¹ A recent notable study is the Ph.D. dissertation by Damon, John Edward, “Soldier Saints and Holy Warriors: Warfare and Sanctity in Anglo-Saxon England” (Ph.D. diss., University of Arizona, 1998), in which discussion is helpfully structured around the recurrent themes of the unwilling soldier, the saintly soldier, the rejection of warfare, and the bloodless victory. Though taking a different line from that followed in the present article, Damon includes interesting treatment of Ælfric and other material discussed below. See also Earl, James W., “Violence and Non-Violence in Anglo-Saxon England; Ælfric's ‘Passion of St. Edmund,’” Philological Quarterly 78 (1999): 125–49. I am grateful to Mary Clayton for her comments on an earlier draft of this article.Google Scholar

² See Delehaye, Hippolyte, Les légendes grecques des saints militaires (Paris, 1909; repr. New York, 1975); Maguire, Henry, The Icons of Their Bodies: Saints and Their Images in Byzantium (Princeton, N.J., 1996).Google Scholar

³ See Felix's Life of St Guthlac, chs. 16–18, ed. and trans. Colgrave, Bertram (Cambridge, 1956), 80–83.Google Scholar

⁴ Ch. 15; trans. Colgrave, , 81.Google Scholar

⁵ Ch. 16; trans. Colgrave, , 81.Google Scholar

⁶ Ch. 16; trans. Colgrave, , 81.Google Scholar

⁷ Ch. 17; trans. Colgrave, , 81.Google Scholar

⁸ Ch. 18; trans. Colgrave, , 81.Google Scholar

⁹ There is some evidence that the writer of the (generally faithful) Old English prose translation of Felix's Life (ed. Gonser, Paul, Das angelsächsische Prosa-Leben des heiligen Guthlac, Anglistische Forschungen, 27 [Heidelberg, 1909]; trans. Swanton, Michael, Anglo-Saxon Prose, 2d ed. [London, 1993], 88–113) was uncertain how to take this episode. This version adds the heroic-sounding detail that in taking up the military life Guthlac “wræc his æfϸancas on his feondum” (Gonser, 108, line 38) (“avenged his offences on his enemies,” or perhaps “wreaked his indignation on his enemies”), but omits Felix's reference to Guthlac's “glorious overthrow of his persecutors, foes and adversaries by frequent blows and devastations,” (ch. 18; trans. Colgrave, 81), declaring instead that Guthlac “ϸa ehtnysse begangende wæs,” (Gonser, 109, lines 45–46) (“engaged in hostile raids/persecutions”); and instead of saying that Guthlac used to return a third of the booty to its owners (remittebat, imperfect tense), it states that it was only after his predations that “all at once” (semninga) he decided to return the booty, having been “divinely admonished and instructed within” (“innan manod godcundlice and læred”) (Gonser, 108, lines 41–44).Google Scholar

¹⁰ On Ælfric's developing approach to hagiography, see Godden, M. R., “Experiments in Genre: The Saints' Lives in Ælfric's Catholic Homilies,” in Holy Men and Holy Women: Old English Prose Saints' Lives and Their Contexts, ed. Szarmach, Paul E. (Albany, N.Y., 1996), 261–87.Google Scholar

¹¹ See Gordon Whatley, E., ”Pearls Before Swine: Ælfric, Vernacular Hagiography, and the Lay Reader,” in Via Crucis: Essays on Sources and Ideas in Memory of J. E. Cross, ed. Hall, Thomas N. et al. (Morganstown, W. Va., forthcoming); see also my essay, “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Heaven: Humorous Incongruity in Old English Saints' Lives,” in Humour in Anglo-Saxon Literature , ed. Wilcox, Jonathan (Cambridge, 2000), 137–57.Google Scholar

¹² “Passio Crisanti et Dariae,” ed. and trans. Skeat, Walter W., Ælfric's Lives of Saints, EETS, Original Series [OS], 76, 82, 94 and 114 (London, 1881–1900; repr. as 2 vols., 1966), 2:378–99, line 344.Google Scholar

¹³ On the idea of the saints as inimitable, see Brown, Peter, “Enjoying the Saints in Late Antiquity,” Early Medieval Europe 9 (2000): 1–24: referring to the tension between the urge to imitate and the urge to admire in the medieval cult of saints, Brown writes, “It was precisely by keeping the saints inimitable — and, above all, inimitable in their physical suffering — that the Christians of late antiquity and the early Middle Ages kept the saints sacred. … To build a frail bridge of imitation between oneself and such persons … brought the saints down to the level of their imitators, and, in so doing, it undermined the fundamental antithesis between the sacred and the profane.” Ibid., 16–17.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Wilcox, Jonathan, ed., Ælfric's Prefaces, Durham Medieval Texts, 9 (Durham, 1994), 5b, lines 19–21 (pp. 120–21) (Skeat, , Ælfric's Lives, 1:4–7, lines 56–58), referring to Ps. 67:36; Ælfric goes on to say concerning the saints, “Hi synd ungeryme, swa swa hit gerisÐ Gode; ac we woldon gesettan be sumum ϸas boc, mannum to getrymminge and to munde us sylfum, ϸaEt hi us ϸingion to ϸam Ælmihtigan Gode, swa swa we on worulde heora wundra cyÐaД (“They are innumerable, as befits God, but we desire to write this book concerning some of them, for the encouragement of other people and for our own preservation, that they may intercede for us with Almighty God, as we on earth make known their wonders”), lines 28–31; Skeat, , Ælfric's Lives, 1: 4–7, lines 69–73.Google Scholar

¹⁵ “Passio Sancti Eadmundi Regis et Martyris,” ed. and trans. Skeat, , Ælfric's Lives, 2:314–35, lines 268–69.Google Scholar

¹⁶ “Depositio Sancti Martini Episcopi,” ed. Godden, Malcolm, in Ælfric's Catholic Homilies: The Second Series. Text, EETS, Supplementary Series [SS], 5 (London, 1979), 288–97; “Vita Sancti Martini Episcopi et Confessoris,” ed. and trans. Skeat, , Ælfric's Lives, 2:218–313. On saints celebrated by the faithful on feast days and saints honored by monks, see Ælfric's Latin Preface to Lives of Saints, Wilcox, Ælfric's Prefaces, 5a, lines 5–9, p. 119; and Skeat, , Ælfric's Lives, 1:2–5, lines 6–9.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Ed. Fontaine, Jacques, Sulpice Sévère: Vie de Saint Martin, Sources Chrétiennes, 133–35 (Paris, 1967–69) (for text, see 1:248–317); trans. White, Carolinne, Early Christian Lives (London, 1998), 129–59. It is likely that Ælfric would have used a variant of Sulpicius's vita closely similar to that preserved in Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 9 (pp. 275–99), a copy of the “Cotton-Corpus legendary,” recognized as particularly relevant to Ælfric's saints' lives; on the “Cotton-Corpus legendary,” which is referred to further, below, see Zettel, Patrick H., “Ælfric's Hagiographic Sources and the Legendary Preserved in B.L. MS Cotton Nero E. i + CCCC MS 9 and Other Manuscripts” (D. Phil. diss., Oxford University, 1979); see also Zettel's article, “Saints' Lives in Old English: Latin Manuscripts and Vernacular Accounts: Ælfric,” Peritia 1 (1982): 17–37.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Ch. 27.1; trans., White, , 159.Google Scholar

¹⁹ On this metaphor, see Morrison, Stephen, “Old English cempa in Cynewulf's Juliana and the Figure of the Miles Christi,” English Language Notes 17 (1979–80): 81–84; Hill, Joyce, “The Soldier of Christ in Old English Prose and Poetry,” Leeds Studies in English, n.s. 12 (1981): 57–80; Hermann, John P., “The Recurrent Motifs of Spiritual Warfare in Old English Poetry,” Annuale Mediaevali 22 (1982): 7–35; Dalbey, Marcia A., “The Good Shepherd and the Soldier of God: Old English Homilies on St. Martin of Tours,” Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 85 (1984): 422–34.Google Scholar

²⁰ On problems concerning the chronology of Martin's time in the army, see Fontaine, Jacques, “Vérité et fiction dans la Chronologie de la Vita Martini,” Studia Anselmiana 46 (1961): 189–236; Fontaine believes Martin spent about a quarter of a century in the army; for the contrary position, see Stancliffe, Clare, St. Martin and His Biographer: History and Miracle in Sulpicius Severus (Oxford, 1983), 111–33.Google Scholar

²¹ Ch. 2.6; trans. White, , 137.Google Scholar

²² Ch. 3.4; trans. White, , 138.Google Scholar

²³ As described in the Histories of Ammianus Marcellinus, Ammianus Marcellinus, 16.2–3, ed. and trans. Rolfe, John C., 3 vols. (Cambridge, Mass., and London, 1935, 1940, 1939), 1:204–11.Google Scholar

²⁴ Ch. 4.2–3; trans. White, , 138–39.Google Scholar

²⁵ Ch. 4.8; trans. White, , 139.Google Scholar

²⁶ Ch. 2.7; trans. White, , 137.Google Scholar

²⁷ There is also a short entry on St. Martin in the ninth-century Old English Martyrology . See Kotzor, Günter, ed., Das altenglische Martyrologium , Abh. Akad. Munich, N.F. 88 (Munich, 1981), 2:250–51. The Old English Martyrology account does not, however, refer to Martin as having been in the army (nor does its account of Guthlac [Kotzor, 2:52–53] mention that saint's warrior period).Google Scholar

²⁸ The Vercelli text is edited by Scragg, D. G., The Vercelli Homilies and Related Texts, EETS, OS, 300 (Oxford, 1992), 289–309 (Homily 18, “De Sancto Martino Confessore”); the Blickling text is edited and translated by Morris, R., The Blickling Homilies, EETS, OS, 58, 63 and 73 (London, 1874, 1876 and 1880; repr., 1967), 210–27 (Homily 18, “To Sancte Martines Mæssan”); there is no separate edition of the Junius text but part of it is printed by Napier, A. S., “Notes on the Blickling Homilies,” Modern Philology 1 (1903–4): 303–8, and Scragg's edition of the Vercelli version gives a full collation of the Blickling and Junius variants.Google Scholar

²⁹ The Vercelli Homilies, 289.Google Scholar

³⁰ Godden, Malcolm, Ælfric's Catholic Homilies: Introduction, Commentary and Glossary, EETS, SS, 18 (Oxford, 2000), 622.Google Scholar

³¹ Ibid., 625. In the Lives of Saints version, which is generally less colorful than the Catholic Homilies one, Ælfric refers to the red shield (readum scylde) (introducing the adjective again) and helmet (helme) (lines 114–15) but not the mail shirt.Google Scholar

³² Lines 42–43; trans. Skeat, , Ælfric's Lives, 2:223. For the Christian connotations of ungewemmed , see Tkacz, Catherine Brown, “Christian Formulas in Old English: næs hyre wlite gewemmed and Its Implications,” Traditio 48 (1993): 31–61, esp. at 44–48.Google Scholar

³³ Line 16; trans. Skeat, , Ælfric's Lives, 2:221.Google Scholar

³⁴ Line 30; trans. Skeat, , Ælfric's Lives, 2:221.Google Scholar

³⁵ Cf. Beowulf, line 39, hildewæpnum ond heaÐowædum, and line 292, wæpen and gewædu Google Scholar

³⁶ “The Good Shepherd and the Soldier of God,” 434.Google Scholar

³⁷ Blickling, , 213; trans. Morris, , 212.Google Scholar

³⁸ Blickling, , 211; trans. Morris, , 210.Google Scholar

³⁹ Blickling, , 213; Vercelli: “he munuclif 7 git swiÐor lifde ϸonne sume gehadode men” (“he lived the life of a monk to an even greater extent than some ordained men”).Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Gordon Whatley, E., “Lost in Translation: Omission of Episodes in Some Old English Prose Saints' Legends,” Anglo-Saxon England 26 (1997): 187–208, at 205. On Ælfric's treatment of this episode, see Gaites, Judith, “Ælfric's Longer Life of St. Martin and Its Latin Sources: A Study in Narrative Technique,” Leeds Studies in English, n.s. 13 (1982): 23–41, at 26–27. Some points of comparison between Ælfric's version and the anonymous one have recently been discussed by Rosser, Susan, “Old English Prose Saints' Lives in the Twelfth Century: The Life of St. Martin in Bodley 343,” in Rewriting Old English in the Twelfth Century , ed. Swan, Mary and Treharne, Elaine M., Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England, 30 (Cambridge, 2000), 132–42.Google Scholar

⁴¹ “Alia Sententia quam Scripsit Terrentianus,” ed. and trans. Skeat, , Ælfric's Lives, 1:186–95.Google Scholar

⁴² “Wyrdwriteras,” ed. Pope, John C., Homilies of Ælfric: A Supplementary Collection, 2 vols., EETS, OS, 259–60 (London, 1967–68), 2:725–33, lines 51–55.Google Scholar

⁴³ “Passio Sanctorum Machabeorum,” ed. and trans. Skeat, , Ælfric's Lives, 2:66–125, lines 812–62; see also Ælfric's Letter to Sigeweard, “On the Old and New Testament,” in The Old English Version of the Heptateuch, Ælfric's Treatise on the Old and New Testament and His Preface to Genesis , ed. Crawford, S. J., EETS, OS, 160 (London, 1922), 15–75, lines 1207–20; his Latin Letter to Wulfstan (“2a”), ch. 14, ed. Fehr, Bernhard, in Die Hirtenbriefe Ælfrics in altenglischer und lateinischer Fassung, Bibliothek der angelsächsischen Prosa, 9 (Hamburg, 1914), 222–27, at 225. On the three estates, see further Cross, J. E., “The Ethic of War in Old English,” in England before the Conquest: Studies in Primary Sources Presented to Dorothy Whitelock , ed. Clemoes, P. A. M. and Hughes, Kathleen (Cambridge, 1971), 269–82; Powell, Timothy E., “The ‘Three Orders’ of Society in Anglo-Saxon England,” Anglo-Saxon England 23 (1994): 103–22.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ The others are “De Oratione Moysi,” ed. and trans. Skeat, , Ælfric's Lives, 1:282–307, and “Sermo excerptus de Libro Regum,” ed. and trans. Skeat, , Ælfric's Lives, 1:384–413.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ See Clayton, Mary, “Ælfric's Esther: A Speculum Reginae?” in Text and Gloss: Studies in Insular Learning and Literature Presented to Joseph Donovan Pheifer, ed. O'Briain, Helen Conrad, D'Arcy, Anne Marie, and Scattergood, John (Dublin, 1999), 87–101.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ See Cross, , “The Ethic of War,” 280–81.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Godden, M. R., “Ælfric's Saints' Lives and the Problem of Miracles,” Leeds Studies in English, n.s. 16 (1985): 83–100, at 95.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ The Institutes of Polity, ch. 4, ed. Jost, K., Die ”Institutes of Polity, Civil and Ecclesiastical,” Schweizer anglistische Arbeiten, 47 (Bern, 1959), 55–56; trans. Swanton, , Anglo-Saxon Prose, 189–90.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ “Maccabees,” lines 823–24; trans. Skeat, , Ælfric's Lives, 2:123.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ “First Latin Letter to Wulfstan” (“2”), ed. Fehr, , Die Hirtenbriefe Ælfrics, 35–57, at 55–56; concerning St. Martin he writes, “Sanctus Martinus quoque dixit Iuliano, perfido imperatori: Christi enim sum miles; pugnare mihi non licet” (“Saint Martin also said to Julian, the treacherous emperor, ‘I am a soldier of Christ; I am not allowed to fight’”), ibid., 56 (see above, p. 33); see Cross, “The Ethic of War,” 280.Google Scholar

⁵¹ “Natale Sancti Oswaldi Regis et Martyris,” ed. and trans. Skeat, , Ælfric's Lives, 2:124–43.Google Scholar

⁵² This follows Bede's Ecclesiastical History, Book 3, ch. 12. See Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed. and trans. Colgrave, Bertram and Mynors, R. A. B. (Oxford, 1969), 250–51.Google Scholar

⁵³ Lines 158–61; trans. Skeat, , Ælfric's Lives, 2:135–37.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ “Passio Sancti Eadmundi Regis et Martyris,” ed. and trans. Skeat, , Ælfric's Lives, 2: 314–35. For recent substantial literary analyses of Ælfric's version, see Benskin, Michael, “The Literary Structure of Ælfric's Life of King Edmund,” in Loyal Letters: Studies on Mediaeval Alliterative Poetry and Prose , ed. Houwen, L. A. J. R. and MacDonald, A. A. (Groningen, 1994), 1–27, and Earl, “Violence and Non-Violence” (see n. 1, above).Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Cf. Ælfric's source, Abbo of Fleury, Passio Sancti Eadmundi Regis et Martyris , in Memorials of St Edmund's Abbey, ed. Arnold, Thomas, Rolls Series (London, 1890, 1892, 1896), 1:1–25: “nunquam relictae militiae probra sustinui, eo quod honestum mihi esset pro patria mori” (ch. 8) (“I have never endured the disgrace of fleeing from war, because it would have been honorable for me to die for my country”).Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Lines 101–5; trans. Skeat, , Ælfric's Lives, 2:321–23. Cf. Abbo, , “Tune sanctus rex Eadmundus in palatio, ut membrum Christi, projectis armis capitur, et vinculis arctioribus arctatus constringitur, atque innocens sistitur ante impium ducem quasi Christus ante Pilatum praesidem, cupiens ejus sequi vestigia, qui pro nobis immolatus est hostia” (ch. 10) (“Then the holy Edmund was seized in his palace, as a member of Christ, having thrown down his weapons, and was bound with tight chains, and innocent as he was he stood before the wicked leader, like Christ before the governor Pilate, desiring to follow in the footsteps of him who was sacrificed as a victim for us”).Google Scholar

⁵⁷ “Passio Sancti Sebastiani Martyris,” ed. and trans. Skeat, , Ælfric's Lives, 1:116–47.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ For the printed edition, see Mombritius, Boninus, Sanctuarium seu Vitae Sanctorum, 2d ed. (Paris, 1910 [original ed. Milan, , 1480]), 2:459–76; see London, British Library MS Cotton Nero E. i, Part I, fols. 102r–14v (this is a manuscript of the Cotton-Corpus legendary).Google Scholar

⁵⁹ In fact, for ac the text used by Ælfric probably had ac si, as in Cotton Nero E. i, Part I, fol. 102r^b .Google Scholar

⁶⁰ “Natale Sanctorum Quadraginta Militum,” ed. and trans. Skeat, , Ælfric's Lives, 1:238–61.Google Scholar

⁶¹ “Passio Sancti Mauricii et Sociorum Eius,” ed. and trans. Skeat, , Ælfric's Lives, 2:158–69. Similar in some respects is St. Eustace, another Roman soldier saint whose life was translated into Old English prose, but not by Ælfric (though edited and translated by Skeat in Ælfric's Lives, 2:190–219). Eustace is a formidable general who converts to Christianity but does not reject the army as a result. Called upon when the empire has been invaded by barbarian tribes, the (secretly) Christian Eustace willingly goes back to war. He succeeds in repelling the invaders and then overruns their country and lays it waste, returning victorious with plunder and captives; the scar on Eustace's neck (line 268) is testimony to his experience of battle. For Eustace the warrior there is no contradiction between his Christian faith and his military profession. Later when he openly declares his Christianity to the pagan emperor he is arrested and martyred, but he himself had seen no problem in serving Rome as a highly effective soldier, nor is any such problem discerned in versions of his legend.Google Scholar

⁶² “Natale Sancti Georgii Martyris,” ed. and trans. Skeat, , Ælfric's Lives, 1:306–19. For a convenient account of Ælfric's source, see Hill, Joyce, “Ælfric, Gelasius, and St George,” Mediaevalia 11 (1985): 1–17. See MS Cotton Nero E. i, Part I, in which George does not figure as a soldier (fol. 204r^a).Google Scholar

⁶³ They are named in the Latin passio: see the standard edition, Acta Sanctorum, Martii t. II, ed. Henschenius, Godefridus and Papebrochius, Daniel, 3d ed. (Paris and Rome, 1865 [original ed. Antwerp, , 1668]), 19–25; cf. the manuscript version corresponding most closely to Ælfric's Old English, in British Library, Cotton Nero E. i, Part I (fols. 165r–166v).Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Lines 76–77; trans. Skeat, , Ælfric's Lives, 1:243.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ Cotton Nero E. i, Part I, fol. 165v^a. The text printed in Acta Sanctorum shows variation in phrasing here (as throughout) but has the same essential meaning: “quosdam eorum occidimus, quosdam in fugam vertimus, et unus de nobis non est laesus a tanto populo,” ch. 1.4, 20B.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ Lines 49–50; trans. Skeat, , Ælfric's Lives, 2:161.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ Godden, , “Ælfric's Saints' Lives and the Problem of Miracles” (see n. 47, above), 83–84; Godden refers to Ælfric's homily “In Ascensione Domini” in his first series of Catholic Homilies , ed. Clemoes, Peter, Ælfric's Catholic Homilies: The First Series. Text, SS, 17 (Oxford, 1997), 345–64, lines 152–93.Google Scholar

⁶⁸ On this passage and its sources, see Cross, James E., “Gregory, Blickling Homily X, and Ælfric's Passio S. Mauricii on the World's Youth and Age,” Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 66 (1965): 327–30.Google Scholar

⁶⁹ Lines 160–63; trans. Skeat, , Ælfric's Lives, 2:169.Google Scholar

⁷⁰ Godden, , “Experiments in Genre” (see n. 10, above).Google Scholar

⁷¹ Rollason, David, Saints and Relics in Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford, 1989), 174–80.Google Scholar

⁷² Ibid., 186–95.Google Scholar

⁷³ Ibid., 186.Google Scholar

⁷⁴ Ibid., 188.Google Scholar

⁷⁵ Catherine Cubitt argues strongly for the local and popular origins of the cults of a significant group of Anglo-Saxon saints; see her article, “Sites and Sanctity: Revising the Cult of Murdered and Martyred Anglo-Saxon Royal Saints,” Early Medieval Europe 9 (2000): 53–83.Google Scholar

⁷⁶ The poem Guthlac B , ed. Roberts, Jane, in The Guthlac Poems of the Exeter Book, (Oxford, 1979), appears to be an exception.Google Scholar

⁷⁷ See the discussion of the Vercelli-Blickling-Junius life of St. Martin, above; see also my articles, “Contrasting Features in the Non-Ælfrician Lives in the Old English Lives of Saints,” Anglia 104 (1986): 316–48, and “St. Mary of Egypt and Ælfric: Unlikely Bedfellows in Cotton Julius E. vii?” in The Legend of Mary of Egypt in Medieval Insular Hagiography , ed. Poppe, Erich and Ross, Bianca (Dublin, 1996), 99–112.Google Scholar

⁷⁸ See Pope, , Homilies of Ælfric, 1:122.Google Scholar

⁷⁹ Godden, , “Experiments in Genre,” 280.Google Scholar

⁸⁰ See, for example, Cross, , “The Ethic of War”; Godden, “Ælfric's Saints' Lives and the Problem of Miracles”; and Clayton, , “Ælfric's Esther.” Google Scholar