¹ The best general introduction to this subject is J. Leclercq's The Love of Learning and the Desire for God, transl. by C. Misrahi (New York 1961).Google Scholar

² Morris, W., The Blickling Homilies … (EETS 58, 63, 73; London 1874–1880). R. Willard has edited a fine facsimile of the manuscript (The Blickling Homilies … [Early English MSS in Facsimile 10; Copenhagen 1960]) which is now owned by W. H. Scheide of Princeton, N. J.Google Scholar

³ The most recent and most authoritative dating of the manuscript is by N. R. Ker, Catalogue of Manuscripts containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford 1957) 451; accepted without discussion by R. Willard, Blickling Homilies 13. But palaeographic dates represent only the terminus ad quem, and secondary studies almost universally accept a rather earlier date of composition. The canons of Tours (813) and Mainz (847) authorized preaching in the vernacular, though not the writing of homilies in languages other than Latin (C. J. Hefele, Histoire des Conciles [trans. H. Leclercq; Paris 1907–1921] IV, 1, 133), so the idea was both current and fairly venerable by the time of Alfred's great work in English prose.Google Scholar

⁴ Willard, Blickling Homilies 26, says that four gatherings are lacking at the beginning of the manuscript. Judging from the rest of the book, three or four homilies must, therefore, have been lost. P. Clemoes (reviewing Willard in Medium Aevum 31 [1962] 672) feels it is reasonable to assume that Advent, Christmas and Epiphany items have disappeared (though the Blickling editor, like Ælfric, may have regarded Christmas as the beginning of the liturgical year).Google Scholar

⁵ Willard, Blickling Homilies 38, nn. 66-67, notes instances of this arrangement, but fails to perceive the reason for it (cf. J. Turville-Petre, ‘Translations of a Lost Penitential Homily,’ Traditio 19 [1963] 74-75). Willard rightly dismissed the conjecture of H. G. Fiedler (‘The Sources of the First Blickling Homily,’ Modern Language Quarterly 6 [1903] 124) that the first homily is a Christmas piece.Google Scholar

⁶ A similar but variant system is to be seen in the homiliary described by G. Morin, ‘L’Homiliare d’Alcuin retrouvé,’ Revue Bénédictine 9 (1892) 494-495. In this rather more extensive homiliary, however, the feasts are interspersed among groups of Sunday sermons so as to appear approximately in the order of their occurrence.Google Scholar

⁷ Willard's suggestion (Blickling Homilies 38, n. 67) that this deviation from the accustomed order derives from an arrangement by precedent (the Annunciation, being a feast of our Lord, is placed with dominical observances, and the Assumption, a feast of our Lady, is given precedence over feasts of ordinary saints) seems to be without merit in view of the explanation of the arrangement of the Annunciation above. Fiedler's suggestion that the date of the Assumption was perhaps not yet fixed in England (Modern Language Quarterly 6 [1903] 124) is only an evasion; nor does the existence of a similar feast fixed in January in the Gallican church help to solve the problem. There may be some confusion here with the Decollation of St. John Baptist (August 29) which was widely observed in this period; (See the calendars in F. Wormald, ed. English Kalendars before A. D. 1100, I [Henry Bradshaw Society 72; London 1934]), but the order of these homilies remains irrational.Google Scholar

⁸ It is difficult to be certain about the end of the book as the homily on St. Andrew is incomplete and the following gathering, which may have been the last, might have contained only its explicit (Willard, Blickling Homilies 40). It is possible that only the major occasions of the year were noticed in the codex and that sermons for the Sundays after Pentecost were never included. Note the selection of Sundays in Lent and the absence of Sundays after Easter.Google Scholar

⁹ ‘… The homilies’ arrangement in relation to the church year is more consistent than that of any other Old English homiliary that we have among those that contain no item by Ælfric. This prompts questions about these homilies’ status as a set’ (Clemoes, Medium Aevum 31 [1962] 61).Google Scholar

¹⁰ In the following table, source attributions which are accepted by Ker in the Catalogue 451-455 are given without further documentation; his citations from the Patrologia latina and the Corpus Christianorum Latinorum are given (corrected where necessary) but not citations of publications of apocryphal literature; Ker's variant Old English versions are cited by his manuscript numbering. The homilies are numbered according to the system of Ker and Willard since Morris's XVI belongs properly to his IV; Morris's numbers, where they differ, are given in parentheses. Willard's calendrical designations are accepted without discussion (cf. Blickling Homilies 39-41).Google Scholar

¹¹ For a reconstruction of the contents of the homiliaries of Alan of Farfa († 770) and Paul the Deacon (t ca. 800) — the latter having had quasi-official status in the Carolingian church — cf. J. Leclercq, ‘Tables pour l'inventaire des Homiliares Manuscrits,’ Scriptorium 2 (1948) 194-214.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹² Both sources according to R. Willard, ‘The Blickling-Junius Tithing Homily and Caesarius of Arles’ in T. A. Kirby and H. B. Woolf, eds., Philologica: The Malone Anniversary Studies (Baltimore 1949) 65-78.Google Scholar

¹³ Cross, J. E., ‘“Ubi Sunt” Passages in Old English — Sources and Relationships’ in Vetenskaps-Societeten i Lund, Aarabok (1956) 38–40.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Napier, A., ed., Wulfstan: Sammlung der ihm Zugeschriebenen Homilien (Sammlung Englisher Denkmäler in kritischen Ausgaben 4; Berlin 1883).Google Scholar

¹⁵ These and a third, lesser source are noted in K. Jost, Wulfstanstudien (Swiss Studies in English 23; Bern 1950) 245-249.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Ibid. 38 and Cross's ‘The Dry Bones Speak — A Theme in some Old English Homilies,’ JEGP 56 (1957) 434-439.Google Scholar

¹⁷ See Willard's source studies: ‘On Blickling Homily XIII: The Assumption of the Virgin: The Source and the Missing Passages,’ Review of English Studies 12(1936) 1-17 and ‘The Two Accounts of the Assumption in Blickling Homily XIII,’ Ibid. 14 (1938) 1-19.Google Scholar

¹⁸ C. L. Smetana (‘Ælfric and the early Medieval Homiliary,’ Traditio 15 [1959] 163-204; ‘Ælfric and the Homiliary of Haymo of Halberstadt,’ Traditio 17 [1961] 457-469) has demonstrated the dependence of Ælfric on the homiliaries of Paul and Haymo, and his discovery raises the strong possibility that similar documents lie behind the anonymous homiliaries. MSS Bodley 340 & 342 (Ker 309) is a basically Ælfrician collection to which, in a manner not uncommon, eleven items from other sources (including Vercelli) have been added. Either the composite or the more synoptic tradition may be in the background of the Blickling Book. The one feast commemorated in the Blicking Book which is not included in the known Latin homiliaries is St. Michael's which is peculiarly, though not exclusively, English, but is the equivalent of the more usual continental feast, Sancti Angeli, of the same date.Google Scholar

Two types of homiliary are known to have existed: one for use in the monastic offices, represented by the collections of Paul and Alan of Farfa, and the other for use at the Sunday Mass, such as the lost (or at least unedited) collection of Alcuin. (For the Homiliary of Alcuin, cf. F. Cabrol, ‘Alcuin,’ Dictionnaire d’Archéologie et de Liturgie 1.1, 1077–1078, and H. Leclercq, ‘Gallicane [Liturgie],’ Ibid., 6.1, 506-508.) The Blickling Book seems clearly to belong to this latter category about which virtually nothing is known.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Förster, M., ‘Zu den Blickling Homilies,’ Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Litteraturen 91 (1893) 178–179, 206.Google Scholar

²⁰ Funke, O., ‘Studien zur alliterierenden und rhythmisierenden Prosa in der älteren altenglischen Homiletik,’ Anglia 80 (1962) 16–25.Google Scholar

²¹ Hom. II, Morris 21, quoting Gregory, In Evang. II. The idea that the body rots while awaiting judgment occurs again in Hom. X, Morris 109-111.Google Scholar

²² Hom. VIII, Morris 97.Google Scholar

²³ Hom. IV, Morris 195.Google Scholar

²⁴ Homs. V, Morris 59; VIII, Morris 99-101; X, Morris 111-113; IX in Napier, Wulfstan 263-264. For the sources and relations of the first three of these see Cross in Lund Aarabok (1956) 23-44.Google Scholar

²⁵ Hom. IV, Morris 45-47, quoting Caesarius, Sermo 33, CCL 103, 142-147.Google Scholar

²⁶ Hom. VIII, Morris 101.Google Scholar

²⁷ Hom. VII, Morris 95.Google Scholar

²⁸ Förster, M., ‘Altenglische Predigtquellen, I,’ Archiv 116 (1906) 301–307. Ps.-Aug., 160 is printed in PL 39.2059–2061; for the Book of Cerne, which is associated with a Bishop Ædeluald or ÆÐelwald, otherwise unknown, and which is a northern English product (cf. Ker 27 at p. 40), see Kuypers, A. B., ed., The Prayer Book of Ædeluald the Bishop commonly called the Book of Cerne (Cambridge 1902) 197-198.Google Scholar

²⁹ Morris 87. The phrase, ‘for Drihtnes cynedomes tocyme,’ which is found in neither Ps.-Aug. nor Cerne, is ambiguous as for can have translated prepositions meaning either ‘before’ or ‘on account of’ in the Latin. As the more difficult reading, a temporal sense is probably to be preferred, although according to Bosworth-Toller ær would be the more usual rendering. Thus those in hell were released before the coming of the Kingdom at the descent of Christ, and the ambiguity as to their state in the present is, typically enough, left unexplored along with the problem of separation and reunion of body and soul.Google Scholar

³⁰ Quoted with the Cerne text in Förster, Archiv 116 (1906) 305 (cf. Morris 89).Google Scholar

³¹ Of these events, it was the Harrowing of Hell which in the early Middle Ages was the event par excellence which achieved our salvation. Based on such Biblical passages as 1 Peter 3:18-20, the Harrowing or Descensus is the descent of Christ, after the crucifixion and before the resurrection, to hell where, having overcome the devil, he released the imprisoned souls of those who died before their salvation was accomplished in the world. Not only did this act of Christ free those already dead: it effectively broke the power of Satan over mankind (a physical struggle is sometimes depicted). Man had belonged in Satan's power since the first sin, and Christ, by conquering Satan freed men from his power so long as they remained faithful in his service. By denying Christ, men delivered themselves again into Satan's power. Thus the descent was the focal point of teaching about the atonement.Google Scholar

The descent was enshrined in the Western Creed (descendit ad inferna), and came there to have this soteriological meaning (cf. J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Creeds [2nd ed.; London 1960] 378-383). In medieval literary use, such as the later liturgical drama, the apocryphal Evangelium Nicodemi was the chief source as it provided an extensive and graphic treatment of the event; this source was known in the O. E. period (W. H. Hulme, ‘The Old English Gospel of Nicodemus,’ Modern Philology I [1904] 594-614) and Förster once considered it the source for the Harrowing in Hom. VII (Archiv 111 [1893] 182).Google Scholar

This picture of salvation is superbly appropriate to the heroic outlook of the early Middle Ages. For a good brief summary of the doctrine and its relation to the general heroic outlook of monastic, pre-scholastic Europe, and of the change of attitude wrought in the eleventh century, see R. W. Southern, The Making of the Middle Ages (London 1953) 234 ff. The doctrine ceased to be the sole, even the dominant, explanation of atonement after Anselm's Cur Deus Homo? which held that the descent myth was unworthy of the Gospel and that man's condemnation was the penalty due an outraged God who, because payment of satisfaction was beyond human power, took the penalty upon himself in the incarnate Christ.Google Scholar

³² Texts in T. Silverstein, Visio Sancti Pauli (‘Studies and Documents’ 4; London 1935); trans. in M. R. James, The Apocryphal New Testament (Oxford 1955) 526-555. I have discussed other O. E. adaptations in ‘Two Uses of Apocrypha in Old English Homilies,’ Church History 33 (1964) 379-391.Google Scholar

³³ Willard in Philologica 65-66 (at pp. 72-78 a text of the sermon from MS Bodleian Junius 86 [Ker's 336, art. 7] is given parallel with the source).Google Scholar

³⁴ Morris 43-45. There is, incidentally, palaeographic evidence which suggests that this sermon was inserted into the codex by the compiler (Clemoes in Medium Aevum 31 [1962] 61-62); given its unusual doctrinal emphasis, the possibility must be allowed that this item was intruded in a largely pre-existent corpus of homilies.Google Scholar

³⁵ Förster, ‘Zu den Blickling Homilies,’ Archiv 91 (1893) 195.Google Scholar

³⁶ Morris 209-211. For the relation to Beowulf see the edn. of F. Klaeber (3rd edn. with 1st and 2nd Supplements; Boston 1950) notes on 11.1357ff., at pp. 182-183 and 456.Google Scholar

³⁷ Morris 113; Cross, JEGP 56 (1957) 434-439.Google Scholar

³⁸ Morris 7; the homilist omits the central portion of the canticle. The first line is also translated (‘Gemycclige mín saul’) at p. 13.Google Scholar

³⁹ Morris 159.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Willard, ‘An Old English Magnificat,’ University of Texas Studies in English 20 (1940) 17.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Ibid. Google Scholar

⁴² For the use of this tradition elsewhere in O. E., cf. Förster, ‘Die Weltzeitalter bei den Angelsächsen,’ Neusprachliche Studien, Festgabe Luik (‘Die Neueren Sprachen’ Beiheft 6 [1925]) 183-203.Google Scholar

⁴³ Thus the millennarian seventh age, a reign of Christ with the saints on earth before the final consummation, is excluded as it was in virtually all Western schemata from Augustine to Joachim of Flora, for the elect in the Church and in communion with Christ participate now in the regnum Christi. Cf. R. H. Bainton, ‘Christian Views of Human Destiny’ in Collected Papers in Church History, Series I (Boston 1962) 83-94 and L. E. Froom, The Prophetic Faith of our Fathers: The Historical Development of Prophetic Interpretation, Vol. I (Washington 1946). While this scheme is followed by the anonymous homilists, they seem not to dwell on the present regnum, setting their sights instead on the coming cataclysm and the judgment. So, for example, in Hom. VI, Morris 73, Mary the sister of Lazarus, resting at the feet of the Lord after anointing him, is said to symbolize ‘þa halgan cyricean on þære toweardan worlde, seo biþ gefreolsod fram eallum gewinnum, & heo biþ on þære sceawunga anra þæs heofonlican þremmes. & hio resteþ on onsyne ures Drihtnes, & hine hereþ unablinnendlice.’Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Morris 117-119. The prose of the passage almost hopelessly confuses the six signs of the six days preceding the advent and the six ages, but my reading seems to coincide with that of the author of a later marginal note in the manuscript. It is specifically acknowledged that þusend is an approximation (‘Ne wæron þas [the ages] ealle gelice lange, ac on þyssum wæs þreo þusend wintra, on sumre læsse, on sumere eft mare’).Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Hom. III, Morris 35.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Hom. VI, Morris 71.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Hom. III, Morris 27.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Hom. VII, Morris 83. This notion, common enough in patristic speculation, also influenced the timing of the first Crusade (Bainton, Collected Papers I, 90). For other instances, cf. E. Wadstein, Die eschatologische Ideengruppe … (Leipzig 1896) 40.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Hom. V, Morris 57.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Hom. X, Morris 115. As J. E. Cross has recently pointed out (‘Aspects of Microcosm and Macrocosm in Old English Literature,’ Comparative Literature 14 [1962] 10), this passage reflects the idea of a vernal prime from which there has been a decline until now the world daily grows worse and worse.Google Scholar

⁵¹ Hom. X, Morris 107.Google Scholar

⁵² Hom. VI, Morris 81-83.Google Scholar

⁵³ Morris 107-109.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Morris 117.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Cf. Förster, , ‘A new Version of the Apocalypse of Thomas in Old English,’ Anglia 73 (1955) 6–36, for textual comparison with other O. E. versions.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Morris 91-95.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Cf. Förster, , Anglia 73 (1955) 33. The Latin text of the Thomas Apocalypse is given by Förster and by F. Wilhelm, Deutsche Legenden und Legendare (Leipzig 1907) 40*-42*; trans. James, Apocryphal NT 555-562. The Wilhelm text knows Antichrist only as forerunner.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁵⁸ Morris 95.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ Hom. XIV, Morris 163.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ Hom. VII, Morris 91.Google Scholar

⁶¹ Hom. X, Morris 109.Google Scholar

⁶² Hom. X, Morris 109-111.Google Scholar

⁶³ Hom. VII, Morris 95.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Hom. II, Morris 21.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ Hom. XI, Morris 123.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ Hom. IV, Morris 39-41.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ Hom. IV, Morris 53.Google Scholar

⁶⁸ Hom. VII, Morris 103.Google Scholar

⁶⁹ For example, Homs. X, Morris 109ff.; and IX, Napier, Wulfstan 261-263.Google Scholar

⁷⁰ Hom. IX, Napier, Wulfstan 254; Latin source printed in Jost, Wulfstanstudien 246.Google Scholar

⁷¹ For other instances of the transfer of the soul's address to the body in Vercelli Homily IV, cf. Willard, ‘The Address of the Soul to the Body,’ PMLA 50 (1935) 979-983.Google Scholar

⁷² Napier, Wulfstan 254-256. The reliance on Paulinus ends at 256.4, but the continuity of the prose to at least line 16 suggests that the homilist's source (the same used by Paulinus and not Paulinus himself?) continued.Google Scholar

⁷³ Napier, Wulfstan 256.Google Scholar

⁷⁴ Hom. V, Morris 61-63.Google Scholar

⁷⁵ Hom. VIII, Morris 103-105. Statements such as this are frequently to be found in the closing ascription; cf. especially Hom. IX, Napier, Wulfstan 265 and Hom. V, Morris 65.Google Scholar

¹ There is no complete edition of the homilies. The table below contains information on the publication of each item. The basic, but uncompleted, text is M. Förster, Die Vercelli-Homilien zum ersten Male herausgegeben, I Hälfte (Bibliothek der Angelsächsischen Prosa 12; Hamburg 1932) [hereafter, Verc.-Hom.], which goes through the incipit of Hom. IX. The most complete analysis of the homiletic portions of the MS (which also contains editions of several homilies not in Verc.-Hom.) is Förster's ‘Die Vercelli-Codex CXVII nebst Abdruck einiger altenglischer Homilien der Handschrift’ in F. Holthausen & H. Spies, eds., Festschrift für Lorenz Morsbach dargebracht von Freunden und Schülern (Studien zur Englischen Philologie 50; Halle 1913) 20-179 [‘Verc.-Codex’]. Förster also published a facsimile edition: Il Codice Vercellese con Omelie e Poesie in Lingua Anglosassone … la prima volta interamente riprodotto in fototipia a Cura della Biblioteca Vaticana, con Introduzione (Rome 1913) [Cod. Verc.] [Introduzione, pp. 21-40, duplicates much of ‘Verc.-Codex’ with which it is contemporary]. R. Willard has edited several of the homilies in The Vercelli Homilies, An Edition of Homilies I, IV, V, VII, VIII, XI, and XII … (unpublished Ph. D. dissertation, Yale University 1925). J. R. Sala, Preaching in the Anglo-Saxon Church (part of a Ph. D. dissertation, Divinity School, University of Chicago 1934) contains paraphrases of all the homilies which are useful in the absence of a complete edition but are not always reliable. The poetic portions of the codex are collected in vol. 2 of G. P. Krapp & E. V. K. Dobbie, eds., The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records: A Collective Edition (6 vols.; New York 1931–1953).Google Scholar

² Ker, Catalogue 394 at p. 464; Förster in ‘Verc.-Codex’, 54.Google Scholar

³ ‘Verc.-Codex’ 34-35.Google Scholar

⁴ Ibid. 47-53. The several theses are surveyed by Willard, Vercelli Homilies 21-41.Google Scholar

⁵ Cook, A. S., ‘Cardinal Guala and the Vercelli Book,’ University of California, Library Bulletin 10 (1888) 3–8; Förster, ‘Verc.-Codex’ 36-47.Google Scholar

⁶ ‘Verc.-Codex’ 53-54.Google Scholar

⁷ Studies in the History of Old English Literature (Oxford 1953) 113.Google Scholar

⁸ Ibid. 114.Google Scholar

⁹ Ibid. 114-115. Thus Sisam feels justified in dismissing the second and third of the theses above along with a fourth which would make the incompetent Norman bishop, Ulf of Dorchester, who was in Vercelli in 1050, the carrier of the book. For the latter thesis, cf. S. J. Herben, Jr., ‘The Vercelli Book: A New Hypothesis,’ Speculum 10 (1935) 91-94.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Sisam, Studies 116-117.Google Scholar

¹¹ Ibid. 117-118.Google Scholar

¹² As in the Blickling table, sources which are accepted by Ker, Catalogue 394, are given without further annotation. In larger part, the table depends on Förster's analysis, ‘Verc.-Codex’ 65-86. Calendrical designations and titles which are adopted from other MSS. are in square brackets. The edition noted in each case is that which I will use in the subsequent discussion and is usually the best edition. ‘Napier’ is A. Napier, ed., Wulfstan. Google Scholar

¹³ Traditio 19 (1963) 57-60. The homily, on which Hom. XX also relies (independently and in part), is a ‘patch-work of passages’ which has taken (from a florilegium) sentences from Alcuin, Isidore, Defensor, Theodulf of Orleans, Hrabanus Maurus, pseudo-Augustine and the Corpus Canonum Hibernensium, (ibid. 60-64).Google Scholar

¹⁴ Willard, Vercelli Homilies 160 (parallels quoted in apparatus).Google Scholar

¹⁵ Willard, ‘Vercelli Homily VIII and the Christ,’ PMLA 42 (1927) 319.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Published in J. M. Kemble, The Dialogue of Solomon and Saturnus, with an historical Introduction (London 1848) 84-86.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Willard, ‘Vercelli Homily XI and its Sources,’ Speculum 24 (1949) 76-80. Source for incipit (Caesarius, Sermo 209) and suggestions for explicit there noted.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Willard, Vercelli Homilies 200.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Cross, JEGP 56 (1957) 434-436.Google Scholar

²⁰ Turville-Petre, Traditio 19 (1963) 56, n. 22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²¹ Förster, ‘Verc.-Codex’ 75-77. Source printed with O. E. in ‘Verc.-Codex’ and with variant O. E. in Förster, ‘A New Version of the Apocalypse of Thomas in English,’ Anglia 73 (1955) 17-33.Google Scholar

²² Förster, ‘Verc.-Codex’ 78; and Archiv 91 (1893) 200.Google Scholar

²³ Turville-Petre, Traditio 19 (1963) 56, 68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²⁴ Anglistische Forschungen 27; Heidelberg 1909.Google Scholar

²⁵ For the Latin version, cf. B. Colgrave, ed., Felix's Life of Saint Guthlac: Introduction, Text, Translation and Notes (Cambridge 1956) XXVIII-XXXIII at pp. 92-106. The O. E. Vita is printed parallel to the Latin by Gonser.Google Scholar

²⁶ Clemoes, Medium Ævum 31 (1962) 62. Blickling VII and Vercelli Hom. XV draw independently on the same tradition.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²⁷ ‘Diese fünf Predigten scheinen also irgendwie zusammengehangen zu haben’ (Förster, ‘Verc.-Codex’ 72). Förster is the only critic seriously to uphold this very reasonable suggestion.Google Scholar

²⁸ Willard, Vercelli Homilies 200.Google Scholar

²⁹ Hom. XIX, Cod. Verc. fol. 106^v (on which cf. ‘Verc.-Codex’ 81); Hom. XVI, fol. 89^r.Google Scholar

³⁰ Förster, ‘Verc.-Codex’ 64-65. But Förster's characterization of the book as a whole is not exactly adequate, as I hope will appear from the remainder of this discussion.Google Scholar

³¹ The best summary of the history of penance is still probably the concluding chapter of O. D. Watkins, A History of Penance … (Burt Franklin Research and Source Works Series 16; New York 1961 [reproduction of London 1920 edn.]) 2, 756-770. For documents, see J. T. McNeil & H. M. Gamer, Medieval Handbooks of Penance … (Records of Civilization: Sources and Studies 29; New York 1938).Google Scholar

³² For example, Hom. IX, ‘Verc.-Codex’ 102, 112; Hom. III, Verc.-Hom. 55-58; Hom. IV, 78-80; Hom. VIII, 150; Hom. IX, ‘Verc.-Codex’ 102, 112; Hom. XXII, 141.Google Scholar

³³ Hom. XI, sec. 8, Willard, Speculum 24 (1949) 84-85; Hom. XII, Willard, Vercelli Homilies 210-212; Hom. XIX, Cod. Verc. fol. 107^v.16ff.; Hom. XXIII, fols. 133^v-135^v.Google Scholar

³⁴ Hom. XIV, Cod. Verc. fol. 79^r.-6-17; Hom. XX, fol. 110^v.10-11.Google Scholar

³⁵ Hom. III, Verc.-Hom. 55-56 (8 vices); Hom. XX, Cod. Verc. fols. 110^v. 14-112^r (vices); Hom. XXI, fols. 112^r-114^v (virtues).Google Scholar

³⁶ For example, Hom. IX, ‘Verc.-Codex’ 112, and Hom. XXI, 141.Google Scholar

³⁷ Cf. K. Hughes, ‘The Changing Theory and Practice of Irish Pilgrimage,’ Journal of Ecclesiastical History 11 (1960) 143-151. For The Seafarer, cf. D. Whitelock, ‘The Interpretation of The Seafarer,’ Early Cultures of North-West Europe (H. M. Chadwick Memorial Studies) (Cambridge 1950) 261-272.Google Scholar

³⁸ ‘Verc.-Codex’ 102-103.Google Scholar

³⁹ Hom. II, Verc.-Hom. 50. This may refer to a second separation at Judgment.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Hom. XXII, ‘Verc.-Codex’ 143 (Isidore, Synonyma I. 48-49); Hom. XIV, Cod. Verc. fol. 78^r.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Hom. IX, ‘Verc.-Codex’ 103-104.Google Scholar

⁴² Hom. XXI, Cod. Verc. fol. 114^v; Hom. II, Verc.-Hom. 50.Google Scholar

⁴³ Hom. XIII, Cross, JEGP 56 (1957) 435-436.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Ibid. Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Hom. IX, Verc.-Hom. 105-106. The temporal ambiguities of this part of Hom. IX are discussed below.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Hom. IV, Verc.-Hom. 72-73.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Ibid. 94, 96.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Hom. XXII, ‘Verc.-Codex’ 144 (Isidore, Synonyma I.50).Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Hom. XXII, ‘Verc.-Codex’ 144; Hom. IV, Verc.-Hom. 82. In the latter, to emphasize the contrast between ‘lif’ and ‘deaÐ’, the very rare and extremely graphic term ‘unlif’ is used (Förster's n. 59). The prefix un- in O. E. is pejorative as well as negative.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Napier, Wulfstan XLIX, 263-264 (Cod. Verc. fol. 70^r; not collated by Napier because unknown to him).Google Scholar

⁵¹ Hom. IV, Verc.-Hom. 98. On the source problem, cf. Cross in Lund Aarabok (1956) 40.Google Scholar

⁵² For text, source and discussion, cf. Cross, JEGP 56 (1957) 435-436.Google Scholar

⁵³ Verc.-Hom. 43. This paragraph is peculiar to the Vercelli version of the homily. Cp. with Hom. XII in Willard, Vercelli Homilies 209, where it is said that Christ's forty-day fast broke the devil's power and made it possible for us to do the same.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Verc.-Hom. 123. At n. 90a, Förster remarks of this passge, ‘Wie sich das (in allen HSS. gleich überlieferte) Schlussätzchen in der Sinnzusammenhang eingefügt ist mir nicht klar.’ ⁵⁵ Gonser, Das Angelsächsische Prosa-leben des hl. Guthlac 117-134. For the Latin, cf. Colgrave, Felix's Life of St. Guthlac 93-106. On the dictates of hagiographic form, cf. C. W. Jones, Saints’ Lives and Chronicles in Early England (Ithaca 1947) 51-79 and 85-87. For sources and analogues of the portions of Felix used in the homily, cf. Colgrave's notes at 179-180, 182-185.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ So Colgrave in a review of Jones's Saints’ Lives (American Historical Review 53 [1948] 528-531), but neither can we, while avoiding an anachronistic reading of Freud into the document, suspend our knowledge of the nature of dream and vision. Colgrave's general cautions about Jones's emphasis on the traditional or formulaic element in hagiography are, however, well taken.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁵⁷ ‘Verc.-Codex’ 100-101.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ Ibid. 102-106. This kind of enumeration, although the specific source is unknown here, is common enough in the patristic and Western theological traditions.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ ‘Verc.-Codex’ 106. Förster (p. 72) thinks the three references to ‘a book’ are to a single Latin homily; this is difficult to accept unless the O. E. homilist found sources thus crudely combined or has created confusion by inept translation.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ ‘Verc.-Codex’ 106-110.Google Scholar

⁶¹ Source identified by Förster, ‘Verc.-Codex’ 72 & 110 n.2. Napier, Wulfstan XXX, 146-148, relies on the same tradition. Another variant in Ker's 186, art. 18 is printed with trans. in Kemble, Dialogue of Salomon and Saturnus 84-88, and without trans. by A. R. von Vincenti, ed., Die altenglischen Dialoge von Salomon und Saturn (Münchener Beiträge zur Romanischen und Englischen Philologie 31; Leipzig 1904) 103-105. No Latin equivalent is known. The prose tradition is only tangentially related to the poetic Dialogues, although, according to von Vincenti (103), the description of hell at the end of Dialogue II is somehow related.Google Scholar

⁶² ‘Verc.-Codex’ 110-115.Google Scholar

⁶³ Ibid. 115-116.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Ibid. 100-101.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ Morris 21.35; 123.32; Napier, Wulfstan 210.1 are references to Judgment Day, but Ælfric (B. Thorpe, ed., The Homilies of the Anglo-Saxon Church: … Containing the Sermones Catholici, or Homilies of Ælfric … [2 vols.; London 1844–1846] 2, 152.8) refers to the day of death. In the fragment, ‘Hwær beoÐ wyrta blostman…’, lines 47,60 in MS Corpus Christi College, Cambridge 178, Ælfric uses the compound ‘endenehst’ to describe the day of resurrection.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ ‘Verc.-Codex’ 102-103; cf. n. 38 supra. Google Scholar

⁶⁷ ‘Verc.-Codex’ 108.10.Google Scholar

⁶⁸ For the various uses of tintreg, cf. the Bosworth-Toller, Anglo-Saxon Dictionary and Supplement. Note that it refers to eternal torment in Napier, Wulfstan XXX, 146.19 (i.e., Vercelli Hom. IX, Verc.-Hom. 111.14).Google Scholar

⁶⁹ Cod. Verc. fol. 107^r.Google Scholar

⁷⁰ Hom. II, Verc.-Hom. 50-51; Hom. XIX, Cod. Verc. fol. 109^v.Google Scholar

⁷¹ ‘Verc.-Codex’ 147.8ff.Google Scholar

⁷² The major example of this phenomenon (although it seems to me to be a possibility in many places, such as Hom. XXII) is Hom. IV which will be discussed below. Note as well the two phrases, ‘þara sawla gedal’ and ‘þara wyrma gryre,’ in the Doomsday poem of Homs. II & XXI (Verc.-Hom. 48-49).Google Scholar

⁷³ For example, Hom. XXI, Cod. Verc. fol. 113^r.Google Scholar

⁷⁴ For example, Hom. XIV, Cod. Verc. fol. 77^v.Google Scholar

⁷⁵ Sec. 9, Willard, Speculum 24 (1949) 85 (sources discussed at 79-80). Förster, ‘Verc.-Codex’ 25, points to the opening sentences of Hom. XV as a second example, but, in the text at 116-117, he prints the Latin source which, like the O. E. makes no specific reference to the present time (‘on Ðam nextan tide’ = ‘in novissimis temporibus’).Google Scholar

⁷⁶ Hom. IV, Verc.-Hom. 73-74.Google Scholar

⁷⁷ Hom. V, Verc.-Hom. 115ff.; Hom. VI, 132ff.Google Scholar

⁷⁸ ‘Verc.-Codex’ 116; source quoted in apparatus and, with other O. E. texts, in Förster, Anglia 73 (1955) 27-33, largely from the 9th century MS transcribed in Wilhelm, Deutsche Legenden und Legendare 40*-42*. The question, ‘hwænne Antecristes cyme wære’ does not occur in the source, which takes the form of an epistle of Christ to the Apostle.Google Scholar

⁷⁹ ‘Verc.-Codex’ 117-118. The Vercelli Homily adds the young kings, popes, bishops and ealdormen to the Latin. For an interpretation of the mistranslation, ‘hie settaþ gyldene heafda 7 seolfrene on heora ceastrum’ (‘dantes capitularia civitatum aurum et argentum’), cf. O. B. Schlutter, ‘Some remarks on Max Förster's print of some Homilies contained in Vercelli Codex CXVII,’ Neophilologus 15 (1930) 267-268.Google Scholar

⁸⁰ ‘Verc.-Codex’ 117-121.Google Scholar

⁸¹ For a few of the similarities, compare W. Bousset, The Antichrist Legend, trans. A. H. Keane (London 1896) 121ff. The passage is, as Förster has pointed out (Anglia 73 [1955] 11-12), an interpolation into the Latin text which is more fully used in Vercelli XV than in Blickling and the other two O. E. versions. James, Apocryphal NT 562, also notes dependence of this passage on apocalypses of the Daniel type.Google Scholar

⁸² On the ambiguous relation of the legend to Rome, cf. Bousset, Antichrist Legend 123-132.Google Scholar

⁸³ ‘Verc.-Codex’ 119.Google Scholar

⁸⁴ Verc.-Hom. 46-47.Google Scholar

⁸⁵ Cf. Förster, Anglia 73 (1955) 27-33, for a comparative text. There is a lacuna in the text at the end of the signs of perhaps a whole sheet (Förster in ‘Verc.-Codex’ 126, n.1).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁸⁶ Hom. I, Verc.-Hom. 14-15; Hom. VIII, 151-152; cp. Mt. 26:64.Google Scholar

⁸⁷ Verc.-Hom. 44 = Hom. XXI, Cod. Verc. fol. 115^r.Google Scholar

⁸⁸ Verc.-Hom. 45 = Cod. Verc. fol. 115^r; the order is reversed in Hom. VIII, Verc.-Hom. 152.Google Scholar

⁸⁹ Verc.-Hom. 47-49 = Cod. Verc. fol. 115^v.Google Scholar

⁹⁰ For example, Hom. XXI, Cod. Verc. fol. 114^v.Google Scholar

⁹¹ Hom. XXII, ‘Verc.-Codex’ 147.Google Scholar

⁹² Verc.-Hom. 45.Google Scholar

⁹³ Ibid. 152-153.Google Scholar

⁹⁴ Ibid. 88. In Hom. II, 50-51, the separation is spoken of in a Doomsday setting so that on first reading the reference seems to be a second separation; the author has, however, reverted to a discussion of death from which he will return to the subject of judgment.Google Scholar

⁹⁵ Hom. XXI, Cod. Verc. fols. 114^r-114^v. For still another type of account in the Vercelli Book, cf. 11. 1236–1321 of Cynewulf's Elene (Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records 2, 100-102). This portion of the poem, in which the poet signs his name in runes and commends himself to his readers’ prayers, generalizes on the age and transitoriness of the earth. Finally, the poet speaks of judgment. Mankind will be divided in three parts, each of which is to be purged according to its deserts in flame. The lowest will be released only to hell, but the upper two groups, purged by the fire of judgment, will pass into the Kingdom. The judgment fire, common elsewhere in the eschatological tradition (cf. the art: ‘Feu de jugement’ by A. Michel in DTC 5.2[1913] 2239–2246), is not employed at length in the homilies but occurs in the Last Judgment of the Exeter Book (Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records 3, 27-49). Cynewulf's description does not exactly fit any known scheme; the most recent discussion of the source problems is P. O. E. Gradon, ed., Cynewulf's Elene (London 1956) 22.Google Scholar

⁹⁶ Verc.-Hom. 153-157. Willard, PMLA 42 (1927) 318-330, points out similarities between this speech and the ‘Ego te, O homo’ in Caesarius, Sermo 57, CCL 103, 253-254. The O. E. adds the paraphrase of Mt. 25:41.Google Scholar

⁹⁷ Verc.-Hom. 158.Google Scholar

⁹⁸ ‘Verc.-Codex’ 126-128. Since there are men left to be damned, one assumes each intercessor is granted a third of the remainder of the multitude. It has not, I think, been noticed that the same motif of intercession for the condemned at the Judgment occurs in Hom. IV of MS Corpus Christi College, Cambridge 41 (published by W. H. Hulme, ‘The Old English Gospel of Nicodemus,’ Modern Philology 1 [1904] 610-614). The homily was transcribed ca. 1100 but was probably written earlier.Google Scholar

⁹⁹ Cf. I, supra text at nn. 70-73.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁰ Verc.-Hom. 46. This is the passage in which the devil is identified as Antichrist.Google Scholar

¹⁰¹ Willard, PMLA 50 (1935) 979-982. A similar but later change of scene occurs, arbitrarily and with a minimum of art in the shift, in Hom. XIV of B. Assmann, ed., Angelsächsische Homilien und Heiligenleben (Bibliothek der Angelsächsischen Prosa 3; Kassel 1889) 167-169. Hom. X = Blickling IX may, as noted above, be an instance of the same phenomenon.Google Scholar

¹⁰² Verc.-Hom. 84-91.Google Scholar

¹⁰³ Ibid. 91-103.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁴ Willard, PMLA 50 (1935) 982.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁵ Hom. XIV, Cod. Verc. fol. 80^r-80^v; and Hom. XXI, fol. 114^r-114^v are good summary statements.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁶ Hom. IV, Verc.-Hom. 72.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁷ Hom. XXII, ‘Verc.-Codex’ 145-146.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁸ Hom. II, Verc.-Hom. 52-53; Hom. IV, 80-81.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁹ Hom. VIII, Verc.-Hom. 152.Google Scholar

¹¹⁰ Hom. II, Verc.-Hom. 46.Google Scholar

¹¹¹ Hom. IX, ‘Verc.-Codex’ 106.Google Scholar

¹¹² Hom. XV, ‘Verc.-Codex’ 128.Google Scholar

¹¹³ Hom. IV, Verc.-Hom. 74-78; Hom. VIII, 157.Google Scholar

¹¹⁴ Verc.-Hom. 103-106.Google Scholar

¹¹⁵ ‘Verc.-Codex’ 106-110.Google Scholar

¹¹⁶ Ibid. 110.Google Scholar

¹¹⁷ Ibid. 115-116.Google Scholar

¹¹⁸ For example, Hom. II, Verc.-Hom. 53; Hom. V, 130-131; Hom. VIII, 158-159; Hom. XIX, Cod. Verc. fol. 109^v; Hom. XXI, fol. 116^v.Google Scholar

¹¹⁹ Hom. IX, ‘Verc.-Codex’ 101.Google Scholar

¹²⁰ Ibid. 114.Google Scholar

¹²¹ Hom. XXI, Cod. Verc. fol. 114^r.Google Scholar

¹²² Sala, Preaching in the Anglo-Saxon Church 113.Google Scholar

¹ Professor Willard is editing the scattered homilies and completing the late Max Förster's work on the Vercelli Homilies. A new and more critical edition of the Blickling Homilies is now needed.Google Scholar

² As, for example, in the definitions of the theological virtues in Vercelli Hom. III, Verc.-Hom. 54, and all the occurrences in Blickling glossed by Morris.Google Scholar

³ It is for this reason that, although I recognize the presence of theological error judged by scholastic and other standards, I cannot accept in very good grace such studies of Anglo-Saxon religion as W. A. Chaney's ‘Paganism to Christianity in Anglo-Saxon England’ (Harvard Theological Review 53 [1960] 197-217) which argues from conceptual and linguistic similarities with Germanic paganism. The homilist worked with the tools to hand to communicate the Gospel and was, insofar as possible, faithful to the concepts of his Latin forbears; in general he was remarkably successful.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁴ By ‘heroic culture’ I mean the early medieval Germanic culture in which ties of loyalty between the lord and his companions formed the characteristic social bond. Cf. Southern, Making of the Middle Ages, passim. Google Scholar

⁵ Verc.-Hom. 47-49 = Cod. Verc. fol. 115^v.Google Scholar

⁶ Vercelli Hom. V, Verc.-Hom. 130.Google Scholar

⁷ Sometimes used synonymously (Morris 113.33), tintreg, ‘torment’ or ‘torture,’ and wite, ‘punishment,’ are used in the homilies in three senses: they can refer to present tribulations, to future or eternal tribulations and to post mortem or purgatorial punishment. Thus tintreg is used most often of earthly persecutions by demons and by men (Morris 243.26, 171.15, 245.1, 239.10, 237.13, 119.19, 229.25, 237.4). But it is also used of those torments from which one can be released by intercession (113.33) and of the torments in which demons abide (243.20).Google Scholar

Similarly, wite, originally a legal term, is used of temporal punishment or retribution (Morris 79.27, 5.24 & 27, 77.28, 171.31 [despite the descriptive helle], 189.31 & 33, 107.26). But it is often used with the adjective ‘eternal’ or in connection with helle to refer to the condition of the condemned after Doomsday (25.24, 51.31, 97.22, 57.21, 77.7, 61.34, 83.18, 189.20, 37.5, 97.17, 101.14, 95.4). On other occasions, wite refers to the condition of those whom Christ rescued on his descent or to the present condition of the demonic horde (81.32, 83.23, 87.14 & 23, 85.15, 63.6). The word can also be used for those punishments from which intercession can help to release men or, ambiguously, of an indeterminate, post mortem or post-judgment state (23.6, 49.25, 61.18, 113.33, 185.7). In compound with stowe, ‘place,’ wite can refer to a public place of torture and execution in Rome (193.3) or to the place to which Christ went on his descent (85.29); and the verb, witnian, is used of earthly punishment (189.32, 183.2) and ambiguously in connection with the noun (61.18).Google Scholar

This analysis is restricted to Blickling because it has been glossed (although Morris's glossary is not without error). A third term, susl, not glossed in Morris, is used frequently in conjunction with these in Ælfric and Vercelli. To these, Ælfric adds a fourth, pinung. Later uses of these terms can be traced in the New English Dictionary. Google Scholar

⁸ Anglo-Saxon Literature (London 1884) 213.Google Scholar

⁹ I have suggested elsewhere (Church History 33 [1964] 379-391) that the Apocalypse of Thomas needed little editing because its tradition was fairly orthodox but that the borrowings from the Visio Sancti Pauli appear with many variations because the homilists were at least vaguely aware of the very obvious theological problems posed by the Visio. Google Scholar