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Anglo-Saxonism and the Construction of Social Identity

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Anglo-Saxonism and the Construction of Social Identity Anglo-Saxonism and the Construction of Social Identity Edited by Allen J. Frantzen and John D. Niles University Press of Florida Gainesville Tallahassee Tampa Boca Raton Pensacola Orlando Miami Jacksonville Contents Frontispiece: "Tablea u: Alfred the Great and His Subjects." One of a series of tableaux illustrating episodes and legends in the life of King Alfred acted out at the Guildhall, Winchester, September 19, 1901, to commemorate the thousandth anniversary of Alfred's Introduction: Anglo-Saxonism and Medievalism l death. "King Alfred" strikes the same pose as the statue of Alfred that was unveiled the Allen ]. Frantzen and ]ohn D. Ni/es next day as part of the same celebrations. Photograph by H. W. Salman. From Alfred Bowker, The King Alfred Millenary: A Record of the Proceedings of the National PART ONE. MEDIEVAL AND RENAISSANCE ANGLO-SAXONISM Commemoration (London: Macmillan, 1902), facing p. 120. l Bede and Bawdy Bale: Gregory the Great, Angels, and the "Angli" 17 Copyright 1997 by the Board of Regents of the State of Florida Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper Allen J. Frantzen Ali rights reserved 2 Anglo-Saxonism in the Old English Laws 40 02 01 00 99 98 97 6 5 4 3 2 l Mary P. Richards Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data 3 The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle Poems and the Making Anglo-Saxonism, and the construction of social identity I edited by Allen J. Frantzen and of the English Nation 60 John D. Niles. p. cm. ]anet Thormann Includes bibliographical references and index. 4 Received Wisdom: The Reception History of Alfred's Preface ISBN 0-8130-1532-4 (cloth: alk. paper) to the Pastoral Care 86 r. Great Britain-History-Anglo-Saxon period, 449-1066-Historiography. 2. English literature-Old English, ca. 450-1100-History and criticism-Theory, etc. 3. National Suzanne C. Hagedorn characteristics, English-Historiography. 4. Civilization, Anglo-Saxon-Historiography. 5. Civilization, Medieval-Historiography. 6. Anglo-Saxons-Historiography. 7. Middle PART TWO. NINETEENTH- AND EARLY TWENTIETH-CENTURY Ages-Historiography. 8. Medievalism-History. l. Frantzen, Allen J., 1947-. II. Niles, ANGLO-SAXONISM John D. DA15z..A728 1997 97-270 5 Nineteenth-Century Scandinavia and the Birth 94r.01'072-dC21 of Anglo-Saxon Studies r r r The University Press of Florida is the scholarly publishing agency for the State University Robert E. Bjork System of Florida, comprised of Florida A&M University, Florida Atlantic University, 6 Mid-Nineteenth-Century American Anglo-Saxonism: Florida lnternational University, Florida State University, University of Central Florida, University of Florida, University of North Florida, University of South Florida, and The Question of Language 133 University of West Florida. ]. R. Hall University Press of Florida 7 Byrhtnoth in Dixie: The Emergence of Anglo-Saxon Studies in the 15 Northwest r sth Street Postbellum South 157 Gainesville, FL 326II Gregory A. VanHoosier-Carey Appropriations: A Concept of Culture 203 Today, as the Taff flows toward the Bristol Channel through the modern city of Cardiff, spilling clown a channel that glaciers once scoured out from ancient highlands, it runs through the grounds of Cardiff Castle, passing just west of the castle gate. Let us imagine that our stone is now part of that castle, having been quarried from a point higher up the valley. Where in the castle is it? For the sake of its sense of self­ 9. Appropriations importance, !et us set it high in the castle wall. The stone is blessed, as A Concept of Culture stony blessings go. From its niche beneath the dock tower it now has a fine view toward the Norman keep and the castle's inner grounds. John D. Niles The fortunes of this stone have not always been so blessed, however, for Cardiff has known the ups and downs of time. The castle's present walls and towers are largely the result of a major reconstruction under­ taken by J ohn Patrick Crichton-Stuart, third Marquess of Bu te ( l 84 7- Somewhere among us a stone is taking notes. 1900 ), who hired the architect John Burges to restore the estate in -Charles Simic medieval style. Burges set about the task with dedication and wit. Work­ ing in collaboration with Lord Bute, whose interest in this project ran as deep as his purse (and whose purse ranas deep as the coalfields of South STONE AMONG us is taking notes? What good reading that will Wales), Burges constructed a set of rooms and towers, the interiors of be! To date, not many people concerned with either the general which he decorated in magnificent arts-and-crafts style. The result was A study of the Middle Ages or the specific phenomenon of Anglo­ one of the epiphanies of nineteenth-century medievalism. To complete 1 Saxonism have taken a stone's-eye-view of their subject. When most the effect, Lord Bute restored the Norman keep, drained its moat, and people think of the Middle Ages, they are likely to envision a grand cleared and replanted the grounds.4 sequence of kings and conquests, heroes and adventures, ali unfolding These, however, were not the first modern improvements on the site. providentially in the direction of a higher plane of being that culminates To turn his grand scheme into a reality, Lord Bute not only had to rebuild not far from their own time and place. History abhors a clod. There are the castle walls, which were discovered to have been built on top of advantages, however, to the move toward grassroots social history that is Roman fortifications. In addition-and this was his major challenge-he 2 a feature of the historical writing of recent years. In addition, as soon as had to integrate into his design the substantial country house into which one begins to regard the past as one aspect of a history of mentalities the former castle had been converted. This house was the result of a 3 rather than as a sequence of noteworthy events, one is led to a view of sequence of building projects undertaken from the fifteenth to the eigh­ cultural processes as many-layered and potentially fissured rather than as teenth centuries. As Lord Bute, who knew what he liked, put it in a letter progressing steadily according to sorne smoothly flowing teleological to his fiancée in 1872, the place had been "the victim of every barbarían design. I will therefore ask for patience as I direct attention to an since the Renaissance." 5 imagined case history, one that introduces a few suggestions concerning In short, our stone has witnessed momentous changes. As a prelude to the dynamics of Anglo-Saxonism and of cultural change in general. a larger argument, !et me introduce the notes that our stone might have Suppose that a stone had been patiently taking notes in a single place jotted clown from time to time over the years. over the past two thousand years. For us that may seem rather a while, but for a stone it might be no more than a few blinks of an eye, as it were. What place? Many might do for our purposes, but !et me arbitrarily Exhibit A: The Diary of a Stone single out the valley of the river Taff, or Cwm Taff, to use the vale's more 7 5 A.D. Myn brain i!6 Quarried toda y. Stacked by the Taff like a ancient name. load of fish. Big works in progress. 202 Appropriations: A Concept of Culture 204 John D. Niles 254 Hoisted to 2oth tier of vallum and polished off-rather a nice terns of culture without necessarily considering the ways in which these job, 1 must say. patterns have come into being over successive eras, sometimes via loops back into the past. While sorne anthropologists take a chronologically 434 Legionnaires breaking camp, heading east. Things looking deep view of their subject, they tend to orient their discussion of cultural anx1ous. change around two key terms, acculturation and assimilation, that can account only partially for long-term impersonal processes. The first of 786 Dammo! Took a fall. Heaps of rubbish above me. these encourages a view of culture as something already formed, ready to be passed on from one group to another when people come into direct 1092 Big motte under construction; beaucoup de monde ici. contact with one another. The second directs attention to the largely l l 84 A Welsh attack, I'm told. Sorne damage in my sector. unselfconscious merging of races, institutions, and traditions. Neither concept foregrounds human agency. Neither leaves much room for l 64 5 Commotion overhead: King Charles to visit this week. discontinuities and reinventions, the jerks and starts of cultural evolu­ tion. These matters might be thought to fall under the purview of 1778 Rain for a fortnight. Noise from construction above. historians and literary scholars, who routinely address questions of tradi­ l 867 Found at last, I've been found at last! They've set me out and tion and individual talent; but not many scholars in these fields approach refaced me. The new Lord has no end of schemes, they say. culture systematically, focusing on large anonymous processes as well as on singular events and achievements. Fewer still devore much attention 1872 I've been given a place of honor in the dock tower! 7 Mother, to cultural ruptures and unconformities, as opposed to the achievements come see me now! of a single era. From the perspective advocated here, culture is chiefly produced through 1875 The Marquess and Master John were up smoking today. 8 a complex series of purposeful appropriations either of the past or of Peacocks, parrots, and incense.
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