Caedmon on the Continent: the Heliand Prefaces and Bernlef

Amsterdamer Beiträge zur älteren Germanistik 77 (�0�7) 493–5�0 brill.com/abag Caedmon on the Continent: The Heliand Prefaces and Bernlef Redbad Veenbaas Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Niederlande [email protected] Abstract Firstly, this article addresses the influence of the story of the Anglo-Saxon singer Caedmon by Bede on two texts about religious poets on the continent: the Bernlef episodes in the Lives of Liudger and the Heliand Prefaces. Secondly, the question will be addressed whether a connection between the Heliand Prefaces and the Bernlef episodes can be found. Finally, a new light is shed on the discussion about the identity of the poet of the Heliand. The result of a comparison between the profiles of the Heliand poet and Bernlef is as follows: 1) they were laymen, the Heliand poet at least at the time of his divine vocation; 2) they were held in great esteem by their people/neighbours as a poet/singer; 3) they were considered the best/a very good poet in the Thiudisc language; 4) after a divine miracle they focus on the adaptation of passages from the Holy Scripture; 5) the testimony of these miracles should not be doubted because of the ‘studium’ of the poets; 6) references to the story of Caedmon by Bede; 7) tradition of their stories on the continent between approximately 845 and 875. These similarities could imply that Bernlef was the author of the Heliand. At the very least, the poet of the Heliand (according to the Prefaces) was someone that closely resembled Bernlef. Keywords Bernlef – Heliand Prefaces – authorship – Lives of Liudger – Caedmon © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��7 | doi �0.��63/�87567�9-��340089Downloaded from Brill.com10/02/2021 08:12:38PM via free access 494 Veenbaas 1 Introduction Between the late seventh and the early ninth centuries, the Anglo-Saxons set the tone intellectually for the West-Germanic region (Levison 1949; Haubrichs 1987). They were the missionaries, monks and scholars, who showed their kins- men the way to the new religion. Latin, the language of the Church Fathers and the Classics, was, of course, predominant in written texts, but the use of the vernacular was not entirely neglected. Missionary texts and glosses from that period show a clear Anglo-Saxon sediment (Haubrichs 1987, 391–401). The white island has also laid the foundation for Biblical epics in the vernacular, a form of art that would not develop on the continent until much later. A story known far and wide is that of the vernacular poet Caedmon (c. 680). Like Bede and Alcuin, Caedmon was a product of the spiritually and culturally flourishing period of Northhumbria. His story is recorded in Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum. Bede tells us that, sometimes at feasts, when all the guests were invited to sing in turn at the harp, Caedmon would get up from the table and leave. On one such an occasion he went out to the stables, where it was his duty to look after the animals that night. In a dream, however, he was called by a voice from heaven to sing verses in praise of God. After a proficiency test in front of Abbess Hild of Whitby, Caedmon became a lay brother and sang of many events in salvation history, which were explained to him by learned men. According to Bede, “[e]t quidem et alii post illum in gente Anglorum religiosa poemata facere temtabant, sed nullus eum aequi- pare potuit. Namque ipse (…) diuinitus adiutus gratis canendi donum accepit” [… after him other Englishmen tried to compose religious poems, but no one could compare to him, as he (…) had received the gift of song freely by the grace of God] (Colgrave and Mynors 1969, IV.24). Francis Magoun (1979, 58f.) tried to offer a rational explanation for this miracle. Caedmon had obviously been intrigued for a long time by the songs he had heard. That fascination is reflected in the completely formulaic charac- ter of his first hymn, which has been preserved. But he felt a strong aversion to—or fear of—reciting things himself. The dream would have helped him to overcome that fear. One of Caedmon’s imitators was his biographer Bede, who, reputedly on his deathbed, composed a song in the vernacular.1 In the Low and High German language area, four examples of spiritual, alliterative poetry have been preserved: the Wessobrunn Prayer, Muspelli, the Heliand and the Old Saxon Genesis. They date from the end of the eighth to the first half of the ninth century. Previous hypotheses about the influence 1 According to Cuthbert’s Letter on the death of Bede (Colgrave and Mynors 1969, 580–583). Amsterdamer Beiträge zur älteren GermanistikDownloaded from 77 Brill.com10/02/2021(2017) 493–520 08:12:38PM via free access Caedmon on the Continent 495 of Anglo-Saxons poems on these works could not be proven or made likely (Haubrichs 1987, 405–407; Schwab 1988, 152–154, 170–172; cf. Kartschoke 1975, 152–154, 170–172). Admittedly, there are striking parallels between two passages from the Heliand and Cynewulf’s Elene. However, as Dietrich Hofmann (1973) has demonstrated, the direction of influence is unclear and the evidence seems to point to the continent as the ‘contributing’ party rather than the other way around. The Old Saxon biblical epics in particular testify to a vivid continental oral tradition, which had a profound impact on this poetry. Formulaic similarities between these epics and spiritual and secular Anglo-Saxon poetry do not seem to indicate cross-contamination, but rather point to a common source of formulas for the entire West Germanic region (Kellogg 1979, 190; cf. Sievers 1878, 389ff.). In the tenth century, influences between the continent and England begin to reappear. By this point, however, the Anglo-Saxons have quite clearly lost their former position of prominence. A copy of the Heliand which was— according to many scholars—transcribed in England and an Anglo-Saxon translation of the Old Saxon Genesis bear witness to this change (Haubrichs 1987, 409–412; Taeger 1996, XX). In the meantime, major changes had taken place on both sides of the North Sea. Regular Danish invasions from about the year 800 on had severely dam- aged reciprocal religious contact. Huge segments of England had fallen under Viking control and, as in the Dutch coastal regions that played an important role in shipping, the ecclesiastical organisation suffered heavily under their presence. In this time, the Anglo-Saxons lost their pioneering role on the continent (Levison 1946, 166; Haubrichs 1987, 405–409; Schwab 1988, 134). It was not until 878, during King Alfred’s reign, that the treaty of Wedmore was con- cluded, bringing a temporary end to Danish plundering and the continuous state of war. In his famous preface to his translation of Gregory the Great’s Cura Pastoralis, Alfred testified to the intellectual and pastoral catastrophe he had encountered at the beginning of his reign. These circumstances gave rise to an extensive translation programme, in which the vernacular epic poetry was also reinstated (Schwab 1988, 133–135; Bremmer 2012, 196f.) The writing down of this poetry would continue over the next few centuries. In the tenth century, English interest also emerged in the Old Saxon Biblical epics, which appear to have been forgotten on the continent fairly quickly. No new examples or copies are known to have been produced in Germany after roughly 875. However, marks of use in manuscript M indicate that the poem could still be read there a hundred years later (Taeger 1996, XVIII). In the sec- ond half of the ninth century, alliterative poetry also fell into decline on the Amsterdamer Beiträge zur älteren Germanistik 77Downloaded (2017) from493–520 Brill.com10/02/2021 08:12:38PM via free access 496 Veenbaas continent. Otfried von Weissenburg, the monk who fiercely turned against the cantus obscenus laicorum (“scandalous singing of laymen”), which were appar- ently still heard in monasteries, wrote his Evangelienbuch. In doing so, he used end rhymes and thus broke away from the tradition of the epic singers. In other words, spiritual alliterative poetry on the continent flourished for a relative short period of time, when communication with the Anglo-Saxon cognates was cut off for the greater part. Nevertheless, there are good reasons to assume that the English example also inspired vernacular religious poetry on the continent, although this influence may have been fairly general. In this article, a closer look will be taken at two instances, which seem to make this clear: (1) the story of Bernlef, the blind singer from Helwerd in Frisia, and (2) the much-discussed Praefatio and Versus of the Heliand. 2 Bernlef The story of Bernlef is found in the biographies of St. Liudger. The first biog- raphy is that of Altfrid, probably a sister’s son of Liudger and abbot of Werden from 839–849. This work dates from the end of this period (Diekamp 1881, XX). The Vita II s. Liudgeri was written between 850 and 863 by an anonymous monk from Werden (Ibid., XLVf.) The Vita III s. Liudgeri, from the period short- ly after 864, is also anonymous; the author writes on behalf of the ‘brothers of the monastery’ (Ibid., L). The last two biographies seem to respond to the wish to emphasize the link between Liudger and the monastery of Werden; more- over, the Vita III features many moralistic digressions, which made it suitable for readings at the monastery table. This last vita was the most widespread in the Middle Ages (Ibid., XLVf., XLIXf., LII). The Vita II and III follow the narrative of Altfrid closely in the Bernlef episodes.

Load more