixworth west-work is presented by Edward, Gilbert, ‘Brixworth and the English Basilica’, Art Bull. 47 (1965), 120Google Scholar. Clemoes's caution in the use of liturgical evidence might serve as a model to other literary critics here cited.

page 243 note 4 ASE 3 (1974), 163–77Google Scholar. Taylor's article was occasioned by Campbell's, A. new edition and translation of Æthelwulf's early-ninth-century Latin poem (Oxford, 1967).Google Scholar

page 244 note 1 TPS 19071910, 180–7.Google Scholar

page 244 note 2 Taylor, H. M., ‘The Anglo-Saxon Church at Canterbury’, ArchJ 126 (1969), 101–30Google Scholar; Gem, R. D. H., ‘The Anglo-Saxon Church at Canterbury: A Further Contribution’Google Scholar, and E. C. Gilbert, ‘The Date of the Anglo-Saxon Church at Canterbury’, ibid. 127 1970), 196–201 and 202–10 respectively; David, Parsons, ‘The Pre-Conquest Cathedral at Canterbury’, Archaeologia Cantiana 84 (1969), 175–84.Google Scholar

page 244 note 3 I had originally taken this forebus to be a structure at the west end of the cathedral. Dr Taylor, in private correspondence, argues that the Leofric evidence must be read in connection with the description of Eadmer, which indicates that the south porch housed the main entry. At any rate the porch seems to have been a rather elaborate structure.

page 244 note 4 This passage is related to one of the miracles of the Confessor as recounted in Osbert's late vita see The Life of King Edward the Confessor, ed. Frank, Barlow, Med. Classics (London, 1962), p. 118.Google Scholar

page 244 note 5 MLN 27 (1912), 97103.Google Scholar

page 244 note 6 The most recent review of the matter, covering most publications which have appeared since his edition of the poem (Yale Stud, in Eng. 122 (1953)), is by Irving, Edward B. Jr, ‘Exodus Retraced’, Old English Studies in Honour of John C. Pope, ed. Burlin, Robert B. and Irving, Edward B. Jr (Toronto, 1974), pp. 203–23Google Scholar. I cite here only the articles most closely related to the issues under discussion.

page 245 note 1 The Liturgical Year: Passiontide and Holy Week, trans. Laurence, Shepherd (London, 1911).Google Scholar

page 245 note 2 The evidence is surveyed by Hall, , ‘Ælfric's Letter‘, pp. 301–3.Google Scholar

page 245 note 3 Revue de l'histoire des religions 165 (1964), 1347.Google Scholar

page 245 note 4 This section is sometimes presumed to be a Liber I of the manuscript, for Christ and Satan ends at p. 229 with Finit liber II. Amen. The point, however, is not so certain as Larès would make it; see The Junius Manuscript, ed. George Philip, Krapp, The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records 1 (New York, 1931), xiiGoogle Scholar. If borne out by research, my suggestion that other parts of the Lenten liturgy might be the sources for Genesis and Exodus would, incidentally, raise problems for those who see Daniel as integral to a Liber I. Larès's argument is alluded to in her Bible et civilisation anglaise (Paris, 1974)Google Scholar, on which see my review, EA 30 (1977), 85–7.Google Scholar

page 245 note 5 For a more complete summary of these, see John, Wilkerson, Egeria's Travels (London, 1971), pp. 253–77.Google Scholar

page 246 note 1 An apparent step in the right direction is taken by Eleanor, McLoughlin, ‘OE Exodus and the Antiphonary of Bangor’, NM 70 (1969), 658–67Google Scholar; but Professor Gneuss reminds me that the text to which she points (Exodus xv.1–19) can be found in most Anglo-Saxon psalters of the eighth to tenth centuries and recourse to an Irish manuscript is hardly necessary.

page 246 note 2 Influence by the catechetical narratio on Old English literature is suggested by Virginia, Day, ‘The Influence of the Catechetical Narratio on Old English and Some Other Medieval Literature’, ASE 3 (1974), 5161.Google Scholar

page 246 note 3 Thornley, G. C., ‘The Accents and Points of MS. Junius II’, TPS 1954, 178205.Google Scholar

page 246 note 4 To cite only two, Zur Geschichte des Reliquidenkultus in Altengland, Sitzungsberichte der Bayerische Akademie, Philos.-Hist. Abteilung, 1943, Heft 8; ‘Zur Liturgik der angelsächsischen Kirche’, Anglia 66 (1942), 151.Google Scholar

page 247 note 1 I contemplate some work on the first and third items; the second is more properly the task of liturgical scholars. For the Old English texts, my starting point has been the list by Angus Cameron in A Plan for the Dictionary of Old English, esp. B, sects. 10–12 – the insufficiency of which is evidence of the sad state of studies of these texts. Amongst other expected studies of interest are an introduction to the study and analysis of liturgical manuscripts by Andrew Hughes, a musicologist at the University of Toronto, and a hand-list of sequences in Anglo-Saxon manuscripts envisaged for a future issue of ASE by Helmut Gneuss and Michael Korhammer.

page 247 note 2 See Hill, Thomas D., ‘Notes on the Imagery and Structure of the Old English Christ I’, N&Q 217 (n.s. 19, 1972), 84–9.Google Scholar

page 247 note 3 I acknowledge with great appreciation the useful comments on an early draft of this article (prepared for the Midwest Modern Language Association, November 1975) of George H. Brown, Peter Clemoes, Helmut Gneuss and H. M. Taylor.