Reading Bede As Bede Would Read
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Reading Bede as Bede would read Author: Sally Shockro Persistent link: http://hdl.handle.net/2345/1746 This work is posted on eScholarship@BC, Boston College University Libraries. Boston College Electronic Thesis or Dissertation, 2008 Copyright is held by the author, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise noted. Boston College The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Department of History READING BEDE AS BEDE WOULD READ a dissertation by SALLY SHOCKRO submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy December 2008 © copyright by SALLY JEAN SHOCKRO 2008 Dissertation Abstract Reading Bede as Bede Would Read Sally Shockro Robin Fleming, Advisor 2008 Early medieval readers read texts differently than their modern scholarly counterparts. Their expectations were different, but so, too, were their perceptions of the purpose and function of the text. Early medieval historians have long thought that because they were reading the same words as their early medieval subjects they were sharing in the same knowledge. But it is the contention of my thesis that until historians learn to read as early medieval people read, the meanings texts held for their original readers will remain unknown. Early medieval readers maintained that important texts functioned on many levels, with deeper levels possessing more layers of meaning for the reader equipped to grasp them. A good text was able, with the use of a phrase or an image, to trigger the recall of other seemingly distant, yet related, knowledge which would elucidate the final spiritual message of the story. For an early medieval reader, the ultimate example of the multi-layered text was the Bible. But less exalted texts also aspired to this ideal, and the source of the trigger phrases and images most often used to achieve this was the Bible itself, a text that became both the early medieval writer’s model and reserve of references. For an early medieval reader, who would have been a monk or a nun, the Bible was more than a document of faith. In the closed and often isolated world of an early medieval monastery, the words of the Bible would have constantly been in the minds of monastic readers, and also would have been the entryway into the world of eternal truth, with each phrase or image in itself a key to the meaning of sacred history. In the intellectual climate of this world, a monk named Bede, living in a remote monastery in northern England, wrote what is arguably the most important text of the early Middle Ages. This text, the Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum (The Ecclesiastical History of the English People) (hereafter HE), traces English history from the period of the Roman invasion through the creation of a handful of united, Christian, English kingdoms. Yet this text is in no way a chronicle. Instead it is the story of kings and saints; of the pious and their rewards and the impious and their punishment. For Bede this was a deeply Christian story in which a pagan land was given the gift of faith and of good missionaries ready to establish what became a thriving, living Church. For many historians, Bede’s HE first and foremost is studied as an early text of history: a description of “ what happened ” and little else. Medieval exegetes, though, like Bede and his contemporaries, thought this first layer of literal meaning was followed by three others: the moral, allegorical, and anagogical levels. To access these levels we must read as Bede did, with the Bible in mind and with an awareness of the presence of many levels of meaning at almost every point in the text. When read this way, the HE is a minefield of biblical allusions that conflate Bede’s story of kings and saints with the story of Creation and Judgment. When we view the HE through the filter of Bede’s biblical allusions, we can see the English become the new Chosen People of God, and England emerge as the new Holy Land. It is in this reading that I have discovered Bede’s Apocalypticism and his explanations for the way events of his own world were connected to the world to come. Bede wrote the HE, so I argue, to make such a reading possible, and yet modern scholars, despite their knowledge of the power and prevalence of early medieval reading culture, have failed to read it in this way — a way that recasts the early medieval intellectual world as a highly mature and literate culture. It is reading Bede as an exegete would, as Bede himself would, that allows us to reconstruct the rarified and sophisticated religious, cultural, and intellectual worlds of early medieval monasteries. FOR MY MOTHER AND GRANDMOTHER, Cynthia Chick and Eleanor Chick i Table of Contents Acknowledgements ii List of Tables v Chapter One- Early-Medieval Reading and Writing: Bede and the Art of Grammatica 1 Chapter Two- How Bede Read 45 Chapter Three- How Bede Wrote 78 Chapter Four- England’s Entry into Sacred Time 114 Chapter Five- The Burden of Being Chosen 150 Chapter Six- Outside and After Time: Readings and Misreadings of Bede and his Text 190 Bibliography 206 ii Acknowledgements In the course of this project I have incurred a debt of thanks to both the individuals and institutions that have supported me. I received research funding for this project from the Medieval Academy of America and the Graduate Student Association of Boston College. The generosity of the History Department of Boston College was essential for this project. Much of my dissertation was researched and written during a year of support provided by the Dissertation Fellowship I received from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, through the History Department. The History Department provided a warm and collegial atmosphere, from which I, and this project, have benefited greatly. My thanks are also due to the staff of the Thomas P. O’Neill Library at Boston College for their assistance, most especially the Interlibrary Loan Department. I would also like to thank both Nancy Netzer and Robert Stanton. I met Nancy Netzer during my very first days at Boston College and her advice has been invaluable in the years that followed. I met Robert Stanton very soon after, and his generosity and guidance, especially in areas of study that were new to me, have made me a better scholar. They both provided insightful readings of this project at various stages of completion. iii My thanks are also due to the members of Robin Fleming’s medieval seminar, from the fall of 2001 through the fall of 2008, who have read my work annually. Their thoughtful reactions and suggestions have made this a stronger piece of work. Some of the members of this seminar have also become friends, and so my thanks to them are even more heartfelt: Kylie Dodson, David Crane, Tracey-Anne Cooper, Lisabeth Buchelt, Mark Mullane, and Alecia Arceo. I cannot imagine my time at Boston College without Kylie Dodson. It was while lunching with her on a break from Burns Library many years ago that I began to contemplate the very earliest iteration of this thesis. Our conversations have been a constant source of inspiration. I would never have anticipated that my years in graduate school would have seemed so short, and I know that the ease with which this time has passed has been in large part because of her company. My thanks for her generosity with her knowledge, and even more for her friendship, are profound. To Robin Fleming I would like to express my most sincere respect and gratitude, and also, affection. I know how much she has invested in this project and in me. I want her to know how grateful I am, not only for what she has done while I was writing this dissertation, but also for all of the years that preceded it. I have asked her to read everything I have written for the past eight years, sometimes in dozens of versions. She has never refused. Her constant interest and support have been iv the foundation of my intellectual life. I could not have been more fortunate. I would also like to express my appreciation to my father, Edward Shockro, for his support of my goals. I know how pleased he has been to see his own love of history reflected in me, and I also know how very proud he is of me as well. I am saddened that my darling and much-missed Mr. P is not here to see the finished product of the work in which he took so much interest. Lastly, I would like to thank Cynthia Chick and Eleanor Chick, my mother and grandmother. Their belief in my abilities has been unshakable, and their support of me unfailing. Their presence has been the greatest blessing of my life. Without them I would have had neither the strength nor the desire to complete a project such as this, and so it is to them, with love and my deepest gratitude, that this work is dedicated. v List of Tables Table 1. The Anonymous Life of Cuthbert 111 Table 2. Bede’s Life of Cuthbert 112 1 PART I CHAPTER ONE EARLY-MEDIEVAL READING AND WRITING: BEDE AND THE ART OF GRAMMATICA Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum (hereafter HE) is one of the most-studied works of the Middle Ages, and, indeed, English history.1 Its seminal place has ensured that it has been subject to each successive wave of scholarly fashion, and even more, has been a mirror to the scholars who have studied it.2 The near-universal conclusion of these studies has been, unsurprisingly, that the HE, and Bede himself, were extraordinary.