scholarly journals The Language of Baptism in Early Anglo-Saxon England: The Case for Old English

2017 ◽  
Vol 53 ◽  
pp. 39-50
Author(s):  
Miriam Adan Jones
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
General Knowledge ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Standard Language ◽  
Old Saxon ◽  
Faith Commitment ◽  
Correct Pronunciation ◽  
The Church

This article explores the possibility that the vernacular (Old English) may have been used in the baptismal rite in Anglo-Saxon England before the middle of the eighth century. Statements made by Bede (d. 735) and Boniface (d. 754), provisions in the Canons of the Council ofClofesho(747) and the probable existence of a lost Old English exemplar for the ‘Old Saxon’ or ‘Utrecht’ baptismal promise (Palatinus latinus 755, fols 6v–7r), all suggest that it was. The use of the vernacular was most attractive in a context of ongoing Christianization, where the faith commitment of the baptizand was foregrounded and his or her understanding of the rite correspondingly highly valued. Later, the shift of focus towards the correct pronunciation of the Trinitarian formula and the increase of general knowledge about the baptismal rite reduced the impetus for translation, and Latin became the standard language of baptism. The translation and non-translation of the baptismal rite reflect broader concerns about the place of the Church of the English and its ethnic and cultural particularity within the universal Church, and particularly its relationship with Rome.

The Maaseik embroideries

1984 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 65-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mildred Budny ◽  
Dominic Tweddle
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Form Part ◽  
The Church ◽  
Made In ◽  
The Middle Ages

Among the relics in the treasury of the church of St Catherine at Maaseik in Limburg, Belgium, there are some luxurious embroideries which form part of the so-called casula (probably ‘chasuble’) of Sts Harlindis and Relindis (pls. I–VI). It was preserved throughout the Middle Ages at the abbey church of Aldeneik (which these sister-saints founded in the early eighth century) and was moved to nearby Maaseik in 1571. Although traditionally regarded as the handiwork of Harlindis and Relindis themselves, the embroideries cannot date from as early as their time, and they must have been made in Anglo-Saxon England. Indeed, they represent the earliest surviving examples of the highly prized English art of embroidery which became famous later in the Middle Ages as opus anglicanum.

scholarly journals The departure of the hero in a ship: The intertextuality of Beowulf, Cynewulf and Andreas

2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 105
Author(s):  
Francis Leneghan
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
English Poetry ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Old English Poetry ◽  
The Church

This article identifies a new Old English poetic motif, ‘The Departure of the Hero in a Ship’, and discusses the implications of its presence in Beowulf, the signed poems of Cynewulf and Andreas, a group of texts already linked by shared lexis, imagery and themes. It argues that the Beowulf-poet used this motif to frame his work, foregrounding the question of royal succession. Cynewulf and the Andreas-poet then adapted this Beowulfian motif in a knowing and allusive manner for a new purpose: to glorify the church and to condemn its enemies. Investigation of this motif provides further evidence for the intertextuality of these works.Keywords: Old English poetry; Beowulf, Cynewulf; Andreas; Anglo-Saxon literature

ENTRUSTING WESTERN EUROPE TO THE CHURCH, 400–750

2013 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 37-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Wood
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Classical World ◽  
Economic Basis ◽  
Major Break ◽  
Simple Change ◽  
The Church

ABSTRACTAlthough there had been substantial donations to the church in the course of the last two centuries of the Roman Empire, the amount of property transferred to the episcopal church and to monasteries in the following two and a half centuries would seem to have been immense. Probably rather more than 30 per cent of the Frankish kingdom was given to ecclesiastical institutions; although the Anglo-Saxon church was only established after 597, it also acquired huge amounts of land, as did the churches of Spain and Italy, although the extent conveyed in the two peninsulas is harder to estimate. The scale of endowments helps explain the occasional criticisms of the extent of church property, and also the secularisations and reallocation of church land, and indeed suggest that the transfer of property out of the control of the church in Francia and England in the eighth century may have been greater than is often assumed. The transfer of land should probably also be seen as something other than a simple change of ownership. Church property provided the economic basis for cult, for the maintenance of clergy, who were unquestionably numerous, and for the poor. In social and economic, as well as religious terms, this marked a major break with the Classical World.

Creating the cloud-tent-ship conceit in Exodus

2011 ◽  
Vol 40 ◽  
pp. 103-150 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miranda Wilcox
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Old English ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
Hostile Environment ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Culturally Specific ◽  
God's People ◽  
Pastoral Relationship ◽  
Interpretative Framework

AbstractThe enigmatic description of the columna nubis in lines 71b–92 of the Old English Exodus juxtaposes images of substances that shield God's people from their hostile environment; understanding the relations among these protective coverings requires cultural and literary knowledge not explicitly articulated in Exodus. Metaphors and typologies developed in Arator's sixth-century Historia apostolica and subsequently conventionalized in Bede's eighth-century Expositio actuum Apostolorum, texts used in the Anglo-Saxon monastic curriculum, provide an interpretative framework for the complicated accretion of images in Exodus. Using insights about metaphorical processing from cognitive science, this article argues that the Exodus-poet crafted a sophisticated tripartite conceit to generate a pastoral relationship with his audience, first by adapting metaphoric mappings from Arator and Bede and then by extending their domains with culturally specific entailments about how ships and tents functioned as protective covers in Anglo-Saxon material culture.

scholarly journals TREASURE AND SPIRITUAL EXILE IN OLD ENGLISH JULIANA: HEROIC DICTION AND ALLEGORY OF READING IN CYNEWULF’S ART OF ADAPTATION

2013 ◽  
Vol 48 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 55-70
Author(s):  
Jacek Olesiejko
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Alliterative Verse ◽  
Secular World ◽  
Heroic Style ◽  
The Stability ◽  
Material Values ◽  
Poetic Creation ◽  
Kinship Bonds ◽  
The Church

ABSTRACT The present article studies Cynewulf’s creative manipulation of heroic style in his hagiographic poem Juliana written around the 9th century A.D. The four poems now attributed to Cynewulf, on the strength of his runic autographs appended to each, Christ II, Elene, The Fates of the Apostles, and Juliana are written in the Anglo-Saxon tradition of heroic alliterative verse that Anglo- Saxons had inherited from their continental Germanic ancestors. In Juliana, the theme of treasure and exile reinforces the allegorical structure of Cynewulf’s poetic creation. In such poems like Beowulf and Seafarer treasure signifies the stability of bonds between people and tribes. The exchange of treasure and ritualistic treasure-giving confirms bonds between kings and their subjects. In Juliana, however, treasure is identified with heathen culture and idolatry. The traditional imagery of treasure, so central to Old English poetic lore, is inverted in the poem, as wealth and gold embody vice and corruption. The rejection of treasure and renunciation of kinship bonds indicate piety and chastity. Also, while in other Old English secular poems exile is cast in terms of deprivation of human company and material values, in Juliana the possession of and preoccupation with treasure indicates spiritual exile and damnation. This article argues that the inverted representations of treasure and exile in the poem lend additional strength to its allegorical elements and sharpen the contrast between secular world and Juliana, who is an allegorical representation of the Church.

The Early Medieval Textiles at Maaseik, Belgium

1985 ◽  
Vol 65 (2) ◽  
pp. 353-389 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mildred Budny ◽  
Dominic Tweddle
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
The West ◽  
Missing Link ◽  
History Of ◽  
Western European ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Middle Ages

This article offers an account of the components, the structure and the history of the so-calledcasulaandvelaminaof Sts Harlindis and Relindis preserved at the Church of St Catherine at Maaseik in Belgium as relics of the two sisters who founded the nearby abbey of Aldeneik (where the textiles were kept throughout the Middle Ages). The compositecasulaof Sts Harlindis and Relindis includes the earliest surviving group of Anglo-Saxon embroideries, dating to the late eighth century or the early ninth. Probably similarly Anglo-Saxon, a set of silk tablet-woven braids brocaded with gold associated with the embroideries offers a missing link in the surviving corpus of Anglo-Saxon braids. The ‘David silk’ with its Latin inscription and distinctly western European design dating from the eighth century or the early ninth offers a rare witness to the art of silk-weaving in the West at so early a date. Thevelamenof St Harlindis, more or less intact, represents a remarkable early medieval vestment, garment or cloth made up of two types of woven silk cloths, tablet-woven braids brocaded with gold, gilded copper bosses, pearls and beads. Thevelamenof St Relindis, in contrast, represents the stripped remains—reduced to the lining and the fringed ends—of another composite textile. Originally it was probably luxurious, so as to match the two other composite early medieval textile relics from Aldeneik. As a whole, the group contributes greatly to knowledge of early medieval textiles of various kinds.

Peter's Throne and Augustine's Chair: Rome and Canterbury from Baldwin (1184–90) to Robert Winchelsey (1297–1313)

2000 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 249-266 ◽  
Author(s):  
JANE SAYERS
Keyword(s):  
Eighth Century ◽  
The Body ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Gregory The Great ◽  
Christ Church ◽  
The Temple ◽  
The Church

The arrival of St Augustine in England from Rome in 597 was an event of profound significance, for it marked the beginnings of relations between Rome and Canterbury. To later generations this came to mean relations between the papacy in its universal role, hence the throne of St Peter, and the metropolitical see of Canterbury and the cathedral priory of Christ Church, for the chair of St Augustine was the seat of both a metropolitan and an abbot. The archiepiscopal see and the cathedral priory were inextricably bound in a unique way.Relations with Rome had always been particularly close, both between the archbishops and the pope and between the convent and the pope. The cathedral church of Canterbury was dedicated to the Saviour (Christ Church) as was the papal cathedral of the Lateran. Gregory had sent the pallium to Augustine in sign of his metropolitan rank. There had been correspondence with Rome from the first. In Eadmer's account of the old Anglo-Saxon church, it was built in the Roman fashion, as Bede testifies, imitating the church of the blessed Peter, prince of the Apostles, in which the most sacred relics in the whole world are venerated. Even more precisely, the confessio of St Peter was copied at Canterbury. As Eadmer says, ‘From the choir of the singers one went up to the two altars (of Christ and of St Wilfrid) by some steps, since there was a crypt underneath, what the Romans call a confessio, built like the confessio of St Peter.’ (Eadmer had both visited Rome in 1099 and witnessed the fire that destroyed the old cathedral some thirty years before in 1067.) And there, in the confessio, Eadmer goes on to say, Alfege had put the head of St Swithun and there were many other relics. The confessio in St Peter's had been constructed by Pope Gregory the Great and contained the body of the prince of the Apostles and it was in a niche here that the pallia were put before the ceremony of the vesting, close to the body of St Peter. There may be, too, another influence from Rome and old St Peter's on the cathedral at Canterbury. The spiral columns in St Anselm's crypt at Canterbury, which survived the later fire of 1174, and are still standing, were possibly modelled on those that supported St Peter's shrine. These twisted columns were believed to have been brought to Rome from the Temple of Solomon. At the end of the sixth century, possibly due to Gregory the Great, they were arranged to form an iconostasis-like screen before the apostle's shrine. Pope Gregory III in the eighth century had added an outer screen of six similar columns, the present of the Byzantine Exarch, of which five still survive. They are practically the only relics of the old basilica to have been preserved in the new Renaissance St Peter's.

scholarly journals The status ofhwætin Old English

2013 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 465-488 ◽  
Author(s):  
GEORGE WALKDEN
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Old Saxon ◽  
Present Evidence ◽  
Exact Test ◽  
Lives Of Saints ◽  
Epic Poem ◽  
Fisher’S Exact Test ◽  
The Status ◽  
Constituent Order

It is commonly held that Old Englishhwæt, well known within Anglo-Saxon studies as the first word of the epic poemBeowulf, can be ‘used as an adv[erb]. or interj[ection]. Why, what! ah!’ (Bosworth & Toller 1898, s.v.hwæt, 1) as well as the neuter singular of the interrogative pronounhwā‘what’. In this article I challenge the view thathwætcan have the status of an interjection (i.e. be outside the clause that it precedes). I present evidence from Old English and Old Saxon constituent order which suggests thathwætis unlikely to be extra-clausal. Data is drawn from the Old EnglishBede, Ælfric'sLives of Saintsand the Old SaxonHeliand. In all three texts the verb appears later in clauses preceded byhwætthan is normal in root clauses (Fisher's exact test, p < 0.0001 in both cases). Ifhwætaffects the constituent order of the clause it precedes, then it cannot be truly clause-external. I argue that it ishwætcombined with the clause that follows it that delivers the interpretive effect of exclamation, nothwætalone. The structure ofhwæt-clauses is sketched following Rett's (2008) analysis of exclamatives. I conclude that Old Englishhwæt(as well as its Old Saxon cognate) was not an interjection but an underspecifiedwh-pronoun introducing an exclamative clause.

Domiciling the evangelists in Anglo-Saxon England: a fresh reading of Aldred's colophon in the ‘Lindisfarne Gospels’

2012 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
pp. 101-144 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francis L. Newton ◽  
Francis L. Newton ◽  
Christopher R. J. Scheirer
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
British Library ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Lindisfarne Gospels

AbstractThe Codex ‘Lindisfarnensis’ (London, British Library, Cotton Nero D. iv, early eighth century) was glossed in Old English by the tenth-century priest Aldred. Aldred's colophon purports to give information about the eighth-century makers of the manuscript, at Lindisfarne. What is actually reliable about this highly literary colophon is Aldred's purpose in writing the gloss: to give the Evangelists a voice to address ‘all the brothers’ – particularly the Latinless. We propose new interpretations of three OE words (gihamadi, inlad, ora) misunderstood before. Aldred was learned; his sources extend from Ovid through the Fathers to contemporary texts.

The influence of Christian doctrine and exegesis on Old English poetry: an estimate of the current state of scholarship

1973 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 271-284 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip B. Rollinson
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Cultural Influences ◽  
English Poetry ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Christian Doctrine ◽  
Old English Poetry ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Current State ◽  
Latin Culture ◽  
The Church

Although it is a commonplace of history that Anglo-Saxon England was receptive to Christianity and to Christian-Latin culture and that English churchmen such as Aldhelm, Bede and Alcuin made an important contribution to that culture, it is only in recent years that scholars have explored and emphasized the importance of Christian tradition to the understanding of Old English poetry, especially those poems without explicit Christian content. Increased investigation of Old English prose, which is largely Christian, and the well-known work onBeowulfby Frederick Klaeber, Marie Padgett Hamilton, Dorothy Whitelock and others, seems to have redirected ‘the search for Anglo-Saxon paganism‘ into a search – sometimes opposed – for reflections of Christianity in Anglo-Saxon poetry. While in some quarters this critical and scholarly attention has been confined to the influence of Christian doctrine, ritual and interpretation of the bible, in others it has taken into account the broader cultural influences of the church, especially its transmission of the literature and learning of pagan antiquity.

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