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Life, Literature and Prayer in Early Anglo-Saxon England

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Life, Literature and Prayer in Early Anglo-Saxon England Life, Literature and Prayer in Early Anglo-Saxon England Imogen Volkofsky 307152030 A thesis submitted to fulfil requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Department of English The University of Sydney 2017 Chapter Two of this thesis contains materials published as “Psalmody and the Role of Penance in the Book of Cerne’s Abbreviated Psalter”, English Studies, Volume 97, Issue 1 (2017), pp. 5-14. These materials appear on pages 92-100 of this thesis. This is to certify that to the best of my knowledge, the content of this thesis is my own work. This thesis has not been submitted for any degree or other purposes. I certify that the intellectual content of this thesis is the product of my own work and that all the assistance received in preparing this thesis and sources have been acknowledged. Imogen Volkofsky ii Abstract This thesis deals with the representation of prayer in literary texts from early Anglo- Saxon England, investigating the role of reading in the life of prayer and the various ways in which literary texts from the eighth and ninth centuries attest to cultures of prayer in this period. Chapter One looks at writings about saints, especially Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People and a number of early saints’ lives, to identify the features most common to early Anglo-Saxon prayer. Prayer, in these texts, is most frequently ascetic and extra-liturgical, with an emphasis on the night vigil as the most important form of private devotion and a keen interest in the sanctification of time and space through prayer and communion with the saints. The representation of prayer in these texts represents both ideal and reality and, as this chapter argues, part of the purpose of these texts was to teach people how to pray. Chapter Two looks to the prayers of the ninth-century Mercian tradition, preserved in four private prayer books: Cambridge, University Library Ll.I.10 (The Book of Cerne), B.L., Harley 2965 (The Book of Nunnaminster), B.L., Royal 2.A.XX (The Royal Prayer Book), B.L., Harley 7653 (The Harley Fragment). This chapter investigates the way in which these books encourage meditative engagement with the Gospels through reading. These books focus on penance, the person of Christ, the Incarnation, the Passion and Judgment, themes that also emerge in Old English literary volumes. Chapter Three turns to the Old English poems of Junius 11, suggesting that prayer is central to the purpose of Junius 11’s construction. This chapter argues that the manuscript as a whole is centred on the theme of moral behaviour and the appropriate response to God, on the one hand, and the rejection of God and judgment, on the other. Thus, the manuscript frequently juxtaposes the prayers of the Old Testament figures and, in Christ and Satan, the prayers of the saints with the ‘anti-prayers’ of God’s enemies. In this way, the volume is preoccupied with the contemplation of judgment as well as with redemption. Furthermore, the volume bears witness to some aspects of the practice of prayer contemporary with the composition of each poem. Finally, Chapter Four dicusses the Old English poem The Dream of the Rood in light of the ascetic, penitential and iii Christological focus of eighth- and ninth-century Anglo-Saxon prayers discussed so far in this thesis. This chapter argues that The Dream of the Rood is a poem about prayer and that its setting draws on conventional descriptions of the night vigil, which are discussed at length in Chapter One, and that the visionary experience of the dreamer represents a sustained poetic reflection on the kinds of meditative contemplation to which the Mercian prayer books bear witness. iv Acknowledgements I would like to thank the University of Sydney and the Australian government for their financial support of this research. I am also grateful to the Rev. and Mrs. F.W.A Roberts whose trustee scholarship assisted greatly in the completion of this thesis. Very special thanks are due to to my supervisor Daniel Anlezark, who introduced me to Anglo-Saxon literature as an undergraduate. In many ways, this work is a testament to his patient, insightful questioning and careful supervision, and the successful completion of this thesis would be unimaginable without his encouragement and generosity. I am also thankful to the members of the University of Sydney’s Old English Reading Group for their friendship and warmth and to the members of the University of Sydney’s Medieval Research Seminar for their helpful discussion of some parts of this thesis. I would also like to thank my mother and father for all their support: emotional, financial and spiritual; my brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews and friends, for helping me to see through the many highs and lows of the doctoral thesis; and my husband Aidan for his unfailing love, patience and kindness, and for developing an interest in a completely new topic so as to keep me company in the sometimes lonely world of books and writing. Finally, I am thankful to the men and women whose devotion is the topic of this study. They have, over the last four years, delighted, informed and challenged me, taught me how to read and taught me how to pray. v Biblical References and Translations Biblical references in this thesis follow the numbering of the Latin Vulgate and quotations from the Psalms similarly follow the Vulgate numbering. 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 edition (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1983). Translations of the Bible are from the Douay-Rheims translation of the Vulgate. Non-Biblical translations, unless otherwise stated, are my own. vi Abstract ....................................................................................................................................... iii Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................... v Biblical References and Translations ................................................................................. vi Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 1 Review of Critical Literature: Prayer and Reading ........................................................................ 3 Overview of Thesis ................................................................................................................................ 16 Chapter One ............................................................................................................................... 21 Prayer in Anglo-Saxon England ............................................................................................ 21 Sources ....................................................................................................................................................... 25 Contexts for Reading Saints’ Lives in Anglo-Saxon England ................................................ 27 Private Prayer at Night ......................................................................................................................... 29 Prayer and Sacred Space ...................................................................................................................... 37 Prayer and Scriptural reading ............................................................................................................. 49 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................ 57 Chapter Two ............................................................................................................................... 60 Writing Prayers in Anglo-Saxon England ........................................................................... 60 The Mercian Prayer Books .................................................................................................................. 62 The Gospel Lections .............................................................................................................................. 67 Prayers to Christ’s Body ...................................................................................................................... 74 Prayers against Enemies ....................................................................................................................... 85 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................ 99 Chapter Three .......................................................................................................................... 100 Poetry and the Practice of Prayer: Devotional Reading ................................................. 100 Genesis ..................................................................................................................................................... 109 Exodus ...................................................................................................................................................... 123 Daniel ....................................................................................................................................................... 131 Christ and Satan ...................................................................................................................................
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