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Durham E-Theses Nec silentio praetereundum: the signicance of the miraculous in the Anglo-Saxon church in the time of Bede Hustler, Jonathan Richard How to cite: Hustler, Jonathan Richard (1997) Nec silentio praetereundum: the signicance of the miraculous in the Anglo-Saxon church in the time of Bede, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/4991/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk 2 Nec silentio praetereundum: The significance of the Miraculous in the Anglo-Saxon Church in the Time of Bede by Jonathan Richard Hustler. Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Durham Department of History 1997 The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without the written consent of the author and information derived from it should be acknowledged. 2 ABSTRACT This thesis is based on a study of miracle stories recorded by Anglo-Saxon ecclesiastical writers in the early part of the eighth century. It responds to a number of previous works which have concentrated solely on the miracle stories told by Bede, and argues that the stories of all the writers are the product of the historical situation. The idea that such stories were produced in order to respond to claims made in Irish or Continental hagiography, or by Anglo-Saxon paganism, is rejected; instead, we need to accept the assertion of the authors that these events were recorded because they were believed to have happened and to be of historical importance. Therefore, they provide an insight into the way that these authors approached the writing of history; an analysis of those involved in the stories, of the circumstances of the events, and of the likely transmission, suggests a close-knit circle of mainly noble monastics on whom the writers depended for information, and for whom they wrote. The miracle stories disclose that this approach to history was heavily informed by theological ideas, and by the bias of the author and his/her community. Precisely because the miracle material is to modern eyes unusual (if not incredible), these stories enable us better to understand the mind and methods of the writers on whom much of our knowledge early Anglo-Saxon history depends. 3 CONTENTS Page Foreword 5 Introduction 6 Notes to the Introduction 47 Chapter One 60 Notes to Chapter One 102 Chapter Two 115 Notes to Chapter Two 152 Chapter Three 161 Notes to Chapter Three 214 Chapter Four 227 Notes to Chapter Four 278 Chapter Five 292 Notes to Chapter Five 350 Conclusion 367 Notes to the Conclusion 375 4 Introduction to the Appendices 376 Appendix One 378 Appendix Two 384 Appendix Three 391 Appendix Four 394 Appendix Five 397 Appendix Six 400 Appendix Seven 406 Appendix Eight 413 Abbreviations 419 Primary Bibliography 421 Secondary Bibliography 435 The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without his prior written consent, and information derived from it should be acknowledged. 5 Foreword This thesis is the result of research conducted on a part-time basis at the University of Durham; I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisor, Professor David Rollason, for all his encouragement and wise advice. My thanks are also owed to Drs Alan Thacker and Catherine Cubitt, who have permitted me to use unpublished work, and to the staffs of the libraries at the Universities of Durham, Oxford, Cambridge, and the Open University. I am grateful to the Methodist Church for facilitating this opportunity, through the Finch scholarship, which provided a preliminary year of study at the Gregorian University in Rome, through the financial assistance offered by the Division of Ministries and the London North-West District, and through the time permitted me by the Leighton Buzzard & Stewkley and Redcar, Saltburn & Guisborough circuits. The Reverend Maurice Wright is owed thanks for his assistance with various word-processing difficulties, but my greatest debt is to my wife, Lesley, who has lived patiently with this project throughout our married life. Introducti on. 'Quod est dictu mirabile et auditu': The miracle stories under consideration and responses to them. In book five of the Historia Ecclesiastica, Bede tells the story of an Anglo-Irish mission to the Old Saxons in the 690s.1 Amongst the priests on this mission were two who bore the same name and were distinguished from each other by their colouring, White Hewald and Dark Hewald. Despite the official support of the local governor, the Hewalds were not warmly received. Qui cum cogniti essent a barbaris, quod essent alterius religionis...rapuerunt eos subito et interemerunt...[et] in Hreno proiecerunt.. Nec martyrio eorum caelestia defuere miracula. Nam cum peremta eorum corpora amni, ut diximus, a paganis essent iniecta, contigit ut haec contra impetum fluvii decurrentis, per XL fere milia passuum ad ea usque loca, ubi illorum erant socii, transferrentur. Sed et radius lucis permaximus atque ad caelum usque altus omni nocte supra locum fulgebat ilium, ubicumque ea pervenisse contingeret, et hoc etiam paganis, qui eos occiderant, intuentibus. Sed et unus ex eis in visione nocturna apparuit cuidam de sociis suis, cui nomen erat Tilmon, viro inlustri, et ad saeculum quoque nobi1i, qui de mi lite factus fuerat monachus, indicans quod eo loci corpora eorum posset invenire, ubi lucem de caelo terris radiasse conspiceret. Quod ita conpletum est.... fertur autem quia in loco in quo occisi sunt fons ebullierit, qui in eodem loco usque hodie copiosa fluenti sui dona profundat.2 This is a narrative that abounds in images and allusions. To anyone read in the Scriptures the motifs of light and water are familiar, both within the common vocabulary of good and evil and with specific references to Introducti on 7 the teaching and identity of Christ and his disciples.3 And to anyone who knows of other miracle stories of the timej or who has read the earlier chapters in the Historia, the tale of the two Hewalds seems to be full of echoes. The fountain at the site of the martyrdom reminds us of the story of Alban's death,4 and the light over the bodies is reminiscent of the discovery of the corpse of Peter, first abbot of Canterbury, and of the story of Oswald's bones at Bardney.5 The association of the place of violent death with the miraculous has other Oswald overtones, connected to the ground at Maserfelth.6 N0I~ is this the first time that the appearance of someone deceased in a vision has been significant in the account of the continental mission; only a chapter previously Bede recounted Boisil's forbidding Egbert's joining the expedition. The communication about the whereabouts of the corpses with one of the other monks through a vision much more closely resembles the account of the discovery of Edwin's body, as it appears in the anonymous Vita Gregorii,7 a work more or less contemporaneous to the Historia. Tilmon, the monk who receives the vision, is not an uncommon type; otherwise unevidenced, he was of noble stock, as many monks seem to have been. In sum, although this story is not to be found in any other work of the period, the martyrdom of the two Hewalds can appear as a composition of familiar elements. It is immediately clear that we are not dealing with an isolated example of this sort of anecdote, but with a story Introduction 8 that originates in a particular milieu - told by someone used to such stories, and with in mind an audience that was accustomed to hearing them and by whom he expected to be beli eved. So, what is to be made of it? Stories such as this have provoked a number of different reactions. Some modern scholars would implore us to treat this material as sober history, and to note the care with which Bede not only names Tilmon but stresses his virtues, and is unafraid to include a detail that might be verified (the fountain that is said still to be there). Bede, they argue, set himself rigorous standards in his search for material and in testing his witnesses, so we can safely assume that he was not relating something that he did not himself believe to be true. Other students of this sort of material would have us concentrate not on the literal detail but on the spiritual meaning. If we follow this line, we understand that the light over the bodies represents the sanctity of the Hewalds, witnessed even by those lost in ignorant paganism, and we do not so much mind whether the fountain is there or not, but we see it as a symbol of the water of life which the Hewalds offered to the Old Saxons, and which is still there to be drunk. Earlier commentators might have cautioned us away from either approach, encouraging us to dismiss the pious fables with which the eighth-century writers (Bede, regrettably, amongst them as a man of his time) embroidered their material, whilst being grateful Introduction 9 that they are not more numerous than they are.