This manusaipt has been fepmduced from the microfilm master. UMI films the text direcüy from the original or copy submitîed. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others rnay be from any type of cornputer printer. The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of aie copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, coloreà or pwr quality illustrations and photographs, print bleedthrough, substandard rnargins, and irnpmper alignment can advenely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send UMI a wmplete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright matefial had to be removed, a note indicate the deletion. Ovenize materials (e.g.. maps. drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original. beginning at the upper left-hand corner and continuing from left to nght in equal sections with small overiaps. Photographs induded in the original manuscript have been reproduœd xerogfaphically in this copy. Higher quality 6" x 9" black and white photographie pflnts are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. Bell 8 Howell Information and Leaming 300 North ïeeb Road, Ann Arbor, MI 484-7346 USA TEXTILES AND TEXTILE MAGERY IN OLD ENGLISH LITERATURE Maren Clegg Hyer A thesis submitted in confomiity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Department of English University of Toronto 8 Copyright by Maren Clegg Hyer (1998) National Library Bibliothèque nationale lJFB .Ca", du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bbliographic Services services bibliographiques 395 Wellington Street 395, nie Wellington OnawaON K1AON4 Ottawa ON K1A ON4 Canada Canada The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive licence allowing the exclusive permettant a la National Library of Canada to Bibliothèque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, dismiute or sel1 reproduire, prêter, distribuer ou copies of this thesis in microform, vendre des copies de cette thèse sous paper or electronic formats. la forme de microfiche/film, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format électronique. The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriété du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis nor substantial extracts fiom it Ni Ia thèse ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or otherwise de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. Textiles and Textile Imagery in Old English Literature. Maren Clegg Hyer, Ph.& Graduate English Department, University of Toronto, 1998. -4s in many othri cuiiures, textiles and textile production figured significantly in the everyday life of the Anglo-Saxons. The literary result of this important craft was the use of textile imagery in particular, textile metaphor in Old English literature, including the following: peaceweaving, death-weaving, fate-weaving, creation- and water-weaving, word-weaving, and spider-weaving. While the occurrence of textile metaphor in the Old English corpus hm been noted in the past, this study is unique in that it seeks first to anaiyze and reconstruct the material culture of textile production among the Anglo- Saxons fiom archaeologicai and textuai records as a crucial step in understanding the full range of Old English textile metaphors and what they might have meant to the Anglo- Saxons. This midy is also unique in that it compiles the Old English textile metaphors and analyzes their resonance in direct relationship to the materiai culture of textiles. In the dissertation. 1compile a nurnber of the significant analogues which may or may not have influenced the development of textile metaphor in Old Engiish Literature. This dissertation argues that textile metaphors and images in Old English literature are linked by a common resonance whîch may be the product of an understanding of the material culture of textiles of Anglo-saxon times as a visuai analogue. The examination of Old English textile imagery has interesthg implications for textile imagery which occurs in great profusion in Wtudy di cultures which have cotidiarian contact with textile production. Acknowledgements Sincere thanks are due to my advisor Roberta Frank for her thorough and construr;;ve guidance, as wel: ps Fï~fessor+atmette diPa010 Heaiey and the wondemil staff at the Dictionary of Old English for their good-humored help and patience through the course of this project. 1 owe another ''thank you" to both Genevieve Fisher and Gale Owen-Crocker for their encouragement and willingness to share information and ideas about the world of Anglo-saxon textiles. My thanks also go to the network of family and &ends that has given me such tremendous, loving support in my graduate work. Most of dl. thank FU, David and Joel, with love. Dus ic . wordcrcefrum wœf ("Elene" 1236a-37a) Tabk of Contents .. Abstract 11 Ackno wlecigements iii List of Figures v Introduction 1 Chapter 1 : The Material Culture of Anglo-saxon Textiles: The Process 20 Chapter 2: The Material Culture of Anglo-saxon Textiles: The Products 56 Chapter 3: The Weaving of Peace and Death 98 Chapter 4: Weaving Fate, Creation, and the Forces of Nature 155 Chapter 5: Word-weaving and Other Metaphors 213 Conclusion 240 Appendix A: Index of Words Discussed 245 Works Consulted 247 List of Figures 1A Reel and Ymwinder 1 B Fifieenth-century Pictorial Gloss of a Reel 4A The Franks Casket introduction Recent interest in textile studies has shown remarkable growth, particularly interest in discovenng and recognizing textile imagery or metaphor in cultures the world over. A number of studies have demonstrated the attractiveness of textile technology as a basis for many of the metaphoncal and mythic abstractions of cultures worldwide. Textile production is women's work in most cultures, and in Muslim North Afnca, for example, wornen have invested their domestic weaving with metaphoric and symbolic gender representation as a "resonant analogy between the loom and life": basically, the warp of the loom is considered a male with a sou1 and life of its own.' While the warp is being prepared, it represents a young male subservient to his mother. When the warp takes its place on the loom, it represents the maniring male who takes precedence over his mother. After he is prepared and "completed." he is cut down fiom the loom and "loosed" on the world. Each stage is mediated by the mother, who is the weft.' As John Scheid and Jesper Svenbro's work, The Crnfr ofZeus: Afythr of Weaving and Fabric, shows, the Greeks likewise utilized textile imagery in defining gender relations. Plato's Statesman, for example, describes how the loom Uiterweaves opposites in the warp and weft.' in Greek culture, this image extends to marriage, with the stiff vertical warp identified as gramrnatically and symbolically masculine and the softer horizontal weft as grammatically and symbolically ferninine: As weaving draws the sets of threads together, so the cloth of marriage brings together human males and fernales. Seneca explains the same image to his Roman audience in his Letfers to Lucilius, equating marriage with the interweaving of sûaight warp (male) and supportive weft (female).' North America as well as in Europe and Afnca, "spinning and weaving iicted as metaphors for sexuality, childbirth, and female life- cycle^."^ Amoitg Uie Mexican womçn of PosKlassic Mexico, the spinning whorl with the spindle within represented coitus, the filling spindle a pregnant woman? The associations of female gender with textile production are perhaps inevitable given its fiequent assignment to the female. In many ways, the gendered metaphors of textile production are an insight into women's mythology of their world and their power. In Post-Classic Mexican codices, one finds, *'the use of weaving tools, especially battens, as weapons or as staffs of authority to represent female power.'" The relevance of such images for the present study is that sirnilar metaphors relating and often equating gender roles with aspects of textile production or textile tools are also scattered throughout Old English literature. One example is the terni spineZkin, which identifies the matemal line in legal texts? There is also some archaeological evidence that textile tools symbolically identified a woman's status as well as her gender arnong the Anglo-saxons. Textile midies have also docurnented an interesting common link between weaving and the maintenance of cosmic order or peace. The Shinto text Kojiki (early eighth century) describes a mythic stniggle between the Sun Goddess and her brother. Amaterasu (the Sun Goddess) sits in a "pure weaving hall [seeing to the] weaving of the gaxments of the gods."I0 Her brother breaks in suddenly, fnghtening the "heavenly weaving maiden" so greatly that she accidentaily impales her womb with her shuttle and dies." After this, darkness and chaos come to the earth for a time. The female creation deity, as a femaie, performs her role in the cosmos through weaving. Moreover, 'The very instrument of the maintenance of order is here the shuttle, and the rneaning of the weaving hall itself begins to emergt: in hesymbol of the Ioom on which the cosmic order is woven."" In contrast, the masculine warrior prototype represents the pnnciple of disorder, a "destructive because undisciplined power" in direct opposition to weaving." The source of the Shinto rite is found in a related Chinese myth of the Heavenly Maiden, a constellation-figure separated fiom another, the Cowherd, by the Milky Way (descriptive of segregated gendered roles). Once a year, during her festival, the two are rihially joined in marriage, making the Heavenly Weaving Maiden a patron of marriage and women's work." The Maiden's role is much like that of the peaceweavers of Old English literanire, who weave peace and order in their societies despite violent actions of warrior counteprts.