In this eloquently written book, Janet Schrunk Ericksen explores both the physical history and textual contents of MS Junius 11, an illustrated book containing biblical poetry that clearly captivated its medieval readers. Junius 11 contains Old English poetic adaptations of Genesis, Exodus, Daniel, and a text known as Christ and Satan that was later grafted into the manuscript. Across her Introduction and five chapters, Ericksen artfully draws out the complexity of the manuscript, illuminating “the multidimensionality of reading in early medieval England” (5). Junius 11 offers an alluring case study for exploring the acts of compilation and reading: in some ways, the manuscript aims at a kind of coherence or wholeness; yet these attempts often come across as thwarted by fragmentary portions, interpolations, and discontinuities. However, as Ericksen argues, medieval readers would have been “comfortable with inconsistency” (4). That is, one can read the poems as accretive and sequential, but also “in isolation, in juxtaposition, or in sequence” (7).
One of Junius 11's well-known stylistic quirks is that it contains several narratives that recur: three versions of the fall of the angels; two versions of the flood; and two of the Abraham and Isaac story. This repetition is the subject of Ericksen's first chapter, “The Thrice-Told Tale.” Here, Ericksen considers how each version of the fall of the angels has a distinct focus: Genesis A is a poem about martial power, whereas Genesis B explores psychological interiority. Ericksen's next chapter explores Genesis B further alongside Daniel. Specifically, she is interested in the theme of “perception and discernment” (33). The choice to pair Genesis B and Daniel demonstrates her welcome practice of reading across the manuscript in ways that might at first seem counterintuitive. She argues that “B encourages the rejection of false visual presences, and Daniel emphasizes the power of true ones … [building] a link between visual signs and wisdom” (75). Ericksen's points are compelling, though one wonders if more could be said about the “writing on the wall” episode at Belshazzar's feast in Daniel. It is worth noting, too, that the topic of sight and perception might also call for some engagement with Genesis A, especially prominent episodes involving seeing: Ham gazing upon his drunken father, Noah, and Lot's wife, whose disobedient gaze results in her transformation into a pillar of salt.
Chapter 3 extends the question of reading and interpretation to Exodus. Ericksen argues that this densely erudite poem serves as a praise song for boceras (scholars). Following the work of Audrey Walton, Ericksen suggests that the poem's conclusion—the plundering of treasures from the Red Sea—serves as a metaphor for reading. What feels missing in this section of the book, however, is an account for the transition between Daniel and Exodus (here, Ericksen could have consulted the work of Carl Kears (“Old English Mægen: A Note on the Relationship Between Exodus and Daniel in MS Junius 11,” English Studies 95, no. 8 [2014]: 825–48) or further studies accounting for the hermeneutic mode of Exodus as seen in the work of Stephen Hopkins (“Snared by the Beasts of Battle: Fear as Hermeneutic Guide in the Old English Exodus,” Philological Quarterly 97, no. 1 [2018]: 1–25). In chapter 4, Ericksen turns to Christ and Satan, a poem that occasionally feels out of step with the rest of the manuscript. Here, Ericksen extends a previously made argument (“The Wisdom Poem at the End of Junius 11,” in The Poems of MS Junius 11: Basic Readings, ed. R. M. Liuzza [2002], 302–26) that this poem can be productively understood alongside wisdom literature available in early medieval England, both in how it echoes the question-and-answer genre and its engagement with apocryphal literatures, all literatures that “[stress] the pursuit of wisdom” (127). The mysterious inclusion of Christ and Satan indeed serves as an important reminder that virtually everything present within the manuscript represents a remnant of a long, complex transmission history with whispers of poetry hailing from different corners of England and the Continent, written by artists of various talents, backgrounds, and ideological preoccupations and aims.
Chapter 5, “The Book in the Library,” is a particular highlight of this study. Here, Ericksen proposes a novel way to think about the earliest provenance of Junius 11 by attempting to connect it to a home library. Over the years, possible places of origin have been proposed with the two likeliest candidates being Winchester and Christ Church, Canterbury. Ericksen concludes that that “the remnants of these libraries’ pre-Conquest books show that the greatest affinities occur between Junius 11 and the New Minster books” (149). Although the list of surviving texts at New Minster is small, it was undoubtedly a thriving site of vernacular and hermeneutic learning. Ericksen's careful approach squares powerfully with David F. Johnson's claims about Genesis A's presentation of the fall of the angels, which corresponds to the same theme's treatment in tenth-century Winchester charters. This groundbreaking section provides startling evidence that Junius was a “purposeful reflection of the local interests of the New Minster” (189).
While this book represents a striking achievement in Junius 11 studies, it is occasionally constrained by the omission of more recent scholarship such as the studies by Kears and Hopkins mentioned above. Daniel Donoghue's How the Anglo-Saxons Read Their Poems (2018) might have also featured in this study. Two other works were published right around Ericksen's (which likely could not have been consulted by the author, but are worth noting here for their relevance): Carl Kears's MS Junius 11 and its Poetry (2023) and David F. Johnson's “Winchester Revisited: Æthelwold, Lucifer, and the Place of Origin of MS Junius 11,” in The Wisdom of Exeter: Anglo-Saxon Studies in Honor of Patrick W. Conner, ed. E. J. Christie [2020], 27–64. Johnson's latest study of Junius 11 suggests that the portrait medallion of “Ælfwine” on page 2 may refer to a royal minister or scriptor who was active at Winchester—someone who could have been the commissioner or an intended recipient of the book—within the timeframe established by Leslie Lockett (2002). Thus, independent of one another, Johnson and Ericksen have both made highly persuasive cases for Winchester as the home of MS Junius 11. Ultimately, Ericksen's work is a shining achievement for anyone engaged in the study of Junius 11: her work is highly readable, replete with clear, graceful, and compelling readings of a manuscript that has fascinated its many admirers through the centuries.
