The Werewolf in Medieval Icelandic Liter

Transcription

The Werewolf in Medieval Icelandic Literature1
Adalheidur Gudmundsdóttir, University of Iceland
People throughout the world have long been fascinated by the idea of
shape-shifting. In all corners of the world there are stories about people
who have the ability to transform themselves into animals. The ability is
generally viewed negatively, and those with such powers are often sorcerers or witches. While the environment may determine the species into
which human beings are transformed, the results are most often large
predatory animals, for example, leopards, lions, hyenas, jaguars, tigers,
and—not least—wolves and bears.2 Traditions about shape-shifting have
been studied from various perspectives: literary, folkloric, historical, anthropological, and even etymological.3 The following article will focus on
stories about werewolves in a wolf-free country, Iceland.
In northern regions much prominence is given to two kinds of shapeshifting: the ability to change into either a bear or a wolf, although the
latter seems to have been more popular.4 In Icelandic narrative tradition,
1. This article is based on a chapter in my edition of Úlfhams saga (Reykjavík: Stofnun Árna
Magnússonar á Íslandi, 2001). I am grateful to Dr. Philip Roughton, who did most of the
English translation, as well as Dr. Margaret Cormack, who also made several useful comments.
I also wish to thank Valgerdur Brynjólfsdóttir, who read an earlier draft of the article.
2. About hyena people, lion people, and similar creatures, see Robert Eisler, Man into
Wolf (London: Spring Books, 1951), pp. 152–53.
3. See, e.g., Gerard Breen, “‘The Wolf Is at the Door’ Outlaws, Assassins, and Avengers
Who Cry ‘Wolf!’,” in Arkiv för nordisk filologi, 114 (1999), 31–43; Ella Odstedt, Varulven i
Svensk folktradition, Skrifter utgivna genom Landsmåls- och Folkeminnesarkivet i Uppsala,
ser. B:1 (Uppsala, 1943); Montague Summers, The Werewolf (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1934);
Mary Roche Gerstein, “Warg: The Outlaw as Werewolf in Germanic Myth, Law, and Medicine,” PhD diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 1972; Sir Frederick Madden, “Note
on the Word ‘Werewolf’,” in Walter W. Skeat, The Romance of William of Palerne (London: N.
Trübner, 1867), pp. xxv–xxix.
4. For werewolves in later Scandinavian folk belief, see Odstedt, Varulven i svensk folktradition;
Knut Hermundstad, Truer om villdyr, fangst og fiske, Norsk Folkeminnelags Skrifter, 99 (Oslo:
Universitetsforlaget, 1967). Concerning belief in werewolves among Norwegians, Ronald
Grambo writes: “Troen på varulv og mannbjørn er vel forsvunnet i dag, men så sent som i
forrige århundre var den en realitet blant folk” (Belief in werewolves and werebears is nearly
gone today, but even as late as last century it was a reality amongst people; “Fortrollet vilt. Varulv
og mannbjørn,” Årbog for Norsk Skogbruks museum [1954–57], pp. 75–81). Danish legends are
printed in Evald Tang Kristensen, Danske sagn, II (Århus: Jacob Zeuners Bogtrykkeri, 1893),
pp. 227–51. Various articles of a broad nature mention and refer to stories of the same type
among the Lapps; see, e.g., Dag Strömbäck, “Om varulven,” Folklore och Filologi (Uppsala: AB
Lundequistska boghandeln, 1970), p. 259, and Asbjørn Nesheim, “Samisk trolldom,” in KulJournal of English and Germanic Philology—July
© 2007 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois
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Adalheidur Gudmundsdóttir
accounts of such events have a special character, and it is interesting to
compare these sources with the stories in other European nations. In what
follows, an account will be given of the stories composed, preserved, or
read in Iceland that deal in one way or another with shape-changing by
men who took on the appearance of wolves and lived in the forest.
In Iceland the werewolf motif is found in fourteen indigenous sources,
i.e., Gylfaginning, Hrafnagaldur Ódins, Völsunga saga, Helgakvida Hundingsbana I (Völsungakvida), Gibbons saga, Sigrgards saga frækna, Sigrgards saga ok
Valbrands, the Skjöldunga saga of Arngrímur “the learned,” Ála flekks saga,
Úlfhams saga, Tíódels saga, Jóns saga leikara, Sagan af Porsteini glott, and Hvad
pýdir “sár”? 5 In addition, the motif is found in two Norwegian texts that
were both known and read in Iceland: a short episode in Konungs skuggsjá
and the translation of the Lai de Bisclavret (Bisclaretz ljód) in Strengleikar.
The closely related motif of the man-bear is found in Landnámabók
(twelfth century), Hrólfs saga kraka (fourteenth century), Svarfdæla saga
(fourteenth century), Tíódels saga (see subsequent discussion), and the
tales Ævintýrid um Bjarndreng, Sagan af Hermódi og Hádvöru, Hvad pýdir
“sár”? and Björn á börn, which were collected in the nineteenth century.6
turhistorisk leksikon for nordisk middelalder fra vikingertid til reformationen (Reykjavík: Bókaverzlun
Ísafoldar, 1970), XV, 7–14. See also Nils Lid, “Til varulvens historie,” in Trolldom. Festskrift til
sekstiårsdagen 16. januar 1950 (Oslo: Cammermeyers boghandel, 1950), pp. 82–108.
5. The sources cited here make direct mention of shape-shifting, in which a man changes
into a wolf; in this context, one should also mention two Íslendingasögur. First, in Egils saga,
the shape-shifter Úlfr Bjálfason (Kveld-Úlfr) is said to have become ill-tempered as evening
approached. He had a tendency to sleep in the evening (kvöldsvæfur), which has been seen
as suggesting that his soul left his body when he slept and entered a wolf’s shape. See Egils
saga, Íslenzk fornrit, II (Reykjavík: Hid íslenzka fornritafélag, 1933), ch. 1, p. 4 (subsequent
references are to this edition); and also Anne Holtsmark, “On the Werewolf Motif in Egils
saga Skallagrímssonar,” in Scientia Islandica—Science in Iceland, I (1968), pp. 7–9. As there is
no direct mention of Kveld-Úlfr’s shape-shifting, the existence of a werewolf motif in Egils
saga must depend on interpretation, but it should be borne in mind that his name strongly
indicates that he had shape-shifting ability. Second, in Gísla saga Súrssonar, Gísli dreams of
a man with a wolf’s head. Gísla saga Súrssonar, Íslenzk fornrit, VI (Reykjavík: Hid íslenzka
fornritafélag, 1943), ch. 33, p. 105.
6. Landnámabók, Íslenzk fornrit, I (Reykjavík: Hid íslenzka fornritafélag, 1968), pp. 355–56
(S 350, H 309); Saga Hrólfs konungs kraka, in Fornaldar sögur Nordrlanda, I–III, ed. C. C. Rafn
(Copenhagen, 1929–1930), I, ch. 25 and 50, pp. 50 and 103; Svarfdæla saga, Íslenzk fornrit,
IX (Reykjavík: Hid íslenzka fornritafélag, 1956), ch. 19, pp. 181–82; Tíódels saga, for instance
in AM 578g 4to (see below). The late tale Ævintýrid um Bjarndreng in Jón Árnason, Íslenzkar
pjódsögur og ævintýri, I–VI, ed. Árni Bödvarsson and Bjarni Vilhjálmsson (Reykjavík: Bókaútgáfan Pjódsaga, 1961), IV, pp. 650–53, includes a similar man-bear motif as Hrólfs saga kraka;
Sagan af Hermódi og Hádvöru in Ólafur Davídsson, Íslenzkar pjódsögur (Reykjavík: Bókaútgáfan
Pjódsaga, 1980), IV, 10–23; Hvad pýdir “sár”?; Björn á börn in Jón Árnason, Íslenzkar pjódsögur og
ævintýri, I, 606. See also Páttr Porsteins uxafóts, in Flateyjarbók, ed. Gudbrandur Vigfússon and
C. R. Unger (Christiania, 1860), I, ch. 209, p. 257, and Saga af Parmes Lodinbirni (Reykjavík:
Prentud á kostnad Jóns Sighvatsonar, 1884), ch. 2, pp. 4–5.
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The man-bear motif will not be discussed in this article, although some
of these stories may be referred to.7
The werewolf motif in Icelandic literature was briefly discussed by Einar
Ól. Sveinsson in reference to five of the above mentioned sagas: Hrólfs saga
kraka, Völsunga saga, Ála flekks saga, Úlfhams saga, and Jóns saga leikara.8 Einar
Ól. Sveinsson considered it likely that the motif, as it exists in Icelandic
sagas, can be divided into two categories/variants. He believed that the
older variant is characterized by the innate ability to shape-shift, which is
usually associated with war and warlike activities. He points out that traces
of this ancient belief are still found in stories about berserks that were most
likely brought to Iceland with the original settlers. The German scholar
Wolfgang Golther had previously made a similar argument in Handbuch
der germanischen Mythologie in 1895.9 Furthermore, Einar Ól. Sveinsson believed that the more recent variant came to Iceland with French romances
in the thirteenth century and that it probably had a Celtic origin; in this
variant the wolf nature is in most cases a result of a spell. In the various
discussions of werewolves and shape-changing, the following sagas have not
previously been considered: Helgakvida Hundingsbana I, Hrafnagaldur Ódins,
Skjöldunga saga, Sigrgards saga frækna, Sigrgards saga ok Valbrands, Sagan af
Porsteini glott, and Hvad pýdir “sár”? 10 These sources will be examined for the
evidence they can provide concerning the werewolf motif in light of Einar
Ól. Sveinsson’s theory. They reveal how the two variants were developed
and combined, each influencing the other.
Vocabulary and Concepts
In the medieval Icelandic sources, one finds references to men and gods
changing their form by putting on the hamr of a certain animal, but the
word hamr can mean both a pelt/skin and a shape. The goddess Freyja has
a feather hamr and the swan maidens in Völundarkvida take upon themselves the hamr of swans.11 This kind of feather hamr that functions like a
7. For the man-bear motif in Scandinavia, see, e.g., Roland Grambo, “Fortrollet vilt.”
8. Einar Ól. Sveinsson, “Keltnesk áhrif á íslenzkar ýkjusögur,” Skírnir, 106 (1932), 118–
19.
9. Wolfgang Golther, Handbuch der germanischen Mythologie (Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1895), pp.
102–103.
10. Similarly, the man-bear motif in the folktales Ævintýrid um Bjarndreng, Sagan af Hermódi
og Hádvöru, Hvad pýdir “sár”? and Björn á börn has not been mentioned or considered previously in discussions of shape-shifting stories.
11. “Prymskvida,”, st. 3–5, in Eddadigte, ed. Jón Helgason, Nordisk filologi (Oslo: Dreyers
forlag, 1971), III, 58, and “Völundarkvida,” foreword and st. 1, in Eddadigte, III, 1–2.
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vestment is quite common,12 as is the wolf’s hamr, which is found, e.g., in
Völsunga saga. The key term in this context is hamr. One finds references
to men changing into wolves by taking upon themselves a vargshamr (a
wolf’s shape) and becoming vargar (wolves).13
The Icelandic terms for wolf are vargr and úlfr—terms that are also used
for what we now call varúlfur (werewolf).14 Other related terms connected
to werewolves or shape-shifting beings are vargstakkr (wolf coat), úlfhamr
(wolf skin), úlfhédinn (wolf skin/pelt) and berserkr (bear coat).
In a narrower sense, however, úlfhédnar and berserkir are two kinds of
animal-warriors, first mentioned in Haraldskvædi (Hrafnsmál), in which
they constantly accompany King Haraldr. The poem is thought to have
been composed by Porbjörn hornklofi, who lived around the year 900.
As we can see from the stanza below, their respective cries are distinct:
greniudu berserkir,The berserks were roaring
gudr var peim á sinnum,
For this was their battle,
emiudu úlfhednar
The wolf-coated warriors howling,
ok ísorn dúdu.
And the irons clattering.15
12. Adalheidur Gudmundsdóttir, ed., Úlfhams saga, pp. ccvii–ccviii.
13. See, for example, Ála flekks saga, ed. Åke Lagerholm, in Drei lygisogur (Halle: Max
Niemeyer Verlag, 1927), p. 99: “legg ek pat á pik, at pú verdir at vargi” (this I cast upon
you—you will become a wolf). The sagas generally do not describe how people put on the
wolf’s hamr; the terms used are to “turn into” (verda ad) or “take on” (bregda á sig) a particular
form. It is also common for the hamr to come upon them, or for them (their bodies) to sleep
while their soul takes on the likeness (líki) or hamr of the animal. In some sources, which are
mentioned later in this section, spells are cast on people, stating that they are to “resemble
wolves” (líkjast vörgum). Women change into she-wolves; see Völsunga saga, in Fornaldar sögur
Nordrlanda, I, ch. 5, p. 126, and Sigrgards saga frækna, in Late Medieval Icelandic Romances, ed.
Agnete Loth, Editiones Arnamagnæanæ, B, 24 (Copenhagen, 1965), V, ch. 11, p. 83. The
wording in other sources is less clear: people take on vargshamr or vargslíki or simply don
wolf pelts (vargsbelgr/úlfahamr). In many stories of shape-shifting, the hamr is described as a
sort of costume, e.g., in one fairy tale, a boy frees his siblings from a spell in which they are
caught in the shapes (hamir) of a bear, a dog, and a falcon. In return, they give him these
shapes, which he can use whenever he wants; see Jón Árnason, Íslenzkar pjódsögur og ævintýri,
IV, 617.
14. The word varúlfr has parallels in most all Indo-European languages, for instance,
“varulv” in Danish, “vaira-ulf” in Gothic, “werewulf” in Saxon, “Werwolf” in German, “warwolf” in Scottish, “wargus” in old Norman, “vlkodlak” in Slovakian, “wawkalak” in Russian,
“varcolaci” in Romanian, “loup-garou” in French, and “lupo manaro” in Italian. It is interesting to note that Icelandic stories (at least prior to the seventeenth century) represent an
exception here, the terms used being the simple elements úlfr and vargr; the compound
varúlfr does not seem to have become established in use. For more about the word varúlfr,
see Adalheidur Gudmundsdóttir, ed., Úlfhams saga, pp. clxxxiii–clxxxv.
15. “Haraldskvædi,” st. 8, in Skjaldevers, ed. Jón Helgason, Nordisk filologi, 12 (Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1968), p. 17 (also Haralds saga hárfagra, Íslenzk fornrit, XXVI [Reykjavík:
Hid íslenzka fornritafélag, 1941], ch. 18). The translation is that in Snorre Sturlason, Heimskringla or The Lives of the Norse Kings, ed. Erling Monsen (Cambridge: Heffer and Sons, 1932),
p. 56. An older translation by Thomas Percy has perhaps a more accurate rendering of the
second line: “they had war in their hearts”; see Margaret Clunies Ross, ed., The Old Norse
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Scholars have disagreed about the meaning of the word berserkr,16 but since
the poem names berserkir and úlfhédnar as parallel figures who fight side
by side, it must be considered likely that the word “berserkr” is derived
from bear skin, just as “úlfhédinn” is derived from wolf skin. Stanzas 20–21
explain that úlfhédnar were berserks who had distinguished themselves in
battle, i.e., warriors.17 Accordingly, the word “berserkir” is the name of a
category, and “úlfhédnar” a subcategory.18
One of the most recognizable attributes of the berserks is that they fall
into a “berserk frenzy.” They run wild in battle, become crazed, and roar
or howl. No weapons can harm them and they tolerate wounds better than
other men. The berserk frenzy is actually closely related to shape-shifting,
for in both cases men acquire the attributes of animals. The main difference resides, perhaps, in the fact that with shape-shifting it is assumed that
either the soul is transported to another body, that is, into an animal’s
body (and thus people are described as eigi einhamir, “not restricted to
Poetic Translations of Thomas Percy (Turnhout: Brepols 2001), p. 242. The poem is generally
thought to have been composed by Porbjörn, but the stanzas about the battle at Hafrsfjördur
(among them stanza 8) have also been ascribed to Pjódólfr from Hvin. On evidence for
dating the poem, see, for example, Vésteinn Ólason, “Dróttkvædi,” in Íslensk bókmenntasaga
(Reykjavík: Mál og menning 1992), I, 203 and 364, and Jón Helgason, “Haraldskvædi,”
Tímarit Máls og menningar, 2 (1946), especially p. 142.
16. Scholars disagree as to whether the prefix ber- indicates “bear” (cf. the feminine form
bera) or “bare” (cf. ber). Berserks have therefore been variously defined as warriors in bear
pelts or warriors without armor. See especially Hermann Güntert, Über altisländische BerserkerGeschichten (Heidelberg: Universitäts-Buchdruckerei J. Hörning, 1912); Fredrik Grøn, Berserksgangens vesen og årsaksforhold, Det Kgl. Norske Videnskabers Selskabs Skrifter, 4 (Trondheim,
1929); Erik Noreen, “Ordet bärsärk,” in Arkiv för nordisk filologi, 48 (1932), 242–54; Hans
Kuhn, “Kappar og berserkir,” in Skírnir, 123 (1949), 98–113; Klaus von See, “Studien zum
Haraldskvædi,” in Arkiv för nordisk filologi, 76 (1961), 96–111; Otto Höfler, “Berserker,” in
Reallexikon der germanischen Altertumskunde (Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1976 [2nd.
ed.]); Adalheidur Gudmundsdóttir, Úlfhams saga, pp. ccxi–ccxv.
17. Klaus von See considers stanzas 20–21 to be of a more recent date than stanza 8; see
“Studien zum Haraldskvædi.”
18. Other sources show that there were warriors who identified themselves with wolves
by donning wolf coats, for example, in Trójumanna saga, where a wolf-skin coat is used as a
military uniform in battle (Trójumanna saga hin forna, prentud eftir útgáfu Jóns Sigurdssonar
forseta í dönskum annálum 1848 [Reykjavík: Prentsmidja D. Östlunds, 1913], ch. 13). In
Vatnsdæla saga, we read: “ok peir berserkir, er Úlfhednar váru kalladir; peir hofdu vargstakka
fyrir brynjur ok vordu framstafn á konungs skipinu” (and those berserks known as “Wolfskins”—they used wolf-skin cloaks for corselets and defended the bow of the king’s ship);
Íslenzk fornrit, VIII (Reykjavík: Hid íslenzka fornritafélag, 1939), ch. 9, pp. 24–25, and The
Complete Sagas of Icelanders, ed. Vidar Hreinsson (Reykjavík: Leifur Eiríksson, 1997), IV, ch.
9. Cf. Egils saga, ch. 9, pp. 22–23; Óláfs saga helga, Íslenzk fornrit, XXVII (Reykjavík: Hid
íslenzka fornritafélag, 1927), ch. 193 and 228, pp. 345 and 384, in which reindeer skins are
made stronger by magic for Pórir hundr and his men. According to another version of the
saga, these were wolf-skin coats; see Gerard Breen, “Personal Names and the Re-creation of
Berserkir and Úlfhednar,” Studia Anthroponymica Scandinavica, Tidskrift för nordisk personnamnsforskning, 15 (Uppsala, 1997), p. 19; Blómstrvallasaga, ed. Theodor Möbius (Leipzig:
Wilh. Engelmannum, 1855), ch. 10, p. 17; “Hyndluljód,” st. 24, in Eddadigte, II, 84.
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one form”), or that the body undergoes a transformation, whereas in the
berserk frenzy men acquire the attributes of wild animals; one could thus
say that the berserk is a wild animal in the shape of a man. The condition
is therefore psychological in the case of the berserk, but physical in the
case of werewolves and other shape-shifters.
As might be expected, the distinction between the psychological and
physical condition is not always clear-cut and sometimes depends on interpretation. In the literature, we have cases where individuals actually undergo
transformation, or where their souls depart from their bodies and take on
the form of an animal. The latter possibility, perhaps a form of shamanism,
is illustrated, for example, by Bödvar bjarki in Hrólfs saga kraka, whose body
lies quiescent in his tent while a bear fights on the battlefield.19
People who had power over their souls by being able to shape-shift
were called hamrammir or eigi einhamir. Finnur Jónsson, writing about seidr,
argued that most sorcerers and shamans had the ability to change themselves into the shape of any living creature.20
It is clear that the animal into which a person is transformed has a
symbolic value. This can be seen in shape-shifting stories from around
the world, including those from Iceland, e.g., in tales in which beautiful
maidens turn into attractive birds such as swans or cranes. Wolves were
beasts of battle, with strongly negative associations. In fact, the Germanic
peoples used the term vargr for outlaws, those who had forfeited their
rights to participate in human society.21 The Old-Icelandic law code Grágás,
which is preserved in a thirteenth-century manuscript, states: “mord vargr
sa er menn hefir myrda”22 (“murder vargr the one who has murdered
19. Saga Hrólfs konungs kraka, ch. 25 and 50, pp. 50 and 103, and Hrólfs saga kraka og
Bjarkarímur, VIII 7, ed. Finnur Jónsson, STUAGNL, XXXII (Copenhagen: S. L. Møller, 1904),
p. 161. Similar types of shape-shifting are also described in Snorri Sturluson’s Ynglinga saga,
which states that Ódinn takes on the forms of various animals while his body lies as if asleep
or dead (Ynglinga saga, Íslenzk fornrit, XXVI [Reykjavík: Hid íslenzka fornritafélag, 1941],
ch. 7, p. 18).
20. Finnur Jónsson, “Um galdra, seid, seidmenn og völur,” in Prjár ritgjördir, Finnur Jónsson, Valtyr Gudmundsson, and Bogi Th. Melsted (Copenhagen, 1892), p. 21. Cf. Golther,
Handbuch der germanischen Mythologie, pp. 100–1. For a discussion of hamrammir in medieval
Icelandic literature, see also Adalheidur Gudmundsdóttir, “Um berserki, berserksganginn
og amanita muscaria,” in Skírnir, 175 (2001), 317–53.
21. The notion of the outlaw as a wolf (werewolf) was widespread among the Germanic
and related peoples and can be traced back to the mythology of antiquity, well beyond the
bounds of the Germanic cultural field, even as far back as in Hittite law of the thirteenth
century BC. See Gerstein, “Warg: The Outlaw as Werewolf,” p. 163.
22. Grágás efter det Arnamagnæanske Haandskrift Nr 334 fol. Stadarhólsbók, Kommissionen
for det Arnamagnæanske Legat (Copenhagen: Gyldendalske Boghandel, 1879), p. 348. See
Gerstein, “Warg: The Outlaw as Werewolf,” and Michael Jacobi, wargus, vargr, ‘Verbrecher’,
‘Wolf’ (Uppsala: Studia Germanistica Upsaliensia, 1974), ch. 2, I and II.
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men”). The mythical-heroic Völsunga saga, also written in the thirteenth
century, relates that Sigi, a son of the god Ódinn and ancestor of the Völs
ungs, was called a “wolf in the sanctuary” (vargr í véum) and was forced
to abandon his patrimony after having murdered one of his neighbor’s
servants.23 Such men are also called “skóggangsmenn,” which refers to
their expulsion from society, since they were driven to the forest as if
they were wolves. Vargr is used in this way for outlaws in other Icelandic
sources, both in the sagas and the Eddic poems.24 In older Icelandic, the
connection between vargr and criminal (outlaw) can also be seen in the
words mordvargr (murderer), vargtré (wolftree, that is, gallows), vargrækr
(expelled like a wolf), and vargdropi/vargdragi (wolf cub, that is, son of
an outlaw, a legal term),25 and even in the modern language in the words
brennuvargur (arsonist, pyromaniac), skemmdarvargur (vandal), and vargöld
(times of war and cruelty).
As has already been noted, the term vargr seems to be more common
in sagas of shape-shifting, in which it is the term for an outlaw,26 while úlfr
more often refers to the animal itself. Still, this is not clear-cut, and the
two terms have a similar function, as we shall see.
The Werewolf Motif in Icelandic Literature:
The Older Variant
Scholars who have studied the werewolf motif believe that the shape-shifting ability was originally innate and that shape-shifting as a result of a spell
or enchantment is a later phenomenon.27 In Iceland, the story of Bödvarr
bjarki in Hrólfs saga kraka preserves the motif in its original form and is in
many ways characteristic of the ancient beliefs of the Norse peoples. Bödvarr bjarki, in the form of a bear (a polar bear, according to Bjarkarímur),
23. Völsunga saga, ch. 1.
24. In the Eddic poem Helgakvida Hundingsbana II, the term vargr refers to an outlaw,
and possible expulsion to the woods is seen as a punishment for a slaying. “Helgakvida
Hundingsbana II,” st. 33, in Eddadigte, III, 38.
25. The son of an outlaw is always disinherited. See Grágás, p. 68, and “Sigrdrífumál,” st.
35, in Eddadigte, III, 77. “Vargdragi” is a variant of “vargdropi”; see Lexicon Islandicum. Ordabók
Gudmundar Andréssonar, ed. Gunnlaugur Ingólfsson and Jakob Benediktsson (Reykjavík:
Ordabók Háskólans, 1999), p. 167.
26. See notes in Snorri Sturluson, Edda. Prologue and Gylfaginning, ed. Anthony Faulkes
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982), p. 152.
27. Einar Ól. Sveinsson, “Keltnesk áhrif á íslenzkar ýkjusögur,” pp. 118–19. Cf. G. L. Kitt
redge, “Arthur and Gorlagon,” Studies and Notes in Philology and Literature (Boston: Ginn,
1903), VIII, 170, n. 3; 262, and 265.
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battles with his opponents while his body sleeps. His shape-shifting ability
is innate and emerges in battle.28
For a werewolf, rather than a man-bear, we turn to Völsunga saga, a
legendary saga from the thirteenth century. This saga stands apart from
other Icelandic sources in that the werewolf motif occurs throughout the
narrative, such as in the origin and descent of the Völsungs (also called
Ylfingar—“Wolflings”),29 their brotherhood, kinship, and identification
with wolves, and various actions and traditions. The motif appears in the
very first chapter of the saga in the person of the aforementioned Sigi who
figuratively becomes a wolf (vargr). The fifth chapter includes the story
of the mother of King Siggeirr, who changes herself into a wolf and eats
the nine sons of King Völsungr. The incident bears a strong resemblance
to similar ones in stories of testing in that it is only Sigmundr, the tenth
son, who survives.
The most famous instance of the motif occurs, however, in the story of
the father and son Sigmundr and Sinfjötli. Sinfjötli is the third son, whom
Signý sends to Sigmundr for fosterage, and the only one who survives
the ordeal. The father and son find wolf pelts in a hut in the forest; they
belong to two enchanted king’s sons. They are magic pelts, which can be
removed only every tenth day. Sigmundr and Sinfjötli put on the pelts
and live as wolves in the forest for ten days. They agree to howl to each
other if they should be involved in fights with more than seven men at
a time, but Sinfjötli proves to be the more valiant, killing eleven men at
one time without letting his father know. Sigmundr is angered at his son’s
arrogance and inflicts a deadly wound on him, but a raven, the bird and
messenger of Ódinn, brings a leaf that heals Sinfjötli’s wounds. Sigmundr
and Sinfjötli are relieved when they are finally able to remove their pelts
and burn them.
It is obvious that Sigmundr takes Sinfjötli out to the woods on purpose,
to accustom him to hardship and that as a fully trained warrior (Völsungr)
Sinfjötli must come to know his animal nature, the wild animal within him:
“ok í peim úsköpum unnu peir mörg frægdarverk í ríki Siggeirs konúngs.
Ok er Sinfjötli er frumvaxti, pá pikkist Sigmundr hafa reynt hann mjök”
(Under that magic spell they had performed many feats in King Siggeirr’s
kingdom. When Sinfjötli was fully grown Sigmund thought he had tested
28. Saga Hrólfs konungs kraka, chs. 25, 50, pp. 50, 103, and Hrólfs saga kraka og Bjarkarímur,
VIII, 7, p. 161. We may note, however, that Björn, Bödvarr’s father, was placed under a spell
by Queen Hvít, and Bödvarr was therefore actually the son of a man-bear, an enchanted
being. Thus, the motif is spell related.
29. “Helgakvida Hundingsbana II,” in Eddadigte, III, 30. Beowulf refers to the same people
as “Wylfingas”; see Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg, ed. Fr. Klaeber (Boston: D. C. Heath,
1950), p. 18, ll. 461, and 471.
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him fully).30 The emphasis in this episode is on Sinfjötli’s development,
which seems in most respects to reflect the consecratory rites of archaic
peoples—and therefore the incident in which the she-wolf eats his parents’ brothers is relevant in the same way, for in both cases only one of
the young men is destined to survive.
The story raises some questions regarding the relationship between
the Völsungs and wolves. Is their approximation to wolves and their wolf
nature perhaps a way to bring themselves closer to and identify themselves with Ódinn, their ancestor? The wolf is Ódinn’s animal and as a
scavenger—along with his ravens—the appropriate symbol and agent of
the god of war. In this sense, the wolf could also be understood as symbolic of the power that brings victory, according to ancient Norse and
Germanic belief.31 In this light, the Völsungs can be seen as a sort of wolf
clan or as úlfhédnar, i.e., a family or warrior clan that performs its deeds in
the name of the wolf, the wolf then functioning as a sort of totem of the
clan. Identification with the wild animal inspires them to great deeds, and
the nature of the “pack” gives them great strength, like wolves who join
together in packs and urge each other to attack. Could it be claimed that
the wolf, as the chosen animal of Ódinn, is a sort of model for Sigmundr
and Sinfjötli as valiant warriors and warriors of Ódinn?32 And that their
existence as wolves is therefore a sort of consecratory rite, in which the
father leads the son through the most extreme trial?
Later in Völsunga saga, Sigurdr, another son of king Sigmundr, kills
the dragon Fáfnir. Before dying, Fáfnir asks Sigurdr his name, to which
he replies: “ek heiti göfugt dýr” (“I am called the noble beast”).33 It can
quite possibly be assumed that Sigurdr likens himself to a wolf,34 as the
30. Völsunga saga, ch. 8, p. 132, and The Saga of the Volsungs, intro. and trans. Jesse L.
Byock (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1990), p. 45. For the Völsungs as a wolf pack,
see Adam Douglas, The Beast Within: Man, Myths and Werewolves (London: Orion, 1993),
p. 67 and also p. 25; Hilda R. Ellis Davidson, “Shape-Changing in the Old Norse Sagas,”
in A Lycanthropy Reader, ed. Charlotte F. Otten (New York: Syracuse Univ. Press, 1986), pp.
151–53; also Gerstein, “Warg: The Outlaw as Werewolf,” p. 81.
31. J. C. Cooper, An Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Traditional Symbols, 3d ed. (London: Thames
and Hudson, 1990), p. 194.
32. Concerning Sigmundur and Sinfjötli as warriors of Ódinn, see Otto Höfler, Kultische
Geheimbünde der Germanen (Frankfurt am Main: Verlag Moritz Diesterweg, 1934), I, 197. It
has been pointed out that the name Sinfjötli could possibly mean “wolf”; see Heiko Uecker,
Germanische Heldensage (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1972), p. 24. If this is so, then the name contains
an unequivocal reference to the totem animal of the clan, as was a traditional practice; see
Breen, “Personal Names and the Re-Creation of Berserkir and Úlfhednar,” pp. 11–12.
33. Völsunga saga, ch. 18, p. 160, and The Saga of the Volsungs, p. 63. A comparable reply
can be found in the Eddic poem “Fáfnismál,” st. 2, in Eddadigte, III, 62.
34. “[A]s he is of a noble theriophoric wolf tribe, the Ylfingar” (Breen, “The Wolf Is at
the Door,” p. 35). Admittedly, the “nobility” of wolves is disputable, but it might be pointed
out that in werewolf stories, the Icelandic ones at least, it is most commonly noble (or even
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Völsungs seem to do. At least we should note that in another scene—in
the Eddic poem Reginsmál, Reginn, Fáfnir’s brother, calls him frekan úlf
(an aggressive wolf).35
The wolf imagery continues throughout the saga, the parallel between
man and wolf apparently having mainly negative connotations or referring
to the qualities of a warrior and the rigors and dangers of such a life. This
seems also to be the case when Sigurdr meets Brynhildr Budladóttir for
the first time; she gives him wise counsel and among other things advises
him to beware of the sons and brothers of the ones he slays, because “opt
er úlfr í úngum syni” (often a wolf lies in a young son).36 This proverb
foreshadows forthcoming events, such as when Brynhildr calls Sigurdr’s
son an úlfhvelp (wolf cub). This presumably reflects his innate inheritance,
along with the fact that if he is not to be killed along with his father, he
will later become his revenger. It is also noteworthy that when Guttormr
Gjúkason is persuaded to slay Sigurdr and his son (the “wolf cub”), he is
given boiled wolf meat, which makes him so vehement and ferocious that
he agrees to commit the evil deed.37
Finally, the wolf symbolism appears again late in the saga when the brothers Gunnarr and Högni decide to visit their brother-in-law Atli, Gudrún’s
treacherous husband. Their sister Gudrún and their wives try to warn them
against going; Gudrún sends them a token, a gold ring, with a wolf’s hair
around it, and Gunnarr’s wife tells her husband that she dreamed of his
death among howling wolves.38
That the Völsung connection with wolves is traditional can be seen not
only from the saga but also from the fact that the saga is based on Eddic
royal) persons who are transformed into wolves. If Sigurdr is comparing himself to a wolf,
then this would contain a reference to the Ylfingar, i.e., the Völsungs; thus, Sigurdr is giving
Fáfnir a hint of his ancestry. “Göfugt dýr” has also been interpreted as meaning “aurochs”
(úruxi), the first three lines of “Fáfnismál” then being interpreted as containing a hidden
form of the name Sigurdr: “Gofugt dýr ek heiti, / en ek gengit hefk / inn módurlausi mogr”
(“Pre-eminent beast” I’m called, / and I go about / as a motherless boy; The Poetic Edda,
transl. Caroline Larrington [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996]), p. 158). See Ólafur
M. Ólafsson, “Sigurdur duldi nafns síns,” Andvari, 12 (1970), especially pp. 184–87, and
“Fáfnismál,” st. 2, in Eddadigte, III, 62.
35. “Reginsmál,”, st. 13, in Eddadigte, III, 56.
36. Völsunga saga, ch. 21, and The Saga of the Volsungs, p. 71; see also the Eddic poem
“Sigrdrífumál,” st. 35, in Eddadigte, III, 77–78.
37. An older variant of the same episode is found in the Eddic poem “Brot af Sigurdar
kvidu,” st. 4, in Sæmundar Edda hins fróda, ed. Sophus Bugge, Norræn fornkvædi (Christiania,
1867), p. 238. A comparable motif also occurs in Bjarkarímur (IV, 63–66 and V, 4), where
Bödvarr encourages Hjalti to drink the blood from a she-wolf, at which his strength and
power grew so greatly that he became equal to Bödvarr in physical prowess. See Hrólfs saga
kraka og Bjarkarímur, pp. 140–41.
38. Völsunga saga, ch. 33 and 35, pp. 210 and 213, and The Saga of the Volsungs, pp. 96
and 99. The former is comparable to the Eddic poem “Atlakvida,” st. 8, in Sæmundar Edda
hins fróda, pp. 283–84.
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poems, some of which have already been cited. The Eddic poems constitute
one of the two categories of poetry practiced by Norsemen since before the
Viking Age. They are now preserved in manuscripts from the thirteenth
century and later, the oldest one dating from circa 1270. In the thirty-fourth
stanza of the poem Helgakvida Hundingsbana I, Sinfjötli is called Ylfingr (a
“wolfling”) and shortly after, his opponent Gudmundr reminds him of his
werewolf nature and his association with wolves. He says:
Pú hefir etnarThou hast made thy meal
úlfa krásir
of the meat of wolves,
ok brœdr pínom
and been the bane
at bana ordit,
of thy brothers twain;
opt sár sogin
with thy cold snout hast
med svolum munni,
oft sucked men’s wounds,
hefr í hreysi
and hateful to all
hvarleidr skridit!
hast hid in the waste.39
He also says:
Stiúpr vartu Siggeirs,
látt und stodom heima,
vargliódom vanr
á vidom úti.
As Siggeir’s stepson
’neath stones didst dwell
in woody wasted,
with the wolves howling.40
These two stanzas can be compared to Völsunga saga, chapter 9, in which
Gudmundr is called Granmarr. The epic poem indicates that the werewolf
motif as used in Völsunga saga is old, as does the fact that the motif appears to be quite deeply rooted in the saga structure. Therefore, it can be
maintained that behind the fairytale-like episode of Sigmundr and Sinfjötli
lies the ancient werewolf motif, which is closely connected with Sinfjötli’s
background and growth to manhood. Although we can say that this episode
is closely connected to ancient initiation practices,41 it is not clear at what
39. “Helgakvida Hundingsbana I” (“Völsungakvida,”) st. 36, in Eddadigte, III, 15, and Lee
M. Hollander, The Poetic Edda (Austin: Univ. of Texas Press, 1962), p. 186. The translation of
the second line does not give the correct meaning of the Old Norse text, because Sinfjötli
has eaten the food (lit. delicacies) of wolves (as he was one himself), not their meat! Other
translations are not quite accurate either; e.g., Caroline Larrington translates: “you have
eaten the leavings of wolves”; see The Poetic Edda, p. 119.
40. “Helgakvida Hundingsbana I” (“Völsungakvida”), st. 41, in Eddadigte, III, 16, and
Hollander, The Poetic Edda, p. 187. The word “vargljódum” has been taken by interpreters
of the Eddic poems to mean “varghljód” (wolf-sounds, howls), but the meaning “vargljódar”
as “vargmenn” (wolf-men) should not be ruled out, as it suits the context well (accustomed
to being a werewolf out in the woods). The word is, however, not attested elsewhere, and
there are no examples of the word “ljódar” being used for “men” anywhere else in the Eddic
poems.
41. Cf., for example, Lily Weiser, Altgermanische Jünglingsweihen und Männerbünde, Bausteine
zur Volkskunde und Religionswissenschaft, 1 (Bühl [Baden]: Konkordia A.-G., 1927), pp.
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stage the symbolic rituals became reinterpreted as actual transformation,
in which the father and son take upon themselves the shape of wolves. The
pelts, which belong to enchanted king’s sons, could suggest that the original
motif shows later Celtic influence. But despite the very likely possibility that
the ancient werewolf motif in Völsunga saga underwent some changes over
time, its symbolic meaning can be considered unchanged.
Examples of the negative connotation of wolves are also found in other
Eddic material. In Gylfaginning in Snorra Edda, Snorri Sturluson († 1241)
tells how the Æsir changed Váli into the shape of a wolf, and that in this
form he tore apart his brother Narfi (cf. the Eddic poem Lokasenna).42 Furthermore, Snorri mentions certain giants who are born as wolves, among
them Sköll and Hati Hrodvitnisson, who run ahead of and behind the sun,
and Mánagarmr (dog of the moon), who swallows the moon at Ragnarök.
The same mythological material is preserved in an older, less-detailed form
in the Eddic poem Völuspá.43 The motif also appears in Hrafnagaldur Ódins,
or “Forspjallsljód,” which was printed along with other Eddic poems in
Sophus Bugge’s edition from 1867. The poem is only preserved in late
paper manuscripts, and in the introduction to his edition, Bugge suggests
that it should be excluded from later editions, as it is of a more recent date
than other Eddic poems and is written in a different style. He believes that
it was written in the seventeenth century, but Jónas Kristjánsson is of the
opinion that it is old, but very corrupt. In the eighth stanza of this poem,
the goddess Idunn is given a wolf’s pelt, so that she can change shape:
Siá sigtívarThe divinities see
syrgia naunno
Nauma grieving
Viggiar at veom,
in the wolf’s home
vargsbelg seldo;
given a wolf-skin,
let í færaz,
she clad herself therein,
lyndi breytti,
changed disposition,
lek at lævísi,
delighted in guile,
litom skipti.
shifted her shape.44
70–71; and Jens Peter Schjødt, Initiation, liminalitet og tilegnelse af numinøs viden (Århus: Det
Teologiske Fakultet, Aarhus Universitet, 2003), pp. 315–18.
42. See “Gylfaginning,” in Snorri Sturluson, Edda. Prologue and Gylfaginning, p. 49. According to “Gylfaginning,” the Æsir took Narfi’s intestines and used them to bind his father,
Loki. The Eddic poem Lokasenna relates the same incidents, but in a different way. It states
that the Æsir bound Loki with the intestines of his son Nari, adding: “En Narfi sonr hans
vard at vargi” (“but his son Narfi became a wolf”). See Eddadigte, II, the prose at the end of
the poem, p. 57, and Hollander, The Poetic Edda, p. 103. This terse passage is ambiguous;
Narfi either took on the shape of a wolf or he simply became an outlaw (see the discussion
of the ambivalence of the term vargr earlier in this article).
43. “Gylfaginning,” p. 49, and “Völuspá,” st. 40 and 41, in Eddadigte, I.
44. “Hrafnagaldur Ódins,” st. 8, in Sæmundar Edda hins fróda, p. 372. English translation
by Eysteinn Björnsson and William P. Reaves, published at http://www.hi.is/~eybjorn/ugm/
hrg/hrg.html. “Nauma” in l. 2 of the translation is a variant of “naunno” in some of the
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Idunn’s wolf-power comes from a pelt she dons. The wolf’s shape changes
her personality: she not only looks like a wolf but acts like one as well;
she becomes guileful.
In addition to the above-mentioned episode in Hrólfs saga kraka, Völs
unga saga, and the Eddic material—and the related stories of berserks that
Einar Ól. Sveinsson mentioned as remnants of the ancient belief—the
werewolf is depicted negatively in several late medieval romances. In Gibb
ons saga, an Icelandic romance from the fourteenth century, preserved in
the manuscript AM 335 4to from circa 1400, the dwarf Asper turns himself
into a huge wolf, black as coal and evil-looking as the devil. In his lupine
shape, Asper fights the ogress Obscura, and for his valor he is rewarded
with four castles and an earldom.45 Sigrgards saga frækna, another Icelandic
romance (probably from the fourteenth century) and preserved in AM
556 a 4to from the late fifteenth century, features the witch Hlégerdr,
who can change herself into various animals and transforms herself into
a she-wolf to attack a man called Knútr in his sleep. After a fight, during
which the she-wolf tears the flesh from Knútr’s bones, he and his two
companions break her spine and tear out her entrails. Then Hlégerdr
reappears and when Knútr strikes at her, she turns into a crow and flies
up into the air.46 An episode similar to the one in Gibbons saga occurs in
Sigrgards saga ok Valbrands, an Icelandic romance from the fourteenth
century, preserved in Holm perg 10 II 8vo from the sixteenth century.
The story mentions a certain Gustr, who turns himself into a black wolf,
just like Asper, and attacks with his “storum kl´´
om, og laungum t nnum”
(big claws and long teeth) the villain Valbrandr, who has already turned
himself into a dragon.47
In his Skjöldunga saga, Arngrímur Jónsson “the learned” (1568–1648)
mentions Heidrekr Úlfhamr, who was supposed to be able to transform
himself into a wolf:
o
Heidricus cognomento Ulffhamur, eo qvod se in lupum transformare noverit,
vel est tropicè dictum pro sævo.48
manuscripts. Line 3 contains the variant ‘at Yggjar veum’ = at Ódinn’s home; see Sæmundar
Edda hins fróda, fn., p. 372. See also Jónas Kristjánsson, “Frá Fremsta-Felli til Hrafnagaldurs
Ódins,” in Skjöldur, 8 (1995), 8, and “Hrafnagaldur Ódins—Forspjallsljód: fornkvædi reist úr
ösku,” in Morgunbladid,” Lesbók, April 27 (2002), 4–6. Gunnar Pálsson argued that the correct
title of the poem is “Hrævagaldur” and that it constitutes an introduction to “Vegtamskvida”;
see Bréf Gunnars Pálssonar, ed. Gunnar Sveinsson (Reykjavík: Stofnun Árna Magnússonar á
Íslandi, 1984), I, 378.
45. Gibbons saga, ed. R. I. Page, Editiones Arnamagnæanæ, B, 2 (Copenhagen: Ejnar
Munksgaard, 1960), ch. 17, pp. 87–88.
46. Sigrgards saga frækna, in Late Medieval Icelandic Romances, V, ch. 11, p. 83.
47. Sigrgards saga ok Valbrands, in Late Medieval Icelandic Romances, V, ch. 22, p. 181.
48. Arngrímur Jónsson, “Rerum Danicarum Fragmenta,” in Arngrimi Jonae Opera Latine
Conscripta, ed. Jakob Benediktsson, Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana, IX (Copenhagen: Ejnar
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(Heidricus was called Úlfhamr because he was able to transform himself into
a wolf, as is said, metaphorically, of a cruel person.)
This Heidrekr Úlfhamr (alternatively the son of Úlfhamr) is also mentioned in the mythical-heroic sagas Hervarar saga (thirteenth century),
Sörla páttr (probably from the thirteenth century), and Porsteins páttr bæjarmagns (fourteenth century), where he is said to be a son of the legendary
chieftain Godmundr from Glæsisvellir and grandson of Úlfhédinn trausti,
who was also called Godmundr. These sources, however, do not mention
Heidrekr’s shape-shifting abilities, and the reference could have been
added by Arngrímur, since it is a natural conclusion to be drawn from
the name Úlfhamr. This may perhaps be a late sixteenth-century rationalization.
In three of the four above-mentioned sources, Asper, Hlégerdr, and
Gustr change into wolves during a fight/battle, and therefore these variants resemble the original motif in Hrólfs saga kraka, though admittedly
with the difference that they do not leave their own bodies.
Werewolves outside Iceland
Werewolves were also found in the ancient narratives of Greek, Roman,
and Celtic society and developed in varying ways.49 In the song “Alphesiboeus” from 39 BC, the Roman poet Virgil writes about Moeris, who is
transformed into a wolf and hides in the woods.50 A slightly more recent
source, but still the oldest most fully developed European werewolf story,
is found in the Satyricon of the Roman writer Petronius, who lived in the
first century AD.51 Despite being quite ancient, these two works seem
not to have the oldest attestations of the werewolf motif in Europe, since
the historian Herodotus (484?–425? BC) recorded that certain sorcerers
Munksgaard, 1950), p. 353. See also Hervarar saga og Heidreks konungs, in Fornaldar sögur
Nordrlanda, I, ch. 20, p. 509; Sörla páttur, in Fornaldar sögur Nordrlanda, I, 399; and Saga af
Porsteini bæjarmagni, in Fornmannasögur, III (Copenhagen: Hid norræna fornfræda félag,
1827), ch. 5 and 12, pp. 183 and 197.
49. For the origin of the motif, see Fredrik Grøn, Berserksgangens vesen og årsaksforhold, p. 43
ff., and John Granlund, “Varulv” in Kulturhistorisk leksikon, XIX, 559. See also Wilhem Hertz,
Der Werwolf (Stuttgart: A. Kröner, 1862); Summers, The Werewolf; Douglas, The Beast Within,
pp. 41–63; Sabine Baring-Gould, The Book of Werewolves; and Strömbäck, “Om varulven.”
Numerous citations in Stith Thompson’s register, Motif Index of Folk Literature, 1–6 (Copenhagen: Rosenkilde og Bagger, 1955–58) give a good idea of the geographical dispersion of
the motif (see D 113.1, D 113.1.1).
50. Virgil, Eclogues; Georgics; Aeneid I–IV (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
1999), pp. 81–83.
51. Petronius, Satyrica, ed. and transl. by R. Bracht Branham and Daniel Kinney (Los
Angeles: Univ. of California Press, 1996), pp. 56–57.
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among the Scythians changed into the form of a wolf for a few days each
year.52 Another historian, Pliny, who lived in the first century AD, states
that stories about werewolves had been circulating for centuries before
his time. Pliny quotes the Greek historian Evantes, who wrote about a
certain Arcadian tribe: every nine years, these Arcadians had to choose
one member who would be transformed into a wolf. After this time, he
would change back.53 Arcadia also features in the Greek myth of Lykaon,
king of the Arcadians, who was transformed into a wolf after offending
Zeus by sacrificing a boy to him.54
The story of the Arcadian wolves as related by Evantes closely resembles
an episode found in the Norwegian Konungs skuggsjá from the thirteenth
century (preserved in Norwegian as well as numerous Icelandic manuscripts). In a story about St. Patrick, presumably derived from an Irish
source,55 a certain Irish tribe rejected the apostle’s mission and, in order
to mock him, started to howl like wolves against the word of God.56 St. Patrick became angry and asked God to punish them for their disobedience.
From then on the tribe lived under a curse, in that every member would
for a period of seven years become a wolf, live out in the forest, and eat
the food of wolves. These people were considered to be even worse than
real wolves, since they possessed human understanding and therefore did
harm to both humans and other animals through their rapacity and greed.
In this story, the transformation of men into wolves is a punishment from
God, just as in the Greek myth where Zeus punishes Lykaon by turning
him into a wolf.
The distribution of the werewolf motif shows that it was widely known
and attested, and it may safely be assumed that written sources represent
only a fraction of the tradition that once lay behind them. Naturally, individual stories and variants of this widespread motif are of varying significance when it comes to the origin of the motif and its occurrence in Norse
literature. The relationship between the Icelandic stories and Germanic
customs, which appear to form their background, has already been pointed
52. Baring-Gould, The Book of Werewolves, p. 9.
53. Plinius Secundus, The History of the World (London: Centaur Press, 1962), p. 95.
54. Robert Graves, The Greek Myths (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1960), I, 138.
55. Konungs skuggsjá, ed. Ludvig Holm-Olsen (Oslo: Kjeldeskriftfondet, 1945), p. 25. Cf.
John Carey, “Werewolves in Medieval Ireland,” Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies, 44 (Winter
2002), esp. p. 48ff. Carey discusses Konungs skuggsjá, as well as three older, closely related
Irish stories in Topographia Hiberniae (twelfth century), De Mirabilibus Hibernie (eleventh
century), and the Middle Irish text De Ingantaib Éren (“On the Wonders of Ireland”).
56. There is a parallel to Karlamagnús saga (thirteenth century), where the heathen men
“drógu sik pá á bak ok ýldu svá sem vargar” (then retreated and howled liked wolves); Karlamagnús saga ok kappa hans, ed. C. R. Unger (Christiania: H. J. Jensen, 1860), p. 352. Heathens
were also commonly described as barking dogs; see Adalheidur Gudmundsdóttir, “Á hvad
trúa hundar?” in Porlákstídir (Reykjavík), pp. 7–10.
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out, but in addition it may be informative to examine their relationship
to medieval Irish sources. The Irish sources, which refer to events dating
from between the seventh and the thirteenth centuries, contain some variants of the motif that are comparable to the Icelandic variants discussed
above. Among other things, they include: (1) the symbolic association of
hounds and wolves with warriors (comparable to úlfhédnar), (2) a soul that
takes on the form of a wolf while the body sleeps (comparable to Hrólfs
saga kraka), (3) a saint who punishes people by turning them into wolves
(comparable to Konungs skuggsjá), and finally (4) aggressive female werewolves (comparable to Hlégerdr in Sigrgards saga frækna). These motifs are
discussed by John Carey, who believes that the werewolf legend in Ireland
is native. He claims that direct evidence for werewolves in Scandinavian
sources is scarcely earlier than the thirteenth-century Völsunga saga, and
therefore that the Irish material probably influenced the Scandinavian.
But the werewolf motif is already found in older Eddic material, and it is
possible that Norse Vikings influenced the Celtic tradition, especially since
the richest werewolf tradition in Ireland lies around Ossory, whose rulers
had close contacts with the Vikings.57
Although it is difficult to say anything definite about these influences, we
are on firmer ground when it comes to a particular form of the werewolf
legend in which the characteristic element is a deceitful wife who changes
her husband into an animal, the transformation thus being the result
of a magic spell. Stories of this type appear to have been popular in the
British Isles and Brittany in the twelfth century, from where they spread
to northern Europe through the medium of the lais, narrative poems
that were strongly influenced by courtly culture. This medieval European
narrative tradition contains fully formed romantic notions concerning
werewolves, even though the basic elements are in most cases similar to
the ancient motif as found in the Greek and Roman tales. These stories,
characterized by chivalric ideals and a fantastic setting or atmosphere,
contain various similar motifs.
The “Breton” origin of the narratives has been disputed, but most probably they reflect an Oriental story type, including the spell.58 The essential
elements are preserved in four medieval romances: Guillaume de Palerne
57. Carey, “Werewolves in Medieval Ireland,” p. 71. For werewolves in Ireland, see also
Kittredge, “Arthur and Gorlagon,” pp. 257–60, and John R. Reinhard and Vernam E. Hull,
“Bran and Sceolang,” Speculum, 11 (1936), 42–58. For belief in werewolves in England and
Ireland in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, see Summers, The Werewolf, pp. 185–86, and
206–7. For the frequency and distribution of the motif in Irish literature, see Tom Peete
Cross, Motif-Index of Early Irish Literature, Folklore Series, 7 (Bloomington, IN: Indiana Univ.
Publications, 1952), D 113.1 and D 113.1.1.
58. Carey, “Werewolves in Medieval Ireland,” p. 43. Cf. Kittredge, “Arthur and Gorlagon,”
esp. pp. 170, n. 3; 262, 265. See also Douglas, The Beast Within, pp. 41–63, esp. pp. 42, 45.
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(from the latter part of the twelfth century, but also preserved in an English translation of the fourteenth century, William of Palerne),59 the Lai de
Bisclavret (composed in the late twelfth century and translated into Old
Norse, along with other lais, in the thirteenth century), the Lai de Melion
(composed in the mid-thirteenth century), and Arthur and Gorlagon (found
in manuscripts from the fourteenth century). The stories under discussion
come from the relatively geographically restricted Celtic cultural region,
which includes Ireland, England, Wales, Brittany, and France.60
The “courtly” werewolves of these stories are highly interesting with
regard to the development of the werewolf motif in Iceland and are therefore worth examining briefly.
Guillaume de Palerne tells of an evil stepmother who changes a king’s
son into a wolf by using a magic ointment. After numerous attempts, the
queen alleviates the spell to some degree by using a formula she finds in
a magician’s book. The werewolf is Christian and behaves well and is in
no way connected with the darker forces of nature. The story is conceivably influenced by Bisclavret. The Lai de Melion contains the motif of the
deceitful wife. Her husband is changed into a werewolf by means of a
magic ring, and after various hardships King Arthur takes the wolf under
his protection. The wolf attacks his wife’s lover and is in the end set free.
The motif reflects that found in both Bisclavret and Guillaume de Palerne.
The hero of Arthur and Gorlagon has power over his werewolf nature and
is able to transform himself. A deceitful wife discovers his secret, transforms her husband, and runs off with her lover. The werewolf flees to the
forest and raises a family with a she-wolf. He kills the king’s livestock and
is pursued by the king’s men, but he ends up as the king’s pet. The king
helps the werewolf find his deceitful wife and forces her to change him
back into his previous form.
Of greater interest, because it appears to have influenced Icelandic
literature, is Bisclaretz ljód, a thirteenth-century Norse translation of the
aforementioned Lai de Bisclavret.61 The protagonist, Bisclaret, is born with
the horrible nature of a werewolf and is transformed regularly into a wolf
for three days each week. Before the transformation can take place, he has
to disrobe. The antagonist in the story is Bisclaret’s unfaithful wife who
59. The prose version of the story was printed in France in 1552 and circulated widely.
The story was translated into Irish in the sixteenth century, based on a printed version of an
English translation from the first part of the sixteenth century. The author claims to have
derived his material from Latin sources. See Summers, The Werewolf, pp. 220–22.
60. See H. G. Leach, Angevin Britain and Scandinavia (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press,
1921), pp. 210–11; Kittredge, “Arthur and Gorlagon,” pp. 257–60; and Carey, “Werewolves
in Medieval Ireland,” pp. 40–43.
61. See “Bisclaretz ljód,” in Strengleikar, ed. Robert Cook and Mattias Tveitane, Norrøne
tekster, 3 (Oslo: Norsk Historisk Kjeldeskrift-Institutt, 1979), pp. 85–99.
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hides his clothes, so that he cannot change back into his human form.
While he is in his werewolf shape one day, Bisclaret is bagged by the king’s
men, but he manages to gain the king’s sympathy and ends up as his pet.
Later, he reveals his deceitful wife and her lover, who are then punished
accordingly.
The story is preserved in a Norwegian manuscript together with other
translations of lais; the collection is known as Strengleikar. Although the
lai is not preserved in an Icelandic manuscript, there is evidence that
the story was known in Iceland in the late Middle Ages, since much of
its material reappears in an Icelandic romance, Tíódels saga, as will be
discussed in more detail below. An interesting addition to Bisclaretz ljód is
provided by the Norse translator, who affirms the narrative’s credibility
on the grounds that he personally knew a werewolf!
mart gærdezt kynlegt i fyrnskonne. pat er ængi hœyrir nu gætet. En sa er pessa
bok norrœnade hann sa i bærnsko sinni æinn rikan bonda er hamskiftisk
stundum var hann madr stundum i vargs ham. ok talde allt pat er vargar at
hofduzt mædan.
([M]any strange things happened in olden times that no one hears mentioned now. He who translated this book into Norse saw in his childhood
a wealthy farmer who shifted his shape, and he told everything that wolves
did in the meantime.)62
As we can see from these examples, the most distinctive feature of the
“romantic” werewolves is that they are sympathetic, since they are most
commonly the victims of an evil villain. Other common motifs are that
the men either transform themselves after disrobing (already in Petronius
and Evantes) or are victims of spells or enchantment; usually, their transformation is temporary (this already occurs in the story by Evantes). In
some of these stories, the werewolves are the victims of deceitful women
and most of them therefore reflect a misogynistic attitude. Several of these
werewolves are pursued in their wolf’s shape and some of them manage
to enjoy the mercy of chieftains, which leads to their redemption and the
vindication of their honor.
The More Recent Variant In Iceland:
Celtic-Influenced Stories
The Celtic lais are commonly characterized by the use of various formulae, as has been noted. The werewolves in the following Icelandic stories
resemble those in Celtic narratives in many ways. The werewolf motif in
62. “Bisclaretz ljód,” in Strengleikar, pp. 98–99.
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Ála flekks saga, a fourteenth-century indigenous romance, preserved in
AM 589 e 4to from circa 1450–1500, is considered old and it has been
suggested that its origin lies in a lost Irish tale.63 The existence of Irish
motifs in Ála flekks saga, however, may perhaps also be explained in terms
of oral tradition in Iceland, which was extremely rich in Celtic motifs. Áli,
the protagonist of Ála flekks saga, changes into a wolf because of a slave’s
spell, which is worded as follows:
legg ek pat á pik, at pú verdir at vargi ok farir á skóg ok drepir bædi menn ok
f[é], ok á pat fé grimmastr, er meykonungr á, ok at pví mest leggjaz. [. . .] Pat
legg ek pó enn til vid pik, Áli! at pá er pú hefir eytt ollu fé í [ríki] Pornbjargar
dróttningar, skyndir pú í ríki fodur píns ok eirir par hvárki fé né monnum,
ok ekki skal pér til unda[n]lausnar annat um pína æfi, nema at nokkur kona
verdi til at bidja grida fyrir pik, pá er pú verdr handtekinn, ok verdir pú af pví
lauss; en pat mun aldri verda.64
([T]his I cast upon you—you will become a wolf and run to the woods and
kill both men and sheep, and be fiercest toward and attack most fiercely the
sheep that the maiden-king owns. [. . .] Again I cast this upon you, Áli! that
when you have destroyed all the sheep in Queen Pornbjörg’s kingdom, you
will rush back to your father’s kingdom and there show mercy to neither
sheep nor man, and nothing will free you your whole life, unless a woman
begs for mercy for you if you are captured. Only in this way can you be set
free; but this will never happen.)
Áli’s existence as a wolf is not necessarily permanent: he can be freed
when certain conditions are fulfilled. The king, Áli’s father, offers a reward
for the wolf, which is finally caught, but Áli’s foster-mother, who recognizes
his eyes despite the wolf-shape, pleads for mercy for him. She takes the
wolf into her custody and while she sleeps Áli emerges from the wolf’s
hamr, which is, in the end, burned.65 It is common that men in animal
form retain the appearance of human eyes. According to certain beliefs
concerning shape-shifting, the soul settles into the animal form, that is,
the animal’s body, but it maintains its own form unchanged. The man
within the animal can therefore be recognized by his eyes, which are a
mirror of the soul. This occurs in other Icelandic sagas as well, such as in
Hrólfs saga kraka, and can be useful for breaking spells, but elsewhere it is
thought to be enough simply to speak the name of the lycanthrope.66 In
63. See Kittredge, “Arthur and Gorlagon,” p. 256.
64. Ála flekks saga, p. 99.
65. In tales of shape-shifting, people commonly burn the animal skin, and this appears
to be the most secure way of permanently finding freedom. Fire plays a very important role
here, as elsewhere, in eliminating impurities, and it is often the only thing effective against
sorcery and sorcerers as well as hauntings (cf. witch burnings and burnings of gravemound
dwellers).
66. According to late Scandinavian werewolf tales, there are various ways of breaking
werewolf spells; see, for instance, Odstedt, Varulven i Svensk folktradition.
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both cases, it is necessary to recognize the human in the animal. While Áli
received his wolf shape as the result of a curse, how he turned into a wolf
is not depicted, nor exactly how he emerged from his lycanthropic form.
But since the pelt (hamr) is burned, as is common, it can be assumed this
is the case of a pelt that has been “thrown over” Áli (“steypist yfir”) and
that then falls off, as occurs in Tíódels saga below.
The story of Úlfhamr is a legendary saga from the fourteenth century.
It is preserved in a fourteenth-century narrative poem in stanzas (rímur)
(in AM 604 h 4to from circa 1550), and the narrative is also transmitted
in verse-derived prose versions from the seventeenth, eighteenth, and
nineteenth centuries.67 Úlfhams saga contains an extremely interesting
variant of the werewolf motif. It deals in part with Hálfdan Gautakonungr,
also called Vargstakkr. An evil spell cast by Vörn, whom he has defeated in
battle, proclaims that he, along with his men, will transform themselves
into wolves and wander around in the forest every winter. During the
spring he gains his freedom and takes over the management of the government at home until the end of the summer.
There are certain differences between the verse and prose versions.
In the rímur, the transformation is ambiguous, since Vargstakkr is like
a wolf (“skyldi hann vörgum líkur”), whereas in the prose versions he
actually has the shape of a wolf. The most prominent characteristics of
the werewolf tale seen here are the spell and the seasonal transformation
from man into wolf and vice versa. Vargstakkr’s seasonal transformation is unique, but comparable to other related stories, for instance the
man-bear motif in Hrólfs saga kraka, where Björn is a man during the
night and a bear during the day.68 Additionally, the spell affects his close
companions, which is a unique twist among comparable native Icelandic stories and medieval European narratives. Because of Vörn’s defeat
(and death), the transformation takes on the quality of punishment or
vengeance and is therefore closely related to the idea of the outlaw as a
wolf. Despite the fact that Hálfdan and his men are without any doubt
victims, the saga reflects the motif of the wolf as an animal of winter and
a creature of darkness. Therefore, the story casts light on Hálfdan and his
warriors as both human and animalistic at once, as actually befits “good”
warriors.
67. See Adalheidur Gudmundsdóttir, ed. Úlfhams saga, in which all texts are edited diplomatically. Úlfhams rímur are also printed in Rímnasafn II, ed. by Finnur Jónsson (Copenhagen:
Samfund til udgivelse af gammel nordisk litteratur, 1913–22), pp. 133–69, and in a book
accompanying a CD with a recording of the rímur. See Adalheidur Gudmundsdóttir, ed.,
Úlfhams rímur. Steindór Andersen kvedur (Reykjavík: 12 tónar, 2004); references to the
rímur are to this edition, which has modern Icelandic spelling. The following quotations
from the A, B, and C versions are from Úlfhams saga, here printed with modern spelling.
68. Saga Hrólfs konungs kraka, pp. 50–51.
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Furthermore, Hildr, Hálfdan’s deceitful queen, seems to possess a wolfish nature. Not only is this reflected in her actions and manners, but also
in a dream in which she appears as a she-wolf, leading a pack of wolves.
She is even directly likened to a wolf (st. I, 20.2) and her army is described
as an army of wolves, which tears apart their enemies’ bodies (st. II, 32.2).
It should come as no surprise that the son of this wolf-natured couple is
named Úlfhamr (“wolf-skin/pelt”), indicating that the son has inherited
his father’s ability to change shape, just as Bödvar bjarki, in Hrólfs saga
kraka, inherits the same ability from his father. Úlfhamr’s ability to change
shape, by contrast, is nowhere described.69
Finally, it should be mentioned that vargar (i.e., actual wolves) are never
far off when battles are fought in Úlfhams saga, and commonly the dead
soldiers are eaten by them. This motif appears frequently in Icelandic narrative tradition; it is common in the kennings of dróttkvætt poetry, which
may have served as a model here. This can be seen, for instance, in stanzas
V, 26–27, which depict a battle with berserks and their team:
Allan dag gekk örva hríd,
ógn er mikil ad heyra.
Vargar koma par víst í stríd
og velja um manna dreyra.
Arrows showered all day long,
the noise inspired dread,
Wolves, aroused by battle’s song,
savored the blood of the dead.
Pann veg lyktar Pundar sveim,This, then, was the battle’s end:
pegnar daudir liggja.
the field’s strewn with slain.
Ylgur baud peim öllum heim,The she-wolf bade them like a friend;
ýtar petta piggja.
her offer none did disdain.70
Several features of the werewolf motif hint at a relationship to the Celtic
stories, among them the spell and Hálfdan’s temporary existence as a wolf,
which possibly has its origin in the same source as the stories of Bisclaret
and Arthur and Gorlagon. Besides this, the deceitful wife, who is dissatisfied
with the wolf nature of her husband and has her eye on a younger man,
is present in all three of these stories. Úlfhams saga, however, also employs
Germanic narrative traditions and resembles Völsunga saga in some ways,
for instance, in the combination of werewolves and warriors. In spite of
these obvious similarities, Vargstakkr’s story differs from other Icelandic
werewolf stories in that it never mentions that as a wolf he is cruel—instead
he lies out in the forest “in despair.” His misfortune is tragic and leads to his
death, which also sets Úlfhams saga sharply apart from the Celtic stories. In
all, Úlfhams saga adds an interesting variant to the werewolf motif, drawing
69. On the name “Úlfhamr,” see Breen, “Personal Names and the Re-creation of Berserkir
and Úlfhednar,” especially pp. 28–31.
70. Adalheidur Gudmundsdóttir, ed. Úlfhams rímur, st. V, 26 and 27, p. 24; English translation by Jeffrey Cosser. For more examples, see, for instance, verses II, 32.2; III, 32.1; III,
41.4; V, 11.3–4; and V, 26.3–4.
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partly on Celtic material and partly on Old Norse, along with some original
additions, presumably by its fourteenth-century author.
Along with Ála flekks saga and Úlfhams saga, two other tales, Tíódels saga
and Jóns saga leikara, are distinctly influenced by the Celtic stories.
Tíódels saga is extant only in late manuscripts, of which the oldest dates
from circa 1600. The saga contains a motif similar to that of the story of
Bisclaret, and even though the material is exploited in quite dissimilar
ways, much of its material must doubtlessly derive from Bisclaretz ljód.
It is unlikely, however, that the author of Tíódels saga used the version
that is extant in the Norse translation as a source; it is more likely that
he used another, independent source.71 Tíódel transforms himself, but
his shape-shifting ability is not limited to one form, for he can change
himself into a grey bear, a white bear, a wolf (vargur), or other animals.
He usually changes shape and dwells in the forest three or four days each
week. The story, however, tells of the occasion on which his deceitful wife
managed to trap him in his white bear shape. In the end, his shape falls
from him in a standard way, as is common in fairy tales of more recent
date:
Og sem konungur gengur til herbergis sins sier hann huar madur sefur j
sænginne bæde fridur oc fagur, oc par kenner konungur sinn gamlan vin
Thíódel riddara. En odrum meginn j herberginu sier hann huitann oc leid
inlegann ham.72
(And when the king walks into his room, he sees a man lying in the bed, fair
and handsome, and there the king recognizes his old friend Tíódel the knight.
On the other side of the room he sees a white and unfortunate hamr.)
Jóns saga leikara is a chivalric tale from around 1400, preserved in AM
174 fol. from the seventeenth century. The story includes an evil stepmother who changes the protagonist, the king’s son Sigurdr, into a wolf by
striking him with wolfskin gloves. The blow seems to generate the charm,
and the transformation into a wolf follows as a direct result: “oc sijndist
hann aff pvi vargur vera”73 (and because of this he appeared to be a wolf).
This procedure, to hit the victim with a wolfskin glove, already appeared
in the man-bear motif in Hrólfs saga kraka and seems to have roots that
can be traced to the idea that shape-shifting follows in the wake of being
71. See Leach, Angevin Britain and Scandinavia, p. 212, and Marianne E. Kalinke, “A
Werewolf in Bear’s Clothing,” Maal og Minne, 3–4 (1981), 139–44. Concerning Tíódels saga,
see also E. Kölbing, “Über isländische Bearbeitungen fremder Stoffe,” Germania, 17 (1872),
196; R. Meissner, “Die geschichte vom ritter Tiodel und seiner ungetreuen frau,” Zeitschrift
für deutsches Altertum, 47 (1904), 247–67.
72. Textual references to AM 578g 4to. See p. 7v.
73. Cited from AM 174 fol., p. 10r. The story has not been published.
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clothed in an animal’s pelt—sufficient here is the touch of a pelt, along
with the stepmother’s magic arts.74
A direct or indirect connection between the wolf and the stepmother
occurs in several Icelandic stories and it seems that the relationship has
a long history. Most of the Icelandic stepmothers (in the “stepmother
tales”)75 belong to the race of trolls (who are versed in sorcery), and the
relationship between troll women and wolves goes back to ancient Norse
folk beliefs. In the Eddic poem Helga kvida Hjörvardssonar, a troll woman
rides a wolf, and there are numerous other stories that mention a connection between wolves and troll women.76 Some people believed that troll
women could change themselves into the shape of wolves. Presumably this
plays a part in the fact that the magic arts of the trollish stepmothers have
a tendency to be connected with wolves in one way or another. Margaret
Schlauch believed that the connection between the evil stepmother and
the werewolf motifs could have had its origin in Ireland and come from
there into the Icelandic narratives.77 However, the motif of the stepmother
changing her stepson into a werewolf is found in many places apart from
Ireland; it appears, for example, in stories from almost all the Nordic
countries. These stories are of recent date and for the most part dissimilar
to the Irish stories. It is rather unlikely that other Nordic nations derived
the motif from Ireland, for if this had been the case, the Nordic stories
would probably contain Irish motifs in addition to that of the werewolf.
Therefore, the possibility that Icelanders recognized the connection between these motifs, i.e., the werewolf motif and the wicked stepmother
motif, prior to the period of Celtic influence, cannot be excluded, since
74. Saga Hrólfs konungs kraka, ch. 25, p. 50, and Jóns saga leikara. See Åke Lagerholm, ed.
Drei lygisogur, p. lxiii, and also p. lxv, where Lagerholm points out a parallel in a Norwegian
folk song about the boy Lavrans. It should also be mentioned that gloves made of animal
skin were used in magic ceremonies, both in seidr and other shamanastic practices; see Hilda
R. Ellis Davidson, The Viking Road to Byzantium (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1976),
p. 287. Furthermore, Celtic stories contain instances of persons placing spells on others by
striking them with a wand; see Carey, “Werewolves in Medieval Ireland,” p. 39.
75. See Adalheidur Gudmundsdóttir, “Stjúpur í vondu skapi,” Tímarit Máls og menningar,
3 (1995), 25–36, and Úlfhams saga, pp. clxvii–clxxxi.
76. “Helgakvida Hjörvardssonar,” st. 35, and the prose text between stanzas 30 and 31, in
Eddadigte, III, 26–28. See also the giantess Hyrrokkin in “Gylfaginning,” in Snorri Sturluson,
Edda, p. 46. For more examples of the link between wolves and troll women, see Knut Liestøl,
Saga og folkeminne, pp. 112–13, and Hermann Pálsson, “Vargur á tölti: Drög ad norrænni
tröllafrædi,” in Heidin minni. Greinar um fornar bókmenntir, eds. Haraldr Bessason and Baldur
Hafstad (Reykjavík: Heimskringla, 1999), pp. 141–57. It should be noted that, according to
trials in Switzerland in previous centuries, witches were supposed to have ridden on wolves.
See Douglas, The Beast Within, p. 159.
77. Margaret Schlauch, Romance in Iceland (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1934), p.
102. Cf. Carey, “Werewolves in Medieval Ireland,” p. 40.
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a majority of the Icelanders originally came from Scandinavia, i.e., the
territory of the wolf, and it is likely that stories about wolves were brought
by the settlers to their new home.78
A unique variant, in which the stepmother motif, the spell motif, and
the werewolf motif are combined, occurs in Sagan af Porsteini glott, a folk
tale of relatively recent date that was recorded at the beginning of the
twentieth century. It is unusual in that the stepmother herself, Helga,
is the victim of a spell cast by her own mother, a troll woman. The spell
transforms her into “the most savage wolf-bitch” (hin grimmasta úlftík)
who kills both people and livestock and is to be burned at the stake after
the king’s men have managed to overpower her. Porsteinn glott, Helga’s
stepson, who also suffers from the ill will of the troll woman, resorts to
counter-spells and finally manages to save his stepmother at the moment
when four men are forcing her towards the fire.79
Finally, the motif is found in another folktale of recent date called Hvad
pýdir “sár”? This tells of Vilhjálmur, a curious boy who has a spell cast on
him because of his curiosity. Vilhjálmur, who is always asking questions,
one day finds himself asked a question that he is unable to answer. For this,
the questioner changes him into a wolf; he is to remain a wolf for one year.
At the end of the year he meets the questioner but is still unable to answer
the question, and he is now changed into a bear for a year. Everyone is
afraid of the bear; at the end of the year he is still unable to answer the
question and is changed into a bird. His ordeal ends well, however, and
later, when he has to deal with a difficult situation, he appears to have
gained control of his shape-shifting and is able to change himself into a
wolf, a bear, or a bird at will.80
Of course the two folk tales above cannot be considered medieval, even
though the main features of the werewolf motif, including the spells,
persecution by the king’s men, and the temporary transformation into
an animal, can certainly be traced back to medieval Icelandic material. It
is noteworthy that in both tales people change into úlfar, not vargar.
78. For an example of Celtic influence on Danish narrative, see Kristensen, Dansk Sagn
II, p. 239. In the folk ballad Jomfruen i Ulveham, which is extant in Danish, Norwegian, and
Swedish versions, a stepmother turns her stepdaughter (-son) into a wolf. See Danmarks gamle
folkeviser II, ed. Svend Grundtvig (Copenhagen: Universitets-Jubilæets Danske Samfund,
1966), pp. 156–58, and The Types of the Scandinavian Medieval Ballad, ed. Bengt R. Jonsson
et al. (Stockholm: Svenskt visarkiv and Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1978), p. 30.
79. Oddur Björnsson, Pjódtrú og pjódsagnir, I (Akureyri: Bókaverzlun og prentsmidja Odds
Björnssonar, 1908), I, 310–16. On the recording of the tale, see pp. 13–14. A variant of the
tale, printed in Jón Árnason, Íslenzkar pjódsögur og ævintýri, IV, 580–82, does not include the
shape-changing episode.
80. Björn R. Stefánsson, Sex pjódsögur (Reykjavík: Bókaverzlun Ársæls Árnasonar, 1926),
pp. 7–28.
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301
The werewolf motif as found in the abovementioned stories can be seen
to be closely related to the variant found in medieval Celtic literature.
The main characteristic of the “romantic” or “courtly” werewolf—that
he enjoys others’ sympathy—is present in the aforementioned Icelandic
sources, in which the werewolves are, most of the time, victims of an
evildoer.
A More Recent Variant with Native Roots
Despite the fact that werewolves in medieval Icelandic literature can be
traced back to two different origins, an Irish and a Nordic origin, the motif
in the Icelandic tales under discussion has common features. The werewolves are usually men who are put under a spell or deceived by women.
Only four women, the mother of King Siggeirr in Völsunga saga, Idunn in
Hrafnagaldur Ódins, Hlégerdr in Sigrgards saga frækna, and Helga in Sagan af
Porsteini glott, change into wolves. In the first three cases, the transformation
is voluntary, as they all change themselves, and thus this appears to fit with
the older, Old Norse/Germanic variant of the werewolf motif.
In stories of Old Norse origin, the werewolf is an evildoer and reflects
the Germanic idea of the outlaw as a wolf, or vargr. Váli, Idunn, Sigmundr,
and Sinfjötli change their shape as well as their nature and become more
cruel after the transformation, while Asper, Gustr, Siggeirr’s mother, and
Hlégerdr turn themselves into wolves in order to attack and fight other
people.
Certainly, the werewolves with prototypes in Celtic stories are also cruel.
Bisclaret, Áli, and Sigurdr live as wolves in the forest and therefore kill
animals for food, but they seldom kill humans. Their wolfish nature is not
deeply rooted, and their “better” (human) nature is always stronger. They
are themselves victims of circumstances or curses and therefore enjoy a
certain sympathy. They are extremely discontent as wolves and long to
be freed, but this always depends upon the kindness of others. Furthermore, these wolves are no longer beasts of battle, as are the ones in the
Old Norse/Germanic variant of the motif. Common to the Icelandic and
Celtic-influenced material are certain formulaic phrases that bear witness
to the motif’s standardization, for example, the werewolves’ disappearance
into the woods. They run about “á vidom,” “á merkr,” “um morkena,” and
“á skóg.” Furthermore, werewolves tear (“rífa”) their prey apart. While
phrases are formulaic as well as naturalistic, since all wolves run off to the
forest and tear apart their prey, they nevertheless show similarities in both
the depiction of the werewolves and the vocabulary used.
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302
Conclusion
Now, having discussed the Icelandic sources that preserve the werewolf
motif, it is appropriate to ask what role it played in the literature of a
people who, as has been mentioned, never experienced any real fear of
wolves, since they are not found in the fauna of the country. If we could
ask the tellers of tales from past centuries what they were aiming at when
they told stories of werewolves, it is not certain that they would have ready
answers available, or that their answers would tally; they were simply participants in a narrative tradition, and consequently their stories and the
motifs they contained necessarily reflected the images and symbols in use
in Old Norse/Icelandic culture.
The image of the wolf in the literature of past ages is a complex one,
reflecting both positive and negative attitudes on the part of man towards
the animal. This duality of attitude reflects fear, on the one hand, and a
type of respect, on the other. Today, admittedly, we are used to seeing the
wolf as a symbol of evil rather than good, a symbol of hunger and greed
and aggression. The role of the insatiable wolf in Little Red Riding Hood is
to swallow the little girl rapaciously, and this connects him to the Fenrisúlfr
of Norse mythology, which swallows the sun at Ragnarök. The reason why
men identify with the wolf may lie precisely here: that these characteristics
of the wolf, hunger and greed, are both human characteristics. Hunger
can arouse primitive urges in man, and a tough struggle for food encourages behavior that is reminiscent of that of the wolf. Thus, greed is a deeprooted characteristic in man, though it may lie closer or nearer to the
surface; and greedy people were likened to wolves from early times. The
qualities symbolized by the wolf would seem to be innate in man too; in
stories about werewolves they can be said to become incarnate, taking on
a palpable form in the visible wild animal, thus becoming distanced from
human nature. But the idea that the unconscious—or what is concealed
in the depths of consciousness—can take control in this way is frightening
and holds a fascination for people today just as it had in earlier ages.
As has been seen, the werewolf motif in Icelandic literature plays two
roles. In the older stories, there is a direct relationship between man and
wolf, and the motif is closely connected with Germanic battle traditions.
Stories of the thirteenth century and of more recent date probably played
a rather different role from the beginning, being rooted in the narrative
art of the medieval courts, from which their atmosphere and romantic
outlook sprang. These stories were probably valued primarily as entertainment value; nevertheless, the comparison between man and wolf must
have appealed to the audience’s imagination in the same way as before.
Medieval Icelandic literature preserves ancient ideas of shape-shifting
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303
in stories of werewolves. This ancient motif, found in the Eddic poems as
well as Snorra Edda, was “reborn” in legendary sagas and romances from
the thirteenth century and later and was primarily influenced by foreign
literature, such as the story of Bisclaret and perhaps other tales of Celtic origin. As native Icelandic stories of werewolves already existed, even though
they were of different kind, the native and imported traditions came to
mingle, each influencing the other, thus leading to a combination of two
variants of one motif. Stories rooted in the Celtic heritage were colored
by the native Norse tradition, while the older Norse stories came under
the influence of the Celtic tales. This cross-fertilization already appears
in the thirteenth-century Völsunga saga, and even more distinctly in the
fourteenth-century Úlfhams saga, which draws upon the Old Norse variant
of the motif, that of the úlfhédnar (animal warriors) and outlaws, while at
the same time it reflects the Celtic material. This tale, along with other
Celtic-influenced stories, shows how the conceptual world of chivalric
literature influenced an ancient motif.
The Old Norse belief in werewolves seems to have disappeared among
Icelanders in the fifteenth/sixteenth century, for the werewolf motif hardly appears in the literature from that time on, apart from the two folktales
mentioned above.81 We may surmise that the Celtic material played its
part in this, by “romanticizing” the idea of the werewolf and finally making him more like a fairy-tale figure than the actual shape-shifter that
people originally believed in, with his connection to animal warriors and
outlaws.
81. For references to more recent sources, see Adalheidur Gudmundsdóttir, ed., Úlfhams
saga, p. ccvi.
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Old English Meter and Oral Tradition:
Three Issues Bearing on Poetic Chronology
R. D. Fulk, Indiana University
The study of metrical means of gauging the relative antiquity of Old English poems is founded on the assumption that language change should
be reflected in scansional differences among poems of various ages. The
relation between meter and chronology, however, is not an unmediated
one: metrical conservatism does not unambiguously indicate archaic composition, because in respect to nearly every chronological variable that has
been proposed, the influence of oral tradition must be taken into account.
It is this remarkably conservative tradition that insulates the language of
verse from the immediate effects of change, allowing archaic language
forms to persist in poetry long after they have been lost from everyday
speech, disappearing slowly as the tradition evolves. The implications of
this mediating role of poetic tradition must continually be kept in mind
in connection with chronological studies.
It is the purpose of this essay to examine some possible metrical criteria
for establishing a poetic chronology. In the course of this discussion, attempts will be made to illustrate some of the ways that an understanding
of the role of oral tradition is crucial and also to set a certain limit on
that role by showing that in some poems, most notably Beowulf, there are
signs of metrical conservatism that cannot plausibly be attributed to the
preservative effect of the poetic tradition. That is, they must reflect living
linguistic oppositions that more directly attest early composition. The key
to understanding the preservative effect of oral tradition, it will be seen,
is the linguistic variation that it produces. After all, such a tradition cannot preserve archaic linguistic features forever in an immutable state: a
tradition that excluded change entirely, preserving archaisms without any
signs of decay to the tradition over time, would be incredible.
I. Terasawa’s Law and Nonparasiting
In 1905, Hans Weyhe observed that in Old English poetry, hild- ‘battle’ as
the initial constituent of a compound frequently takes the form hilde-, and
that the two forms of the constituent are in nearly perfect complementary
Journal of English and Germanic Philology—July
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Old English Meter and Oral Tradition
305
distribution on the basis of morphology.1 When the second constituent of
the compound begins with a light syllable, the connecting vowel is absent,
as in hild-fruma ‘war-chief’, hild-lata ‘coward’, and so forth. Otherwise the
form hilde- is used, as in hilde-bord ‘battle-shield’, hilde-mfce ‘battle-sword’,
and hilde-mæcg ‘warrior’. In the corpus of Old English poetry there are
ninety-five instances of hilde- as the initial constituent of a compound,
fifty-two of them in Beowulf. The only undeniable exceptions to the pattern are hildbedd styred at Andreas 1092b and hearde hildefrecan at Beowulf
2205a.2 Fr. Klaeber and several more recent editors, including the textually very conservative Else von Schaubert, regard the latter compound as
a scribal alteration and emend to hildfrecan, as first suggested by N. F. S.
Grundtvig.3 They are probably justified in doing so, not only because of
the great regularity of the pattern, but also because hildfreca is the regular form of the word elsewhere in verse, at Beowulf 2366a and Andreas
126a, 1070a. Weyhe regards this regularity as a morphological archaism
preserved in the conservative language of verse, and he is most likely
right. Comparison cannot be drawn to prose distributions, since hild is an
exclusively poetic word, but Hilde- is found in personal names, and they
show no distributional tendency comparable to that in verse—though, to
be sure, the evidence is slender.4
More recently, Jun Terasawa has noted that this morphological pattern
is one expression of a general metrical regularity.5 Old English poets tend
to avoid constructing verses with the morphology and the distribution of
stress and syllable quantities found in hearde hildefrecan, regardless of whether
1. Hans Weyhe, “Beiträge zur westgermanischen Grammatik,” Beiträge zur Geschichte der
deutschen Sprache und Literatur, 30 (1905), 79–83.
2. The verse hildegicelum 1606b is only a seeming exception: the second vowel in -gicelum
is analogically restored after having been syncopated, and in metrically conservative compositions like Beowulf, such vowels may always be ignored in scansion after a heavy syllable,
and often after a light, being late scribal additions. See Eduard Sievers, “Zur Rhythmik des
germanischen Alliterationsverses,” Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur,
10 (1885), 459–64. Here and throughout, poetry is cited from the edition of George Philip
Krapp and Elliott Van Kirk Dobbie, The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records, 6 vols. (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1931–53), though for metrical convenience, macrons have been added to
indicate vowel quantities.
3. Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg, ed. Fr. Klaeber, 3d ed. with 1st and 2d supplements
(Boston: Heath, 1950); Heyne-Schückings Beowulf, ed. Else von Schaubert, 18th ed. (of vol.
1; 17th of vols. 2–3) (Paderborn: Schöningh, 1961–63); Beowulfes beorh, eller Bjovulfs-drapen,
det old-angelske heltedigt, ed. N. F. S. Grundtvig (Copenhagen: Schönberg, 1861).
4. Hilde- is well attested in names, but there are just two recorded Old English names in
which it precedes a light syllable, Hildesige and Hildewine: see William George Searle, Onomasticon Anglo-Saxonicum (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1897), pp. 297–98.
5. Jun Terasawa, Nominal Compounds in Old English: A Metrical Approach, Anglistica, 27
(Copenhagen: Rosenkilde and Bagger, 1994). The essentials of his findings are presented
in an earlier article, “Metrical Constraints on Old English Compounds,” Poetica (Tokyo), 31
(1989), 1–16.
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Fulk
the compound element hilde- is in use. That is, they avoid compounds that
require resolution at the start of the second constituent if it follows an
unstressed syllable. Thus, compounds like æfter-cwependra (Seafarer 72) and
dryhten-bealu (Guthlac B 1349a) are quite unusual. This principle may conveniently be referred to as Terasawa’s law.6 It should be noted that the law
is constructed on both metrical and morphological principles. It is metrical
because it does not apply in prose, in which compounds like hfafod-cwide
‘chapter’ and hblig-waras ‘saints’ are nothing out of the ordinary. Yet morphology, in the form of juncture, also plays a role, since the law apparently
is not breached when an unstressed syllable between the two constituents
belongs to the second rather than the first: gvd-getawa ‘war-equipment’ and
ford-gewitenum ‘deceased’, for example, are not disallowed.
A useful feature of Terasawa’s law is that it permits disambiguation of
certain compounds in which it is not otherwise plain whether a resonant
consonant at the end of the first constituent is to be regarded as syllabic
or nonsyllabic. Syllabicity in such resonants is the result of West Germanic
parasiting. A Germanic form such as *wfpnam (MnE weapon) lost the ending
*-am early, and in West Germanic, the resulting *wæpn remained monosyllabic for a time, just as the Old Icelandic cognate vápn must be scanned
as a monosyllable in verse;7 and, indeed, Modern Icelandic vopn remains
a monosyllable to this day. Eventually the final -n became syllabic in West
Germanic, and it is often written with a parasite vowel as -en or -un in Old
English; hence Old English wæpen beside wæpn. At least some of the resonants involved must have become syllabic long before the composition of
the earliest preserved Old English poetry, but the language of verse is so
conservative in its preservation of poetic traditions that even in a poem
composed as late as The Battle of Maldon (A.D. 991 or later) there is an
example of monosyllabic scansion of a form written with a parasite vowel
(wæpen 130b). The proportion of forms without metrically detectable parasiting to forms with it varies widely from one Old English poem to the next,
and nonparasited forms are commonest in poems that have traditionally
been regarded as likeliest to be relatively early compositions. The data are
examined, and an overview of the scholarship offered, in A History of Old
English Meter (hereinafter cited as HOEM).8 The proportions of metrically
6. Terasawa also finds that resolvable second constituents are avoided immediately after
a resolved constituent: e.g., compounds like wider-breca ‘adversary’ and fore-spreca ‘advocate’
seem problematic in verse. Since this is an approximation of one of Sievers’ principles, and
since it is of no particular relevance to the present context, it seems best to exclude this
principle when reference is made to Terasawa’s law.
7. For example, in the verse dýrt vápn fela (Hervararkvida 11, cited from Eddukvædi, ed.
Gudni Jónsson, 2 vols. [Reykjavík: Íslendingasagnaútgáfan, 1949]). Note that final resolution is disallowed in fornyrdislag.
8. R. D. Fulk, A History of Old English Meter (Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press,
1992), chap. 1 (hereinafter HOEM). The findings about parasiting in HOEM were initially
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307
unambiguous verses in those poems studied in HOEM are given in Table 1,
in which a clear distinction in the incidence of nonparasiting is evident between Genesis A, Daniel, and Beowulf, on the one hand, and presumably later
poems (excepting Maldon, which yields insufficient data), on the other.9
The numbers alone support traditional assumptions about dating, but it
should be noted that since what is actually being measured is each poet’s
awareness of poetic traditions, the variety of lexical items involved is also
significant. Thus, although there are six instances of nonparasiting in the
Meters of Boethius, they all pertain to a single item of vocabulary, tungol ‘star’,
while the lexical items involved are quite various in the first three poems
in the table.
Many verses are excluded from the figures in Table 1 because of metrical
ambiguity. Thus, for example, ac mf sceal wæpen niman (Maldon 252b) may
represent a verse of either Sievers’s type B1, with resolution of niman, or
type C3, with wæpen regarded as a monosyllable. Terasawa’s law permits disambiguation of many verses in which the first constituent of a compound
ends in a syllabic resonant. An example is herede hlfodorcwidum (Andreas
819a), which cannot be scanned as type D*4 without breach of the law.
Table 1. The proportion of metrically confirmable
instances of nonparasiting to instances of parasiting
in some Old English poems.
Genesis A (2,319 lines)
Daniel (774 lines)
Beowulf (3,182 lines)
Exodus (590 lines)
Works of Cynewulf (2,601 lines)
Andreas (1,722 lines)
Works of King Alfred (1,796 lines)
Poems from the Chronicle (178 lines)
Judith (349 lines)
The Battle of Maldon (325 lines)
13:10
3:3
24:7
2:9
1:31
6:23
6:18
1:2
0:7
1:0
reported in “West Germanic Parasiting, Sievers’ Law, and the Dating of Old English Verse,”
Studies in Philology, 86 (1989), 117–38. Subsequent studies that deal with the phenomenon
are B. R. Hutcheson, Old English Poetic Metre (Cambridge: Brewer, 1995), pp. 45–62, and
Seiichi Suzuki, The Metrical Organization of “Beowulf”: Prototype and Isomorphism (Berlin: Mouton
de Gruyter, 1996), pp. 19–20.
9. The figures in the table combine the data presented in HOEM §§ 88 and 91, and as
explained there, they concern only forms with an etymologically heavy syllable before the
resonant. In Beowulf, the verse æppelfealuwe (2165a, overlooked in HOEM) has been added,
in which both -el- and -uw- show parasiting, but only the former is of the early, West Germanic type. The insufficiency of the data for Maldon is due to an abnormally low incidence
of relevant, metrically unambiguous verses in the poem. The one example represents 0.15
percent of the total number of verses in the poem. The next lowest incidence is to be found
in Daniel (0.39 percent); the highest in Judith (1.00 percent). The low incidence in Maldon
is very likely an expression of the lateness of the poem’s composition.
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Fulk
Therefore, hlfodor- must be a monosyllable. Yet Terasawa’s law admits a
number of exceptions. For example, the verse pæt vs gystrandæge (Andreas
852a) is an unmistakable violation, suggesting that the poet of Andreas
could in fact have intended disyllabic hlfodor- in herede hlfodorcwidum. The
degree of probability derivable from such verses is thus smaller than that
of the data in Table 1, and for that reason it was excluded from HOEM.10
The data derivable from the application of Terasawa’s law ought, however,
to be of some (lesser) probabilistic value, and so they are worth examining. They are summarized in Table 2, in which the number of additional
verses in each poetic composition to be scanned without parasiting is
supplied.11 (Application of the law, it should be noted, never indicates
instances of parasiting, only of nonparasiting.)
What is surprising about Table 2 is that it contradicts the expectations
raised by Table 1. One would have anticipated that there would be a high
incidence of additional nonparasited forms only in the first three poems,
but this is not the case. At first this might appear to serve as counterevidence to the chronological implications of Table 1. One might assume
that by some accident nearly all the detectable instances of nonparasiting in the Cynewulf canon happen to be detectable only on the basis of
Table 2. Instances of nonparasiting discoverable from the application of Terasawa’s law.
Genesis A
Daniel
Beowulf
Exodus
Works of Cynewulf
Andreas
Works of King Alfred
Poems from the Chronicle
Judith
The Battle of Maldon
12
9
17
2
22
19
2
0
2
0
10. See HOEM § 88, n. 33 ad fin.
11. Excluded from the figures in the table are verses like pz læs him wfstengryre (Exodus
117b), since wfsten- is etymologically disyllabic. The included verses are these: Genesis A 2a,
103b, 111b, 165b, 1033b, 1384b, 2292b, 2340a, 2384a, 2401a, 2514b, 2521b; Daniel 139a,
155a, 308a, 315b, 337b, 378b, 426a, 605b, 709a; Beowulf 46b, 718a, 757a, 906b, 1018b,
1079a, 1105a, 1162a, 1187a, 1301a, 1676a, 1681a, 1979a, 2742a, 2750a, 2795a, 2839a;
Exodus 43a, 548a; Fates of the Apostles 74a, 80a; Elene 42a, 106b, 291b, 485a, 681a, 763a,
832a, 962a, 1071a, 1303a, 1304a, 1321a; Christ II 450a; Juliana 199a, 238b, 248b, 395a,
428a, 461b, 637a; Andreas 144b, 160b, 418a, 801a, 819a, 893b, 938a, 1004b, 1005b, 1021a,
1101a, 1237a, 1253b, 1417a, 1430a, 1447b, 1527a, 1621a, 1646a; The Meters of Boethius
4.20a, 20.162a; Judith 243b, 259b.
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Terasawa’s law. If that accident seems suspicious, it is plain how much less
plausible it would be to suppose that the same accident happens to have
occurred in Andreas. Rather, this must not be happenstance; there must
be a principled explanation for the distributional difference evidenced
by the two tables.
The most plausible explanation surely must depend on the observation
that the data in Table 2 pertain solely to poetic compounds, and in a single
metrical context, while this is not so in regard to Table 1. Although many of
the nonparasited forms underlying the figures in Table 1 are compounded,
many are not, for example (in Beowulf), hleahtor ‘laughter’ (611a), wundor ‘marvel’ (840b, 3032b, 3062b), winter ‘winter’ (1128a, 1132b), baldor
‘lord’ (2428b), frnfor ‘solace’ (2941b), and bfcn ‘sign’ (3160a). Moreover,
by the nature of Terasawa’s law, verses disambiguated by it must end in a
compound showing the same metrical pattern as hlfodorcwidum or wuldorcyninges—that is, in certain subtypes of C and D. In the data of Table 1, by
contrast, of the five types, only C is not represented. The likeliest explanation, then, is that later poets were able to use nonparasited forms only
when they appeared in the guise of formulaic diction. Neither Cynewulf
nor the Andreas poet, for example, ever uses a nonparasited form in any
type of verse except as the first constituent of a poetic compound. This
also explains why the figure for the poetic works of Alfred the Great in
Table 2 is so much lower than for other presumably late poems: Alfred’s
works are notoriously prosaic, employing far fewer compounds than the
other works on the list.
If this explanation is correct, it should be plain that the application of
Terasawa’s law at least to presumably later poems provides only ambiguous
information about later poets’ ability to use nonparasited forms. If they
had knowledge of such forms only through their familiarity with poetic
compounds like hlfodorcwidum, and yet they could understand comparable
verses as showing final resolution (as with pæt vs gystrandæge in Andreas,
above; similar are drfogan dryhtenbealu at Guthlac B 1349a, in hellebryne at
Judith 116b, and others),12 then we have no assurance that they had any
real awareness of nonparasiting in such formulaic diction.
12. This verse must belong to Sievers’ type B, since anacrusis is metrically disallowed here:
see A. J. Bliss, The Metre of Beowulf, rev. ed. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1967), §§ 46–48. In any case,
prepositions are not usually found in anacrusis: see Thomas Cable, The Meter and Melody of
“Beowulf” (Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press, 1974), pp. 35–37; Geoffrey Russom, Old English
Meter and Linguistic Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1987), pp. 33–34; Suzuki,
Metrical Organization of “Beowulf,” pp. 319–22. As for the example from Guthlac B, note that
this poem is very possibly a Cynewulfian composition: see the author’s “Cynewulf: Canon,
Dialect, and Date,” in The Cynewulf Reader, ed. Robert Bjork (New York: Routledge, 2001),
pp. 5–6.
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Fulk
It might be objected that this line of reasoning leaves unexplained why
later poets could use nonparasited forms with some frequency in verses to
which Terasawa’s law is relevant, but not in other metrical types. Why is it
that Cynewulf employs twenty-two verses containing diction like hlfodorcwidum at the end of the verse but just one other poetic compound with nonparasiting in his entire oeuvre (wuldorfæste gife, at Elene 966a)? This would
seem to militate against the explanation that he knew of nonparasiting only
through poetic diction: if he did so, surely compounds like wuldorfæste with
nonparasiting would be much more common in nonfinal position in his
works. To the contrary, the dearth of such examples is notable confirmation
of the analysis offered here. A verse such as herede hlfodorcwidum remained
metrical after parasiting, once Terasawa’s law no longer operated, and
thus it could remain part of the poet’s repertoire, now as type D*4 rather
than D*2 (i.e., like fode yrremnd rather than helpan hildfruman). A verse like
wuldorfæste gife, however, once -or- became syllabic, did not resemble any
other acceptable verse type, and thus it grew disfavored over time.13 The
dearth of such verses in later poetry thus lends important support to the
assumption that late poets understood a verse like herede hlfodorcwidum to
have parasiting and final resolution. To suppose anything else is, once
again, to assume a rather unlikely coincidence: that the dearth of verses
like wuldorfæste gife, despite the relatively high incidence of verses like herede
hlfodorcwidum, is simply an inexplicable accident, and not just in Andreas
but in the Cynewulf canon. Corroboration for this explanation may be
derived from evidence for other sorts of metrical reanalysis resulting from
language change, not just in Old English but also in related alliterative
traditions.14
Ultimately, then, the application of Terasawa’s law does not add reli13. Presumably Cynewulf uses this type once as a peculiar and disfavored archaism. By
contrast, the poet of Genesis A seems to have used similar parasited forms as the basis for
constructing new verse types not generally found in other poems, for example earfodsida
bnt 1476a; similarly, to wuldorgbst godes 2913a compare neorxnawong stnd 208b and fpelstnl
hfold 1129b (the latter pair of verses contributing to the evidence that Genesis A 1–234 and
852–2936 are one composition).
14. Even clearer than the evidence from Genesis A in the preceding note is the development in the Old Saxon Heliand of the new metrical type represented by sô endilôsan uuelon
(2529a) on the basis of the development of an excrescent vowel in similar verses like uuandarlîc giuuaraht (5622a): see Seiichi Suzuki, The Metre of Old Saxon Poetry: The Remaking of
Alliterative Tradition (Cambridge: Brewer, 2004), pp. 156–60. Similar analogizing accounts for
verses like jrenbendum fæst (Beowulf 998b), in which the second vowel is etymological rather
than excrescent: cf. btertbnum fbh (1459b), in which the second vowel is excrescent, and see
HOEM, §§ 95–98. Among the skaldic meters, the catalectic on-lines of kviduháttr seem to
have arisen as a result of syncope and apocope, which in fact appear to be the motivating
factor in the rise of Norse syllable-counting meters: see Kari Ellen Gade, “History of Old
Norse Metrics,” in The Nordic Languages: An International Handbook of the History of the North
Germanic Languages, vol. 1 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2002), p. 863.
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ably to our data on nonparasiting in connection with the dating of verse.
The foregoing examination of the law and its application is not, however,
devoid of significance for the dating of poems, especially of Beowulf. The
wide range of metrical contexts and uncompounded lexical items in which
nonparasiting is encountered in that poem, as revealed by comparison
with presumably later poems when the law is applied, bespeaks a poet
far more knowledgeable about archaisms in the language of verse. This
does not, of course, prove that Beowulf is an early composition, but it
raises a degree of probability that can hardly be ignored when viewed in
connection with similar indicators. A further such indicator is that, while
later poets seem to have regarded verses like pæt vs gystrandæge, which
unambiguously breach Terasawa’s law, as normal, the conservative poet
of Beowulf consistently avoids them.15 And finally, the nearly consistent
inability of seemingly late poets to employ verses with parasiting except
in poetic compounds, and then only when the verse remains a recognizable metrical type once parasiting has applied, is a strong indication of
an oral tradition that has evolved significantly from the model employed
in Beowulf and thus is most likely of later composition.
This last point suggests a more particular chronological significance to
these findings. The implications of Terasawa’s law serve to improve our
understanding of the relationship between archaisms in poetic language
and the dating of poems. The law shows that seemingly later poets were able
to employ certain archaisms only when they were embedded in formulaic
diction, in such a way as to imply that the poets were themselves unaware
of the nature of the archaism. On one hand, Cynewulf and the Andreas
poet almost certainly were not aware of the possibility of treating parasited
forms like wundor- and hlfodor- as monosyllables; when they seem to be using them as monosyllables, they are most likely instead simply deploying
traditional formulas. The poets of Genesis A, Daniel, and Beowulf, on the
other hand, were plainly aware of the option of treating such words or
constituents of compounds as monosyllables in verse, since they employ
them outside of formulaic diction. Both the presumably earlier and later
poets, then, had an estimable command of the poetic tradition: it cannot
be said, for instance, that the reason Beowulf displays more archaic metrical
patterns than Cynewulf’s verse is that Cynewulf did not know the poetic
tradition. Clearly he did, but the tradition he knew seems to have evolved
quite a way from the tradition that the Beowulf poet knew. The difference
between the two poets is thus not one of knowledge versus ignorance but
15. That is, if Klaeber’s emendation to hildfrecan 2205a is accepted, as discussed above.
The seeming exception nf purh inwitsearo 1101a is probably explained by the degree of stress
on -wit-, as demonstrated by the fact that i is not reduced to e.
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of historical change: Cynewulf is able to use some of the ancient formulas,
but he has lost the key to understanding their structure. This seems appreciable counterevidence to the supposition that the meter and language of
Beowulf are more archaic not because the poet lived earlier than Cynewulf
but because he simply knew the poetic tradition better. Rather, in connection with Terasawa’s law, we see Cynewulf grappling with a changed set of
circumstances, not just an inferior knowledge of the tradition. And that
implies a chronological difference between the two poets.
II. Use of the Prefix ge- in
Connection with Nonparasiting
Metrical ambiguity in regard to nonparasiting also arises occasionally in
the first constituent of a compound in which the second constituent begins with an unstressed prefix, almost always ge-. The instances in Beowulf
are these:
scolde his aldorgedbl 805b
eaxlgestealla 1326a
eaxlgesteallan 1714a
wnm wundorbebodum 1747a
mbpmgestrfona 1931a
ealdorgewinna 2903b
In such verses the syllabified resonant may be ignored in scansion, but
counting it as a syllable would not disrupt the meter. The question arises,
then, whether the prefix on the second constituent of the compound is
integral to the meaning or whether it serves a primarily metrical function—meaning, in the latter case, that the resonant should be regarded
as nonsyllabic. In nearly every other instance in the poem in which a
second constituent begins with -ge-, the prefix is essential to the meter:
leaving it out would result in an unmetrical verse. There are ninety-one
such instances in the poem: examples are wilgesjpas 23a, pfodgestrfonum
44a, and healsgebedda 63b.16 Among these ninety-one, the only exceptions
16. The instances are listed by J. B. Bessinger Jr. and Philip H. Smith Jr., eds., A Concordance
to “Beowulf” (Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1969), s.v. -ge-. Excluded are instances that do not
involve true compounds: wyrd ungemete nfah 2420b (similarly 1792b, 2721b, 2728b) and
ungedffeljce 2435b. In the verse dngorgerjmes 2728a, dngor- in origin belongs to the s-stems, and
so etymologically it is disyllabic. Yet because the Beowulf poet treats a few organic disyllables
as monosyllables (see HOEM, §§ 95–98), this verse could have been treated by the poet as
showing nonparasiting. Due to its ambiguity, then, it will be best to leave it out of consideration, as well as similar forms in the poems discussed below. The form suhtergefæderan in
1164a is irrelevant, as the first constituent is suhterge-.
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are the verses sfon sibbegedriht 387a and swefan sibbegedriht 729a. Is there
a particular reason that only the constituent sibbe- causes exceptions to
such a regular distribution?
In the course of his examination of hilde- in compounds (as discussed
above), Weyhe remarks that of the many other jn-stem nouns, just two,
hell ‘hell’ and sibb ‘kinship, friendship, peace’, have alternate forms with
and without stem-final -e when they are used as initial constituents in
compounds. However, he says, neither shows the distribution in verse
that hilde- does, with hild- before a light syllable and hilde- before a heavy.
For the most part, we do find expected compounds like hellsceapum and
helledfofol, but there are several exceptions: compare hellebryne (Judith
116b), helleduru (Christ and Satan 720a), hellesceapan (Elene 956b), hellfvse
(Andreas 50a, Christ III 1123a), helcræftum (Andreas 1102a), helbendum
(Beowulf 3072b), and helrvnan (Beowulf 163a), as compared with a total
of thirty-six conforming examples.17 Terasawa recommends treating the
first three of these as containing phrases rather than compounds, for
example, in helle duru; there seems no remedy for the remainder.18 The
degree of conformity is too great to be an accident, but even so conservative a composer as the Beowulf poet does not regard the rule as firm.
The likeliest explanation for the different treatment of hilde- and helle- is
that while the former is found only in verse, the latter appears also in
prose, in which the metrico-morphological restriction does not apply:
compare, in prose, hellcniht ‘demon’, hellcund ‘hellish’, hellemere ‘Stygian
lake’, and so forth. The prose usage has thus affected the poetic in regard
to helle-, while there were no prose examples of hilde- to affect the usage
in poetry.
17. The remaining examples: Genesis 38a, 73b, 303a, 380b, 447a, 694b; Christ and Satan
132b, 429a, 694a, 699a; Andreas 1171a, 1691b; Soul and Body I 104a (= II 98a); Elene 900b,
1305b; Christ 286b, 364a, 731a, 1189a; Guthlac A 559b, 572b; Juliana 157b, 322a, 437a,
544b (emended); The Partridge 6b; Riddle 55.6b; The Descent into Hell 21a, 24a, 123a, Psalms
85.12.3a, 87.3.3a, 140.9.4a; Maldon 180a; The Lord’s Prayer II 95b, III 36b. Compare also
hellgepwing at Genesis B 696b (emended).
18. Terasawa, Nominal Compounds, pp. 22–23. More recently, Terasawa has argued rather
persuasively that helle should never be treated as the first constituent of a compound: see
“The helle Sequence in Old English Poetry,” in English Historical Linguistics and Philology in
Japan, ed. Jacek Fisiak and Akio Oizumi (Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1998), pp. 387–99. It
has even been argued that hilde should always be regarded as a separate word rather than
a compounded element: see Gerhard Nickel, “Problems of Beowulf-Research with Special
Reference to Editorial Questions,” Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, 73 (1972), 264. This seems
rather unlikely, as Hilde- is plainly not a separate word in personal names. See also the objections of Alfred Bammesberger, “Altenglische Komposita mit hild(e)-,” Münchener Studien
zur Sprachwissenschaft, 39 (1980), 7–9; and see further Hans Sauer, “Die Darstellung von
Komposita in altenglischen Wörterbüchern,” in Problems of Old English Lexicography: Studies
in Memory of Angus Cameron, ed. Alfred Bammesberger (Regensburg: Pustet, 1985), pp.
276–77.
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In prose, sibb likewise often fails to conform: compare sibgeorness ‘amity’, sibling ‘relative’, sibrfden ‘affinity’, and sibsumness ‘concord’.19 The
forms in verse are these: sibbegedriht, sibædelingas, sibblufan, sibgebyrdum,
sibgedriht, sibgembgas, sibsuma, and sybcwide, occurring in a total of fourteen
instances.20 Although the prefix ge- attached to second constituents usually takes the place of the final e of sibbe-, the metrical result is the same,
avoiding a heavy, stressed syllable immediately after sibb- and a resolvable
pair of syllables in the second constituent if it is preceded by an unstressed
syllable. The only exception is the first word, sibbegedriht, represented only
by the two examples in Beowulf discussed above. By contrast, the expected
form of the word, sibgedriht (or -gedryht), occurs at three other places.21
There are, then, grounds to suspect that the first scribe of the Beowulf
manuscript, or perhaps an earlier copyist in the line of the manuscript’s
transmission, has altered usual sibbgedryht (or, possibly, the more archaic
sibbedryht) to sibbegedriht.22 Possibly he understood it as a phrase rather
than a compound; yet even if that were so, it should not be treated as a
noncompound in an edited text of the poem, since there are grounds to
believe that a correctly formed compound was what originally stood in
the text.23
To return, then, to the original issue, if the two instances of sibbegedriht
in Beowulf really are to be explained this way, then there are no genuine
exceptions to the pattern of words like wilgesjpas in the poem: the only
time that a prefix on the second constituent of a compound does not immediately follow a full lift is when a parasite vowel is involved, as in words
19. See also Charles T. Carr, Nominal Compounds in Germanic (London: Oxford Univ. Press,
1939), p. 291, who regards words in sibbe-, like those in hilde-, as genitive compounds. And
see Karl Luick, Historische Grammatik der englischen Sprache, ed. Friedrich Wild and Herbert
Koziol, 2 vols. (Stuttgart: Tauchnitz, 1914–40; rpt. 1964), § 305 Anm. It may be added that
incge-lbfe (Beowulf 2577a) would appear, on the basis of morphology, to be another instance
of a jn-stem initial constituent with connecting vowel. But the meaning and derivation of
incge- are unknown (though many guesses have been hazarded), and it could instead be a
separate noun in the genitive singular—certainly not an adjective, as has sometimes been
supposed, since it would not then agree with dat. sg. fem. lbfe.
20. Genesis A 24b, 1901a, 2516b; Exodus 214a, 386a; Homiletic Fragment I 29a; Christ 214b,
635a; Guthlac B 1372a; The Phoenix 618a; The Partridge 8a; Beowulf 387a, 729a, 2708a.
21. Exodus 214a; Guthlac B 1372a; The Phoenix 618a.
22. On independent grounds, Geoffrey Russom finds cause to regard compounds like
sibbegedriht as disfavored: see “Metrical Evidence for Subordinate Stress in Old English,”
Journal of Germanic Linguistics, 13 (2001), 49, n. 8.
23. It would of course be simple to treat sibbegedriht as a phrase and thus easily obviate
the only exceptions to the pattern of words like wilgesjpas in Beowulf. Yet the meaning of
sibbegedriht ‘band of kinsmen’ is not quite equal to the sum of its parts (sibbe gedriht ‘band of
kinship’ or ‘band of friendship’), and thus a compound seems likelier. Carr (pp. xxiii f.),
it should be noted, regards such a semantic distinction as this one as an important, though
not invariably reliable, criterion for determining compounding.
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like aldorgedbl. Yet even if these instances of sibbegedriht are assumed to be
original, plainly the type is quite rare and disfavored. This, of course, raises
a strong suspicion that in all verses like ealdorgewinna, the excrescent vowel
is to be disregarded in scansion. To suppose otherwise is to credit a rather
surprising coincidence: all the exceptions (or nearly all?) just happen to
involve parasiting. One would also have to suppose that the prefix ge- is
used in such verses for semantic rather than metrical reasons. That is, if
the poet did not use the prefix because the meter demanded it, there
must be a nonmetrical reason for its appearance. It cannot be denied that
in many instances the prefix is essential to the meaning. This is certainly
the case with -gedal and -bebod and probably with -gestrfona and -gewinna.
It is not so, however, with -gestealla: compare oferstealla ‘survivor’ in prose.
Neither is it so with many of the forms in ge- attached to initial constituents
without excrescent vowels. For example, in Beowulf alone, -geweorc is used
eight times in compounds (with land-, ær-, fyrn-, gvd-, njp-, hond-) and -weorc
is used eight times (with ellen-, heado-, niht-), with no consistent distinction in
meaning. The alternants -(ge)wæd, -(ge)hygd, -(ge)dryht, -(ge)blond, -(ge)ponc,
and -(ge)sceaft (fem.), are treated similarly: ge- is used on a purely metrical
basis.
The evidence is thus of a mixed nature; and yet even in those instances in
which ge- is essential to the semantics, it must not be assumed that metrics
played no role in the verse construction. This should be apparent from the
remarkably small number of compounds in verse that involve -ge- after an initial constituent of the type hfafod- (that is, a full lift followed by an unstressed
syllable other than one arising from an epenthetic vowel, real or perceived):
the only examples are hfafodgerjm (Judith 308b), pvsendgerjm (Solomon and
Saturn 291b), and ærendgewrit (Meters 1.63a, Preface to the Pastoral Care 1a);
perhaps also inwitgecynd (Solomon and Saturn 331b, but see n. 15).24 All of
these are in poems known or generally presumed to be relatively late (and,
mostly, relatively prosaic) compositions. Moreover, ærendgewrit ought to be
struck from the list, since it is not a poetic compound, being found more
commonly in prose. It is thus irrelevant to the question whether poets devised ge-compounds with the meter in mind. By comparison to the two or
three remaining examples, then, there are forty instances in verse in which
-ge- follows a real or potential parasited form (i.e., including those that are
metrically ambiguous). In prose, however, compounds like ærendgewrit are
relatively common, e.g., hundredgemnt, foredgerjd, rædinggewrit, hjredgerffa,
24. Excluded is pfodengedbl (Guthlac B 1350a), even though the vowel of the second syllable
of pfoden- is not excrescent, because, again, even in the conservative language of Beowulf the
vowel is sometimes treated metrically as if it were excrescent: see 1675a, 1871a, (2032b?),
and the discussion in HOEM, §§ 95–98.
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cfapunggemnt, hfafodgewæde, hblsunggebed, pvsendgetele, mnnadgecynd. The
conclusion seems inescapable that the poets did not normally use -ge- in
compounds except in places where it was metrically indispensable—even
if it was also required on a semantic basis. The larger conclusion from all
of this, that the six Beowulfian verses like eaxlgestealla 1326a listed above
almost certainly should be scanned without taking into account excrescent
vowels, derives significant support from the observation that in half the
instances the excrescent vowel is not even written by the first scribe.
If -ge- is taken to indicate consistently that a preceding syllabic resonant
is to be regarded as nonsyllabic for the sake of the meter, compounds in
a variety of poems are thus disambiguated. The figures are presented in
Table 3, in which the numbers in column II represent the incidence of
such disambiguated compounds.25 It may be wondered, then, whether geindicates that a preceding resonant is nonsyllabic even when a compound
is not involved. There are just two relevant instances in Beowulf: mbpdum
gesealde 1052b and sundur gedælan 2422b, in which ge- is inessential to
the meaning. The incidence of word-initial ge- after a parasited form in a
range of poems is tabulated in column III of Table 3.26 In regard to initial
prefixes other than ge-, much more commonly the prefix is semantically
necessary, as, for example, in the two instances in Beowulf: hlforbolster onffng
688b and hleahtor blegde 3020b. Verses like these are probably irrelevant,
but the figures are presented in column IV of Table 3, and it will be noted
Table 3. In various compositions (I), the incidence, after a
syllabic resonant, of (II) internal -ge-; (III) initial ge-; and (IV)
other initial prefixes on verbs.
I
II
III
IV
Genesis A
Daniel
Beowulf
Exodus
Works of Cynewulf
Andreas
Works of King Alfred
Poems from the Chronicle
Judith
The Battle of Maldon
3
1
6
1
3
2
0
2
0
0
3
3
2
1
2
1
0
0
0
0
5
3
2
4
6
3
0
0
1
0
25. See Genesis A 64b, 1071b, 1959a; Daniel 599b; Exodus 589a; Elene 64a, 654a; Juliana
36b; Andreas 1256a, 1686b; Brunanburh 49b, 51a.
26. See Genesis A 1312b, 1613b, 2326b; Daniel 466b, 652b, 759b; Exodus 387b; Elene 132b,
841b; Andreas 730a.
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that, contrary to expectation, semantically dispensable prefixes are commoner in presumably later compositions.27
The figures in Table 3 regarding internal and initial (-)ge- tend to conform to the pattern illustrated above in regard to the implications of Terasawa’s law for verses like weoruda wuldorgeofa. That is, probable instances of
nonparasiting are not, comparatively speaking, uncommon in presumably
later poems when they occur in poetic compounds, pointing to formulaic
language as the probable cause. They are as common in later poems as in
early ones, with the exception of Beowulf. By contrast, nonparasiting before
initial ge- (i.e., when it is not found in compounds) is notably commoner in
the earlier group than the later. The congruence of these findings with the
earlier ones suggests that there is probably some justification in regarding
verses like scolde his aldorgedbl as showing nonparasiting in seemingly early
poems, but not necessarily so in later ones. This conclusion naturally would
disqualify the derived figures from being compiled with the other data on
parasiting (Table 1 above) for the purpose of dating of poems on the basis
of nonparasiting, since in such a context it would be prejudicial to disqualify
the data only from presumably later poems. It may be of some use, though,
in connection with editions of Old English poems, like Klaeber’s, that use
underpointing to indicate nonparasiting.
III. Kaluza’s Law and Oral Tradition
Under a variously formulated principle now referred to as Kaluza’s law,
resolution under secondary stress in Beowulf occurs only when the second
of the resolved syllables was short in early Old English. Thus, for example,
resolution is found in the verses frfawine folca (2357a, with -wine < -wini)
and mndceare micle (1778a, with -ceare < *-cæræ, shortened from *-kæræ).
For present purposes, this principle may be referred to as part one of the
rule. In complementary fashion, under part two, nonresolution under
secondary stress is accompanied by etymologically long final syllables,
those that either end in a consonant or bore circumflex accent in early
Germanic (the latter comprising mostly the ending -a, though -e is also
found). Thus, there is no resolution in bfaghroden cwfn (623b) or in mundbora wæs (2779b, with -bora < *-borô). In Beowulf there are no exceptions
27. See Genesis A 1093a, 1502b, 1523a, 1807b, 1887b; Daniel 459, 487b, 653b*; Exodus
107b,* 115a,* 320b,* 552b; Elene 17b,* 407a,* 603b,* 812a, 1018a*; Juliana 500b, Andreas
712b,* 729b, 1191b*; Judith 185b. An asterisk after a number indicates that the prefix is
otiose in regard to the meaning of the verb.
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to part one of the rule as presented here, out of sixty-two unambiguous
examples. The number of exceptions to part two is difficult to determine,
since it depends upon the precise formulation of Kaluza’s law, but it is
probably relatively small.28
In HOEM (chap. 6) it is argued that these regularities are governed in
Beowulf on a phonological basis. If this is so, Beowulf must be a fairly early
composition, since a phonological distinction crucial to the operation of
the law must have been disrupted in the first half of the eighth century
south of the Humber and the first half of the ninth north of it. Recently,
in the pages of this journal, B. R. Hutcheson has challenged this line of
argument.29 He points out that although in the latest datable Old English poems there is negligible evidence in regard to part one of the rule,
these poems show a degree of conformity to part two comparable to that
in Beowulf. Hence, he concludes, “Kaluza’s law, per se, tells us nothing
about the date of Beowulf.”30
The challenge is supported by careful statistics, but it is a question worth
exploring whether it can be said that the conclusion follows directly from
the evidence. It is plain that poems known or presumed to postdate Beowulf
show a high degree of conformity to the law in respect to etymologically
long desinences—both inflectional and noninflectional word endings—in
verse-final position. This has been known and conceded for some time,31
though Hutcheson’s explicit demonstration that this is true of the latest
datable poems is a welcome addition to our knowledge of the law. Yet
Hutcheson’s group of late poems, dating from approximately 937 to 1104,
offers no appreciable evidence in regard to part one of the rule—that is,
in regard to etymologically short endings verse-internally. There is just one
relevant verse (Maldon 322a: wælspere windan) in this corpus of 523 lines
of late poetry, an incidence too small to support any reliable conclusions
relevant to Hutcheson’s reasoning. The argument presented in HOEM
about the relevance of Kaluza’s law to the dating of Beowulf is founded
crucially on the treatment of verse-internal short endings, as discussed
below, about which Hutcheson’s data on late verse have nothing substantial
to say. Therefore, proving that late compositions conform well to part two
28. A clear exception is stfap stbnhlido 1409a. Some areas of disagreement in regard to the
formulation of the law are whether it applies under primary stress and whether it applies
in all verse types. Some of these issues are discussed in HOEM, chap. 6; also in Hutcheson,
Metre, pp. 78–96; Suzuki, Metre, pp. 205–38, 259–62; and Thomas Cable, “Kaluza’s Law and
the Progress of Old English Metrics,” in Development in Prosodic Systems, ed. Paula Fikkert and
Haike Jacobs (Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2003), pp. 145–58.
29. B. R. Hutcheson, “Kaluza’s Law, The Dating of Beowulf, and the Old English Poetic
Tradition,” JEGP, 103 (2004), 297–322.
30. Hutcheson, “Kaluza’s Law,” p. 317.
31. See HOEM, § 180.
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of the law does not prove that “Kaluza’s law, per se, tells us nothing about
the date of Beowulf.” (Indeed, strictly speaking, that is a conclusion that it
is logically impossible to prove.)
The most remarkable thing about Beowulf in respect to the law is the
extraordinary number of verses of the type frfowine folca that it contains—
verses of Sievers’s type A with resolution in the first drop. As demonstrated
in Table 4, where the figure on the right represents the proportion of
instances to the length of the composition, no other poem, or corpus of
verse by a single poet, approaches Beowulf in the incidence of this type.
Closest to Beowulf is Exodus, which has considerably less than half its proportional incidence; most unlike Beowulf is Genesis A, with less than onetwentieth of its incidence. Hutcheson’s group of late poems has less than
one-tenth the incidence in Beowulf. It is not, however, only the frequency
of the type that is remarkable but also the absolute conformity of the type
to Kaluza’s law. As noted above, there is not a single exception in Beowulf,
while exceptions are to be found in all the other compositions listed in
the table except for Genesis A and Hutcheson’s late group of poems, in
both of which the incidence is too small for the absence of exceptions
to be statistically significant. These data suggest that the Beowulf poet was
aware of the distinction between long and short desinences in a way that
other poets were not.32 That other poets were not aware of the distinction, it is true, cannot be proved: they may have been aware of it and yet
disregarded it. Ultimately, however, it makes no difference in regard to
the dating of Beowulf whether other poets simply paid the distinction no
heed: it is sufficient for present purposes merely to establish that the difference is observed in Beowulf on a basis that cannot be regarded as the
result of accident. Beowulf would then seem to have been composed at
a time when these etymologically short endings were still distinctly differentiated from long ones, and that would imply a date of composition
no later than about A.D. 725 if the poem is not Northumbrian in origin,
otherwise no later than about A.D. 825.
Seiichi Suzuki, refining an argument offered earlier by A. J. Bliss, would
undermine this line of reasoning by the supposition that the etymological distinction between long and short endings was to some extent morphologized, and thus it remained recognizable even after the phonological distinction was (for the most part) eliminated.33 This argument
32. For the sake of the present argument, this formulation will prove useful to avoid continual qualification. Yet it should be recognized that Exodus shows a relatively high incidence
of relevant verses (see HOEM §§ 176, 179), and since it contains just one violation of the
law (240a), it may be that Beowulf is not the only poem that conforms in this regard, since
scribal change to a single verse in Exodus would make a world of difference.
33. Suzuki, Metre, pp. 207–33; Bliss, Metre, pp. 118–21.
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Table 4. The incidence of verses of type A with resolution in the first drop in various poems, with the proportion of incidence to the number of lines per poem
or group of poems.
Composition
Genesis A
Daniel
Beowulf
Exodus
Cynewulf’s poems
Andreas
Alfred’s poems
Judith
Hutcheson’s late corpus
Length
Incidence
Proportion
2,319
774
3,182
590
2,601
1,722
1,796
349
523
2
5
61
5
13
8
2
2
1
0.0008624
0.0064599
0.0191703
0.0084745
0.0049980
0.0046457
0.0011135
0.0057306
0.0019120
faces several difficulties, and since the issues are complex, it will be best
not to recapitulate all the obstacles but to refer the reader to an earlier,
detailed rebuttal.34 Mention of one such difficulty will suffice, since it is
relevant to Hutcheson’s argument. In five verses (1122a, 1243a, 1534a,
1778a, 3149a), Suzuki’s analysis makes the wrong prediction, calling for
nonresolution where resolution is metrically required. That is, guided by
morphological rather than phonological considerations, the poet should
have avoided constructing such verses. By Suzuki’s reckoning, an incidence of just five exceptions is statistically acceptable. The problem is,
however, that these five verses are the only ones in the poem in which
Suzuki’s analysis can be tested against the phonological analysis, since
they are the only ones in which his morphological explanation makes a
prediction different from that of the phonological account. In that event,
five exceptions plainly constitute an unacceptable rate of violation: 100
percent of the testable instances.
In order to maintain his position that Kaluza’s law has no relevance to
the dating of Beowulf, Hutcheson, too, must explain the poet’s ability to
conform to the law on some basis other than phonology. His appeal is to
oral tradition.35 That is, the poet knew ancient poetic traditions so well
34. See R. D. Fulk, “Secondary Stress Phenomena in the Meter of Beowulf,” Interdisciplinary
Journal of Germanic Linguistics and Semiotic Analysis, 3 (1998), 279–304. This is a review article
concerning Suzuki’s 1996 book. Hutcheson was unfortunately unaware of this essay, which
perhaps would have influenced his arguments. Since he was so kind as to acknowledge in
his article advice that I offered him privately on matters concerning Kaluza’s law, I should
say that the correspondence alluded to antedated the composition of the abovementioned
review article by several years. Had I known he intended to publish such a study of the law,
I would have brought the review article to his attention.
35. More precisely, Hutcheson’s position is that oral tradition is required to explain con-
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that he did not require the guidance of phonology or morphology; he
simply employed the archaic formulas that he had learned. This explanation resembles that espoused by Bliss and by Ashley Crandell Amos,
who assume a morphologized Kaluza’s law, “preserved by a (gradually
weakening) metrical tradition,”36 though some have found the response
offered to this position in HOEM convincing.37 Hutcheson’s refinement
of the explanation of Bliss and Amos is his appeal to formulaic diction
rather than specifically to metrical tradition. It should be said that oral
tradition is indeed the only very reasonable explanation for some of the
metrically archaic features of Beowulf and other Old English poems. Since,
for example, parasite vowels in connection with resonant consonants are
recorded already in the earliest preserved texts in Old English, it would not
be very reasonable to insist that even in late Old English, a word such as
wæpn could still be a monosyllable in everyday speech, on the basis of the
observation that a monosyllable seems to be required, as noted above, by
the meter in wæpen up bhnf (Maldon 130b). It is more plausible to suppose
that nonparasiting was recognized by the creator of Maldon as a poetic
option, one particularly appropriate to the archaic language of heroic
verse. This best explains why there is such variability in the incidence of
nonparasiting from one Old English poem to another. It is also indispensable to any reasonable explanation for the occurrence of nonparasiting in
words and constituents that were not originally monosyllabic, for example,
morgen- in morgenlongne dæg (Beowulf 2894a). And oral tradition, it was argued above, is the only very plausible explanation for the high incidence
of verses like weoruda wuldorgeofa in Andreas and the works of Cynewulf.
Yet conformity to Kaluza’s law in Beowulf is of a different order. It is one
thing for a poet to know that wæpen may be monosyllabic in traditional
verse, while morgen should not be. It is another for the Beowulf poet to have
known the resolvability of fifteen different etymologically short endings
(and the irresolvability of ten etymologically long ones), distributed randomly in the paradigms of several different stem classes, without the aid
of phonological or morphological clues. How could he have learned such
rules once the phonological conditioning was eliminated? That question is
all the more insistent because other poets do not seem to have been able
formity to the law not just in Beowulf but also in his late group of poems. I do not mean to
misrepresent his views, but since my argument is that only the Beowulf poet’s extraordinary
conformity is relevant to the issue of dating verse, I address his position on oral tradition
here, for the most part, only to the extent that it concerns Beowulf.
36. Bliss, Metre, § 40; the quotation is from Ashley Crandell Amos, Linguistic Means of
Determining the Dates of Old English Literary Texts (Cambridge, Mass.: Medieval Academy of
America, 1980), p. 100.
37. See Calvin B. Kendall’s review of HOEM in Philological Quarterly, 72 (1993), 381.
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Fulk
to learn the rules accurately even in those instances in which the phonological conditioning remains, for example, in hfahcyning heofones (Daniel
407a) and gylpplegan gbres (Exodus 240a). If the phenomenon in Beowulf is
due to the preservative effect of oral tradition, how is one to explain the
stark difference between Beowulf and other poems? Should one not expect
rather that no poem would conform so regularly, and that over the course
of time there would be great variability in different poets’ conformity as
the poetic tradition evolved? Although formulaic diction may have played
a role in the poet’s command of Kaluza’s law, surely some rule must be
involved in his conformity, since there is little exact repetition among the
verses involved, and a variety of morphemes. Thus, if it were to be supposed
that the poet was simply employing memorized formulas, we should have
to assume that almost no verse in Beowulf is not simply a deployment of a
memorized formula. More remarkably, the poet never errs in regard to
these short endings, though he is content to treat parasited forms as variably monosyllabic or disyllabic, and he never analogizes as he does with
morgenlongne dæg. It is thus difficult to believe that Kaluza’s law in Beowulf
is governed solely by calcified formulaic diction rather than living linguistic oppositions. Yet even if one saw nothing to disbelieve in the formulaic
explanation, surely it would have to be conceded at least that Beowulf was
composed not long after the elimination of the phonological distinction,
so unerring is its adherence: this particular poetic tradition would surely
have to be regarded as young in this poet’s day. To explain the stark difference between Beowulf and other poems in this respect, however, it is surely
more reasonable to assume the intervention of a phonological change.
To be sure, the conformity of later poems to part two of Kaluza’s law is
hardly insignificant. But this conformity is in respect almost exclusively
to etymologically long endings in verse-final position, and thus it tells us
nothing substantially new about the dating of Beowulf, since, as remarked
above, it has been known for some time that poems other than Beowulf
show a high measure of conformity in regard to the etymologically long
endings. It does seem peculiar that poets other than the Beowulf poet
should have been able to recognize long desinences but not, for the most
part, short ones. It has, however, been argued elsewhere that some long
endings could have retained length and thus remained distinct even after
the etymologically short vocalic endings lost their distinctiveness and fell
together with some of the originally long endings—for example, when
(long) a-stem dative singular -æ and (short) masculine i-stem nominative
singular -i fell together as -e.38 This possibility is supported by the observation that unstressed a remained distinct to the end of the Old English
38. Fulk, “Secondary Stress Phenomena,” p. 298.
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period from unstressed æ, e, and i, which all fell together in e relatively
early. This may also provide a partial explanation for the retention of -e
in Middle English much later when it is a weak adjective ending, reflecting Old English -a(n).39 Because Hutcheson’s arguments do not address
the extraordinary treatment of verse-internal short desinences in Beowulf,
they do not effectively counter the evidence offered for the relevance
of Kaluza’s law to the dating of the poem. That later poets employ long
desinences verse-finally in the relevant types is true, but it is an observation
that does not alter our understanding of the law and its implications in
a particularly new or fundamental manner, and it does not point the way
to a plausible explanation for the more elaborate desinential oppositions
observable in Beowulf.
IV. Conclusion
Undeniably, some of the archaic linguistic features of Old English poetry
are explicable only as due to the conservatism of oral tradition: only awareness of traditional poetic diction on the poets’ part will account with any
plausibility for the appearance in verse of some features that must already
have been eliminated from everyday speech. In poems that seem to postdate Beowulf, the high incidence of verses like herede hlfodorcwidum, with
the seeming (but probably only seeming) preservation of monosyllabicity
in wuldor-, is best explained this way. This example in fact lends notable
support to the assumption of linguistic conservatism at work in oral tradition, since monosyllabicity in these presumably later compositions is
encountered only in a considerably more limited set of contexts than in
seemingly earlier verse, a set of contexts characterized by a high degree
of formulism. The example thus attests to the gradual attenuation of the
tradition in the course of time, as should be expected. This observation
serves as a significant piece of counterevidence to the supposition that
the Beowulf poet’s conservative metrical practices are due to his better
knowledge of poetic traditions rather than to a chronological difference:
the distinction between this poet’s knowledge of that tradition and the
knowledge evinced by Cynewulf and the Andreas poet is difficult to understand on any basis other than the assumption of evolution over time
in the poetic tradition.
At all events, awareness of the way that oral tradition mediates between
39. For references (though with a different conclusion), see Donka Minkova, The History of Final Vowels in English: The Sound of Muting (Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1991), pp.
171–72.
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Fulk
metrical analysis and assumptions about chronology is essential to related arguments about the dating of Old English poems. Yet in avoiding
the error of supposing that oral tradition played no role, an assumption
under which earlier scholars generally labored, it would be an equally
unfortunate mistake to extend the influence of oral tradition beyond what
is genuinely plausible. The ability of the Beowulf poet, and seemingly of
him alone, consistently to recognize etymologically short desinences in
verses of the type frfawine folca is quite remarkable, and no appeal to oral
tradition can convincingly explain how he was able to do so. That late
poems should conform to other aspects of Kaluza’s law as well as Beowulf
does should not be regarded as evidence for the ability of oral tradition
to preserve quantitative differences eliminated centuries earlier, since it is
by no means impossible that certain of the etymologically circumflected
vowels retained length into the eleventh century, notably the low vowel
-a. Indeed, the very idea that such a metrical feature should have been
preserved to the end of the Anglo-Saxon period without any phonological basis, due to oral tradition alone, without any detectable decline in
frequency, is to be regarded with suspicion, since it is the nature of the
tradition to have evolved, however slowly. It could hardly do otherwise,
since it was not fixed permanently in writing, like a dead language, but
it was a vital legacy that could be transmitted only in performance, and
it was therefore by nature subject to change. In regard to Kaluza’s law,
then, reason demands that an acceptable explanation appeal not to oral
tradition but to a living linguistic opposition. That the opposition was
still governed on a phonological basis in the poet’s day continues to have
significant implications for the dating of Beowulf.
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Beowulf ’s Roman Rites:
Roman Ritual and Germanic Tradition
Thomas D. Hill, Cornell University
Without funeral rituals how would others know
that a person is dead? . . .
Whose words would we trust to make
these things known to us?1
One of the most striking and best known of the “sources and analogues”
of Beowulf is the account of the funeral of Attila the Hun preserved in
Jordanes’ Getica.2 The parallel is not only widely cited in the various editions and commentaries,3 but Fr. Klaeber thought it important enough to
reprint the Latin text in an appendix to his edition of Beowulf in which he
gathered some of the most interesting parallels to the poem.4 The most
striking correspondence between these two rituals is that in both funerals
chosen warriors ride around the deceased, while commemorating and
praising the fallen king in choral poetry.5 Questions have been raised
about the parallel,6 but most Beowulf scholars have accepted this account
1. Kabre informant, quoted by Charles Piot, Remotely Global: Village Modernity in West Africa
(Chicago and London: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1999), p. 77.
2. Jordanes, Getica xliv.254–59, ed. Theodor Mommsen, MGH Auctores Antiquissimi, 5/1
(Berlin: Wiedmann, 1882), pp. 123–24.
3. All quotations and citations to Beowulf are from Beowulf: An Edition, ed. Bruce Mitchell and Fred C. Robinson (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998), by line number. Other editions and
commentaries cited and consulted include that of Fr. Klaeber, ed., Beowulf and the Fight at
Finnsburg, 3d ed. (Boston: D. C. Heath, 1953); C. L. Wrenn, ed., Beowulf and the Fight at
Finnsburh, revised and enlarged ed. (London: Harrap, 1958); and Johannes Hoops, Kommentar zum Beowulf (Heidelberg: Winters, 1932). For a recent commentary on the funerals
in Beowulf, see Gale R. Owen-Crocker, The Four Funerals in Beowulf (Manchester: Manchester
Univ. Press, 2000); Owen-Crocker discusses Beowulf’s funeral specifically (pp. 85–113) and
relates the account of the ceremonies in the poem to relevant archeological research.
4. Klaeber, Beowulf, pp. 268–69.
5. The exact nature of the (imagined) performance can only be guessed at, but the OE
poem Deor shows that OE poets were familiar with the notion of stanzaic poetry with a refrain,
a form which would be suitable for public communal presentation.
6. Martin Puhvel, “The Ride Around Beowulf’s Barrow,” Folklore, 94 (1983), 108–12.
Puhvel cites instances of circling a grave or a corpse about to be buried in various medieval
texts and modern folk practice, but he has not identified any new parallels that combine
equitation about the grave, choral singing or recitation, and praise of the dead. There has,
of course, been some comment on the parallels between the funeral of Beowulf and funerals in classical (particularly Latin) epic. See Richard J. Schrader, “Beowulf’s Obsequies and
the Roman Epic,” Comparative Literature, 24 (1972), 237–59.
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of the funeral of Attila as a legitimate and reasonably close analogue to
the poem—although to the best of my knowledge no one believes that
there is any direct textual connection between Jordanes’ Getica and Beo
wulf. The parallels are ascribed to shared “tradition”—in this case the
tradition of funerary rites practiced among the Germanic pagan peoples
and commemorated in traditional Germanic poetry that eventually was
disseminated to the Beowulf-poet.
I am in essential agreement with this quite traditional position; but I
would like to draw attention to recent scholarly work on this passage in
Jordanes’ Getica, in relation to Roman funerary rites, that has, in effect,
expanded the corpus of analogues of Beowulf’s funeral. Beowulf scholars
think of the funeral of Attila as a “traditional,” “barbarian,” and “Germanic” funeral. The fact that Attila was a Hun, not a Germanic warlord,
complicates matters to some degree. But most scholars have assumed that,
since Attila ruled over a Hunnish-Germanic confederation and there are
such striking parallels between Attila’s funeral and that of Beowulf, the
funeral of Attila was orchestrated by his Germanic followers or alternatively that Hunnish funeral practices were assimilated by the warriors of
Germania. Recently, however, the historian Javier Arce has analyzed the
account of Attila’s funeral in Jordanes and has concluded that virtually
every detail in the account of this funeral is explicitly paralleled in Roman
military funerary rituals:
All these features [the various funeral rites for Attila] are characteristic of
Roman funerals, especially in military contexts. The rites and ceremonies
are identical. . . . Was Jordanes describing the funeral rites of a romanised
barbarian king? Or did he transpose the Roman ceremonial to Attila’s funeral? If the first hypothesis is right, that would be truly significant for the
history of the transformation of the Roman world.7
Deferring for the moment the important question with which Arce
concludes, we may begin by observing that the funeral of Beowulf accords
even more closely with the tradition of Roman military/imperial funerals
than Attila’s does. The first point to emphasize is that while the body of
Attila was buried, Beowulf was cremated. Cremation as a ceremonial way
of disposing of the body of an important person is a ritual common to a
number of widely dispersed cultures—indeed given the physical problem
of how to dispose of a human body, cremation and inhumation are perhaps the two most obvious and immediate solutions. But the particular
two-fold ritual that the Beowulf-poet depicts, in which a cremation is fol7. Javier Arce, “Imperial Funerals in the Later Roman Empire: Change and Continuity,”
in Rituals of Power, ed. Frans Theuws and Janet L. Nelson (Leiden: Brill, 2000), pp. 115–129.
For fuller discussion of Roman funerary customs, see Javier Arce, Funus Imperatorum: Los
funerales de los imperadores romanos, 2d ed. (Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 1990).
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Beowulf’s Roman Rites: Roman Ritual and Germanic Tradition
327
lowed by an inhumation, has specific Roman parallels.8 Monuments such
as the column of Trajan were, according to Arce and those scholars on
whose work he bases his conclusions, funerary shrines in which the ashes
of the deceased emperor and his immediate family were sealed.9 Again, if
the emperor died while campaigning, his body would be cremated where
he died, and his ashes would be returned to a funerary site in Rome. Thus
the account of the funeral of Beowulf, in which Beowulf is cremated and
his ashes are buried in a monument, corresponds more closely to Roman
precedent than the inhumation of the body of Attila in a secret location
as described by Jordanes.10
The ritual of Beowulf’s funeral, as it is depicted in the poem, follows an
elaborate and carefully sequenced procedure. First the body of Beowulf
is laid out on a funeral pyre and the pyre is hung about with arms, helmets, shields, and bright burnies (beorhtum byrnum, l. 3140). These arms
presumably come from the Geatish treasure chamber or armory, rather
than from the dragon’s hoard, since the weapons that were part of that
hoard, as distinct from the ornaments made from precious metals, have
long since rusted and decayed. One therefore assumes that these relatively new weapons come from the spoils that Beowulf has won in battle
or from the Geatish treasure hoard. Beowulf’s body is then burned while
a nameless woman sings a song of lamentation and other mourners lament his death. The Geats then build a barrow on a hillside by the sea
(hlaew on hlide, l. 3157), in which they place the remains of the funerary
pyre and all the treasure that Beowulf won from the dragon. The ritual
then concludes with Beowulf’s companions riding around the barrow and
simultaneously commemorating their fallen leader as the “monna mildust
ond mondwærust / leodum lidost ond lofgeornost” (ll. 3181–82).11
Virtually every step in this process is paralleled in the tradition of Roman military funerary rites. The ritual destruction of weapons won on the
pyre of a dead emperor is a well-attested part of Roman practice. Weapons
and standards that the emperor or the general won on the field of battle
were ritually destroyed on the pyre as a gesture of respect to the departed
and an implicit acknowledgment of his achievement.12 Grave goods and
8. See J. C. Richard, “Incinération et inhumation aux funérailles impériales: Histoire de
rituel de l’apothéose pendant le Haut-Empire,” Latomus, 25 (1966), 784–803.
9. Arce, Funus Imperatorum, pp. 80–83.
10. Jordanes’ account of the “secret” burial of Attila is implausible for a variety of reasons,
among them the fact that the burial party would leave a clear track that even unskilled trackers could follow.
11. See Charles D. Wright, “Moses, manna mildost (Exodus 550a),” Notes and Queries, n.s
31 (1984), 440–43, for discussion of this phrase in the context of praise poetry intended
for a king.
12. For discussion and examples, see J. C. Richard, “Les aspects militaires des funérailles
impériales,” Mélanges d’Archéologie et Histoire, 78 (1966), 318–19.
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hence implicitly treasure burial were part of Roman funerary ritual, but
it must be acknowledged that the lavish (not to say extravagant) burial of
treasure with Attila or the burial of all of the treasure that Beowulf won
from the dragon is not paralleled, as far as I know, in Roman practice.
There are a variety of problems in interpreting this ritual action in the
poem—we can begin by noting that the Beowulf-poet permits himself an
“authorial” intrusion in remarking that the buried treasure was “eldum
swa unnyt swa hit æror wæs” (l. 3168). Treasure burial and grave goods
were sensitive subjects in the early Anglo-Saxon world in that Christians
did not practice treasure burial themselves, but one would imagine that
an Anglo-Saxon king or aristocrat would still not wish to disturb or see
anyone else disturb the tombs of his ancestors. The very fact that some
burial hoards have survived until relatively recently is in itself powerful
evidence of the taboo against disturbing graves during the Anglo-Saxon
period and perhaps even later.
At any rate the burial of massive amounts of treasure would seem to
be one “native” feature of the funerals of Beowulf and Attila that is not
directly paralleled in Roman funerals, although the resources devoted to
major Roman imperial funerals would imply a comparable expenditure
of wealth. The account of the woman’s lament in Beowulf is very badly
preserved in the manuscript so there are major problems in interpreting
this passage.13 But certainly ritualized lament was part of Roman imperial funerals, and women had an important role to play in funereal ceremonies. The Latin term for a woman who lamented the deceased was a
praeficia,14 and the term for the funeral song she sang was a nenia.15 The
construction of a barrow also has immediate Roman parallels—the Latin
phrase for such a construction was tumulus honorarius. Such a tumulus,
for example, was erected in honor of Drusus on the banks of the Rhine
that would have been visible to the Germanic peoples on the other side
of the Rhine or to Germanic travelers proceeding down the river.16 And
13. For a book-length study of this passage and the history of its various reconstructions,
see Tilen Westphalen, Beowulf 3150–55: Textkritik und Editionsgeschichte, Bochhumer Arbei
ten zur Sprach und Literaturwissenschaft, 1 (Munich: Fink, 1967). For a useful review and
summary of the book, see Fred C. Robinson’s review in Anglia, 88 (1970), 363–65. See also
Helen Bennett, “The Female Mourner at Beowulf’s Funeral: Filling in the Blanks, Hearing
the Spaces,” Exemplaria, 4 (1992), 35–50.
14. For the definition of the term praeficia and examples, see Arce, Funus Imperatorum, p.
174.
15. For the definition of the term nenia and examples, see Arce, Funus Imperatorum, pp.
46 and 174. The Anglo-Saxon Corpus Glossary, CorpGl2 (Hessels), D4.2, glosses nenia as
“carmen funebre mulierium” (cited from the Dictionary of Old English Corpus, available to
subscribers at http://ets.umdl.umich.edu/o/oec/).
16. Suetonius, De vita Caesarum I.6, “Divus Claudius,” in Suetonius, ed. J. C. Rolfe, 2 vols.,
Loeb Classical Library (London: Heinemann, 1930), II, 2–5: Richard, “Les aspects militaires,” p. 314.
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finally the ritual of riding about the funeral monument while lamenting
the departed is paralleled in Roman imperial funerals: it was called the
decursio equitum.17
Funeral rituals for leaders from different cultures may resemble one
another to some degree, since the practical demands of disposing of the
body of the dead lord are after all similar and certain steps in the ritual
process are virtually universal. Praise of the dead and formal lament are,
one would assume, very common. The parallels between Beowulf’s funeral
and the tradition of Roman military funerals are, however, so striking and
extensive that they are best explained by the continuity of tradition between the late Roman and early Germanic world. Such continuity is hardly
very surprising—the Anglo-Saxon world owed much to Roman precedent.
The poem is, after all, preserved in a form of the Roman alphabet.
I would argue, then, that in addition to the funeral of Attila, we should
include other Roman funerals, or more accurately the tradition of Roman
military and imperial funerals, preserved as either cultural memory or
practice (or in a variety of other possible modes) as a “source” for the final
funeral in Beowulf. Since our knowledge of the ceremonies themselves is
limited and to some degree reconstructed from literary and archeological
evidence, the details of the argument are, in some instances, speculative.
But the larger point of the argument is both simple and, I would hope,
plausible. The universally recognized and widely accepted parallels between Jordanes’ account of the funeral of Attila and the funeral of Beowulf
are not simply a reflection of the shared “Germanic” culture common to
the court of Attila and the imagined court of the Geats. These commonalities derive from the shared cultural heritage of the Germanic and the
Latin world of late antiquity, a culture that included both Latin military
ritual and Germanic tradition.
If the parallels between Latin imperial and military funerals and the
funeral of Beowulf are too striking to dismiss as coincidental, it is also
true that the problem of explaining how the Beowulf-poet had access to
the traditions of funereal ceremony and lore that Arce and other scholars have explicated is a difficult one. The first point to observe is that
it seems very unlikely that the Beowulf-poet read the Latin and Greek
historians whom the modern classicists cite as the written sources for
our knowledge of Roman funeral rites. It is not that I have any problem
with the idea of the Beowulf-poet as literate and learned. But even if we
assume a learned poet surrounded by learned friends, the kind of reading in Greek and Latin historians that replicating the work of Arce and
other scholars would involve seems unlikely. We would have to assume
17. For the definition of the phrase decursio equitum and examples, see Arce, Funus Imperatorum, pp. 31, 52–53, and 171.
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not only that the poet had read a number of texts that no other AngloSaxons seem to have read, but also that he had read them as a modern
classical historian might, focusing on a few details in one narrative and
a few in another.
The parallels do exist, however, and while it may be hard or even ultimately impossible to move beyond reasonable speculation about how this
lore was transmitted,18 such speculation can permit us to frame appropriate questions. To begin with, one may observe that the parallels between
Beowulf’s and Attila’s funerals have been recognized for generations by
Beowulf scholars and that no one has ever postulated any direct connection between Jordanes’ Getica and the Beowulf-poet. What is at issue is
how to explain the relationship between the two texts. To speak of “oral
tradition” in this connection is legitimate and indeed may ultimately
be the answer to the link between the two texts, but “oral tradition” is a
broad construct and it is important to attempt to discuss more specifically what kinds of oral traditional material the Beowulf-poet might have
drawn on.19
The first point to emphasize is that the Western Roman empire and
Germania were deeply intertwined in the period of the later empire. One
recent book on the topic is entitled The Roman Empire and Its Germanic
Peoples.20 The Germanic nations and their leaders were never enemies of
the Roman empire or Roman civilization for ideological or nationalistic
reasons. They wanted to enjoy, as members of the elite to be sure, the
benefits of Roman civilization, not to destroy the empire. And among
the benefits of that civilization were highly developed and striking civic
ceremonials, some of the most impressive of which were Roman military/imperial funerals. Funerary rites are both striking, memorable, and
readily transportable.
The action of Beowulf is carefully, and apparently accurately, situated
in sixth-century Scandinavia; Hygelac’s Frisian raid, for example, is a real
historical event that can be dated as having occurred circa 530 A.D.—that
is, within living memory of the late Roman empire. If the Beowulf-poet
knew of the history of the Scandinavian and Merovingian kings in the
sixth century, he could have learned of Roman funerary rituals that were
18. One possible source for some information about late Roman burial practices is Isidore of
Seville’s Etymologiae sive Origines XV.xi.1–4, “De Sepulchris,” in Isidori Hispalensis Etymologiarum
sive Originum Libri XXI, ed. W. M. Lindsay, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1911).
19. On these problems see Joseph Harris, “A Nativist Approach to Beowulf: The Case of
Germanic Elegy,” in Companion to Old English Poetry, ed. Henk Aertsen and Rolf H. Bremmer
(Amsterdam: VU Univ. Press, 1994), pp. 45–62.
20. Herwig Wolfram, The Roman Empire and Its Germanic Peoples, trans. Thomas Dunlap
(Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1997). The original German title Das Reich und die
Germanen is less striking, but the English title certainly reflects the argument of the book.
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certainly practiced a century or so earlier and may well have been adapted
and carried on in the Germanic world.
Another speculative possibility, which is at least worth considering, is
that rituals of burial would form an attractive and appropriate subject for
visual representation, so that in addition to poetic accounts of a funeral,
or some such mode of verbal dissemination, it is at least imaginable that
the Beowulf-poet gained his knowledge of how funerals were conducted
in the old days from some visual “source.” One possibility would have
been Roman or Romano-British sarcophagi. In terms of the history of
Germanic heroic legend, it is worth remembering that the Franks (Auzon) Casket is after all both the oldest and one of the best records of the
Wayland/Volundr story.
And finally, it should be observed that just because the Roman rituals
predate the similar rituals of the real funeral of Attila and the imagined
funeral of Beowulf, it does not follow that these rituals are originally
“Roman.” That the Romans influenced the Germanic-speaking peoples
is beyond question, but it must also be remembered that the cultural
mixing that was so characteristic of the late Roman world was conducive
to mutual influence. Since Germanic warriors were such an important
part of the Roman military establishment, there were ample opportunities for Germanic funerary rituals to be assimilated into Roman military
practice. Roman emperors, for example, were sometimes raised on the
shields of their supporters on their accession to office, a ritual act that apparently derives from Germanic tradition. One thinks with some sadness
of how we have been reminded recently that bagpipe music, which in an
American context is a Celtic (Scots and Irish) musical form, has become
part of the funerary rituals for New York policemen and firefighters of
the most diverse ethnic backgrounds.
A question that I should discuss (if only briefly) is the argument by
Fred C. Robinson that the account of the funeral of Beowulf suggests the
Geats were in the process of divinizing their fallen leader—that the poet
implies the Geats worshipped Beowulf after his death, just as (according
to some accounts) some of the great Scandinavian kings received divine
honors after their death.21 An immediate comment that one can offer
about this paper is that it suggests how sensitive and shrewd a reader of
Old English poetry in general, and Beowulf in particular, Fred C. Robinson
is. Roman imperial funerals were ceremonies that commemorated the
21. Fred C. Robinson, “The Tomb of Beowulf,” in Fred C. Robinson, The Tomb of Beowulf
and Other Essays on Old English (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993), pp. 4–19. For a different suggestion about the social implications of Beowulf’s funeral, see Jos Bazelmans, By Weapons Made
Worthy: Lords, Retainers and Their Relationship in Beowulf (Amsterdam: Amsterdam Univ. Press,
1999), p. 188.
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apotheosis of the emperor. Roman emperors were conventionally assumed
to have taken on divine status as a “coelicola” after their death. They were
not equal in dignity to the major figures of the pantheon, but they were
thought to have been assumed to the heavens and made part of the community of the divine beings.22 And their funeral ceremonies symbolized
this transition from human to divine status. Thus, for example, a praetor at
the funeral of Augustus swore that he saw the soul of the emperor assumed
up into the heavens,23 and in some funeral ceremonies a caged eagle was
released at the climactic point of the ceremony as a representation of the
spiritual release and ascent that the ceremony of the funeral celebrated.24
Cremation itself can be seen as a way of swiftly disembodying the person
who has died and thus releasing the soul to ascend to its new spiritual life.
Insofar as the rituals, which define Beowulf’s funeral, derive ultimately
from Roman imperial funerary rites, they are rituals concerned with the
process of apotheosis.
But at the same time, if the ceremonies that the poet describes at this
point in the poem are traditional and ultimately late Roman funeral ceremonies, as I have been arguing, one must be cautious in “reading” too
much into them. Constantine I, for example, the first Christian emperor
who “Christianized” the Roman empire and who established the foundations of Western medieval Christian political order, was apparently divinized
by the Senate after his death.25 As far as scholars can tell, his divinization
was the result of bureaucratic inertia and did not have any particular ideological significance. Still, it must have been embarrassing for Constantine
to have to explain his newly divine status when he arrived in the heaven of
the rulers. Similarly, when the Beowulf-poet depicted the funeral of Beowulf
as exemplifying traditional funeral rituals that ultimately derive from late
Roman practice, we need not assume that he necessarily accepted the religious and ideological implications of these rituals. The issue ultimately
depends on how one interprets what Klaeber called “the peculiar spiritual
atmosphere of the poem,”26 and Robinson’s views on the apotheosis of
Beowulf accord with his rather dark interpretation of the Beowulf-poet’s
vision of the “pagan” prehistory of the Anglo-Saxon peoples.27
22. Arce, “Imperial Funerals in the Later Roman Empire,” pp. 117–18.
23. Suetonius, De vita Caesarum II.c, “Divus Augustus,” Suetonius, ed., I, 304–5.
24. Herodian, History of the Empire IV.ii.11, trans. C. R. Whittaker, Loeb Classical Library
(Cambridge Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1969), I, 380–83.
25. Arce, “Imperial Funerals in the Later Roman Empire,” p. 124.
26. Klaeber, Beowulf, p. cxxi, n. 2.
27. See Fred C. Robinson, Beowulf and the Appositive Style (Knoxville: Univ. of Tennessee
Press, 1985). For a different and more positive view of the poet’s treatment of pre-Christian
Anglo-Saxon history, see Thomas D. Hill, “The Christian Language and Theme of Beowulf,”
in Companion to Old English Poetry, ed. Aertsen and Bremmer, pp. 63–77; repr. in Beowulf: A
Verse Translation, trans. Seamus Heaney, ed. Daniel Donoghue (New York: Norton, 2002),
pp. 197–211.
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The argument of this paper, it must be confessed, does not radically affect
our interpretation of the poem. The origin of these rituals does not matter
to the modern audience and presumably did not matter to the medieval
audience either. The final funeral of Beowulf in the poem is a splendid and
magnificent funeral in the “old” manner. The funeral would have seemed
archaic to the original audience of Beowulf even if we accept an early dating
of the poem to the age of Bede. Christians did not cremate the Christian
dead—indeed, during the forced conversion of the Saxons, Charlemagne
and the Franks legislated against (Saxon) cremation and defined it as a
capital crime.28 However rigorously and consistently this law was enforced,
it does suggest the hostility with which some Christians viewed pagan burial
practices. But Beowulf is a wholly admirable hero whose soul ascends to
heaven,29 and Wiglaf and the other Geats are depicted sympathetically in
the poem. The Beowulf-poet and his presumptive audience were apparently
willing to sympathize at least imaginatively with their pre-Christian ancestors. But other than recognizing Beowulf’s funeral as old and magnificent
and as traditional and so presumably Germanic, neither Anglo-Saxon, one
presumes, or more modern admirers of the poem gave much thought to
the historical antecedents of the funeral with which the poem concludes.
The immediate source is, after all, “Germanic tradition,” as the account of
the funeral of Attila demonstrates.
From a literary-historical point of view, however, the ultimate provenance
of Beowulf’s funeral rites is more interesting. Faced with the striking parallels that he noticed between Roman imperial funerals and the funeral
of Attila, Arce, with appropriate historical caution, notes two possibilities.
Either Jordanes (or his source)30 simply invented a funeral for Attila and
based this fiction on Roman models, or the actual funeral of Attila reflected
the fact that Attila’s court, comprised of Huns and Germanic warriors,
was so deeply Romanized that the funeral they provided for their own
beloved lord was patterned after Roman models. The latter possibility
“would be truly significant for the history of the transformation of the Roman world,”31 as Arce remarks, but how can one exclude the possibility of
28. “Si quis corpus defuncti hominis secundum ritum paganorum flamma consumi fecerit
et ossa eius ad cinerem redierit, capitae punietur.” “Capitulatio de paritibus Saxoniae” 7,
in Capitularia Regum Francorum, ed. Alfredus Boretius, MGH Leges, 2 (Hannover: Hahn,
1881), p. 69. This capitulary was issued by the court of Charlemagne under the name of
the emperor.
29. See Thomas D. Hill, “The ‘Variegated Obit’ as an Historiographic Motif in Old English Poetry and Anglo-Latin Historical Literature,” Traditio, 44 (1988), 101–24.
30. Jordanes’ text is, of course, an epitome of a lost work by Cassiodorus, who in turn
was working with written and perhaps oral sources of the history of the Goths. And in this
instance Jordanes says he is following Priscus. Source criticism of the Getica is thus particularly
difficult.
31. Arce, “Imperial Funerals in the Later Roman Empire,” p. 128.
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Hill
the former? Short of remarkable new evidence of one sort or another, it
might seem that we have no way of choosing between these two options.
The Beowulfian parallel, however, does demonstrate that even if Jordanes (or Cassiodorus) fictionalized the account of the funeral of Attila,
some Germanic gesidas and poets had learned enough about Roman imperial funerals that Roman burial customs had become assimilated into
Germanic literary tradition, at least, and quite possibly into Germanic
practice as well. It is (as I have remarked) unlikely that the Beowulf-poet
knew Jordanes’ Getica directly, and while the rituals that define the funeral
of Beowulf can be paralleled in various historians’ accounts of the funerals
of various Roman emperors and generals, I have found no single accessible literary source that parallels the funeral of Beowulf fully. If no extant
source can readily account for the parallels that we discern, it would seem
necessary to hypothesize some lost source or sources either literary or oral.
Hypothesizing lost sources might seem overly speculative, but the ritual
parallels are concrete enough and it is necessary to find some way to account for them. The antiquarian character of the Beowulf-poet’s interests
and the fact that he alludes to and draws upon a variety of lost literary
and historical texts are, indeed, clichés of Beowulf scholarship. The point
is that the Beowulf-poet’s account of Beowulf’s “Roman” funeral strongly
suggests that Roman funeral rituals had become assimilated in Germanic
tradition with all that that might imply about “the transformation of the
Roman world.”
In concluding this paper I would like to emphasize that I do not want
this argument to be construed as a “Latinist” critique of received “nativist” verities. It is an inevitable part of scholarly discourse that scholars become involved with and tend to identify with their own particular research
projects, and so to some degree scholars working on the Christian Latin
or in this case the pagan Latin background of Old English poetry are
perceived as being in an adversarial relationship with scholars interested
in the traditional Germanic aspect of Old English literature. Scholarly
competition is often a good thing, and I do not want to dampen adversarial zeal, but as the argument of this paper attempts to demonstrate in
the specific instance of the account of Beowulf’s funeral, Anglo-Saxon
literary culture was (like the cultures of most peoples at most times) very
much a mixture of diverse elements.
A Christian poet was writing about the death and funeral of a fictional
hero whom the poet situated in a real historical context. He imagined
that hero as a morally admirable monotheist who nonetheless lived before the coming of Christianity to the Northern world.32 In imagining
32. See Hill, “The Christian Language and Theme of Beowulf.”
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the funeral such a hero might receive, the poet turned to traditional
accounts of old funerals—perhaps preserved in the old poems of which
he was so fond—and invented a suitable funeral for Beowulf based on
earlier models, but presumably adapted for this particular context in
this particular poem. One can only speculate, but it would seem likely
that the poet suppressed or toned down any specifically pagan elements
that were part of his models. Both Beowulf and Attila are pre-Christian
kings whose burial rites were commemorated by Christian authors, and
both rituals are strikingly free from religious ceremony—either pagan
or Christian. The models that the Beowulf-poet used, however, were,
whether old poems or antiquarian lore of some other sort, genuinely
traditional, and the funeral rituals that they preserved were genuinely
old—reaching back to the historical time in which the poet imagined
Beowulf to have lived.
To some degree my account of the sources of the funeral of Beowulf
is essentially conventional; in part I am arguing that the Beowulf-poet did
not invent the elaborate ceremonies associated with Beowulf’s cremation
and interment out of whole cloth, and most Beowulf scholars would agree
with this rather uncontroversial claim. The novelty of my argument concerns the prehistory of the traditions on which the Beowulf-poet drew, that
rather than being purely native Germanic rituals, they may have originated
in the Roman world and may ultimately derive from Roman models. At
the least, accounts of Roman funerary rites should be included in the
catalogue of sources and analogues to Beowulf along with the “Roman”
funerary ritual for Attila that Jordanes describes in the Getica. Beowulf is a
syncretic poem; it is a poem by a Christian poet about the pre-Christian
past, and it is a poem about a wholly admirable monotheistic hero who
lived in those times. Whether the poet knew the ultimate sources of these
funeral rituals cannot be known, but if he did, it might have even pleased
him to think that this poem, which is in so many ways a blending of so
many and such diverse elements,33 should conclude with a funeral which
in its origins reflects the blending of the customs of two peoples and two
cultures in a harmonious and dignified whole.
33. Joseph Harris, “Beowulf in Literary History,” Pacific Coast Philology, 17 (1982), 16–23.
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Father Chaucer and the Vivification of Print
Louise M. Bishop, Robert D. Clark Honors College, University of Oregon
Even in the fifteenth century, Chaucer was seen by his countrymen as the
preeminent English poet, the father, as Dryden was to call him in 1700, of
English poetry.1 Despite general agreement in the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries about Chaucer’s poetic preeminence, however, Thomas Speght’s
edition of Chaucer’s Works (1598, STC 5077, 5078, 5079; 1602, STC 5080,
5081)2 adds elaborate textual apparatus—illustrated frontispieces, life
1. Ethan Knapp, The Bureaucratic Muse: Thomas Hoccleve and the Literature of Late Medieval
England (University Park, PA: Penn State Univ. Press, 2001), points out that “in the early
fifteenth century” the father metaphor “was actually used by only one poet, Thomas Hoccleve” (p. 108): it is not used by Lydgate. In print the metaphor appears early with William
Caxton in 1477, so that A. C. Spearing’s claim that “the fatherhood of Chaucer was in effect
the constitutive idea of the English poetic tradition” still has purchase (Medieval to Renaissance
in English Poetry [Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1985], p. 92, quoted in Knapp, p. 108,
n. 5). In his influential book, Chaucer and His Readers: Imagining the Author in Late Medieval
England (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1993), especially Chapter 5, “At Chaucer’s Tomb:
Laureation and Paternity in Caxton’s Criticism,” pp. 147–75, Seth Lerer argues that print
and editors efface Chaucer’s fatherhood in favor of laureation to emphasize the role of an
editor, rather than the (dead) poet, in the production of books by humanist editors. This
essay qualifies that claim for the sixteenth century, arguing that the trope of living father
Chaucer continues to appear in print to counteract print’s commodified lifelessness and,
especially in the last folio editions of his Works, to realign Chaucer’s forced alliance with
Tudor politics.
2. Alice Miskimin, “The 1598 Folio of Speght,” in The Renaissance Chaucer (New Haven:
Yale Univ. Press, 1975), pp. 250–55, and Derek Pearsall, “Thomas Speght, c. 1550–?” in
Editing Chaucer: The Great Tradition, ed. Paul G. Ruggiers (Norman, OK: Pilgrim Books,
1984), pp. 71–92. See also Rewriting Chaucer: Culture, Authority, and the Idea of the Authentic
Text, 1400–1602, ed. Thomas Prendergast and Barbara Kline (Columbus: Ohio State Univ.
Press, 1999); Kathleen Forni, The Chaucerian Apocrypha: A Counterfeit Canon (Gainesville:
Univ. Press of Florida, 2001); and Stephanie Trigg, Congenial Souls: Reading Chaucer from
Medieval to Postmodern (Minneapolis: Minnesota Univ. Press, 2002).
For the purposes of this essay, I have consulted two early editions of Chaucer, both owned
by the special collections department of the Knight Library, University of Oregon: PR 1850
1561, a second impression of the John Stow edition of 1561 of Chaucer’s Works, STC 5076;
and PR 1850 1687, a 1687 edition of John Speght’s 1602 edition of Chaucer’s Works, C3736.
In his 1602 edition (STC 5080, 5081), Speght added some material to his 1598 edition (STC
5077, 5078, 5079): see Pearsall, “Thomas Speght,” pp. 83–90, and also Eleanor Prescott
Hammond, Chaucer: A Bibliographical Manual (New York: Macmillan, 1908), pp. 125–27.
The 1687 edition reprints Speght’s 1602 edition with some twenty-two lines added to the
ends of The Cook’s Tale and The Squire’s Tale along with an “Advertisement” by “J. H.”
asserting the volume’s quality, according to Pearsall, “Thomas Speght, c. 1550–?” p. 91, and
Hammond, Chaucer: A Bibliographical Manual, pp. 127–29. I thank special collections for
their courtesy.
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histories and genealogies, epistles and dedicatory poems—that insist on
Chaucer’s literary value in a particular way: they use the tropes of Chaucer as father and as living presence to affirm Chaucer’s literary worth.
These apparatus—or peritexts, to borrow Gerard Genette’s term3—invoke
Chaucer’s living voice through dialogues and letters; their images picture
him as if alive and situate his fatherhood, as well as his poetry, in the midst
of Tudor politics. Many peritexts are new to Speght’s editions; others carry
over from his editorial predecessors William Thynne (1532, STC 5068)
and John Stow (1561, STC 5075, 5076). What prompts this expression
of Chaucer as father and as living presence?
Seth Lerer has argued that a Chaucer made into (dead) artifact characterizes print editions of the poet’s works, such as Caxton’s from the
fifteenth century; James Simpson uses Lerer’s argument to propose two
tropes, “remembered presence” and “philological absence,” that control
Chaucer’s reception between 1400 and 1550.4 I counter that Chaucer’s
editors and literary progeny throughout the sixteenth century make father
Chaucer live to answer printed books’ loss of “aura,” as Walter Benjamin
would term it.5 Benjamin’s word “aura” treats film art and its attempts
to recreate stage presence, but books and reading also involve presence
and absence. A living father Chaucer participates in the “identifiable systemic links between texts, printed books, reading, mentalities, and wider
consequences” that William St. Clair notes in his recent analysis of print
3. Gerard Genette, Paratexts: Threshholds of Interpretation, trans. Jane E. Lewin (Cambridge:
Cambridge Univ. Press, 1997). As Richard Macksey explains in the foreword, paratexts
“compris[e] those liminal devices and conventions, both within the book (peritext) and
outside it (epitext), that mediate the book to the reader: titles and subtitles, pseudonyms,
forewords, dedications, epigraphs, prefaces, intertitles, notes, epilogues, afterwords . . . the
elements in the public and private history of the book” (p. xviii). Peritext includes “such
elements as the title or the preface and sometimes elements inserted into the interstices of
the text, such as chapter titles or certain notes” (p. 5). My argument about folio editions of
Chaucer concerns dedications, a title page, an illustration, and poetry addressed to readers,
hence “peritexts.” Paratexts as advertisements for authors and booksellers and their effects
on the idea of an author have been treated for fifteenth- and sixteenth-century French texts
by Cynthia Brown, Poets, Patrons, and Printers: Crisis of Authority in Late Medieval France (Ithaca:
Cornell Univ. Press, 1995).
4. James Simpson, “Chaucer’s Presence and Absence 1400–1550,” in The Cambridge Companion to Chaucer, ed. Piero Boitani and Jill Mann (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2003),
pp. 251–69. Relying on Lerer, Simpson delineates changes in the “literary system” (p. 261)
that made Chaucer’s texts into “archeological remains” (p. 251): “By the 1520s Chaucer
has, then, definitely gone, leaving only textual remains” (p. 267). As I hope to show, the
trope of living father Chaucer modifies Simpson’s claims.
5. Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” in Illuminations, ed. Hannah Arendt, trans. Harry Zohn (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1968),
pp. 219–53: “aura is tied to presence” and “The aura which, on the stage, emanates from
Macbeth, cannot be separated for the spectators from that of the actor” (p. 231). I thank
my colleague Kathleen Karlyn for pointing me to Benjamin’s essay.
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culture.6 Books are, by the sixteenth century, part of “a new scheme of
values concerning inanimate objects”:
by the end of the 16th century, an opposition between the material world
and the realm of language and ideas that had been an extreme and radical
position . . . two hundred years earlier had moved to the very heart of English cultural life.7
Images of and words about a living poet return materiality to language to
reinvest lifeless print with material being’s “aura.” The trope of Chaucer’s
living fatherhood apparent in both word and image in sixteenth-century
printed books animates Chaucer’s presence. Benjamin’s concept of “aura”
lets us understand the efforts printed books, especially print editions of
Chaucer, make to revive him and animate his living presence.
Living father Chaucer, revived in books as a national figure to serve
the dynastic needs of Henry VIII and “staged” in a bookish fashion during Elizabeth’s reign, answers the isolation, foreignness, and alienation
that mechanical reproduction cannot avoid. A close look at the efforts of
Chaucer’s various editors and sixteenth-century authors to present Chaucer
as living and as father shows the ways these two tropes attempt to invest
print with “presence” in time and space in order to counter its depreciation
as commodity. Moreover, near the end of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, in an
edition overloaded with multiple peritexts, John Speed’s pictorial figuration of Chaucer as father and living presence published in Speght’s edition
of “The workes of our antient and learned English poet, Geffrey Chaucer,
newly printed” (1598) not only counters print’s dead, commodified nature
but lets us read one of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales as an especially poignant
antiauthoritarian plea. Through a long-standing identity of the poet with
The Tale of Melibee, a living father Chaucer confronts autocratic rulership
in anticipation of successive change—of rulers, readers, and books.
To support these claims I will first note the tropes of Chaucer’s father6. William St. Clair, The Reading Nation in the Romantic Period (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press,
2004): printed books fit “governing economic and intellectual property structures, financing, manufacturing, prices, access, and actual reading” (p. 439) which differ from those of
manuscript culture. Other works on the idea of print include Elizabeth Eisenstein, The Print
Revolution in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1983); David Quint,
Origin and Originality in Renaissance Literature: Versions of the Source (New Haven: Yale Univ.
Press, 1983); and Kevin Dunn, Pretexts of Authority: The Rhetoric of Authorship in the Renaissance
Preface (Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press, 1994). On medieval ideas of authorship, see The Idea
of the Vernacular, ed. Jocelyn Wogan-Browne, Nicholas Watson, Andrew Taylor, and Ruth Evans
(University Park: Penn State Univ. Press, 1999), pp. 3–19, esp. “The Idea of an Author” (pp.
4–8) and “Textual Instability, Memory, and Vernacular Variance” (pp. 10–12).
7. John Hines, Voices in the Past: English Literature and Archaeology (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer,
2004), p. 138. Both Hines and St. Clair note that, while relations between print and manuscript remain fluid at the beginning of the sixteenth century, lines harden during the sixteenth century.
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hood and living presence in manuscripts and printed books, especially in
two engravings included in editions of Chaucer’s Works from the second
half of the sixteenth century. After elaborating on the implications of the
father/living presence trope for Chaucer’s readers, I conclude with an
against-the-grain reading of Chaucer’s Tale of Melibee. This prose text, far
from being a “retreat from poetry into staid secure prose,”8 exploits the
tropes of living father Chaucer, along with a nascent link between rhetoric
and drama,9 to body forth a critique of authoritarianism, even though
literary redemption remains only a fond hope as the Tudor lineage, but
not authoritarian regulation, meets its extinction.
I
Fifteenth-century manuscripts attest that Chaucer’s earliest acolytes used
a number of expressions to denote Chaucer’s preeminence as English
poet, with “master” the special favorite.10 Thomas Hoccleve is the first to
use the epithet “father” for Chaucer. In The Regement of Princes (1412),
Hoccleve not only laments Chaucer’s death, but imagines Chaucer speaking to him:
“Hoccleue, sone?” “I-wis, fadir, pat same.”
“Sone, I haue herd, or this, men speke of pe” . . .
“O maister deere, and fadir reuerent!
Mi maister Chaucer, flour of eloquence,
Mirour of fructuous entendement,
O, vniuersel fadir in science! . . .
Mi dere maistir—god his soule quyte!—
And fadir, Chaucer, fayne wolde han me taght;
But I was dul, and lerned lite of naght.”
8. Seth Lerer, Courtly Letters in the Age of Henry VIII: Literary Culture and the Arts of Deceit
(Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1997), p. 196. Lerer details the Henrician court’s
manuscript culture, primarily coterie works that, in the case of Henry’s love letters to Anne
Boleyn, achieve an un-looked-for currency.
9. Hines, Voices in the Past, explains that “drama as a means of training and education . . .
was a practical complement to the rhetorical training in dialectics through which medieval
students had to develop their argumentative and analytical skills . . . the history of dramatic
production in England for the most of the 16th century is consequently strongly marked
by records of theatrical performances in schools . . . and at colleges” (p. 144).
10. Lydgate begins his ca. 1409 “Commendacioun of Chaucer” with “And eke my master
Chauceris nowe is graue / The noble rethor Poete of breteine”; he repeats the epithet
“master” for Chaucer in virtually every other English poem he wrote. In 1448 John Metham
calls Chaucer “My mastyr Chauncerys”; George Ashby (ca. 1470) calls Gower, Chaucer, and
Lydgate “masters”; Henry Scogan begins a ca. 1407 poem with “My maister Chaucier.” See
Caroline Spurgeon, 500 Years of Chaucer Criticism, 3 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press,
1925), followed by Jackson Campbell Boswell and Sylvia Wallace Holton, Chaucer’s Fame in
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Bishop
Hoccleve blends “master” with “father,” then repeats “master” twice more
in the poem, while also at one point calling Chaucer “firste fyndere of our
faire langage.” Indeed, The Regement of Princes uses an array of tropes—master, father, originator—to certify Chaucer’s preeminence, while the text’s
dialogue form—Chaucer speaks to Hoccleve—revivifies the dead poet.
Three manuscripts of Hoccleve’s Regement add Chaucer’s image to Chaucer’s voice.11 In London, British Library MS Harley 4866, a picture of the
poet appears next to the following verses:
Alpogh his lyfe be queynt, pe resemblaunce
Of him hap in me so fressh lyflynesse
pat, to putte othir men in remembraunce
Of his persone, I haue heere his lyknesse
Do make, to pis ende in sothfastnesse,
pat pei pat haue of him lest pought & mynde,
By pis peynture may ageyn him fynde.12
The manuscript’s drawing of Chaucer points its finger at the word “likeness” while the lines credit Hoccleve’s living memory for the image’s lineaments. Chaucer’s pointing finger gently testifies to the image’s verisi-
England: STC Chauceriana, 1475–1640 (New York: Modern Language Association, 2004).
Boswell and Holton treat printed materials only, not manuscripts, but they have “checked
every edition of every book to see if a reference to Chaucer is present and, if it is present,
whether it has changed in any way” (p. xii). For the purposes of this paper, all references
to manuscript material (pre-1475) come from Spurgeon. References to printed materials
come from Boswell and Holton. On occasion, I have used the database Early English Books
Online, http://0–eebo.chadwyck.com.janus, for references: footnotes indicate these citations.
Both Spurgeon and Boswell and Holton arrange their entries chronologically. The reader
may thus refer to either edition as appropriate by means of the year cited. Additional references to print sources other than Boswell and Holton, or manuscript sources not listed in
Spurgeon, are cited in footnotes.
11. London, British Library MS Harley 4866; Philadelphia, Rosenbach Museum and Library MS 1083/10; and BL MS Royal 17 D.vi; see Derek Pearsall, “The Chaucer Portraits,”
Appendix 1 in The Life of Geoffrey Chaucer: A Critical Biography (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992),
pp. 285–305. See also Michael Seymour, “Manuscript Portraits of Chaucer and Hoccleve,”
Burlington Magazine, 124, no. 955 (October 1982), 618–23. Pearsall considers the Rosenbach portrait an eighteenth-century addition to the manuscript (p. 291). Trigg, Congenial
Souls, pp. 21–28, evaluates the power of voice for the “imagined community” of Chaucer‘s
readers and scholars from the Renaissance to the late 1990s. While I differ from Trigg’s
assessment of Chaucer’s living voice, her book has influenced my thinking about Chaucer’s
“lively” appearance and his voice.
12. The image is reproduced in Seymour, “Manuscript Portraits,” p. 619; Pearsall, Life,
p. 286; M. H. Spielmann, The Portraits of Geoffrey Chaucer (London: Kegan Paul, 1900), p. 7;
and as a line drawing in Spurgeon, Chaucer Criticism, I, 22. Trigg, Congenial Souls, treats the
image of Chaucer in tandem with the “famous picture of Chaucer” pointing to his name
in the rubric of the Ellesmere Tale of Melibee and calls it a “narrating presence” (p. 50). See
also Knapp, Bureaucratic Muse, pp. 104–22, and Christopher Cannon, The Making of Chaucer’s
English (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1998), p.12, on the word “finder” that exercises
an “Hocclevian arc toward the infinite” to escape the confines of language.
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militude, but it also, in indicating the word “likeness,” recalls the image’s
representational nature. Pictures may gesture at life, but at the same time
they remain pictures. Still, so self-conscious an image as Hoccleve’s of Chaucer, joining picture and text, indicates the protean relationship between
“figured objects and people” that Hoccleve uses: he expects his readers’
thoughts and minds will, through this “peynture,” “ageyn . . . fynde” Chaucer, “fyndere” of the English language.13
While Hoccleve’s image situates the reader as Hoccleve’s companion,
hoping that those who have forgotten Chaucer’s appearance will now
remember him, most readers have to do so without the aid of a “likeness”: just three of the forty or so manuscripts of The Regement include
a Chaucer image, and the image in one of those—Philadelphia, Rosenbach MS 1083—was drawn in the eighteenth century. Still, “likeness”
of an author is an idea new to this time14 and Chaucer was not alone in
having his image painted in manuscripts. Two full-length portraits, in
Cambridge, Pembroke College MS 307 and Oxford, Bodleian Library,
MS Bodley 290, portray the senex amans of the Confessio Amantis—John
Gower—without the kind of name attribution or pun on “likeness” found
in the Hoccleve manuscript’s illustration of Chaucer.15 But Gower’s likeness, as well as Chaucer’s and his “child” Hoccleve’s, appears in several
initials in the deluxe Bedford Psalter (ca. 1410), and in one, “an explicit
label on the background of the portrait . . . identifies the elderly, balding and bearded” Gower.16 Of the Psalter’s three images of Hoccleve and
three of Chaucer, none has any identification like Gower’s. However, the
drawings of Chaucer are thought to come from the same hand that drew
his portrait in Harley 4866, the Regement of Princes manuscript already
discussed. Portraiture begins to denote authors for readers in the context
of late medieval manuscripts.
13. For an analysis central to my thinking about the living resonance of images, see David
Freedberg, The Power of Images (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1999): “image [is] more
than it seems” (p. xxiv) and “figured objects and people” are always “disrupting natural law”
(p. 43). See also Maidie Hilmo, Medieval Images, Icons, and Illustrated English Literary Texts
(Aldershot, Hampshire: Ashgate, 2004): the medieval audience regards “visual details as a
signifying system for both literal truth (‘what each looks like’) and symbolic truth (‘what
each stands for’ or ‘figures’)” (p. 18), distinct from the Renaissance’s “primary referent,”
which is “terrestial reality” (p. 10).
14. Sylvia Wright, “The Author Portraits in the Bedford Psalter-Hours: Gower, Chaucer
and Hoccleve,” British Library Journal, 18, no. 2 (Autumn 1992), 190–201, sees the first commemorations of Dante and Petrarch ca. 1375 as the genesis of author portraits (p. 190).
15. Derek Pearsall, “The Manuscripts and Illustrations of Gower’s Works,” in The Companion
to Gower, ed. Siân Echard (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2004), points out that the “unusual and
seemingly rather inappropriate choice” of an old man with forked beard shows that “The
artist, or the supervisor who gave him his instructions, has chosen the literal truth rather
than the literary subterfuge” (p. 89).
16. See images in Wright, “Author-Portraits”; for the explicit label, p. 192.
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Admittedly, manuscript images are limited in their cultural purchase
to a rather minimal, though influential, audience. But manuscripts are
not the exclusive purveyors of Chaucer’s and Gower’s images. Gower’s
chantry and tomb in the chapel of John the Baptist in St. Mary Overie,
Southwark, may have been designed as early as the last years of Gower’s
life; he died in 1408.17 Gower’s chantry survived the religious tumult of
the sixteenth century, so that antiquarian John Stow, who edited a 1561
folio edition of Chaucer, was able to describe the effigy and chantry in
his 1598 Survey of London:
Iohn Gower Esquier, a famous Poet, was then an especiall benefactor to that
worke, and was there buried on the North side of the said church, in the
chapple of S. Iohn, where he founded a chauntrie, he lieth vnder a tombe of
stone, with his image also of stone ouer him: the haire of his head aburne,
long to his sholders, but curling vp, and a small forked beard, on his head a
chaplet, like a coronet of foure Roses, an habite of purple, demasked downe
to his feet, a collar of Esses, gold about his necke, vnder his head the likenes of
three bookes, which he compiled. The first named Speculum Meditantis, written in French: The second Vox clamantis penned in Latine: the third Confessio
amantis written in English, and this last is printed, vox clamantis with his Cronica
tripartita, and other both in latine and French neuer printed, I haue and
doe possesse, but speculum meditantis I neuer saw, though heard thereof to be
in Kent: beside on the wall where he lyeth, there was painted three virgins
crowned, one of which was named Charity, holding this deuise.18
Chaucer too had a public tomb, and ca. 1556, following Nicholas Brigham’s
enhancement, worshippers in Westminster Abbey could have seen a portrait of Chaucer between the sepulchre’s arches.19 Speght’s 1598 edition
(STC 5077) provides the earliest written record of it, and Elias Ashmole’s
Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum (1652) provides the earliest image.20 The
figure holds a rosary in his left hand, a mark perhaps of an attempt to
reclaim Chaucer for Roman Catholicism during the reign of Queen Mary.
While Westminster worshippers could see Chaucer’s image in the second
half of the sixteenth century, the upper crust could see portraits of the
author in fine houses. Some six portrait panels survive from the sixteenth
century, but no such tradition immortalizes Gower. Chaucer’s image had
special currency in sixteenth-century England.
17. John Hines, Nathalie Cohen, and Simon Roffey, “Iohannes Gower, Armiger, Poeta: Records
and Memorials of His Life and Death,” in A Companion to Gower, pp. 23–41, with photograph
of the tomb (p. 37).
18. A Survey of London by John Stow Reprinted from the Text of 1603, ed. Charles Lethbridge
Kingsford, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1908), I, 57.
19. Joseph A. Dane, Who is Buried in Chaucer’s Tomb? (East Lansing: Michigan State Univ.
Press, 1998), pp. 10–32.
20. See Dane, Who is Buried, p. 13, for Speght’s description, with an image from the 1602
edition (STC 5080), and Pearsall, Life, p. 296, for an image of Ashmole’s engraving.
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Chaucer and Gower both see print in deluxe folio editions in 1532.21
Unlike the tradition of Chaucer folios, the 1532 edition of Gower’s Confessio Amantis (STC 12143)—a single work, unlike a “complete works”
edition like Chaucer’s, and printed by Thomas Berthelet, business partner with Chaucer’s printer Thomas Godfray—is reprinted once, in 1554
(STC 12144), before it vanishes from continued impression. The Confessio
Amantis sees deluxe folio again only in the nineteenth century. Chaucer’s
complete works, however, see continual folio printing throughout the
sixteenth century, but his readers have to wait until 1598 for his “likeness,” as in the Hoccleve manuscript, the Bedford Psalter, or his tomb, to
emerge in print.
Printed portrait or no, the “father” epithet applied to Chaucer, first
used in manuscript, follows Chaucer into print. In his 1477 Book of Curtesye
(STC 3303) William Caxton addresses Chaucer “O fader and founder of
ornate eloquence” and repeats himself in a 1478 epilogue to the Consolation of Philosophy, calling Chaucer “the worshipful fader & first foundeur
& embelissher of ornate eloquence in our englissh.” The epithet endures
another century: in 1575, George Gascoigne uses it in his “Certayne Notes
of Instruction concerning the making of verse or ryme in English,” part of
The posies of George Gascoigne esquire (STC 11637): “also our father Chaucer
hath used the same libertie in feete and measures that the Latinists do
use.” In the same text Gascoigne, like Hoccleve, combines “master” and
“father” in one phrase to describe Chaucer’s particular verse form, “riding rhyme”: “that is suche as our Mayster and Father Chaucer vsed in his
Canterburie tales, and in diuers other delectable and light enterprises.”
In contrast, the somewhat later Cobler of Caunterburie (1590, STC 4579), a
collection of stories told by a Thames boating party to imitate Chaucer’s
pilgrimage narrative, adds “old” to the father epithet, with no reference to
“master,” making the work’s most frequent epithet “old Father Chaucer.”22
This ostensibly endearing phrase simultaneously compliments the poet
and relegates him to the past. The author’s admission that “Syr Jeffrey
Chaucer is so hie aboue my reach, that I take Noli altum sapere, for a warning,
and onely looke at him with honour and reuerence” follows Hoccleve’s
desire to put his father Chaucer’s “likeness” on the page to jog his reader’s
21. James E. Blodgett, “William Thynne,” in Editing Chaucer: The Great Tradition, ed. Paul
G. Ruggiers (Norman, OK: Pilgrim Books), pp. 35–52; Echard, Companion to Gower, pp.
115–35, esp. pp. 116–17. See also Forni, Counterfeit Canon, pp. 45–54.
22. The Cobler of Caunterburie and Tarltons Newes out of Purgatorie, ed. Geoffrey Creigh and
Jane Belfield (Leiden: Brill, 1987); John Pitcher, “Literature, the Playhouse and the Public,”
in The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, vol. 4: 1557–1695, ed. John Barnard and D. F.
McKenzie with the assistance of Maureen Bell (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2002), p.
367. Creigh and Belfield mention the possibility that the text is the work of Robert Greene
(pp. 9–10).
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memory and encourage his friendship: after hearing Chaucer’s voice,
Hoccleve provides his reader Chaucer’s likeness. The Cobler’s narrator also
uses voice to match his reverential gaze at Father Chaucer: he asks the
reader, “What say you to old father Chaucer?” The father trope in manuscript and print makes Chaucer genial and approachable, his reader’s
eyes reaching him, his fatherhood folded into his voice and his reader’s.
William Thynne’s 1532 folio edition of Chaucer’s collected Workes is not
the first folio of Chaucer printed: in 1526 Richard Pynson prints a folio
Canterbury Tales (STC 5086). But Thynne’s edition, a complete Works, creates Chaucer as “champion of the King [Henry VIII] against the conflicting claims of Church and nobility.”23 Chaucer’s earliest printer, William
Caxton, veteran of the War of the Roses, had already planted Chaucer into
the “Tudor Myth” for Henry VIII’s father, Henry VII, who was “conspicuously weak in his ancestral connections.”24 Without mentioning Henry
VII by name, Caxton includes Chaucer among the “clerkes, poetes, and
historiographs” whose “many noble bokes of wysedome of the lyues, passions, & myracles of holy sayntes of historyes, of noble and famous Actes
and faittes, And of the cronycles sith the begynning of the creacion of the
world” have contributed to “thys Royame.”25 By 1532, “the royal patronage of [Thynne’s edition of Chaucer] was one of the many autocratic,
centralizing gestures of Henry’s regime, and was intended to augment
Henry’s own glory and strength.”26 Even the gesture of a Chaucer edition,
centralizing all of Chaucer in one book—a fate Gower escapes—imitates
the authoritarianism of Tudor hegemony, providing “textual correlatives
of bureaucratic centralization.”27
Chaucer may seem a natural for immersion in “The Tudor Myth,” be23. John Watkins, “‘Wrastling for This World’: Wyatt and the Tudor Canonization of
Chaucer,” in Refiguring Chaucer in the Renaissance, ed. Theresa M. Krier (Gainesville: Univ.
Press of Florida, 1998), p. 23.
24. E. M. W. Tillyard, Some Mythical Elements in English Literature (London: Chatto and
Windus, 1961), p. 47. Tillyard includes among the myth’s popularizers Edmund Spenser,
William Warner, Michael Drayton, John Dee, and Edward Hall (p. 53). To Tillyard’s list
of Tudor apologists, add John Stow, editor of the 1561 Chaucer edition, whose Chronicles
of England (1580) “present in chronicle form the legend of England as a people chosen
by God for His own purposes”; Rosemary O’Day, The Longman Companion to The Tudor Age
(London: Longman, 1995), p. 79. Tillyard’s handy title cannot comprise all the subtleties of
Tudor rule: see David Loades, Power in Tudor England (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997),
for the shape of the Tudors’ “personal monarchy,” and on print his Politics, Censorship and
the English Reformation (London: Pinter, 1991); also King, Tudor Royal Iconography: Literature
and Art in the Age of Religious Crisis (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1989).
25. W. J. B. Crotch, The Prologues and Epilogues of William Caxton, EETS o.s. 176 (London:
Oxford Univ. Press, 1928), pp. 90–91.
26. Theresa M. Krier, “Introduction,” in Refiguring Chaucer in the Renaissance, ed. Krier,
p. 10.
27. Watkins, “‘Wrastling for This World,’” p. 24.
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cause he lived during its inception. Chaucer’s king was Richard II, whose
deposition fomented the York-Lancaster fracas now known as the War of
the Roses that eventually led to Henry Tudor’s power grab in 1485. The
Tudor era, begun with Henry Tudor’s ascension as Henry VII, officially
concludes with Elizabeth’s death in 1603. But Chaucer’s biography did
not automatically identify him with the Tudors nor match his attitudes
with their policies. “Antiquarian enterprises like Thynne’s often had a distinctly counter-monarchical implication, the establishment of an English
national identity apart from the Crown”: Chaucer was alternately viewed as
a “right Wicleuian” and abettor of Protestant polemics or as sympathetic
with Henry VIII’s disaffected nobility.28 Chaucer’s editors work hard to
identify him with the Tudor cause. Folio editions of Chaucer, dedicated
repeatedly to Henry VIII even after his demise, imbricate the poet with
the Tudors and their spin on England’s national narrative:29 Thynne’s
dedication to Henry VIII, in which he asserts that Chaucer’s Workes will
add to the “laude and honour of this your noble realme,” continues to
be printed as peritext in every sixteenth-century folio edition, both the
reprints of Thynne and the new editions of John Stow (1561) and Thomas
Speght (1598 and 1602).30 Thynne’s edition, produced during a year
of parliamentary, royal, and clerical maneuvering that included a prorogued parliament and Thomas More’s resignation as chancellor, presages
Henry’s Act of Supremacy (1534) and exemplifies the complicated and
unsteady alliances publishers and printers make with (dead) poets, living
monarchs, and authoritarian national politics.31 “Father” Chaucer in folio
editions affects “father Chaucer” for Gascoigne and the Cobler author:
the poet is both remote and reachable, visible and audible in a readerly
fashion begun with Hoccleve, now touched with Chaucer’s immersion in
Tudor authoritarianism. Tudor politics and Chaucer’s fatherhood work
28. Watkins, “‘Wrastling for This World,’” pp. 23–25.
29. “Thynne’s [1532] editions perhaps served Henrician dynastic and nationalistic imperatives by establishing an English literary heritage . . . Chaucer’s eloquence was valued
for its symbolic capital”: Forni, “Thynne and Henrician Nationalism,” Counterfeit Canon, p.
50.
30. On Thynne’s 1542 and 1550 editions, see Martha W. Driver, “A False Imprint in
Chaucer’s Works: Protestant Printers in London (and Zurich?),” Trivium, 31 (1999), 131–54,
who argues that the Thynne reprints were the work of Protestant, even offshore printers;
Derek Brewer, Geoffrey Chaucer, Volume 1, 1385–1837, The Critical Heritage (London: Routledge, repr. 1995), prints much of the Thynne’s preface dedicating his edition to Henry
VIII, pp. 87–90. He also mentions the contention that the preface was written by Brian
Tuke. On the Tuke question, see Forni, Chaucerian Apocrypha, p. 30, and Trigg, Congenial
Souls, pp. 128 and 258, n. 41.
31. See Simpson, “Chaucer’s Presence,” and for a succinct chronology see Sharon L.
Jansen, Political Protest and Prophecy Under Henry VIII (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell, 1991),
pp. 21–24.
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in tandem with the identity of family as nation to make Chaucer’s readers
into Tudor subjects.
The trope of Chaucer as father meshes with Tudor concerns about political legitimacy as it limns their worries about succession and progeny:
Henry VIII’s desire for a male heir and his daughter Elizabeth’s virgin
queenship are among the family factors that animate Tudor policy, piety,
and poetry.32 Although the Tudors are not unique in joining fatherhood
with nation, their success establishing “The Tudor Myth” in print and on
stage derived in part from their concerted efforts to regulate print. Henry
VIII’s treason legislation of the 1530s required all licensed books to print
“cum privilegio regali ad imprimendum solum” on the title page; legislation in 1543 that specified penalties and in 1546 that required identity,
although aimed primarily at “theological matter,” illustrates the climate in
which Chaucer’s publishers worked.33 Tudor legislation of print matches
their innovative and absolutely authoritarian law of attainder, an act of parliament pushed by Tudor interests that allows execution without trial. The
“steadily increasing efficiency and stringency of censorship” by 1590—the
print year of Cobler—gave “the English government a stronger grip on
the domestic printing industry than any other European monarch.”34
In 1575 and 1590, Gascoigne and the Cobler author may have heard
their father Chaucer’s voice in William Thynne’s 1532 edition. Thynne
himself, he tells us, had enjoyed hearing Chaucer: in his dedication to
Henry VIII, he writes of having “taken great delectacyon / as the tymes and
laysers might suffre / to rede and here the bokes of that noble & famous
clerke Geffray Chaucer.”35 Or perhaps they heard their father Chaucer in
a different folio edition: John Stow’s 1561 Chaucer’s Works is produced
in the early years of Elizabeth’s reign (1558–1603). Stow’s book includes
a suggestive image that joins father Chaucer to Tudor genealogy (fig. 1).
Like Thynne’s dedication to Henry VIII printed in later sixteenth-century
folio editions, Stow’s peritext also appears in a later edition, Speght’s of
1598.36 This engraving depicts the lineage of Elizabeth’s father Henry
VIII: it begins with the family antagonists, Yorks and Lancasters, of the
32. “It can be difficult, if not impossible, however, to draw sharp distinctions among
political, pietistic, and aesthetic endeavors during this age [the Tudor age]”: John N. King,
Tudor Royal Iconography, p. 3.
33. See James Simpson, Reform and Cultural Revolution, vol. 2: 1350–1547, The Oxford
English Literary History (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2002), p. 338, n. 48, and “Chaucer’s
Presence and Absence,” pp. 265–66, for Henry’s 1542 legislation that allows “Canterburye
tales” and “Chaucers bokes” to continue in print.
34. Loades, Power, p. 122.
35. Francis Thynne’s Animadversions upon Speght’s first (1598 A.D.) Edition of Chaucers Workes,
ed. G. H. Kingsley, revised F. Y. Furnivall, EETS o.s. 9 (London: Trübner, 1865), p. xxiv.
36. Anne Hudson, “John Stow, 1525?-1605,” in Editing Chaucer, ed. Ruggiers, pp. 57–58.
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War of the Roses. The illustration mimics a Jesse tree (radix Jesse), a pictorial representation of the Virgin Mary’s parentage familiar to medieval
audiences.37 In a typical version of the Christian icon, Jesse, father of King
David, lies at the illustration’s bottom. A vine springs from his midsection
to initiate the Virgin’s genealogy, and this “tree” ascends through King
David to Jesus. In Stow’s peritext, monarchs replace saints:38 a recognizable
Henry VIII supplants—deposes?—the Jesus who traditionally tops the image. Splitting the traditionally recumbent “Jesse” into two figures—John
of Gaunt and Edmund, Duke of York—makes visible the two “houses” of
White and Red Rose central to the Tudor narrative. The ascent of rose
vines on either side of the illustration marks the division between the two
royal houses, their battles the subject of Shakespeare’s history plays. The
vines culminate in a rose-enthroned King Henry VIII depicted, unlike
the other royals in the illustration, with all three accouterments of royal
office—crown, scepter, sword—as father triumphant.39 In this fashion the
engraving replaces Jesus’s family with England’s royal lineage, equipped
with the implements of authority—and punishment. Its allusion to the
Jesse tree suggests the redemptive quality of the patriarchal Tudor myth
and Tudor authoritarianism, but its triumphalism mocks the mercy of
Mary’s son.
This peritext functions in Stow’s 1561 and Speght’s 1598 editions as
title page for The Canterbury Tales: it layers Chaucer with Tudor genealogy.
The title “The Caunterburie tales” appears in the center of the woodcut,
surrounded by almost exclusively male Yorks and Lancasters. Besides
suggestively linking royal and divine history, the peritext, with its title
“The Caunterburie tales” weaves Chaucer together with English history
in a matrix of royal “fatherhood.” The image uses print and family to mix
royal, religious, national, and literary meanings together. Henry VIII’s
family tree places Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales squarely in the center of
royal genealogy and its concerns about legitimate progeny, patriarchal
authority, and political succession. Stow’s image encapsulates Queen
Elizabeth’s bloodline, advertising her merits to potential suitors while
conveniently eliding, three years into her reign, her dead and barren
siblings. When reprinted in Speght’s 1598 edition after hope for Tudor
progeny has failed, Stow’s woodcut, as “mediating literary artifact . . .
37. See Arthur Watson, The Early Iconography of the Tree of Jesse (London: Oxford Univ.
Press, 1934).
38. The Tudor wont to replace saintly images with their own is almost a critical commonplace. See King, Tudor Royal Iconography, pp. 57–59, and Martha W. Driver, “Mapping
Chaucer: John Speed and the Later Portraits,” Chaucer Review, 36 (2002), 229–49.
39. The genealogy is, of course, fashioned to support Tudor ideology. Richard II is absent
from the page, and Henry VII looks to be inevitable as monarch.
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Figure 1. The woorkes of Geffrey Chaucer : newly printed with
divers addicions, whiche were never in printe before : with the
siege and destruccion of the worthy citee of Thebes, compiled by
John Lydgate, monke of Berie : as in the table more plainly dooeth
appere. London: Jhon Kyngston for Jhon Wight. dwellyng
in Poules Churchyarde, 1561. Folio 5, recto. By kind permission of James Fox, head, special collections, Knight
Library, University of Oregon.
bears the traces of past as well as present social and political conflict.”40
The picture’s treacherous implications question Tudor fecundity and
Chaucer’s relationship to it, and may have contributed to its elimination in 1602 reprints of Speght’s edition. No longer does Henry VIII’s
genealogy frame father Chaucer: the increasingly fraught succession
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question encouraged the 1602 printers of Speght’s edition to introduce
The Canterbury Tales without this peritext.
II
Besides the trope of “father Chaucer” traceable in both manuscript and
print, another trope—Chaucer as living author—appears in the sixteenth
century. Thomas Proctor, in A Gorgious gallery of gallant inventions (1578,
STC 20402), can only wish “If Chawser yet did live” in order to assure his
audience that, like Proctor, Chaucer too would write verses in praise of
“Mistress D.” Samuel Daniel puts the wish for a living Chaucer even more
forcefully. In his Poeticall essayes (1599, STC 6261), he laments the “low
disgrace” of “hy races” that have occurred “Since Chaucer liu’d.” While
this one part of Daniel’s poem recognizes Chaucer’s death, the rest of it
brings Chaucer back to life: “who yet liues and yet shall, / Though (which
I grieue to say) but in his last.”41 What sort of hope are they expressing?
Marxist theory provides one way to understand this trope of a living
Chaucer. In order to become objects of capital exchange, books as commodities need to be drained of life, turned into “products that count for
more in social life than the real relations of persons.”42 A printed book
does not entirely fit a Marxist idea of commodity: a book is not “a primary
good, such as coal or sugar, whose characteristics remain much the same
however much of it is produced,” and booksellers have an interest in
“the fate of their product.”43 But printed editions of Chaucer nevertheless exemplify commodified lifelessness. Print’s “deadness” contrasts with
the living nature of manuscripts: practices associated with manuscripts—
scraping, pointing, incising—emphasize their fleshly nature in contrast to
print.44 With word and image produced by hand on the skins of animals,
manuscripts embody the metaphor of “living words.” Hoccleve’s image
of Chaucer, meant to jog memory, fits the production of manuscripts,
rather than the reproduction of printed books. Mechanical reproduction
changes books from heirloom to commodity.
Print’s early years did not inspire censorship: until the 1520s, its mechanical nature occluded its political potency. Those efforts arise in the
41. Pitcher, “Literature, Playhouse,” pp. 361–64, discusses Daniel’s work.
42. Terrell Carver, A Marx Dictionary (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1987), pp. 81–87, explains
fetishism of commodities (quotation at p. 83); Brown, Poets, Patrons, and Printers, explores
the way the printing press in France “led to the objectification, commercialization, and
commodification of the book” (p. 5); see St. Clair, Reading Nation, for modifications.
43. St. Clair, Reading Nation, p. 31.
44. See the editors’ “Introduction,” in The Book and the Body, ed. Dolores Warwick Frese
and Katherine O’Brien O’Keeffe (Notre Dame: Univ. of Notre Dame Press, 1997), pp.
ix–xviii, for a meditation on manuscripts’ lividity.
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1530s and grow in the 1540s. Nor does Elizabeth’s official government
censorship begun in 1559 eliminate the seditious print of Shakespeare’s
contemporaries, Latin historian William Camden (1551–1623) and poet
Michael Drayton (1563–1631).45 Her 1586 Star Chamber decree “confirmed the powers of the Stationers Company and the privileges of patentees. Powers of censorship, previously mainly a matter of self-censorship
within the industry, are given to the ecclesiastical authorities”: as William
St. Clair also notes, “From 1595. [sic] Ecclesiastical censorship tightened.”46
Tudor authoritarianism tracks, but cannot contain, the figure of living
father Chaucer: his liveliness answers commodification; his fatherhood
puts in perspective the Tudor hegemony’s tragic family prospects, barren
like Macbeth’s, unable to “stand in posterity”; and his image can challenge
reigning pieties as did his poetry in the hands of some of Henry VIII’s
courtiers in the 1530s and 1540s.47
Father Chaucer’s voice also sounds in three “protodramatic” dialogue
texts that stage Chaucer in sixteenth- and early-seventeenth-century print.
This small genre of living, speaking Chaucers resembles the dialogue Hoccleve works into his Regement of Princes and suggests intersections between
literature and the stage before Richard Burbage’s 1576 purpose-built
theater makes a theatrical idiom concrete.48 William Bullein publishes
a tract against the plague, “A Dialogue both pleasaunte and pietifull”
(1564), in which he describes Chaucer preparing to speak of poetry:
Wittie Chaucer satte in a chaire of gold couered with roses, writing prose
& Rime, accompanied with the spirites of many kynges, knightes and faire
ladies. Whom he pleasauntly besprinkeled with the sweete water of the well,
consecrated unto the Muses, ecleped Aganippe.
After this introduction and description, Chaucer speaks in iambic hexameter, asserting in his own voice “no buriall hurteth holie men, though
beastes them deuour, / Nor riche graue preuaileth the wicked for all
yearthly power.” A living Chaucer here answers any wish to put him in
his grave in a fashion more powerful than a monologue. Such dialogues
presage Elizabethan theatrical energy.
A later sixteenth-century tract also includes this sort of speaking Chaucer: Greenes Vision: written at the instant of his death (1592, STC 12261).49 A
46. St. Clair, Reading Nation, Appendix 2, p. 481.
48. Pitcher, “Literature, Playhouse,” esp. p. 351, and Hines, Voices in the Past, esp. pp.
143–44.
49. See Helen Cooper, “‘This Worthy Olde Writer’: Pericles and Other Gowers, 1592–1640,”
in A Companion to Gower, ed. Siân Echard, pp. 110–13, esp. 100–4. On Greenes Vision and
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dream vision in prose and poetry, it treats a colloquy on literary judgment
ostensibly dreamed by Robert Greene, prolific Elizabethan dramatist and
writer. The vision recounts Chaucer, Gower, and Greene arguing about the
morality of their several works as well as the meaning of literature more
generally. While scholarly opinion divides on whether Greene himself
wrote the work, his dramatic ambiance pervades it. After Greene states
his case regarding the fitness of his own poetry (or whether he wrote The
Cobler of Caunterburie), “Chawcer sat downe and laught, and then rising vp
and leaning his back against a Tree, he made this merry aunswer.”50 The
colloquy goes on for some forty-one pages, and includes Chaucer again
being called, as in The Cobler of Caunterburie, “old.” Although Chaucer
loses the argument, his liveliness in Greenes Vision makes “old” seem an
affectionate epithet. When Greene accedes to Gower’s injunction to
leave off writing of love, “Chawcer shakt his head and fumed.”51 Then
Solomon, like a deus ex machina, appears and has the last word, enjoining
Greene to “leave all other vaine studies, and applye thy selfe to feede
upon that heauenly manna,” to which the waking Greene accedes, concluding with “as you had the blossomes of my wanton fancies, so you shall
haue the fruites of my better laboures.”52 While Gower’s morality “wins,”
Chaucer’s voice argues for tolerance. He tells Greene not to concern
himself with the ascription of the Cobler, and his tale, while lacking a
moral issue at its heart, teases authority through the comeuppance of
a jealous husband. Helen Cooper reads Greenes Vision on the worth and
morality of literature this way: “Literature may indeed be wanton; but
although its attractiveness may make it suspect, that does not in every
case necessitate a denial of its worth, its power of persuading to virtue.
The responsibility may, however, fall as much on the reader as on the
writer.”53 A living father Chaucer, ostensibly bested by John Gower, makes
the more important case for readerly judgment, itself possibly a matter
of life and death under the Tudors.
In a final instance of a dramatically speaking Chaucer—Richard Brathwait’s “Chaucer’s Incensed Ghost” (1617, STC 3585), a post-Tudor poem
attached to The Smoking Ages, or, The man in the mist: with the life and death
of Tobacco—Chaucer voices his unhappiness and disgust, not only to have
“self-authorization,” see Lori Humphrey Newcomb, Reading Popular Romance in Early Modern
England (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 2002), pp. 47, 52.
50. Brewer, The Critical Heritage, pp. 130–35, prints a fair amount of Greenes Vision, as do
Boswell and Holton.
51. Accessed through the Early English Books Online (EEBO)database (Ann Arbor: University
of Michigan, 1998– ), February 13, 2005.
52. EEBO, accessed February 13, 2005.
53. Cooper, “‘This Worthy Olde Writer,’” p. 104.
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been brought “o’ th’ stage,” but at the damage “Pipe-Pageants” are having
on his reputation:
Las; Is it fit the stories of that book,
Couche’d and compil’d in such a various forme,
Which art and nature joyntly did adorne,
On whose quaint Tales succeeding ages look,
Should now lie stifled in the steems of smoak,
As if no poet’s genius could be ripe
Without the influence of Pot and Pipe?54
Father Chaucer speaks to reputation, not regulation; genius, not morals,
in defending his tales now “subjects both for Presse and Stage.”55 Not
only a living visitor, Chaucer is father, except to “a brat hee never got,”
and requires that his audience “conceive this well.” For this living father
Chaucer, stage and press equally bring his generative figure back to life.
The desire for a living Chaucer to meet the restrictions of print produces
a small genre of “performing” Chaucers. The trope of a living Chaucer
uses the stage’s idiom of presence56 to counteract the commodified lifelessness of print’s mechanical reproduction.
The last sixteenth-century folio edition of Chaucer’s Works, Speght’s in
1598, provides the most powerful representations of living father Chaucer
to answer “dead” print. Speght’s edition includes many more peritexts than
had its predecessors. One is a long biography, “Chaucers Life,” divided
into “His Marriage,” “His Education,” “His Revenues,” “His Rewards,” “His
Children, with their advancement” (a long section), and “His Countrey.”
Speght’s other peritexts include a glossary of hard words, a drawing of
Chaucer’s arms like that found in sixteenth-century wealthy houses’ panel
portraits, and a schematic of his family tree, in Latin. Speght’s printed words,
like those of Bullein, Greene, and Brathwait, animate father Chaucer.
A poetic peritextual dialogue, reminiscent of Hoccleve’s, has two speakers, “The Reader” and “Geffrey Chaucer.” Not only Chaucer but his—and
Speght’s—reader speaks: a revoiced Chaucer joins a uniquely voiced reader.57 The poem’s content specifically adumbrates an editor’s concern about
54. Included in Caroline Spurgeon, Richard Brathwait’s Comment, in 1665, upon Chaucer’s
Tales of the Miller and the Wife of Bath (London: Kegan Paul, 1901), pp. viii–xi.
55. Spurgeon, Richard Brathwait’s Comment, p. x.
56. “Aura is tied to [an actor’s] living presence; there can be no replica of it. The aura
which, on the stage, emanates from Macbeth cannot be separated for the spectators from
that of the actor . . . Any thorough study proves that there is indeed no greater contrast
than that of the stage play to a work of art that is completely subject to it or, like the film,
founded in, mechanical reproduction”; Benjamin, “The Work of Art,” pp. 231–32.
57. Peter Stallybrass and Margreta de Grazia, “Love Among the Ruins: Response to Pechter,” Textual Practice, 119 (1997), 69, suggest that modernity predicates “certainty on the
existence of consciousness” (p. 69). The appeal to the reader’s voice as well as a revoiced
Chaucer signals this shift towards consciousness as a literary issue.
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book as commodity. Both Chaucer and Reader use the language of print
to praise Speght for his tireless work.
Reader
Where hast thou dwelt, good Geffrey, all this while,
Unknown to us, save only by thy Books?
Chaucer
In Haulks and Herns, God wot, and in Exile,
Where none vouchsaft to yield me Words or Looks;
Till one which saw me there, and knew my Friends,
Did bring me forth: such Grace sometime God sends.
Reader
But who is he that hath thy Books repair’d,
And added more, whereby thou are more graced?
Chaucer
The self-same Man who hath no Labour spar’d
To help what Time and Writers had defaced:
And made old Words, which were unknown of many,
So plain, that now they may be known of any.
Reader
Well fare his heart; I love him for thy sake,
Who for thy sake hath taken all this Pains.
Chaucer
Would God I knew some means amends to make,
That for his Toil he might receive some Gains.
But wot ye what? I know his Kindness such,
That for my good he thinks no Pains too much.58
Chaucer’s liveliness here, like his liveliness in the protodramas, comes
from his voice rather than, in Hoccleve’s case, his likeness. In the highvalue folio edition, however, self-conscious printers’ metaphors layer the
work of editors, parents, and readers to let Chaucer’s liveliness answer
print’s status as commodity.
Speght’s 1602 edition includes two more poems that animate Chaucer.
Written by Francis Thynne, son of the editor William, the first poem closes
with lines attuned to the trope of a living Chaucer: “Then Chaucer live, for
still thy Verse shall live / T’unborn Poets which Life and Light will give.”59
58. Transcribed from the University of Oregon’s copy of Speght’s edition (see n. 2). Trigg,
Congenial Souls, prints a final couplet: “And more than that; if he had knowne in time, / He
would have left no fault in prose nor rime” (p. 133).
59. Upon the Picture of Chaucer.
What Pallas City owes the heavenly mind
Of prudent Socrates, wise Greece’s Glory;
What Fame Arpinas spreadingly doth find
What lasting Praise sharp witted Italy
By Tasso’s and by Petrark’s Pen obtained;
What Fame Bartas unto proud France hath gained;
By seven days World Poetically strained:
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Even more insistently, Thynne’s second poem, “Of the Animadversions
upon Chaucer,” uses, like the dialogue poem from the earlier Speght
edition, the trope of Chaucer’s living fatherhood while gesturing toward
print and editorship:
In reading of the learn’d praise-worthy Pain,
The helpful Notes explaining Chaucer’s Mind,
The abstruse Skill, and artificial Vein;
By true Annalogy I rightly find
Speght is the Child of Chaucer’s fruitful Brain;
Vernishing his Works with Life and Grace,
Which envious Age would otherwise deface.
Then be he lov’d and thanked for the same,
Since in his Love he hath reviv’d his Name.60
In this poem, Speght becomes the “vernisher” of Chaucer’s works, coating
and rubbing to warm and enliven. Both the Reader and Francis Thynne
aver that Chaucer, the living father-artist, “really” comes to life in the edition of his child, Thomas Speght. Speght includes these poems of Francis
Thynne, son of William, Chaucer’s first folio editor, with a conscious nod to
filial pieties, his to Chaucer and Francis’s to his father. The elder Thynne’s
and Chaucer’s entanglements with the Tudor family seem background
here: Speght prints Francis’s “Animadversions” as peritexts in which Francis
details his father’s contretemps with Cardinal Wolsey.61 Yet Speght brings
his own Tudor entanglements to bear, printing his dedicatory epistle to
Elizabeth’s secretary, “Sir Robert Cecil, one of hir highnes most honvrable
privie covnsel,” as first peritext in the edition. The edition’s numerous
peritexts surround Chaucer with the earliest and latest Tudor history.
What high Renown is purchas’d unto Spain,
Which fresh Dianaes Verses do distill;
What Praise our Neighbour Scotland doth retain
By Gawine Douglas, in his Virgil Quill;
Or other Motions by sweet Poets Skill;
The same, and more, fair England challenge may,
By that rare Wit and Art thou do’st display
In Verse, which doth Apollo’s Muse bewray.
Then Chaucer live, for still thy Verse shall live
T’unborn Poets which Life and Light will give.
Fran. Thynn.
See Francis Thynne’s Animadversions, pp. cvi–cvii. The poem appears in the University of
Oregon’s edition of Speght (see n. 2 above), on a 1 verso.
60. Francis Thynne’s Animadversions, p. cvii.
61. Despite Henry VIII’s assurances, “my father was called in questione by the Bysshoppes,
and heaved at by cardinall Wolseye, his olde enymye, for manye causes, but mostly for that
my father had furthered Skelton to publishe his ‘Collen Cloute’ againste the Cardinall”;
Francis Thynne’s Animadversions, p. 10.
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The most striking of Speght’s new peritexts is, as in Thynne’s 1532 Jesse
tree illustration, a visual one. New to Speght’s 1598 edition of Chaucer’s
Works, it pictures Chaucer full length, standing in a position similar to that
of both the portrait painted in 1556 over Chaucer’s Westminster tomb
and the illumination in the Hoccleve manuscript (fig. 2).62 By including
both Chaucer’s image and his genealogy, the image goes one step further
than Stow’s Canterbury Tales title page—which Speght uses in 1598 and
rejects in 1602—to fold Chaucer into Tudor hegemony. Not only regularly
reprinted but actually pasted into copies of Stow’s edition, this woodcut,
or “momentous talisman,” is entitled “The Progenie of Geffrey Chaucer.”63
Like the engraving of Henry VIII’s lineage used to title The Canterbury Tales,
this peritext layers Chaucer with Tudors. Drawn by John Speed, it portrays
two families, royal and Chaucerian: Chaucer’s daughter ends up, by dint
of marriage, ennobled. In contrast to the earlier woodcut, generations
run down, rather than up, this illustration’s sides so that John of Gaunt’s
name parallels Chaucer’s in a roundel atop the illustration, rather than
at its bottom.
Since the image details the entry of Chaucer’s children into the nobility, it includes, on its left-hand side, a version of the royal genealogy
depicted in the earlier woodcut. In Speed’s version, however, the genealogy of Henry VII, the first Tudor king, contains five female forbears,
including Henry’s mother Margaret Beaufort, and nearly doubles the
number of female forbears shown in the earlier woodcut. Not only that,
but Chaucer’s own family tree, on the image’s right-hand side, includes
four women, including the poet’s wife, making for a total of nine women,
rather than the three appearing in the earlier woodcut and, interestingly, in traditional images of a Jesse tree.64 In these two ways Speed’s
illustration provides more space for generative women than does the
earlier woodcut—and does so in the waning years of Elizabeth’s reign. The
choice to include more women may allude to an opinion, current in the
sixteenth century, that Chaucer was particularly sympathetic to women.65
62. Driver, “Mapping Chaucer,” p. 241, infers a different portrait as Speed’s source: a late
sixteenth-century portrait found in British Library, MS Additional 5141; for the image, p.
242.
63. The phrase “momentous talisman” is John R. Hetherington’s, Chaucer 1532–1602,
Notes and Facsimile Texts Designed to Facilitate the Identification of Defective Copies of the Black-Letter Folio Editions of 1532, 1542 c. 1550, 1561, 1598 and 1602 (Birmingham, England: John
R. Hetherington [privately published], 1964), p. 7. The engraving is treated in Arthur M.
Hind, Engraving in England in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries: A Descriptive Catalogue
with Introductions, vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1952), pp. 286–89.
64. I thank James W. Earl for this insight into the Tudor tree’s imitation of religious
iconography.
65. “Excuse Chaucer . . . for he was euer god wate, all womannis freynd,” from Gavin
Douglas’s translation of Virgil’s Aeneid (Spurgeon dates the manuscript version 1513, Boswell
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Figure 2. The works of our ancient, learned, & excellent
English poet, Jeffrey Chaucer : as they have lately been
compar’d with the best manuscripts, and several things
added, never before in print : to which is adjoyn’d, The
story of the siege of Thebes, by John Lydgate, monk of Bury
: together with the life of Chaucer, shewing his countrey,
parentage, education, marriage, children, revenues, service, reward, friends, books, death : also a table, wherein
the old and obscure words in Chaucer are explained, and
such words (which are many) that either are, by nature
or derivation, Arabick, Greek, Latine, Italian, French,
Dutch, or Saxon, mark’d with particular notes for the better understanding their original. London: n. p., 1687.
Folio 2, verso. By kind permission of James Fox,
head, special collections, Knight Library, University
of Oregon.
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Or it may, through a subtle analogy with Elizabeth’s own strategies, make
Chaucer the paternal vernacular poet of the mother tongue, metaphorically both father and mother,66 even as it represents Chaucer’s fecundity
and progeny. The “Progenie” illustration puts “father Chaucer” squarely
into English history, mapping the familial affiliations of Chaucer, from
wife to great-great-grandson, onto royal lineage.
But this image does more. The bottom of the image shows the tomb
of the poet’s son, Thomas, and his wife, Maud. Yet Chaucer stands upright in the illustration’s center atop his son and daughter-in-law’s tomb,
his posture genially defying death. Making Chaucer’s image central in a
full-length, authoritative portrait subtly suggests, on the model of Henry
VIII—a monarch famously obsessed with progeny—Chaucer as father.
But the roundels on the image’s right side—Chaucer’s line—end with
great-great-grandson Edmund De la Pole, whom Henry VIII had beheaded in 1513.67 Living father Chaucer atop his children’s tomb flanked
by his extinguished line cannot help but remark on a childless queen
Elizabeth—increasingly controlling press and pamphlet—and the “living” nature of print, overcoming both commodification and censorship.
Speed says his image of Chaucer comes not from the image on Chaucer’s
tomb but from Hoccleve, Chaucer’s scholar.68 Speed invokes manuscript
to gesture towards those once-living books, the “haulks and herns” of
the forest primeval in which manuscript Chaucer formerly resided.
But the gesture also brings to light what’s lost between manuscript and
print. Speed’s image, based on Hoccleve, brings manuscript life to the
printed book and living Chaucer to many readers, undoubtedly more
readers than Hoccleve’s manuscripts had: it can even affect “readers”
and Holton date the printed version 1553); “Chaucer, how miscaried thy golden pen?” with
a side note “Chaucer. lib. faeminarum encomion.I.& alterum, de laudib.bonarum.faeminar,”
William Heale, from An Apologie for Women (1609). Lerer, Chaucer and His Readers, p. 282,
n. 14, states that “Chaucer himself stages a critique of patriarchal (and, for that matter,
heterosexualist) authority in his fictions.” But see also Elaine Tuttle Hansen, Chaucer and
the Fictions of Gender (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1992), for important qualifications
of this view.
66. Roy Strong, The Cult of Elizabeth (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1977), esp. pp.
16, 69.
67. Pearsall, Life, p. 284.
68. See above, note 62. Speght contends that the portrait on Chaucer’s tomb also comes
from the image in the Hoccleve manuscript; see Dane, Who Is Buried, p. 13: “M. Nicholas
Brigham did at his owne cost and charges erect a faire marble monument for him, with
his picture, resembling that done by Occleve.” Ashmole, whose Theatrum first published an
image of the tomb, credits Hoccleve’s image as guide for the tomb painting’s restoration,
which leads Pearsall to consider Speght’s peritext the restorer’s real inspiration (Pearsall,
Life, p. 296). But, as Pearsall also points out, “Speght’s picture [i.e., Speed’s engraving] itself
of course derived from the tradition of which the original tomb portrait may have been an
important early ancestor” (p. 296).
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of Chaucer’s Westminster tomb. Chaucer’s generative power is simultaneously historical, literary, royal, legitimate, doubly gendered, artistic,
and living. It subtly challenges both live queen and dead print. Life and
art atop the obverse face of generation—death—answers print’s dead
letter. The peritext puts on one page, with image instead of the words
Bullein and Greene put in living Chaucer’s mouth, a challenge to the
Tudor regime of letters.
This image well deserves its epithet “a momentous talisman”: although
new to Speght’s 1598 edition, the image was pasted into copies of Stow’s
1561 edition, including one now in the Huntington library. Unlike the
previously discussed peritext of Henry’s lineage, which, perhaps because
of its troublesome content, was excised from reprints of Speght’s edition
beginning in 1602, this second peritext continues to be printed in both
the 1602 and 1687 folio Chaucers. These two reprints of Speght, nearly
a century apart, are, however, the only editions of Chaucer published in
the seventeenth century: John Urry’s 1721 folio Chaucer edition replaces
Speed’s engraving with “a bust in oval” to depict the poet—and a portrait
of Urry himself, sign of modern criticism’s advent, precedes both it and
the book’s title page.69
Read together, Speght’s three peritextual poems—the dialogue poem
and the two by Francis Thynne—and Speed’s engraving animate Chaucer and laud his editors, whose efforts come, not from the desire to
profit from their commodified books, but from kindness and love and
family devotion.70 But in Speght’s editions, peritexts voice Chaucer and
Reader, warm Chaucer to life, and show him atop a tomb to give life
to the Chaucer who appears in other printed matter. The concert of
these peritexts, late in Elizabeth’s reign, enlivens and revoices father
Chaucer. Tracing Chaucer’s fatherly liveliness through the sixteenth
century tracks Tudor politics’ interpenetration with print. Speght’s edition makes Chaucer’s fatherly liveliness not only an answer to print’s
commodification but a comment—or warning—upon print’s conjugation with authority. Editors, engravers, and dialogists—Speght, Speed,
Bullein, Greene, Brathwait—meet multiple needs in making Gascoigne’s
and the Cobler’s father Chaucer live.
69. Hind, Engraving in England, I, 287, notes the “bust in oval”; the University of Oregon’s
copy of Urry’s Chaucer, Special Collections Rare Books PR 1850.1721, has a full-page engraving of Urry facing the edition’s title page, the bottom of which shows Chaucer’s tomb.
Driver, “Mapping Chaucer,” p. 239, and Dane, Who Is Buried, p. 24, both provide images of
Urry’s title page. On Urry’s edition, see William Alderson, Editing Chaucer, ed. Ruggiers, pp.
93–115.
70. See Trigg, Congenial Souls.
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Images situate Chaucer as father, showing him with his progeny. Such
repetitions of Chaucer’s living fatherhood reverse the “childhood” trope
Lerer outlines for early print culture,71 and make Chaucer the father
rather than a child. Read in tandem with the woodcut of Henry VIII’s
forebears, Speght’s image hopes to evoke Chaucer’s presence, his “aura,”
on the page. Such images, despite Lerer’s denials, can “conjure [Chaucer’s] discerning visage” not only over the “impersonator’s shoulder,” but
over the reader’s.72 An aura of masculine generative power defines print
culture’s Chaucer and parallels Chaucer’s generative success with the
ruling families of York, Lancaster, and Tudor. Repetition of Chaucer’s living fatherhood also makes visible print’s new mode of “genetic relations
among texts and of textual history itself as a form of familial relations.”73
Aura-making woodcuts in sixteenth-century editions of Chaucer picture
his fatherhood allied with royal authority: Chaucer’s fecundity extends
from progeny to printed text. Chaucer editions’ images, powered by
royal concerns, make Chaucer not the “dead auctor ” Lerer describes,74
but a living poet. The motif recurs in sixteenth-century prose and poetry, along with Chaucer editions’ images, to satisfy both national and
patriarchal desires, all framed by Chaucer’s living fatherhood.
III
Late sixteenth-century print and theater complement each other in their
concern with legitimacy and authority, paternity, and nation.75 Theater
can take the idiom of “living” beyond that which print can accomplish
through inert picture and word.76 As far as the plays of Shakespeare are
concerned, a living, breathing Chaucer—desired by Bullein, Greene, and
Brathwait, and invoked in early Chaucer editions’ peritexts—does not
appear. We get close: Chaucer’s contemporary Gower acts as chorus in
Shakespeare’s late romance Pericles, and the “Prologue” figure opening
The Two Noble Kinsmen repeats Chaucer’s underground cry,
71. Lerer, Chaucer and His Readers, p. 18.
75. Valerie Traub, Desire and Anxiety: Circulations of Sexuality in Shakespearean Drama (London: Routledge, 1992); Gordon Williams, Shakespeare, Sex, and the Print Revolution (London:
Athlone, 1996).
76. Cf. Benjamin, “The Work of Art,” pp. 231–32: “Aura is tied to presence . . . there is
indeed no greater contrast than that of the stage play to a work of art that is . . . founded
in mechanical reproduction.”
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Bishop
“. . . O, fan
From me the witless chaff of such a writer
That blasts my bays and my fam’d works makes lighter
Than Robin Hood!”77
But even here Shakespeare is absent: critics attribute this prologue to
Shakespeare’s collaborator, John Fletcher.
Without a literal stage, Speght’s living father Chaucer still adds a new
interpretive dimension to Chaucer’s text through another feature of early
print Canterbury Tales. From Caxton through Speght, the conventional
printing of The Tale of Melibee makes that tale most fully Chaucer’s own.
The pilgrim Chaucer tells two tales on the road to Canterbury, according
to the Tales’ frame narrative: one of Sir Thopas, and one of Melibee and his
wife Prudence. Early and modern editions treat the two tales quite differently. Chaucer’s name graces neither author-told tale in modern editions:
the Riverside Chaucer, like its twentieth-century predecessors edited by F. N.
Robinson and E. T. Donaldson, calls the two tales told by Chaucer the poet
on the pilgrimage road The Tale of Sir Thopas and The Tale of Melibee.
Early editions, on the other hand, invariably identify Chaucer with The
Tale of Melibee by calling it “The Tale of Chaucer” (they call the preceding tale “The Rime of Sir Thopas”). The title “Tale of Chaucer” appears in
tables of contents, at the beginning of the tale, and as a running header
throughout, page by page.78 Furthermore, the prose tale’s difference is
further accentuated by the form of its title. The other tales’ titles take
their teller as a possessive, such as The Wife of Bath’s Tale. In The Tale of
Chaucer, the order is reversed.79 Early print’s efforts to identify tale with
77. William Shakespeare, The Two Noble Kinsmen, in The Riverside Shakespeare (Boston:
Houghton Mifflin, 1974), Prologue, ll. 18–21.
78. Wynken de Worde’s edition (STC 5085) calls the tale “The Tale of Chaucer” above
the introductory woodcut, and “Chaucers Tale of Melibeus” beneath it. Running headers
on every page call it “The Tale of Chaucer.” Pynson’s edition (STC 5086) calls it simply
“The Tale of Chaucer.” Thynne’s text printed by Richard Grafton for William Bonham
(STC 5069) titles the tale “Chaucers Tale of Melibeus,” again with the running title “The
Tale of Chaucer.” These editions were consulted on EEBO. The University of Oregon copy
of Stow includes this list of tales on  3 r and v; the University of Oregon copy of Speght,
at c 3 r. At the head of the text itself, however, the tale is titled “Chaucers Tale of Melibeus”
(Stow, folio lxxi recto; Speght, folio 125 recto). Speght continues: “Prudence, the discreet
wife of Melibeus, persuadeth her husband to patience, and to receive his Enemies to mercy
and grace. A Tale full of Morality, wherein both high and low may learn to govern their
affections.” While the header in both editions changes the title from the simple “Tale of
Chaucer,” the tale’s running title does not change, remaining at the top of every page “The
Tale of Chaucer” and retaining the eponym, unique among the other Canterbury Tales for
carrying Chaucer’s name.
79. The tale Chaucer tells of Melibee and Prudence is called, not “Chaucers Tale” (until
Urry’s 1721 edition, which uses “Chaucers Tale” as its running heading), but “The Tale
of Chaucer” (Tyrwhitt’s 1775 quarto edition first uses “The Tale of Melibee” as consistent
title). Wynkyn de Worde (1498, STC 5085) calls Thopas, along with Melibee, a “Tale of
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poet read in relation to the figure of living father Chaucer, especially in
Speed’s “momentous talisman,” make The Tale of Melibee into Chaucer’s
authentic voice.80 The eponymous Tale of Chaucer carries the weight of
English literary history with which the sixteenth-century folio tradition
had invested the poet.81 Read in concert with living father Chaucer, the
tale so titled makes his voice speak most dramatically from the book. Such
a reading makes The Tale of Melibee, with its drama of urgent counsel, a
“spokestale” for living father Chaucer.
The Tale of Melibee has inspired critical discussion that reads its ethical import, portrayed as feminine eloquence meeting dangerous patriarchal wrath, alternately as brilliant and sententious.82 Prudence laboriously
guides her husband, Melibee, to use peaceful negotiation rather than
armed conflict to settle the fracas perpetrated by “thre of his olde foes.”83
In her “warrishing” (l. 1277) of Melibee’s “talent” (l. 1251; desire) for
Chaucer,” thus making doubly apparent the Canterbury Tales frame narrative as well as a “living” Chaucer. De Worde’s edition also prints identical woodcut illustrations for both “tales
of Chaucer” (consulted online through EEBO; Urry’s and Tyrwhitt’s editions through the
courtesy of the University of Oregon Special Collections [SCA Rare Books PR 1850.1721
and PR 1866.T8 vols. 1–4]).
80. The links between these two Tales has prompted a fair amount of analysis; see especially Seth Lerer, “‘Now holde youre mouth’: The Romance of Orality in the Thopas-Melibee
Section of the Canterbury Tales,” in Oral Poetics in Middle English Poetry, ed. Mark C. Amodio
(New York: Garland, 1994), pp. 181–205, the thesis of which—the prose nature of The Tale
of Melibee signals a complexity and ethic absent from the romance poetry of The Tale of
Sir Thopas—has an effect on the current essay’s reading of Melibee’s import.
81. Spurgeon, 500 Years, I, 114–59: Holinshed lauds Chaucer who, through his (and
Gower’s) “diligent industry” has made “riche and plentifull” the “barreyne, rude, and unperfect” language of English so that it can “expresse that which the minde conceyved” (p.
114); Thomas Nashe comments, “Art, like yong grasse in the spring of Chaucer’s florishing,
was glade to peepe vp through any slime of corruption” (p. 136). The garden metaphor,
assuredly proverbial, gestures towards foison and generation.
82. See Judith Ferster, Fictions of Advice: The Literature and Politics of Counsel in Late Medieval
England (Philadelphia: Penn Univ. Press, 1996), pp. 91–107, noting the tale’s strong connection to Chaucer himself because his character tells the tale (p. 92); John Burrow, “The
Third Eye of Prudence,” in Medieval Futures: Attitudes to the Future in the Middle Ages, ed. John
Burrow and Ian P. Wei (Cambridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2000), pp. 37–48, on the tale’s
popularity in the late Middle Ages (p. 45); Carolyn P. Collette, “Chaucer and the French
Tradition Revisited: Philippe de Mézières and the Good Wife,” in Medieval Women: Text and
Contexts in Late Medieval Britain: Essays for Felicity Riddy, ed. Jocelyn Wogan-Browne, Rosalynn
Voaden, Arlyn Diamond, Ann Hutchison, Carol Meale, and Lesley Johnson (Turnhout:
Brepols, 2000), pp. 151–68, giving a new source for the tale; Daniel Kempton, “Chaucer’s
Tale of Melibee: ‘A Litel Thyng in Prose,’” Genre, 21 (1988), 263–78, looking at the sententious and “domestic comedy” (p. 272); and Elizabeth Lunz, “Chaucer’s Prudence as the
Ideal of the Virtuous Woman,” Essays in Literature, 4 (1977), 3–10, making Prudence into
a figure of advice like Lady Philosophy in Boethius’s Consolation.
83. The Riverside Chaucer, 3d ed., gen. ed. Larry D. Benson (Boston: Houghton Mifflin,
1987), pp. 217–39, VII, l. 970. All subsequent references to the tale will be taken from this
edition and cited by line numbers.
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Bishop
vengeance, Prudence must first dispose of her husband’s objections to
changing his opinion; more importantly, she must justify her opinion that
he particularly needs to listen to women’s counsel (ll. 1064–1111). Once
her “sweete wordes” (l. 1114) have convinced him to listen to her advice,
Prudence anatomizes bad decisions made through anger, covetousness,
or haste (ll. 1122–36), continuing to quote innumerable authorities,
including Cassiodorus (l. 1194), Peter Alphonsus (l. 1218), and St. Paul
(l. 1291). Her advice to choose few but wise counselors (ll. 1069, 1162)
boils down to becoming Melibee’s sole advisor (ll. 1724–25). Prudence
effects Melibee’s reconciliation with his enemies (ll. 1815–25, 1875–88)
after talking him out of a final vengeful ploy: to exile and disinherit them
(l. 1825). Prudence convinces her husband, Melibee, to value his family’s
continuity over all else: to reconcile with his enemies, to make peace:
“Wherefore I pray you, lat mercy been in youre herte, / to th’effect and
entente that God Almighty have mercy on yow in his laste juggement” (ll.
1867–68). Melibee accedes to Prudence’s plea against vengeance and, by
preventing war, insures his family’s continuity.
Chaucer’s authenticity and voice, joined in The Tale of Chaucer, thus
identify Chaucer with a female rhetor, Melibee’s wife, Prudence.84 More
importantly, Chaucer’s voice in his tale identifies his attitude with the tale’s
pacifist theme. The tale’s animated, authentic rhetoric rings with truth
aimed at monarchs. Moreover, to identify Chaucer with the female Prudence—to complicate gender—more fully condemns patriarchal wrath
and laments its negative effect on the entire polity. An animated Chaucer
telling this tale, in the context of peritexts and protodramas that bring
artistic and literal generation alive, bespeaks authenticity joined to a pacifist ethic. To identify Chaucer with Prudence, who speaks truth to power
in service to her daughter, ambivalently genders Chaucer’s fatherly living
voice to contest authoritarian rulership and its increased censorship of
print and art.
Yet, once he accepts Prudence’s counsel, Melibee’s closing words argue
for mercy and forgiveness:
Wherfore I receyve yow to my grace / and foryeve yow outrely alle the offenses, injuries, and wronges that ye have doon agayn me and myne, / to
this effect and to this ende, that God of his endelees mercy / wole at the
tyme of oure diynge foryeven us oure glites that we han trespassed to hym
84. David Wallace, Chaucerian Polity: Absolutist Lineages and Associational Forms in England
and Italy (Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press, 1997), pp. 212–46, draws a parallel between the
literary Prudence and the historical Anne of Bohemia, wife to Richard II. In Wallace’s account, Prudence’s reconciliatory strategies match Anne’s in their desire to advise vengeful
husbands. Thus a fictional character adumbrates a historical one, noting both desire, and
failure, to mollify masculine wrath.
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in this wrecched world. / For doutelees, if we be sory and repentant of the
synnes and giltes which we had trespassed in the sighte of oure Lord God,
/ he is so free and so merciable / that he wole foyeven us oure giltes / and
bryngen us to the blisse that nevere hath ende. (ll. 1882–88)
Melibee accedes to Prudence’s—Chaucer’s—counsel. Speght’s edition
of Chaucer, especially the Speed woodcut, constructs Chaucer’s voice to
sound this urgent plea. The message of reconciliation works as far as the
Tudor/Stuart antipathy is concerned, but it does little to shift the regime
of censorship and authoritarianism to which Chaucer’s readers have become inured in the course of the sixteenth century. Indeed, the second
run of Speght’s edition in 1602, while it retains the “momentous talisman,”
drops the engraving that pictures the Tudor dynasty’s family pedigree.
Even Chaucer himself retires: only twice, in 1602 and 1687, is Speght’s
folio edition, or any complete Chaucer, printed in the seventeenth century. The folio canon continues in 1721, its purpose much changed to
celebrate a dead poet whose tomb the title page pictures.
As John Hines has noted, modernity trades on opposition between the
material world and the realm of language and ideas.85 Sixteenth-century
folio editions of Chaucer, fully immersed in Tudor politics, help to create
this antipathy, but even in their culminating moment—Speght’s edition of
1598, with Speed’s momentous talisman—Speght invests his author with
fatherhood and life to combat not only the commodification of print but
the creeping seduction of authoritarianism, enemy of art. Living Chaucer
loses the fight, his pacifist tale renamed, his tomb the frontispiece for
Urry’s eighteenth-century folio edition of his works—modernity’s answer
to Speed’s living father Chaucer.86
85. Hines, Voices in the Past, p. 138.
86. I am pleased to acknowledge the great help I have received in revising this essay from
Martha Driver, Lisa Freinkel, and Kathryn Lynch; and from Lori Newcomb, one of the
readers for JEGP.
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Book Reviews
A Companion to the Works of Hartmann von Aue. Edited by Francis G. Gentry. Studies in German Literature, Linguistics, and Culture. Edited by James
Hardin. Woodbridge, UK, and Rochester, NY: Boydell and Brewer, 2005. Pp.
vii + 291; 5 illustrations. $95.
This collection of twelve essays (including an introductory piece by the editor)
will prove eminently valuable to a range of different readers, from veteran Hartmann aficionados, to budding students, to general readers of medieval literature.
Indeed, this is the stated mission of the Camden House Companion series (which
to date is represented by twenty-seven volumes). The imposing roster of scholars
represented in the present volume imparts a sweeping variety of perspectives on
Hartmann’s oeuvre. Moreover, the fact that they hail from the United States,
Canada, Germany, and the United Kingdom means that those perspectives are
informed by somewhat differing cultural and critical traditions. Certain of these
scholars write from the vantage of established reputations, while others are newer
to the profession. Each of the twelve contributions—which range from scrupulously traditional to somewhat idiosyncratic in their focus—is significant in its
own right, and this volume offers much that is familiar and some that is new.
Such, ultimately, is the nature of any collaborative work intended to serve as a
“companion” to the works of a given author. And, indeed, with the extensive
bibliographies accompanying each essay and with a more comprehensive, if not
altogether exhaustive, bibliography at the end, this book will also act as a springboard for further inquiry into Hartmann’s body of work.
In his introductory chapter, Francis Gentry sets the parameters for the rest of
the volume. Early on, he refers to Hartmann as “this most prolific and interesting
medieval German poet” (p. 1). Highly prolific, yes, but most interesting, hardly—at
least not in the assessment of most readers. In fact, Gentry concedes that, in the
words of Maurice O’C. Walshe, modern readers tend more to be “temperamentally drawn” (p. 1) to one or the other of Hartmann’s celebrated contemporaries,
Gottfried von Strassburg and Wolfram von Eschenbach. In the first of the actual
essays, “Hartmann’s Theological Milieu,” Frank Tobin documents the ways in which
Hartmann’s religious viewpoints are informed chiefly by Augustinian thought, in
its various forms. In these short eleven pages (a “brief look” [p. 18] at Hartmann’s
theology), Tobin can do little more than sketch out the broad outlines of Hartmann’s
theological Weltanschauung, but he does so succinctly and credibly, focusing his attention chiefly on Erec, Gregorius, and Armer Heinrich. While the specialist reader will
be left wishing for amplification of some of the issues raised, this chapter certainly
serves as a fine synopsis of the topic. Will Hasty (“Hartmann von Aue as Lyricist”)
offers extensive commentaries on thirteen of Hartmann’s love songs and on his three
crusading songs. Since Hasty has wisely chosen the most prominent of the poems,
the result is a solid and discerning introduction to Hartmann’s lyrical corpus.
“Hartmann von Aue and Chrétien de Troyes: Respective Approaches to the
Matter of Britain” by Alois Wolf is a detailed and probing juxtaposition of Hartmann’s two Arthurian romances, Erec and Iwein, against their respective sources by
Chrétien de Troyes. Wolf goes well beyond the broad-based points of comparison
traditionally cited, and offers, particularly in his study of the two Iwein versions, a
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carefully nuanced and insightful assessment of Hartmann’s injections of his own
brand of originality and fresh narrative flair. Wolf’s comments on Iwein (and on
Hartmann’s infusions of psychological depth into that narrative) are especially
illuminating in light of the fact that here the German poet holds much more
closely to his French source than he does in his earlier Erec adaptation. On the
other hand, in Wolf’s examination of Erec, I would have welcomed a greater focus
on the markedly stronger narrative voice in Hartmann’s work, perhaps some mention of the far more erotically charged love scene in Chrétien’s original (a feature
that Hartmann, in vv. 3013–22, significantly tones down), and some reference
to the presumably very different expectations of Hartmann’s German audiences,
for whom Erec was the first full-fledged Arthurian tale.
In a chapter entitled “Gender and Love in the Epic Romances of Hartmann
von Aue,” Alexandra S. Hellenbrand examines the modes in which Hartmann
negotiates, in Erec and Iwein, the proper roles and relationships between male
and female characters, as seen through the prism of love. Particularly astute are
the author’s ruminations on the theme of entrapment in Iwein, which is far and
away the more challenging of the two romances. In one of the shorter, but most
thought-provoking essays, “The Two-Fold Path: Erec and Enite on the Road to
Wisdom,” Gentry argues—and he situates this argument in the historical context
of late twelfth-century Germany—that Hartmann programmatically contemplates
in Erec the real-life responsibilities of those destined to rule. What is perhaps most
salient here is Gentry’s notion that Enite, in addition to the male protagonist Erec,
“must learn the responsibilities of her status in courtly society” (p. 101). No less
intriguing is Gentry’s tracing back to the Investiture Contest of 1076 Hartmann’s
conception that a medieval ruler must constantly prove his “usefulness,” his “fitness to rule” (p. 100).
“The Body in Pain in the Works of Hartmann von Aue” by Scott Pincikowski
is easily the most eccentric essay in this collection. In a sort of typology of pain,
the author distinguishes between, on the one hand, the two Arthurian romances
and, on the other, Gregorius and Armer Heinrich. Along the way, some singular
insights emerge concerning the modes in which Hartmann weaves into his tales
such themes as stoicism, social status, gender difference, empowerment, the dichotomy of body and soul, and even the “imitatio Christi tradition that was flourishing throughout Europe in the twelfth century” (p. 109). While I find certain
of Pincikowski’s observations concerning the sexuality of pain to be plainly overwrought (did Hartmann, in the scene where the suicidal Enite is about to throw
herself onto Erec’s sword, really intend that sword to represent “a phallic symbol
of social control and pain” [p. 114]?), nonetheless this chapter most certainly
offers some intriguing reflections on a topic normally outside of conventional
Hartmann scholarship.
Melitta Weiss Adamson’s essay, “Illness and Cure in Hartmann von Aue’s Armer
Heinrich and Iwein,” addresses the question: how well versed was Hartmann in the
theory and practice of medieval medicine? Adamson presents here an absorbing
sketch of the history of leprosy, as depicted in the Bible, in antiquity and in the
Middle Ages. She also traces medieval attitudes toward mental illness, uncovering
along the way “remarkable parallels” (p. 136) between Iwein and the pertinent
medical texts of the day. While Adamson notes that Hartmann’s own narrative
considerations inevitably take precedence over the particulars of contemporary
medical belief, the poet’s treatment of these subjects never actually contradicts
the real-life medical practice of the time (p. 138). In “Hartmann’s Legends and
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Journal of English and Germanic Philology, July 2007
the Bible,” Brian Murdoch investigates the specific Biblical passages that inform
Gregorius and Armer Heinrich. Most notably, he examines the modes in which both
works echo contemporary, medieval theological thinking. Both tales, Murdoch
convincingly asserts, aim to provide entertainment and instruction, yet a know
ledge of “medieval biblical hermeneutics [is] required for the full reading” (p.
156) of Gregorius and Armer Heinrich.
James A. Rushing Jr.’s examination of “Hartmann’s Works in the Visual Arts”
casts a discerning eye at both the familiar (the Iwein murals at Rodenegg and
the portrayals of Hartmann in the Manesse and Weingartner manuscripts) and
the less commonly known visual depictions of Hartmann and his tales. Students
will likely benefit more from the former, while even the specialist can learn from
Rushing’s commentaries on, for instance, the Erec crown at Kraków; or the Malterer embroidery and the Runkelstein Iwein murals; or the late-medieval miniatures and woodcuts that illustrate Gregorius. A thread common to the depictions
of Hartmann’s narratives is, as Rushing documents, a greater or lesser degree of
“independence from the canonical text[s]” (p. 175).
In one of this collection’s most provocative essays, W. H. Jackson, in “The Medieval Literary Reception of Hartmann’s Works,” addresses one of the unanswered
literary questions of the German High Middle Ages: which stories in fact found
the greatest resonance among the noble audiences of that age? And by what criteria (beyond the conventional, but at times simplistic yardstick of manuscript
transmission) can we hope to devise and assess our responses to that question?
Jackson casts his nets widely in order to collate an array of evidence that not only
spans the remaining centuries of the Middle Ages but also crosses genre lines in
tracing echoes of Hartmann’s entire oeuvre. Inexorably, Jackson must deal with
the manuscript tradition of the various works. Yet he also digs more deeply to
unearth various resonances of Hartmann in the writings of other German poets
of the Middle Ages—beginning with Gottfried’s literary excursus in Tristan, which
Jackson dubs “the first vernacular literary review” (p. 189) and in which Hartmann
first achieves canonical status.
In the concluding essay, “A Tale of Sacrifice and Love: Literary Way Stations of
the Arme Heinrich from the Brothers Grimm to Tankred Dorst,” Rüdiger Krohn
explores the postmedieval treatments of Armer Heinrich. Beginning with an account of Goethe’s reported aversion to the tale and progressing through Dorst’s
surrealistic 1996 play Die Legende vom armen Heinrich, Krohn examines a broad
assortment of authors who have recast the story, invariably in ways that reflect the
political, aesthetic, medicinal (including psychoanalytical), and religious dynamics
of their own ages rather than those of Hartmann’s time. Along the way, Krohn
explores the reworkings by such noted writers as the Grimm brothers, Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow, Adalbert von Chamisso, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Gerhard
Hauptmann, and Ricarda Huch—along with a host of lesser-known authors. In
addition, Krohn documents the enduring influence exerted by Richard Wagner
on certain adaptors from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In
the final pages of his essay, Krohn devotes his most exhaustive attention to the
challenging but intriguingly innovative recasting by Dorst.
These twelve essays are conceived as independent pieces that can be read in any
order, as there is no apparent overall scheme dictating their sequence. Nor need
there be any such arrangement, since this volume is first and foremost, as noted,
a “companion,” almost a sort of reference work that can fruitfully be consulted by
readers wishing to explore a particular feature of Hartmann’s multifaceted corpus.
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Gentry prefaces the collection by noting, with apparent dismay, that among readers
of medieval literature Hartmann is “admired, deemed worthy of emulation, but
is just not [considered] very exciting” (p. 6). Even if this engaging and informative kaleidoscope of articles were to achieve nothing more than to dispel such a
lamentable cliché—and it will surely do that and more—then it will already have
accomplished a laudable ambition.
Michael Resler
Boston College
Trial by Fire and Battle in Medieval German Literature. By Vickie L. Ziegler.
Studies in German Literature, Linguistics, and Culture. Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2004. Pp. xii + 234. $75.
In Trial by Fire and Battle in Medieval German Literature, Vickie L. Ziegler examines
medieval judicial ordeals in selected works from the literary tradition of the German Middle Ages. As noted in the preface, literary texts often provide valuable
evidence regarding contemporaneous understanding of legal issues, the practical
application of law, and a given medieval author’s perspective on juridical matters.
With knowledge of the nuances of law and the import of legal language, readers
can glean new textual insights, and Ziegler provides the requisite background in
her introduction (pp. 1–19), which defines key concepts, such as proof, ordeal,
inquest, and oath. Pertinent to her study is the distinction between the unilateral
and bilateral ordeal, examples of which are trial by fire and trial by battle, respectively. The former relies upon divine intervention whereas the latter does not.
Prohibitions established by the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 and increased
demand for presentation of rational proofs resulted in the waning of the tradition
of trial by fire already in the mid-thirteenth century, but trial by battle continued
into the fifteenth. Significant as well for Ziegler’s analyses is the relationship between the law and magic, most evident in the swearing of oaths upon relics and
the necessity of proper phrasing of oaths in general.
Contrary to the title of the book, attention is directed first to trials by battle.
Chapter 1, the longest in the study, treats such ordeals in the context of the betrayal of Roland and the treason committed by Ganelon in three Charlemagne
epics: Priest Konrad’s Rolandslied, Der Stricker’s Karl der Grosse, and the anonymous
Karlmeinet. The chapter title identifies only the latter two works, but a comparison of the text by Der Stricker with that by Priest Konrad informs much of the
discussion. The comparison is prefaced by a brief sketch of the transformation
of the rule of law from Carolingian times through the rule of the Salian Franks.
The Rolandslied, hagiographic in tone, offers the earliest German literary connection between the Charlemagne material and the theme of treason. It is more
consistent with the ecclesiastical tradition of the Karlsepik, whereas Der Stricker’s
Karl der Grosse emphasizes the imperial one. Ziegler argues that Der Stricker rejects the idea of personal justice and portrays Genelun’s murder of Roland as a
crime against society rather than as a personal vendetta; Genelun’s death and his
family’s dishonor are necessary consequences if the primacy of Karl’s rule and the
established social and political order is to be maintained. In the second half of
the chapter, the texts of Priest Konrad and Der Stricker, circa 1172 and 1215–30,
respectively, are juxtaposed with the Karlmeinet, which dates from the first half of
the fourteenth century. European urbanization and judicial changes serve as the
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catalysts for substantial literary differences: the feud itself is not mentioned in the
capture and trial scenes; Dederich (Dietrich) appears as an unknighted noble
not related to Roland and thus in a more appealing light to an urban audience;
and Wellis (Genelun) shows remorse for his actions, an example of the increased
emphasis on penitence in the text.
Chapter 2 shifts focus from the epic to the romance with its characterization
of the ordeals of Tristan and Isolde: the battle with Morold of the former and the
ordeal by fire of the latter. As a preface to her discussion of the two episodes in
Gottfried’s Tristan, Ziegler notes distinctions between the traditions of the material: the courtly milieu of Thomas of Britain stands in contrast to the jongleur
atmosphere inherent in the treatments by Eilhart von Oberg and Béroul. She
asserts that Gottfried’s positive stance toward Tristan is predicated upon his belief
that the courtly hero is unequivocally in the right, legally and morally. The relative
short shrift Isolde’s ordeal receives suggests a critical attitude on the part of the
cleric toward the rite. Gottfried’s portrayal of each circumstance may well reflect
contemporaneous social viewpoints—the acceptance of trial by battle by secular
society in general and the negative or at best ambivalent feelings regarding ordeal
by fire prevalent in courtly and intellectual circles.
The fate of two historical queens, Richardis in the anonymous Kaiserchronik and
Kunigunde in Heinrich und Kunigunde by Ebernand von Erfurt, is the subject of
the third chapter. The ordeal of the burning wax shirt endured by Richardis in
the ninth century had been recorded in the Reichenau chronicle and was widely
known by the time the Kaiserchronik was written in the 1140s or 1150s. Historiographical references to Kunigunde’s ordeal predating Heinrich und Kunigunde,
penned around 1220, are not extant. This bolsters the theory that the episode was
included in the legend to enhance her saintly image—Kunigunde had been canonized in 1200, some sixty years after her death. Despite the ambiguous authenticity of the queen’s walking on hot plowshares, the author’s description mirrors
historical accounts of such practices at the time. Ebernand’s familiarity with and
reliance on the Kaiserchronik seems probable, but Ziegler documents significant
differences between the two texts. Nonetheless, in both the didactic purpose takes
precedence and serves to promote the image of a virgin monarch.
The brief closing chapter begins with a two-page discussion of a battle-of-thesexes märe by Der Stricker. “Das heisse Eisen,” written several decades after the
Fourth Lateran Council, parodies the ordeal by fire with its mockery of peasants,
the protagonists in the narrative, and offers final evidence of the evolution in attitude toward this type of trial. In her concluding remarks, Ziegler posits that the
four texts in which trial by fire plays a role demonstrate disinterest in the ordeal
itself. The authors’ attention lies elsewhere: Gottfried practically glosses over the
event; the reputations of Richardis and Kunigunde overshadow the potential
scandal of the ordeal; and Der Stricker’s tongue-in-cheek approach suggests that
trial by fire no longer engages the imagination or passion of his audience. By
contrast, late medieval authors continue to portray prevalent attitudes toward the
law through trials by battle; such scenes also reflect contemporaneous social and
political values (e.g., the importance of Charlemagne as ruler and judge).
The volume concludes with seven appendices that serve to summarize the plots
of the works under discussion, provide a translation of the two briefest texts, or
offer a comparison of a Latin source with the Middle High German epic (pp.
175–97). These are followed by an extensive bibliography and an index. Although
the table of contents lists the appendices, a reminder of their availability at the
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beginning of the discussion of each text would have been useful. Most of the
summaries are too long to incorporate into the chapters, but the comparison of
parallel texts (appendix 6), a mere two pages, could have served readers better
had it been interpolated into chapter 3, where the texts are discussed.
At times the annotations seem to overwhelm Ziegler’s text: the 281 notes to
chapter 1 comprise more than one-third of the pages in the chapter. Such a situation is difficult to circumvent when the subjects of a study include scholarly
hobbyhorses like the Rolandslied and Gottfried’s Tristan. Ziegler’s inventory of
criticism on Gottfried’s description of Isolde’s ordeal and her reference to Rosemary Combridge’s two-hundred-page monograph on law in Tristan (pp. 134–35)
exemplify this circumstance and may cause readers to wonder how much more
can be said on these topics. Some information relegated to the notes might have
been more useful in the body of the text (e.g., footnote 203 in chapter 1, which
outlines additional parallels and divergences among the three texts). However,
readers wishing to pursue tangentially related topoi or texts will benefit significantly
from the wealth of detail the author includes, and those with onomastic interests
will appreciate her commentary on the legal termini technici.
Ziegler’s study draws attention to an engaging, multifaceted topos prevalent in
standard Middle High German texts as well as in lesser-known ones. The careful
and thorough examination of descriptions of trials endured by historical and
literary heroes and heroines, the analysis of the function of the ordeals in their
literary context, and especially the comparison of the episodes yield perspectives
worthy of continued investigation by Germanists.
Debra L. Stoudt
University of Toledo
Convent Chronicles: Women Writing about Women and Reform in the Late
Middle Ages. By Anne Winston-Allen. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania
State University Press, 2004. Pp. xvii + 345 + 7 ill. + 1 map. $55.
In the preface to her book, Anne Winston-Allen notes that Convent Chronicles is the
first study “to survey nuns’ convent chronicles and historical writings collectively
across orders and regions in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries” (p. xiii).
The objects of her study are the chronicles and accounts written by female reform
activists; through them the author seeks to explore “the distinctive nature of women’s religious and literary activities at a key moment in both the history of Western
Christianity and the ongoing construction of a history for women” (p. 6).
After a review of recent scholarship about life in a female cloister in Chapter
1 and the nuns’ own narratives about their lives in a religious community, Winston-Allen examines the changes occurring in religious communities from the
thirteenth to the sixteenth century as a result of the Observant movement and as
related in the foundation histories of the religious communities (chap. 2). In succeeding chapters, the author traces the spread of the Observant movement as left
in firsthand accounts by women who initiated and supported the reform (chap. 3)
as well as by those who opposed it, especially in their resistance to enclosure (chap.
4). The final two chapters of the study examine the scribal activity of Observant
women’s convents (chap. 5) and the literary strategies of women religious in the
expression of late medieval piety (chap. 6). This concluding chapter addresses
the question of the political agendas the authors of chronicles might have had
and the relationship between power and text production.
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The sources culled for the study are extensive, including the sister-books, chronicles, vitae, journals, reform accounts, devotional works, letters, and legends from
fifty-five female convents. They are primarily Augustinian, Benedictine, Cistercian, Clarissan, and Dominican foundations and reach from Preetz and Ribnitz
in the north to Bern and Brixen in the south, from Erfurt in the east to Ghent
in the west. Also included are the communities that arose in the context of the
devotio moderna, that is, the Sisters of the Common Life. In the wide variety and
great number of documents, the female writers reveal themselves and their lives
in religious communities. Winston-Allen’s book explores the reaches of these
female reading and writing communities, their extensive networks, and the dissemination of religious literature within and among them. This includes their
collection, transcription, and reconstruction of sermons. Winston-Allen points
out, for example, that twenty-eight sermons by Johannes Pauli were transcribed
by a Clarissan nun in the Bicken cloister in Villingen, and there are examples of
simultaneous transcription (pp. 191–92). In many instances women reconstructed
sermons from notes they had made, and the author concludes that “women, in
reconstructing sermon texts from notes, became co-authors of the sermons and
assumed male roles” (p, 203).
The last chapter of Convent Chronicles, entitled “Femininity-in-Writing,” addresses
the question of a female voice as evident, for example, in monastery chronicles.
Winston-Allen points out that chronicles written by women “concentrate more on
internal events and on the spirituality of the members than do similar chronicles by
their male compatriots” (p. 219). This may be so, but another factor probably also
plays a significant role in the differing approaches to writing in religious communities. As noted, the study is commendably based on a very large body of literature
from female religious communities. These range from the venerable cloistered
monastic order of the Benedictines to the “modern” mendicant orders, whose
female members were also cloistered, but the study also includes the literature
of the uncloistered and unprofessed Sisters of the Common Life, some of whose
communities eventually did adopt a rule and become enclosed. What all the communities studied have in common is their participation in the Observant reform
movement. Aside from this, however, the differences in the purpose, spirit, and
rule of the various orders are not addressed, yet this may have had an effect on
the nature of the literature produced by them. For example, the Benedictine and
Dominican orders were founded for very different reasons, each with its distinct
rule, in the case of the Dominicans the rule of St. Augustine. Unlike the Benedictines, neither the Dominican nor the Franciscan order is monastic, as the book
suggests (pp.76–77). The issue raised here is a subject deserving further study.
The book could have used a more attentive copy editor. There are several annoying misspellings that, because they recur, suggest that they are not merely typological
infelicities: seige (pp. 109 [twice], 126 [twice], 215), principle instead of principal (16,
73) geneology (215, 220), strategem (126, 215).
Convent Chronicles is an important book that significantly furthers our understanding of the literary enterprises of an important segment of the female population in the late Middle Ages.
Marianne Kalinke
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
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The Representation of Women’s Emotions in Medieval and Early Modern
Culture. Edited by Lisa Perfetti. Gainesville: University Press of Florida,
2005. Pp. i–viii + 222. $65.
While completing her book Women and Laughter (2003), Lisa Perfetti noticed that
lament and laughter shared common features, and she therefore envisioned a
broader study of women’s emotions. Her introduction to the work at hand not only
provides the customary synopsis of the eight essays that follow, but as an essay in
its own right, it outlines problems that in her view should be covered in this, the
first exploration of women’s emotions in medieval and early modern times. These
include the relationship between emotions and the body, with class and ethnicity,
their influence on behavior and community, and finally, women’s understanding
and use of their own emotions. The introduction thus provides suggestions for
further research. Perfetti’s guiding hand is not only evident in the chronological,
geographic, and thematic choice of subjects but also in the fact that half of the
authors thank her specifically for help and insight.
Entitling her essay “Theories of the Passions and the Ecstasies of Late Medieval Religious Women,” E. Ann Matter starts out with a succinct survey of the
“humoral theory” (p. 21) that dominated the understanding of human nature
from the first century until the dawn of the modern era. In this system, emotions
were not yet interiorized but were linked to cosmic and interrelated phenomena
such as the stars, the cardinal directions, and the essential humors of the human
body. While previous scholars have argued that an interiorization of such cosmic
forces began around 1200 and continued during the late Middle Ages, Matter
wants to extend the analysis through “the long Middle Ages” (p. 24) by focusing
on three little-known female visionaries from sixteenth- and seventeenth-century
Italy, including Lucia Brocadelli da Narni, Maria Maddalena de’ Pazzi, and Maria
Domitilla Galluzzi. Lucia was brought to Ferrara as “court prophet,” but spent the
last forty years of her life in a virtual prison. In 1544, the year of her death, she
personally wrote an account of seven of her visions. The manuscript had been lost
since the nineteenth century but was rediscovered and published by the author of
the article. Maria Maddalena, a Carmelite hailing from Florence, was spiritually
inspired by the Jesuits as she reenacted the passion of Christ with and on her own
body. Maria Domitilla, the least known of the three and never recognized for her
sanctity, became a Capuchin nun in Pavia in 1615. She is perhaps the one who
best exemplifies the transition from emotions being considered a cosmic drama to
becoming a psychodrama. It is remarkable that the visions of these three women
are known through their own writings or, at least, through female transmission.
Elena Carrera likewise focuses on three women in her essay entitled “The Spiritual Role of the Emotions in Mechthild of Magdeburg, Angela of Foligno, and
Teresa of Avila.” Her choice is dictated by her interest in Christian mysticism, and
she is particularly keen on exploring why their works were of sufficient interest
to have been preserved through the centuries. She is not satisfied with the generally accepted maxim that medieval women’s experiences of body and language
were radically different from those of men. Arguing that, concerning education,
gender was no more divisive than class, she wishes to explore how these women’s
experiences were filtered through the language they inherited from poetry and
sermons and found a path into the public discourse in which they wanted to participate. While confessors and other male attendants may originally have encouraged
them to recount their visions and experiences in order to make sure they did not
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include demonic illusions, they quickly came to understand that the women were
recipients of direct knowledge of God that could not be obtained through study.
All three women emphasized the importance of prayer to gain an understanding of
God’s love, thus assuring their position within affective spirituality. Prayer brought
self-knowledge that further resulted in repentance, a state that for gifted women
led to self-expression. This first step of via purgativa led to the next, via meditativa,
in which women engaged with Christ’s suffering and love, and finally to the via
unitiva, the ineffable union not only with the human but also the divine Christ.
Not surprisingly, Teresa is the one who best articulates these ideas and shows “the
way from lament to laugher” (p. 84). This is an important essay that goes a long
way toward establishing a significant female role in medieval spiritual life.
Sandwiched between these two articles is James J. Paxson’s essay on “The Allegorical Construction of Female Feeling and Forma,” in which he deals with the
transition from an all-female personification of human emotions, as evidenced
from the earliest times, to a gendered representation of emotions that took place
during the High Middle Ages. Rather than following this development in detail,
Paxson focuses on Hildegard of Bingen’s Ordo Virtutum. Written in the 1150s, it
places sixteen virtues, personified as women on stage, in conversation with a single
man, Diabolus, and the play thus stands at the cusp of this transition. However,
Hildegard does more than merely including a male. Paxson accepts Diabolus’s
contention that each virtue, in particular Chastity, does not know what she IS—in
Chastity’s case, a nurturing woman who ought to obey God’s command to engage
in sweet love (suavi copula, p. 49). In this statement, IS indicates the copula, a
concept that not only marks grammatical predication but also ontological being,
and Paxson now enters the semiotics of medieval rhetoric’s tropes. Based on the
theories of Aristotle, Lacan, and Jan Ziolkowski that conflate the grammatical and
ontological IS, he proceeds to demonstrate that female is to simile as male is to
metaphor. Rather than elevating females, knowingly or unknowingly Hildegard
thus reinstates the pre-Christian status of rhetoric in which masculinity is equated
with the privileged position and the female with its lack. Paxson’s essay is dense
and difficult and marred by heavy jargon but rewards close scrutiny.
Quoting in her title Martha’s outburst at her brother’s death from the N-Town
cycle’s Raising of Lazarus, that “Us for to wepe no man may lett,” Katharine Goodland focuses her analysis on “Resistant Female Grief in the Medieval English Lazarus Plays,” as stated in her subtitle. Building on a suggestion by Peter Dronke that
a long tradition of female mourning of family members may precede the medieval
Planctus genre devoted to the Virgin, she examines the manifestations of grief in
four plays devoted to Lazarus (N-Town, York, Chester, and Towneley) to which
she adds the Lazarus episode from the Digby play on Mary Magdalene. In the
Lazarus plays she finds two perceptions of grief, a Christian tradition expressed
by males that deemphasizes grief because of the Christian promise of eternal life
and an ancient tradition articulated by wailing and weeping women, who in this
way procure “eternal life” for the deceased by keeping their memory alive. The
female grief is strongest in the N-Town cycle but is brought under increasing male
control in the three other versions. It is almost entirely absent from the Digby play,
in which Lazarus’s sisters are portrayed as strong aristocratic women who control
their emotions and do not shed a tear at their brother’s death.
In “Constant Sorrow: Emotions and the Women Trouvères,” Wendy Pfeffer
analyzes nine poems (out of seventy-five) from a recent anthology entitled Songs
of Women Trouvères (2001) of which Pfeffer herself is one of four editors. She
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prefers the term “women’s voices” because of her conviction (but lacking proof)
that any anonymous Old French song that tells a woman’s story using the first
person feminine pronoun was composed by a woman. She singles out the emotion
of pain and grief because it is articulated most frequently; her first choice (song
38) is related to the previous essay because the lament articulated by the speaker
is not grief over a lost lover, as the first stanza suggests, but the Virgin lamenting
the loss of her son. Other women do grieve over a broken heart or lament the
fact that they did not give in to their lover; still others bemoan being forced into
a nunnery (called a prison) or being married against their will.
In a far-ranging essay, “A Pugnacious Pagan Princess: Aggressive Female Anger
and Violence in Fierabras,” Kristi Gourlay treats Floripas, the Saracen heroine of a
twelfth-century French chanson de geste. Muslim females are sufficiently common
in this genre to be considered a literary convention. Invariably such a woman is of
high social standing; she is beautiful (according to Western standards) and intelligent; she falls in love with a Christian hero who has been imprisoned by her father;
promising to convert, she rescues the hero and betrays her father. Floripas fits this
stereotype perfectly, but the author has added the feature of her uncontrollable
anger that often results in deadly violence. The poem was extremely popular in
manuscript and print, and the story also existed in numerous prose renditions and
translations into many languages. Gourlay wants to answer the double question of
the reason for the heroine’s behavior and the popularity of the story. The first half
of the question brings her into the uncharted territory of female anger in medieval
texts and society, for which she provides a context by outlining the much better
known subject of male anger. Whereas men were allowed angry reactions in both
life and literature, it was not proper for women to display anger in courtly settings,
and Floripas is the only exception. Gourlay speculates that it may be caused by the
fact that, although a Muslim, she is fighting for the Christians, but since she was not
baptized until the very end of the story she belonged technically to the “other” for
whom behavior not allowed for Christian women was seen as less unusual. Gourlay
identifies parodic inversions in her behavior and thinks that this, added to the fact
that the story was seen as amusing, may explain its popularity.
Violent emotions are also the leading theme in the following essay by Sarah
Westphal, “Calefurnia’s Rage: Emotions and Gender in Late Medieval Law and
Literature.” The problem, conflict between emotion and reason in legal decision making, is still of importance today, as witnessed by a recent Supreme Court
decision. Westphal’s field of inquiry encompasses legal and literary sources from
central Europe during the later Middle Ages. Most important is the voluminous
Sachsenspiegel penned about 1235 by Eike von Repgow as he collected the existing
legal norms and customs written in German. The text became extremely popular;
more than 450 manuscripts exist in addition to several printed versions. Its influence stretched throughout central Europe and its authority was valid in Prussia as
late as 1794. Focusing on gender, for Westphal the crucial passage is the one that
states that “no woman may be pleader, nor may she bring a suit without a guardian”
(p. 167), apparently a previous right that a certain Califurnia forfeited when she
went into a fit of rage while pleading before the emperor. Her misbehavior is not
explained but certain texts are equipped with illustrations that suggest that she
had “mooned” the emperor (shown him her naked backside; p. 169). Westphal
provides a sophisticated analysis of Zorn, the German word for rage, that has the
broad meaning of “fighting with both actions and words” (p. 171). (Similar ambiguity exists in Old Norse legal texts.) Califurnia is not a real person, and she is
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based on an equally fictitious character by the name of Carfania who is found in
Justinian’s Digests in a chapter in which the lawmakers clarify who may appear before
the emperor in law cases. Roman law conceived of three groups of people: those
with full rights (adult men), those who were excluded (minors and deaf people),
and an intermediary group with partial rights. Women belonged in this group
because of “a certain Carfania, an extremely shameless woman, whose effrontery
and annoyance of the magistrate gave rise to this Edict” (p. 174). In other words,
women were better off under Roman law than later under German law. Westphal
credits misogyny from the Bible (especially Ecclesiasticus) and from popular culture
for the deterioration of women’s position. In the last third of her essay, the author
turns to a little-known play, Die Mörin (The Moorish Woman), written in 1453 by
Hermann von Sachsenheim, in order to show the inspiration of Califurnia in a
literary text. The play is particularly interesting because it adds the feature of race
to that of gender; of two female protagonists, the white woman is able to control
her anger whereas the black is not. It is to be applauded that this play now has
been brought to the attention of a larger audience, but Westphal’s essay is already
so rich that the reader wishes she had reserved Die Mörin for a special article.
The last essay is Valerie Allen’s “Waxing Red: Shame and the Body, Shame and
the Soul.” She offers diffuse observations on the emotion of shame drawn from
sources ranging from Aristotle to the Lollards. Her main focus is on penitential
manuals, in particular the Ancrene Wisse, and she is especially interested in the
relationship between a confessor and his feminine penitents. She makes startling
remarks about a number of problems, in particular virginity and nakedness. The
essay is interesting but is lacking in focus.
The collection is a promising start for further research into the field of female
emotions during the Middle Ages.
Jenny Jochens
Baltimore, Maryland
A History of Old Norse Poetry and Poetics. By Margaret Clunies Ross. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2005. Pp. x + 283. $85.
Until now no one monograph has made the evolution of both poetry and poetics
in the “Old Norse” vernacular its focus, and the present book aims to fill that gap.
Individual chapters describe the poetic corpus, analyze indigenous terms and
genres, document the transmission of poetry, explore poetic aesthetics, trace the
impact of Christianity, identify poetological elements in the grammatical treatises,
and extend our appreciation of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century poetry. The
book is rounded off with a conclusion, which notes directions for future research
and contains an appendix on technical terms, a list of works cited, and an index.
From this richly detailed, informative, and imaginative treatment, I can take up
only a few topics for brief mention.
Clunies Ross lays emphasis on speech-act theory as having potential relevance
to Old Norse poetics. Indicative of the speech-act status of poems are elements
such as -mál and -kvida in titles, and the author points to the special significance
of apparently generic titles, such as Hrafnsmál, “Speech of the Raven” (of which
Krákumál may be a variant). She interprets the Grágás prohibition of encomiastic or satirical compositions as testifying to their powerful illocutionary effects.
Snorri’s justification of the use of praise poetry in kings’ sagas is explained as
reflecting pragmatic understandings between poet and patron as to what could
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legitimately count as praise, not a rigorous truth standard. This inference links
with Clunies Ross’s sustained critique of the much-canvassed distinction between
“authenticating” and “situational” uses of verses in sagas and her adumbration of
a new taxonomy based on speech-act theory. That certainly has the potential to
bring greater nuance and responsiveness to saga contexts, though it would still
be vulnerable to subjective judgments, as seen in the characterization of Egill’s
Hofudlausn as an “ironically insincere poem” (p. 32).
Clunies Ross makes a strong case for an indigenous distinction between socalled “skaldic” and “eddic” verse forms, remarking that the latter are specially
associated with exposition of old lore (as implied by the term fornyrdislag, “ancient
speech measure”) and are ascribed to mythic or legendary speakers in Gylfaginn
ing and the fornaldarsögur. An obvious objection is that “eddic” forms could also
be used by poets we conventionally call “skalds,” but this she counters cogently
with the observation that their poems in these forms are also arguably legendary
or mythical, centering upon treatments of death, dreams, the paranormal, and
prophecy.
As to the place of the poet and poetry in the social dynamic, Clunies Ross suggests that the work of both poets and smiths (either the art in itself or else its raw
materials) may have been suspect, as originating in occult practices or wrongful
appropriations. In discussing that prime instance of ambiguous gift and theft,
the poetic mead, Clunies Ross claims that Ódinn bestows it on those who already
possess skills in poetry, with the implication that they acquire their craft partly
through personal exertion. The basis for this is a passage in Skáldskaparmál, “En
Suttunga mjod gaf Ódinn Ásunum ok peim monnum er yrkja kunnu,” translated
by Faulkes, “But Ódinn gave Suttung[r]’s mead to the Æsir and to those people
who are skilled at composing poetry.” But Snorri evidently intends the relative
clause proleptically, i.e., that these “menn” derive their skill from Ódinn’s gift, as
we see if we compare two other passages in Skáldskaparmál, “Hvadan af hefir hafizk
sú íprótt er pér kallid skáldskap?” (From where did that skill that you call poetry
originate?), and “Peir blendu hunangi vid blódit ok vard par af mjodr sá er hverr
er af drekkr verdr skáld eda frœdamadr” (They mixed honey with the blood and
it was transformed into that mead, whoever drinks from which becomes a poet
or a scholar).
In deducing the aesthetic values implied by poetic texts themselves, Clunies Ross
mostly follows traditional scholarship. It is surprising to see her using the construction “viggpollr Vinnils” (seaman; “tree of the horse of Vinnill,” i.e., “tree of the
ship”) to exemplify the class of inverted kennings. An example that properly fits
the requirements is “hyrjar hrannbrjótr” (breaker of the wave of the fire), where
the elements “wave” and “fire” must be reversed to obtain a kenning for “gold.”
Marking a departure from Wolfgang Lange, Clunies Ross envisages skaldic poetry
as greatly changed by the pressures of Christianization, a process she illustrates by
detailed analysis of Plácitusdrápa and Harmsól. She posits comparatively early origins
for the use of typology to link the “pre-Christian history of the North to its Christian
sequel” (p. 123). Relevant here is the discussion of symbolism in Einarr Skúlason’s
Geisli, which could have been strengthened by reference to recent publications by
Martin Chase. Similarly, the discussion of Christian skaldic cultivation of a “clear
but lofty style” (p. 132) might have been extended to Gunnlaugr Leifsson, who
prefaces Merlínússpá with a statement that he is adopting a “midsamlig” (middle)
style (I, 3).
As to the grammatical treatises, Clunies Ross emphasizes the importance of the
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First Grammarian for the preservation of vernacular poetry, as the proponent of
a mainstream European system of rendering vernacular texts into writing. Less
clear is whether the poetry held importance for him. His phonological system of
“minimal pairs” has been connected in recent scholarship with skaldic rules, but
it must have evolved in at least partial independence of the hending system, since
he distinguishes nasal vowels from non-nasal ones whereas the poets apparently
do not. Clunies Ross shows most interestingly how the later grammatical treatises
put vernacular poetics in an adverse foreign perspective by following precepts that
poetic language was built upon vitia orationis (vices of speech). It is on this basis
that Óláfr Pórdarson criticizes a line by no less a poet than the revered hofudskáld
Sigvatr Pórdarson. The same assumptions may, I suggest, have influenced Snorri.
When he uses the term fornafn for what he normally calls heiti, might he be exhibiting uncertainty as to whether the heiti are properly what something “is called”
(heitir) or a mere vitium orationis? At the same time, as Clunies Ross notes, Snorri’s
detailed treatment of skaldic versification bespeaks his comparative independence
of classical tracts and recognition of the distinctive features of native poetics. The
so-called pulur and etiological anecdotes (that on skjálfhent, for example) could
be cited as embodying types of traditional teaching that he may have drawn on.
The book is frankly signaled as one “in progress” (p. 234), and although it represents a remarkable piece of synthesis, it could have been further refined. The
bibliography, while in some respects admirably up-to-date, is unrepresentative:
essays in recent collections and a handful of theses gain a place, whereas recent
articles in periodicals are sparsely cited. Also, referencing is uneven, so that some
classic views are elaborately sourced back to their early proponents while others
are not. Some space is consumed in repetition of this and other information. The
poetic citations contain a few significant errors. In the citation from Bragi, “Ræs
gáfumk reidar mána” (p. 37), the second word should read “gofumk.” In the citation from Porbjorn hornklofi (p. 45), the phrase “hugfyldra holda” is omitted from
the prose order and the translation; “svirum” appears instead of “svírum.” In a
citation from Hallfredr, the sentence “leyfik ljóssa vífa/ lund” should be translated
“I praise the nature of bright ladies,” or similar, since “vífa” is plural. It should
be noted that the identification of the adored lady in Snjófrídardrápa as “Sæunn”
is an inference on the part of modern scholars. In the citation from Háttatal (p.
84), “skal ordtak vera forn minni,” “ordtak” must mean “content,” not “the arrangement of words.” At the level of mere slips, the accusative singular masculine
of gódr is gódan, not gód (p. viii). In “Gunnarr Hardarson” (pp. 12 and 255), read
“Gunnar”; for “Hrokinskinna” (p. 20), read “Hrokkinskinna.” The orthography
in “Pykkvabær . . . Kirkjubœr” (p. 144) should be standardized. Of the few typographical errors I note “conjuction” (p. 3), “a amajority” (p. 59), “Leggjar” (for
“leggjar,” p. 62), “flimtán” (p. 63), “plausibilty” (p. 78), “that fact” (for “the fact,”
p. 82), “suprisingly” (p. 193), “comparisions” (p. 200), and “strucural” (p. 217),
along with a few missing commas (e.g., p. 14).
All in all, the author has amply substantiated her thesis that Old Norse poetry
and poetics can profitably be studied in conjunction. The book will be gratefully
received by readers already familiar with the introductions by Frank, Hallberg,
Turville-Petre, and von See and will help to usher in the new edition of skaldic
poetry, which in turn is bound to modify or even reshape some of the scholarly
understandings presented here.
Russell Poole
University of Western Ontario
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Anglo-Saxon England in Icelandic Medieval Texts. By Magnús Fjalldal. Toronto Old Norse and Icelandic Studies. Toronto: University of Toronto Press,
2005. Pp. xi + 162. $40 paper, $60 cloth.
The title of this book promises a survey of facts pertaining to Anglo-Saxon England,
as it was depicted in medieval Icelandic narratives, and Fjalldal has made good on
his promise. Not everybody may realize how controversial the topic is. The tone
of the exposition is courteous, but the spirit informing it is unabashedly polemical. Since Fjalldal disagrees with many of his colleagues, they will, as a matter of
course, disagree with him. Yet it seems that his main conclusions will be hard to
refute. He shows that the authors of family and romantic sagas and of saints’ lives
had the vaguest idea of the geography and history of England. The genealogy
and the details of kings’ lives (even of King Cnut’s life) were misrepresented in
Icelandic medieval books. Some battles and invasions described in them found
no reflection in contemporary chronicles and hardly ever took place. Not only
fictitious dialogues like those between Haraldr and Harold or between Harald
and Tostig before the battle of Stamford Bridge but even the information on
Tostig’s right to the throne must be ascribed to fantasy. The following statements
summarize Fjalldal’s views:
How much these Viking settlers actually knew about the geography of England as a whole, or of the area which they had chosen for their settlement,
we shall never know. However, as their forefathers had raided England for
decades, they may well have known quite a lot. There is no evidence that this
knowledge of English geography ever found its way to Iceland, nor was there
any reason why Icelanders in the tenth and the eleventh centuries would have
been particularly interested in it. Icelandic writers began to record topographical information about England in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, but
their sources are unknown, and—on the whole—their knowledge of English
geography is sometimes less than impressive. However, they are not wrong
about everything, and not surprisingly, the most accurate statements concerning the geography of England concern Northumbria . . . .(pp. 22–23)
Basically, medieval Icelandic historians knew only the order of English kings
from Athelstan to Stephen, and, sometimes, how long each king reigned. . . .
The rest is, for the most part, a rather garbled version of what took place (p.
68).
To medieval Icelanders, Anglo-Saxon England was, as Fjalldal explains, a product
of wishful thinking, “a literary counter-point with a thinly veiled political message” (p. 82), a rich country, ruled by just, generous, but weak kings (in contrast
to Norway with her greedy, treacherous, and tyrannical monarchs), a backdrop
against which guests from Iceland performed heroic deeds and returned home
boasting of social advancement and precious gifts. It may be added that the plot
in which a valiant foreigner or outsider saves helpless neighbors has deep roots
in epic tradition: Siegfried in Worms, Beowulf in Heorot, and the like. This is not
surprising, for, in regard of morphology, the saga is indebted to epic poetry much
more than is usually recognized.
The first two chapters of the book are devoted to the question about the mutual
intelligibility of Old English and Old Norse. In the fairy tale, all people speak the
same language, and Mark Twain’s Connecticut Yankee has no trouble communicating with King Arthur and his subjects. The saga is occasionally less naive than
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the fairy tale. Gunlaugr and Egill encounter no language barrier while staying
in England, and English kings are said to have appreciated skaldic encomia. But
in other cases it was deemed necessary to assert that in Gunnlaugr’s days, to give
the most famous example, Old English and Old Norse were the same language
(at the beginning of the eleventh century!). The Anglo-Saxon chronicler did not
clarify how King Alfred interviewed Ohthere. Was either of them bilingual? Did
they use the services of a professional interpreter (wealhstod)? Each case was different. Mercenaries traveled from land to land and must have understood military
commands and the terms of their employment. Slang words used by soldiers and
prostitutes easily crossed language borders. Fjaldall’s conclusion is cautious, but
he stresses the improbability of the idea that a thousand years ago Old English
and Old Norse were dialects of the same language.
The simplest argument in support of his thesis will suffice. The trained philologists who have mastered Old English are not able to read even the simplest páttr
unless they have studied Old Icelandic. Likewise, a modern Icelander without
previous exposure to the subject will not find a text in Old English transparent,
though in written form things are easier to follow than when we hear them and
though some words in related languages naturally look familiar. Jespersen was
right that basic words of Old English and Old Norse had the same roots (a circumstance that, in his view, facilitated contacts between the descendants of the
Vikings and the local population), but living speech, unlike some etymological
dictionaries, does not consist of roots, and foreigners always speak too fast. As for
drápur (encomia), one sometimes wonders how native rulers managed to follow
them on the spur of the moment. The idea that a person in Athelstan’s place
understood dróttkvætt should be dismissed as unrealistic. This part of the skalds’
experience in England is pure fiction.
It is doubtful whether any skald ever made it to England. Even the participation
of Egill and Pórólfr in the battle of Brunanburh/Vinheidr, as Fjalldal observes,
may be a product of the sagaman’s imagination, and here we are dealing with
what looks like a historical episode. Perhaps two coffers of silver will be found in
a swamp, but archeologists are unlikely to find evidence that Egill brought them
home as a reward for his exploits on English soil. “There is no question that the
English and the Norse did communicate, but precisely to what degree and how we
shall, unfortunately, never know with any certainty. Not being able to determine
the answer to this problem is exceptionally frustrating, because virtually everything
else concerning the issue of what Icelanders knew about Anglo-Saxon England
boils down to the question of communication between the English and the Norse”
(p. 21).
These are Fjalldal’s primary sources: Gunlaugs saga, The First Grammatical Treatise,
Heimskringla, Ágrip of Nóregskonunga sogum, Fagrskinna, Knýtlinga saga, Morkinskinna,
Egils saga, Breta sögur, Saga Ósvalds kónungs hins helga, Dunstanus saga, and Jatvardar
saga. His list of secondary sources is equally full. The book reaches out to specialists and those with minimal knowledge of medieval conditions, a circumstance
that increases its value manifold.
Anatoly Liberman
University of Minnesota
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The Development of Flateyjarbók: Iceland and the Norwegian Dynastic
Crisis of 1389. By Elizabeth Ashman Rowe. The Viking Collection. Studies
in Northern Civilization, Vol. 15. Gylling: The University Press of Southern
Denmark, 2005. Pp. 486; 16 plates. Dkr 260.
Flateyjarbók (“the Book of Flatey”) is the name given to GKS 1005 fol., an Icelandic manuscript now housed in the Árni Magnússon Institute in Reykjavík. It is
the largest of all extant Icelandic parchments and beautifully illuminated. In its
original form, it contained 202 leaves. It was commissioned by Jón Hákonarson
(1350–before 1416), a wealthy farmer in Vídidalstunga. The first scribe to work
on it was the priest Jón Pórdarson, who began in 1387, and who on fols. 4v–134v
copied Eiríks saga vídforla, Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar, and most of Óláfs saga helga.
The work was continued in 1388 by another priest, Magnús Pórhallsson, who
from 134v to the end of the manuscript copied the rest of Óláfs saga helga, Noregs
konungatal, Sverris saga, Hákonar saga gamla, excerpts from Styrmir Kárason’s Óláfs
saga helga, Einars páttr Sokkasonar, Helga páttr ok Úlfs, Játvardar saga, and annals that
he compiled himself. He added three leaves to the front of the codex, on which
he wrote a short foreword and copied Geisli, Óláfs ríma Haraldssonar, Hyndluljód, an
Icelandic excerpt from Adam of Bremen’s Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum,
Sigurdar páttr slefu, Hversu Noregr byggdist, and Ættartolur, and also illuminated the
entire book. In the late fifteenth century, the manuscript was expanded to its
now 225 leaves. These added leaves contain Magnúss saga góda ok Haralds hardráda
interpolated with eleven pættir.
The Icelandic scholar Ólafur Halldórsson hypothesizes that Flateyjarbók was
originally supposed to contain only the two Óláfr sagas and Eiríks saga vídforla,
and he believes that the manuscript was intended as a gift for the young king
of Norway, Óláfr Hákonarson. When Óláfr suddenly died on 3 August 1387, its
original purpose as a gift lost its point. Jón Pórdarson thus became unemployed
and went to Norway, and Jón Hákonarson later had Magnús Pórhallsson finish
the codex. Elizabeth Ashman Rowe supports Ólafur Halldórsson’s hypothesis
but elaborates on it. She points out that several scholars who have examined the
versions of the texts that Jón Pórdarson produced have commented on his omission of events occurring during the reign of Saint Óláfr’s son Magnús. In their
view, Jón did so because Flateyjarbók was supposed also to include Magnúss saga
góda, and the previous omitted passages were to be inserted into that saga where
they belonged to its internal chronology. She maintains that “[i]f Flateyjarbók as
it was originally conceived was an appropriate gift for a king named Óláfr, it was
also a gift with an implied purpose, that of encouraging the king to follow the
example of his revered namesake” (p. 23). She draws attention to Snorri’s explanation of the circumstances surrounding Magnús’s epithet (inn gódi [the good])
in the Heimskringla version of the saga, which tells that Sighvatr Pórdarson in his
Bersoglisvísur urged King Magnús to treat his people more mercifully, that the king
took kindly to the advice, and that accordingly he devised a new set of laws. The
saga is contained in Hulda, another manuscript owned by Jón Hákonarson, and
Rowe argues that “[i]f that manuscript had come into Jón Hákonarson’s possession by 1387, when Flateyjarbók was begun, Jón would have been familiar with
its account of an Icelander’s use of literature to influence his Norwegian king
towards a greater respect for the law. Perhaps it even provided him with the idea
for Flateyjarbók, if Ólafur’s suggestion is true” (p. 24).
In her introduction, Rowe makes clear the aim of her study: “to examine the
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editorial projects of the two priests who compiled Flateyjarbók” (p. 25). This aim, she
argues, “requires their work to be situated within its late-fourteenth-century context” (pp. 25–26), and she draws attention to the fact that “[t]he untimely death
of King Óláfr Hákonarson—the last scion of the Norwegian royal dynasty—was
a turning point in Icelandic and Norwegian history, as it resulted in the Danish
sovereignty that was to last for more than 400 years” (p. 26). A second aim of
the study is “to show how Magnús Pórhallsson’s contribution responds to Jón
Pórdarson’s, rather than simply following or continuing it” (p. 27). In her view, the
scribes of Flateyjarbók had different theories of history and language and so used
different genres of literature and historiography: “Jón interpolates Christianized
tales of adventure and fantasy into the Óláfr-sagas, but Magnús prefers to augment
the sagas of Sverrir and Hákon with chronicles of various sorts. . . . Not only does
Magnús surround Jón’s work with texts that preface and supplement it, nearly all
these text correspond to Jón’s. . . . Magnús’s purpose seems to be to reread and
reverse Jón’s historiographic project, for where Jón depicts the conversion of
western Scandinavia typologically, as a re-enactment of salvation history in parvo,
Magnús integrates the history of the region into the larger context of European
history” (pp. 27–28). Rowe maintains that “[m]uch more than manuscripts produced in a monastic scriptorium or an urban workshop, Flateyjarbók is a manuscript
written by and for specific individuals at a specific moment in history, and thus its
collection of texts is far more intelligible when it is understood as the result of a
dialogue between these individuals and their patron at this time and this place,
rather than as the result of some disembodied encyclopedic impulse” (p. 28).
Rowe’s study more or less follows the manner in which Flateyjarbók was created, and the first three chapters of it (following the introduction) concern Jón
Pórdarson’s work. Chapters 2 and 3, “The Problem of Cultural Paternity: The
pættir Added to Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar” and “The Economics of Charity: The
pættir Added to Óláfs saga helga,” deal with the changes that Jón made to the text
of the Óláfr-sagas with an emphasis on the pættir that he interpolated into them,
and chapter 4, “The Retrospective Construction of Meaning: Eiríks saga vidforla as
Prologue,” examines Eiríks saga’s introductory function. The next three chapters
then treat Magnús Pórhallsson’s work. In chapter 5, “Family History and Families of
Historians: The Kings’ Sagas of Magnús Pórhallsson,” Rowe looks at the kings’ sagas
that Magnús copied into the manuscript after the Óláfr-sagas. Chapter 6, “Literary
Criticism: Competing Genres and Theories of History in Flateyjarbók,” considers
the supplementary texts he added to the end of the book. And in chapter 7, “The
Logic of the Supplement: Magnús Pórhallsson’s Changing Editorial Project,” she
examines the prefatory material he inserted to form a new introduction. Chapter
8, “Drawing Conclusions: The Illuminations of Magnús Pórhallsson,” discusses
Magnús’s artwork and presents Rowe’s conclusions about the creation and first
transformation of Flateyjarbók. Chapter 9, “The End of Danish Rule: Flateyjarbók
and Icelandic Independence,” surveys the later history of the manuscript and
the editions of it that have been published and treats the political context of the
publication of Sigurdur Nordal, Finnbogi Gudmundsson, and Vilhjálmur Bjarnar’s
normalized edition in 1944–45. Two appendices (one listing the major texts copied into Flateyjarbók, the other illustrating the interlacing of the texts interpolated
into the Óláfr-sagas), sixteen plates, a bibliography, and a name index conclude
the volume.
Despite its fascinating topic, it takes quite some determination to make it through
The Development of Flateyjarbók. Although Rowe makes it clear in her introduction
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what she intends to accomplish with her study, the main arguments and the conclusions she attempts to draw are often obscured by very long quotations (one spans no
fewer than five pages [pp. 285–90]) and attention to details that are either trivial
or not pertinent to the book’s primary concerns. The long definition of páttr (p.
12), for example, seems entirely superfluous, given Rowe’s intended scholarly readership, and much the same applies to the references to Derrida, Kristeva, Lacan,
and Foucault (p. 30), especially in light of the fact that Rowe herself states that she
does not attempt to apply their theories. Nonetheless, there is no doubt that Rowe
has made a contribution to the study of medieval Icelandic compilations generally
and Flateyjarbók in particular, and her observations and arguments will be of interest and use to scholars within the field of Old Norse-Icelandic literature. Many
aspects of the study itself are also valuable, notably the analysis of the individual
works contained in Flateyjarbók. On the whole, Rowe makes good and critical use
of previous scholarship on these works, though it is somewhat surprising that she
does not make more extensive use of Stefanie Würth’s Elemente des Erzählens: Die
pættir der Flateyjarbók (Basel, 1991). In fact, there seems to be a general preference
for scholarship in English. Her discussion of the illuminations in the codex would
have benefitted from Thomas A. DuBois’s article, “A History Seen: The Uses of
Illumination in Flateyjarbók,” which appeared in JEGP in 2004.
Kirsten Wolf
University of Wisconsin, Madison
Einarr Skúlason’s Geisli: A Critical Edition. Edited by Martin Chase. Toronto
Old Norse and Icelandic Studies. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005.
Pp. vii + 249. $29.95 paper, $65 cloth.
Those who are interested in Christian skaldic poetry know Einarr Skúlason’s Geisli
well. This drápa (poem) has come down to us complete. It celebrates the life and
posthumous miracles of St. Óláfr. Geisli was probably composed in the summer of
1153 (as Chase argues), in the reign of Einarr’s patron and friend King Eysteinn
Haraldsson gilli, who commissioned the drápa and who is mentioned in it twice: in
a bid for hearing and in a bid for a reward. The opening statement above needs a
note: to know Geisli well is far from easy. The faulty transmission and the complexity of the diction can be taken for granted. It is less obvious that the kennings and
heiti (poetic synonyms) underlying the imagery of a Christian skald require the
same type of elaborate commentary that editors habitually accord the skalds’ pagan
compositions. In explicating Geisli, references to Scandinavian mythology have to be
supplemented by and partly give way to a search for analogues and sources in saints’
lives, patristic literature, and the gospels (to give the most conspicuous example,
geisli is not merely a ray: it is the basis of the metaphor of Christ as the sun).
The myths at our disposal are few: Fáfnir guarded a hoard, Hugin was a raven
(and therefore a bird of battle), Fenrir could not close his mouth, and so forth. If
a certain tale is not told in eddic poetry and Snorri failed to explain an otherwise
incomprehensible kenning, the commentator is allowed to concede defeat with a
good grace. By contrast, most of early Christian literature is extant, and its enormity
baffles the investigator. The problem is not to find a parallel to something said
or implied in the text under discussion but to conclude what the author knew
for certain, what he could have known, where he was an innovator, and what he
borrowed from others. To put it differently, in editing a drápa like Geisli, the most
important thing is to decide where to stop.
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Martin Chase is eminently qualified for the task he has undertaken. He is versed
in Old Norse and Medieval Latin, as well as in skaldic tradition and Christian
exegesis, and his self-restraint is admirable. The commentary is relatively terse,
but it contains everything one needs for understanding the text, and no superfluous matter. Nor is the bibliography inflated. Although the book originated as a
doctoral dissertation, it is free from deficiencies that so often mar dissertations
subjected to multiple reworkings.
Geisli has been published several times in the past. Naturally, among Chase’s
predecessors were Finnur Jónsson and E. A. Kock, and the poem—in Icelandic
and English—was included in Corpus Poeticum Boreale, whence the familiarity of
English-speakers with it. (“There is no commentary apart from an English translation. This is occasionally helpful, but its ornate language and strange syntax
often make it as obscure as the Old Norse text,” p. 7.) Chase’s edition will remain
for a long time the main, if not the only, one for those who will turn to Einarr
Skúlason’s work. The front matter is devoted to the manuscript, the author, dating,
sources, analogues, and the poetics of Geisli. The latter topic is dealt with in greater
detail in the commentary; in that section all the lines are classified according to
Sievers’s five types, and a few hints to Einarr’s alliterative technique are given.
Chase expresses the hope that “comparative analysis of the entire skaldic corpus
will someday reveal whether [the difference in the use of D lines by Einarr and
Arnórr] reflects merely the taste of these two skalds or a broader change in what
was considered desirable” (p. 18). Perhaps it will, but it is unclear to what extent
(if at all) the difference is of artistic value. If it is not, comparative analysis will
reveal nothing worth knowing.
Pages 21–44 take up a section called “Appreciation.” Chase ranges freely over
such diverse subjects as the phonemics of skaldic rhyme, the allophones of /e:/,
tmesis, and the subtleties of iconicity (“In Einarr’s poetry, form and matter are
related; here [40. 1–4] his tortuous syntax reflects the gruesome theme of the
stanza,” p. 151. The Wends cut out a man’s tongue: Veit ek at Vindr fyr skauti /
verdr bragr en peir skerdu/gjalfrs nídranda grundar / greiddr sárliga meiddu
= Veit ek, at Vindr meiddu fyr nídranda skauti gjalfrs grundar, en peir skerdu
skárliga—bragr verdr greiddr [I know that the Wends mutilated the twig of the
land of noise on the riverbank, and they cut it painfully; poetry is made].) This
is an interesting example, but a correlation between a skald’s convoluted syntax
and the subject matter is hard to prove. It is in the “Appreciation” that Chase
treats the relationship between Geisli and hagiographic literature devoted to Óláfr.
Among other things, he answers the question that occasionally puzzles modern
readers of the vitae and especially of Heimskringla. Before he attained sainthood,
Óláfr was anything but saintly, and Snorri did not find it necessary to conceal his
cruelty and other “un-Christian” qualities (the same holds for his description of
the uncanonized Óláfr Tryggvason). Even if we take into account considerations
of expediency and the peculiarities of the “saga mind,” the following should be
remembered: “[Einarr] rather apologetically asserts that although Óláfr’s actions
may not have appeared exemplary from a Christian point of view, Óláfr led a
hidden, saintly life known only to God, a mystical life in spiritual conformity to
Christ’s” (p. 29). Snorri, who had a special fondness for Einarr, probably viewed
the life and deeds of the missionary kings in a similar way.
In the edition, a separate page is devoted to each of the seventy-one stanzas.
The text is transcribed from the manuscripts with maximum accuracy. Next to
the stanza, the same text is given in normalized Old Icelandic orthography (cf.
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57/2: verk fir piod at merkia versus verk fyr pjód at merkja). This is followed by “prose
syntax,” translation into English, textual notes, and three lists: of lexical variants,
of phonological and spelling variants (all in all eighteen manuscripts have been
consulted, though only two preserve the complete text of Geisli), and editorial
variants (culled from nine editions). Pages 123–70 are the commentary. A glossary
of all words and forms as they occur in the drápa (pp. 171–209), endnotes to the
“Introduction” and “Appreciation” (pp. 213–28), a bibliography (pp. 229–39),
and an index conclude the edition. The index features the personal names and
book titles mentioned in the study and a few subjects, the most important of them
being kennings in Geisli. In my opinion, this is an exemplary edition of a skaldic
drápa.
Anatoly Liberman
University of Minnesota
The Book Unbound: Editing and Reading Medieval Manuscripts and Texts.
Edited by Siân Echard and Stephen Partridge. Toronto: University of Toronto
Press, 2004. Pp. xxi + 236; 12 halftone, 10 color illustrations. $50.
In the last two decades, manuscript study conferences have produced several
excellent essay collections, which in turn have facilitated a new vitality in the
exchange of ideas among scholars who share common methodological problems
but work in a wide range of fields. This volume, which grew out of papers delivered at a University of British Columbia workshop in 1999, focuses squarely on
the problem of editing. The usual disclaimers about the difficulty of reviewing a
collection of essays with such various content apply in a particularly acute manner
here. In the introduction, aptly titled “Varieties of Editing: History, Theory, and
Technology,” Siân Echard and Stephen Partridge ground their attempt to define
the volume’s coherence in a generational shift of scholars, trained after 1985, for
whom “New Philology . . . represented neither a liberating departure from, nor a
threatening challenge to, their established methods and assumptions, but rather a
formative influence” (p. xii). The subtitle alludes to a consistent focus throughout
the volume on the way in which the new editing movement foregrounds questions of reading and interpretation. The hermeneutic turn in editing has made
modern editors determined to render “textual processes—the processes by which
texts are created, read and passed on—visible” (p. xiii). During this same period
(post-1985), changes in technology have allowed editors to realize the “visibility”
of textual processes more concretely, so it is no surprise that many of the essays
in this collection endeavor to bring these two strands—the theoretical and the
technological—together. The essays range from almost purely theoretical pieces
(Robins) to minutely local, small-scale recovery projects (Schipper). In between
these two poles, some contributors are actively at work on new editions or revisions
of old editions (Klinck, Reimer).
The editors have chosen to organize their heterogeneous material so that the
essays “move in a continuum from those emphasizing history and practice through
to those primarily concerned with theory and technology” (p. xiii). Thus, the first
three essays directly address questions of historical editing practices, though in
slightly different ways. Anne L. Klinck, “Editing Cursor Mundi: Stemmata and the
‘Open’ Text,” and Meg Roland, “‘Alas! Who May Truste Thys World’: The Malory
Documents and a Parallel-Text Edition,” both lay out the cases previous editors
have made within their respective textual traditions and then provide analysis of
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the interpretive issues at stake in these editorial choices. Klinck works from the
practical perspective of attempting to solve some editorial problems she inherited by taking up the edition of Cursor Mundi begun by Sally Horrall before her
premature death. She hopes that her comparison of editorial approaches “sheds
some interesting light on the implications of postmodern and traditional attitudes”
(p. 3) toward editing and textual criticism, and indeed it does. She demonstrates
that traditional methodologies can sometimes produce editions that are considerably more radical re-readings of a textual tradition than putatively more “radical”
theories of editing. Roland’s essay, though grounded in the critical language of
postmodernism, ultimately argues that the ongoing debate over the priority of the
print and manuscript editions of Malory can only be addressed by a parallel-text
edition of Malory, a solution that should please philologists, both old and new,
even if it rankles our most devout New Critics.
Julia Marvin’s essay, “The Unassuming Reader: F. W. Maitland and the Editing
of Anglo-Norman,” contributes a fascinating chapter to the history of medievalism,
as she mines the work of this early twentieth-century legal scholar as he attempts
to make sense of the language of the Anglo-Norman Year Books of Edward II.
Marvin finds in Maitland a model for the tireless effort of the editor to get closer
to the particular details of language as reflected in often chaotic and unsystematic
patterns of writing in manuscripts that are recording the quasi-oral, quasi-literary
context of legal argumentation. The essay will prove interesting for both AngloNorman and Middle English scholars, as well as providing excellent fodder for
reflecting on the trilingualism of late medieval England.
The collection turns from past editing practices with Peter Diehl’s “An Inquisitor in Manuscript and in Print: The Tractatus super materia hereticorum of Zanchino
Ugolini,” which reflects on the important differences between the manuscript and
print versions of this inquisitor’s manual. He makes the case for an electronic edition that would allow scholars to access both versions, arguing it would be of great
value to scholars of later periods to see how print editions absorbed (or failed to
absorb) the manuscript traditions, especially their glosses. Similarly, though in a
much more broadly theoretical vein, Andrew Taylor, “Editing Sung Objects: The
Challenge of Digby 23,” argues that digital editions “help us hear what a medieval
poem might have sounded like” (p. 98). It is a compelling case, made with a sharp
awareness of the methodological problems that hover over an attempt to recuperate
sound. Though his argument focuses on the importance of song in our reception
of La Chanson de Roland, the essay will also be useful to Middle English scholars, as
Taylor helpfully points out how essential to Middle English studies the tradition
of oral delivery has been, the conduct of which he describes as a “crucial rite of
passage” (p. 90). Although he gives more attention to the theoretical dilemma
than he does to practical solutions, the essay provocatively suggests that modern
technological innovation might allow us better to engage, albeit speculatively, with
the elusive oral component of the poem’s original audience.
Carol Symes’s essay, “The Boy and the Blind Man: A Medieval Play Script and
Its Editors,” further expands the range of literary material in the collection by
reflecting on the specific issues of editing a play script, which in this case includes
handwritten annotations, corrections, and expansions assembled over a two-hundred-year period of time (mid-thirteenth century to mid-fifteenth century). She
argues that “these alterations suggest that ways of reading, interpreting, and performing the play also changed drastically over the same period of time” (p. 105).
Her article includes, as an appendix, her transcription of the text, including the
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marginal additions by later scribes who reapportioned dialogue and altered (by
strike through) the work of earlier hands; the edition thus “makes visible” the
ongoing revisions of this text, whose transmission putatively reflects performance
decisions to some degree.
The most purely theoretical piece in the collection, William Robins’s “Toward a
Disjunctive Philology,” argues that an editorial process true to the intellectual roots
of the discipline would construct a text that honestly represents a full process of
editorial thinking, including those “disjunctions” between different methods of
editing. The practical result would be what he calls “parallel text-editing” that does
not merely diplomatically transcribe two unique texts, but represents two entirely
different processes of editing. In three heuristic models, he presents feasible examples of what such editions might look like: combining “best” manuscript with
“worst” manuscript (using a passage from Lai de l’ombre); combining two different
stemmatic editions (using a passage from Piers Plowman); and combining a singletext and a stemmatic edition (using a passage from La Reina d’Oriente). Working
editors may cringe here, since doubling the reader’s pleasure means doubling
the editor’s labor. The case studies are modeled on pedagogical practices; Robins
argues that “one objective of a disjunctive philology would be the exportation of
that heuristic and process-oriented attitude out of the seminar room and into the
delivery of published editions” (p. 156). I am intrigued by his account of how
a more radically hermeneutic edition would engage the reader in the editorial
process by refusing to foreclose the editing process. One immediately wonders,
however, whether, and what kind of, readers are up to the task.
Readers with an interest in technology will certainly want to engage the last
three essays, all of which focus on the opportunities offered by innovations in
digital technology. William Schipper’s “Digitizing (Nearly) Unreadable Fragments
of Cyprian’s Epistolary” narrates his attempt to use digital technology to enhance
and, ultimately, reconstruct the Cyprian fragment: one can only be pleased to
learn about such adventures in recovery that wed our newest technology to some
of our oldest texts. Stephen Reimer, “Unbinding Lydgate’s Lives of Ss. Edmund and
Fremund,” details the rich intersection of visual and verbal evidence in manuscripts
of Lydgate’s text, and argues that a more comprehensive electronic edition would
open up provocative new interpretive avenues, particularly with respect to the local
histories of the saints. Though the general argument itself is not new, we need
an army of practitioners like Reimer who are willing to face the practical hurdles
(many of which he also discusses) in getting to market these editions, which can
be prohibitively expensive to produce (and thus to consume).
Joan Grenier-Winther’s “Server-Side Databases, the World Wide Web, and the
Editing of Medieval Poetry: The Case of La Belle dame qui eut mercy” offers an example of one way to address the question of access by creating online editions,
which have the huge advantage of being dynamic, allowing scholars to engage
in provisional, collaborative work. Using a poem from a fifteenth-century cycle
of debate poems as her test case, she provides a kind of “how-to” manual for
creating a server-side database, which facilitates word searches and constructs a
platform for a range of visual data (particularly manuscript images). Aside from
facilitating Web-based editions of texts, a database model for editing poetry allows
for dynamic online editing, a particularly important technological innovation for
group-editing projects on a much larger scale than a single text (say the entire
La Belle dame cycle). Having dabbled in her Web site, I am impressed by her accomplishment, especially given that she is working independently, rather than
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drafting off of the institutional resources of larger digital text initiatives. On a
less positive note, Grenier-Winther’s editorial labor would benefit from a more
direct encounter with recent critical work on the cycle of La Belle dame poems,
including Catherine Atwood, Joan McRae, William Calin, and Emma Cayley, the
last of whom particularly emphasizes the intertextual dialogue in the cycle.
Given the heterogeneity of interests on display here, I may be the only one,
aside from the editors and contributors themselves, to read the collection all the
way through. Most readers will access the essays through bibliographic databases
when researching a particular manuscript or topic area, and many will order them
through interlibrary loan and receive them in a PDF. The Book Unbound is thus
a physical emblem of a publishing culture that may function best by eventually
“unbinding” itself, and then evolving into a more dynamic form that reflects the
best our technology and scholarship have to offer.
Ashby Kinch
The University of Montana
The Cambridge Old English Reader. Edited by Richard Marsden. Cambridge
and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Pp. xxxiv + 532. $85 (cloth);
$32.99 (paper).
This book promises two things to teachers and students of Old English: a wide
variety of reading material and a user-friendly format that is up to “modern standards” (p. ix). A substantial volume with forty headings divided into six thematic
sections, the Cambridge Old English Reader presents “a range of texts far wider than
the narrow canon available in the primers and readers in print” (p. ix). Students
who have completed an introductory course will welcome such new texts as the
“Fonthill Letter,” the Durham Proverbs, the Letter of Alexander to Aristotle, Wulfstan’s
De falsis deis, and Ælfric’s grammatical work. Teachers will be glad that the Reader
also represents “the established canon,” with such staples of Old English literature
as “Cynewulf and Cyneheard,” Alfred’s prefaces, Ælfric’s Colloquy and his preface
to the translation of Genesis, the Sermo Lupi, excerpts from Beowulf, and shorter
poems like The Dream of the Rood, The Battle of Maldon, and elegies. Even here,
however, editor Richard Marsden endeavors to shed new light on the familiar
texts. For instance, he has placed The Seafarer in a section called “Example and
Exhortation,” while assigning The Wanderer to the section “Reflection and Lament”
together with Deor, The Ruin, and some other Exeter short poems. In the introduction to The Seafarer, Marsden argues that interpretations of the poem “have
suffered much from its being pigeon-holed almost invariably with The Wanderer
. . . as an ‘elegy,’” even though “[t]here is in fact little that is elegiac about it” (p.
221). By juxtaposing it with texts like Bede’s Death Song, Ælfric’s homily for Easter
Sunday, and Wulfstan’s writing, Marsden tries to bring home to his readers the
view that The Seafarer is “an exhortatory and didactic poem, in which the miseries
of winter seafaring are used as a metaphor for the challenge faced by the committed Christian” (p. 221).
Other thematic sections in the volume are “Teaching and Learning,” which
contains excerpts from Ælfwine’s Prayerbook, Bald’s Leechbook, and Alfred’s translation of De consolatione Phlosophiae; “Telling Tales,” which consists of narratives in
both prose and verse; “Keeping a Record,” with Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the
English People, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and legal documents; and “Spreading the
Word,” which includes Exodus, Genesis B, and prose translations of the Bible, among
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others. Course instructors may either follow these thematic divisions or choose
texts that would suit their own themes: for example, the collection abounds in
texts pertaining to women, ranging from Judith to Wulf and Eadwacer and The Wife’s
Lament to lives of women saints to the “Will of Ælfgifu” to narratives on female
characters in Beowulf. Either way, this Reader will, as Marsden puts it, “open up areas
of Anglo-Saxon literary life which are usually ignored by all but the specialist, and
will enable teachers at all levels to plan more adventurous courses” (p. ix).
The Cambridge Old English Reader strives after “user-friendliness” at every turn, since
Marsden firmly believes that the era of Henry Sweet, who could expect students
to decipher an Old English text only with a grammar and a dictionary, “has long
gone, as though it had never been” (p. ix). We now live in an age, instead, when
teachers must positively encourage students to read Old English: as far as Marsden
can see, there is “no virtue . . . in withholding anything that might help them” (p.
ix). The new Reader uses a format that is probably more familiar to students of later
medieval English literature. Glosses are given on the same page as the text, to the
far right for poetry and immediately below for prose, with longer notes supplied at
the bottom of each page. In addition, there is a full glossary at the end of the volume
for those ambitious students who seek alternative interpretations or more linguistic
information. The threefold aid of glosses, notes, and glossary will without doubt
accelerate the reading process for students. Grammatical information provided by
same-page glosses is mostly accurate, and the few instances of less plausible parsing
would easily be removed in a future edition (e.g., stanclifu in 26/23 should be plural
and not singular; lapere in 30/90 is likely positive rather than comparative).
This user-friendly Reader is nonetheless based on rigorous scholarship. The
texts are edited from the original manuscripts, microfilms, or facsimiles, with no
attempt at normalization and with very few modifications except for expansion
of contractions and capitalization of proper names as well as “the two principal
names for the deity (God and Drihten)” (p. xix). The introduction to each text offers
useful background knowledge and well-selected secondary material for further
reading. The substantial reference grammar will serve as a dependable guide for
students who need to refresh their memory in morphology and syntax. In sum, the
Cambridge Old English Reader promises to become a standard textbook for teachers
who plan to offer an intermediate course and for students who hope to conduct
further reading on their own after completing an introductory course.
Haruko Momma
New York University
Verbal Encounters: Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse Studies for Roberta
Frank. Edited by Antonina Harbus and Russell Poole. Toronto: University
of Toronto Press, 2005. Pp. [vii] + 298. $75.
It is unusual for a scholar who is still in midcareer to be the recipient of a festschrift,
but Roberta Frank, the richly deserving honorand of this volume, is a special case.
In 2000, after thirty-two highly productive years and promotion to University
Professor at the University of Toronto, Professor Frank accepted a chair at Yale
University and commenced a second brilliant career in New Haven. A group of
her former graduate students at Toronto, now distinguished scholars at universities
in Canada, England, Europe, America, and Australia, have prepared the present
volume to honor her years at Toronto. The festschrift includes a catalogue of
Professor Frank’s publications, and the long list of works “Forthcoming” at the
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end of the bibliography gives eloquent witness to the fact that the honorand’s
career is in medias res.
The contents of the volume are presented in four sections that represent effectively several of Professor Frank’s major scholarly interests: “On Words,” “On
Anglo-Latin and Old English Prose,” “On Old English Poetry,” and “On Old Norse
Literature.” Christopher A. Jones gets the collection off to an auspicious start with
a fascinating and deeply learned essay (over one hundred functional, informative
footnotes) on the surprisingly various interpretations of the Greek word chaos in the
early Middle Ages. The interpretations range “from the primal ‘something,’ whether
a void or confusion of matter; to the underworld (pagan, Jewish, or Christian); to
darkness palpable in the form of cloud, mist, fog, vapour, or dust; to a liminal space
between life and death, heaven and hell, or upper and nether hells; to a hazardous
trail connecting worlds; or to some barrier, material or moral, separating them”
(p. 38). The sources and interrelations of these very disparate constructions of the
term chaos are lucidly explained and contextualized.
Don Chapman’s “Composing and Joining: How the Anglo-Saxons Talked about
Compounding” raises an interesting and important question. We would like to
know how the pervasive compound words in Old English (especially in the poetry)
were perceived by an Anglo-Saxon audience. Did Anglo-Saxons typically remain
sensitive to the component elements of such words, or was lexicalization more
common? Chapman approaches the question by analyzing the Latin words used
to refer to compounds in grammatical treatises—their etymologies, meanings,
etc.—with some attention to the Old English words used to render the Latin
terms. This purely terminological approach might be fittingly complemented by
further study of Old English compounds themselves. Calques and apparent nonce
formations like hildegicel and mupbona in Beowulf suggest, on the one hand, that
awareness of component elements was keen; coalesced forms like hlaford, on the
other hand, suggest lexicalization. A comprehensive study would be welcome.
Pauline Head shows how the fortuitous combination of the distinct meanings “to
give birth” and “to make known” in the Old English word cennan and its derivatives
was consciously exploited by Anglo-Saxon sermon writers and others to convey the
concept of Christ’s birth as a revelation. The skill and subtlety with which Head
explores this rhetorical stratagem makes the essay an especially apt tribute to Roberta Frank, whose work it often resembles. Another strong essay, “Pride, Courage,
and Anger: The Polysemousness of Old English Mnd ” by Soon-Ai Low, shows how
Old English mnd displays a striking range of meanings: “mind [most commonly],
courage, pride, anger.” Whereas some scholars in the past have tried to explain
this semantic phenomenon by reference to an “expression of the Germanic spirit,
tending in either a martial or a religious direction” (Grimm), Low shows that this
“process of polysemization” is also evident in a variety of other words in various
languages and so is not likely to be expressive of a uniquely Germanic mindset.
Two of the essays address the subject of education. Carin Ruff, “Desipere in loco:
Style, Memory, and the Teachable Moment,” shows how etymology, word associations, and similes are used by Anglo-Saxon didacts as mnemonic crutches in teaching
grammar and other technical subjects. Haruko Momma, “The Education of Beowulf
and the Affair of the Leisure Class,” interprets Beowulf as an account of how a folktale brawler with monsters is educated into becoming a warrior in the leisure class
(as defined by Thorstein Veblen) in a sixth-century Germanic aristocracy.
Dorothy Haines, “Courtroom Drama and the Homiletic Monologues of the Vercelli Book,” demonstrates effectively how some Vercelli homilists use long, rhetori-
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cally heightened monologues to impart force and vividness to their depictions of
Judgment Day. The popularity of these set-piece monologues is suggested by the
frequency with which they were excerpted in subsequent sermon manuscripts. Another essay on the literary use of direct discourse, “Articulate Contact in Juliana”
by Antonina Harbus, analyzes Cynewulf’s narrative strategies in Juliana “in terms
of the articulate contact model of communication”—a postsemiotic philosophy
of language in which language is viewed as an element of thought rather than a
representation of it. Her focus is on the confrontational verbal encounters in the
poem.
In “‘Him pæs grim lean becom’: The Theme of Infertility in Genesis A,” Karin
Olsen argues that in this poem human transgression and punishment are consistently portrayed as reenactments of Satan’s rebellion and fall.
Robert DiNapoli, “Odd Characters: Runes in Old English Poetry,” reviews Old
English poets’ employment of runes in The Rune Poem, in the riddles, and in the
Cynewulfian signatures. His observations about Cynewulf’s signature passages are
especially interesting.
An important segment of Roberta Frank’s scholarly oeuvre is marked by four
concluding essays dealing with Old Icelandic literature. In “The Refracted Beam:
Einarr Skúlason’s Liturgical Theology,” Martin Chase provides a detailed explication of Einarr’s drápa Geisli (beam, ray) in the context of light imagery in the “New
Hymnary” of the eleventh century. In a very different exercise in close reading, Oren
Falk discerns a gamy scatological meaning in the verses (kvidlingar) quoted by Gísli
and Skegg in the course of their duel in Gísla sage (“Beardless Wonders: ‘Gaman
vas Soxu’ [The Sex Was Great]”). Bernadine McCreesh, “Prophetic Dreams and
Visions in the Sagas of the Early Icelandic Saints,” shows how the motif of prophecies and prophetic dreams, which is commonly employed in early, native Icelandic
narratives (with fylgjur [fetches], volur [seeresses], spákonur [prophetesses] and
the like) is transformed and assimilated in a remarkable syncretism with standard
motifs from the Christian tradition, especially in the Bishops’ Sagas. Russell Poole
concludes the volume by quoting a series of passages from Old English and Old
Norse texts relating to poets receiving gifts from patrons or to diverse kinds of kinship and adoption. He reviews the textual criticism that has been directed at some
words and phrases in his quoted passages.
The book is well produced, and slips are rare: angelsächsischen has lost its umlaut
(p. 40, n. 6); Daniel Donoghue has been rechristened “David Donoghue” (p.
169, n. 17); Philip Krapp’s name is respelled “Philipp” (p. 129, n. 7); wak appears for wake (p. 153, l. 20). The profound influence of Roberta Frank is evident
throughout the volume, in which citations of her publications are pervasive. In
Verbal Encounters a richly deserving honorand is richly honored.
Fred C. Robinson
Yale University
Families of the King: Writing Identity in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.
By Alice Sheppard. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004. Pp. x + 266.
$70.
The ongoing publication of The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: A Collaborative Edition (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1986– ) has inspired a resurgence in interest in the manuscript contexts of the most expansive and least-understood text in the Anglo-Saxon
canon. Ranging across six extant manuscripts, plus two fragments, that span more
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than two centuries of production and come from all over England, the Chronicle
has long challenged scholars with its complexity. With the six main manuscripts
now available in authoritative editions, scholars have embraced the Chronicle in
spite of its unwieldy nature and the plethora of interpretive dilemmas it presents.
Alice Sheppard’s Families of the King is a splendid addition to this trend.
Attempting to construct a unified theory of interpretation for the Chronicle as a
whole seems ill advised, and Sheppard wisely avoids making comprehensive claims
about the text as a whole. Rather, she demonstrates that the most effective and
illuminating readings spring from following a single thematic thread through the
Chronicle’s complex, interwoven fabric. Her book focuses on the representation
of lordship obligations as they were performed, well or ill, by five kings at various
crucial moments in later Anglo-Saxon history: Alfred, Æthelred, Cnut, Edward, and
William. She does not argue that lordship, as conceived in the heroic tradition,
was a functioning part of late Anglo-Saxon political practice but that “the annals
of conquest, invasion, and settlement can more properly be seen as defining or
constitutive fictions in which the lordship tie of king and man is written as the
identifying ethos of the Angelcynn, the Anglo-Saxon people” (p. 4). In this reading, the Chronicle is able to reveal the ideological configurations of Anglo-Saxon
identity: how the Anglo-Saxons, or at least those who wrote the annals of their
history, saw themselves. Sheppard begins from the conviction that written history
is consciously and carefully shaped by its authors and that recognition of this design can grant insight into the views of its creators. In her introductory chapter,
Sheppard notes the hardly coincidental synchronicity of Alfred’s historical project
in commissioning the Chronicle, and the rise of the term Angelcynn to describe his
people in other texts. If history and national identity are thus intertwined, as Sheppard suggests, then the national character must depend, to some degree, on the
ruler who instituted it. For this reason, Sheppard examines each of the five kings
within his particular historical moment; through shifting genres and the vagaries
of historical necessity, her reading of lordship anchors a coherent, if admittedly
not comprehensive, understanding of one aspect of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.
Each of the book’s subsequent chapters builds on the idea of lordship as foundational to the Chronicle’s representation of Anglo-Saxon identity. Chapters 2 and
3 systematically explore Alfred’s rise to power in the annals and in ancillary texts;
as Sheppard notes, the historical narrative of Alfred’s frequent military defeats
does not support his reputation as a glorious king, yet the same annals that record
these defeats give readers an Alfred whose performance of lordship obligations
ensure the loyalty and respect of his people. Even if he is not a brilliantly successful
warrior in these early years, he still earns the love of his followers. When he does
finally secure military victory against the Danes, his kingship has already been
assured. Sheppard argues convincingly that the language of the annals works to
associate Alfred with the people (as opposed to the territory) that he governs;
this, she contends, makes his rule of the Anglo-Saxons more of a personal relationship for the purposes of the annalist’s historical perspective. Annals such as
the Cynewulf-Cyneheard episode (755 A.D.) reinforce this connection between
lord and people, and as people become the annalist’s central focus, the loss of
territory in Alfred’s early years is less detrimental to his role as a leader of men.
This leadership role extends to the education of his subjects, which Sheppard
elucidates through a reading of Asser’s Vita Alfredi. Asser’s work rounds out the
picture of Alfred as a true and loyal lord, lending credence to Sheppard’s larger
arguments about lordship in the annals themselves. The contention that educa-
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tion is a form of social control is fairly commonplace; however, as Sheppard points
out, Asser’s Alfred displays a better-documented interest in the education of his
subjects than most contemporary rulers. Asser, like the annalist of the Chronicle,
clearly has an investment in presenting Alfred as king of a people, rather than a
territory. In both cases, the history of Alfred’s kingship stands in stark contrast to
similar Continental texts, where history is interpreted according to a salvation narrative; in both the Chronicle and Asser’s accounts, Anglo-Saxon history focuses on
the immediate figure of the king and his personal relationship to his subjects.
This personal relationship is, according to Sheppard, what makes or breaks
a kingship. While Alfred’s kingship is recorded as a success, in spite of military
instability, the Chronicle shows King Æthelred II in a very different light. Chapters
4 and 5 deal with what is perhaps the most fraught portion of the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle, namely the annals recounting the reign of Æthelred, which are characterized by a failure to repel Danish invasion. It is hard to read this account as
anything other than an unmitigated disaster, and Sheppard agrees. Here, however,
she argues for a turn toward salvation history as the Chronicle’s interpretive model;
the sin or transgression at the root of the Danish conquest is Æthelred’s failure
to establish good lordship relations with his nobles. In the Alfredian annals, the
Chronicle was “an ideological text and manifestation of a new kind of vernacular
historical writing” (p. 50); now, “the framework of salvation history makes the
rhetoric of the Æthelred-Cnut Chronicle meaningful” (p. 73). Sheppard does not
present a new interpretation of the annals themselves, but she does show how
a focus on kingship, drawn from her reading of the Alfredian annals, actually
heightens the sense of profound failure that pervades the chronicler’s account.
If the purpose of the Alfred annalist was to strengthen a sense of identification
between king and people, then the Æthelred annalist has quite the opposite goal:
to separate Anglo-Saxon identity from the image of an incompetent ruler. “In
the Æthelred-Cnut Chronicle,” Sheppard writes, “the king is not sufficiently present
at the narrative centre,” and for good reason (p. 80). The failure of Æthelred’s
lordship paves the way for Cnut’s succession as a legitimate (because loyal) lord
of the Anglo-Saxons. Instead of a definitive military victory, “Cnut ‘conquers’
Anglo-Saxon England through a series of accessions, each of which the annalist
characterizes as an act of lordship” (p. 113). Anglo-Saxon identity, therefore,
continues to be founded upon the idea of loyal lordship, to the exclusion of factors such as descent, nationality, or language.
Chapters 6 and 7 conclude the narrative of lordship with the conquest of William
in 1066. Sheppard suggests that, in contrast to its narrative of Cnut’s succession,
the Chronicle “portrays the Norman Conquest as a series of events that foreclose
any return to the discourses of identity and ideal lordship articulated earlier in the
Alfred and Æthelred-Cnut annals” (p. 121). For Sheppard, 1066 thus becomes a
decisive moment in the history of English identity, and the barren landscape depicted in the post-1066 annals reflects this loss. The disintegration of the Angelcynn
begins in Edward’s reign, which is characterized by a failure, similar to Æthelred’s,
to maintain lordship relations with the nobility. Neither Edward nor Harold is able
to inspire the loyalty that allowed Alfred to draw the Angelcynn together; as a result,
their reigns precipitate the end of Anglo-Saxon England. The annals of William’s
reign recount rebellion and unease due, not to conquest alone, but to William’s
failure to honor the Anglo-Saxon people with loyal lordship. Lordless, like the
speakers of The Wanderer or Deor, the Anglo-Saxons fade into history. The later
Chronicle entries record a transition from kingship based on a personal relationship
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with the people to one that depends, for its legality, on highly impersonal charters
and writs. Yet the sense of a common bond based on loyal lordship continues to
pervade later accounts of English history, such as the Peterborough Chronicle, compiled in the early twelfth century.
In the end, Families of the King does not make grand, sweeping claims about
the changing nature of national identity over the two centuries between Alfred’s
rise and William’s death. But neither does it claim to. It hints at, but does not
overtly put forward, intriguing notions about the complex relationships between
history, representation, and ideology. The book is not perfect; for example, there
is considerable tension between the thematic layout of the main thesis and the
chronological organization of the chapters themselves, and it is sometimes unclear
whether Sheppard believes that rulers like Cnut and William actually practiced
lordship relations or are simply being represented, by the annalist, in those terms.
Similarly, the chapter on Asser, while a useful counterpoint to the Chronicle narrative, does take us away from the stated focus of the book. Study of the Chronicle
always seems to lead one down unexpected side roads, however, and Families of the
King succeeds in modeling a successful approach to a notoriously difficult work.
The book furthers our understanding of the ideological power of concepts like
“lordship” and the “good king” in Anglo-Saxon society, and its reading of the texts
grants significant insight into the always-complicated relationship between ideology and power. Its detailed footnotes and excellent bibliography will doubtless
see pillaging by other students of the Chronicle, and Sheppard’s study is bound to
be an inspiration for future work. Families of the King is an ambitious project and
a valuable contribution to the ongoing search for clarity about the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle.
Renée R. Trilling
University of Illinois
The English Romance in Time: Transforming Motifs from Geoffrey of Monmouth to the Death of Shakespeare. By Helen Cooper. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2004. Pp. xiv + 542. $125.
The introduction to this wise and wide-ranging book is as characteristically entertaining as all the rest. It opens on the need, in the 1590s, for a bear suit for a
dramatized version of the romance Valentine and Orson, and with this Helen Cooper
at once conveys in an easy and humorous fashion her serious point: the genre of
romance lasted so long (it was “the major genre of secular fiction for five hundred
years”) that its materials, even when reworked, were completely familiar to Renaissance audiences. When they read the Faerie Queene or watched a Shakespeare
play, they did so conditioned, not just by a grounding in classical literature or an
acquaintance with contemporary European writing, but by a thorough knowledge
of romance stories and their trajectories, which enabled them better to appreciate what the reviser, whether poet or dramatist, was doing. Cooper’s book aims
to restore to us that audience’s degree of knowledge.
Writing about romance always tends to raise the problem of defining and categorizing. Cooper avoids this by structuring her book around what she calls “memes”
(a term taken from Richard Dawkins): ideas which adapt and mutate. Each chapter,
apart from the introductory first, and to an extent the third (a revision of a previous
article on magic), is devoted to one of these. An inevitable corollary is that no one
major work is ever analyzed once and for all. Instead, the Faerie Queene or Othello
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or Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, for example, recur in most chapters, but, since
there is very little repetition of ideas, this is a bonus, not an irritant: each time they
recur, a new light is cast upon them by the company, and the meme, they keep.
Chapter 2 is thus devoted to romances concerned with the meme of quest and
its associated concept, pilgrimage. Here there is a first shot at Gawain—its preliminaries and analysis could be recommended reading to undergraduates—and an
excellent survey of the popular Guy of Warwick story, leading smoothly to Spenser’s
Guyon. By the end of the chapter, we realize how approachable Renaissance readers
would have found the Faerie Queene because its “structures of thought,” “methods,”
and “landscapes” would have been very familiar from earlier romances. This layout
is followed in subsequent chapters, in that discussion of their memes—providence
and the sea, faery kings and mistresses, “desirable desire,” women on trial, restoring the rightful heir, and unhappy endings—progresses through earlier to later
romances, to Chaucer and Malory, and finally to the great trio of Sidney, Spenser,
and Shakespeare. It is not with the intention of disparaging some chapters that
I praise others, but personally I enjoyed Chapter 3, the former article on “magic
that doesn’t work,” within its book setting, as much as ever, especially with its culmination in Othello’s handkerchief. Chapters 5 and 6 on women are excellent,
full surveys of contrasting portrayals, with the interesting suggestion that some
writers incorporated antifeminist views in their romances so as to “acknowledge
audience anxiety and so to help neutralise it” (p. 388).
By the end, I was firmly persuaded of the grounding of Renaissance literature in
romance stories and found that my readings of Spenser, Sidney, and Shakespeare
had been consistently illuminated by the context supplied by lesser-known works;
the sympathetic analysis of some of these often disparaged poems, like Sir Percyvell,
was a pleasure to read. Every generalization or aphorism is rooted in such close
textual discussion. This inevitably involves much plot summary, but it is hard to
avoid and essential in the case of relatively obscure works such as Richard Hughes’s
Misfortunes of Arthur (1587).
The title of the book is pleasingly chosen and apt: the romance “in time” means
that we are often reminded of the importance of its historical context, of the way
Spenser’s work, for example, responded to the pressures of time and change,
of how Shakespeare was aware (in Henry VIII and the Winter’s Tale) that stories
of accused queens could closely correspond to historical events, and of the way
a significant minority of the most famous romances choose unhappy endings
because these stress that both happiness and misery are subject to mutability.
There are a few errors, to be expected in a book with such a large coverage,
and a few opinions open to disagreement. I’m not sure we have any evidence that
Chrétien de Troyes started writing as early as the 1160s (p. 26) and to describe
Yvain as “a romance of atonement” (p. 199) rather glosses over the ambivalence
of its ending. Geoffrey of Monmouth leaves it entirely up to us to decide whether
Guinevere has a willing affair with Modred (p. 404), but her frightened flight
from the usurper suggests otherwise; it is the First Variant Version of the Historia,
and Wace’s Brut after that, which stress her complicity. Arthurian narratives from
the Draco Normannicus onwards have several shots at “demythologizing Arthur”
before Elizabethan student lawyers add their pennyworth (p. 405). In Geoffrey
and Wace, Uther makes love to Ygerne before Gorlois is killed, suggesting adultery long before Hughes takes this up (p. 404). The Stanzaic Morte deserves more
credit than a footnote for, pre-Malory, introducing to the account of Arthur’s
last days both the vulnerability of the unarmed Gareth and the adder, the latter
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suggesting the absence of “any moral or providential explanation” (pp. 401–2)
for the final disaster. Last of all, Guy of Warwick’s lion is not killed defending its
master (p. 37), and Guy does not abandon armor (p. 95); on the contrary, he
accepts the most splendid accoutrements, reminiscent of the Nine Worthies. He
is in fact an odd sort of “pilgrim” with an odd sort of penitence; he doesn’t always
fight “God’s enemies” after his renunciation of his lands and his wife and once
helps out a Saracen, while his “pilgrimage to the Holy Land” is of the briefest,
more like a tourist’s (he sees the sights) than a penitent’s (p. 92). I tend to agree
with William Calin, who sees the heart of the romance lying in its portrayal of
male friendships, and it is possible that narrative inconsistencies after Gui’s death,
when Terri removes his body to Lorraine against the hero’s previous wishes, have
something to do with an increased emphasis on homosocial love.
But these are minor cavils. This is the best book on romance for a long time. It is
written primarily for researchers, but bright undergraduates should be encouraged
to skim through it, using the index, for meaty discussions of Gawain, Chaucer, and
Malory. It will be a great source of essay questions for many years. More seriously,
it provides an appendix of medieval romance in England after 1500 that, with its
helpful information on dramatizations, adaptations, and allusions, will be invaluable to the scholar. Cooper wears her learning lightly and makes her discussion
seem easy, but such an achievement isn’t easy and we shall all be grateful for it.
Judith Weiss
Robinson College, Cambridge
Sanctifying Signs: Making Christian Tradition in Late Medieval England.
By David Aers. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 2004.
Pp. xiv + 282. $55 (cloth); $25 (paper).
David Aers is deservedly one of the most widely read literary medievalists of his
generation, with six books written over three decades to his credit, each of them
packed with learned, thoughtful, and ethically impassioned analysis of a range
of late fourteenth- and early fifteenth-century texts. After working for some years
within a broadly Marxist paradigm—his writing remains far more indebted, theoretically and rhetorically, to Cultural Materialism than to New Historicism—Aers’s
publications since the early 1990s have taken an increasingly noticeable turn towards theology: a turn he admits is unfashionable but defends as vital to any serious
engagement with medieval religious texts (p. ix). Here, English and Latin texts
by William Langland, Nicholas Love, John Wyclif, Walter Brut, William Thorpe,
and others are thus read, not through modern literary and political theorists,
but through the Gospels, Aquinas’s Summa theologica, and several contemporary
theologians, especially Rowan Williams. Aers seeks to explore how theological
controversies around several important late-medieval signs (the Eucharist; the
sign of poverty; the house) were conducted in a range of academic and vernacular
texts and how all participants in these controversies viewed the relation between
theological theory and sociopolitical practice.
In this endeavor, Langland’s Piers Plowman—the poem which has haunted Aers
throughout his career and whose prophetic tone his prose often seems to emulate—does double duty, both as the book’s main primary text and as a source of
sound theological reflection, a yardstick by which the other works Aers analyzes
can be measured. The index lists citations of Piers Plowman line by line, as it does
citations from the Summa and the Bible, and the book insists on detailed atten-
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tion to the poem in all its twists and turns. As it follows the texts that interest it
through technical discussions of transubstantiation, ecclesiology, and voluntary
poverty, equally line by line, the book also insists on detailed attention to itself.
A fascinating but demanding study—demanding enough that it may give Aers’s
extensive undergraduate readership some useful difficulties—Sanctifying Signs
will attract new scholarly readers both to Aers and to the texts he discusses and
have a strongly bracing effect on current scholarship on Langland, Lollardy, and
Middle English literature in general.
Aers is always very direct about the relevance of medieval literary texts to the
present and unselfconscious about engaging with them hand to hand, either as
friend or foe. Here this essentially ethical idea of reading—some of whose roots
are in Aers’s undergraduate studies at the Cambridge of Raymond Williams and
the Leavises—is given new definition by a careful attention to the concept of
Christian tradition—a concept Aers articulates through recourse to the work of
Rowan Williams, a prominent Anglo-Catholic theologian who is now also Archbishop of Canterbury (pp. xviii–xxi). For Williams, the work of theology is a constant development and renewal, in response to ever-changing human need, of
the Christian faith as revealed in the Scriptures and as reimagined through history by Christianity’s great thinkers. All of these thinkers are as tied to time and
place as the Scriptures themselves. Nonetheless, since they reflect on a common
body of teaching, any of them can be understood as speaking directly either to
that teaching or to the present moment—for, through the church, the process
of “making Christian tradition” (in the language of Aers’s subtitle) still goes on.
A given theologian—be it Aquinas, Wyclif, Langland, or Williams—can thus be
assessed by the integrity and complexity of his engagement with the Christian
faith on the one hand and with human need on the other; moreover, such an
assessment can claim the standing of theology in its own right. I here extrapolate
Williams’s understanding of tradition from the essays collected in his On Christian
Theology (1999). Aers never declares allegiance to the whole of Williams’s theory
of tradition—this would involve him in explicitly stating that he writes as a theologian and a member of the church, not the secular academy—and I wish he had
either done so or given some attention to the problems involved in translating
a theological idea of tradition into the terms of the secular academy. But some
such understanding of the place of the literary exegesis of religious texts—in
combination with an urgent sense that at least Langland and Wyclif need more
careful, and different, attention as theologians—must stand aback of Sanctifying
Signs and its judgments, as Aers’s most recent way of bringing medieval texts into
direct dialogue with the present and the present with them.
Such an approach to medieval texts demands that we submit to their priorities. Four of the six chapters in Signifying Signs answer this demand by intensively
examining the theology of the Mass in texts written from a variety of standpoints
in the half-century between 1370 and 1420. Refusing to divide writers into “orthodox” and “heretical” along the lines once favored by church historians, these
chapters illustrate the differences of position outlined in a series of texts from
Nicholas Love’s Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ, to Piers Plowman, to Wyclif’s
scholastic and polemical De Eucharistia, to the “examinations” (real or fictitious
trial records) of Brut and Thorpe. Wyclif and his followers were hereticated in
the early 1380s on the pretext of Wyclif’s denial of transubstantiation: the dogma
that, at consecration, the “substance” of the bread and wine is replaced by the
“substance” of the body and blood of Christ, only the “accident” or appearance
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of the elements remaining. Aers outlines Wyclif’s actual position (and that of
Brut and Thorpe) with a subtlety I cannot here attempt, but his claim is that
these thinkers were disturbed, not only by the literalism of transubstantiation as
a doctrine—its reduction of a “sanctifying sign” to a claim about ontology and of
the “play between . . . presence and absence” characteristic of faith to a fiction
of certitude (p. 26)—but by its politics. As he states in summing up chapter 3
(“John Wyclif: De Eucharistia (Tractatus Maior)”), “Wyclif . . . argued that theological errors concerning the Eucharist had disastrous consequences for forms of life
in the community, for the bonds of peace and charity” (p. 64). The ferocity of
argument over transubstantiation was a product of general agreement that here,
at least, Wyclif was right: that there was a direct correlation between eucharistic
doctrine and the governance of nation and society.
There is a great deal to learn from these chapters, both about the specific matters
at issue and about patient, thoughtful exegesis of intellectually demanding texts.
However, I have two cavils. First, the chapters apparently take Wyclif’s assessment of
transubstantiation at its word, using as evidence hard-line and repressive accounts
of the doctrine by Nicholas Love and Roger Dymmok which are consciously polemical and arise from a polarized environment Wyclif had done much to create.
Admittedly, as chapter 1 (“The Sacrament of the Altar in the Making of Orthodox
Christianity of ‘Traditional Religion’”) points out, the doctrine of transubstantiation had long been disseminated through “miracles of the host” stories, which
emphasized a literalistic understanding of the doctrine. Yet as chapter 2 (“The
Sacrament of the Altar in Piers Plowman”) shows, orthodox sacramental theology
before Wyclif could also be expressed very differently. The crudity of the arguments against Wycliffite positions should not be taken as a measure of the crudity
of the orthodox doctrine itself. Anti-Wycliffite polemic from the 1380s onwards
often seems to be scrambling to defend positions to which nobody, under other
circumstances, would have paid close attention: defenses of the veneration of images, of the practice of pilgrimage, even of the legitimacy of the religious orders
from this period are notably weak, probably because the tide was already set in a
broadly Wycliffite direction. Perhaps, here as elsewhere, Wyclif’s decision to enter
into radical critique of a central theological dogma created hardened battle lines
where there were none before.
Second, Aers’s view that Wyclif was in some respects a better “maker” of Christian
tradition even than Aquinas, the most important eucharistic theologian of the late
Middle Ages, seems at odds with his interesting critique of the ecclesiology of Wyclif
and his followers. Chapter Four (“Early Wycliffite Theology of the Sacrament of
the Altar: Walter Brut and William Thorpe”) ranges over a number of topics but
worries especially over the insistence (in Thorpe’s Testimony) that only “credible and
authoritative” clergy should be obeyed and that the church to which obedience is
due is not the Roman Church but the secret company of the predestined (pp. 95,
93). Here, for Aers, Thorpe falls prey to a trust in his “contingent perceptions”—he’ll
obey only priests he can see will be saved—as crude in its way as transubstantiation,
failing to acknowledge his own deficiencies, the unpredictability of grace, or the
nature of the church as a community of sinners. Wycliffite ecclesiology perhaps
grew up under too much pressure to achieve the coherence Aers asks of it here.
What puzzles me about his analysis, however, is that it appears to lead back to very
much the orthodox eucharistic doctrine he has earlier joined Wyclif in rejecting.
Orthodox eucharistic theology buttresses orthodox ecclesiology by making the
church, in its celebration of the sacraments, a means of grace to its members despite
the unworthiness of the celebrants. Those who disagreed with Wycliffite and earlier
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claims that only virtuous priests could perform their office (including consecrating
the sacrament) used the objective nature of the Mass ascribed to it by the doctrine
of transubstantiation as a major plank in their argument. Here, as in other parts
of Sanctifying Signs, one wishes that Aers had removed himself a little further from
exposition of individual primary texts and given us a more general picture.
The last two chapters of the book move from eucharistic theology to the topics
of voluntary poverty and the domestic. Chapter Five (“The Sign of Poverty: Piers
Plowman [The C Version]”) is the most magisterial in the book, a remarkable
summation of Langland’s long relationship with one of his poem’s obsessions
that should persuade any reader who still needs convincing that Langland is no
scattershot intellectual, always changing his mind, but does, indeed, characteristically think his way through problems to conclusions. This chapter will have
a distinguished scholarly life of its own. Chapter 6 (“Home, Homelessness, and
Sanctity: Conflicting Models”) is very different, touring a number of discussions of
the home, mostly in early fifteenth-century texts such as Dives and Pauper (a work
until recently completely unread by scholars, about which there are some highly
perceptive pages) and pulling out a variety of responses. There is lots to interest one here, but the chapter feels like a sketch for something larger. The book
ends abruptly, with no conclusion. This perhaps befits the open-ended and often
strangely private meditation that the book is. Nonetheless, I hope that at some
future time Aers will systematize (and, in the process, popularize) the approach
he takes here, offering at once more of an overview of the late-medieval English
religious scene as he sees it and a more sustained account of the understanding
of religious history and textuality he brings to that scene.
Nicholas Watson
Harvard University
Public Piers Plowman: Modern Scholarship and Late Medieval English
Culture. By C. David Benson. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2004. Pp. xix + 283. $45 (cloth); $25 (paper).
In 1997 David Benson published an essay in the Yearbook of Langland Studies called
“Piers Plowman and Parish Wall Paintings” (YLS 11, 1–38). Illustrating his essay
with photographs of surviving wall paintings, he argued that wall paintings in parish churches were a major means by which ordinary people in the Middle Ages
could envision what they believed in, and that they give us insight into a popular
aesthetic that is present as well in Piers Plowman. I had never known a thing about
this subject, and the article taught me a lot: how ubiquitous church wall-painting
was, how much of it has been lost, what its major subjects were—and I certainly
saw how one might regard Langland’s religious sensibility, for all its bookishness,
and for all its air of fresh and personal response, as schooled in this popular forum. Though the word “public” was not featured, perhaps not used, in that essay,
it was certainly a bold attempt to wrest the poem away from its learned context
and associate it with what we call “popular culture.” It did not offer some startling
new understanding of the poem, but it was a salutary reminder of how Langland
always manages to stay in touch with ordinary experience.
It certainly looks to me as if the present book grew from that essay, which (essentially unrevised) now stands as its fifth of six chapters. It is flanked, in the book’s
second half, by one chapter that explores Piers’s connections with two other “public”
pieces, Mandeville’s Travels and The Book of Margery Kempe, and another that explores
its connections with London civic practices. This second half, entitled “Piers Plowman
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and Public Culture of Late Medieval England,” contains Benson’s positive argument
that the poem is “public.” The first half, “Piers Plowman and Modern Scholarship,” is
an attempt to lay the groundwork for that argument by demolishing what Benson
regards as “The Langland Myth,” which he thinks “personalist” and elitist. His idea is
that if we are going to keep on thinking of the poem as an expression of Langland’s
private encounters with God and the church, of Will as Langland in disguise, and
of the apparent development of the poem’s versions as the record of a constant
struggle toward perfect self-expression, we will never be in a position to appreciate
its “public” qualities. So he labors to cast doubt on the “myth,” that is, all the familiar outlines of our picture of Langland: that his name was William Langland, that
he was roughly contemporary with Chaucer, that he grew up in Malvern but lived
most of his adult life in London, working as a minor cleric saying prayers for the
souls of the dead, that his poem represents his own experience through Will and
records his opinions (“the myth of the author”); that he cared deeply for his art,
and that he turned out three versions of his poem in succession, whose authorial
form is determinable by scrupulous editing (“the myth of the poem”).
I have to say that as I read through these three chapters, their whole enterprise
kept striking me as unnecessary. Of course everyone who works on Langland
knows that our picture of him is full of assumptions and likelihoods rather than
hard truths, but it certainly has made study of the poem possible by giving us a
reasonable set of parameters into which to set that study. Benson claims to be using
“myth” neutrally to mean “a narrative that explains what is unknown and perhaps
unknowable” (p. xiii), not negatively to mean something false, but in practice the
word keeps sounding too contemptuous. I am just not persuaded by it all to ignore
the vivid poetic presence I feel in every line, or to start calling Will, as Benson
laboriously does, “the narratorial I,” or to ignore all the clear evidence that B is a
revision of A and C of B. In short the first three chapters do little to persuade me
either that the poem’s “public” qualities somehow trump the powerful personal
voice I go on hearing, or that I should start preferring the ignorant versions of
this or that scribe to the pellucid work of the Athlone editors.
Let me hasten to say that the positive argument of the final three chapters, which
I do not consider really depend on the first three, is more appealing. I still like the
analogy to the wall paintings, and I found the various reminders in chapter four that
Langland’s poem comes from the same world as Mandeville and Kempe stimulating
and revealing. (The last chapter is less successful: we learn a lot of interesting facts
about London, about Cornhill and its churches and markets, about fraternities, a
whole lot about the Cornhill pillory—but very little that seems to shed any useful
light on Piers Plowman. The idea that it is “a kind of poetic pillory, that is, a poem
demanding strict social justice” [p. 236], and that “the threat of the pillory is replaced by the hope of the cross” [p. 241], is desperate, an unconvincing attempt to
force a few London facts on a poem that utterly transcends these scattered aspects
of its matrix.) Another aspect of the book I admire is its freedom from rigid political
preconceptions. Benson’s public sphere is not a locus of inevitable conflict between
those in power and those not, but a place where cooperative effort and communal
agreement are as likely as contention. The prose is always clear and often sprightly,
as in the “heroic” note on page 20 comparing Skeat to Odysseus, Kane to Achilles,
and Chambers to Aeneas. And the testy review of the scholarship makes, after all,
many solid points. Benson does a good job, for example, of refuting Chambers’s
theory of an “agonizing personal crisis” over predestination as the reason why the
A version stops so suddenly, pointing out sensibly that the arguments against works
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and learning that Will offers Scripture are not very deep at all. There is, however, a
curious central paradox. Benson likes everything that is peripheral and speculative
in contemporary Langland scholarship—the Z text, for instance, and Jill Mann’s
provocative but finally untenable theory that A is a kind of bowdlerized version
of B (see YLS 8 [1994] and my response in YLS 10 [1996])—and is at pains to
criticize or ignore what is central: Skeat, Athlone, Hanna, Middleton, Mann’s other,
truly magisterial work. He stands apart pugnaciously from the main line of Piers
scholarship—and then argues (here is the paradox) that the poem is demotic, not
eccentric. The very values he admires in the fourteenth century, community and
common sense, are those he pours scorn on when they emerge in the scholarship.
Furthermore, though he talks on about the “battering” the “myth” has taken, he
actually doesn’t cite much other than Z and Mann and the various well-known
shortcomings of the Athlone editions. His argument with the scholarship is arid;
Middleton, Hanna, Burrow, Kerby-Fulton, and the others he puts down present
something much more vital, genuine attempts to take what we have and make
human sense of it. The reason that the so-called myth persists is Occam’s razor:
it’s the simplest explanation of the material, the product of immense editorial
acumen but also, finally, of common sense—and common sense trumps Benson’s
rationalism (he accuses George Kane of that sin, but it’s his, too).
His ultimate point in the first part is to argue that we should recognize the fragility of the myths and try to imagine what they might have excluded (p. 42). But
when he tries, all we get is a series of speculations, none of which has nearly the
explanatory power of the so-called myth. The idlest, to my way of thinking, is the
notion that Langland might have created different versions of his poem for different audiences, “as something like a piece of scholarly research that any of us
might undertake, which would be capable of being variously modified to suit an
encyclopedia entry, an essay for a specialized collection, or an undergraduate class”
(p. 60). As if that were what poets did! Am I too taken in by the myth if I say that
line-by-line I feel on my pulses that Langland put his whole being into his poem and
was not about to cheapen it by changing it for this or that audience? He’d have torn
it up first, as Piers did the pardon. The (admittedly fashionable) idea that there are
no absolute boundaries between the author’s work and the scribes’, so that he is
“neither sovereign nor unique, for others contribute to the creation” (pp. 63–64),
or that the text is “collaborative” (p. 69), seems equally unhelpful. Benson is very
sure that he knows what “the experience of medieval writing and reading” (p. 68)
was, speaking of it as if all medieval readers always experienced texts as “open” and
“unsettled” (p. 69) and seeming to imply that poets liked it that way. But we know
that Chaucer’s experience of writing was that he was sovereign, and his scribe Adam
not a collaborator but a maker of messes that Chaucer had then to fix. I think of
Langland as probably the same, just less able to browbeat his scribes. And even
though all the manuscripts we have show scribal interference of various kinds, it
doesn’t follow that Langland didn’t have at least some readers whose “experience
of reading” was of what he wrote. What the Athlone editors, whose work is held in
disesteem throughout this book, tried to give us was just that, their best judgment
of what Langland wrote—and I for one am grateful to them. Benson and others
think that we all ought to acquaint ourselves with individual manuscripts, with their
variants but also with their occasional annotation, their rubrication, underlining,
and so on. Who would deny that? Of course every manuscript has its interest. But
if some of us haven’t done it, is it because of “the myth of the poem,” or just that
life is short and art is long, and so we treasure the labors of skillful editors? This
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whole long effort to “imagine what the myths have excluded” offers me nothing
remotely as compelling as the Athlone texts—which I do not think are perfect, and
yet I would hate to be back where we were before they appeared.
In short, this is a competent book, but not a truly illuminating one. Having
learned so much from the wall-painting article (and from Benson’s good book
taking issue with the dramatic reading of the Canterbury Tales), I was expecting
more. (I will mention here that actually five of the six chapters have appeared in
print before. Oddly, the originals are never mentioned in the book and not listed
in the bibliography—well, the acknowledgments do express, cryptically enough,
gratitude to YLS for “permission to use material that first appeared [in a different form] in its pages” [p. viii]. That takes care of the third [see below] and fifth
chapters, I guess, though the form is in fact not very different.)
Chapter 1 “History of the Langland Myth,” is a reworking of “The Langland Myth,” in William Langland’s Piers Plowman: A Book of Essays, ed. Kathleen M. Hewett-Smith (New York, 2001), pp. 83–99; Chapter 2, “Beyond
the Myth of the Poem,” of “Another Fine Manuscript Mess: Authors, Editors
and Readers of Piers Plowman,” in New Directions in Later Medieval Manuscript
Studies, ed. Derek Pearsall (York, 2000), pp. 15–28; pp. 99–107 of Chapter
3, of “What Then Does Langland Mean? Authorial and Textual Voices in
Piers Plowman,” Yearbook of Langland Studies, 15 (2001), 3–13; pp. 228–45 of
Chapter 6, of “Piers Plowman as Poetic Pillory: the Pillory and the Cross,” in
Medieval Literature and Historical Inquiry: Essays in Honour of Derek Pearsall, ed.
David Aers (Woodbridge, Suffolk, 2000), pp. 31–54—though it isn’t quite
this neat, since some things from each of the first three essays listed get into
several of the first four chapters. There is some new material in those chapters, to be sure, though it is almost entirely fuller specification or a bending
of it to suit the term “public” (which is not featured in the articles, or even
used at all in some); the essential ideas are all in the articles. The first two
parts of Chapter 6, however, are new. (Chapter 4 may be based on “The Passionate Pilgrimages of Piers Plowman and Margery Kempe,” in Proceedings
of the Second Dakotas Conference on Early British Literature, ed. John H. Laflin
[Aberdeen, SD, 1994], pp. 1–15, which I was unable to examine.)
I wish I could say that the book represented the culmination of Benson’s thinking over the last few years, that the articles gradually revealed to him the overarching concept “public,” that he told us they existed and that in the book he
was reshaping them in important ways to bring that concept into focus, and that
the concept brought significant new light to our understanding of Piers Plowman. Instead the silent changes made to the articles are only perfunctory, usually
amounting only to arbitrary changes of wording in sentence after sentence that
give the book an appearance of newness but no real unity or compelling vision.
It has some perceptive comparisons to Mandeville and Kempe, but leaves me with
no new understanding of Langland’s relation to his public or to the public.
Traugott Lawler
Yale University
Ethics and Exemplary Narrative in Chaucer and Gower. By J. Allan Mitchell.
Chaucer Studies, 33. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2004. Pp. viii + 157. $80.
In this study of narrative ethics in the major tale collections of Gower and Chaucer, Mitchell takes issue with a common assumption that exemplary narratives
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were fashioned by medieval writers chiefly to promote the “static generalities” of
conventional morality. He provides extensive and convincing evidence that the
application of a moral rhetoric of exemplarity in these two poets is designed to
achieve a very different end: not to instantiate aspects of a monolithic, unvarying ethical code but to challenge readers to consider, by means of particulars
in these narratives, what “it is good to do” practically in their lives outside the
text. Mitchell’s focus on ethical practice and reader response, predicated on the
Aristotelian idea that ethics is “an inexact science concerning practice in the
contingent realm of particulars” (p. 26), emphasizes case reasoning, a procedure
that must adequately account for how different circumstances affect individual
choices and actions. Consistent with this practical emphasis, Mitchell shifts our
gaze away from what the text means—from perceiving the narrative as controlled
by and enforcing established norms or “prejudices” or, alternatively, as subverting
such norms or undermining “prescriptive ideological statements”—to what the
text does, namely how it gives readers bearings for their future decision making
and conduct.
Treating Gower in two of his seven chapters, Mitchell argues that the Confessio
Amantis “does not yield any sort of wished-for coherence, normative or otherwise”
(p. 37). Though a comprehensive work, it is filled with incongruities, and efforts
to see it as presenting a single, coherent argument or normative statement about
the moral life have not been particularly successful. Despite the work’s many inconsistencies, however, readers are encouraged to read the tales “for the moral,”
in each case to grasp a point relevant to their own moral experience and possible
future choices. While the tales “have a stated moral application” (p. 20), Gower’s
approach reveals “a high tolerance for different interpretations” (p. 41), and the
variety of other possible applications serves the purpose of improvisation, allowing readers to discover through pragmatic reduction how the tales apply to issues
arising in the singularity of their lives.
What then is the “point” of the inconsistencies? Gower often presents cases at
the extremes, and among the narratives Mitchell examines at length, several pose
contradictory advice: the tales of Pygmalion and Jupiter’s Two Tuns, for example,
argue alternatively that it is good to take chances in love and that it is pointless to
do so; the tales of Phebus and Daphne and of Demophon and Phyllis, respectively,
show the dangers of opposed vices—“folhaste” and procrastination—in love. Immediately relevant is the potential effect of these “opposed” narratives on Amans:
“by moving in and among contrastive exempla representing cases in extremis . . . he
is to figure out what it is good for him to do with his love” (p. 58). Mitchell here
may appear to lock into a particular norm of the “middle weie,” the doctrine of the
mean as proposed in the Nicomachean Ethics, for example, but he is cognizant of the
fact that Aristotle himself, using case reasoning, argued that a satisfactory mean,
where the very concept is relevant, can only be determined by a careful assessment
of circumstances. More problematic is the impression Mitchell creates that Gower’s
principal mode of advancing to the moral is through the contrast of cases in extremis.
The poet, while he champions the “middle weie” in various senses of the term at
particular points in the work, also knows, as Aristotle testified, that not every action
admits of a mean and that other strategies are required to elicit judgment at points
of decision not so neatly framed by such clear, contrastive examples.
Mitchell implies as much in his regard for the copiousness of examples in the
Confessio. Decision points are highly variable in the demands they place on judgment,
and Gower in this work resists formulaic, set responses to moral choice. In a second
chapter on the poet, Mitchell describes the factors contributing to the complex,
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dynamic process whereby examples are turned into building-blocks of “personal
identity formation” (p. 67). Especially in the early books of the Confessio, the poet
describes through “ensample” how memory, perception, evidence, proof, imagination, judgment, and conscience contribute to adopting or adapting examples for
use; again by narrative means, he cautions against the misreadings that may also
originate in any of these faculties or resources. Gower’s preoccupation with the
pragmatic application of exemplary cases, “a kind of ethical empiricism,” Mitchell
argues, “forms a radical departure from the metaphysics of morals” (p. 78).
Chaucer, in Mitchell’s view, is as much a “moral” as a “genial” poet. Putting
aside what he describes as “the cultural materialist fetishism of power politics”
(p. 81) nearly dominating current discussions of the poet, Mitchell focuses on
a different kind of high seriousness. Over three chapters, he examines diverse
uses of the rhetoric of exemplarity in the Canterbury Tales by the Wife of Bath,
then the Friar, Summoner, and Pardoner, and finally the Clerk. In these cases,
the poet not only shows exemplification at work, but treats exemplary narrative
itself as a theme. The Wife of Bath, with a “polemical, pedagogical, in many
respects sermonic” style (p. 88) and an empirical, literalist mode, uses examples
of her own to counter Jankyn’s “book of wikked wyves,” reading herself and her
experiences into them for self-authorizing purposes. Her “largely makeshift
procedure finally suggests that she internalizes the ethos (e.g., lateral thinking, literalism, copiousness) of the exemplary rhetoric she otherwise serves to
impugn” (p. 93).
The Friar and Summoner use the “entissyng of wikked ensample” to attack
each other, and their misapplication of rhetoric extends even to their unwittingly
becoming “their own best worst examples” (p. 111). The friar in the Summoner’s
Tale becomes a living “ensample” of the wrath he has just condemned through
a series of bookish exempla directed at the irate Thomas, but the Summoner,
whose narrative is inspired by his own quaking fit of anger against the pilgrim
Friar, has obviously missed, with remarkable obtuseness, the direct relevance of
this same example to himself. Exemplary narrative thus can expose and, as in this
case, be used satirically to attack those who are impervious to their own teaching,
unaware of the implications of their rhetoric, and ignorant of their position in
exemplifying what they explicitly denounce.
Such ignorance is not the case with Mitchell’s next pilgrim, of course, for the
Pardoner knows exactly what he is doing and takes pride in it, even boasting that
he preaches against greed only to serve his own cupidity. That admission, however,
does not appear to lessen the effectiveness of his tale. Here Mitchell contrasts the
bad man who is a good preacher with the good man, the Parson, whose rhetoric
is nowhere nearly so effective. Clearly enlarging his frame of reference, Mitchell
is interested in showing how Chaucer fosters reading for the moral in multiple
dimensions by having us think circumstantially not merely about the example but
about the speaker who fashions it and the audience as well.
The Clerk’s Tale, “Chaucer’s most challenging moral tale” (p. 6), is “polyvalent in its moral exemplarity” (p. 117), and reading it is complicated because
its surplus of meanings is embedded in a parable, a species of exemplum not
designed to make an obvious point. The tale requires the “audience to think
through the terms of the comparison being made rather than to apply it immediately in action” (p. 118). In this instance Mitchell explores several possible
meanings of the tale, and he centers his attention on concepts, such as vertuous
suffraunce, that supposedly represent an ideal but are ambiguous and give rise to
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major dilemmas for readers as well as characters in the fiction. Wifely patience,
obedience, and humility turn monstrous, for example, in making Griselda an accomplice in the sacrifice of her children. The tale, in its “radical interpretability,” is even more problematic than the often introduced analogy of Abraham’s
dilemma over the sacrifice of Isaac, specifically in questioning its own morality
and thereby becoming a “parable” of exemplarity itself. The narrative summons the audience to judgment by means of an undecidability (in Derrida’s
terms, “a determinate oscillation between possibilities”), which, for Mitchell, “is
a call to responsibility rather than a cause for apathy or indifference” (p. 130).
The audience’s dilemma is how to take responsibility for the tale, in which “no
explanation is totally persuasive, no decision sufficiently justified, no response
good enough” (p. 135).
The treatment of The Clerk’s Tale is the richest analysis in this study, and it has
led Mitchell beyond the seemingly uncomplicated powers of an applied ethics
of exemplarity, which in monitory, rhetorical, taxonomical, and reductive terms,
point directly to “what it is good to do.” In Chaucer, Mitchell sees something more,
and he claims to have observed that in Gower as well: both poets, he concludes,
“employ the rhetoric at a higher metaethical register inquiring into what it is good
to do with exemplary narratives” (p. 142).
The argument building to this point may have been strengthened had Mitchell
spent more time in the early chapters exploring the complex, parabolic dimensions of Gower’s Confessio, much as he has done with Chaucer. If, as he suggests
for both poets, the critical problem is “getting people to learn to use the rhetoric
better” (p. 142), the case may have been well served by his showing, through
extended analyses of particular complex instances, how Gower also exemplifies
readings or applications of the rhetoric in the text, chiefly by his principal figures,
Genius and Amans. Mitchell has chosen to focus on “ambiguities that exist within
the teachings on erotic love” in the Confessio and not on the “important incongruities between love and morality” (p. 43, n. 23), but one cannot do justice to the
prospect of Gower’s own sophisticated uses of this rhetoric without addressing
both fields of ambiguity and their relationship. A full accounting of those uses as
a theme in the poem must also assess the work’s Latin prose and verse apparatus,
in which Gower’s “other” readers exemplify other practices.
Nevertheless, in spite of these limitations, Mitchell has done fine work in setting
the terms for exploring such matters, and that will prove to be useful in future
studies. This book is welcome as it stands, and we owe Mitchell a debt for introducing new questions and thoughtfully revitalizing old ones in assessing both of
these poets.
Kurt Olsson
University of Idaho
Sources of the Boece. Edited by Tim William Machan, with the assistance of
A. J. Minnis. The Chaucer Library. Athens, GA: The University of Georgia
Press, 2005. Pp. xiv + 311; 1 illustration. $85.
One factor motivating today’s students to become knowledgeable and conversant
about Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius and his works is this: Chaucer translated
Boethius’s final Latin statement to the world, De Consolatione Philosophiae, into the
English of his day (ca. 1380), and he used the philosophical, cosmological, scientific, and logical ideas it contains in his subsequent writings. For this reason, Tim
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Machan’s Sources of the Boece is a valuable contribution to Chaucerian studies. King
Alfred and Queen Elizabeth I translated the Consolatio into Old English and Renaissance English, respectively, but it is Chaucer’s use of Boethian concepts in his
later poetry that keeps multiple English Consolatio translations in print today.
The history of discovering the sources of Chaucer’s all-prose translation of Boethius’s Consolatio (entitled Boece) is long and complex. At first, Chaucer’s use of a
French vernacularization as a “pony translation” was debated. Mark Liddell proved
in 1895 that a French source had been used (Academy, 1, 227); this source then
proved to be an unglossed copy of Jean de Meun’s translation of the fourteenth century. Thereafter, Chaucer’s use of a Latin commentary also was discussed. Following
on Kate O. Petersen’s earlier work (PMLA, 39 [1903], 173–93), Edmund Silk’s
dissertation (Yale, 1930) proved Chaucer’s indebtedness to Trevet’s commentary.
In his article of 1987, “Glosyinge is a glorious thyng” (The Medieval Boethius: Studies in the Vernacular Translations of De Consolatione Philosophiae, ed. A. J. Minnis,
pp. 106–24), Alastair Minnis, who assisted Machan in preparing the Sources of the
Boece, proved Chaucer’s reliance upon glosses attributed to Remigius of Auxerre.
In 1952, the dedicated scholar V. L. Dedeck-Héry provided a critical edition of
Jean de Meun’s all-prose French translation of the Consolatio (Mediaeval Studies,
14, 165–275). Barnet Kotter affirmed that Silk was correct in finding Cambridge
University Library, MS Ii.3.21, as the closest Latin text to Chaucer’s translation of
the Consolatio (Yale diss., 1953). In 1955, Kotter described a Vulgate Tradition in
which variant readings of the Latin Consolatio had developed in the fourteenth
century; Cambridge Ii.3.21 is part of that tradition, although not necessarily the
actual Latin text that Chaucer had consulted (Mediaeval Studies, 17, 209–14). Thus,
the set of sources for Chaucer’s Boece was established.
Tim William Machan has been a student of Chaucer’s Boece for over two decades.
His dissertation is entitled “Chaucer the Philologist: The Boece” (Madison: Univ. of
Wisconsin, 1984). In 1985 he examined Chaucer’s methods of translation (Techniques of Translation: Chaucer’s Boece), in 1987 he looked into Chaucer’s glosses in
the Boece (The Medieval Boethius, pp. 125–38), and in 1988 he considered medieval
audiences and medieval authors’ intentions (“Editorial Method and Medieval
Translations: The Example of Chaucer’s Boece,” Studies in Bibliography, 41, 188–96).
Machan was well prepared to enter with Minnis into the project of preparing this
addition to the University of Georgia’s series, the Chaucer Library.
The model suggested in Machan’s volume for Chaucer’s use of his sources in
preparing the Boece is interesting in itself. The hypothetical Chaucer of this model
is no “scholar of Boethius” but a “student of Boethius.” Rather than sitting with his
Latin references and a “pony translation” before him to render each Latin word or
phrase as precisely as possible, he seems to have translated the Consolatio in order
to render the concepts as clearly as possible in his English translation. The model
is borne out in Chaucer’s use of Boethian concepts in his creative writing: not
even in Troilus and Criseyde does he allegorize the Consolatio by creating a parallel
fiction, as Dante allegorized the theology of Thomas Aquinas. Chaucer draws the
major elements of what seems to have become his own cosmology from the text,
and he employs Boethian psychological categories in establishing the character
of Troilus; he does not “illustrate” or “demonstrate” the viability of the Consolatio
by creating a fictionalized case in his courtly epic. Machan points out in his introduction that “Chaucer’s decision to follow any one of his sources for a particular
passage may have been predicated on the corruption of his other sources for the
corresponding passage, and there is no a priori reason ever to suppose either
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that he had uniformly good texts of his sources or that they always agreed with
one another” (p. 11). Thus, Chaucer was pragmatic as a translator rather than
scholarly or creative: he was a poet, but he rendered even the Boethian meters
into English prose.
Minnis makes clear (in his article of 1987, pp. 121–22) that Chaucer did not
make use of an extensive library when he prepared his Boece: “Chaucer . . . had
just three texts to hand”:
1. A “plain” text (i.e. not glossed) of Jean de Meun’s Li Livres de Confort. . . .
2. A Vulgate text of the Consolatio with Remigian glosses written between the
lines and in the margins.
3. A copy of Trevet’s commentary, either written around a Vulgate text or De
Consolatione Philosophiae or written out as a continuous treatise.
This is the view held by most critics of Chaucer’s Boece today, because it is verified
by the actual textual evidence.
Because Machan’s work is based solidly upon the evidence as it is interpreted
today, the reconstruction of the sources on Chaucer’s desk (Cambridge Ii.3.21,
Jean de Meun’s French translation as presented by Dedeck-Héry; and the relevant
passages from Trevet and Remigius) that he provides in Sources of the Boece is a
valuable tool for students of Chaucer, suggesting how Chaucer synthesized his
Boethian ideas. Like Boethius before him, Chaucer was a lifelong learner, but
unlike Boethius, Chaucer had no broad educational agenda in mind when he
generated his Boece or his Treatise on the Astrolabe; he seems to have learned out of
a personal interest in learning and for his interest in using that learning in his
creative works.
Unlike such translators of the Consolatio as Queen Elizabeth I, Chaucer made
his English rendering available to a reading audience in his day. As in the case
of his Treatise on the Astrolabe, which he supposedly produced for his young son
because no other such text existed, there was also a need for an English translation
of the Consolatio at the time. As far as we can discern from his writings, Chaucer
was neither pedantic nor confirmed in his opinions. He did, however, have an
inherent need to understand the universe in which he lived, and the Consolatio
was essential reading for gaining that understanding.
As Chaucer wrote in The Legend of Good Women:
And yf that olde bokes were aweye,
Yloren were of remembraunce the keye.
Wel ought us thanne honouren and beleve.
These bokes, there we han noon other preve.
(Text F, ll. 25–28 in the Riverside Chaucer)
It might seem that the creation of a hypothetical set of earlier sources for a Middle
English translation of the Consolatio is purely an academic exercise, but this is not
the case. Tim Machan’s book provides a means of seeing how Chaucer synthesized
his understanding from such old books as the Consolatio. Few other recent books
or articles can do that as effectively as Machan’s. In this, as well as in other ways,
his new book is a positive contribution to Chaucer studies. Chaucer scholars will
be grateful for Machan’s dedicated work in producing this very intricate and
intriguing volume.
Noel Harold Kaylor Jr.
Troy University
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Lollards of Coventry, 1486–1522. Edited and Translated by Shannon McSheffrey and Norman Tanner. Camden Fifth Series, 23. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2003. Pp. x + 361. $70.
Scholars interested in the history of heresy or, more broadly, religious dissent in
late medieval England now have at hand an excellent new edition of documents
related to the persecution of heresy in the diocese of Coventry and Lichfield. The
editors of this volume collect a variety of materials: selections from the register
of Bishops John Hales and Geoffrey Blyth, Blyth’s Lichfield courtbook, portions
of Blyth’s records of visitation (conducted between 1515 and 1525), excerpts
from John Foxe’s Acts and Monuments, and passages from the Coventry civic annals. These are all sources relevant to the study of Wycliffism at the cusp of early
modernity, but it can be remarked that it is especially rare for a courtbook of
trial proceedings to survive. I would hazard to say that publishing this item alone
would have been enough of a scholarly contribution, as the text reveals the extent
to which the prosecution of heresy is an imperfect, even if deliberative, process
involving the gathering of diverse evidence, from neighborly testimony to the
possession of vernacular books that are deemed unorthodox by virtue of both
their medium and the social status of their owners. But as it stands, we get more
here—a wealth of material intelligibly arranged and edited.
As the “Acknowledgments” to the edition state, McSheffrey ordered the previously disordered material and wrote “the introduction, notes, and appendices,”
all of which are thorough and generally excellent, while Tanner “made an initial
transcription of most of the manuscript material, and is mainly responsible for
the English translation.” While this edition is a genuinely collaborative effort that
evinces the expertise of two talented scholars, my remarks happen to fall into two
parts—a response to the introduction (which treats of the documents themselves)
and a response to the primary materials here edited.
The introduction synthesizes the documents and historical scholarship in a way
that successfully presents aspects of late Wycliffism in its varieties. McSheffrey’s
expertise, as already demonstrated in her first book, Gender and Heresy: Women and
Men in Lollard Communities, 1420–1530, especially shines forth in the discussion
of the “profile of the Coventry Lollards: sex, occupation, and social status” (pp.
23–32; see also p. 44). This is another way of saying that I only have a few critical
points to make about the introduction and its description of the trial evidence.
For instance, when Wycliffite suspect Robert Crowther admitted that “he wished
the words, ‘who was conceived of the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary,’ were
removed from the Creed because they were put there in vain” (p. 67), he is stating
something a bit more complex than “Christ did not have a mother,” as described
in the introduction (p. 17; see p. 19), or the claim, which I’ve seen elsewhere, that
Mary was “noght the moder of god almyghte” (London, British Library MS Harley
421, fol. 135). Rather, the notion that Mary’s name ought to be “removed from
the Creed” should be cross-referenced with Matti Peikola’s article, “‘And After
All, My Aue-Maria Almost to the Ende’: Pierce the Ploughman’s Crede and Lollard
Expositions of the Ave Maria,” Studi Medievali, 40 (1999), 119–37. Peikola lays out
the scriptural and doctrinal reasons centered on Luke 1:28 as to why references
to Mary ought to be stricken from the Creed. Then there is the suspect Robert
Clerke, who asserts that “oracio Dominica non esset dicenda ab aliquo existente
extra caritatem quia tunc pocius ad dampnacionem dicentis quam ad edificacionem” (the Lord’s Prayer should not be said by anyone outside of charity because
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this would then be to his damnation rather than for his edification) (pp. 95/96).
Rather than concluding that this view has “no obvious connection to Lollardy” (p.
19), we might see that Clerke’s statement refers to 1 Corinthians 11: 29: those who
receive the sacrament of the altar unworthily ensure their own damnation. Clerke
would seem, that is, to offer up a Wycliffite idea about the sacramental efficacy
of prayers themselves, not only prayers said at mass by a priest confecting God’s
body in the eucharistic wafer, but vernacular prayers recited by lay persons who
ought to be pure in their encounters with the holy, per the traditional eucharistic
teaching. To the critical crux expressed on pages 36 (n. 14) and 242 concerning
the manner of execution of heretics in 1520 (at a “ditch or hollow”? In a “tun
or cask,” a “dolium”?) may be added the information on the execution of John
Badby in 1410, who was burned in a barrel or “dolium,” as contemporary sources
widely attest. Perhaps these sixteenth-century Wycliffites met a similar, painful fate.
Moving on: as for a few puzzling cases where suspects refer to the blood of Christ
and the “cupp” (see pp. 71/301, 216), it would seem that a kind of utraquism
might be at work. Finally, a point about language and the term, “lollard”: when
it is said that “in most other Lollard communities women Lollards were wives or
daughters of male Lollards” (p. 38)—to take one characteristic sentence out of
many on that page alone—I would point out that neither bishops nor their deputies or notaries referred to any of the suspects as “lollards” (see pp. 63–222). As
I have argued elsewhere, the term “lollard,” while catchy, solidifies ahead of time
certain assumptions about dissident identities. It errs on the side of prejudices
against alternative Christianities and, as a result, cannot accommodate what is
equally un-“lollard” about a lot of these suspects. It is in light of this critical point
that I would emphasize the balanced insight of McSheffrey, who notes that “Blyth
and his deputies made only perfunctory inquiry into the belief system of those
being questioned. . . . Blyth saved his persecutory energy instead for exploring
the heretics’ social networks. . . . There is, curiously, relatively little focus on the
Eucharist, and only one outright denial of the real presence of the body of Christ
in the sacrament” (pp. 16, 17). My parting question, then, is: Should we be calling
these persons “lollards” at every turn, when in many cases the phrase, “literate and
devout working class individuals who, for the most part, read orthodox vernacular
books,” might bulkily suffice instead?
I hope it will not seem presumptuous to remark on Norman Tanner’s translations from Latin into English, as Tanner is a scholar who knows ecclesiastical documents like none other and has made a wide range of these available in English
to scholars: everyone in the subfield of Wycliffite studies uses his two-volume set,
Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils. But I would have wished for a bit more consistency
in some of the renderings from Latin to English in this edition, since the legal and
canonical language deployed in these documents is more precise than a translation into idiomatic modern English is capable of indicating. Often, the formula
from canon law, heretice pravitatis, which is used everywhere in these documents
(for an example, see pp. 97–99, 106–7, 153, 220), is rendered simply as “heresy,”
when the better rendering would be “heretical depravity” or “heretical deformity,”
an occasional usage here (see p. 93). Likewise, opiniones would in all cases work
better as “opinions” rather than “beliefs,” as used from time to time (pp. 109/12,
116/19). While there are instances of the former and, I think, clearer rendering (see pp. 114, 115, 218, 238/39), consistency on this point would then make
more prominent those examples where “beliefs” and “believing” are literally at
issue (pp. 130, 133, 184/86, 198/99). On another matter of translation, suspects
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swear under oath to offer their replies “faithfully” (fideliter [p. 171]), rather than
“truthfully” (p. 173), a sense that seems a bit too modern given what Richard F.
Green has taught us about the shifting meanings of the term “trouthe” in the
late medieval period. As for the passage, “Item, quod ipse scivit facere homines
loqui cum Deo, ore ad os” (p. 95), the translation of “ore ad os” as “face to face”
(p. 96) raises interesting questions. It is not an easy phrase to make idiomatic
without awkwardness, but it seems to me that ore ad os emerges from Numbers
12:8: “ore enim ad os loquor ei et palam non per enigmata et figuras Dominum
videt quare igitur non timuistis detrahere servo meo Mosi” (For I speak to him
mouth to mouth: and plainly, and not by riddles and figures doth he see the Lord.
Why then were you not afraid to speak ill of my servant Moses?). Why there is this
scriptural echo here is beyond me, as there are no self-styled Wycliffite prophets
in this edition, but the scriptural passage and context seems to suit a Wycliffite
view about language, how certain kinds of literary forms obstruct doctrinal or
moral content. It seems evident enough, then, that the entry is about speaking
with God, not seeing God in a visionary way (“face to face”), and so I might have
used, “mouth to mouth,” and offered an explanatory note to that effect. As for
epistolary and ecclesiastical formulae in translation, “in the year of our Lord”
(anno Domini) should be inserted into the rendering on page 63, while “openly”
(palam) can be added to the modern English version on page 67.
Facing-page translations (rather than those set after the Latin or Middle English
entries, as done here) would have been more useful for those wishing to follow
more easily the original in translation. Unfortunately, the translations themselves
do not signal what is a curious feature of many heresy trial documents: macaronicism. Instead, macaronic moments are smoothed out into modern English; see
pages 64/65, 71, 97–98/99–100, 110/12, 158/61, 179/81, 183, 195/6, 197/8,
202, 212, 216, 218, 223–24/225–26, 235, 240, 241/42, 282. The editors explain
this choice in translation in the front matter (see “Editorial Procedure”), but I
believe that the choice might not be ideal. Not all readers will hungrily take to
the Latin passages first, and that likely means that discoveries might be missed by
those new to the field. For instance, Thomas Acton refers to another heretic as
a “knowen man” (“ipse an vernacula profert a knowen man” [p. 150]), a phrase
the inquisitors wanted to investigate further by asking yet another suspect, Alice
Rowley, about this mysterious third “man” (p. 155; see also pp. 328, 341). For
those reading the Latin original, this expression pops out for special notice, especially in view of Hudson’s article, “A Lollard Sect Vocabulary?,” which discusses,
as the editors point out elsewhere (p. 39, n. 151), the phrase “knowen man” or
“knowun men”—lexical items that are distinctly Wycliffite. As it stands, there are
not even scare quotes around the translated phrase on page 151, and the phrase
on page 159 is offered as “knowen man” in what looks to be a fortunate slip in
the editorial procedure to modernize all instances of Middle English.
Lastly, and for the sake of an eventual reprinted or revised edition, it can be
noted that typos are rare (“It if could speak” [p. 71]); only one trace of page
proofing is evident, which is remarkable for an edition in which the editors took
extreme care to serialize and cross-reference these entries: “Continued from the
examination 5 November 1511 (above, p. 000)” can be corrected to “(above, p. 151).”
Also, “LCB, fo. 1V ” (p. 213) appears to be an error for “LCB, fo. 12V.” The reference
to Derrick Pitard’s excellent bibliography of Wycliffite studies, http://home.att.
net/~lollard/bibhome.html (p. 2, n. 2), now leads to a dead end; the bibliography
is now at http://lollardsociety.org/.
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So much for the task of the reviewer to pick and cavil. For what prevails in working with this edition and engaging the editors’ interpretations and translation
choices is the sense that this is top-notch work, a proficient editing and arranging
of documents that require careful study. Undergraduate to graduate students will
find this edition to be very valuable, and professional scholars in the field ought
to buy a copy and congratulate the editors. The Camden series has yet another
fine volume.
Andrew Cole
University of Georgia
The Gentry Context for Malory’s Morte Darthur. By Raluca Radulescu.
Arthurian Studies, 45. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2003. Pp. viii + 165. $75.
The gentry is the social class from which came the romance writer, Sir Thomas
Malory, and which served as the primary reading audience of his Morte Darthur.
In this well-researched but brief study, Raluca Radulescu investigates political
aspects of fifteenth-century gentry culture and applies that understanding to the
sections of the Morte that treat Arthur’s kingship. The book falls into five parts:
an introduction; two chapters on the gentry—their political attitudes as derived
from their correspondence and book ownership; and two chapters of application
to Malory, centered on the themes of worship and service, lordship, and counsel
and governance. Her introduction locates this study in the political crises of the
reigns of Henry VI and Edward IV; it articulates the gentry’s role in local politics
as keepers (and breakers) of the king’s peace and in national politics as counselors to the king. Radulescu’s approach to Malory through the gentry’s letters and
books is not new, but her careful distinction of the gentry from the nobility and
her steady focus on their role in politics is.
The book’s structure, with its separate chapters on gentry context (chapters 1
and 2) and application (chapters 3 and 4), illustrates both its strength and weakness: the bipartite division allows for in-depth treatment of historic versus literary
critical issues, but at the same time the reader most interested in Malory waits for
more than half of the book for the payoff. In the first and second chapters, Radulescu derives the gentry’s attitude from their correspondence and their reading
interests, in particular from the miscellanies they owned. The first chapter uses
gentry letter collections to define the concepts of worship and profit, friendship
and lordship, and fellowship. Admirably, Radulescu explores not simply the wellknown Paston correspondence, but also the letters of the Stonors and Plumptons,
two established families who lived in relative peace through the turbulent decades
of 1450s through the 1470s, as well as the recently discovered Armburgh collection, housed in the Chetham Library and edited by Christine Carpenter (The
Armburgh Papers, 1998). Radulescu demonstrates fine detective work in the letters,
leading the reader to a more nuanced understanding of her key concepts than
one can glean from the OED and MED. Her discussion of the repeated Malorian
concept of “fellowship” concludes, “Fellowship thus means household, kin and
close associates, also temporary association of violent bands of fighting men (connected with private feuds over land properties), old fellowship dictated by profession, affinity or mutual interest, and political fellowship, whether local or seen
in the structure of the higher circles of the court” (p. 37). In my view, Radulescu
misses an opportunity to illustrate this fascinating range of meanings for a term
critics often treat sentimentally when she does not immediately supply examples
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from the Morte. This issue of delayed or missed connections recurs throughout
the first half of The Gentry Context.
Radulescu’s second chapter, the most original in the book, treats the gentry’s
miscellanies or “great books” not simply as anthologies appropriated from the
nobility but as a means of “shaping” the gentry’s “social identity” and “political
culture” (p. 48). Here Radulescu displays her fine skill in synthesizing others’
scholarship to further our understanding of the gentry as an emergent class. For
example, she borrows from Nicholas Perkins’ analysis of Hoccleve the notion
that, although the poet originally wrote for an aristocratic audience, his work
was reinterpreted in the late medieval and Tudor period by a wider readership
for the purpose of “individual self-fashioning and moral education, rather than
towards the exercise of royal authority or image-making” (Hoccleve’s Regiment of
Princes, 2001, p. 177). A notion of late medieval gentry self-fashioning (in relation
to an unstable monarchy) fruitfully undergirds Radulescu’s analysis of each text
treated in this chapter. She carefully works through the reading habits, lending
circles, and manuscript contents before she posits that the most frequent works to
appear in gentry miscellanies were the English prose Brut, the mirrors for princes
by Hoccleve and Lydgate, and the genealogical materials. These works she reads as
evidence of the gentry’s interest in national history and their place therein, with
occasional tantalizing glimpses at urban/merchant-gentry connections in terms
of reading interests and political views (pp. 51, 56, 80–81). Equally interesting is
Radulescu’s analysis of royal pedigrees, dynastic chronicles, and kings’ lists, which
proliferated during the reign of Edward IV and which make their way even into
commonplace books, for reasons of the owners’ local or familial pride. Hardyings’
Chronicle, the only known source for Malory treated in this chapter, emerges as an
elaborate genealogical history of English royal families including Arthur’s and
continuing through the houses of Lancaster and York; it illustrates the gentry’s
concern with the good governance of the king and the wise counsel that gentlemen themselves might be called upon to offer. These themes are central to the
Morte Darthur, and although Radulescu makes occasional references in this chapter
to the tales (for example, p. 79), Malorians will readily supply many more. The
reader is sometimes wearied by Radulescu’s prose style, which excessively relies
on hypotaxis, as in the following sentence:
An understanding of Hardyng’s Chronicle is important for its incorporation of
the Arthurian romance tradition into the vernacular Brut chronicle context,
and its bridging of the gap between the biased Lancastrian or Yorkist political
material, where it occurred, for example in the genealogical rolls, providing,
thus, a more coherent view of history which emphasised the positive qualities
that a king should put into practice. (p. 80)
Radulescu’s intelligent synthesis of manuscript and cultural studies, however,
compensates for the stylistic lapses.
Having established the milieu in which Malory wrote, Radulescu turns in the
last two chapters to the Morte Darthur, with the third chapter corresponding to the
analysis of worship and lordship in chapter 1, and the fourth to the emphasis in
chapter 2 on counsel and governance. As does Hyonjin Kim in his similar study
of Malory and the interests of the rural “squiarchy,” The Knight with Two Swords
(Cambridge, 2000), Radulescu applies close semantic analysis to articulate the
notion of worship as involving contract and duty and more originally the idea of
“disworship” (pp. 93–94). While Lancelot and Tristram are established as chivalric
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exemplars, Gareth, Balin, and Torre embody a kind of internal worship; their tales
show these knights refining their inner nobility in an attempt to fit into Arthurian
society. Their fictive efforts matched those of the historic gentry in their practice of
courtesy and service. Radulescu’s analysis of lordship focuses on the tales emphasizing King Arthur’s early reign, tales I and II. His lordship resides in his ability to
accept good counsel and treat his subjects with generosity and equanimity, while
his kingship is anticipated in his noble ancestry and manifest in his ability to lead
a unified English force to conquer Europe. These feats are stressed in the English
chronicle tradition but absent in the regnal politics and infighting of Malory’s age
and therefore the more appealing to his audience. In the last chapter, Radulescu
turns to the decline of Arthur’s realm. The king is subject to the evil machinations
of Aggravaine and Mordred and refuses to accept good counsel, proceeding alone
in his hasty condemnation of Guenever. Ultimately his governance falters as realm
is torn between two “over-mighty subjects,” Gawain and Lancelot. Radulescu’s
overarching argument in these chapters is solid, but not startling. Unlike Kenneth
Hodges in his recent treatment of the queen’s political role as good lady (Forging
Chivalric Communities in Malory’s Morte Darthur, 2005), Radulescu infrequently
advances her own new readings. Yet Radulescu’s passing insights are striking: for
example, her reading of Merlin’s whispered advice to Arthur as an image borrowed from the mirror for princes (p. 115), or her interpretation of the story
of Harmaunce, the King of the Red City, as a warning for a ruler to rely on his
“natural advisors,” that is, his kin (p. 141). These final chapters suffer from too
modest a manner of argumentation. Radulescu’s argument would appear more
original and incisive were she to foreground each subsection with a clear thesis
statement and aim for conclusions bolder than her notion that the tales illustrate
the “complexity” of the political situation or that Arthur’s and Malory’s worlds
reflect “similar political crises” (pp. 130, 134, etc.).
My concerns with method are not meant to detract from Radulescu’s achievement. Few of us are able to work as skillfully as Radulescu at the intersection of
history and literary criticism. It is a difficult intellectual task to assess the gentry’s
politics since they, like the nobility, did not embrace a particular party line. Radulescu wisely articulates themes important to the class as a whole while she establishes views held by a particular family or faction. While I wished for a more integrated study, one immediately incorporating literary evidence within the historic
context, The Gentry Context for Malory’s Morte Darthur is meticulously researched.
Reading just the footnotes would provide an education in manuscript studies,
gentry history, regnal politics, and Malorian scholarship. To understand political
attitudes at play in the Morte Darthur and England at the close of the Middle Ages,
scholars will want to study Radulescu’s whole book.
Karen Cherewatuk
St. Olaf College
Forging Chivalric Communities in Malory’s Le Morte Darthur. By Kenneth
Hodges. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. Pp. ix + 208. $65.
Most readers of Sir Thomas Malory’s Morte see it as a monolithic treatment of
chivalry: this is the way knighthood was or the way Malory thought it was. That
view has governed many, perhaps all, readings of the Morte, as appears for example
in Elizabeth Edwards’s well-worded disquisition on the “code” of chivalry in her
The Genesis of Narrative in Malory’s Morte Darthur (2000; pp. 72–73). Kenneth
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Hodges challenges that widespread reading, as his title suggests. He argues in his
introduction that there is not one code, not one “community” of chivalry, but
several. He points out major communities of chivalry throughout the book, starting in Chapter 1 (“English Knights, French Books, and Literary Communities”)
with the diverse “literary communities” found in French romances transmitted to
the English Malory and to his various audiences (Scottish, Welsh, etc.). Even the
religious community and its preferred chivalry appear in the Grail story, presenting not a replacement for the secular chivalric community found elsewhere in the
Morte, as many have argued, but instead “the ongoing and seemingly irresolvable
struggle between competing values” (p. 22).
Hodges’s Chapter 2, “Swords and Sorceresses: Creating a Chivalric Community,” focuses on the changing chivalric communities met in the course of reading
through the Morte. A reader travels far from King Uther’s lusty, rough-and-ready
warrior chivalry to the court of the Round Table oath with its respect for women
and for their growing political power (pp. 37–41, 51–60). Further, the swords appearing in series throughout the Morte underscore the changing view of chivalric
community: where the first Excalibur is the sword of individual heroic deeds, the
second is the sword of a broader community. Other swords, though—e.g., Balin’s
sword—can work genuine harm and unravel the community (pp. 46–48).
In Chapter 3, “Of Knights and Nations,” Hodges suggests that Malory abandons
the national armies of the “Arthur and Lucius” section, turning to individual
knights’ activities in one country (p. 73; Hodges discusses the concept of “nation”
on pp. 63–71). In the Lancelot story, suggests Hodges, the limits of a knight’s
service to women are tested (p. 74). He discusses the roles of women at length in
this chapter, focusing on Guinevere at first, but turning to the four queens who
abduct Lancelot, to the maidens who ask him to serve them, etc. (pp. 73–77).
Hodges’s focus on “communities of chivalry” seems less clear in this chapter than
in his others.
That focus returns in his Chapter 4, “Regional Politics.” Noting again that the
early part of the Morte focuses on the community of the king’s court, he adds
that “later sections . . . focus on how individual knights create local communities or adjust their places in already existing communities” (p. 79). Hodges’s
first example is Gareth and his story; he then turns to another Fair Unknown,
“La Cote Mal Tayle,” then to Alexander the Orphan. In each case, the aspiring
young man must establish an affinity of his own (as Gareth does), or become
part of a powerful person’s affinity (as La Cote does—p. 83). Regional politics
also become intertwined with the national community: in the Tristram section,
“Trystram is Cornish, Lameroke Welsh, Gareth is from the Orkneys, and Palomides
is a Saracen. . . . They need to prove themselves . . . to their regional neighbors
and [to] the nationally powerful figures of Arthur’s court” (p. 87). Thus, nearly
all of the Tristram story takes place in the arena of regional politics, but has ties
to national politics; Tristram’s troubled relationship with the Cornish King Mark
becomes involved with Arthur’s national court, for example. Clearly, multiple
approaches to chivalry abound. This abundance confuses readers and, Hodges
suggests, Malory as well. But there is value in the confusion: “The text . . . subjects
readers to the same bewildering array of values as the knights must face, forcing
the recognition that chivalry is an inconsistent system of values, even while each of
its contradictory components is good and worth preserving” (p. 86). Hodges does
not end his chapter on this note of multivalence; he turns to the changing view
of romantic love and to the question of intentions—for example, is Palomydes’
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intention to be christened more righteous than the nominal Christianity of the
brothers whom he kills at the Red City? (pp. 100–7).
Chapter 5, “Shifting Boundaries: Religious Communities and the Grail,” opens
with the suggestion that the Grail story and the story of the Roman Wars counterbalance one another “structurally and thematically” (p. 109). They tell of two
very different activities, one nationalistic and bloody, the other above national
boundaries and best pursued without killing. Paradoxically, argues Hodges, the
Grail quest is the more harmful: emphasizing a knight’s personal activities, it almost entirely removes the focus from chivalric communities—such as the Round
Table—and focuses instead on the actions of individuals (pp. 109–111, 126–27).
Galahad—that supremely individualistic knight—becomes the national representative (p. 117), while Lancelot, Percival, and the other knights represent older
standards for chivalry (pp. 120–21). Women take little part. Hodges notes the
important role of Percival’s sister, however, and concludes that even though women
are excluded from the quest, they are still important in the Christian community
overall (p. 125).
Chapter 6, the final chapter, is “The Death of Guinevere.” In it Hodges focuses
on the need to reconstruct Arthur’s Round Table community following the Grail
quest. Guinevere, he suggests, makes valiant attempts to rebuild that community,
as when she invites knights of Gawain’s affinity (and of Lancelot’s, Tristram’s,
and Lamerok’s as well) to a dinner party early in what Vinaver calls “The Book of
Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere.” Unfortunately for her plans, a member of
Lamorak’s affinity attempts to poison Gawain but by mischance poisons another
knight instead. Guinevere is accused of the crime, and her attempt to reconstruct
has become destructive: she is now seen as a destroyer of good knights, and only
Lancelot’s affinity (in the persons of Bors and of Lancelot himself) will defend
her. They do so successfully—but now she is shown to depend on and therefore
to favor one affinity alone. That political point and her continuing adulterous
involvement with Lancelot combine to make her the enemy of other affinities,
notably Gawain’s (as personified in Aggravaine and Mordred—pp. 133–38).
Arthur, too, attempts to reconstruct his court, calling for a great tournament
near Ascolot. Again, the attempt fails. The Round Table cannot again become
a unified community of chivalry (pp. 138–41). Guinevere, to her credit, keeps
trying; thus she pacifies the Lancelot-Meliagaunt confrontation, and seems to be
on the road to resolving the unpleasant situation peaceably. Meliagaunt, however, reneges on his promise to put everything in her hands, and accuses her of
treason. In itself a divisive act, this breeds further division: Lancelot again marks
his support of the queen as he kills Meliagaunt in defense of Guinevere, and
Aggravaine—perhaps motivated by political jealousy as Lancelot grows in the
court’s esteem—begins his pursuit of Lancelot and Guinevere, which will result
in yet further division of Arthur’s once-unified chivalric community (pp. 146–51).
That final division leads to the final battle, where all the chivalric communities
are annihilated (pp. 152–53).
In his “Afterword,” Hodges reaffirms his thesis: “Instead of a monumental work
endlessly piling up examples of the same nostalgic chivalry . . . , Malory . . . offers
a vision of a nation united by a love of chivalry and divided in their beliefs over
what true chivalry is” (p. 157). The best reading of the Morte, Hodges concludes,
is sensitive to the dynamic nature of chivalry in the work. Realizing the political
interplay of various communal loyalties “and the nuances of differing literary
styles” makes clearer what Malory has achieved (p. 157).
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Hodges’s political reading of the Morte, in which he follows Hyonjin Kim’s The
Knight without a Sword in discussing the importance of “affinities,” is illuminating.
His insistence on not one, but many, chivalric communities, is especially stimulating. His comments on “styles” in the Morte are less well conceived; his precise
meaning for “style” seems to vary from alliterative prose (pp. 15–16) to thematic
interests (e.g., the themes of the Grail quest: p. 19). Moreover, a disquisition on
Malory’s use of thou seems self-contradictory: noting the British use of the form
in the Roman Wars, he suggests that thou connotes a sense of community; later,
though, he returns to the standard view of thou as connoting an insult (pp. 81,
103, 176 n. 3).
Notwithstanding the comment on “styles” and the irritation of a great many typographical errors (on the order of one every two to three pages), Hodges’s book
thoughtfully challenges the monolithic view of chivalry which most or all readers
have brought to the Morte. Readers will gain useful insights from his comments.
Hodges’s regular return to the question of the role(s) of women in chivalric communities is likewise well conceived, and his challenges to such acknowledged authorities on the issue as Dorsey Armstrong and Geraldine Heng are stimulating.
D. Thomas Hanks Jr.
Baylor University
The Correspondence of Edward Lye. Edited by Margaret Clunies Ross and
Amanda J. Collins. Publications of the Dictionary of Old English, 6. Toronto:
The Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2004. Pp. xxix + 411. $94.95.
Published by Owen Manning five years after Edward Lye’s death in 1767, the Dictionarium Saxonico- et Gothico-Latinum was a milestone in Old English lexicography,
particularly for its inclusion of Old English poetic vocabulary. Indeed, it forms an
important link between earlier lexicons and Bosworth’s 1838 A Dictionary of the
Anglo-Saxon Language, on which the latter is chiefly based. Lye also contributed to
eighteenth-century Germanic studies in England by editing and publishing, with
substantial additions of his own, Junius’s Etymologicum Anglicanum (1743), and Eric
Benzelius’s Sacrorum evangeliorum versio Gothica (1750), and he prepared a Latin
translation (never published and destroyed in a fire in 1780) of the poems of MS
Junius 11. This ambitious edition of The Correspondence of Edward Lye, as the editors
justly claim, serves as “an introduction to his scholarly work, which needs to be
evaluated in and for itself” and highlights the importance of the scholarly letter
as a “medium for discussion, debate” and academic business in the eighteenth
century (p. 4). While the title accurately reflects the edition’s focus on Lye’s correspondence, it does not do justice to the rich collection of materials contained
therein. These reveal the complex interior and collaborative life and work of
this important scholar and add to our growing collection of primary sources for
historians of the discipline.
The introduction provides concise, yet sufficiently detailed, explanations of
the scope and arrangement of materials, the layout of letters, and the editorial
procedures. A short biography of Lye follows, and the introduction concludes with
a nicely balanced assessment of his “scholarly achievement” (Lye was esteemed
by his contemporaries; “denigrated” or “ignored” by his successors), which is
followed by four sections, one each devoted to an appraisal of his four major
scholarly research projects. The edition proper consists of 193 letters dated from
1729–1767 between Lye and forty-five correspondents. The letters are followed by
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five appendices: (1) “Documents Relating to the Publication of the Dictionarium
Saxonico- et Gothico-Latinum”; (2) “Documents Relating to the Life of Edward Lye”;
(3) “Documents Associated with the Lye Correspondence”; (4) “Bibliographical
Details of Books Mentioned in the Lye-Hearne Correspondence”; and (5) “Calendar of Letters Related to the Lye Correspondence.” The editors have sensibly
included biographical notes on Lye’s correspondents, a bibliography of manuscript and printed sources of the Lye correspondence, a bibliography of both
modern and antiquarian sources, and an extensive index.
A particularly valuable navigational feature is the detailed contents list (Contents
in Detail, pp. vi–xv), which precedes the introduction. Each letter, listed in the
order of its appearance in the volume, is numbered and identified by writer/recipient, date, manuscript shelfmark and folio(s), and finally, the page number where
the letter appears in the edition. The numbers assigned to each letter, in bold,
provide a useful cross-reference system throughout the edition, not only in the
annotations to the letters themselves, but also in the introduction, biographical
notes, appendices, and index.
Lye’s correspondence, not previously edited, is chiefly from Thomas Percy’s
collection (now London, BL Add. 32325). According to Percy, the letters were
bequeathed to him by Lye, and while there is no evidence that Percy intended
publication, his preliminary notes and annotations as well as a draft of a “Memoir
of the Life of Edward Lye” survive in the manuscript. These are printed in appendices 2.9 and 2.10. Also included is correspondence between Lye and Thomas
Hearne as well as letters neither by nor to Lye, which shed light on “subjects
treated in the edited letters” (p. 5). The letters are, with only three exceptions,
edited from the original manuscripts and arranged chronologically (taking into
account, through annotation, the practice in England up to 1752 of beginning
the New Year on 25 March). Headings provide the name (or conjecture) of writer
and recipient, date, direction, endorsement, postmark, annotation, ascription,
manuscript location, and recorded printings. “[T]o present the modern reader
with a relatively uncluttered text as close as possible to the manuscript originals,”
the editors have chosen to edit the letters lightly (p. 7). Authorial changes and
annotations, annotations by other readers, as well as editorial emendations and
explanations are thus preserved in textual footnotes. A second set of footnotes
offers valuable intellectual and historical context as well as translations of nonEnglish materials.
Correspondence presents difficult editorial challenges, and Lye’s collection
is no exception. Margaret Clunies Ross and Amanda J. Collins have produced a
thoughtful, well-organized scholarly edition with informative and useful apparatus.
For example, this reader found the editors’ biographical referencing method lucid
and consistent and the contextual notes informative without overwhelming the
text. The decision to edit lightly and to silently expand standard eighteenth-century abbreviations (e.g. w d to would) creates a readable text, while the meticulous
textual apparatus preserves authorial practice and original manuscript readings
and particulars.
A random comparison of holograph and edited letters identified only isolated
errors in transcription. For example, in letter 16 the phrase, “and I promis(e)d
him to let him know,” is omitted following “He desires to see you,” and preceding “as soonb as I receive your answer,” due almost certainly to eyeskip (fol. 13).
A textual note is misplaced in letter 21 in which the word “Laws” occurs twice in
close proximity. The note is placed not where it belongs, after the first appearance
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416
of the word—“Ina’s and Ethelred’s Laws”—but after the second, one line below,
“there was a difference in the Laws,k” (p. 86). In appendix 1, double lines are
omitted below the penultimate number “15:15:0.” These minor slips do not seriously mar the consistently high quality of this fine edition, and overall, comparison
reveals faithful and accurate transcription and consistent adherence to the editorial procedures outlined in the introduction.
The volume appears to be virtually free of formatting and typographical errors,
and it is beautifully produced with sufficient white space to allow for comfortable
separation of text and apparatus. Indeed, particular attention has been given to
layout for letters written entirely in another language; in such cases two-column
format provides for facing English translations. Finally, reproduction of the only
two known portraits of Lye (one in color), maps of Lye’s environs, and the memorial tablet by William Cox I from St. Andrew’s Church, Yardley Hastings, are
attractive features. The Correspondence of Edward Lye is a valuable contribution to
our expanding knowledge of the history of the discipline in eighteenth-century
England.
Dabney A. Bankert
James Madison University
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The Werewolf in Medieval Icelandic Liter

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