THE MEANING, PRACTICE AND CONTEXT OF PRIVATE PRAYER IN LATE ANGLO-SAXON ENGLAND KATE HEULWEN THOMAS PHD THE UNIVERSITY OF YORK DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH AND RELATED LITERATURE AUGUST 2011 ii ABSTRACT This thesis is a detailed discussion of the relatively neglected subject of private prayer in late Anglo-Saxon England, mainly focusing on three eleventh-century monastic codices: the Galba Prayerbook (London, British Library Cotton Nero A. ii + Galba A. xiv), Ælfwine’s Prayerbook (London, British Library Cotton Titus D. xxvii + xxvi) and the Portiforium of St Wulstan (Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 391). Chapter One provides a background to the following chapters by introducing a wide variety of English and Continental texts from the ninth century. This chapter demonstrates the many different prayer genres, prayer guides and attitudes to prayer which would be inherited by the late Anglo-Saxons. Chapter Two, which focuses on private adaptations of the canonical Offices, examines the different manuscript contexts in which private prayers were found. It argues that series of prayers were combined into increasingly sophisticated ordines for personal devotion, and that it was from these that the Special Offices arose. Chapter Three applies these concepts to prayers to the Holy Cross. After a discussion of the evidence for prayer before a cross, and involving the sign of the cross, it examines private prayer programmes based on the liturgy for Good Friday and those from which the Special Office of the Cross developed. Chapter Four turns to private confessions, arguing that these prayers were somewhat different from those hitherto discussed. It therefore begins with an exploration of the many kinds of confession which existed in the late Anglo- Saxon church, before examining a number of private confessional prayers in detail. Throughout this thesis, emphasis is placed on the bodily experience of prayer in its time and place, and upon the use of each text as it is found in the prayerbooks of eleventh-century England. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract ii Table of Contents iii Notes on Biblical iv references, translations and names Index of tables v Acknowledgements vii Author‟s declaration viii INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER 1 The Background to Anglo-Saxon Private Prayer 26 CHAPTER 2 Late Anglo-Saxon Private Prayerbooks and the 81 Monastic Hours CHAPTER 3 Private Devotion to the Holy Cross 157 CHAPTER 4 Confession and Private Prayer 221 CONCLUSION 283 ABBREVIATIONS 289 BIBLIOGRAPHY 294 iv NOTES ON BIBLICAL REFERENCES, TRANSLATIONS AND NAMES Quotations from the Bible are taken from Robert Weber, B. Fischer, J. Gribomont, H. F. D. Sparks, W. Thiele and Roger Gryson, eds., Biblia sacra iuxta vulgatam versionem, 4th edn. (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1983), and are indicated in the text with book, chapter and verse references. Abbreviations of Biblical books are taken from this edition. Translations from the Bible are taken from the Douay-Rheims translation. All non-Biblical translations are my own except where stated. Modern forms of names are used in preference to historical forms: for example, „Alcuin‟ rather than „Alcuinus‟. v INDEX OF TABLES Chapter 1 1.1 Private prayer texts from the late eighth and ninth centuries 1.2 De laude psalmorum 1.3 The private prayers referred to in this chapter in my main manuscripts Chapter 2 2.1 A common sequence of „short prayers‟ 2.2 A simplified table of contents for Ælfwine’s Prayerbook 2.3 Ælfwine‟s „Devotions to the Holy Cross‟, Cotton Titus D. xxvii, ff. 66r-73v 2.4 Personal liturgical ordines in the Galba Prayerbook 2.5 Latin analogues to the Prayers ad horas identified by R. A. Banks 2.6 The conventional Prayers ad horas sequence and its appearance in a select manuscript record 2.7 The Prayers ad horas in three manuscripts 2.8 The private prayers referred to in this chapter in my main manuscripts Chapter 3 3.1 The private prayers in the Portiforium of St Wulstan, indicating the prayers to the cross 3.2 Eleventh-century additions to the end of the Vespasian Psalter, indicating the prayers to the cross 3.3 Texts for the Regularis concordia liturgy of the Veneration of the Cross vi 3.4 The private prayers in London, British Library Arundel 155 3.5 The developing Offices based on the Veneration of the Cross in the Portiforium of St Wulstan 3.6 In honore sanctae crucis: an Office of the cross in Ælfwine’s Prayerbook (no. 50) 3.7 Oratio in .I. mane ad crucem: a possible Office of the cross in Ælfwine’s Prayerbook (nos. 46.16-21) 3.8 A comparison of the antiphons used in five prayer programmes dedicated to the cross 3.9 The private prayers referred to in this chapter in my main manuscripts Chapter 4 4.1 Evidence for private confessional prayer 4.2 The private prayers in the Portiforium of St Wulstan, indicating the confessional prayers 4.3 Solitary confessional prayers in London, British Library Cotton Tiberius A. iii (Ker, no. 186.9, a-f) 4.4 The private prayers referred to in this chapter in my main manuscripts vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS There are many people whom I would like to thank for assisting me in the completion of my thesis. I am grateful to the Arts and Humanities Research Council for funding my studies at both MA and PhD level. I would very much like to thank the community at the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of York for making the past few years such a pleasure. In particular, for their helpful suggestions, assistance and friendship, I would like to thank Charlotte Kingston, Ellie McCullough, Els Schröder, Debs Thorpe, and all those who have offered me support from near or far. Ellie Bird, Marijana Cerović and Laura Elizabeth Rice deserve special thanks for their friendship and encouragement over the last four years. Matt Townend has been extremely helpful with his comments on my writing and in assisting the progress of my work, and Mary Garrison has been very generous with her time and suggestions. I am especially grateful to Gabriella Corona and Christine Phillips for supervising my studies, and for doing so much to ensure that my thesis is the best that it could be. Finally, I would like to thank my parents for always being so supportive and encouraging in all I have done. viii AUTHOR’S DECLARATION The candidate confirms that the work submitted is her own and that appropriate credit has been given where reference has been made to the work of others. Some material in Chapters Two and Three was presented in a different form at the Leeds International Medieval Congress in 2009 and 2010. 1 INTRODUCTION [E]t cum oratis non eritis sicut hypocritae qui amant in synagogis et in angulis platearum stantes orare ut videantur ab hominibus amen dico vobis receperunt mercedem suam tu autem cum orabis intra in cubiculum tuum et cluso ostio tuo ora Patrem tuum in abscondito et Pater tuus qui videt in abscondito reddet tibi Orantes autem nolite multum loqui sicut ethnici putant enim quia in multiloquio suo exaudiantur nolite ergo adsimilari eis scit enim Pater vester quibus opus sit vobis antequam petatis eum sic ergo vos orabitis Pater noster qui in caelis es sanctificetur nomen tuum veniat regnum tuum fiat voluntas tua sicut in caelo et in terra panem nostrum supersubstantialem da nobis hodie et dimitte nobis debita nostra sicut et nos dimisimus debitoribus nostris et ne inducas nos in temptationem sed libera nos a malo (Matt. 6:5-13).1 Post haec cursum diurnum, id est celebrationes horarum, ac deinde psalmos quosdam et orationes multas ‹didicit›; quos in uno libro congregatos in sinu suo die noctuque, sicut ipsi vidimus, secum inseparabiliter, orationis gratia, inter omnia praesentis vitae curricula ubique circumducebat (ch. 24, ll. 1-6).2 Private prayer has been part of the Christian tradition from the very beginning. Furthermore, as the quotation from Matthew‟s gospel above shows, set prayers have always been regarded as a major component of private prayer, which can, of course, also include spontaneous prayer. By the time of King Alfred (c. 848-899), about whom Asser writes in the second quotation above, the corpus of texts believed to be 1 „And when ye pray, you shall not be as the hypocrites, that love to stand and pray in the synagogues and corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men: Amen I say to you, they have received their reward. But thou when thou shalt pray, enter into thy chamber, and having shut the door, pray to thy Father in secret: and thy Father who seeth in secret will repay thee. And when you are praying, speak not much, as the heathens. For they think that in their much speaking they may be heard. Be not you therefore like to them, for your Father knoweth what is needful for you, before you ask him. Thus therefore shall you pray: Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our supersubstantial bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation. But deliver us from evil.‟ 2 „After this he learned the daily course, that is, the celebrations of the Hours, and after that certain psalms and many prayers, gathered together in one book for the sake of prayer, which he carried around with him everywhere on his person by day and night, just as we have seen, inseparable from himself, in all of the doings of this present life.‟ William Henry Stevenson, ed., Asser’s Life of King Alfred, Together with the Annals of Saint Neots Erroneously Ascribed to Asser (Oxford: Clarendon, 1959).