3 Christian Poetry And Prose

Dr. Debamitra kar

Christian Poetry And Prose

In this module you are going to learn: The effects of Christianity on Anglo-Saxon literature Anglo-Latin phase: Aldhelm, Bede and Alcuin Works of Caedmon and Cynewulf and other religious poems Anglo-Saxon prose: Alfred, Aelfric, Wulfstan

Effects of Christianity on Anglo-Saxon Literature

You have already read about the advent of Christianity in the island and how it spread among the people in the first module. Now we shall discuss why learning becomes an important component in the Christianisation process of the island and how it influenced literature.

Christianity is pre-eminently a literary religion, which means it is based on the reading and understanding of the sacred text. The text is a complex one; it required philosophical understanding and scholarly interpretations. Such documents could not be just remembered and sung, they must be written down, documented, and interpreted and made simpler for the common people to understand the religious ideas. The church thus became the seat of learning as there was no separate institution for spreading mass education. The clerics were usually well-versed in Latin as that was considered to be the language of the learned though translation of important classical books were deemed to be important to spread the word of god to a greater number of people. We also have a body of poetical renderings of the biblical literature in vernacular, which are attributed to the layman poets like Caedmon and an unknown poet like Cynewulf. Apart from these we also have some homiletic poems in some manuscripts which also prove the fact that Christianity had influenced not only the clerics who definitely had some agenda in mind, but the common people of the country whose world view changed due to this religious conversion. The knowledge of Bible did not only offer a new faith but a different understanding of the human condition. Previously, kings would trace their origin to Sceaf but now they would relate themselves to Adam and Eve and place themselves in this divine scheme of things. Thus the understanding of past was considerably altered. The heroes like Beowulf were replaced by Christ the hero.

The knowledge of Bible was chiefly symbolic. The text is not just supposed to be read as a set of stories of different men and women, and the events are not mere results of their moral virtues and vices, rather, the text has to be understood holistically as the justification of the ‘ways of God to men’. It has a philosophical significance which one would miss if one reads the text too literally. Hence, the need was felt to write the resultant literature in the forms of allegory which attains a sort of perfection in the Middle Ages. Allegory, as a literary style could operate at many levels, it could contain an individual believer’s faith and also the deeper theological counsel.

However, you must bear in mind the fact that these Old English poets had Anglo-Saxon forefathers and thus they imagined the Christian God in the image of their kings, and his angels as thanes. Their religious universe was just an extension of their heroic world. Thus, the imagery presents a curious mixture of Christian values in Anglo-Saxon moulds.

For example, in Exodus, Moses is presented as a Germanic war-leader, the Israelites, a loyal and courageous army exhibiting all the heroic virtues. Such effects of Germanization of course become less and less pronounced as the society gradually shifted to the feudal economic system.

The Anglo-Saxons used the runic alphabet which had twenty-four letters to write. These letters were epigraphic in nature and therefore could only be cut or hammered out on hard surfaces. This sort of writing was not very useful for writing long literary compositions; besides such writing was quite expensive and the poets were more interested in performing than writing them down. But with the advent of Christianity a huge change took place. The missionaries brought parchment, pen and ink, along with the Roman alphabet which were primarily used to record English texts as well. Later however, they developed their own insular hand. In Old English times church monopolised the production of manuscripts for the layman would not know how to write. The educated men would know both Latin and Old English, and at first they would compose mostly in Latin. Later, however, the literature was written mostly in the vernacular.

Anglo-Latin literature: Aldhelm, Bede and Alcuin

Aldhem (c. 640-709)

He was the bishop of Sherborne. He wrote both in English and Latin, but since the English compositions were  not  deemed  to  be  important  they  were  not preserved. Thus his extant works, both in prose and verse, are in Latin; it comprises of a collection letters, a series of riddles, and a learned treatise in praise of Virginity. His style was artificial, full of archaic words and circumlocution.

Bede (673-735)

Bede, also known as ‘The Venerable’ for his learning, spent his life in the Northumbrian monasteries of Wearmouth and Jarrow. He produced as many as forty books on theological, historical and scientific subjects. Though most of his works are in Latin, he is supposed to have translated the Gospel of St John, which is lost and his five-line long death song in Old English. Bede wrote homilies, commentaries on the Latin Church fathers, Latin hymns, and two biographies of St Cuthbert, an English bishop who died in 687.

His most famous works are: De Natura Rerum (Concerning the Nature of Things), and Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum (Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation). Ecclesiastical History was completed in 731 and was translated by King Alfred at the end of the following century. This document has extreme historical significance for it is an important and almost the only source to knowing Anglo-Saxon history (the other important books are Germania by Tacitus which records the history of the Germanic People and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle which was written in 8th century under the patronage of King Alfred). Divided in five books, the Ecclesiastical History records the early history of England, the struggle between the Celtic and Roman churches, and the gradual conversion of the people. Some narratives are oft-quoted, for instance, the conversion of King Edwin of Northumbria through the preaching of the missionary Paulinus, Bishop of York, and the miraculous event surrounding the cowherd turned poet Caedmon. Bede’s ‘Death Song’ is the only extant composition in English. It reads as follows:

Before the needful journey no one becomes Wiser in thought than he needs to be To think over, ere his going hence, What of good and evil about his spirit After his day of death, may be decided. (Source: Kemp Malone).

Alcuin (735-804)

He was associated with the ecclesiastical school at York and later, in 782, became the cultural advisor of Charlemagne. Along with several theological and philosophical tracts, Alcuin wrote a biography of Willibrord, a missionary from Netherlands, and over three hundred letters that contain valuable historical materials. His poem On the Mutability of All Human Affairs is a Latin Elegy on the destruction by the Danish raiders of the famous Lindisfarne Abbey, famous seat of culture and learning in northern England.

Caedmon and Cynewulf and Other Religious Poems

Caedmon (died c.670)

Caedmon’s story has been well-documented by Bede at the end of his book Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum (Ecclesiastical History of the English People). Accordingly, it is told that he was an unlearned man blessed by divine grace. He worked as a farmhand at the abbey at Whitby. At feasts when everybody was encouraged to compose songs that would be accompanied by the harp, Caedmon would feel extremely embarrassed. On one such occasion he left the table and went back to the stable where he was employed for the night to look after the beasts. In his dream, ‘a certain man’ urged him to sing about ‘the Creation of all things’. At this point Bede paraphrases Ceadmon’s hymn in Latin, acknowledging humbly the fact that ‘This the general sense, but not the actual words that Caedmon sang in his dream; for verses, however masterly, cannot be translated word for word from one language into another without losing much of their beauty and dignity’.

Caedmon finally became a monk so that he could learn the scriptures and translate them to vernacular poetry. Bede writes:

He sang first of the creation of the world and the beginning of the mankind, and all the story of Genesis, that is the first book of Moses, and again of the Exodus of the people of Israel from the land of Egypt and of the entrance into the promised land, and many of other tales of holy writ… and of Christ’s incarnation, and of his passion, and of his ascent into Heaven; and of the coming of the Holy Ghost, and the teachings of the apostles; and of the day of future judgement and of the terror of punishment full of torment, and of the sweetness of the heavenly kingdom he wrote many a lay; and also he wrought many other concerning divine benefits and judgments.

It is doubtful whether Caedmon could actually accomplish such a massive scale of composition, for no such canon survives. But the topics mentioned by Bede have definitely got poetic attention. In 1655 the Dutch scholar Junius published in Amsterdam ‘The Monk Caedmon’s Paraphrase of Genesis etc.’, based on an Old English manuscript containing Genesis, Exodus, Daniel and Christ and Satan. Since they show some stylistic similarity with Caedmon’s style they are accepted as parts of the Caedmonian cycle. There are certain features of this style which we shall shortly discuss but prior to that let us take a look at the Hymn that was first composed by him.

Caedmon’s Hymn

In the margins of several of the 160 complete Latin manuscripts of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, the Old English versions of Caedmon’s Hymn is noted down in chiefly two Anglo-Saxon dialects: Northumbrian (earlier version) and West Saxon (later version). Here are the two versions of the poem along with the translation done by Michael Alexander:

*You may also listen to the Northumbrian and West Saxon version  by following the links.

Translation:

Praise now to the keeper of the kingdom of heaven, The power of the Creator, the profound mind Of the glorious Father, who fashioned the beginning Of every wonder, the eternal Lord. For the children of men he made first Heaven as a roof, the holy Creator.

Then the Lord of mankind, the everlasting Shepherd, Ordained in the midst as a dwelling place —The almighty Lord—the earth for men.

You have already read about the features of Old English poetry at the beginning of the Module II: Elegies. Hence it would not be very difficult for you to understand the characteristic features of heroic poetry in the above composition: for instance, the employment of poetical features caesura, variations, alliteration and so on. He describes God as one would have described the overlord or king: the term rices weard (keeper of the kingdom) becomes heofenrices weard (keeper of the kingdom of heaven). Again, though short, thematically, the poem follows the Christian theological compositions of the days. The poet refers to the concept of the Trinity through his variations: the might of the Lord/the father (metudæs maecti), his thought (modgidanc), and his glorious work (uerc uuldurfadur). The poem also blends the eternal and physical aspects of creation. Thus the genius of Caedmon lies in transferring the entire range of vocabulary from one sphere to the other.

The other poems of the Junius Manuscript that are attributed to the Caedmonian cycle include: Genesis, Exodus, Daniel and Christ and Satan. The manuscript is divided into two books: the first contains verses related to the Old Testament; the second to Christ and Satan. Book I was done by one scribe towards the end of 10th century and early 11th, while Book II was done by three scribes, after many years.

The manuscript has many lost pages, thus the poems are left incomplete. The Manuscript was illuminated and in the first book, many pages are left blank which shows that the artists did not finish the work. The first book is divided into 55 fits: 1-42 fits deals with Genesis, 42-50 with Exodus and rest for Daniel. Modern philologists prefer to treat them as three individual poems.

An example of a page of an illuminated manuscript: folios 9 verso and 10 recto of the Stockholm Codex Aureus, Evangelical portrait of St Matthew.

Genesis

The poem, consisting of 2936 lines, opens with a few lines in praise of God, and moves on to discuss the happy lots of the angels in heaven. Next we are told of the discontent and rebellion of Satan and his angels, God’s wrath, the creation of hell to house the rebels, their expulsion from heaven, and God’s plan to make the world as a means to fill it with ‘better people’ (presumably the souls of the blessed, the elect seed of Adam who are not yet created). Due to the loss of manuscript there have been gaps in several parts of the text. Lines 235-851 do not belong to this poem and it is considered to be an interpolation taken from a later poem on the same subject. This section, known as Genesis B, which is composed in West Saxon dialect, deals with the temptation and fall of Adam and Eve and shows greater poetic strength. The rest of the poem is known as Genesis A (lines 1-234 and 852-2936). Genesis B is an interpolation. You will be interested to know that Milton had read the poem and the theme of Paradise Lost is inspired by it.

Exodus

The second poem in the book is the 591-lines long Exodus. The extant text (the battle scene being lost) can be divided into the following parts: an introductory period on the Mosaic law (1-7); a brief description of the life of Moses (8-29); a sketch of events in Egypt that led up to the departure of the Hebrews (30-55); the march of the Hebrews to the Red Sea (56-134); the Egyptian pursuit (135-246); the passage of the Red Sea and the destruction of the Egyptian army (247-515); conclusion (516-591).

The poet’s theme is not Exodus as a whole but the passage of the Red Sea by the Israelites under the heroic leadership of Moses. There are brilliant instances of poetic achievement where Moses encourages the Israelites to ‘make up their minds to perform deeds of valour’ (218 b). The poet gives much space to the speech-making by his hero and the speeches are reported both in direct and indirect discourse. In general, the poet follows the heroic tradition in which Moses is seen as an equivalent of the Germanic king and his followers the worthy thanes. (Malone 64)

Daniel

The third and final poem of this manuscript is called Daniel which according to modern scholars contains 764 lines. The scribe divides the text into six fits:

1. The first fit can be divided into two parts: an introduction to the Hebrew history down to the war with Nebuchadnezzar and the story of the war due to which the Jew are held captives by the Babylonian army and the three Hebrew children Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah are given training for Nebuchadnezzar’s service. The second part is based on the first chapter of Daniel where the biblical passages are paraphrased though much of the work is left incomplete.
2. This fit again falls into two parts: it begins with a condensed paraphrase of Daniel 2, in which we learn about Nebuchadnezzar’s first dream and Daniel’s success in interpreting it. This is followed by the story of the three children who refuse to worship the golden image.
3. This fit falls into three parts: first tells how the king throws the three children into fire and they are saved by an angel; second the apocryphal prayer of Azariah; finally the repetition of the first story of this section where the angel is shown to have come as an answer to Azariah’s prayer.
4. This fit begins with the apocryphal song of three youths in praise of God and is followed by the paraphrase of the same story of the angel’s rescue.
5. This fit versifies Nebuchadnezzar’s second dream about the tree and Daniel’s interpretation of it.
6. The last fit versifies Daniel 5. The end is obscure as the last leaf of the manuscript is missing.

Due to the difference of style the second and third part of the third fit is seen as an interpretation and marked as Daniel B. This poem is identified as Azariah which can be found in the Exeter Book. However, the entire poem is not taken, for the beginning is left out; it seems that the poet has taken only that section which he liked the best.

Christ and Satan

The second book the Junius manuscript contains a 733 lines long poem, written around the ninth century in East Anglian dialect. The poem is later titled as Christ and Satan. The text of the poem is  divided into 12 fits, most of which are devoted to long laments of Satan after the loss of Heaven (parts if the first, whole of second, third and fifth fit). The poem begins with the story of Creation, then moves on to the fall of the angels, Satan’s lament, and ends with Christ’s harrowing of hell and Ascension. The last fit talks about the doomsday and reminds the audience of the joys of those redeemed. It concludes with Christ’s temptation by Satan, and Satan’s return to hell after his failure to tempt Christ. The poem lacks chronological order for the last fit speaks about the event which took place long before the Ascension. What we must understand is that unlike the other poems that we have discussed, this one is not a mere paraphrase of the Bible. The author combines the lyrical, dramatic and epic traditions to versify his knowledge of Christian theology. He has exercised freedom of imagination for his aim was to speak about the punishments and rewards. Thus Christ’s temptation comes at the end for it would instruct the readers to follow the example of Christ and believe in the joys of heaven. Well-fit to this scheme is the character Satan: he is not a proud and angry leader but a general broken by defeat—his defeat is to be read as a warning to us all.

Many modern scholars (one of them is Malone) believe that this poem is not composed by Caedmon. The clerk who composed it knew both the styles of Caedmonian and Cynewulfian schools and combined the best of the two styles in the poem.

There is another 349 lines-long poetic fragment, which is considered to be part of the Caedmonian cycle, known as Judith that narrates the exploits of the Hebrew heroine who slew Holofernes, leader of the Assyrian army encamped against her people. The figure of a female hero is rare and unique in Old English poetry. However, this poem is found in MS Cotton Vitellius A xv, the codex that contains Beowulf and many ascribe it to Cynewulf.

Cynewulf (c.750)

We have a list, a sermon, and two legends, i.e., saints’ lives as signed by a poet whose runic signature tells that his name was Cynewulf. He was probably a Northumbrian, composing his poems around the last quarter of eighth or early ninth century. Nothing else is known about his personal life.

The Fates of the Apostles is a poem of 122 lines, recorded in the Vercelli Book. It contains a proper list of the names of places and countries where the twelve apostles taught and died, and a poem in which he speaks of the importance of prayers.

The Ascension, also known as Christ B, is of 427 lines and is recorded in the Exeter Book. Divided into five fits the poem speaks about the Christ’s farewell to his followers and his Ascension to heaven in the first two fits and then move on to homiletic verses in the next three fits talking about God’s greatest gift to mankind, i.e., hope of salvation, six leaps of Christ (conception, nativity, crucifixion, burial, descent into hell, ascent to heaven), Solomon and Job’s song and the fear of the doomsday. In this poem Cynewulf versifies the conclusion of Gregory the Great’s sermon on the ascension. The strength of the poem lies in the freedom of imagination in depicting matters of traditional wisdom.

Juliana, 739 line-long poem found in Exeter book is also ascribed to Cynewulf. Owing to the loss of pages of the manuscript two passages are supposed to be missing: one that must have been between line numbers 288 and 289 (folio no 70) and between 558 and 559 (folio no 74). The poem is divided into seven fits and speaks of Juliana’s martyrdom. Juliana, daughter of the pagan Africanus is betrothed to Heliseus, an official under the Roman emperor, Maximian, who persecuted Christians. Juliana refused the match, and thus her father turned her over to Heliseus for judgement. She was tortured but no harm could be done to her. Even Devil failed to tempt her. Finally, she was beheaded. The poet seemed to have followed a Latin prose on St Juliana’s life but also drew heavily from the heroic tradition of English poetry.

The final poem attributed to Cynewulf consists of 1321 lines and is called Elene. The poem is to be found in Vercelli Book, divided into 15 fits. It depicts the legend of St Helen, mother of Constantine, and her recovery of the Cross. The poem is not about her death as other legends are but about the discovery. The poet uses the heroic tradition more freely in describing the voyage and battle. The last fit seems to be autobiographical, where the poet, now old but divinely inspired speaks of the necessity of prayers for the imminent Doomsday.

There are other poems like Andreas, Guthlac A and Guthlac B, The Phoenix, which are composed in the Cynewulf’s style. They are a part of the Cynewulfian cycle. Dream of the Rood is also considered to be a part of this cycle by many scholars. We shall read this poem in a greater detail.

Dream of the Rood

Dream of the Rood, or a Vision of the Cross, survives in Vercelli Book, folios 104 verso to 106 recto. Parts of the poem are to be found in the shafts of the 8th century Northumbrian Ruthwell cross in runic inscriptions. They correspond to lines 39-42, 44-5, 48-49, 56-59, 62-62 of the Vercelli book text.

The poem is riddilic (compare Exeter book riddle 30), penitential, eschatological and evangelical. It has three central characters: the poet, the Cross, Christ. The poet speaks in the first person to relate a dream-vision (which would later become a recurrent trope in medieval poetry), in which he slowly unfolds the syllicre treow (a more wonderful tree), the saviour’s tree. The narrative voice is taken over by the cross itself who relates the story of its life, how it was cut down and made into a cross and how he bore the saviour, and became a close witness of his Passion. This cross is Christ’s retainer, serving its master just as a thane would serve his master and also his bana or slayer, a role that is against the conventions of the heroic society. This duality constitutes the central paradox of the cross. Through the vision of the cross the audience is made to participate in the Crucifixion and therefore they get a chance to repent for their ill-doings for which Christ had paid with his blood. In order to stay clear of the contemporary controversy regarding the mortality and divinity of Christ, the poem focuses its attention on the cross itself, the cross speaks of its pain and suffering by witnessing the Crucifixion. Like the Germanic lord, Christ lays his life for his people, he voluntarily ascend the Cross and rests, ‘weary after the battle’. The Cross is then discovered by Helena, Constantine’s mother and becomes a symbol of faith and devotion.

The entire poem is interspersed with images of the heroic society: the lord, the warriors and thane, and the battle. This poem is a splendid example of how the Anglo-Saxons reinterpreted Christianity in accordance with the knowledge and custom of their heroic society.

Now that you have read about the Caedmonian and Cynewulfian schools of poetry, can you make a comparative study of the two? Think of the kind of themes they were taking up, their styles, and how they treated the biblical knowledge

Anglo-Saxon Prose: Alfred, Aelfric and Wulfstan

The literary prose in Old English is mostly made up of translations and paraphrases of Latin writings. The English did not cultivate prose as a separate art from till they were acquainted with the Latin literature. The models they followed were chiefly taken from the traditional genres like history, philosophy and oratory. Epistles were also considered important. Prose was chiefly used for educational and clerical purposes, for the common man verse remained the most acceptable art from. We shall now take a brief look at the important prose-writers of the time.

Alfred (849-899)

In spite of the troublesome beginning of his reign and great efforts to establish peace in his nation, Alfred was a patron of learning. His court housed notable scholars including Asser, who later became Bishop of Sherbone. Asser wrote the biography of his King. He and other notable scholars helped the king to make numerous translations from Latin into West Saxon. These translations include: Pope Gregory’s Pastoral Care, a guide for the clergy; Orosius’ Universal History; Boethius’ Concerning the Consolation of Philosophy, a dialogue of the early fifth century; and Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation. Although the prose would seem a bit stiff to the modern taste, it shows the zeal of the king to revive and maintain learning among his people. He does not have any original composition to his credit, but originality was not such an important issue in those days. However, King Alfred also encouraged the composition of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle which recorded the historical events from the earliest times to 1189, that is long after the death of Alfred.

Alfred’s compositions may lack the craftsmanship and training but it was his enthusiasm for learning that changed the course of literary history in early England. He shows two major concerns through his composition which are best reflected in the prefaces that he wrote to these volumes: first, importance of translation of the Latin classics so that everyone could read it; second he wanted to revive the culture of learning in both the clergy and the layman alike. His Preface to Gregory’s Pastoral Care can serve as a good example. (Link to the Preface)

Aelfric (c.955- c.1020)

Aelfric composed two series of Homilies from late 980s to 995. He believed that his era was one of affliction and turmoil and would lead to the end of the world. His desire was to create a body of didactic prose in the vernacular. He translated the Heptateuch, i.e., the first seven books of the Bible into Old English in several stages. He made the translation for the common man and thus left out large portions of scriptural texts. His greatest achievement was the Catholic Homilies or Homiliae Catholicae. This collection has 40 homilies and hagiographies in each series, it was meant to be used by the preachers for conducting church services. To this collection of homilies he added the Lives of Saints or Passiones Sanctorum. He drew on the abundant stock of sermons and other religious writings available in Latin; he made particular use of Gregory, Bede and Augustine. He treated his material with greater freedom so as to mould it according to the needs of his contemporary audience. Some of his passages are written in the rhythmic alliterative prose Over thirty manuscripts of Catholic Homilies survive. In the Old English preface to the first series, Aelfric demonstrates his discontent over the non-orthodox religious writings and speaks of the arrival of the antichrist. He argues that these homiletic prose pieces would show the right path to the common man by teaching them about the Christian virtues. (Link to the preface)

Wulfstan (died c. 1023):

Bishop of London and Worcester, and Archbishop of York, Wulfstan was a renowned homilist of his time. His most famous sermon is called Sermo Lupi ad Anglos, or Address to the English, the title of which is in Latin but the text is written in Old English. The text is a bitter indictment in which the author attributes the blame of Danish invasion to the moral degradation of the English people.

This powerfully written sermon, thundered from the pulpit by him or his colleagues, perhaps was instrumental in bringing the English together against the Danes. Kemp Malone says: ‘The sermons of Aelfric was meant to instruct; those of Wulfstan, to move; both homilists in the process produced works of art unmatched in their respective kinds’. (Link to the sermon)

To sum up: The Christian literature of the Old English period draws heavily on the Latin texts. Since the inspiration was Latin religious texts, the first generation of writers composed both in Latin and English, and their English works are, in many cases, lost. The need for translation was realised by many scholars, Alfred is one of them. The aim was to educate the mass in matters religious. The religious verses was meant to inspire and educate; the poets composed in a style that would impress the audience of a society rooted in heroic tradition, both in terms of poetic conventions and social ideologies. The prose writers’ aim was educational. The religious and the national causes merged quite well and they were used to unite the British against the Danish invasion. Perhaps, this was also a reason why the Danes destroyed so many churches.

Reference

• Anderson, G. K. The Literature of the Anglo-saxons. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966.
• Bately, Janet. ‘The nature of Old English Prose’, in The Cambridge Companion to Old English
• Literature edited by Godden and Lapidge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
• Baugh, A. C. (ed).  A Literary History of England, Vol 1, The Middle Ages by Kemp Malone and A.
• Baugh. Great Britain: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1972.
• Legouis, Emile and Louis Cazamian. History of English Literature. London: J. M. Dent and Sons,1964.
• Swanton, Michael. English Literature Before Chaucer. London and New York: Longman, 1987.
• Traherne, Elaine (ed). Old and Middle English: An Anthology. Oxford: Blackwell, 2000.